Jane sat her coffee cup down. "Oh?"

, "No, the real favor is, I want you to hang around

the rest of the time. To attend with me."

"Go to your class reunion! You've lost your mind. I didn't even go to my own!"

"Yes, but I remember why. You said you'd only been at the school you graduated from for six months and you never knew the people and—"

"I hate the way you remember everything I tell you. I probably didn't add this remark at the time: even if I'd known them intimately, I wouldn't have gone'. I hate the concept of class reunions. Everybody dieting like mad, getting face-lifts and having family pictures taken to show off. I've known people who spent the better part of a year before a reunion getting a fake life together to show off."

"But you don't have to fake anything for this. You didn't know them."

"Why in the world would you want me to go to your reunion?"

"Well, Jane, it's this way — I was terribly shy in high school—"

Jane laughed. 'Try another one. You're about as shy as Attila the Hun."

Shelley's eyebrows went up. "You didn't know me then. I was hideously shy. Almost phobic."

"Shelley, this is like being told that the Pope used to be an arms dealer. It won't fly. You can't possibly expect me to believe this of a woman who has the entire school board, city council, and neighborhood jumping through hoops."

Shelley preened a 'little. "Not exactly through hoops."

"So, even if you were shy, what has it got to do with the reunion? You're not a fading violet anymore."

"I think that's 'shrinking' violet. If you're going to speak in cliches, you ought to get them right."

"Don't be snappish with me. I've got the upper hand for a change," Jane said with a grin.

Shelley took a delicate sip of her coffee while she mentally marshaled her forces. "Jane, if you've never been to a reunion, this will seem strange to you. But when I went to my tenth, I went striding in with complete confidence and was suddenly overcome by the person I used to be. It's as if someone pressed a button and I dropped through the floor into a time warp — ten years fell away as if they'd never happened and I was that same stammering twerp I used to be."