The Class Menagerie

where are the towels? Oh, I see. I’ll put these away. And give me some of that cleaner stuff!“
    She stomped into the bathroom and Jane could hear her crashing around, although how she did any crashing armed primarily with towels was a mystery in itself.
    Jane dragged the vacuum in from the hall and shoved it around until Pooky came back out. “I’m really sorry,“ Jane repeated. “It must be hard on you, staying here where Ted lived. Somebody told me you dated him.“ She figured this line served the dual purpose of giving Pooky an excuse to be nervy and might also elicit some interesting information.
    She was right on the first. Pooky fell on the justification as if it were a life raft. “It is strange to be here. I really hadn’t thought about Ted much for the last few years and now I keep remembering him all the time. He was really a neat guy. Smart and so good-looking! Captain of the football team and president of the Latin Club. That was a prestigious thing, the Latin Club. I don’t think kids take Latin these days. Just as well. I never did get why anybody’d care about a language you couldn’t talk in. But I bet Ted could have talked it if he wanted to.“
    “Did you date him for a long time?“ Jane asked. She wound up the vacuum cleaner cord.
    “Most of our sophomore year. And part of our junior year. Then Ted—well, we —decided it would be better to date other people, too. It was the right decision. I mean, we were just kids, after all.“ But all these years later the pain was still in her voice. “Then he dated Lila—“ Jane said.
    “Oh, just a couple of times. She was such a cold fish, though. Always criticizing other people. Guys don’t like that, you know. They like a girl who’s cheerful and fun, not somebody who’s always whining and complaining. No, mainly he dated Beth.“
    “Mainly? Did you two still go out together?“
    “Sometimes,“ Pooky hedged. “But I didn’t want Beth to know. It would have hurt her feelings. And I wouldn’t have done that for the world.“
    “You liked Beth?“
    “We were best friends. She had her jobs and her studying and I had my cheerleading. That took a lot of time. But we spent all the time we could together.“ This was so unlikely as to be impossible, but apparently Pooky had convinced herself it was true.
    Pooky picked up the bottle of window cleaner and spritzed it on the mirror. Jane noticed that Pooky managed to clean the mirror without looking into it. She was a brave person, like Crispy said, Jane realized. She found herself thinking, brains aren’t everything .
    “But you must have been awfully upset when Ted killed himself because she broke up with him.“
    Pooky laughed. “Oh, he didn’t kill himself over her.“
    “Then what was it? Why did he do it?“
    Pooky turned, looking troubled. “I don’t know. I never could figure it out. Maybe he just couldn’t stand it that we were all growing up and going away. Or maybe he was just drunk and feeling sorry for himself. Everybody feels sorry for themselves sometimes. I don’t know.“
    “Crispy thinks it might have been an accident, not suicide,“ Jane said, starting to gather up her cleaning equipment. “An accident? But how? Oh, like he didn’t mean to start the car then go back upstairs? I don’t see how. But maybe—that would be wonderful if it was an accident. I mean, not wonderful, but not so bad.“
    “Did you know Crispy well in school?“
    “Not really well. But I liked her, I guess. Well, I was a little jealous of her, I admit. She and Ted were really good friends. Just friends, I mean, he wouldn’t have dated her. She was too fat and sloppy-looking. .She really was a mess. I tried to tell her once if she’d go on a diet and stop biting her nails, I’d help her with her hair and stuff, but she nearly bit my head off. She’s certainly improved. She looks real stylish now. She probably could do better with her hair. That windblown look is real passé, but it’s good with her face shape.“
    Jane smiled to herself. It was such an irony that Pooky, whose appearance was little short of frightening, always came back to people’s looks and fashion sense. Inside herself someplace, she was still the high school knockout. And it was a good thing, probably the only thing that kept her going from one day to the next, one mirror to the next.
    Jane touched Pooky’s thin arm lightly and smiled. “Thanks for helping me. I’ve really enjoyed getting a chance to