Рита Браун - Pawing Through The Past

Susan agreed. "I guess we were lucky but we didn't know it at the time."

"Does anyone?" Harry tapped her yellow wooden pencil against the back of her left wrist.

"Probably not. Not when you're young. What fun we had." Miranda, a widow, nodded her head, jammed with happy memories.

"Okay, here's what I've got. Ready?" They nodded in assent so Harry began reading, "These are categories to try and include others: Most Distance Traveled. Most Children. Most Wives-"

"You're not going to do that." Miranda chuckled.

"Why not? That one is followed by Most Husbands. Too bad we can't have one for Most Affairs." Harry lifted her eyebrows.

"Malicious," Susan said dryly.

"Rhymes with delicious." Harry's eyes brightened. "Okay, what else have I got here? Most Changed. Obviously that has to be in some good way. Can't pick out someone who has porked on an extra hundred pounds. And-uh-I couldn't think of anything else."

"Harry, you're usually so imaginative." Miranda seemed surprised.

"She's not at all imaginative but she is ruthlessly logical. I'll give her that."

Harry ignored Susan's assessment of her, speaking to Chris, "When you're new to a place it takes a long time to ferret out people's relationships to one another. Suffice it to say that Susan, my best friend since birth, feels compelled to point out my shortcomings."

"Harry, being logical isn't a shortcoming. It's a virtue," Susan protested. "But we are light on categories here."

Chris opened her dark green yearbook to a club photo. "My twentieth reunion was last year. One of the things we did was go through the club photos to see if we could find anyone who became a professional at something they were known for in high school. You know, like did anyone in Latin club become a Latin teacher. It's kind of hokey but you do get desperate after a time."

Harry pulled the book toward her, the youthful faces of the Pep Club staring back at her. "Which one are you?"

Chris pointed to a tall girl in the back row. "I wasn't blonde then."

"I can see that." Harry read the names below the photo, finding Chris Sharpton. She slid the book back to the owner.

"What we also did, which took a bit of quick thinking on the spot, was, we had cards made up with classmates' names written on them in italics. They were pretty. Anyway, if the individual hadn't fit into some earlier category we did things like Tom Cruise Double-anything to make them feel special."

"That's clever," Miranda complimented her.

"The other thing we did was make calls. As you know, people disperse after high school. Each of us on the committee called everyone we were still in contact with from our class. We asked who they were in contact with and what they knew about the people. This way we gathered information for things like Most Community Service. After a time it's a stretch but it's important that everyone be included in some way. At the last minute we even wrote a card up, Still the Same."

"Chris, these are good ideas." Harry was grateful. "You're wonderful to come help us. I mean, this isn't even your reunion."

"I'm not as generous as you think," Chris laughed. "Susan bet me she'd beat me by three strokes on the Keswick golf course. The bet was I'd help you all if I lost."

"What would you have gotten if you'd won?"

"Two English boxwoods planted by my front walkway."

Since moving to Crozet four months ago, Chris had thrown herself into decorating and landscaping her house in theDeepValley subdivision, a magnet for under-forty newcomers toAlbemarleCounty .

An outgoing person, Chris had made friends with her neighbors but most especially Marcy Wiggins and Bitsy Valenzuela, two women married to men who were classmates of Harry's.

"Good bet," Harry whistled.

"I told you my golf game was improving," Susan gloated. "But Miranda, I don't think we've done one thing to help you."

She smiled a slow smile. "Our expectations are different than yours. At your fiftieth high-school reunion you're thrilled that all your parts are moving. We'll be happy to eat good food, share stories, sit around. I suppose we'll pitch horseshoes and dance. That sort of thing."

"Are you in charge of the whole thing?" Chris was incredulous.

"Pretty much. I'll need to round up a few people to help me decorate. I'm keeping it simple because I'm simple."

Before anyone could protest that Miranda was not simple, Mrs. Murphy, Harry's beautiful tiger cat, burst through the animal door.

"What have you got?" Harry rose from the table expecting the worst.

Pewter, the plump gray cat, immediately followed through the animal door and Tee Tucker, Harry's corgi, burst through behind her, bumping the cat in the rear end, which brought forth a snarl.

Susan focused on the animals. "I don't know what she's got but everyone wants it."

Mrs. Murphy blew through the kitchen into the living room, where she crouched behind the sofa as Pewter leapt onto the large stuffed curving arm.

"Selfish!"

The tiger cat did not answer her gray accuser because, if she did, the mole she had carefully stalked would have popped out of her mouth and escaped.

Harry knelt down. "Say, Murphy, good job. That's a huge mole. Why, that mole could dig toChina ."

"She didn't catch it by herself," Pewter complained loudly. "I blocked off the other exit. I deserve half of that mole."

"I helped." The corgi drooled.

"Ha!" Pewter disagreed.

"Thank you for bringing me this prize." Harry carefully reached behind the sofa, petted Murphy, then grabbed the limp mole by the scruff of its neck.

The tiger cat opened her jaws. "Moles are dangerous, you know. William of Orange, King of England, was killed when his horse stepped in a mole hole. He broke his collarbone and then took a fever."

"Show-off." Pewter's pupils narrowed to slits.

Mrs. Murphy sashayed into the kitchen, ignoring her detractors.

"Excuse me, ladies." Harry walked outside, depositing the mole at the back of the woodpile. The minute it was on the ground it scurried under the logs. "That's Murphy for you. She didn't even break your neck, little guy. She was bringing me a present. Guess she expected me to dispatch you."

When Harry returned, Chris said, nose wrinkled, "I don't know how you could pick up that mole. I could never do that. I'm too squeamish."

"Oh, when you grow up in the country you don't think about stuff. You just do it." She pointed to Chris's yearbook. "Lake Shore,Illinois, must be a far cry from the country."

"That it is." Chris laughed.

Susan, flipping through her yearbook, bubbled. "I'm getting excited about this reunion. October will be here before we know it. Time flies."

"Don't say that. I'm nervous enough about getting organized for the damn thing," Harry grumbled.

"Maybe you're nervous about seeing all those people," Chris said.

"I'm as nervous about them seeing me as me seeing them. What will they think? Do I look like a . . ." Susan paused. "Well, do I look older? Will they be disappointed when they see me?"