The Boys Are Back in Town (7 page)

And how he envied them.

The first car through the gate was an antique Dodge Charger with the logo of the Eastborough High Cougars painted on the hood. Will laughed out loud. The car had been leading the parade for something like thirty years and had been kept in working order all that time by the kids in the shop class. The driver of the car was Mr. Murphy, who had been Will's English teacher and had been partially responsible for inspiring him to seek a career in journalism. There were other teachers in the car but he recognized only Annelise Berendt, who had come in as principal of Eastborough the year after Will's class had graduated.

They waved GO COUGARS banners and blew whistles, and then another car came through the gate carrying several other teachers and a heavyset, balding guy he assumed was Mayor Aaron Pirkle, if the sign on the side of the car was any indication. There were cheers and some catcalls from the crowd, but then the voices were temporarily drowned out by the sound of thumping drums and blaring horns, and the Eastborough High School Marching Band strode through the gates in perfect synchrony.

The band had always been a source of pride for the school. No matter how many people teased those who took part in it, the members of Eastborough High's marching band never listened. They competed on a national level, even though the school's football team had never won its division.

The band was followed by the first parade float, a masterpiece painstakingly fashioned from paper flowers. It was a bit of rugged terrain, rocks, and trees, and in their midst, a huge cougar, the mascot of Eastborough High. Will stared at it in astonishment, wondering if the thing had really been created by high school students.

There were a couple of other floats far less impressive than the first—obviously the committee had chosen the Cougar float to focus on—and then a rolling exhibition that was not quite a float at all. It was a flatbed truck with the school colors draped over the edges of the bed, laden with what must have been the entire Eastborough football team and the cheerleading squad as well. The cheerleaders—in skimpy uniforms that would not even have been allowed at Eastborough High ten years before—were already engaged in the call-and-answer patter of their discipline, screaming themselves hoarse before the game had even begun.

They were having a hell of a time.

Will grinned as he gazed up at them, at their smiles and the expressions on the faces of the football players. This had to be quite a moment for them. In his mind's eye he could see his own senior year Homecoming parade, could remember the way the air seemed to have a special tang to it, a flavor and a scent that was unlike anything else in the world.

People were shouting and throwing flowers at the players and cheerleaders as the truck passed. Students and parents, mostly, but across the street Will caught sight of a few familiar faces. Martina Dienst, Brian Schnell, Scott Kelso, and Mia Skopis were all hooting and waving to the players with such fervor that for a moment it almost seemed as though they had forgotten a decade had passed since the last time they had stood here and done the very same thing.

In the midst of the crowd, off to their left, he saw Caitlyn.

A shiver went through him that had nothing to do with the chill in the air. A thousand images like the shards of a broken mirror spun through his mind, just as clear, just as jagged. Caitlyn had hurt him, badly. And yet they had shared so much that he would not trade the years they had spent together for anything. In the crowd, everyone so intent upon the parade, Caitlyn had already noticed him.

Her blue eyes shone even from this distance and she raised a hand, fingers curled in the most delicate and hesitant of waves. Testing the waters. Wondering what would happen.

The oddest thing was the way his own hand lifted as if of its own accord. Will waved back, one side of his mouth lifting in a wistful smile. It hurt, seeing her; it stirred up a melancholy deep within him that would never go away. And yet somehow under these circumstances, seeing Caitlyn as part of the tableau of their past, amidst old friends they both shared, was surprisingly OK.

Then Martina saw him and waved, smiling with such unaffected sweetness that he wanted to hug her. When he glanced back to look for Caitlyn again, she was lost in the crowd. Part of him wanted to speak to her, but even just with the small exchange they'd just shared he felt a sense of relief. Pushing Caitlyn from his mind, he waved back to Martina and edged through the crowd, waiting for a break in the parade so he could dash across to join them. After the flatbed, the cars began to roll through, festooned with ribbons and crepe paper. Another wave of cheers went through the crowd as the current Homecoming King and Queen rolled past in the back of a classic Mustang convertible. There were enough people trailing the car and walking alongside it that Will was able to slip across the street.

“Hey, Marti,” he said happily.

Martina arched an eyebrow. “You know, you're the only person in the world who ever gave me a nickname.”

“Do you hate me for it?”

“No. It's actually kind of nice.”

She kissed him on the cheek and then the two of them turned to face the others. In high school, Brian Schnell had been sort of gawky and unkempt. His shirt was forever half untucked and his hair always needed combing. Childhood baby fat had lingered on him, giving his face a doughy look though he wasn't overweight at all. Adult Brian was still recognizably the same guy, but one look at him and all Will could think of was the bizarre alternate-universe episodes shown from time to time on
Star Trek
. Alternate-universe Brian dressed well and wore his clothes as if they'd just been pressed. He had a goatee and his black hair was well groomed. He was only twenty-eight, but he already had some gray in there.

When he saw Will, his face lit up with genuine pleasure, as if someone had just told him a wonderful joke.

“No shit. Will James,” Brian said, and he opened his arms.

Will hesitated, but only for a moment. Once upon a time they had been the best of friends. It hadn't ended in any kind of obvious falling out, really. It had just sort of happened, the way those things did, the two of them drifting apart, finding they had less in common with one another and more in common with others.

Still, that was what this weekend was about. Reconnecting with the people who had drifted away. So when Brian went to embrace him, Will hugged back.

“Good to see you, Bri. How've you been, man?”

Brian broke the embrace and held him at arm's length. “I've been good, Will. Really good.”

“You look it,” Will told him.

For just a moment, Brian's smile faltered. Will felt an unspoken communication pass between them, as though without words they had just begun a conversation about the death of their old friendship. It was awkward and surprising, since Brian seemed to have been so amiable at first.

Then the moment passed. Brian's smile returned and he shrugged. “Time heals all wounds, they say. You look like you're doing pretty well yourself.”

“Will!” a voice shouted, and he looked up to see Tim Friel riding in the back of a ragtop Cadillac with Tess O'Brien, who'd been Queen to his Homecoming King eleven years past. Other reunion class royalty rode by in various cars, all following the reigning pair.

When Will turned back to Brian, Martina had him in conversation, so he said hello to Scott and Mia, catching up with them briefly. Then Martina abruptly broke off talking to Brian and stepped closer to put a hand on his arm.

“We're going to head in. We're meeting a bunch of people inside. Do you want to join us?”

“I'll walk with you,” he said, “but I promised Ashleigh I'd come find those guys when I got here.”

The last of the parade had already turned into the Cougar Stadium parking lot and the road was filled with people moving toward the entrance. They all fell into the herd, waiting patiently and catching up while they did so. Mia was a buyer for a women's clothing store chain, working out of San Francisco. Scott was an engineer for some tech firm or another; Will had lost the name almost the moment he had heard it. Brian surprised them all by revealing that he worked for a major music label. Even Martina was impressed.

Will had spent many afternoons in Brian's basement listening to CDs and hanging out, singing along and playing air guitar. He was proud of the guy for having turned his passion into his job. Like Will himself, and former-football-star-turned-coach Tim Friel, he hadn't accomplished all of his dreams, but at least he was pursuing them, doing something that made him happy.

“Good for you, Bri. Seriously, that's great.”

By then they were inside the gates of the stadium and it was time to part ways. Will stepped to one side and let the crowd flow by and around him. He watched the others for a moment as they were swept away by the human maelstrom. Then he began to glance around.

Teenagers. Families with kids of all ages. A teacher or two that he recognized. At the concession stand just beside the entrance to the bleachers he saw Kelly Meserve and a couple of other former classmates but did not bother trying to get their attention. He wanted to get settled first. It took him a moment to visually confirm which bench would be for the home team. Danny, Eric, and Nick would be seated on the Cougars' side of the field.

Will started toward the stands.

Beyond the shifting crowd that ebbed and flowed ahead of him, he saw a single lone figure leaning motionless against the bleachers. Stacy Shipman shot him that mischievous grin, eyes sparkling, and he wondered how long she had been watching him before he had become aware of her presence.

Will arched an eyebrow, pleasantly surprised, and sidled through the long line in front of the concession stand. The whole reunion weekend thing had a strange, bittersweet quality to it—even without the oddness of the previous night's events—but somehow all of that had dissipated the moment he had spotted Stacy there.

“Hey,” he said as he approached.

“Hey,” Stacy replied. “Fancy meeting you here.”

That sly grin remained and her chin dropped slightly, a charming gesture that he was certain was unconscious. She did not move away from the bleachers or shift her position in any other way. A spark of hope ignited in his chest that she had been waiting for him.

Will scratched at the back of his head, unsure how to continue. “Listen,” he began slowly. “About last night. If I seemed weird at all—”

“I always thought you were weird, Mr. James. It's one of the things I admire most about you.”

He blinked and felt his smile grow wider. “I'm going to take that as a compliment. And by the way, I hope everyone told you how incredible you were last night. I'd like to hear you play again sometime.”

Stacy arched an eyebrow, the freckles across the bridge of her nose darker in the sunshine. The chilly breeze blew a thick lock of dark hair across her face, and with one finger she tucked it behind her ear.

“Time will tell,” she said. Then she pushed off from the wall and grabbed Will by the hand. “Come on. Let me buy you a hot dog. They're awful, but it's all part of the Homecoming experience, y'know?”

Will felt her fingers clasped in his own and let her pull him to the back of the concession line. “If you say so.”

“I do.” And there was that grin again, the look that said she was a woman of great mystery and many secrets, and if he discovered them, he might be just as amused by them as she was.

They waited in the line, which soon grew even longer as the duo running the concession stand seemed incapable of filling even the simplest of orders without at least one mistake. Yet even though Will was vaguely aware of the antics behind the counter—of hot dogs with the wrong condiments and diet Coke instead of regular, of miscounted change and wrongly tallied totals—the delay did not bother him in the least.

Stacy told him about her life after Eastborough High, her disastrous and truncated college experience, and the short stint she had done in rehab, thanks to a certain white powder. She was remarkably candid about the whole thing, but when Will thought about it that wasn't so remarkable at all. It was just Stacy. Her real life of late was far less sexy than her raspy-voiced stage persona would lead one to think. She had always been interested in old homes and architecture. Cocaine had prevented her from getting a degree, but she and a partner had started their own business restoring historic homes, and it gave her a pleasure that was evident in every nuanced word when she spoke about it. Between that and her music, she had found a contented place in her life.

Will grew more and more enamored of her. The woman Stacy had become was even more fascinating than the girl she had been. He wanted to tell her that but was afraid she would think he was only flirting. When they finally reached the counter, it seemed as though no time at all had elapsed, and he felt foolish when he realized he had no idea what he wanted. He ordered a hot dog and a drink and found himself nodding when Stacy asked if he wanted nachos as well. He watched her as she pulled money from the pocket of her jeans and paid the gray-haired man in the booth. The guy must have been sixty-five, but she charmed him in an instant. Will was not certain, but as Stacy pocketed her change he did a mental calculation and thought that the old fellow had forgotten to charge them for the nachos.

Stacy picked up the tray with the hot dogs and drinks before he even had a chance to offer, then pointed her elbow at the nachos. “That's your job. Don't forget napkins. That's a man thing. Forgetting the napkins.”

“And straws,” Will added.

“Them, too.”

They left the concession behind—the line even longer than before—and as they finally made their way up into the bleachers, they discovered that the game had begun. More than five minutes had already elapsed in the first quarter, but neither team had gotten on the scoreboard yet. The Cougars had the ball on Natick's twenty-five-yard line, but it was third down, with seven yards to go. Eastborough's quarterback threw a deep pass downfield and the receiver caught the ball, but he was out of bounds.