The Boys are Back in Town by Christopher Golden

CHAPTER TWO

Sometime during the night it began to rain. Will woke, staggered into the bathroom and forced his eyes open to slits only wide enough to guarantee his aim. When he returned to the mess of his bed and fumbled to wrap himself in the covers, he became aware of the patter of raindrops on the windows and the sound it made sluicing down the drainpipes.

Barely awake, he settled his head back into the pillows and let the sound lull him back to sleep, just as he had always done as a child in the small bedroom of his family’s home on Parmenter Road.

By morning the rain had stopped but the sky was still overcast and the air that whispered in through the partially open windows was damp and cold. Will stretched and yawned and stared at the clock on his bureau. It was already a quarter to nine.

For several minutes he just lay there with his eyes closed, hands crossed over his chest as though in deathly repose, and wondered if he would fall back to sleep. He might have dozed a little but soon enough his eyes fluttered open and he knew he was now up for the day. With the exception of the aftermath of the rare night of drunken debauchery, Will never managed to sleep very late, even if he wanted to.

He scraped his hand across the stubble on his chin and slipped from the bed in his t-shirt and underwear. He snatched up a pair of blue, mostly clean sweatpants from the cold hardwood floor. Balancing carefully he slipped into the sweats and then ran both hands through his sleep-bedraggled hair. In the bathroom, he splashed some water on his face to help him wake up and tried to focus on the eyes staring back at him from the mirror.

“You’re really gonna do this?” he asked himself. But he knew the answer, just as he knew that mostly he was just blowing smoke, even to himself. The truth was, he wanted to go to the reunion. He just wasn’t sure what to expect.

His stomach rumbled and he thought about breakfast, but there was something else he had to do first. Will’s feet were cold on the wood floor as he went through the living room, but the linoleum in the kitchen was even colder. The archaic radiator hissed and clanked on the other side of the room, but the heat that emanated from it never seemed to warm the floor. The apartment was in an old Victorian in Somerville, just outside of Davis Square, only a single T-stop away from the office.

But Will wasn’t going in to the office today. If he was going to do this, he was going to do it right, devote the day to the sort of rumination and reminiscence that he rarely indulged in.

He retrieved a glass from the cabinet and poured himself some Grovestand orange juice, the kind with extra pulp. Then he picked up the phone and called the Trib, dialing the main number for the newsroom. After three rings, the phone was answered by Ruth Kaplan, who doubled as receptionist and part-time copy editor for the paper.

“Boston Tribune.”

“Morning Ruth, it’s Will.”

“Hey there,” Ruth said pleasantly. They’d been out a few times, slept together twice, and both knew it was not going to go any further. “I noticed you hadn’t come in today. You on assignment?”

“Nope,” Will said happily. “Actually, I’m calling in sick.”

“You don’t sound sick,” Ruth mused.

“Oh, but I am. So very. If anyone asks, I’m e-mailing the final drafts of the two features I’ve been working on to Tad and to Lara. Otherwise, I’m off the clock.”

There was a pause as Ruth took this in. When she spoke again he could hear the amusement in her voice.

“Whatever you say, Will. Feel better.”

“Absolutely.”

They said their goodbyes and Will hung up the phone. He downed half the glass of O.J., then left it on the counter as he went back through the apartment to the second bedroom, which he used as a home office. A sense of quiet satisfaction filled him as he drew a deep breath and let it out. Was he disappointed about Lara Zahansky getting the promotion he had hoped for? Shit, yeah. Was he going to let it get in the way of his job? Not at all.

On the other hand, Tad Green probably would have given him the day off if he had asked the previous afternoon, and explained why he wanted it. Will wasn’t going to leave it up to Tad, though. He liked the man well enough, most of the time. But right about now, he figured Tad Green could go fuck himself.

Will chuckled. Looks like you need this weekend more than you thought you did.

In the black leather chair he had picked up for next to nothing at Staples, he turned on his computer and logged onto the ‘Net. More of the usual spam. He answered the few personal messages but when the in-box was empty he stared at the computer screen for several seconds as though expecting something more. It was the same way he always double-checked the contents of his mailbox; the way Yukon Cornelius in the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer TV special licked the end of his icepick and said, “ah, nuthin’.”

But there weren’t any other messages.

His friend Danny Plumer had been hugely into the music of the seventies back in high school and on countless nights Will had found himself trapped in the passenger seat while Danny drove his father’s car, listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Eagles. A line from a Bob Seger song stuck in his head now-and though he could remember sitting in the Jetta, roaring down Route 495 with the windows down, hearing that song pumping from the speakers, he couldn’t for the life of him remember the song the words were attached to.

The words, though, he recalled very well. “See some old friends,” Seger had sung, “good for the soul.”

Will had never really gotten into the old stuff. He was more interested in Nirvana and Soundgarden, and to a lesser extent in calmer bands like They Might Be Giants and Barenaked Ladies. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate the stuff Danny listened to. Or the words.

So this weekend he would see some old friends. And maybe, just maybe, it would be good for the soul.

By the time Will had his Toyota rolling west on the Massachusetts Turnpike, the sky had begun to clear. The cloud cover was dark in places, but there were patches where the sun broke through, revealing blue sky beyond. There might be a few more showers, but Will believed the clouds were on the way out.

It felt good to be away from the city and he kept the window rolled down a few inches, WBCN cranked a little too loud on the radio. The woods that lined both sides of the Turnpike were rich with the colors of autumn, the trees bright with reds and coppers and golds that shone despite the overcast sky. He drove on toward Natick and Framingham, and Eastborough beyond, and he could not help but think of Halloween, of trick-or-treating, and raking frosted leaves with his Dad, who had always waited late in the season to do the job.

Danny and the guys would have ragged him for romanticizing the suburbs. Parts of Eastborough were rural, but it was not exactly the country. In a way, though, it was still a classic small New England town.

Will spent a lot of his free time hanging out with Zora and Kate, the lesbian couple who lived downstairs from him and who were always trying to fix him up with their straight girlfriends. They shared movie nights with him, went to the occasional club. There were a handful of people at work he would have a drink or a meal with now and again. And of course there was Danny. Then there was Carlos, his closest friend from college, who lived in Salem and worked in graphic design.

Not a lot of friends, perhaps, but his life was fairly busy just the same. And maybe that was all he had room for. All in all, the job and his handful of friends kept him busy enough that it had been well over a year, maybe closer to two, since he had done anything more than drive past Exit 12 on the Turnpike. Once his parents had moved, he had no real reason to go back to Eastborough.

It wasn’t home anymore.

But as he paid the toll and drove the Toyota around the curved ramp onto Route Nine, it sure felt like coming home.

Eastborough was part of a geographical diamond that also included Northborough, Southborough, and Westborough, but the easiest way to reach it was by slipping past Framingham and into Marlboro, then curving slightly west on Old Buffalo Farm Road. The name always made Will smile. The suburbs, sure, but that was the country right there. The scary thing was, there actually was a farm that had buffaloes in its pasture, and penny candy in the general store across the street. It was a little piece of quaint that stuck around mainly because nobody had the heart to let it go.

As he drove into Eastborough, images flashed through Will’s mind. He was certain that the occasion of his visit had him feeling more nostalgic than normal, but the images kept coming despite that awareness. He passed Market Street, which would lead down to Kennedy Middle School and Robinson Field, where he and his friends had played baseball and football, making up their own rules.

He guided the Toyota past the strip mall that contained The Sampan, which had the best Chinese takeout in town, and Annie’s Book Stop, where he had bought all of the used paperback mystery, horror and fantasy novels that had intrigued him so much as a kid-right up until the point where he had stopped reading that sort of thing entirely. Still, the memory of the place-the smell of the old books, digging through the shelves-was a pleasant memory. He had done the same kind of cultural archaeology in the used CD shop down on Knight Road, and he knew that those afternoons had contributed as much to his chosen career as the trips to the movies in Marlboro and Framingham.

In the center of town he passed the library, in whose study carrels he had first kissed Polly Creedon in the fifth grade. Athens Pizza had been replaced by Giovanni’s Pizza & Subs, but other than the sign the place looked much the same. He had taken Sandy Weisman there on the first official date he had ever had with a girl, and he and the guys-Danny, Eric, Mike, Nick and Brian-had hung out there a hundred times. A thousand times-or so it seemed.

He wondered if any of their graffiti was still legible on the bathroom walls.

Once his mother had driven away from Athens with the two pizzas she had just picked up still on the roof. Will still remembered the thump as the two boxes tumbled down to hit the trunk before flopping into the street. Amelia James had sworn like a truck driver while her son Will was laughing his ass off.

Gone completely were Herbie’s Ice Cream, where Will and Nick Acosta had worked summers all through high school, and the Comic Book Palace, where Mike had dragged them dozens of times. None of the other guys were into comics but they’d all go along with Mike if they were out and happened to be passing by. Then, of course, they’d torture him for reading X-Men and Spider-Man, and never mind that they all thought Wolverine was cool.

What disturbed Will was that he could not even remember how long Herbie’s and the Palace had been gone. It might have been years or only months. The last couple of times he had driven through Eastborough, he knew he would not have been paying enough attention to notice.

He turned west after the center, down Fordham Street. Video stores, gas stations and liquor stores lined the road that led, eventually, back toward Route Nine and the Pike. An ancient McDonald’s stood at the intersection with Weldon Hill, and he had a sudden image of being hungover there after a sleepover at Tommy Berman’s, pushing past the other guys to get to the bathroom so he could vomit up an Egg McMuffin.

Further along Fordham Street there was Liam’s, the Irish tavern where they had all tried to get served, and where Nick Acosta now tended bar. The reunion weekend would get under way there at seven o’clock-as good a place as any to kick things off. He wondered how many people would attend the party at Liam’s or the football game tomorrow, and how many would just show up for the official reunion gathering on Saturday night.

He wondered which of his classmates wouldn’t bother to show at all.

And, much as he tried to avoid it, he wondered if Caitlyn would be there. How she would look. Who she would be with.

They had been over for a long time and Will was not a fool. Not only was he sure there was no chance of reconciliation, he had no desire to attempt one. The woman had not bothered to make an appearance at the altar on what had been intended to be their wedding day. They were history, and Will James had a lot of future to look forward to. A full life to go back to on Sunday night when the reunion weekend was over.

But some of the best memories he had, some of the sweetest moments in his life, he had shared with Caitlyn. Even if there was nothing ahead for them, they were bonded forever by what lay behind. In a way, he supposed that was true of all of them, the entire crew with whom he had grown up. Whatever his life was now, they were part of its foundation. Their collective experiences were a part of him, and would always be, even if he never saw any of them again.

It was almost two o’clock when he turned the Toyota up Parmenter Road. The neighborhood had been built in the late Fifties and early Sixties, and looked it. Ranches and split-levels dominated, but still it was one of the nicer areas in Eastborough if you didn’t count the upscale private developments that had sprung up in the decade since he’d graduated.

All of the homes were well maintained, the lawns neatly landscaped. Soccer moms were out power walking behind sport-strollers. SUVs sat dormant in driveways. A sixtyish man with thinning gray hair walked his yellow labrador, the dog hauling him forward with an eagerness that threatened to tug the man off his feet.

Will nearly did not recognize the house he had grown up in.

Number seventy-six Parmenter Road was a split-level with a large yard and a triangular garden beside the front walk that was almost exotic. Berry bushes and thin trees with an Asian flair jutted from that triangle of soil. But all of the shrubs that had once lined the front of the house had been removed, with only sod left in their wake. A pair of ash trees were also gone-Will’s eyes had itched all the time because of those damn trees, but he was sad to see the bare patches where they had once stood. The current owners had also removed the shutters and painted the house completely white.

It was hideous.

“Holy shit,” he muttered to himself as he slowed the Toyota to a standstill.

For a long time he just sat in the car and stared at the house. A while later a bus rumbled past at the bottom of the street, disgorging kids from the high school. When the lanky, red-headed kid rapped on his window, Will jumped, heart pounding, and glared at him.

“Hey. You scared the crap out of me,” Will said, putting the window down.

“Help you with something? You lost?”

The kid was maybe sixteen and broad-shouldered, just that age when he thought the world was full of shit and he might have to kick its ass any minute. He glared right back into the car, at this man who was pulled over to the side of the road and was staring at his house.

No wonder, Will thought. Probably thinks I’m a stalker or something.

“Lost?” Will considered telling the kid that yeah, he was lost, and then driving off. He surprised himself by telling the truth. “Not really. Actually, I used to live here. That your house?”

“Yeah.” The kid’s face was impassive, giving away nothing. Will wondered if he and his friends had been that insolent, and figured they had.

Will smiled. “That place has a lot of stories to tell.”

Maybe it was the wistful tone in Will’s voice or the look on his face or maybe it was his words. Whatever did it, the kid’s expression actually changed, his suspicious frown melting into an amused grin.

“Yeah?” he said. “Well so far it hasn’t said a word to me.”

“Could be it’s keeping its secrets,” Will suggested.

“Could be,” the kid agreed. “Or maybe it’s just pissed that my parents freakin’ neutered it, taking down those shutters and all those bushes. Wanted it to look different. I guess ugly is different enough.”

Will laughed out loud. The kid had echoed the thoughts he had been too polite to express. For a long moment they just looked at one another. Will thought about introducing himself, then realized there was no point. This was their moment of contact, right here. It was unlikely they’d ever meet again.

“You take care,” he said, then he started to pull away.

“Yeah,” the kid said-his favorite word-and waved. “You too.”

He turned around in the Ginzlers’ driveway a few houses up and on the way back down he saw the kid going inside his house and shutting the door. As Will drove away, he wondered if there would ever come a time when the red-headed kid would sit on the side of the road in his car and stare in horror at what some new-owner assholes had done to his home.

Will spent the afternoon just wandering around town. He knew that some of his friends were showing up early at Liam’s for dinner, but he felt a kind of inner quiet that made him shy away. Instead he went into Annie’s Book Stop and lost himself in the musty racks of used paperbacks, just glancing through titles. Eventually he found a Len Deighton book about World War II and that was his sole purchase. He read the first three chapters sitting in the Sampan eating won-ton soup and General Tsao’s Chicken, careful not to get any food on his v-necked, navy sweater or the crisp new blue jeans he wore.

After dinner he left his car in the lot of the strip mall and went across the street to the Brooks Pharmacy. Once upon a time it had been an Osco, and before that a CVS. At the age of nine, with his mother over in the produce section, he had stood in the candy aisle, glancing nervously back and forth to see if anyone was watching him as he debated stuffing a Snickers bar into his pocket. His conscience had won the debate, but even though he had not stolen anything, he had still felt guilty about it afterward.

Now he bought a pack of Altoids to rid his mouth of the dreaded “Chinese-food-breath” and chewed three of them instantly, then followed them with two more.

When he returned to his car, ready to head over to Liam’s, he found that it was still only six-thirty. Though he had not wanted to be early, there was no way he was going to just sit in his car or invent something else to do in order to avoid it. He had enjoyed the afternoon on his own, but he found himself anticipating the evening quite a bit.

Will started up the engine and the radio blared to life in the midst of the Barenaked Ladies tune “The Old Apartment.” A smile spread across Will’s face as he sang along.

This is where we used to live.

When he reached Liam’s, the parking lot was already nearly full. The place had always been popular, and it was Friday night. There was a room upstairs, which he guessed was where his classmates would be gathered, but the main dining room and bar on the first floor would be packed as well.

While he had been wandering through the stacks at Annie’s the afternoon had cleared. There were still clouds in the early evening sky, but they made a mural of shades of blue and none of them were threatening. There would be no more rain tonight. He climbed out of the car and started across the lot. The air was crisp and cold and he zipped his jacket up to his neck as he approached the restaurant.

Just looking at Liam’s Irish Tavern, a rambling old mid-19th century building with dark green paint and shamrocks on the sign, made him smile. It was good to know that some things never changed.

“Hey, Will!”

Just outside the door he turned to see a quartet of new arrivals moving through the parked cars toward the restaurant. Leading the pack was Joe Rosenthal, who had called out to him. Joe had been their class president all four years and Will had worked with him on the school paper. The two shared the same build, not tall but broad-shouldered. Will had remained fit, but Joe had a pot belly now and his hair was already thinning. There were a pair of women with him, both of whom Will recognized. One was Kelly Meserve, but to his horror he could not remember the other woman’s name at all. He doubted if they had ever exchanged words in high school, but he still ought to be able to remember her name. Their class had not been that big.

Tammy? Terri? Something like that. Hell, nobody’s going to remember everyone.

The last of the four was Tim Friel, who had been captain of the football team junior and senior year, but was such a quiet, humble guy that nobody could hold it against him. Tim had dated his share of cheerleaders, but he had never fit the stereotype of the football captain made popular by countless, idiotic teen movies. The Eastborough Mustangs had certainly had their share of dimwitted, cruel-natured assholes on the football team, it was simply that Tim was not one of them.

“No shit,” Will said happily as he took a few steps back toward them and shook hands with Joe. “How’ve you been?”

Joe grinned. “Never better.” But there was something in his tone, and in his gray eyes, that gave the lie to those words.

“Good to see you, Will,” Tim said quietly.

Will rocked on his feet and regarded the ex-football star, who was just as tall, handsome and boyish as he had been back in the day. “What about you, Tim? What’ve you been up to?”

“I’m coaching at Holy Cross.” Tim smiled, and there was a sparkle in his ice blue eyes. “It’s not quarterbacking for the Miami Dolphins, but it’s a great way to spend your days. Almost feels like I never graduated.”

Will nodded. “I know what you mean. I talk to my friends from college and listen to them bitch and I figure, hey, I actually like what I do. That’s pretty rare. I’m not complaining.”

The two of them exchanged a look and Will was surprised to feel a moment of connection with this guy he had never really been friends with. Neither of them had accomplished what they’d dreamed about, but still they counted themselves lucky.

The pleasantries went on for another minute or so before the entire group went into Liam’s together. Will had said hello to Kelly, caught up a bit with Tim and Joe, but as they were stepping into the foyer of the Tavern, the woman whose name he could not remember smiled at him shyly, even a bit flirtatiously.

“Hey, Will. It’s been a while.”

Reflexively, he gave a hollow laugh. “Too long.” He hoped that nothing in his face would give away how completely clueless he was as to her identity. Tori? Kerry? She seemed not to notice and he was grateful when she moved ahead to catch up with Kelly.

Inside Liam’s they were enveloped in a cloud of wonderful smells. Waiters and waitresses weaved in amongst the tables, serving steaks that were still sizzling on cast iron plates that would burn if you touched them too quickly. Will hadn’t been inside Liam’s in a decade, but the smell and the décor were so familiar it was like another sort of homecoming.

The hostess confirmed that their classmates were gathering in the function room upstairs and Will followed the others along a narrow corridor to the steps that led to the second floor. As he climbed upward he heard laughter and music drifting down toward him.

Will had one final moment of trepidation and then as he stepped into the room, it evaporated in an instant. He was a little early, but it seemed as though the party had started anyway. Dozens of people had already arrived, some of them eating dinner at the round tables, others mingling in front of the bar. As Will entered with Joe, Tim, Kelly and the mystery woman-Terri, pretty sure it’s Terri-a number of curious faces turned to look at them.

Familiar faces. Older faces.

His mind was on overload, sifting through them all. There was bookish Delia Young, now sleek and elegant, talking with Todd Vasquez. A group of perhaps a half dozen men and women were gathered around Chuck Wisialowski at the bar. The faces of the guys-all of them ten years past their glory days on Eastborough High’s hockey team-were just as pinched and sour looking as ever. Laughter erupted from the group and Chuck took that as his cue to knock back a shot of something. He let out a kind of snarl, the very image of a drunken frat boy.

Chuck was the only person Will had ever had an actual fistfight with. He had always regretted that his history teacher, Mr. Sandoval, had broken it up. In his mind, forever and always, the guys who had been on the hockey team would remain a herd of slack-jawed goons. It was a prejudice he had accepted long ago. And from the looks of things, the years had not done much to alter either his perception or the reality.

As Will mentally sifted through the other faces in the room he noticed something else as well-the spouses and significant others. At the tables they seemed to sit back just slightly, and in groups they protruded from the edges of a conversation as though they might slip away at any moment.

Will waded into the room, into a sea of hard kisses and firm embraces, of compliments and questions and pats on the back. To his relief he found that he could remember at least the first name of everyone he saw, if not the last. Adrenaline surged through him, along with a kind of high he had not expected. It felt good to be around them, to laugh and smile and reminisce. He knew without a doubt that in an hour he would for the most part have forgotten who lived where, had how many children, or did what for a living, but that seemed less important in the moment than the simple act of reconnecting.

He had been shanghaied by a pair of old friends who had also written for the school newspaper when, beyond them, he saw Ashleigh coming his way waving both hands over her head. Will laughed.

“Excuse me, you guys,” he said, then he slipped between them.

Ashleigh punched him in the shoulder. “Goofball,” she chided him, wearing that mischievous grin that always silently reminded him how much she meant to him. “I’ve been waving to you for like an hour.”

“I’ve been here for three minutes.”

“Well, you’re blind. We’ve been trying to get your attention the whole time.”

She gestured toward the far corner of the room, where Eric sat with Danny Plumer and his wife. With them were the ethereally beautiful Carrie Klaussen, whom Will had dubbed “PixieGirl” during high school, and Lolly something, whose real name Will didn’t think he had ever known. They were all grinning, waving at him like fools.

Ashleigh took him by the hand and dragged him over to the table, where he said hello to Eric. Danny got up to give him a bear hug-he was a burly guy and could lift Will right off the floor. They spent a minute pretending to reminisce about how long it had been since they’d seen one another-in reality ten days-and each commented that the other looked like shit and had clearly aged very poorly in that time.

Will kissed Danny’s wife Keisha on the cheek. Then he smiled over at Carrie, who rose from the table to hug him.

“Hey, Pix,” he said as they broke their embrace. He looked into her eyes. “It’s really good to see you.”

“You too,” she replied, nodding as though to punctuate her sincerity. “But nobody calls me that anymore.”

“Except me,” he teased. His gaze ticked toward Lolly, whose dark-skin and sculpted features were such a dramatic foil to PixieGirl; it had always made their status as best friends that much more fascinating. Two beautiful girls-women now-who couldn’t look less alike. “Pix and Lolly. You guys will always be Pix and Lolly in my head. You should’ve gotten together. As girlfriends, you know? It always seemed so right.”

Lolly laughed. “We tried it once. Didn’t like it.”

Will smiled in appreciation. “You know, I can’t tell if you’re bullshitting me, but if you are, please just let me go on believing that.”

He bent to kiss her on the cheek as well.

There followed just the slightest awkward pause, a silent moment filled only by the music being played at the other end of the room and by the strange feeling that there was a ghost among them. Pix gave him a look that was sort of sad.

She had been there that day-the day he was supposed to have married Caitlyn. Pix had been the maid of honor. Panicked and humiliated, Will had jokingly asked her if she wanted to stand in. And PixieGirl had cried for him.

He smiled at her now and leaned close in so that no one else could hear him. “I’m fine,” he said.

“No, I’m fine,” she teased. “You, you’re just okay.”

“Will, what’ll you have?” Danny asked. “Have you eaten? Want a drink? What’s your pleasure?”

Before he could answer something hit him in the back of the head. Will spun just in time to see a Maraschino cherry bounce on the ground. When he touched his head where it had struck him, his hair was sticky. He shot a glance over at the bar and could only laugh.

“Hang on,” he told Danny.

He marched over to the bar, where Nick Acosta was pouring glasses of wine for a pair of women who were obviously spouses. Neither of them looked familiar to him at all. When the spouses departed, Will rapped on the bar.

“Barkeep. Captain Morgan and Coke, please.”

Nick shuddered with revulsion and shot him a look that wrinkled the thin white scar that trailed down from his scalp across his forehead and through his left eyebrow. The sight of it triggered a memory in Will, images of freshman year, when Nick had lost his footing playing basketball in the schoolyard and careened into a tree, a broken limb peeling his skin back far enough that when he looked up, blood veiling his features, the other guys gathered there had been able to see bone. Even now, all these years later, with his black hair, a mass of curls and cowlicks, and deep olive skin, the scar was like a magnet to the eye, forcing anyone talking to Nick to glance at it at least once.

“Spiced rum. You still drinking that crap?” Nick asked. “Don’t know how you don’t sick it up.”

Will gave him a blank look. “I do. Is that not supposed to happen?”

Nick chuckled and started to fix the drink as he regarded Will. “How you doing, man? Been way too long.”

“Doing great. Can’t complain, though it usually doesn’t stop me.”

“Any love in your life?” Nick asked, raising that same scarred eyebrow. He was tall enough that he seemed to loom over Will from behind the bar.

“Comes and goes,” Will replied, and though their banter was light, there was a truth to it, just as there had always been in these conversations with Nick. He was the sage of the group. Whenever anybody had a problem, Nick was the one they talked to.

“It always does,” Nick replied. “Then again, who knows what fate might have in store for you this weekend? For instance, have you taken a look at her?”

He gestured across the room.

Will turned.

On a raised platform a woman sat on a stool with an electric acoustic guitar and a microphone. Since he had walked in Will had been enjoying her raspy, smoky voice, and the way she played. Old Tori Amos songs side by side with The Corrs and Nelly Furtado. But only now did he get a good look at her.

She was slender with an exotic bronze complexion that was set off by the green silk shirt she wore with plain blue jeans. Her black hair was lush and draped in a sensual curtain across her face when she bent over her guitar to play a break.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Will whispered. “Stacy?”

Nick laughed. “Gives you a funny tingle, doesn’t she?”

Will glanced at him. “She always did,” he admitted. But Nick already knew that. Nick knew the whole story, in fact, for he had gone with Will on the ski trip the senior class had taken to Mount Orford in Canada. On the bus ride north Will had spent more than two hours locked in conversation with Stacy Shipman, the girl with the sweetest, most suggestive smile he had ever seen. Party girl. Pothead. Double trouble. Stacy had been all of those things, but mysterious as well, for she had never really hung out with her classmates. Though there were a couple of exceptions-mostly tough guys who did too many drugs and didn’t graduate anyway.

Caitlyn had been his girlfriend, but Will had always been fascinated by Stacy. All of the guys were. And on that bus ride, for the first time, he had gotten to know her and discovered that she was bright and funny and ambitious, all of the things her reputation said she could not possibly be.

They had never hung out again after that, but at graduation Stacy had written a very long note in his yearbook, thanking him for that talk on the bus, for being “real” with her. He had never forgotten it, or her.

Will thanked Nick for the drink, promised his friends he’d be back to the table in just a minute, and walked straight across the room to slide into a chair right in front of that platform. There, he watched Stacy finish up an old Edwin McCain tune.

Near the end of the song, as she lifted her head to sing the chorus for a final time, she saw him. In the midst of strumming chords, she broke off and gave him a little wave, then her fingers fell right back into rhythm. When she was done, and a ripple of applause went through the room, Stacy leaned into the microphone.

“Thanks you guys,” she said softly. “We got started a little early, so I’m gonna take a short break and then we’ll kick it up a notch.”

Another round of applause followed her as she set her guitar on its stand and stepped down off the platform, striding over to Will. He stood up, drink in hand, but he didn’t hug or kiss her. They had never had that kind of friendship.

“Hey,” she said, almost shyly, though there was nothing shy in her gaze. It was just her way.

“You’re amazing.”

She glanced at the ground for a moment. “Thanks.”

“It’s really nice to see you,” he said. “I hoped you’d be here, actually. Of all the people we went to high school with, there are only a couple I really wanted to see again. I’m glad you made it.”

“Me too,” she said, nodding. Then she reached out and took his hand, gave his fingers a little squeeze. “I’m going to do a long set, then take a break about eight-thirty or so. Can we talk more then? I want to know what’s up with your life.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Good.”

Without another word she drifted off into the growing crowd.

Will took a long sip of his Captain Morgan and then shook his head. He was waylayed several times on the way back to the table by people who had not necessarily been his friends in high school but had been casual acquaintances. Each time he took a few minutes to be cordial and moved on, everyone assuring one another that they would speak more later that night, or the following day. It was going to be a long weekend, with plenty of time to get caught up.

At last he returned to the round table where he had left his friends. Danny and Eric had disappeared, leaving the four women. Will took one look at Danny’s wife, Keisha, and felt badly for her. She smiled politely, but Ashleigh, Pix and Lolly had known each other for fourteen years.

Will spotted the guys over at the bar talking to Nick and he was tempted to join them, but instead he went over and slid into Danny’s empty chair next to Keisha.

“Hey,” he said, smiling as he set his drink on the table. “This weekend is probably going to be excruciating for you.”

One corner of her mouth tugged upward in a playful half-smirk. “Nah. I love all you guys. We don’t get to see you nearly enough, so this is a good excuse. It’s all the rest of the stuff that I could do without. If it was just, you know, you guys, that’d be great. But . . . Eastborough High’s homecoming parade and football game?” Her eyes rolled up. “I think I might have a headache tomorrow.”

“You can’t!” Will said, eyes wide with feigned scandal. “You’d miss the steamed hot dogs and cotton candy and-“

“And the cheerleaders,” Ashleigh said, leaning over to shoot Will an insinuating glare. “Don’t forget about the cheerleaders.”

Will pressed a hand against his chest and made his face a mask of hurt feelings. “You wound me. They’re children, Ashleigh. Seventeen and eighteen year old girls.”

Lolly barked laughter. “Oh, please, like you won’t be looking.”

“At jailbait?” Will scoffed, letting an evil grin slip across his features.

Pix gave Keisha a conspiratorial look and lowered her voice. “They’ll all be looking at the cheerleaders. Don’t think Danny’s innocent.”

Keisha waved her away. “Oh, honey, there’s nothing innocent about that man.” She gave Lolly a pointed look. “Trust me. I know where he’s been. And I know where he’s going if he ever does more than look.”

They all laughed at that and then the chatter began again, but this time, Keisha was very much a part of it. Will smiled. My work here is done. The women barely noticed when he excused himself and went over to the bar, where the guys were involved in a conversation about the girls they had secretly-and not so secretly-desired back in the day.

The moment Will arrived they all looked at him. Danny raised his beer and gestured with it toward the empty stage.

“And speaking of secret longings, you two seemed intimate.”

Will arched an eyebrow. “Oh, yes. Very.”

Nick smiled as he drew a beer from the tap. “Could it be there’s a woman in the world you’d go on more than three dates with? Is the Caitlyn Curse over?”

“There’s no curse,” Will said, no longer amused.

Danny arched an eyebrow. “Do tell?”

But Nick had stopped teasing. He brought the beer to a woman a ways down the bar and then came back to them.

“Seriously, Will. How long are you gonna stay girl-skittish? There’s more to a relationship than a couple of weeks of coffee bars and sex.”

Will glanced around the room. “Do me a favor, Nick. Point out your girlfriend or wife in this room.”

The bartender winced and glanced away, the jab obviously hitting too close to home. “Okay, Will. We’re just friends, looking out for our old bud, but okay. Nobody’s trying to start anything. But for the record, I’ve made it to the pennant race a few times. Yeah, I blew it every time, but that doesn’t keep me from stepping up to the plate again. You’ve got to be in the game.”

His expression was so earnest that for a long moment, Will and Danny could only stare at him. The absurdity of it all descended upon them and Will started to chuckle. A moment later all three of them were laughing.

“Romance According to the Boston Red Sox,” Danny said.

“Confucius at the Bat,” Will added.

Nick shot them a withering glance and moved on to serve another customer. By the time he came back, Will and Danny were on to other subjects. They all began to talk at once, two or three conversations happening at a time. They were laughing, giving each other shit, the drinks kept coming, and soon it seemed like no time at all had passed since they had last done this.

Stacy was back up on stage, doing some more upbeat tunes. Will watched her and he wondered how much of what Nick had said was true.

After a while, Will became distracted. He would tune the guys out, just for a second, and glance over Danny’s shoulder at the door. The first time he looked at his watch, it was quarter to eight. He checked it again seven minutes later. When he checked it the third time, Eric and Nick were in the middle of a debate about the New England Patriots coaching staff, and Danny took Will by the arm and pulled him away from them.

“Hey,” he said, brows knitted in concern. “What’s with you? So Caitlyn’s not here. I thought you didn’t want to see her anyway.”

For a moment, Will didn’t understand. Then he put it together. Danny had seen him watching the door.

“No. I mean, I don’t. Want to see her. I mean, I don’t care if I see her or not. I figure she’ll be there tomorrow night if nothing else. Most everyone will be, right? But it’s not her I’m looking for. It’s Mike. I got e-mail from him; he said he’d be here. It’s been like three years and I was hoping he was gonna-“

“Mike?” Danny asked, frown deepening. He narrowed one eye, the way he always did when he was trying to work something out in his head. “Mike who?”

Will scoffed. “Mike. Mike, Mike. What do you mean, Mike who? Fucking Lebo. He told me he was gonna be-“

The look on Danny’s face stopped him cold. Will blinked several times as though that would help him escape the grave disapproval that had carved itself into Danny Plumer’s face.

“Will. I know it was a long time ago, so maybe you think . . .” Danny shook his head. “That is not fucking funny. Sincerely. Not even a little.”

Confused, Will tilted his head. “What isn’t? What are you talking about? I’m not supposed to want to see him, or I’m not supposed to get pissed ‘cause he said he was gonna show and he-“

Danny twisted his head to the left as if suddenly offended by Will’s smell. Will was stunned to silence. His best friend had just recoiled from him in what could only be disgust. Danny was a big joker, but there was nothing remotely resembling jest in his manner now.

“What?” Will demanded.

Abruptly Danny looked at him again, pinning Will to the ground with the intensity of his glare. “Mike? Mike fucking Lebo?”

Will spread his arms wide. “Ye-eahh?”

With a quick glance over at the table, where Eric had rejoined his wife and the other women, Danny took a deep breath and let it out. He was calmer when he looked back at Will, but the disgust had been replaced by something akin to disappointment.

“Maybe you’re past it, bud. Me? I still have nightmares about his funeral. It’s never gonna be funny to me.”

Will felt a numbness spread through his body. His mouth began to gape. “Funeral? What are you . . . wait, no, fuck that. You’re saying Mike’s dead? Jesus, when did-“

Danny held up a hand to stop him. “Stop.” He narrowed his eyes angrily. “When you decide to stop being such a prick, you know where the table is.”

In stunned silence, Will watched his best friend turn and walk away.

I still have nightmares about his funeral. That’s what Danny had said. But Mike could not be dead. Will had received an e-mail from him just a week ago.

And yet now, as he thought about it, tasted the concept with his mind, he found just a whisper of a memory in his head, something about a hit-and-run.

A funeral.