“Vivienne? What?”
“I had to change my legal name to get away from Simon. He, uh, he turned out to be kinda psycho. As in I’ve practically changed my identity to get away from him psycho.”
“Shut up! Seriously?”
I nodded.
“Yeah, seriously. So, look, please, I have to ask you, please don't mention to anyone from the old days that you saw me, okay? I've gone to a lot of trouble to make sure that he doesn't find me. I really, really don't want him to come looking for me, and believe me, he's psycho enough to stalk the social media accounts of everyone in our senior year just to see if there's any hint of where I am. So please keep it a secret, okay?”
She nodded.
“Wow, I didn't realize it was that serious. Alright, sure... Vivienne. I won't say a word. But seriously, let's go out for drinks sometime.”
“We can do that. I'm here with friends so I can't sit with you now, but give me your number and I'll give you a call sometime, alright? It'd be good to connect with someone from my, er, my old life.”
“Sure.”
She scribbled down a number on a bar napkin and handed it to me.
“That's it. And hey, if you lose that, just look me up on Facebook. My profile picture is me in an orange bikini on a beach.”
“Alright, I'll look you up. Nice running into you, Angie.”
“Yeah, great running into you Alic-, I mean, Vivienne.”
I smiled, waved a polite goodbye and then headed back to table with Graciela, where I finished off my beer.
It was around an hour later when I left, and I headed straight home. It was late, but not super late; around 10. As I pulled into my driveway, I had to sneak a glance across the road at Everett's place, and I saw that his garage door was open and the light was on, and he was inside setting up power tools. Feeling a little emboldened by the wine I'd had, I parked my car and walked across the road and up his driveway. He saw me coming and smiled.
“Good evening, Viv,” he said. “Nice night, huh?”
“Sure is,” I replied. “I hope you're not going to be starting up any of these power tools right now. It's a little late to make noise like that in this neighborhood. Not too many night owls.”
“Actually, I was planning on cranking up my chainsaw, maybe saw through a couple two-by-fours, see how tolerant my new neighbors are of loud and annoying noises late at night.”
I laughed.
“You do that; we'll see what Mrs. Dobbins across the road has to say about it!”
“Is she gonna come out with a double-barreled shotgun pointed at me? With an army of cats trailing behind her?” he asked with a cheeky grin and a wink.
“Everett!” I exclaimed with mock shock. “She isn't a crazy old cat lady! I can’t make any promises about the shotgun, though!”
He chuckled.
“You know I'm just kidding.”
“I know, I know. How was your first full day at JFK?”
“Ah, there was a lot to do. It's always crazy busy at the beginning of the academic year. But I think I'm gonna enjoy it there. The staff is fantastic and the deputy principal is a real great guy. Yeah, it's gonna be good.”
“Good to hear! Well, I saw your garage light on and I just wanted to come over and say hi.”
“Oh, where were you?”
“Just at this little Irish pub called MacFey's. It's a great spot. My coworker, Graciela, it's her birthday tomorrow, so we just had a quiet birthday drink to celebrate.”
“Oh, so you were slamming tequila shots and chugging beers through a funnel, huh?” he said with a playful smile.