Last Girl Standing

by Lisa Jackson

  “C’mon, Delta. We jes got here. People . . . people wanna see us.”

  “I’ve seen everyone I want to.”

  “Everything all right here?”

  Delta almost laughed. It was Principal Kiefer, older, grayer, but just as cloyingly sincere as always, worried about “his students” and propriety, which was funny as hell as she’d heard he’d had an affair with Bailey’s mom, the true reason for the Quintars’ divorce.

  “Everything’s fine,” she assured him.

  She took a few moments to say good-bye to Zora and Bailey, who in turn said how glad they’d been to see her, and then she headed out the main door. The night was cool, the air was slightly crisp, and she could feel the weight of impending rain in the air. Roses nodded their weighty heads at her as she walked the path toward the parking lot and remotely unlocked the doors to her Mercedes.

  She stood beside her car for long minutes, thinking. Didn’t want to go home just yet.

  Then Amanda suddenly shot out of the double doors of the golf club and raced to a Lexus near to Delta.

  “What’s wrong?” Delta asked her automatically.

  “My brother’s been in a car wreck,” she bit out, as she jumped behind the wheel and screeched out of the lot. Her husband—ex-husband—followed after her and stood at the top of the steps, along with several others who must’ve seen Amanda tear out as if her hair were on fire.

  Chapter 12

  Zora swilled down the truly awful white wine they were pouring as she watched the Tanner/Amanda/Delta debacle unfold. At least Delta hadn’t pressed her on what Amanda meant. That would’ve been all she needed. To have to recount her own dalliance with Tanner. Great.

  Her attention had been divided while it was going on, however, as she’d been buttonholed by Rhonda Clanton, er, Sharpley, and her husband, Eric, a man as earnest and gung ho as his wife, which was saying a lot. She’d wanted to be in on the drama over Tanner, but Rhonda and Eric had been so insistent and enthusiastic that Zora had been forced to pay them some attention. She’d listened with half an ear at the back-and-forth conversation the two of them were having. They were both full of affirmations. Life was just so good, so full of possibilities, didn’t Zora think so?

  It made her head hurt.

  But the catfight she’d been expecting between Delta and Amanda hadn’t come to be. Delta had walked away, and then shortly thereafter, Amanda had received a phone call and zipped out the door after her.

  Zora was trying to edge away from Rhonda and Eric as, with a sad clown face, Rhonda said, “Poor Mr. Timmons. His dad just died yesterday. It’s awful. They were really close, and Mr. Timmons was taking care of him.”

  Zora said politely, “That’s too bad.”

  “Parkinson’s,” Eric told her, equally sad-clown-faced.

  “But maybe now he and Ms. Reade can get together!” Rhonda said with an uplift to her voice. Her expression was elastic. Sorrow one moment, joy the next. Like a switch she could turn on and off.

  Eric chided, “Oh, don’t go playing matchmaker again.”

  Rhonda nudged him with her elbow. “I told you. They’ve been almost together for years. Maybe now it’ll finally happen. Brian—I mean Mr. Timmons—is free, and she’s never been married, either, so . . .”

  “Well, financially, it’s a good time. That’s a big inheritance,” said Eric.

  “Oh, don’t talk about that,” Rhonda said with a giggle. “It’s true love for them.”

  Zora finally heard something of interest. “What’s a big inheritance?”

  “Oh, you know, Mr. Timmons’s dad owns that company that makes fences, or something?” Rhonda looked at Zora expectantly.

  “Fences?” Zora asked blankly.

  “Columbia Fence,” said Eric. “Commercial fencing. You’ve probably seen their signs around.”

  She thought about it. Yes, she’d seen the small plaques embedded in the sides of chain-link fencing all over the area.

  Eric put a hand up to his mouth and leaned toward her, saying in an aside, “Big, big bucks.”

  Rhonda playfully slapped at him. “Stop it, Sharpley. I told you. It’s true love!”

  Zora finally saw an opportunity to excuse herself, and she headed back to the bar to refill her glass. She nearly ran into Woody’s wife, Crystal Gilles, whose tattooed arms were on full display outside a sleeveless and shapeless ecru cotton dress and sandals. She was a preschool teacher; go figure.

  “Sorry,” Zora murmured politely. She was surprised Crystal had even come. She’d purposely avoided the pre-graduation barbecue at the Forsythes’, a good move as it turned out, but she’d managed to make it to their ten-year reunion. Maybe she’d had a change of heart over the years. At least the Goth period seemed to be over.

  “Woody told me about you,” Crystal said with a mysterious smile.

  “Told you what?”

  She turned her head, still smiling, and wandered to where Woody was regaling the guys’ group with a story that elicited a wave of laughter. Zora found herself more uneasy about her comment than she would have credited. What was there to know about her? Was it the heavy make-out session with Tanner? Amanda had already spilled those beans, though maybe Crystal didn’t know it.

  “Bitch,” Zora muttered under her breath, carefully holding a protective hand in front of her wineglass as she maneuvered back through the crowd.

  Mr. Timmons was talking to Anne Reade, who had one hand on his forearm and was regarding him intently. Clarice Billings cruised up to them and, like Anne, seemed to be offering condolences. Anne pulled back, and Zora could practically read her mind. Get away from him, you blond bitch. Unlike Anne, who’d grown softer over time with a bit of a pudgy belly, Clarice still had a slim runner’s body, and her face was smooth and unlined. Botox, or good genes? Maybe both. Seeming to sense she was unwanted, Clarice moved away from Timmons . . . and Zora took her place, causing Anne to frown.

  “Mr. Timmons, hi, I just wanted to say I heard about your dad, and I’m really sorry. They said that you were really close. That you were taking care of him. I’m sure it’s really hard,” Zora said in her most heartfelt voice.

  The math teacher looked at Zora in an unfocused way. For a moment, she wondered if he’d imbibed a bit too heavily, but his hands were empty, and he didn’t seem drunk. Emotion, she decided, as he answered, “Thank you, Zora. Um . . . call me Brian, please. High school was ten years ago.”

  Anne said, “Doesn’t seem that long.”

  “I know, right?” Zora agreed. “And then sometimes it feels like nothing’s changed.”

  “Everything’s changed,” he said. Then, as if realizing what a downer he sounded like, he allowed, “Some things for the better.”

  “This reunion just brings up all the sadness about Carmen Proffitt,” said Anne. “We haven’t had a student’s death since, while they were in school. It’s still difficult.”

  Though she was saying the words, there was something wooden about her delivery that made it seem like she was, well, just saying the words.

  “I think it’s on everyone’s minds,” Zora said. “Certainly Bailey’s.”

  “They were good friends,” Timmons agreed.

  “BFFs.” Zora gave them both a nod. Maybe it was time to leave. She’d given her condolences, and sticking around might get awkward.

  Anne said, “Clarice should have been able to pull Carmen out of the water. She’s all muscle, and I’ve never known anyone so determined. I just don’t know how Carmen drowned.”

  There was jealousy lurking in Anne’s rebuke of Miss Billings. Zora reminded them, “Carmen was five-ten and all muscle herself. Bailey tried to get her to come out of the water, but Carmen wouldn’t even listen. Then Bailey fell in, and Carmen went after her.”

  “Is your husband here?” Mr. Timmons asked Zora.

  “No, he couldn’t make it.” She was a little surprised he knew she was married.

  “Reunions are made for the classmates,” Anne observed.

/>   Zora felt herself grow stubborn. Anne was treating Mr. Timmons as if he were hers, and hers alone. But she’d had years to land him, and it hadn’t happened yet, so . . . “Tell me about your dad, Brian,” Zora said, testing out his name on her tongue. It felt a bit strange, as she’d always thought of him as her teacher, one who knew that her talent for numbers wasn’t exactly up to the same level as Amanda’s or Ellie’s. “My parents split up right after I graduated, and my relationship with them has been, well . . .” She waggled her free hand back and forth. “It’s hard to lose family.”

  Anne made a sound of disbelief, but the math teacher regarded Zora with damp eyes. “Thank you,” he said, meaning it.

  “I think I’ll get something to drink,” Anne said drily. “Want anything?”

  Brian shook his head. He moved closer to Zora as soon as Anne, with a lingering look back that could have melted steel, headed away.

  Zora gazed into his eyes. Blue. She liked blue eyes. She liked the color blue. He wasn’t all that bad-looking, and he wasn’t all that old.

  “Tell me about him,” she invited again.

  “You sure you want to hear?” He looked at her askance, but she could sense the eagerness beneath his words.

  “Yes.”

  Shrugging, he smiled a bit, then launched into a tale about how his grandfather had been born poor and worked and worked until he had enough money to buy a small company that primarily manufactured fences for farmers; how his father had taken that small company and turned it into one that sold regionally and now, nationally; how that modest company had just exploded in sales over the last few years; how his father was a salesman’s salesman, a great guy all around. While he talked, Zora led him over to a bank of chairs that was somewhat isolated from the rest of the group. Anne returned with her glass of punch but looked like she didn’t know how to rejoin them now that they were seated. Clarice Billings glanced over at them with narrowed eyes, as well, but Zora ignored them both. They could think Zora was moving in on territory that belonged to Anne. It may or may not be true. Zora hadn’t decided yet.

  But blue wasn’t the only color Zora liked.

  She had a great preference for green, too.

  * * *

  “You ready?” Penske asked in Bailey’s ear; he’d sneaked up behind her causing her to jump.

  She’d been talking to—more like listening to—Principal Kiefer, Anne Reade, and Clarice Billings, who’d been in a confab of sorts, but who’d all looked a little tense. Most of that tension seemed to emanate from Anne, whose body language was stiff and indignant; the way her eyes kept being pulled magnetically toward Zora and Mr. Timmons sitting by themselves in some kind of tête-à-tête answered the question of why without it being asked.

  Principal Kiefer was telling Miss Billings about several new teachers at the high school who’d gotten in trouble with some of the parents because they’d allowed their students to leave the school grounds to march in a protest against school shootings and therefore guns.

  “It’s a very hot button,” Kiefer was saying, “as Bailey well knows, being a peacekeeper, right?”

  Bailey was still thinking about Delta and Amanda’s dustup, and how they’d left a few minutes apart from each other, so she wasn’t paying particular attention. She realized Kiefer was looking at her. She was irked. He’d been trying to engage her in conversation all evening, maybe as a way to assuage his guilt. She could have told him she didn’t care what he did or didn’t do.

  She could hear Penske breathing directly behind her. “Gun control? Yes. It’s a very hot button,” he answered for her.

  “How do you feel about it?” Miss Billings asked Bailey. “You carry a gun.”

  “Regulation,” Bailey responded. The last thing she wanted was to get drawn into a political discussion. And what the hell was Penske doing now? Blowing gently on her nape? She wasn’t sure if she was annoyed or slightly thrilled. Justin Penske was not the kind of guy for her, but it felt good to be on a man’s radar, nevertheless.

  What is the kind of guy for you?

  “But how do you feel about it?” Billings pressed.

  Bailey met her gaze. Miss Billings had left West Knoll High years earlier, fairly soon after their graduation and Carmen’s death. Some people believed she felt responsible for not saving Carmen, and sure, Bailey could believe that was part of it, but Miss Billings’ career had thrived over the years, and she was now working at a small, conservative, private college on the outskirts of Laurelton, and it was rumored she was up for a job with a Pac-12 school.

  “Oh, don’t put Bailey on the spot,” Penske drawled, smiling at the trio of school teachers and administrators. “This is fun, right? We’re all here for fun.”

  Principal Kiefer slid a look at Miss Billings, who seemed to want to say more, but then smiled and let it go. Anne Reade’s gaze kept returning to Zora and Mr. Timmons. Bailey wasn’t even sure she was in the moment.

  “I’m heading out,” Penske said, giving Bailey a wink.

  Bailey hesitated, not quite sure what that meant. Were they going to dinner?

  She followed behind him after a brief hesitation in which she felt like Miss Billings and Anne Reade were regarding her with unspoken questions. She didn’t know exactly what she wanted, but she was done with the reunion.

  Outside, Penske was already clicking his remote to unlock his SUV, which flashed its lights at him. The last fingers of cool evening light were receding, striping the hotel parking lot as the sun set behind the hotel’s upper floors.

  “How about Danny O’s?” Penske said as he waited for her to reach him.

  Danny O’s was a twenty-four-hour pancake restaurant on the outside of West Knoll, about as far from the golf club as you could get and still be inside the city limits. It had been, and still was, a popular high school hangout for teenagers on the west side of the Willamette.

  “Sure,” Bailey said, somewhat disappointed. What did you expect? That this was real a date?

  “I’ll meet you there,” Penske said and climbed into his vehicle.

  Bailey followed in her blue Ford Focus, given to her by her father. She found herself reflecting on Ronald Kiefer some more. He might still be West Knoll High’s principal, but luckily he’d never fully become Bailey’s stepfather. She was still mad at her mom about it all, but okay . . . what was, was. She needed to get over it.

  But that’s what everyone had told her about Carmen, too. She needed to get over it. And maybe she was being somewhat obsessive. But it also felt important not to forget, not to let her best friend disappear into the past.

  Danny O’s shared a parking lot with an Irish bar called Lundeen’s that was a few grades down from the twenty-four-hour diner. Lundeen’s spilled its drunken bar closers into the parking lot in the wee hours of the morning, and a good number of them staggered into Danny O’s to sober up before driving home. In the past, teenagers tried to talk the barflies into buying them booze, but a few stings with officers posing as kids and catching the adult suppliers had pretty much taken care of that issue.

  Bailey pulled around the back of Lundeen’s as all the spots closest to Danny O’s were taken. Penske had managed to squeeze his SUV between two cars, each of them a bit over the line.

  “Hey, let’s have a few at Lundeen’s first,” he said as Bailey joined him.

  Her steps slowed. She would have rather stayed at the reunion than swallow anything poured at Lundeen’s . . . but here she was.

  Inside, she followed Penske up to the scarred bar that spanned twenty feet beneath dim hanging lights in the shape of old-time lanterns. When he ordered himself an Irish whiskey, Bailey opted for a light beer.

  “Oh, get your drink on,” he said, pointing to his whiskey and putting up two fingers for the bartender, who nodded his graying, ponytailed head.

  “I don’t drink whiskey.”

  “Should I have made it vodka? Give it a try.”

  “I don’t even know why I’m standing here with you,” she sa
id.

  “Because you were bored. It was boring. And now it’s time for the real reunion to begin. We didn’t hang out in high school. We gotta make up for that.”

  “You were in the cool group.”

  “You were one of the Five Firsts,” he said right back.

  “Yeah, but only Amanda, Delta, and Zora were the ones you guys hung out with. Carmen and I were—”

  “Lesbians,” Penske cut her off. “That’s what we all thought anyway.”

  “Everybody knew Carmen had a serious thing for Tanner.”

  “Maybe she was bi,” he allowed, “but you were definitely into girl on girl.”

  “I don’t know why I’m still standing here.” Bailey shook her head and set her beer down on the counter.

  “Don’t leave,” he begged. “Okay. You want me to believe all this time you’ve liked guys?”

  “I’ve had boyfriends,” she told him hotly. A boyfriend. For a short time.

  “Really, who?”

  “No one you’d know.”

  He snorted. “But you’re still obsessed with Carmen. Got that journal going.”

  He made her sound half-crazy. “The journal is my way of dealing with her death.”

  “Show it to me.”

  “No.”

  “Oh, come on, Bailey.”

  She shook her head. “It’s mostly for me. Everyone says her death was an accident, and yes, she didn’t intend to die, but I have a lot of questions. I’ve talked to my dad about it.”

  Penske had knocked back his whiskey, and now he looked hard at Bailey. There was a loud billiards game going on behind them that sounded like it could be turning into a raging fight. Bailey half-turned to check out the players, but she could feel Penske’s appraisal of her.

  “What does your dad think? He’s a senior officer, right?”

  “He thinks . . .” She wondered if she should be honest. Quin didn’t actually believe in the kind of suppositions, which he tended to label “conspiracies,” that Bailey had laid out over the years about Carmen’s death, but he was proud of her research.

  “You’re a darn good investigator,” he’d told his daughter upon examining her notes on not only Carmen’s death but other crimes that, though she wasn’t a detective per se, she’d analyzed in depth and had offered up avenues of investigation that had led to solving them.