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building, girls on the other, with a big auditorium in the middle to keep us separated. The brothers taught the boys and the nuns taught the girls, with a sprinkling of lay teachers thrown in for local color.”
    “Remember Mr. Albert?” Mary Lou asked the group. Then to me, “He taught algebra and geometry to both sides, but he was so shy, he could never look us in the eye. He’d explain theorems while he looked out the window or stared at his shoes. Poor man. Paula Peavey mouthed off to him continually, but he was too embarrassed to punish her. The boys were always playing practical jokes on him, like sticking imbecilic signs on his suit coat or gluing his desk drawers shut. Pete Finnegan thought he was smarter than Mr. Albert, so he never missed a chance to argue with him over the simplest math problems. We made a nervous wreck out of the poor guy. We antagonized him so much, I honestly think he grew afraid of us.”
    “He never threw chalk at me,” said Chip, “so I liked him.”
    I frowned. “Why would he throw chalk at you?”
    “The brothers always fired chalk across the room at us if we gave them wrong answers,” said Mike. “And they nailed us every time. The Xaverian brothers had exceptional throwing arms. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few of them left the brotherhood for more lucrative careers in the major leagues.”
    The heavyset woman beside Mary Lou sighed. “Just think. They’re probably all dead by now. That’s a little depressing.”
    “On the other hand,” Mike announced in a booming voice, “the rest of us are very much alive, so let’s celebrate that.” He gestured toward me. “By the way, this lovely young woman is Emily.”
    I waved a quick hello.
    Mike continued with enthusiasm. “Would you believe, Emily, that not only were we the brightest class to walk the hallowed halls of Francis Xavier High, we were apparently the healthiest and least accident prone? Not one person in our graduating class has died.”
    Chip cranked his mouth to the side and gave his jaw a thoughtful scratch. “Well, that’s not exactly true. What about Bob Guerrette?”
    Smiles stiffened. Limbs froze. Exuberance dissolved into sudden silence.
    “He never graduated,” said the lady with the pageboy picture, “Remember? So he really shouldn’t be included.”
    “Why didn’t he graduate?” I asked.
    “He died,” Mike admitted uncomfortably.
    “We assume he died,” corrected Chip.
    “Everyone assumes he died,” said Mike, “but I wish we knew for sure. It’s tough not knowing. Every time the evening news airs a story about a backcountry hiker in Maine tripping over a decomposed body in the woods, I always wonder if it could be Bobby’s remains.”
    Chip shook his head. “Poor bastard. I’ve often thought about how much he missed in life—marriage, kids, Super Bowl I—”
    “Vietnam,” said Mike.
    “Colonoscopies,” added Chip.
    “Has anyone seen my husband?” asked the lady with the tight perm as she surveyed the near-empty parking lot.
    “What does he look like?” asked Mike.
    “He has hair. Does that narrow it down enough for you?”
    The sound of screeching tires and blaring horns suddenly filled the air. I fired a glance toward the main street, my heart stopping in my chest as I replayed an image of Nana sprinting in front of Bernice to be first out of the parking lot.
    “What do you suppose all that ruckus is about?” asked Mary Lou.
    Shouts. Echoing cries of distress. A cacophony of car horns.
    “S’cuse me.” Overwhelmed by a surge of panic, I raced toward the street as if I were wearing tennis shoes instead of leather ankle boots with four-inch heels. Traffic had slowed to a standstill.
Drivers were stepping out of their cars and rubbernecking to identify the cause of the holdup. Turning the corner, I saw an ever-widening circle of pedestrians gathered on the sidewalk, their eyes riveted on the street.
    Oh, God .
    What if my guys had been texting each other while they