Free Face Time by Hank Phillippi Ryan

Rats. But I can start with the senior class, that’s always alphabetical.
    If I find something, though, that’s a dilemma. I stop, mid-search, and lean against the shelf. There’s no one here, so there’s no way to check out a book. I’d have to steal it, and although tempting, that’s not the best plan. Then, a brainstorm. I’ll just use my cell phone camera again. I’m a genius.
    I flip through pages of lip-glossed girls with overpermed hair and unfortunate leg warmers. Power chicks with Dynasty shoulder pads. Boys with surfboards, cars, guitars. At the beach, in the bleachers, in the back of a white convertible. I hurry to the K ’s. And there’s Dorinda Keeler.
    “Might I inquire,” says a prim and birdy voice from three feet beneath me, “who you are and what you possibly think you are doing?” It sounds like “enquiah” who you “ah,” but there’s no need to translate her intent. She’s in charge, I’m the interloper. I hope she’s not packing pepper spray or something.
    Still holding the Seagull in one hand, I twist myself around on the ladder. Now I’m looking down at a polka-dot headband, a gray bob and brown sensible-looking shoes. Someone who, with one shake of this already unsteady ladder, might be able to dump me onto the scuffed linoleum. Headband tilts her face up to look at me, inquisitorial.
    “Would you like to get down and leave quietly?” she asks. “Or shall I call security?”
    Tucking the book under one arm, I begin my descent, talking the whole time in the most reassuring tone I can muster. I’m grateful I wore those flats. “I’m Charlie McNally, Channel 3 News?” I take a step more, trying to look right at her and not my feet, so she can see how unthreatening I am. “The building was open, and the library, too. I looked everywhere for someone, I’m so sorry, and when there was no answer, I just—” I wind up with one arm hooked over a ladder rung and one foot on the ground, face of a grown-up but feeling like a teenager nabbed in some after-hours mischief.
    I pause, entreating the journalism gods to play ball. “Do you remember Dorinda Keeler?”
     
     
    A PACK OF LAUGHING TEENAGERS , reef sandals and baggy cutoffs, sweeps into the Red Rock clam shack, their boisterous laughter filling the circular glass-walled restaurant. It smells of fried everything—clams, potatoes, onion rings—plus ketchup and tartar sauce. Out the window, the Atlantic Ocean touches Swampscott Beach on one shore and the white cliffs of Dover on the other. June sun glints on the water, its glare darkening figures walking on the sand into flickering silhouettes. Franklin and I have commandeered a table for six so we can spread out his loot—old newspaper articles and photographs. He even managed to snag Dorinda and Ray’s photo from the wedding section. Her childlike white-gowned figure, veiled and tiny, is tucked under her tuxedoed husband’s shoulder. He’s holding a glass of champagne. She has only a bouquet of white rosebuds. He’s beaming. Her face is obscured by the frothy veil.
    “Here’s one for the psych books,” Franklin says, covering the newlyweds with another page from his black leather folder. He turns the photo toward me, pointing. “This was spray painted on the sidewalk in front of All Saints Church.”
    “Where Dorie was—”
    “Married, right,” Franklin continues. “And it was on her wedding day. Some newspaper photog got a shot of it before the city power-washed it away. See? It says ‘Dorie and CC 4-Evah’. Spelled like that, ‘evah.’ The archives guy, a real walking history book, remembers that Dorinda dumped her devoted boyfriend CC Hardesty for Ray. He figured this paint job was CC’s last cry of unrequited love, like Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate yelling “Elaine,” pounding the glass. But Dorie ‘chose the Sweeney money and power,’ so says Mr. Archives. And apparently that was the end of Dorie and CC.”
    A miniskirted waitress, polo shirt