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meant it to come out cool and removed. Instead, I just sounded petulant, like a three-year-old tel ing her parents that she wasn’t ready to get off the merry-go-round.
    “Addie, please. ” More tears dripped down her cheeks. “Don’t be so hard.”
    “Oh, please,” I muttered…and that was as far as I got. You broke my heart were the words that had risen to my mouth, but I couldn’t say them. That was what you said to a boyfriend, a lover, not your best friend. She’d laugh. And I’d had enough of being laughed at. I’d worked hard to get to a place where it didn’t happen anymore, where I didn’t move through life like a walking target, where it was just me and my paints and brushes and my big empty bed every night.
    “You weren’t a good friend,” I said instead.
    “I know,” she whispered. “I wasn’t. You’re right. But Addie…” She looked at me, brushing tears from her cheeks, widening her eyes and aiming the ful force of her beauty and vulnerab-ility at me like a floodlight or a tractor beam, a thing you couldn’t ignore and couldn’t resist.
    “I’m in trouble. Please. ”
    I didn’t say anything, but when I sat back down at the kitchen table, Valerie’s face lit up.
    “You’l help me?”
    “Tel me what happened.”
    She lifted herself back onto the counter.
    “It’s a long story.”
    “How about the abridged version?” I let her see me glance at the clock above the stove. “I have to work tomorrow.” This was true. There was no point tel ing Valerie that I worked at home, so it wasn’t as if I had to punch a clock at nine in the morning. Painting greeting cards wasn’t saving lives, although I liked to tel myself that I was making people’s lives better in some tiny, transient way, bringing beauty and joy for less than three dol ars a pop. My current project was a painting of a bouquet of flowers, yel ow daffodils with one bril iant orangey-red tulip popping up from the center. You’re the best of the bunch, the card would say inside.
    Valerie wiped delicately beneath each eye with a fingertip sheathed in the dishtowel she’d grabbed.
    “Dan Swansea,” I prompted.
    She
    drew
    a
    watery,
    wavering
    breath.
    “Wel .
    You knew about the reunion, right?”
    “I knew.” For the past nine months, a steady stream of postcards in school colors had in-vaded my mailbox, addressed to Adelaide Downs ’92, inviting me to dinner and dancing at the Lakeview Country Club, the same place that had hosted the class’s senior prom, which, needless to say, I hadn’t senior prom, which, needless to say, I hadn’t attended. Bring pictures!
    the postcards had urged. Send news! I’d pitched them al , not even bothering with the recycling bin, not wanting those red-and-cream rectangles hanging around where I could see them.
    “Dan was there…” She started rubbing at her dress again.
    “And?” My voice was calm.
    “AndIthinkImayhavekil edhim.”
    I sat up straight in my chair. “What?”
    She gave a shuddering sigh. “Kil ed him. I think maybe I kil ed him. Maybe. I’m not sure.
    ”
    My mouth fel open. “You kil ed Dan Swansea?”
    “Wel , somebody should have!” Val hopped off the counter and started pacing, eyes blazing, high heels banging against the floor.
    “Valerie…” I got to my feet, meaning to grab her by her shoulders, but she pushed past me. “Valerie.”
    She turned and stared as if just remembering I was there. I took her hand and tugged her down into one of the chairs at the kitchen table. There was the sugar bowl, my teacup and spoon, her glass and the bottle of vodka, everything just as it had been, everything the same.
    I wil ed myself to be stil , praying for my voice to be calm. If I wasn’t panicking, she wouldn’t panic, and she’d give me the whole story, a story that would make sense and have a beginning and an end and would not involve a corpse.
    “Tel me what happened. Start at the beginning, okay?” Another breath. “Start with Dan.”
    She