The shorter man said something and angrily waved his hands, then walked away. The next time Chase noticed, Snelson had also left Ron. She spotted his snowy hair and saw the two men on the other side of the room talking with the monarch of the night, Richard “Dickie” “Rich” Byrd. Those three hung out at the foot of the stage, laughing and joking, three good friends to all appearances. Dickie’s voice still rose above the others, but Chase couldn’t make out what he was saying. The other two shushed him. He looked around, then lowered his volume considerably. Chase wondered if the other man was on the school board with Dickie.
Monique Byrd was the next person to visit the punch bowl. Ron North leered at her the way he’d done at Julie, but Monique took care of him quickly. After shaking her head a few times and pointing to her husband, Dickie, she splashed her cup of punch in Ron’s face with a dramatic fling of her arm.
Most of the conversation in the gym stopped. Bart Fender started toward Ron. Chase thought maybe he was going to do something physical, and he was big enough to hurt scrawny little Ron North.
But Ron headed for the door.
Chase saw Bart follow him a few minutes later. They must have both gone home because neither of them came back. She noticed that Monique and Dickie were gone, too.
One and two at a time, Chase’s classmates started to leave the party. It was breaking up early. It was only a little after eleven. She looked around for Julie, but she wasn’t in the room. She’d been with Jay the last time she’d seen her. The punch was horrible, but Chase was thirsty, so she headed to the table to get some more of it. Julie was there now. She smiled at Chase, then turned to address the crowd.
“Does anyone know who this belongs to?” she shouted. Julie waved a small notebook in the air. “It was here, by the punch bowl.”
Chase saw Julie pick up something else, look at it, then set it down.
Nobody claimed it, but more than half the people had left by then.
Julie walked over to Chase and showed her a business card for Bart Fender. It seemed he was selling diet supplements on the side.
“Why do I want this?” Chase asked.
“There, on the other side. He wrote down Dillon Yardley’s hospital room number. He said she would like some visitors.”
“I thought she was in a coma.”
“Me, too. It was strange.” Julie turned to talk to another classmate.
Then it happened, the thing Chase dreaded. Heading toward her was Eddie Heath.
FOUR
“Chase, you look fantastic.”
She glanced around, but there was no retreat. She was next to the wall that held the folded bleachers.
“I mean it. You’re a sight for sore eyes.”
She smiled politely and lied. “It’s good to see you, too.”
This jerk had dumped her a week before senior prom and she had ended up spending prom night in the corner with the other single girls, without a corsage on her wrist, watching him dance with the homecoming queen all night. Here she was without a date fourteen years later, too.
She had liked dating Eddie. After all, he was a star football and basketball player. He developed muscles and a beard a year before any of the other guys. She was one of the studious kids, not interested in sports—until a sports star asked her out.
The truth was, she’d had a crush on him for years before and was floating on a cloud the whole time they dated. Until he shoved her off the cloud and sent her crashing to the dirt.
“I’ve thought a lot about you over the years,” he said.
There was no reply to that. She wouldn’t admit she thought of him from time to time, too.
“I can’t believe how badly I treated you.” He grabbed her hand.
She froze. Sparks shot up her arm and hit her square in the heart. Nothing like this had ever happened with Mike Ramos. Her lips parted. She suddenly longed to kiss Eddie Heath.
Maybe because he had matured early, he had never gotten very tall. He had made his way onto the basketball team by being an excellent player. Now he tended toward short and stocky, but, oh my goodness, he still had all those rippling muscles. And those bedroom eyes.
“Can I make it up to you sometime?”
“Uh . . . when?” Yes, yes, you can. Anytime.
“Tell you what. Here’s my number.” He let go of her hand and Chase felt like the lights had gone out. Her shoulders sagged.
Eddie wrote his cell number on the back of a business card and handed it to her.
“You’re . . . the owner of this place?”
“Yep, all mine.”
The card had the words “Health from the Heath Bar” embossed in shiny green letters, with “Edward Heath, Proprietor” beneath.
“What exactly is it?”
“A health food bar.”
“I guess we both own bars, then.”
Chase realized she had never had business cards made. “Come by some time and I’ll show you our place.”
“Our?”
“I own the business with my partner, Anna Larson.” She told him where Bar None was located.
Eddie flashed her a brilliant smile. “It’s a deal. Give me a call.”
Deal, she thought, weak in the knees.
• • •
“Am I forgiven?” Mike walked backward in front of Chase and Quincy. “I really had forgotten all about the convention. And it’s one of those things that I had to go to.”
Chase bent to Quincy’s level. “Do you think this harness is too tight?” Right this moment she didn’t want to talk about him standing her up. She woke up thinking about Eddie Heath, after all.
“It’s supposed to be snug,” the veterinarian said.
Chase was also a bit cranky because she didn’t actually want to walk Quincy in a harness. She was only doing it to get Anna off her back. She’d been harping on it for a long time. Anna thought Quincy should get some fresh air, but not by running off, as he usually did. She thought that if he got out on a nice leashed walk, he wouldn’t want to escape so much. Chase doubted that.
However, Mike Ramos, as Quincy’s vet, supported Anna. So Chase finally gave in, bought a cat harness at the pet store, returned it because it was too small, bought another one, and was now taking her cat on his maiden stroll. It was Sunday, the morning after the reunion, so Mike wasn’t working. Chase’s shop was open, but Anna had urged her to take the walk with Mike, knowing how upset she had been that she had to go alone to the gathering.
Chase took off her gloves and fiddled with the buckles a bit, not wanting the harness to be so tight on Quincy, then stood up and continued toward Marcy Park. They wended their way west on SE Seventh Street.
“Did you have a good time?” Mike asked. “You went with Julie, right?”
“Julie and Jay. I felt like a third wheel, if you want to know.” Their breath puffed clouds in the below-freezing air. The brilliant sun made the day crisp and bright, even though its warmth couldn’t be felt this time of year.
“But were some people you wanted to see there?”
“Yes, and some I didn’t.” And one person I thought I didn’t want to see, but really did—Eddie Heath. She wouldn’t mention Eddie, though.
Quincy had been wearing the harness a little each day, to get him used to it, and he didn’t seem to mind it. However, he’d been reluctant to walk out the door with it on. Chase had run upstairs to get some Go Go Balls and rolled some in front of him to get him going.
By the time they reached the corner of the park, Quincy was moving along nicely. He loved the Go Go Balls that Inger had invented for him. They were full of tuna and catnip. A few piles of fallen leaves nestled at the curbs for the next street cleaner. The world, in Minneapolis, anyway, was getting ready for winter.
Chase could hear the squeals of children on the playground, climbing and sliding and swinging. Quincy flattened his ears at the sound.