Рита Браун - Pawing Through The Past

Like most high-school students, when she attended Crozet High she took it for granted. She never thought about architecture, the lovely setting, the nearness to the village of Crozet. She thought about her friends, the football games, her grades.

A memory floated into her mind, a soft breeze from an earlier time. She had been wearing a beautiful fuchsia sweater and Fair wore a deep turquoise one. They hadn't intended to color coordinate but the effect, when they stood together, was startling.

She remembered that junior year, hurrying from her classroom during break, hoping to catch sight of Fair as he moved on to his next class. When she'd see him her heart would skip a beat like in some corny song lyric. She didn't know exactly what she was feeling or why she was feeling it, only that the sensation was disquieting yet simultaneously pleasurable. She thought she was the only person in the world to feel like this. People didn't much talk about emotions at Crozet High, or if they did, she'd missed it. Then, too, an extravagant display of emotion was for people who lived elsewhere-not Virginia. Young though they all were, they had learned that vital lesson. And today most of them had forgotten it, good manners worn out by fear, police questioning, and suspicion of one another.

Harry burst into tears.

"Mom, what's the matter?" Mrs. Murphy put her paws on Harry's shoulder to lick the right side of her face.

"Don't worry, we'll protect you." Tucker's soft brown eyes seemed even kinder than usual.

"Yeah, scratch that murderer's eyes out!" Pewter puffed up.

"Damn, I never have Kleenex in the truck." She sniffled. "I don't know what's the matter with me. Nostalgia." She petted Murphy, then reached over her to pat the other two as she turned right toward home. "Why is it that when I look back, it seems better? I was so innocent, which is another word for stupid." She sniffed again but the tears continued to roll. "I fell in love with my high-school boyfriend and married him. I actually thought we'd live happily ever after. I never thought about-well-the things that happen. I never even thought about paying the bills. I supposed I would live on air." She pulled over to the side of the road, put on her flashers, and reached under the seat, pulling out a rag she used to clean the windshield. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. "Smells like oil. I must have used this to check my oil. That's dumb-putting it back in the cab." She closed her eyes. A headache fast approached from the direction of lost youth.

"We love you," Tucker said for all of them.

"I love you guys," she replied, then bawled anew, feeling, like so many people, that the only true love comes from one's pets. "I love Fair, but is it real? Or is it just the memories from before? This is one hell of a reunion."

Mrs. Murphy tried the sensible approach. "Time will tell. If you two can be together, you'll know it if you just go slow. About your reunion, how could anyone not feel terrible?"

"Some nutcase," Pewter said. "Someone who is now feeling very powerful."

Tucker nuzzled up to Harry. "Mom, it's the reunion. It's stirred up feelings, good and evil."

She blew her nose again, popped the truck in gear, and headed toward home. "I guess when I was in high school I thought trouble happened to other people, not to me. I had a wrong number." She ruefully laughed. "But you know, kids, that love is so pure when you're young. It never comes again. Maybe you fall in love again and maybe it's a wiser and better love but it's never that pure, uncomplicated love."

"Humans worry too much about time," Pewter observed. "Suppose they can't help it. There's clocks and watches and deadlines like April fifteenth. It'd make me a raving lunatic."

"Hasn't helped them any." Tucker nudged close to Harry and stared out the window as the familiar small houses and larger farms ticked by.

Mrs. Murphy sat on the back of the seat. She had an even higher view.

"I look around at everyone at the reunion and wonder what's happened to them. How'd we get here so fast? With a murderer in our midst. Our class? I read somewhere and I can't remember where, 'Time conquers time'-maybe it's true. Maybe I'll reach a time when I let it all go. Or when I'm renewed with a spiritual or even physical second wind."

"Mom, you've missed the turn!" Tucker acted like a backseat driver.

"She's clearing her head. Whenever she needs an inner vacation she cruises around. Cruising around in the dually is a statement." Mrs. Murphy didn't mind; she appreciated the plush upholstery covered with sheepskin. "She had to show up at her reunion in this new truck. Funny, isn't it? The desire to shine."

The warm autumn light turned the red of cow barns even deeper, the fire of the maples even brighter.

Harry loved the seasons but had never applied them, an obvious but potent metaphor, to her own life. "Know what's really funny? No one ever believes they'll get old. There must be a point where you accept it, like Mrs. Hogendobber." She thought a moment. "But then Mim hasn't truly accepted it. And she's the same age as Miranda." Her conversation picked up. The ride was invigorating her. "Here's what I don't get. First, someone is killing off men in the class of '80. Someone is actually carrying out a plan of revenge. I've been mad enough to kill people but I didn't. What trips someone over the edge? And then I think about death. Death is something out there, some shadow being, a feared acquaintance. He snatches you in a car wreck or through cancer. By design or by chance. But he's oddly impersonal. That's what gets me about this stuff. It's brutally personal."

43

Harry had no sooner walked through the kitchen door than the phone rang.

"Hello," Fair said. "I'm at the clinic but I can be there in fifteen minutes."

"I'm fine. I'll meet you at school for supper. Don't worry." She hung up the phone and it rang again.

"Hey," Susan said. "I dropped off two English boxwoods for Chris. I feel guilty. She's not coming to the dinner tonight, obviously. She was funny, though. She said if we survived our reunion she'd love to play golf next weekend. Oh, she's through with Dennis, too. Said she's shocked at the way he behaved. That's what really upset her."

"Well-good for her. Did you think of anything for Bitsy? It's really E.R.'s responsibility to thank her for her work but, well, I liked working with her."

"The full treatment at Vendome." Susan mentioned the most exclusive beauty parlor in town, where one could have a haircut, massage, waxing, manicure, pedicure, and complete makeover, emerging rejuvenated.

"That's a good idea. We'll get BoomBoom to cough up the money. Those two worked as hard on our reunion as we did."

"I paid for the boxwoods. It was my bet. If Boom won't pay for Vendome, I'll do it. It's only right."

"I'll split it with you."

"No, you won't. You put away that money you're getting on rent."

"I guess Tracy will leave after his reunion. He hasn't said anything. I'll tell you, though, his rent money has made my life easier."

"You're the truck queen of Crozet." Susan laughed, since she knew the rent money went to pay for the truck.

"Susan, are you scared?"

"About the dinner?" They'd known one another since in-fancy so elaborate explanations weren't needed, nor were transitions between subjects.