"Easy." BoomBoom loved showing up Harry, although she told all who would listen that she bore Harry no ill will. After all, she had cavorted with Harry's husband after they separated but were not yet divorced, so, morally Harry was in the right. BoomBoom thought that by recognizing this she'd be absolved of her misdeeds. But small-town memories were long.
"Well?" Susan leaned forward in her seat.
"We shoot the original locations, ask the away people to duplicate their pose in a studio, and we superimpose it on the location photograph. Dennis knows how to do it. Right, Dennis?"
"Right."
"For how much?" Harry asked.
"Seven hundred dollars." BoomBoom smiled broadly, as though she'd scored a coup.
"Mostly that's for gas, chemicals, paper. There's not much in there for me," Dennis quickly added.
"You'd better not take it out of my publicity budget," Harry warned.
"You don't have a publicity budget." BoomBoom dismissed the idea.
"Oh, yes, I do. I worked it out over the weekend and I've made copies for everyone. If you want a bang-up reunion then you've got to cast wide your net." She handed out budget copies as Mrs. Murphy walked into the room, sitting down under the blackboard. "And don't forget, the day after Labor Day weekend I have to send a mailing with details to each class member. That's in the budget, too."
The school, built in 1920 out of fine red brick with a pretty white four-columned main entrance, exuded a coziness that Mrs. Murphy liked. Pewter and Tucker peeped around the doorjamb.
"Are they finished yet?" Pewter had found nothing in the hallway to entice her.
"No," Murphy replied. The other animals came in and sat next to her, watching the humans as humans watch animals in a zoo.
"Harry, we can go over your budget later. We need to nail down this superlative idea first." BoomBoom barely glanced at the paper. BoomBoom herself had been voted Best Looking.
"I think it's a good idea. And I assume you will blow up the original senior superlative photograph and put it next to the new one." Susan nodded.
"Exactly! Won't it be wonderful?"
"Not if you're going bald," Market moaned.
BoomBoom pounced on him. "If you'd take the herbs I drop off for you it would help, and if that doesn't give you results fast enough, then get those hair transplants. They really work."
"You'd look adorable," Dennis teased, "with those plugs in your scalp. Just like cornrows."
"I'll get you for that, Dennis. You know why God made hair? Because not everyone could have a perfect head."
"Three points for Market." Harry chalked up the air.
"Are you going to agree with my plan or not?" BoomBoom folded her hands, staring at Harry.
"Yes. There, bet that surprised you, didn't it?"
"Kinda." BoomBoom sighed with relief. "Dennis, when can you start?"
"The sooner the better. How about this week?"
"Fine," everyone said in unison. They wanted to go home. The weather was good and everyone had things to do.
"Let's go." Pewter shook herself.
"Not yet," Tucker sighed as BoomBoom plucked another paper off her pile.
"We still don't have a ball chairman. So many of us live in the centralVirginia area-you'd think someone would volun-teer."
"People are overcommitted," said Susan, a shining example.
"If I can't buttonhole someone soon, we'll have to do it," BoomBoom announced.
"No, we won't." Harry put her foot down.
"BoomBoom plucks Mom's last nerve. Beyond that, what is it about people sitting in a meeting? Everything takes three times as long. Big fat waste of time," Murphy commented.
"Passing opinions is like passing gas. They can't help it," Pewter giggled.
"Harry, are you still our liaison person with Mrs. Hogendobber so we don't have any conflicts with their reunion?" BoomBoom ignored Harry's small rebellion.
"Liaison person? I see her five or six days out of the week."
"Thought I'd ask."
"BoomBoom, what's your idea for the decorating committee?" Susan had visions of a bare auditorium save for the senior superlative photographs.
"Marcy Wiggins and Bitsy Valenzuela have volunteered to help us if we help organize the Cancer Ball fund-raiser in December. I think Charlie Ashcraft will head the committee."
"You can't be serious," Harry blurted out. "Charlie is such a womanizer."
"He's all we've got. Plus"-BoomBoom lowered her voice conspiratorially-"he's already putting the moves on Marcy."
"I hope you've warned her." Susan frowned.
"She's a big girl." BoomBoom tidied the few papers on her desk.
"Boom, he's one of the handsomest men God ever put on earth and utterly irresponsible. His idea of going slow is to ask a woman to bed after being introduced to her instead of before. Come on." Harry leaned forward.
"She's married." Market waved off the subject, feeling Marcy's wedding ring offered protection-sort of like garlic against a vampire.
"Unhappily," BoomBoom demurred.
Dennis finally spoke. "Remember Raylene Ramsey and Meredith McLaughlin getting into a fight over Charlie at our fifteenth reunion?"
"I thought they'd kill one another." Market checked his watch.
"I'd rather hoped they'd kill Charlie," Harry laughed.
"I never could see what you girls saw in him." Dennis laughed, too.
"Don't look at me. I think he's an asshole." Harry held up her hands.
BoomBoom, having seduced Charlie in their youth, or vice versa, kept silent on this.
Susan jumped in. "I don't mind that he had sex with both of them at our fifteenth. I do mind, however, that he saw fit to do it in the pool at the Holiday Inn. Just because it was three in the morning didn't mean we weren't awake." Susan shook her head in disgust.
"Back to the subject. Charlie as head of decorating?" BoomBoom tapped the desk with her pencil. "And Marcy Wiggins and Bitsy Valenzuela," she added.
"But they didn't go to high school with us," Market protested.
"Who cares, Market? We need workers. Chris was a big help at our meeting at my house." Harry punched him lightly. "Anyway, they married into our class. That counts for something."
"Chris says maybe she'll meet some men. It's hard for new people to fit in. We were born here. We never think about breaking into a new place," BoomBoom replied.
"Did she really say she wanted to meet men?" Market whispered.
"Yes," Harry whispered back.
"She's not half bad," Dennis whispered as he overheard them. This earned him a stern glare from Market.
"Are we okay on Charlie then?" BoomBoom pressed on.
The others looked at one another, then reluctantly raised their hands in agreement since no one could think of a substitute.
"One last item of business before we adjourn." BoomBoom couldn't help but notice how fidgety her classmates had become. "I received a bordered letter, run off at Kinko's or KopyKat, I think. Anyway, it said, 'You'll never get old.' Harry, did you send that out?"
"Why me?" Harry was surprised.
"You're the postmistress. I thought you might be playing a practical joke on us."
"No. It wasn't me."
BoomBoom looked from one to the other as each one shook his or her head. "Well, I think it's in bad taste."
"Boom, what are you talking about?" Susan asked.
"Yeah," Market and Dennis said.
"'You'll never get old.' I should think it would be obvious. We'll never get old if we're dead. Here I am trying to create the best reunion ever and someone is sending out a sick joke."
"I didn't take it that way." Susan frowned since she didn't like BoomBoom's interpretation.
On that note the meeting broke up.
"It is odd," Mrs. Murphy mused to no one in particular.
6
"Are you really going to buy a truck?" Fair Haristeen asked his ex-wife as he picked up his mail the next morning.