After the music switched to a more Latin beat, Hector Perez approached me, a guy I hadn’t known well at high school. He’d been on the dance floor since the music started, and the dude had moves worthy of the contestants on Dancing with the Stars.
“Robbie, right?” he asked. His dark hair curled onto his neck, and an open-collar black shirt was snug on his uber-fit torso.
“Hi, Hector. How are you?”
“Great.” He flashed me a white smile. “Would you like to dance?”
I accepted. I proceeded to have the dance of a lifetime, despite never having partnered with anyone during a salsa number. The man knew how to lead. With subtle pressures of his hands on mine, gently steering me in the right direction, his gaze locked on my face all the while wearing a sweet half-smile, I felt like the modern Latin version of Ginger Rogers. I didn’t step on his feet once.
After the song ended, he thanked me and gave a little bow. He went off to ask another woman for the next number. I took a deep breath and headed smiling for the drinks table to grab a glass of water.
When the band took a break, Katherine summoned us all for a class picture. “You remember the drill. Tall dudes in the back, middles in the middle row, shorties in the front. Oh, and class officers in the middle of the first row.”
Jason and I exchanged a look. He rolled his eyes. “Madam former president needs to get a life.”
I bobbed my head in agreement but went to claim a place in the first row, being all of five foot three when I stood up real straight. Somehow I ended up near the middle next to Katherine, despite my not having held office.
The photographer stood on a chair in front of us, calling out adjustments for people to move a little to their left or right. “Remember, if you can’t see me, I can’t see you.”
Katherine muttered through her smile, “I’ve never forgiven you, you know.”
I turned to stare at her. “What? Forgiven me for what?”
“Smile at the camera, Robbie.”
I obeyed, but my brain was in overdrive. She couldn’t still be mad about—
“All eyes up here,” the photographer instructed, waving her hand next to her head. “Happy cheese!” She took a half dozen shots. “It’s a wrap. Thanks, gang. The committee will have the best shot within the week.”
Katherine began talking to the person on her other side. I started to extend my hand to touch her elbow, to ask her what she meant. I dropped it instead. I expected I’d never see her again after tonight. What happened back then didn’t matter to me. And if she wanted to nurse an old hurt, imagined or real, it was her business, not mine.
Chapter 3
My internal clock was still set to Eastern Standard Time since I’d flown in only the previous day. I awoke at three a.m. the next morning, plagued by thoughts of what had gone down at the reunion. The only thing I could think of between Katherine and me was the time Bill Lombard had asked me on a date. I knew she’d had her eye on him because she’d talked about her crush in gym class. He and I hadn’t become a thing, and she’d gone on to snatch him up. And then they’d apparently gotten divorced, which certainly had nothing to do with me. I’d gotten married and divorced myself.
I managed to slip back into dreamland after an hour, only aroused at seven thirty by the aromas of coffee, bacon, and something baking drifting upstairs to my B-and-B room. A quick shower later, I locked my room. I headed for the stairs, ready to sample whatever was on the menu for breakfast. Or inhale it, as the case may be. The Nacho Average Café was already hopping when I walked in.
“Good morning, Robbie,” proprietor Carmen Perez called out from the pass-through window to the kitchen in the back. “Sit wherever you’d like.”
“Thanks.” I slid into a seat at a two-top near the front window. I smiled to myself at her name. Carmen was the nickname I’d given my phone.
The decor here was delightfully Cali-Mex, with hues of red, orange, and green predominating. Mexican folk-art murals decorated the walls, and a dozen papier-mâché angels and clothed Day of the Dead skeletons were suspended from the ceiling. The cloth napkin at my setting was red, too. A glass door opened onto a patio dining area, where a rosemary bush the size of a sea lion grew next to the low fence and ripe oranges hung from the glossy-leaved tree just beyond. Nope, not in Indiana. The only familiar bit was a tuxedo cat snoozing in a spot of sun on the paving stones outside. He could have been my Birdy’s twin.
I perused the menu, eyes widening at the mention of avocado huevos rancheros and orange scones. My stomach growled out loud. I glanced around, but none of the other two dozen diners appeared to have heard. Some wore running outfits, and a couple on the patio had a leashed golden retriever sitting under their table.
“Coffee?” Carmen appeared at my side, pot of java in hand. “Did you sleep well?” In her fifties, she wore a long salt-and-pepper braid down her back—but with a streak dyed bright red decorating the right side. She’d tied an orange apron featuring the café’s logo around her comfortable figure.
“Coffee, please. And, considering jet lag, I did all right in the sleep department.”
“Good.” She filled my mug. “How was your reunion last night?”
“Wonderful. Truly. I caught up
