Meg Cabot - Reunion

"Resentment?" Josh, still standing, glared at Father Dominic. " Resentment ? It's because of that jerk that we're all dead!"

Only he didn't say jerk .

Father Dominic raised his white eyebrows, but Jesse said, calmly, "Why don't you tell the father what it was you told me, Josh, so that he and Susannah can begin to understand."

Josh, his bowtie hanging loosely around his neck, and the first few buttons of his dress shirt undone, lifted a hand and ran his fingers frustratedly through his short blond hair. He had obviously been, in life, an extremely good-looking boy. Blessed with looks, intelligence, and wealth (his parents had to have money if they could afford to send him to Robert Louis Stevenson School, which was as expensive as it was exclusive), Josh Saunders was having trouble adjusting to the only misfortune that had ever befallen him in his short, happy life:

His untimely death.

"Look," he said. The sounds of the waves, and now the crackle of the little fire they'd made, were easily drowned out by his deep voice. Had he lived, Josh might have been anything, I thought to myself, from professional athlete to president. He exuded that kind of confidence.

"On Saturday night we went to a dance," he said. "A dance , okay? And afterward, we thought we might go for a drive, and park - "

Carrie chimed in: "We always park at the Point on Saturday night."

"The observation point," Felicia explained.

"It's so pretty," Carrie said.

"Really pretty," Felicia said with a quick glance at Father Dominic.

I stared at them. Who were they kidding? We all knew what they were doing parked at the observation point.

And it wasn't looking at the view.

"Yeah," Mark said. "Plus no cops ever come by, and make us move. You know?"

Ah. Such honesty was refreshing.

"All right," Josh said. He had shoved his hands in his trouser pockets. Now he took them out, and held them, palms toward us. "So we went for this drive. Everything's going fine, right? Same as any other Saturday night. Only it wasn't the same. Because this last time, when we went around the corner - you know, that hairpin curve up there - something rammed us - "

"Yeah," Carrie said. "No lights, no warning, nothing. Just bam."

"We went right into the guardrail," Josh said. "No big deal. We weren't going very fast. I thought, Shit, I crushed the fender. And I started to back up. But then he hit us again - "

"Oh, but surely - " Father Dominic began.

Josh, however, went on as if the priest hadn't spoken.

"And the second time he hit us," Josh said, "we just kept on going."

"As if the guardrail weren't even there," Felicia put in.

"We went straight over." Josh slipped his hands back into his pockets. "And woke up down here. Dead."

There was silence after that. At least no one spoke. There was still the sound of the waves, of course, and the crackling of the fire. Spray from the sea, blown by the wind, was coating my hair and forming little ice crystals in it. I moved closer to the fire, thankful for its warmth…

And realized, all in a rush, why the RLS Angels had gone to the trouble of building it. Because that's what they'd have done if they'd still been alive. They'd have built a fire for warmth. So what if they could no longer feel its heat? It didn't matter. That's what live people would have done.

And all they wanted was to be alive again.

"Troubling," Father Dominic said. "Very troubling. But surely, my children, you can see that it was just an accident - "

"An accident?" Josh glared at Father D. "There was nothing accidental about it, Father. That guy - that Michael guy - came at us on purpose ."

"But that's ridiculous," Father Dominic said. "Perfectly ridiculous. Why on earth would he do such a thing?"

"Simple," Josh said with a shrug. "He's jealous."

"Jealous?" Father Dominic looked appalled. "Perhaps you aren't aware of this, young man, but Michael Meducci, whom I have known since he was in the first grade, is a very gifted student. He is well liked by his fellow classmates. Why in heaven's name would he - No. No, I'm sorry. You're mistaken, my boy."

I wasn't sure which universe Father Dom was living in - the one where Michael Meducci was well liked by his fellow classmates - but it sure wasn't this one. As far as I knew, no one at the Mission Academy liked Michael Meducci - or even knew him, outside of the chess club. But then, I had only been there a few months, so maybe I was wrong.

"He may be gifted," Josh said, "but he's still a geek."

Father Dominic blinked at him. "Geek?" he ventured.

"You heard me." Josh shook his head. "Look, Father, face facts. Your boy Meducci is nothing. Nothing. We " - he pointed at himself, then gestured toward his friends - "on the other hand, were it . The most popular people in our school. Nothing happened at RLS unless it had our seal of approval. A party wasn't a party until we got there. A dance wasn't a dance unless Josh, Carrie, Mark, and Felicia - the RLS 'Angels' - were there. Okay? Are you getting the picture now?"

Father Dominic looked confused. "Um," he said. "Not quite."

Josh rolled his eyes. "Is this guy for real?" he asked me and Jesse.

Jesse said, without smiling, "Very much so."

"Okay," Josh said. "Then let me put it to you this way. This Meducci guy? He may have the sparkling GPA. But so what? That's nothing. I've got a 4.0. I hold the school record in the high jump. I belong to the National Honor Society. I play forward on the basketball team. I've been president of the student council for three years in a row, and for a lark, this spring I tried out for - and got - the lead in the school drama society's production of Romeo and Juliet . Oh, and guess what? I was accepted to Harvard. Early decision."

Josh paused to take a breath. Father Dominic opened his mouth to say something, but Josh barreled right along.

"How many Saturday nights," Josh asked, "do you think Michael Meducci has sat alone in his room playing video games? Huh? Well, let me put it to you another way: do you know how many I've spent caressing a joystick? None. Want to know why? Because there's never been a Saturday night when I didn't have something to do - a party to go to or a girl to take out. And not just any girl, either, but the hottest, most popular girls in school. Carrie here" - he gestured at Carrie Whitman, sitting in the sand in her ice-blue evening gown - "models part-time up in San Francisco. She's done commercials. She was homecoming queen."

"Two years in a row," Carrie pointed out in her squeaky voice.

Josh nodded. "Two years in a row. Are you starting to get it now, Father? Is Michael Meducci dating a model? I don't think so. Is Michael Meducci's best friend like mine, Mark over there, captain of the football team? Does Michael Meducci have a full athletic scholarship to UCLA?"

Mark, obviously not the group genius, went, with feeling, "Go Bruins."

"What about me?" Felicia demanded.

Josh said, "Yes, what about Mark's girlfriend, Felicia? Head cheerleader, captain of the dance team, and, oh yeah, winner of a National Merit Scholarship because of her superior grades. So, keeping all that in mind, let's ask that question again, shall we? Why would a guy like Michael Meducci want people like us dead? Simple: he's jealous."

The silence that swept in after this statement was almost as penetrating as the smell of brine permeating the air. No one said a word. The Angels looked too self-righteous to speak, and Father Dom seemed stunned by their revelations. Jesse's feelings on the subject were unclear; he looked a little bored. I guess to a guy born over a hundred and fifty years ago, the words National Merit Scholarship don't mean much.