He was all angles and elbows, like a Disney version of Ichabod Crane, with stooped shoulders, a long face, and thinning gray hair. His lips were razor thin and looked as if they had never learned to smile. His eyes were small and guarded, like those of a man struggling to hide a lifetime of secrets behind them. He probably hadn’t turned seventy yet, but I figured it wouldn’t be long before he did.
He regarded my hand dully before giving it an awkward shake.
“We’re the Iowa contingent.” I smiled and waited for him to introduce himself.
He narrowed his gaze and eyed me warily.
Okay, so he was a little shy, but I was a whiz with shy people. “There are twelve of us from the little town of Windsor City, in the North-Central part of the state. Have you ever driven through Iowa?”
“Why?”
“No reason. Just … just asking.” My smile stiffened on my face. “Lots of corn in Iowa. Do you like corn?”
“No.”
“Lots of hogs, too.”
He stared at me. “So?”
“So it works out well if you’re partial to pork chops. Have you ever eaten an Iowa chop?”
“No.”
“Really? That’s a shame because they’re totally awesome.”
“So?”
I could feel my smile crack around the edges and slide off my mouth. There was only one way to deal with people who were this hard to talk to. “It’s been fun chatting with you. We’ll have to do it again sometime.” I waved my camera at him. “Would you like to be in my picture?”
He scowled and turned away.
Guess that was another no.
As the group pushed forward, I lagged behind, feeling as deflated as a week-old birthday balloon. This was just great. I was traveling with Charlotte the Loon, Dietger the Lech, and Oscar the Grouch. I could hardly wait to interact with the other members of the group. If they all turned out to be as sour as Oscar, it might behoove me to dart in front of the windmill’s rotating blade right now so I could get knocked senseless. Being in a coma for the rest of the tour would probably ruin my holiday, but on the up side, the ongoing drama might give my guys something to text each other about while they camped out on the bus, ignoring all the sights.
“That’s Pete Finnegan,” said a woman who stopped beside me on the sidewalk. She was a pretty platinum blonde with straight, shoulder-length hair, skin that had withstood the test of time, and blue eyes that snapped with good humor. “He was the valedictorian of our graduating class. Smart as a whip, but he was never big on conversation. A lot’s changed in fifty years. I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw him talking your ear off just now.”
I stared at her in disbelief. “He only said a half-dozen words. Most of which were no.”
“That’s pretty typical. He’s a Republican.” She offered me a warm smile. “I’m Mary Lou.” She tapped the name tag that was pinned to her jacket, drawing my attention to a photo of a teenaged Mary Lou O’Leary, a list of high school activities in which she’d obviously participated, and a name in larger print that read Mary Lou McManus. “It was my idea to design our name tags with our graduation pictures as well as our maiden and married names. I mean, we all know what we looked like five decades ago, but none of us look like that anymore. Except maybe Pete. I would have known him anywhere. Still skinny as a rail and looking like he’d be happy if everyone else in our graduating class would disappear.”
“More like everyone in the world,” corrected a man who ambled up beside us. He draped his arm around Mary Lou’s shoulders and smiled pleasantly. “I’m Mike. Her other half.”
“Emily,” I said, returning their smiles. Mike’s graduation picture showed a bespectacled teen with Bugs Bunny teeth, a buzz cut, a bad complexion, and a blank space where his activities should be listed. “Are you sure that’s your photo?” I studied it more closely. “It looks nothing like you.”
“Never underestimate the cosmetic benefits of good orthodontics and dermatological treatments. But let me tell you, high school isn’t easy on guys who look like trolls and are introverts to boot. It was the worst four years of my life.”
“You did
“I was trying to make myself invisible. It worked, didn’t it? The only female who ever noticed me was you.”
“That’s because I knew there was a prince hiding somewhere behind your Mr. Slouchy impersonation.”
He laughed, squeezing her shoulder affectionately. “You and my mother.”
“And Sister Margaret Mary. Remember how she’d clap her hands on your shoulders and tell you to stand up straight when you went to the library?”
He winced. “More ignominy.”
Mike McManus certainly had improved with age. He was now a lean six-footer with great posture, a golden tan, and silver hair that could earn him millions in shampoo endorsements. His eyes were intelligent, his gaze direct, and his body language that of a man whose confidence level was off the charts. High school might have been the worst four years of his life, but he looked as if every year after that had been nothing short of spectacular.
“So the two of you, and Pete, and everyone else who arrived late last night are graduates of the same high school class?” I asked them.
“St. Francis Xavier High School in Bangor, Maine,” Mary Lou announced. “I thought we should pull out all the stops for our fiftieth reunion, so I cooked this up. Our granddaughter planned a destination wedding, so I thought, why not a destination class reunion? The planning committee all agreed, so here we are.”
“Mary Lou was always something of a visionary,” Mike said proudly.
“Of course, not everyone could join us. Some classmates are rehabbing from hip or knee replacement, and others had family obligations pending, but we signed up a good cross-section of our graduating class.”
“If our flight hadn’t been delayed by weather at Logan, we might have made the welcome reception last night,” Mike lamented, “but by the time we arrived, we were all too tired for socializing.”
“You didn’t miss anything,” I assured him. “Since your group wasn’t there, the rest of us scarfed down an early-bird meal and packed it in for the night.” I gave them the abridged version of who we were and where we came from. “I was back in my room by seven.”
The sidewalk had emptied as guests reached the windmill and spread out over the grounds to take their photos. I checked my watch. “If we want photos, we’d better do it now before Charlotte starts herding us back to the bus.”
“How does a woman with such a foul disposition get hired as a tour director?” Mary Lou asked as we hurried to catch up with the other guests.
“By lying on her personality test,” joked Mike. “She probably claimed she had one.”
“She reminds me of Paula Peavey.” Mary Lou lowered her voice. “Remember what a sourpuss she was all through school? She’d as soon bite your head off as look at you.”
“She’s standing right over there,” said Mike. “Why don’t you ask her if she’s changed?”
“I’m not going anywhere near her. She was just too hateful for words.”
“Why was she so hateful?” I asked as I paused to snap a quick shot.
“I don’t know why.” Mary Lou lowered her voice another decibel. “She just was. Her favorite pastime was making people cry, which she did on a daily basis. I’ll never forgive her for some of the hurtful things she said to me.”
“C’mon, hon,” Mike cajoled. “That was fifty years ago. Let it go.”
“
“So what did she say that has any bearing on who you are today?”
“I might not be able to recall exactly what she said, but I remember how it made me feel.” Her tone grew prickly. “And it’ll remain with me until I die.”
“One of the mean girls, huh?” I asked. We’d had mean girls in my high school. They’d squeeze around the same table in the cafeteria and gaze with disdain at the rest of the student population, sniggering importantly as they called us dorks and losers. They usually spent their high school years on academic probation, campaigned to be elected Corn Queen at Homecoming, and married guys whose main goal in life was to buy a three-quarter-ton
