Free Heart-Shaped Box (Claire Montrose Series) by April Henry Page B

her. Her once long blond hair was cut short now, a feathery cap that suited her small features. They hugged each other stiffly, each unsure of how much pressure to exert.
    Nina broke their awkward clinch. “So what are you doing with yourself these days, Claire? And when did you get married?”
    “ Mostly volunteer work,” Claire said, thinking of Rainy, the seven-year-old girl she was slowly and painfully trying to teach to read this summer, despite the distractions of television and a never-ending series of new “dads.” “And Dante and I aren’t married.”
    “ Dante? That’s a fancy name. Is he foreign?”
    “ Born and bred in New York City.” She could tell by Nina’s expression that this was tantamount to being foreign-born. “What about you? What are you doing now?”
“I sell real estate part time, but mostly I watch after my grandkids. They’re the only good thing that came out of my marriage to Gene, even if it was indirectly.”
    “ Grandkids?” Claire echoed with a rising sense of horror. She hadn’t given much thought to having children yet, yet here someone she knew for a fact was two months younger than her already had multiple grandchildren.
    Finally it was Claire’s turn for a stall. She sat down just as something rattled in the stall next to her. There was the sound of a loud exhale followed by the hiss of something being sprayed, and then a quick, sucking inhalation. Drugs? Claire wondered, sniffing the air experimentally. But when she and the woman next to her pushed open their stall doors at the same time, Claire saw it was Cindy - slipping a blue asthma inhaler into her purse. The other woman did not even acknowledge Claire’s presence. She just quickly washed her hands and left.

Chapter Six
    The tables of the Hoe-Down Room were littered with crumpled napkins and empty beer bottles glasses, some marked with lipstick. Reunion-goers who had little kids - or those who could simply no longer stay up late - had already gone back to their hotel rooms. About three dozen people remained in the bar, talking quietly while drinking Full Sail Ale under the gaze of glassy-eyed elk, deer, and one moth-eaten buffalo.
    When the scream ripped through the air it froze everyone in place. A woman’s scream, high-pitched, wordless. Then Claire began to realize there were words within the scream, run together into nonsense.
    Belinda Brophy-Muller scrambled through the double doors. Her staring eyes did not see any of the old classmates who gaped at her. And now Claire could make out the two words that ran together in harsh cadence.
    “ She’s dead! She’s dead! She’s dead!”
    Belinda sank to her hands and knees. She was past thinking, past caring what other people thought. As she rocked back and forth, her denim skirt rode up until it was almost as high as her black leather jacket, exposing the uncertain flesh of her thighs and the bottom edge of her flowered cotton panties.
    Some of people in the room jumped to their feet and ran toward her. Others shrank back in their chairs. Claire noted that she and Dante were the kind of people who got to their feet. Tyler had gone home an hour ago, so they had no one to turn to but themselves.
    Jim Prentiss asked the question everyone was afraid to. “Who’s dead, Belinda? Where?”
    “ She!” The words were a bark. Belinda sat back on her heels. She put her hands to her throat and began to stutter. “She, she, she, she...”
    Dante cut through the knot of people around Belinda and knelt in front of her. He put his finger under her plump chin and lifted her head so that she was forced to look him in the eye. The sight of a stranger’s face seemed to calm her.
    “ I saw you leaving here a few minutes ago, right?” Dante’s voice was calm, unhurried.
Belinda nodded. Her breath came in jerks.
    “ And then ... you went out in the parking lot?”
    She nodded again, more slowly.
    Step by step, he continued to lead. “And then did something happen when you