Free Time Flies by Claire Cook

say, I’m on the committee. His profile is a ten, too, or at least a nine-point-five. Divides his time between Malibu and Chicago, or maybe it was Maui and Cleveland.”
    “Ha,” I said. “And he has a private plane. And he invented a daily vitamin that reverses gray hair.”
    “No, no,” B.J. said. “Actually it not only gets rid of the gray, it turns your hair any color you want it to be.”
    “Cool. Like Flintstones for grown-ups. You just pick a vitamin and, presto, ten minutes later your hair turns Wilma White or Frosted Fred.”
    “Or Bamm-Bamm Blue or Pebbles Pink. And it’s time-released, so it lasts all day and most of the night.”
    “All day and most of the night,” we both sang.
    “Jinx,” we both said.
    “I think we may have botched the lyrics,” B.J. said. “But who was that anyway?”
    “The Kinks, I think. I used to love that line about believing that you and me will last forever. Ha.”
    B.J. laughed. “You and me will last forever—it’s the rest of the stupid world we have to be concerned about.”
    “This is true.” I closed my eyes to picture the metal sculpture—a big steel vitamin bottle with Flintstone-like figures climbing out and spilling over the sides. Maybe for a playgroundor a children’s museum, although it would have to be installed out of climbing range to protect it, and possibly sandwiched between big sheets of Plexiglas.
    Or maybe Finn Miller would commission me to make it for his Maui estate.
    “Okay, let’s get your flights booked,” B.J. said. “And, for the record, I still think there’s something you’re not telling me. Oh, and don’t forget to call your sister and let her know you’ll be in Marshbury. She’ll kill you if someone else tells her first.”
    I pulled myself away from my email screen and found the Delta site. B.J. already had it up at her end, and in no time we’d figured out the best flights and I’d punched in my credit card number.
    Delta took me to another screen and gave me one last chance to bail. I hesitated, then shut my eyes and pushed CONFIRM RESERVATION .
    “Done?” B.J. asked.
    “Done. And thank you. I think.” It took me every ounce of willpower I had not to add, So, guess what? Finn Miller emailed me. And we’ve been, well, emailing .
    I loved B.J., but she wasn’t exactly subtle and she did have a slight tendency to take things over. One mention of Finn Miller and she’d probably be planning the wedding. Or at least booking us the honeymoon suite.
    We weren’t in high school anymore, and I didn’t have to tell my best friend everything. Finn Miller was my delicious secret.

CHAPTER 11
To: Finn Miller
From: Melanie
Subject: Reunion
I’m in! Flights booked and everything. So that means now you HAVE to go. What song do you think will be playing when we finally see each other again after all these years?

To: Melanie
From: B.J.
Subject: 5 Reunion Do’s
1.  Do move beyond once a loser, always a loser. The dorks are the ones who have it all going on now. The popular kids peaked in high school.
2. As opposed to “OMG, OMG, OMG! You look SO much better than you did in high school,” do go with a simple “You look great.”
3.  Do step out of your comfort zone and be the first one to say hello and start the conversation.
4.  Do bury the hatchet. No matter how horribly you were dissed by a classmate all those years ago, you will look a lot better if you at least appear to let it go.
5.  Do make sure you reserve plenty of time for a catty après-reunion postmortem with your real friends to balance out all this good behavior.
P.S. Call me.

    B.J. answered on the first ring. “All I wanna do,” she sang.
    “Is have more fun,” I sang back.
    B.J. sighed. “Bummer, we still can’t sing. Or remember lyrics. I hate that.”
    “Oh, well,” I said. “If the music is loud enough, we can fake it. Remember when we used to think Queen was singing ‘another one likes to dust’?”
    B.J. sighed again.
    “What’s