The Class Menagerie

Still, I admired her style and grace and brains.' 'What about Pooky? What was she like?' 'Dim as a twenty-five- watt bulb. But gorgeous. You'd never know it now, but she was really stunning. The kind of person that strangers in the street stop to look at with amazement and admiration.' 'I know. I saw her picture in the yearbook.' ' — but so stupid. I had a whole slew of stories saved up to embarrass her with, but when I saw her ruined face, I just didn't have the heart. I was prepared to deflate her vanity, but life's done that to her already. She was the kind of person they tell dumb blond jokes about now. The boys were crazy about her. Naturally. She was a pretty good athlete, too. She could run like the wind, and do acrobatics, and dance. She was head cheerleader and Prom Queen, but you could have used her skull to drain lettuce. It must have been devastating to her to lose her looks, with nothing to fall back on like brains or skills or personality. It's actually pretty brave of her to have come to the

reunion. She's actually quite a nice woman now that she's not beautiful.'

'Watch it,' Jane said. 'Your cattiness is slipping.'

Crispy grinned and lighted another cigarette. 'Then let's talk about Avalon. That'll bring it back.'

'You didn't like her?'

'What was to like? She was an egotistical wimp. Still is. She sort of crept around like a morbid shadow, drawing her oh-so-precious little pictures, looking like she was always on the brink of tears. She was the kind of shy person who's totally self-absorbed, always seeing reasons to get their feelings hurt and imagining that people are talking about them when nobody even knows who they are. And she loved the opportunity to be the martyr. She's still doing it. Didn't you hear her going on and on about all her dear little handicapped foster children?'

'How come she got into the Ewe Lambs? I thought they were a pretty exclusive group. She doesn't sound like she fit the image.'

'She didn't, but every year they had to have a token artsy-fartsy person. That was to give the illusion of democracy. Sort of like having a bulldog as a pet— to suggest that you could look beneath the surface appearances. She nearly drove Ted crazy.' 'Crispy suddenly fell silent.

'Ted—?' Jane said encouragingly.

Crispy looked away. 'Ted was my friend. My only real friend,' she said. 'We grew up together, like a brother and sister. He was an only child and so was I. All the others were after him as a boyfriend, a date that would give them status. They were all using him, even Beth. Especially Beth. But I was the one he talked to, really talked to. I sometimes think that if he hadn't died, he and I might have eventually—

well, that's stupid. He did die, the son of a bitch!'

'I'm surprised you don't hate Beth,' Jane said.

'Oh, you've heard the story about how she broke his poor, fragile heart and he couldn't face life, huh? Well, he didn't kill himself over her,' Crispy said.

'No?'

'No. He didn't care that much for her anymore. The bloom had gone off the rose, as they say. He knew she was only dating him because of his dad, because of the judge's status in the legal community.'

Or so you'd like to believe, Jane thought.

'No, whatever the reason was, it wasn't Beth.'

'Then what was it?'

'I've never known. I'm not so sure he did commit suicide, not deliberately.'

'How do you mean?'

'Well, they'd broken up at the prom. He probably was pretty shocked and insulted that she'd dumped him before he got around to dumping her. He got drunk and angry and came home. I think maybe he just meant to come home for a while — maybe go back over to her house later and tell her off or something. Or maybe come over and talk to me about it. Anyway, he could have left the car engine running and gone upstairs to get something. And if he changed his mind, and forgot about the car or just passed out…'

'But didn't Avalon say she was drawing the carriage house when she heard the car engine start? Remember, when she was showing us the picture she brought along? She said she'd done it that night.'

'Oh, she was just being melodramatic,' Crispy said. 'And even if she did hear him start the car, the same thing could hold true. He came home for something, started to leave and remembered something else he wanted to go back upstairs for.'

'I've got to get on with my jobs,' Jane said. She'd suddenly heard all she could stand to hear about Dead Ted. The thought of a teenaged boy, the same age as her own Mike, dying, by accident or on purpose, was too depressing to contemplate.

'I'm sorry. I've offended you.'

'No, you haven't,' Jane assured her. 'It's just that I promised Edgar I'd help him and he'll be back any minute. I need to get busy.'

'Thanks for listening. I'm sorry I unloaded on you.' She laughed. 'You weren't one of the ones I intended to come here to punish for not recognizing my sterling qualities when I was a fat, seventeen-year-old lump.'

'Is that why you came to the reunion?'

'Pretty much so. But someone else seems to have usurped my role as dispenser of overdue justice.'

'You mean killing Lila?'

'Lila — and all the tricks.'

'If you had to guess—' Jane began.

'I wouldn't guess,' Crispy said firmly. 'And a smart person like you won't either. It could be a dangerous game.'

It wasn't until she was ascending the stairs with her cleaning materials that Jane remembered that she meant to ask Crispy what had been in Lila's notebook.

13

Pooky had just started cleaning up her room when Jane arrived to do it. 'Go on, visit with your friends,' Jane said. 'I'll do this for you.'

'Let me help you. I'd rather. They're all in Kathy's room, talking about politics and things. I'm not as clever as everybody else on that stuff.'

'Then let's start with the bed,' Jane said. 'I've got fresh sheets here. I think I'd prefer to miss a political discussion with Kathy, too. I don't blame you.'

'It's not that I don't know about other things,' Pooky said, taking off the bedspread and folding it with excruciating neatness even though they were going to put it right back on the bed. 'I used to be a travel agent and I went lots of places. Acapulco, Hawaii, the French Riviera…'

The culture meccas, Jane thought.

'Have you been to those places?' Pooky asked.

'Some of them. My father is with the State Department and I grew up all over the world. I've lived in about seventeen different countries.'

'Then you know what I mean. You can't travel without learning a lot. But I've never liked that stuff Kathy is always talking about. It just depresses me. Like nature programs. I used to really like nature programs — about penguins and flowers and things — but now when you watch them, they just make you feel awful. They're always all about how terrible people are ruining things. Oil spills and ozone and rain forests. I mean, what can / do about it? They never tell you that. They just make you feel horrible, then there's a commercial.'

Jane looked at her with surprise. 'You know… you're right!' She didn't mean to sound quite so astonished.

But Pooky didn't take offense. 'Kathy's like that. She's always mad about people who aren't doing the right thing, but she doesn't talk about what the right thing is. She was always like that. Against stuff instead of for anything. I mean, what good is that?'

'So she hasn't changed since high school?'

'No, nobody has really. Except Mimi. Isn't she beautiful?'

'She sure is.'

'She was real cute in school, too. But she's grown up real nice. Peaceful and polite. She was sort of wild and — I don't know the word—'

'Frenzied?' Jane guessed.