Kirk shakes his head in disbelief. “You’re a totally new person. Wow, is that what ten years outside of this town does to you? Sign my ass up! I need to lose a good fifty!” he cries, and after a laugh, the men descend into unintelligible shouting at each other again, trying to outdo one another’s jabs.
I catch the server’s eye on her next time around the room and ask if I can get my food to go. She gives me a, “Sure thing, honey,” before taking my totally untouched plate (and credit card) and sauntering back to the kitchen to ring me up and fix my to-go box.
“So you going to the thing tonight, then?”
I look up. It’s Kirk who asked. “Thing?”
“Yeah. At the school. Tanner’s got a key to the gymnasium, obviously, since he’s the coach and all, and we’re throwing a mixer before the official reunion tomorrow. Get everyone’s blood goin’. Spiked punch. The whole thing.”
“They aren’t really gonna spike the punch, are they?” butts in Jeremiah. “I mean, it’s still school grounds, and—”
“Well, it ain’t supposed to be spiked, but you know someone’s gonna do it. I mean, this is Spruce. We know how to party.”
“Hah, right. Remember last winter at the Strong’s, when—?”
“That doesn’t even compare to Joel’s birthday and all the—”
My eyes go back and forth between the boys as they try to outdo each other’s stories about how exciting and wild Spruce can be. And the whole time, I just have to sit back and swallow every experience I’ve had in LA at the most salacious, riotous, celebrity-sprinkled parties. Parties that made headlines. Parties that made and ended careers. Speakeasy parties. Underground parties. Some that lasted for literally days. Some held at huge hilltop mansions with infinity pools and ten-thousand-dollar party favors.
These three poor men, they have no idea what crazy shit is out there. This little town of Spruce, Texas is their whole world. Nothing beyond the city limits exists or even crosses their minds.
I once had that blissful, Spruce ignorance.
I once was one of them.
“You’ve gotta come, Lance,” Kirk urges me through the noise of the other two still trying to outdo each other’s stories. “I mean, everyone who matters will be there. You remember Bonnie, right? Wasn’t she in choir with you? You have to come and tell my wife how to dress me. Did I mention the spiked punch?”
The server returns with my filled to-go box, credit card, and receipt. I quickly sign it, add a generous tip that makes her eyes go wonky, then rise from my table and face the men. “I’ll consider it,” I tell them halfheartedly. “This has been great, but I really should get back to my hotel.” I head for the door with my food in hand.
Kirk calls out from the counter, “It’s at ten o’clock. Back door to the gymnasium. You better be there, Goodwin!”
Most of his words make it to my ears.
The rest touch the door as it shuts at my back.
When I’m in my hotel room again, the TV is flicked on and I’m sitting at a creaky table by the window cutting tiny bites of steak (which is surprisingly well-seasoned, juicy, and tender) watching whatever is on.
It isn’t long before my attention is lost, my stomach is full, and my bored eyes drift to the window, staring out at a dusty road and the face of an old pawn shop on the other side of the street.
My leg is bouncing in place.
I pull out my phone and check the time.
Almost nine.
Suddenly I’m in the cramped hotel bathroom fixing my hair in the cracked mirror with mounting aggression.
There is a detail I failed to mention: Owen, one of those three men at the bar counter tonight, was on the wrestling team with Chad Landry back in the day. He was one of his countless buddies.
That meant he was one of the ones behind the torment I went through in high school as well. Owen, one of about eight or nine boys who surrounded Chad, encouraged his behavior, and did nothing to stop him.
Yet there Owen sat at that bar tonight, talking to me like no big deal, like nothing, like I was just anyone else. Talking to me like he wasn’t, even indirectly, an accomplice in perpetuating the most soul-crippling period of my life.
Maybe Owen’s forgotten.
Or maybe it meant little to him at all.
But that’s not why I’m now standing in front of a bathroom mirror furiously styling my tall blond sweep of hair over and over and over again to perfection.
If Owen is going to be there at the mixer tonight, there’s a high chance someone else will be, too.
Chad Landry himself.
And that’s a confrontation I’m not sure I’m prepared to have.
My fingers fumble, and I drop my comb into the sink.