Rags to Reunions

And then there was Greg Monroe. Back in school, he'd been a tall and awkward kid, both physically and socially. And although his parents were wealthy, he'd never had the social cred to associate with Adele and her group.

Now, he'd rounded out his height with a body that appeared to fill his tailored black suit well, arrived with a girlfriend who looked like an Italian model, and exuded an air that screamed, 'I belong here and I dare anyone to say otherwise.' Lily immediately identified with that, and despite the aforementioned girlfriend (who was a model, although just one with Italian-American parents), Lily found herself spending most of the evening with him.

She also liked the jealous looks she was getting from Jack when she started flirting with Greg.

"You're on Wall Street? Like those traders who nearly crashed the world's economy?" Lily had had a few drinks in her, but the question had been dying to come out.

"Well, some of my less talented colleagues, maybe," Greg laughed. "The media likes the idea of blanket villainy."

Lily shook her head. Greg was certainly cocky enough to believe that. "Don't you think it's a cultural thing though? One guy makes a risky investment, gets away with it. So now, to keep up, everyone else needs to do it to stay competitive?"

Greg had beautiful eyelashes, dark and full -- enough to make a girl jealous. And somehow, they made everything he said or did ten times more intense than he probably meant it to be. Lily had remembered that back in school, a trait that kind of creeped her out then. Now, it was oddly alluring.

"In a nutshell, you got it." He held up his drink, tipping it until the cubes of ice rattled close to the lip. "But you're placing the blame in the wrong place. You think it's that first guy's fault, when all he did was be brilliant. It's all the followers who fucked up."

"And you're the first guy?" Lily couldn't help the sarcasm.

"Well, I still have my job when so many others don't. Come on, Lily, we're not so different, you and I. We never did anything just because everyone else was doing it." He gestured around. "In high school, that didn't go over so well. But look at them now. They're falling over themselves just to sit with us. This is our time."

Lily took what he said to heart. She was no longer invisible. More than that, she was now a hot commodity. It felt like a victory.

****

It wasn't long before things became unbearable for Adele. The blonde was over the hollow conversations about what people had done for the past ten years. That's what Facebook and Google were for. She'd already caught up with everyone she cared about, and with the notable exception of Lily Noland, she didn't really care about anyone else.

It was time to enact her plan.

"You know, I'm sad that we didn't know each other better back in school." She'd caught Lily alone, having fended off a drunk whose wife had already turned in.

"I'm pretty sure that even if we did, we wouldn't have been the best of friends."

Adele tilted her head and smiled. And unlike all those practiced ones from before, this was genuine. She surprised even herself when she realized she was actually enjoying Lily Noland's company. It made what she was about to suggest that much easier.

"You're probably right about that. I was kind of a bitch."

"And I had a chip on my shoulder."

"You sure did."

"Hey!" Lily protested. She wasn't supposed to agree with her.

Adele turned to the dance floor, where people were getting bolder as they drank. "I was thinking that later, we could move the party somewhere more exciting."

"What did you have in mind?" Adele watched the excitement climb through Lily's petite body.

"I have an idea, but we need Jack's help." Lily pulled a face. "I know, I know, but it'll be worth it. Thing is, what I have in mind, he'd never do for me. Hell, he probably wouldn't hold the door for me if the building were on fire."

"So how are we going to get him to help?"

Adele's smile set her high cheekbones off. "He won't do it for me, but unless my instincts are off, he'll do it for you..." And as Adele watched her new friend blush, she knew she had the girl.

"So you want to use me."

Adele grinned. "I do, yes. But it'll be fun. Trust me." And maybe you two will stop acting like kids and realize you want each other, she didn't add.

She guided Lily over to Jack, who was looking at his watch, ready to leave. "So Jack, you're in charge of the library now?"

Jack knew something was up almost immediately. Adele wouldn't waste her breath making small talk with him. She had something in mind. "Yes..." he said slowly, half in question.

"And you have keys?"

Comprehension finally dawned on him. "Oh, no. No, no. I don't think so, Adele."

"Please? For old time's sake?" Adele looked over her shoulder. Looked right at Lily. "And if not for me, how about your old friend?"

For the first time that night, Lily was looking right at him, listening for his response. Jack sighed and looked back at Adele. She was biting on the tip of her tongue as she smiled, an expression he recognized: I got you.

He had two options. He could either tell his prissy former flame exactly where she could go and what she could do when she got there, knowing full well that she'd already dug her claws into Lily and would take the sweet young woman down with her. Or he could play along just so he could stay by Lily's side. He chose the latter.

"OK, Adele. For old time's sake. But if we get caught, I'm going to say you ruffied my drink and tricked me into doing it."

Adele batted her eyelashes dramatically and put a hand to her chest. "You forget, Jack, I'm a reformed 'ruffian' now."

****

Lily felt like she'd been caught up in something. It had snatched her up the moment she walked into that ballroom in her short green dress and spiky heels -- and now it wasn't letting go.

Things were moving faster. In fact, they were literally moving. She was squeezed into the back seat of Jack's little Honda, packed tight enough that she felt her dress ride up her legs and couldn't maneuver enough to pull it down. A whisper of lace peeked out from under the hem, betraying her nude stockings. Greg, crowded in next to her, raised an eyebrow at the discovery and she blushed.

"So what's your story with Jack?" Greg asked as the car pulled out of the hotel's lot.

With Morgan and Mitch in the passenger seat, Greg's girlfriend Vivian in his lap, and Adele squeezed in somewhere on the opposite side of the car, Jack's A/C had to work overtime to cool things down, and that question wasn't exactly helping matters.

"Well, uh..." Lily glanced into the rearview mirror, where she caught Jack watching her before his eyes flickered back to the road. "We kind of grew up with each other."

Greg nodded thoughtfully. "So you were friends in high school? I don't really remember that."

Lily soured. "Me either."

"Oh, come on, Lily. You're not exactly being fair."

"Don't whine, Jack," Lily snapped. "It doesn't suit you." She heard Adele's laugh.

"We grew up on the same street. Went to school together until high school. Lily's parents put her into Good Shepherd. I went to West Fairfield..." Greg watched Lily as Jack rattled off their history like he was a PowerPoint slide. "My parents got divorced. My dad moved away..." Greg's hand climbed up the inside of Lily's knee. Her breath caught. She glanced up at Vivian, who was sitting in his lap, and the woman's roguish smile set Lily's face on fire. She looked out the window, biting on her lower lip. "My little brother started acting out. Got himself expelled..." Large fingers tickled across the inside of her thigh. Streets flew by; familiar houses. She didn't see any of them. "And my mom moved us to private school."

Greg stopped just short of her dress, resting on the lacy edge of her stocking. Lily felt a cry build in her throat. She stopped it before it could escape. "And you were all excited to have a friend move to school with you, but it didn't work like that," Greg said to her.

"No..." It was the only word she could manage, and she was pretty sure she didn't convey the bitterness behind the word. She was too busy thinking about Greg's hand -- or rather, trying not to think about it.

"He thought you were too nerdy for him," Greg finished for her.

"Yes!" There was that connection again. The social rags-to-riches story that they shared.

"Look at you now." Greg's voice made her tremble. He pushed his hand a little higher. The dress receded, unveiling the champagne-hued strap of her garter belt. His dark eyes flashed with approval.

"That's not really fair." His anger seemed more directed at Greg than at Lily. "My life was a mess. When my mom enrolled me at Good Shepherd, I saw it as a chance to start over. New school. New pool of friends. I could be a new me."

The anger finally broke through her heady daze. "You didn't have to be such a douche to me!"

Jack's lips thinned out into a perfectly straight line, but he said nothing.

"She has you there," Adele said. God, that felt good, Lily thought -- having Adele's endorsement.

"Children, children," Greg soothed. "The past is in the past, right? Isn't that what you said, Jack?"

The car was still. Silent. Memories overwhelmed her. For a moment, even Greg's furtive touch was forgotten. She remembered sitting at home, the night of her prom, crying every time she thought of Jack out with someone who wasn't her. Funny to think that that someone was Adele. It felt incongruous. It reminded her that no one in this car was the same person.

The seven of them arrived at the school before anything more was said. The doors opened and they poured out like an exhalation.

The faculty parking lot looked different at eleven at night. No kids on the dark fields behind them. No sound of cars on the road.

As the group picked their way to the double doors leading into the back of the school, Jack tried to imagine what was ahead. The library was large and labyrinthine and full of little places to duck into and be bad. He watched Lily ahead of her, chatting with Greg. Even in those heels and that short dress, Lily was not prepared for this.

Jack didn't like Greg. He hadn't back in school, and he certainly didn't now. He saw the pattern in school all the time. Kids who were picked on now only to pick on others later in life. It was a viscous cycle and he didn't like the way Greg was leading Lily down that road.

He caught up to her, touching her shoulder to hold her back for a moment. Her skin felt soft and warm under his fingers. "Hey, you don't have to do this. You have nothing to prove."

She turned her head enough that he could see her eyebrows go up and her pupils drop to where he touched her. It was a warning shot. He retracted his hands immediately.

"Let me worry about that, Jack. If you haven't noticed, I'm all grown up now."

****

They entered through a back door of the school, which opened onto the senior-year lockers. Even cast in just the soft glow of the emergency lights, the group was immediately transported into their past. Same beige walls. Same ultramarine blue lockers. Even the smell of fresh paint and cleaning chemicals felt wistful.

They proceeded like adventurers down the halls of a long abandoned crypt. The glossy sea-foam green linoleum stretched into the gloom, amplifying the clatter of stiletto heels.

"No security?" The question was whispered because it didn't seem appropriate to use a daytime voice.

"Are you kidding? This is Fairfield. We have two stoplights," Jack explained. His voice echoed down the hall and the others winced.

Lily watched him carefully. He moved with purpose. Like a leader. They were on his turf now and Adele didn't seem as polished and commanding here. She deferred to him.

One-by-one, they passed their old lockers, each person left glassy eyed and thoughtful. Memories rose like ghosts around them, some benign, others terrifyingly painful. Lily thought of her eighteen-year-old self, crying next to her locker after she'd learned that Jack and Adele were officially dating. She remembered taking down a photo of the two of them, holding it in her fingers, and finding herself unable to tear it in half.

She felt a hand slip into hers and for a moment, she thought it was Jack's. Still in high-school-Lily's frame of mind, she shivered. It was nice. Looking to her left, she realized it was Greg who held her hand, although his haunted eyes were lost in a memory of his own. Lily squeezed it, breaking the trance, and they shared a smile. He didn't let go.

They turned at the end of the hall, finally escaping the tomb-like lockers, and ascended a short flight of slate steps that led to the library. Jesus, even these steps looked the same, worn down at their centers and in desperate need of repair.

Jack hadn't escaped the curse of memory, despite walking these halls every day for the past couple years. He'd done some things that he wasn't very proud of, and hurting Lily was at the top of the list. The car ride hadn't been good, and walking the halls with this lot made it worse.

Jack hesitated at the doors to the library, his key jingling as he searched for the correct one. He glanced back. The group pressed around him like caged animals about to be released. Lily looked tiny standing next to the larger-than-life frame of Greg, her hand swallowed up in his huge grip. She was thin and beautiful and very much a woman, but in that moment, she reminded him of the girl who'd once asked him for help building a trap for a monster she was convinced came as soon as her parents fell asleep.

Are you sure you know what you're getting into? he pondered. He wasn't going to leave until he was sure that she was. Whatever was going to happen in the library, she'd be tested. They both would.

So at last, the doors of the library were opened and the pack of seven swarmed in.

After the spookiness of the halls, the library felt warm and welcoming. Lily had spent a lot of time in here, stationed at one of the tables with old books spread across it, armed with a pen and a legal pad covered in notes. Here, Dickens and Kierkegaard and linear algebraic theory were all at the ready. Even the advent of Google hadn't recaptured that giddiness.

For the rest of them, the library meant something else, thrilling but for very different reasons. Jack still remembered the first time Adele had led him into the back of the stacks and gave him a blow job next to the treatises of St. Thomas Aquinas.

His eyes met hers. She widened them playfully as she read his mind. Christ, she was attractive. He thought of the way her apple blossom cheeks hollowed when she'd suck him and the things she could do with her tongue. Even after ten years of new experiences, she was one of the best.

Lily saw the exchange and melted into Greg's dizzying height. He led her past the long tables, which were now stacked with chairs for the cleaning crew. They passed the yearbook shelf where Suzy had pulled their old faces for the name badges, and descended into the library's lower level.

Greg and Lily dawdled behind the others until the group turned a corner and Greg held her back. She felt disobedient -- she'd never cut class or called in sick, but if she had, this is how she imagined she'd feel.

"What are we...?" Her voice died as Greg turned her toward him. A lick of heat traced up her spine when she looked up into his eyes.

He brushed a strand of auburn hair from her face and tucked it over one dainty ear. "Shh... let's give them their past for a moment." She thought she detected sarcasm, but was too busy swooning to really tell. Like Jack, Lily recognized what Greg was: a grown-up bully. And, caught alone with him, her heart was in her mouth. Trouble was, like everything about this out-of-control night, she kind of liked it.

His hand lingered, fingers caressing the soft lobe of her ear. He thumbed her cheek, brushing feather-light down to the corner of her lips. She drew a ragged breath, then immediately blushed at being so obvious.

"All of them are living in the past. Every one of them." She watched him talk through her long lashes, happy for the little bit of cover they afforded. Her next breath was steadier. "Even Adele. That was her peak. Tonight had a kind of circus show curiosity, don't you think? Only in there, everyone was the freak show oddity for each other."

Something about the way Greg looked at her frightened her. She took a step back, running out of room. Greg pursued. His thumb carved lower, caressed the skin just below her mouth. "Tonight, they're all trying to capture something they once had."

They were... she thought.

"Not us."

Not us...

Greg stepped closer, trapping her against the shelf of books. His hand circled into her silky hair, behind her neck. He pulled her up to him as he leaned in. She felt the backs of her feet slide out of her heels as she stretched to meet that hard and tempting mouth.

His tongue pushed forcefully between her lips and she felt his free hand roam down her side. She clutched the swath of shirt beneath her palm, twisting it to hold on. She felt the tails pull a little from his trousers. She sweltered. To just tear a man's clothes off and be taken... how long since she'd done that?

"Ah..." Her moan tumbled out as Greg's lips grazed across the union of her neck and the back of her jaw. He ran the wet plane of his tongue across it and her knees nearly buckled.

She felt his hand creep up the inside of her thigh, edging up under her dress. She needed to stop him before she completely lost her mind. She felt like a rebellious teenager -- loved that feeling -- but was beginning to realize that that this wasn't her. Greg was right about one thing: while Adele and the others were busy reliving their youth, Lily was pretty happy with her present. She had no regrets.

And while the thought of losing herself in a man was so appetizing, she wasn't sure it was Greg that was making her mouth water.

"We better... we better get back before they, you know, say, erm, something."

"They're not missing us. Trust me."

Lily ignored him, yanking on the hem of her dress and wriggling out of his arms. Greg sighed. He rested his head against the bookshelf, took a deep breath, and regrouped. "Later then."

Lily was feeling generous, so she didn't correct that assumption.

The others were definitely not missing them. Lamp light and laughter filtered through the bookshelves. So did the sweet aroma of marijuana.

****

Jack resisted every urge in his body to get up and go look for Lily. He didn't like the thought of her with Greg. His protective instincts prickled across the surface of his skin, causing his hair to stand on end. What were they doing?

Someone's jealous... something deep down in his psyche snickered. It wasn't the first time. It wouldn't be the last. And it was easy to deny. To say that he was just concerned, like a brother to his sister. He'd been making that claim so long that he almost believed it. Almost. If it wasn't for that dress and the way her dark auburn hair cut across her forehead...

The library was sprinkled with little study nooks like the one they were sitting in: a couple of chairs and a table, sometimes a small sofa, sometimes an actual study table. This one was the most secluded, way in the back of the lower level, consisting of an easy chair and a love seat. He'd taken the easy chair, hoping to be able to sit alone. Unfortunately, Adele had planted herself into his lap almost immediately.

"Relax, Jack," Adele comforted. "Are you sure you don't want some?" She held the joint before her, pinched between her thumb and forefinger, a tendril of smoke dancing off the glowing tip.