Scot and Soda by Catriona McPherson

Author:Catriona McPherson [Catriona McPherson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2020-06-26T00:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

I’ve had a life. I mean, I’m married and divorced, I’ve travelled, I’ve solved a murder, I’ve been the target of a mafia vendetta. I’ve lived. But that Saturday afternoon was the first time I’d sat at the bedside of a probable murderer, patting his sister’s hand and pretending I wasn’t pumping her for information.

“Was John overworking?” I said. “Between his sound engineering and his part-time business?”

Becky shook her head, barely listening. She was studying her brother, as if she could will him back into consciousness by the sheer intensity of her gaze. She was mistaken. He was deeply out of it. His breath fogged the plastic mask over his nose and mouth and then cleared it. Fogged it and cleared it. And his eyes were still, glinting in a slit in his eyelids. His feet flopped outwards under the thin blanket and his hands were resting on their backs on top of it, his fingers curled, not a twitch anywhere, even when the little clothes peg pinched him every half minute to measure his blood oxygen.

“Or was it the reunion?” I said. “Did he overdo it?”

“He was a little pink around the eyes on Sunday morning,” said Becky, “but it was his fiftieth reunion.” She reached forward and brushed the shock of sweaty sandy hair back from his brow. “I think his color’s starting to look a little better, don’t you?”

“Perhaps,” I said. In truth between the overhead lights, the greying cotton gown slipping below the tidemark of his golfer’s tan, and the tubes and wires snaking all over him, John Worth couldn’t have looked worse unless someone had given him a black eye.

“It was a different time,” Becky said. “Fifty years ago. We didn’t know any better.” I held my breath. Was she changing her story? About to acknowledge her brother’s shortcomings after all? “Cheerleaders baked cookies for the team, decorated their lockers. We even laundered their uniforms in Domestic Science. Can you believe that?”

“It’s all pretty outlandish to me,” I said. “Or maybe glamorous is a better word. Homecomings and proms and reunions. It’s like something from the movies.”

“Really?” Becky said. “Nothing glamorous about it, if you ask me. Bunch of seniors drinking too much and sleeping in the wrong beds.”

“And when you say seniors …” I said. “Do you mean the high school seniors at the graduation or senior citizens at the reunion?”

She did a little nose laugh. “You’re right,” she said. “Nothing’s changed. They were just the same this year as fifty years ago. Booze, tears, and drama.” She sighed. “It was sweet, in a weird way. All of them together again.”

“All of them?” I said.

“Most of them. There’s one they never get to come back and celebrate. Joan Something. They always hope, but she’s missed forty-nine parties since graduation.” She reached out and took hold of John’s hand, squeezing it. “Crazy not to see people while everyone’s still here. We’ll all be gone soon enough.”

“There’s always one, though, isn’t there?” I said. “It’s a shame, when the committee goes to so much trouble.

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