Got Your Number

murmured. "Omigod."
    Oh my God was right. What more torturous exercise to face during an early-life crisis than to be reminded of all the things you'd planned to accomplish at the ripe old age of eighteen? "Let's break open that tequila."

Chapter Eight

    ROXANNE DECIDED tomato juice and tequila was quite possibly the most noxious combination of liquids ever concocted. Thank goodness the pepperoni pizza overrode the taste. "Do you remember what we were doing the night we made our life lists?"
    Angora tucked her legs beneath her on the comforter Indian-style and pulled the T-shirt down over her knees. She was wearing her tiara, and her eyes were already bright from only half a glass of the "tequato" juice. "I was smoking my first and only joint." Angora leaned closer. "I don't suppose you have any marijuana on you right now?"
    Roxann cracked a wry smile. "Uh, no. Sorry to tell you this, Angora, but I grew up. Besides, you were sick for a week after you smoked that joint."
    "I don't remember that."
    A convenient trait of Angora's—selective amnesia to go along with her penchant for embellishing the things she did remember. "I suppose you don't remember where we'd been the night we made our lists?"
    "No."
    Roxann studied her cousin's face, wondering how much of their college experience Angora had managed to block out. Roxann had thought her cousin would be thrilled to be away from Dee, but instead she had suffered from bouts of depression and homesickness, even anxiety attacks. Four torturous years. "We were at a memorial service for that girl who was run down in front of the Science Building."
    Angora bit into her lip. "Tammy Paulen."
    "Right," Roxann said, turning to the senior class where she skimmed the thumbnail black-and-white photos. "Here she is—Tammy Renee Paulen, philosophy major." On the page, Tammy was an attractive blonde with a wide smile, frozen in time in a big shoulder-padded blouse and permed hair. When she'd posed for the picture, Tammy probably couldn't have imagined she wouldn't live to graduate.
    Steeped in melancholy, Roxann leaned against the headboard with a denim pillow at her back. "Tammy was in one of my classes. I remember walking by her empty seat for the rest of the semester. It was so weird. Didn't you know her?"
    "No," Angora said, then took another drink from her glass.
    "It says here she was a member of Delta Zeta." Angora's sorority.
    She shrugged. "I knew who she was, but I didn't know her. Seniors didn't associate with freshmen."
    Angling her head, Roxann said, "I thought you saw her the night she was killed."
    Her cousin pulled back, then lifted her shoulders in a slow shrug. "Maybe. My memory is fuzzy."
    Roxann turned back to the girl's photo, wondering what Tammy Renee Paulen would have done with her life if she'd been given the chance. Something better than separating dysfunctional families? "They never found out who did it, did they?"
    "A couple of students were questioned...I think."
    "The memorial service was so sad."
    "Her mother wore a green suit," Angora said, nodding.
    More details crowded Roxann's mind, too. Red-eyed students. Skittish university officials. Frightened gossip. Angora's ashen face...
    Angora had been especially upset when someone had whispered that Tammy's injuries prevented an open-casket viewing. So upset, in fact, that they had left the service early. Back in their dorm room, Roxann had offered Angora a hit from a joint to help her calm down. The scene came flooding back so strongly, Roxann's nostrils twitched. "We were smoking and started talking about what we wanted to do with the rest of our lives," she recalled.
    "And you suggested we make a list." Angora smiled, seemingly relieved at the change in subject.
    Roxann closed the annual, contrite for mentioning the troubling incident—she was supposed to be cheering up her just-jilted cousin.
    Angora rifled through the sheets of paper lying on the bed between them. "But why do you have both lists?"
    "I found them after you moved out."
    "Oh, right. Mother was sure you were corrupting me."
    "I was."
    Angora leaned in. "I have to ask—how was the Figure Eight?"
    "Huh?"
    "The Figure Eight. You know— The Joy of Sex and that long-haired poet?"
    Roxann smiled. "Oh, yeah. I don't remember that position specifically, although I did have a soft spot for the Modified Spoon."
    Angora sighed dramatically. "God, I was so bored after I moved into the DZ house."
    The dizzy house, as it was known on campus. "You