“No, I’m a lawyer.”
“I thought you were going to go live in Antarctica and rescue penguins,” Trevor said.
“Yeah, well, sometimes dreams die hard. Turns out I like takeout and hot running water too much.”
“So, nobody’s killing anybody,” Ben said. “That’s from Rick.”
“Fine. Contract’s off,” Trevor said.
“You won’t get in trouble for dropping the contract?” Jesse asked.
“Nice of you to care, but no. I may even be able to throw the client off. Convince them you were never part of the conspiracy and were too stupid to realize what was happening.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“And stay out of Boston.”
“You’ll never see me again,” Jesse said.
I sank to the concrete and sighed. “And that’s what reunions are for, realizing you have so little in common anymore with your high school friends that you’ll probably never see each other again.”
That was when the police cars pulled up, three of them, red and blue lights flashing. No sirens, at least. So probably no one was dying.
“Did you call the police, too?” Trevor pointed accusingly at Ben.
“Hell no,” he said, looking on with interest.
A trio of cops got out and entered the lobby.
“What did we miss?” I said.
Sadie touched my arm. “I’ll go find out.” She ran off, back to the ballroom.
After not too much longer, the cops returned, dragging two men in handcuffs with them. The men were clearly drunk, belligerent, shouting curses at each other, seemingly oblivious to the fact they were in the process of being arrested. One of them had a bleeding cut over his eye, the other a split lip. A pair of women, likely wives, trailed after them, crying, also yelling curses—at their husbands.
“If you’ll excuse me for just a minute,” Ben said, drawing business cards out of his pocket. He made a beeline for the women.
“Oh man, he isn’t just a lawyer, he’s an ambulance-chasing lawyer! I didn’t know that about him!” I exclaimed. I might have wiped a proud little tear from my eye.
“He take good care of you?” Jesse nodded after Ben.
This sounded more like the Jesse I remembered. He’d been kind and fun and . . . directionless, back then. He’d just wanted to get away. I’d gotten mad at him for not being satisfied with being here, with me. I wondered if he’d ever be satisfied with anything.
“Yes,” I said. “He takes good care of me.” “Good.” He smiled.
Sadie ran up then, eyes wide and full of glee. “Drunken brawl! Chris Hancock and Pete Kirkland, hitting on each others’ wives. This is why you don’t marry someone else’s high school sweetheart, amiright? Talk about your Tubthumping.”
“Well, I have to admit, I’m glad I came after all,” Trevor said. “Just to see what it
’s like.”
“And now we never have to do it again,” Jesse said.
Ben returned to join us after distributing business cards, and we all ended up sitting on the sidewalk, leaning against the wall, watching the proceedings. A crowd, the entire reunion it looked like, had spilled onto the sidewalk to gawk. We had a pretty good view.
So, that was the class reunion, one for the books, disintegrating into chaos and it wasn’t even any of our faults.
Ben looked the row of us over and scowled. “This is so John Hughes I kind of want to gag.”