When we connected, I felt suddenly transported back to high school, to metal lockers that banged and gossiping in the girls’ bathroom. Sarah looked genuinely thrilled to see my face. Like me, she’d gone to a lot of trouble with her appearance. At the same time, we said, “You look great!”
She was a little rounder in the face, and her hair was a more stylish version of the long, straight curtain she’d worn a decade earlier, but she was otherwise the same. It was like falling back in time. “Lucy. It’s been so long. Where have you been? What are you up to? Tell me everything. How are you? I heard you had a kind of breakdown after Todd. You went all the way to England!”
Seriously? That was the word? Oh, I was glad I was talking to the biggest gossip my high school had ever seen. I straightened her right out. “Todd was an ass, and I am so much better off without him.” All true.
I told her I loved my life in Oxford. Also true.
“And are you seeing anyone?” she asked in that soft, pitying tone people use when they suspect you’ll die alone surrounded by a couple of dozen cats.
I could tell her I was being wooed by the most incredible man, perfect in every way but one. Instead, I said I was so busy with my shop and busy social life that I didn’t want to settle down. Then I politely asked about her.
Twenty minutes later, she was still talking. Her husband was the sweetest, funniest, best-looking man in the world. Their two-year-old was a child prodigy and so beautiful that people stopped her in the street to compliment her, and she was expecting a second child. They’d bought their dream house in a small town where it was more affordable, and there were wonderful schools for her children, who were definitely going to need gifted programs. Yes, even the one still in utero.
I was genuinely pleased for her, for even though she was a real gossip, she was nice. So nice I almost wondered if she was still in contact with Pamela, but sure enough, after I listened to catchup stories on a few of our other classmates, I brought up Pamela.
There was a slight pause. “She didn’t make it to the high school reunion either.”
This was a blow but not surprising. Unless someone in our class had turned out to be a billionaire, I couldn’t imagine that Pamela would waste her time. “Do you know what she’s up to? I thought I caught a glimpse of her the other day in Oxford.”
“Yes. I talked to her after she got divorced. I was so surprised. Hadn’t talked to her in ages. I think she wanted to make sure I heard her side of the divorce story.”
“Right.” So the correct gossip would get spread.
“She said she’d been accepted to Oxford. I told her you were in Oxford and that she should contact you.”
That got my attention. “So she knew I was here?”
“Yes. I told her you were running that knitting shop. And she said she’d make sure and drop by.”
“So what’s she been up to for the last ten years?”
“Well, didn’t you hear? She married Conrad Forbes. He was on one of those ‘richest under forty’ lists. Pam turned into a real socialite.”
“No. I hadn’t heard that.” Until Pamela made sure to tell me herself. I’d gone out of my way not to hear anything about Pamela. “What happened?”
“She ran an art gallery in Boston.” Sarah’s face got that eager look I remembered when she had something juicy to share. Even though we were on video chat, she still leaned closer to the screen so I could see a line where she hadn’t quite blended her eye shadow. She dropped her voice as though we might be overheard. “Okay, this is kind of snarky, but I heard that she cheated on him and then got a really good divorce lawyer and she went after him.”
That sounded like classic Pamela, to hurt a man badly and still go after his money. “So she got a good settlement?”
“Huge. The woman has no shame. She cheated on him, broke his heart and still grabbed the victim role.”
In fact, Pamela had recently grabbed the biggest victim role of her short life, but I didn’t want to stop the flow of gossip by telling Sarah our old friend was dead.
I thought again about why someone with all that money would want to be a waitress on a one-night gig.
“She made out like a bandit.”
“Why did she move to the UK?”
“She got a lot of money, but his friends turned on her. I’m not sure her gallery could have made it without him funding it. Or maybe she just got bored. Who knows? Next thing, she was headed for Oxford.”
“Doesn’t it seem strange to go back to school after she’d been running her own business?”
“If you ask me, she wanted a title.”
“What?” I was startled, but as her words sank in, I saw the sense in them.
“Well, she watched a certain American TV star nab herself a prince, and I think Pamela decided she wanted one too.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “There aren’t so many princes. And most of them are already married.”
“Obviously not a prince but, I don’t know, a duke or an earl or something. She had all the money she’d ever want, and she was still young and beautiful, and she was always smart. Why not grab herself a title?”
This felt like something out of another era. Like a Vanderbilt setting sail in the Gilded Age to fund a destitute British aristocrat with American cash in return for a title. Did people do that anymore?
“Remember Kate met William at university. Most people meet their mates at school or at work.” She flipped
