Free The Man She Left Behind by Janice Carter

to the keeper pile. Sometime she’d go through the box more carefully. Perhaps Sam or even Jamie would like the pictures of Jen. She checked the time, realizing she only had enough to take a quick shower before walking into the village for lunch.
    When she pushed open Howard’s glass door, noting the new “sports bar” look, Leigh took a few seconds to adjust to the darkness. Then she heard someone call her name and saw Trish waving from a large corner table, around which sat four other women, including Mary Ann Burnett. Damn. Leigh pasted a smile on her face and walked toward them.
    “I hope you don’t mind,” Trish explained, “but I thought it would be wonderful for you to see some of your old gang. Mind you, it was pretty hard rounding everyone up.”
    I bet. Lunch with Leigh Randall? Gosh, sorry, but I’m terribly busy.
    The faces were familiar, but none of the women had been close friends. Leigh nodded politely as Trish refreshed her memory, introducing the other women and ending with Mary Ann.
    “’Course you two have already met up. Mary Ann was just telling us about the article. It’ll be in the paper Friday!” Trish beamed.
    “I have to talk to you before I send it off. About that last question.” Mary Ann narrowed her eyes at Leigh. “You know the one I mean?”
    How has your life changed since prom night? Leigh was damned if she was going to try to answer that now. She sat down and fiddled with her purse before hanging it over her chair. “Sure,” she finally said. “Give me your number and I’ll call you.”
    The expression on Mary Ann’s face registered dissatis-faction with that arrangement, but fortunately she didn’t press the point.
    Leigh glanced around the table. All faces were set intently on hers. They seemed friendly, she thought, although more curious than kind. At first, in the dim light of the restaurant, she’d been unable to attach names to them, but now she began to recall the grades they’d been in and their relationships to other students in her own class. Trish had graduated almost five years before any of them and so had known them all as youngsters. Mary Ann had been in Spence’s class along with another of the women—Fran?—and the two others were sisters, one the same age as Leigh and one a couple of years younger.
    When Leigh smiled, they broke into a buzz of questions about New York and her career in banking.
    “You always were smart at math,” one said. “Gee, I don’t even know what an investment banker does.”
    “You spend other people’s money,” Leigh replied. “It’s quite easy and very pleasant.”
    They all laughed. By the time the waiter had taken orders, the tension had eased enough for Leigh to feel comfortable. The women brought Leigh up-to-date on life in the village—who’d married, who’d left and who’d stayed behind. As she’d expected, most of her peers had left Ocracoke after college and returned periodically to vacation or visit family. They told her about the local environmentalists who were fighting to keep the island from erosion, groups who wanted to promote tourism and others who wanted to keep life in the fishing village as simple as it had always been.
    “The place has already changed enormously,” Leigh said. “I couldn’t believe the number of motels and guest houses.”
    “But there’s still no Laundromat,” one of the women put in.
    The others laughed. “Who cares?” someone asked.
    “Right, you are. We can always use wash buckets and cistern water,” Trish said. “If it was good enough for our mothers—”
    “Oh, please,” Fran moaned, “spare me the islandpioneer bit.”
    “At least the lighthouse is still functioning,” Leigh observed. “It was good to see a familiar landmark that hadn’t been altered.”
    “Yes, and it still manages to save people, too. Imagine all the shipwrecks and drownings this island has witnessed,” one of the sisters murmured.
    For a moment Leigh was oblivious to the