She motioned to the stool beside her, the one Jack had vacated.
With an eye roll at his seat being usurped, Jack poured Gil a coffee and got the sugar bowl. It looked like something he’d done before. He took the stool on the end and Sara sat beside Kate.
Jack flipped through the yearbook to Cheryl’s class. “There she is!”
Kate and Sara peered in disbelief at the girl he had his finger on. She was quite plain-faced, with frizzy hair and a look of “Woe is Me, the World is an Awful Place.”
“That’s Cheryl?” Kate asked.
“No, of course not.” Jack turned the pages. “Here’s Cheryl.”
All the other photos looked like regular kids with bad hair, but Cheryl Morris was perfect. Hair, makeup, smile, pose. Flawless. Andold. She looked to be in her twenties.
“Wow,” Kate said. “I wish I looked that good now.”
“I like red hair.” Gil didn’t look up from the book.
“Do you? You don’t think it’s too loud? It’s my natural color but I was thinking of putting some blond streaks in it. What do you think?”
“I like it just the way it is.” Gil turned to look at her. They were very close.
“Do you have to flirt witheverymale?” Jack snapped. “Stewart, Flynn and now Gil?”
Before Kate could reply, Sara spoke loudly. “So who’s the first girl you pointed out?”
Jack looked back at the book. “Last night I remembered that one day when I was there Cheryl was washing some girl’s hair. I told Gil and he found her.”
“Ah,” Sara and Kate said in unison.
“Notlike that!” Jack’s teeth were clenched. “Gil, help me out here. These two think only bad of Cheryl.”
“That’s not true,” Sara said. “Her mother, yes, but not Cheryl.”
Jack threw up his hands. “What is with you women? You’d be more forgiving if you found out Verna was an ax murderer. But—”
“I do tend to admire Lizzie Borden,” Kate said.
Jack shot her a look and continued. “But screwing men for money and you act like she’s the devil incarnate.”
“She’s stealing our strength,” Sara said. “She’s giving men what they want so other women can’t use it to threaten them to take out the garbage. Loose women undermine the only real power women have over men.”
Jack started to protest, but then he saw the twinkle in Sara’s eyes. “So this is about garbage?”
Sara looked at Kate, then back. “More or less.”
When Jack laughed, Sara grinned at Kate. Gil turned back to the book and the plain girl. “Elaine Langley. She married Jim Pendal. They moved away and I haven’t seen either of them since high school.”
“I knew his dad,” Sara said. “Very nice family. I guess. They seemed to be.”
Gil turned the pages to show Jim’s photo. He was a handsome young man.
No one said what they were all thinking: that girl and this boy werenota physical match.
“Elaine was real smart,” Gil said into the silence.
“I thinkheis the smart one,” Kate said. “A man who can look past the exterior is brilliant.”
“Then why are you so worried about the color of your hair?” Jack shot back.
