Melissa is sitting at the kitchen table with the original yearbook and a pen and paper. PJ is asleep at her feet. Henry and Christopher are at cricket practice and Tessa is somewhere in the house. The children are adjusting to the fact that she has been living here. PJ has helped enormously.
‘You like it here, don’t you?’ Melissa murmurs, leaning down to give him a pat. ‘It’s much more exciting than my boring apartment.’
She has been back to the apartment only once, to collect more clothes. The police phoned the morning after the break-in: they’d found some slight damage to the front-door lock, dents on the pins consistent with the use of a ‘bump’ key. Melissa – after a quick, extremely alarming google on the mechanics of bump keys – immediately organised for a locksmith to install a more sophisticated high-security lock. The security footage hasn’t yielded anything definitive from the traffic in and out of the building. Each resident has to be identified before being eliminated: not a quick process.
Henry accompanied Melissa when she went back to get her clothes but she still felt on edge. Would the sense of violation ever go away?
‘I don’t know if I’ll ever feel safe in here again,’ she said sadly.
Henry gave her a hug and then went to examine the shiny new lock while she gathered her things.
‘Can you get that box down for me?’ she asked, pointing to the top shelf of the linen cupboard.
Henry needed a chair to reach it. It came down in a billow of dust that made him sneeze.
‘What’s in it?’
‘Some mementos from school.’
Melissa wasn’t after the old school photographs or award certificates. The yearbook was what she wanted.
‘Come on. Let’s get out of here.’
Now, the yearbook is open next to her on the table. She’s concentrating on the teachers, many of whom are profiled towards the rear of the book. Mr Collins, from the science faculty, who was mocked mercilessly because of his nervous tics. Mrs Romford, with her masculine voice and physique, who – quite incongruously – taught drama and dance. Miss Hicks, Year Adviser with a hatred of chewing gum and a single-minded mission to eradicate it from the schoolyard. At the top of the pecking order was Mr Rowland, the rigid humourless school principal. Did any of the teachers have a grudge, an axe to grind? Where are they today? Retired? Travelling? Perhaps still doing some casual teaching or tutoring?
‘What’s that?’ It’s Tessa. She has come looking for PJ and found him curled up at Melissa’s feet.
‘It’s my yearbook. All the way back in 2000. Ancient history.’
‘Can I see your page?’
‘Sure.’
It’s not only the kids who’ve made adjustments. Melissa has learned to pause what she’s doing when they appear, to give them her time – it’s never for very long – and attention. If they don’t converse with her of their own accord, she lures them with an offering of food, or funny stories about PJ. Now she flicks to her page in the yearbook and Tessa leans over her shoulder. Her eyes with their spiky mascara scan the photograph and then the accompanying text.
‘You’ll be remembered for being smart and a bit too serious? And your best memory of high school was awards night? Really?’
Melissa laughs. ‘I was a bit full of myself, wasn’t I?’
‘Just a bit,’ she agrees drily. Then her eyes turn back to the photograph. ‘You were pretty.’
Melissa tries not to be offended by her use of the past tense. She shows her Annabel’s page. ‘She was the prettiest. She was school captain, too.’
Tessa picks up PJ and hugs him close, like a baby. She seems in no rush to leave.
‘Who was the best-looking boy?’
Melissa laughs again and turns the pages until she gets to Jarrod. ‘I dated him for a few months. But he married Annabel and now they have three children.’
She doesn’t tell Tessa that Jarrod is in hospital, or that his assault may be connected with the reunion. Tessa is aware there was a break-in at the apartment, but that’s the extent of what she knows.
‘Show me your friends,’ she asks, curiosity piqued. ‘Who you hung out with.’
Melissa complies. ‘That’s Zach Latham. Thought he was hilarious and God’s gift to women. Happily married now, though. This is Grace, who was a close friend until I dated Jarrod, at which point I became enemy number one.’ She gives Tessa a stare. ‘Please don’t fall out with your friends over boys. They aren’t worth it. Not ever. Girls need to stick together.’
Tessa rolls her eyes. PJ has woken up and scrambles to get down. Tessa lets him go and begins to turn the pages herself, asking about anyone who catches her eye.
‘Who’s he?’
‘Robbie McGrath. Bit of a sad story. We were awful to him. I wish I had stood up for him at the time.’
‘And him?’
‘David Hooper. Pretty introverted, kept largely to himself. As far as I know, Katy hasn’t been able to track him down. Disappeared into thin air ...’
Tessa seems shocked by this. ‘No one knows where he is?’
‘No one.’
Melissa thoughtfully makes a note in her pad: David Hooper. Does it mean something that Katy has found no trace of him at all? Who were David’s friends at school? Are his memories of the good or bad variety?
PJ has made his way to the door; he wants to go out. Tessa notices at the same time as Melissa and goes to open it. Then she follows him outside, squealing with laughter as he zooms around the garden at full speed.
Melissa smiles and returns her attention to the teachers. She gets her laptop and opens up Google and Facebook. It’s not long before she finds a picture of Mr Collins and his grandchildren, and asks herself if a kindly grandfather would do something like this? Then she sees a grey-haired Mrs Romford photographed on the Inca Trail. Is it possible for someone who’s adventurous and well travelled to be hung up on some grievance in the far-distant past? On Melissa goes, methodically working her way through each name, and by the time she’s done, she’s satisfied in her own mind that it’s not one of the teaching staff.
Without knowing why, she flicks back to Robbie’s page. Looking at the photo, you would never guess. He’s smiling, albeit shyly, because that’s what people do when they’re photographed. Slight curl in his hair, gentle eyes, he’s nice enough looking, although she never noticed it at the time. It doesn’t matter how hard she scrutinises it, the photograph offers no clue about the misery Robbie endured at their hands. Her eyes veer to the text.
Name: Robbie McGrath
What you will be remembered for: Just forget me.
Best memories of high school: None.
Worst memories of high school: Everything.
What will you be doing ten years from now: Living far away from here.
Poor Robbie: his memories of high school contained nothing positive whatsoever. He wanted to get away, and who could blame him? Just forget me. Melissa could never forget him, and she’s sure the same is true for the others. She’ll never be able to eradicate the image of him shuddering on the ground, foaming at the mouth, or the horror and helplessness as she looked on. It’s a confronting thing to see at any age, but especially so for teens, who’re so vulnerable beneath those faux-tough exteriors. Just forget me. Robbie was her first exposure to epilepsy, to malfunction in the human body, to the notion that invincibility was not a guarantee for any of them.
A repressed memory is swimming to the surface. Robbie sitting down next to her in class one day, Melissa promptly standing up and moving to another seat. It wasn’t because of him, but he wasn’t to know that. Annabel was sitting directly behind, and Melissa could not endure a full hour of hatred boring through her shoulder blades. She imagines how Robbie might have perceived the incident. If only she’d taken the trouble to explain to him afterwards.
Another memory. Annabel holding her stomach, gagging.
‘He’s disgusting. I’m going to be sick.’
The smell was unpleasant, but that was no justification for such callousness or theatrics. Melissa will never forget the misery in Robbie’s face as he scrambled to his feet. A few weeks later an explanation materialised for Annabel’s overreaction: she was queasy and highly strung because she was pregnant. Robbie would never have thought to connect the dots, and Annabel would never have thought to apologise.
It’s funny how Zach keeps coming back to Robbie and now Melissa is too. If there is one thing she has learned from all her years in the corporate world, it’s that the answer is often the most obvious one.
Robbie McGrath is the only person between these pages who had a genuine grievance. A reason for hating them all. For wanting revenge.