Rumor Has It

“Did you keep a journal in high school?” Berk asked.

Taylor smiled. “Yes, I did. My family moved to Cedar Creek from California my senior year and, as you can imagine, it was quite an adjustment. Writing in my journal really helped me.”

“Do you still have your journal?” Jessica asked.

Taylor laughed. “It’s probably somewhere in a trunk. I haven’t looked at it in years. But that’s one of the things about journals—the main benefit comes in the writing, not so much the reading later.”

Jessica pursed her lips in a pout. “Then why do you have to read it?”

“All I care about reading are the assignments. Anything else you write is your business.”

“I’m going to keep my journal forever,” the class brain, Patrice Miller, announced. “Then when I’m older, I’ll dig it out and write a bestselling novel about high school angst.”

Uh-huh, Taylor thought. As if anyone would want to relive high school.

DYLAN GATES STOOD on the sidewalk across from the Bee County Courthouse and felt the tension in his shoulders ease for the first time in months. He slipped off his jacket and loosened his tie, relishing the feel of the still-hot September sun on his back. Next summer he’d be moaning about the Texas heat along with everybody else, but right now he was glad to be home.

“Hey, Dylan. Sorry to keep you waiting.” Real-estate agent Troy Sommers crossed the street from the courthouse, his hand already extended in greeting. “It’s good to have you back in town, man,” he said, shaking Dylan’s hand.

“It’s good to be back.” Dylan grinned at the man who had played tight end to his quarterback for the 1993 District Champion Cedar Creek Cyclones. “I’m anxious to see this office you’ve picked out for me.”

“Oh, you’ll like it.” Troy dug a ring of keys out of his pocket and motioned down the sidewalk. “It used to be Pokey’s Barber Shop, remember? Dale Hanson turned it into an office a few years ago and it came up vacant about the time you got in touch with me, when Debra Nixon moved over to that new complex by the library.”

Dylan laughed. “It’s amazing to think that even though I’ve been away ten years, I know every one of the names you mentioned.”

“Plenty has changed since you left, I promise.” They reached the glass-fronted office door and Troy unlocked it. “So how was Los Angeles?”

“Crowded. Stressful. Impersonal.” Dylan followed him into the darkened office. “Lots of people love it, but I guess I’m not cut out for the big city. I wanted to come back to a place where I can be really involved in a community again.”

Troy flipped a switch and flooded the room with light. “You can be involved here, all right. If you don’t watch it, you’ll be signed up for every committee and club in the book.” He moved down a short hallway. “Bathroom’s down here and a Pullman kitchen. Private office back here.”

Dylan followed him to the room at the back. Sunlight streamed through two windows onto scuffed wooden floors and a massive oak desk. “Don’t see how they ever got that big thing in here.” Troy shook his head at the desk. “But it comes with the place if you want it.”

Dylan ran his hand along the edge of the desk. His father had had one like this. Dylan had spent hours playing under the kneehole, reading adventure stories by flashlight and munching peanut-butter crackers while his father worked above him. Texas Ranger Sam Gates was already a local legend by then, but to Dylan he was just his father who was equally at home with a gun and a typewriter.

He supposed his youngest sister had the desk now. She’d agreed to take most of the furniture when his parents’ estate had been settled. “I’ll take it,” he said.

“Good deal.” Troy rubbed his hands together. “We can go over to my office and finish up the paperwork now.”

As they walked around the courthouse square to Troy’s office, Dylan looked for familiar names among the businesses they passed. The Courthouse Café still advertised a daily lunch special, but the office supply, florist and dry cleaner were all new. “I guess things have changed,” he said.

“Yeah, but there’s still a lot of us old-timers around.” Troy glanced at him. “You seen Taylor yet?”

“Taylor?” He stopped. “Taylor Reed? Did she come in for the reunion?” That surprised him. After the hell they’d put her through, he hadn’t thought Taylor would ever want to see any of them again.

They started out walking again. “No, she lives here. Teaches over at Cedar Creek High.” Troy grinned. “She’s still a hot number, I tell you.” He glanced at Dylan. “You two were quite an item, weren’t you? Is it true you almost got arrested for making out up on Inspiration Point?”

Dylan frowned. “That never happened.”

Troy laughed. “If you say so. But that was a long time ago. You don’t have to worry about protecting her reputation now.”

He only wished he’d done a better job of protecting it then. Taylor Reed. He’d thought of her a lot over the years. When she’d moved to town, all the way from Los Angeles, California, you’d have thought a movie star had descended into their midst. Taylor was at least as pretty as any movie actress and every bit as exotic with her fashionable clothes and big-city attitude. But underneath all that polish had been a really sweet girl. Someone he’d considered one of his best friends.

Then all those rumors had sprung up and he’d started avoiding her, thinking that would put a stop to the talk. But all it did was isolate her further. She’d been his friend and he’d let her down. Even ten years later, the guilt made a knot in his stomach.

What would have happened if he’d stood by Taylor? If he’d told her how he’d really felt about her—how much he’d wanted to make the rumors about them true? Would they still be together now or would they have both moved on to other relationships?

“We had some wild times in high school, didn’t we?” Troy said. “Sometimes I regret not being able to live that way again.”

“Yeah. I know what you mean.” Too bad you couldn’t go back in time and do things over. Only this time, he’d do the right thing. This time, he wouldn’t run out on Taylor. He’d let her know he really cared about her. Enough to stick with her, the opinions of others be damned.

TAYLOR ARRIVED HOME a little before six and headed straight to the refrigerator for a glass of iced tea. Summer was hanging on into September and the air conditioner in her car was on the blink again. She drained half the glass, then sagged onto a bar stool at the counter. Why did some days seem so much longer than others?

She glanced at the stack of mail on the end of the bar and spotted the invitation to the Cedar Creek Senior High School Class of ’93 Reunion. She picked up the engraved card and studied it. Should she go, or not?

If she didn’t show up, Alyson and the others would be sure to talk about her. But if she attended, wouldn’t all those painful memories resurface like some nasty, long-dormant rash?

Frowning, she laid the invitation aside. Coming to a small town her senior year, to a class full of students who’d been together since grade school, had been bad enough. The fact that she’d moved from the exotic land of Los Angeles to the dusty isolation of South Texas had made things ten times worse.

Then all those rumors had started about her and Dylan Gates.

Dylan. She smiled, remembering. The moment she’d laid eyes on him, she’d been as infatuated as any other girl. He was the school quarterback and the salutatorian, cowboy-handsome in a way that made California surfers seem like pretty boys. He had thick brown hair, eyes that were almost black and a smile that made everyone like him instantly.

What did he look like now? she wondered. Had those boyish good looks matured to true handsomeness? How ironic that he was moving back to town now, when she’d be leaving in a few months. Several times over the years she’d been tempted to try to contact him, but had pushed the thought aside. After all, Dylan was only a high school crush. He probably wouldn’t even remember her and the brief time they’d been friends.

Her smile faded. If he did remember, would it be the good times they’d shared or the bad things everyone had said later?

She pushed aside the memories and opened her briefcase, intending to grade papers. The folder containing the students’ journal entries lay on top. If anything could take her mind off herself, these would do it. Despite her permission to keep personal things to themselves, her students seemed eager to pour their hearts out onto the page. She felt privileged to read their secret desires and troubles and was often amused by the minor things they took so seriously.

But that was life as a teenager, wasn’t it? You were the center of your own universe and everything that happened to you was new and painfully important.

If she found and reread her own journal, it would no doubt be filled with as many petty worries and moments of high drama. She pushed aside the stack of student papers, distracted by the thought. Had she made too much of the events of her senior year? Had what happened back then been no big deal after all?

She stood and carried her empty tea glass to the sink. There was only one way to find out. Unable any longer to avoid the idea that had nagged at her mind all day, Taylor went into the hall and pulled down the stairs that led to the attic.

Her old footlocker sat under the eaves beneath a layer of dust. She opened it and carefully lifted out a stack of yellowed college dance programs, followed by a shoe box filled with withered corsages, the peppery smell of carnations rising up when she slipped off the lid. Next came the thick, bound volume of the school annual. The Cedar Sage. Beneath, wrapped in brown paper, she found the blue leather diary her grandmother had given her the day the family had left California for Texas. “Write all your problems in here,” Grandma had told her. “Then maybe they won’t seem so bad.”

She ran her fingers over the diary, tracing the gold-toned metal heart that served as a lock. Who knew where the key was now; surely she could find a way to open the book. She lay the diary on top of the annual and replaced everything else in the trunk. Then she carried the two books down to the kitchen.

She poured another glass of tea and looked at the books laid out on the bar, reluctant to open them. Thank God no one was here to see her being so silly. Finally she took a deep breath and opened the annual. The plastic cover was stiff with age and the first grouping of pictures, of the freshman class, made her laugh. Had they really worn such awful hairstyles back then?

Quickly she flipped to the back of the book, to the section devoted to the seniors. She found her picture: a pretty young girl with short dark hair who smiled shyly at the camera. Beneath her name were the words “Voted girl most likely to…”

She frowned. Mark Wilson, the yearbook editor, had put that in after she’d refused to go out with him. She closed the book. Maybe digging up all this old stuff wasn’t such a good idea, after all.

But the diary beckoned her. In the bright light, the cover looked scuffed and faded. Harmless. Why not revisit her seventeen-year-old self in those pages? It might be good for a laugh.

She found a pair of kitchen shears in a drawer and sliced through the leather flap that held the book closed. Carrying the diary into the living room, she settled herself at one end of the couch to read.