Ellie’s eyes blink to wide. I have had my share of bad breaks in life, I guess. I have no family, no girlfriend, no good prospects, not a lot of friends. But this magnificent person, this woman whose pure goodness is so blindingly obvious in the darkest of nights, is my best friend. Think about that. Ellie chose me for that role—best friend—and that means, no matter how much of a mess I may be, I do some things right.
I tell her everything.
When I get to the part about Maura with the guys in the bar, Ellie’s face crumples. “Ah, Nap.”
“I’m fine with it.”
She gives me the look of skepticism I normally deserve.
“I don’t think she was hooking or picking up men,” I say.
“What, then?”
“Might be worse in some ways.”
“How?”
I shake it off. It makes no sense to speculate until Reynolds gets back to me with the information.
“When we spoke yesterday,” Ellie says, “you knew about Maura’s fingerprints, didn’t you?”
I nod.
“I could hear it in your voice. I mean, one of our old high school friends dying, sure, that’s big, but you sounded . . . anyway, I took a little initiative.” Ellie reaches down into a pocketbook the size of an army duffel and pulls out a large book. “I found something.”
“What is that?”
“Your high school yearbook.”
She drops it on the Formica table.
“You ordered one in the beginning of our senior year, but you never picked it up, for obvious reasons. So I held on to it for you.”
“For fifteen years?” I ask.
Now it’s Ellie’s turn to shrug. “I was head of the yearbook committee.”
“Of course you were.”
High School Ellie was prim and proper and wore sweaters and pearls. She was our class valedictorian, that girl who always whined she was going to fail a test and then she would be first to finish, with a straight A, and spend the rest of class doing her homework. She carried several perfectly sharpened number two pencils at all times, just in case, and her notebook always looked like yours did on the first day of school.
“Why are you giving it to me now?” I ask.
“I need to show you something.”
I notice now that certain pages are marked off with pink Post-it notes.
Ellie licks her finger and flips to a page toward the back. “Did you ever wonder how we handled Leo and Diana?”
“Handled them how?”
“In the yearbook. The committee was divided. Do we just leave their photos in their normal place, in alphabetical order with the class, just like every other graduating senior—or do we pull them out and give them some kind of ‘in memoriam’ in the back?”
I take a sip of water. “You guys really discussed this?”
“You probably don’t remember—we didn’t know each other all that well—but I asked you what you thought.”
“I remember,” I say.
I had snapped at her that I didn’t care, though my language may have been more colorful. Leo was dead. Who gave two shits about how the yearbook handled that?
“In the end, the committee decided to pull them out and create an in memoriam section. The class secretary. . . . Do you remember Cindy Monroe?”
“Yes.”
“She could be kind of anal.”
“You mean an asshole.”
Ellie leans forward. “Isn’t that what anal means? Anyway, Cindy Monroe reminded us that technically speaking, the main listing pages were for graduating seniors.”
“And Leo and Diana died before graduating.”
“Right.”
“Ellie?”
“Yes.”
“Can we get to the point now?”
“Two broken-yolk sandwiches,” Bunny says. She drops the plates in front of us. “Enjoy.”
The smell wafts up, travels through my nostrils, and grabs hold of my stomach. I reach for the sandwich, carefully grab it with both hands, and take a bite. The yolk breaks and starts to seep into the bread.
Ambrosia. Manna. Nectar of the gods. You choose the terminology.
“I don’t want to ruin your breakfast,” she says.
“Ellie.”
“Fine.” She opens the yearbook to a page toward the back.
And there you are, Leo.
You’re wearing my hand-me-down blazer because though we were twins, I was always bigger. I think I bought that jacket in eighth grade. The tie is Dad’s. You were terrible at making a knot. Dad always did it for you, and with a flourish. Someone has tried to slick down your unruly hair, but it just isn’t happening. You’re smiling, Leo, and I can’t help but smile back.
I’m not the first person to lose a sibling prematurely. I’m not the first to lose a twin. Your death was catastrophic, no question, but it wasn’t the end of my life. I recuperated. I was back in school two weeks after “that night.” I even played in a hockey game the following Saturday against Morris Knolls—the distraction was good for me, though maybe I played with too much fury. Got a ten-minute major for nearly putting a kid through the glass. You’d have loved it. Sure, I was a bit morose in school. For a few weeks everyone showered me with attention, but they got over that. When my history grade slipped, I remember Mrs. Freedman kindly but firmly telling me that your death was no excuse. She was right. Life goes on, as it should, though it’s also an outrage. When you have grief, at least you have something. But when grief ebbs away, what’s left? You go on, and I didn’t want to go on.
Augie says that’s why I obsess over the details and won’t accept what is so obvious to others.
I stare at your face. When I speak, my voice is a little funny. “Why are you showing me this?”
“Look at Leo’s lapel.”
Ellie reaches across the table and points with her finger to a small silver pin. I smile again.
“It’s crossed Cs,” I say.
“Crossed Cs?”
I’m still smiling, remembering your dorkiness. “It was called the Conspiracy Club.”
“Westbridge High didn’t have a conspiracy club.”
“Not officially, no. It was supposed to be some kind of secret society kinda thing.”
“So you knew about it?”
“Sure.”
Ellie takes hold of the yearbook. She flips toward a page in the front and spins the book so I can see. It’s my photo now. My posture is ramrod, my smile tight. God, I look like a frigging tool. Ellie points to my empty lapel.
“I wasn’t a member,” I say.
“Who else was?”
“Like I said, it was supposed to be a secret society. No one was supposed to know. It was just this goofball group of like-minded nerds . . .”
My voice trails off as she flips the page again.
It’s Rex Canton’s picture. He’s sporting a crew cut and a gapped-tooth smile. His head is tilted to the side like someone just surprised him.
“So here’s the thing,” Ellie says. “When you mentioned Rex, I looked him up in the yearbook first. And I saw this.”
She points again. Rex has the tiny CC on his lapel.
“Did you know he was a member?”
I shake my head. “But I never asked. Like I said, it was supposed to be their little secret society. I didn’t pay much attention.”
“Do you know any other members?”
“They weren’t supposed to talk about it, but . . .” I meet her eyes. “Is Maura in the yearbook?”
“No. When she transferred, we pulled her picture out. Was she a member . . . ?”
I nod. Maura moved to town toward the end of our junior year. She was a mystery to all of us, this superhot aloof girl who seemed to have no interest in any of the high school conventions. She liked to go to Manhattan on weekends. She backpacked through Europe. She was dark and mysterious and drawn to danger, the kind of girl you figured dated college guys or teachers. We were all too parochial for her. How did you get to be friends with her, Leo? You never told me that. I remember coming home one day, and you two were doing homework at the kitchen table. I couldn’t believe it. You with Maura Wells.
“I, uh, checked Diana’s picture,” Ellie says. There’s a catch in her throat here. Ellie was Diana’s best friend since second grade. That’s how Ellie and I formed a bond too—in grief. I lost you, Leo. She lost Diana. “Diana doesn’t have the pin. I think she would have told me about this club if she was in it.”
“She wouldn’t have been a member,” I say, “unless maybe she joined after she started dating Leo.”
Ellie grabs hold of her sandwich. “Okay, so what’s the Conspiracy Club?”
“You have a few minutes when we’re done with breakfast?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s take a walk then. It might make it easier to explain.”