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maniac in your own house. You can’t let a few snobs in shiny dresses send you packing.”
    I sighed. He took my hand.
    “Besides, don’t you want to see your old boyfriend? What’s his name, Tommy Chong?”
    “Chang.”
    He grinned. “Thought so.”
    He headed up the curb cut and toward the door of the club, nodding at the auto wrecking yard. “Stay here and admire that giant heap of old tires. I’m going in.”
    I put a hand on my hip. “It isn’t your reunion.”
    His smile was wicked. “Wanna bet?”
    He pushed through the door.
    Nobody was faster on his feet than Jesse, metaphorically speaking. Anything he thought up, he could undoubtedly pull off, despite being five years younger than everyone else here, and having grown up in Santa Barbara, and the fact that nobody in my graduating class had been anywhere near as gifted and good-looking, or paraplegic.
    “Dammit.” I chased after him.
    Inside, I found him beneath the strobing disco ball, at the sign-in table. Ceci Lezak was searching through a box of name tags. Her taffeta ruffles covered a build like a furnace. Her hair was sprayed into place with pointillist exactitude. She looked harried.
    “I can’t seem to find it,” she said.
    Jesse leaned an elbow on the table, smiling at her. “Student council was never better than when you ran it. I remember that cool campaign slogan. . . .”
    “ ‘Lift Off With Lezak.’ ” She stopped hunting and beamed at him. “Why don’t I make you a new name tag?”
    Oy. I walked up. “Hey, Ceci.”
    She clapped her hands together. “Evan, wow. Look at you, all fit and tan and . . .” Eyes on my outfit. “Spick and span.”
    “You’re very festive this evening.”
    “And you’re a writer and all.” She handed me my name tag and a welcome pack. “You’re not going to do an exposé about tonight, are you? Reveal our old high school secrets in print?”
    “No. I won’t blow your cover, I promise.” I stared at Jesse, tapping my index finger against my lips. “You look so familiar.”
    Ceci smiled. “This is Jesse Blackburn. He was our foreign exchange student.”
    “No, that’s not it.” I snapped my fingers. “Of course—Court TV, the trial. When did you make parole?”
    The door opened and heat swarmed over us. In the doorway stood a suburban Brunhilde, blond, ungainly, and six feet tall.
    “Oh, my hell, you’re really here.” Abbie Hankins laughed deep in her throat and engulfed me in a hug. “I win the bet. Fork it over, Wally.”
    Her husband lumbered through the door. He was taller and even rounder than Abbie, a Saint Bernard in a garish Hawaiian shirt. She passed me to him as if I were a rugby ball. He lugged me against his side, laughing.
    “Thanks for costing me twenty bucks, Delaney.” He saw Jesse. “Dude.”
    He grabbed Jesse’s hand and pumped it. At the table Ceci laced her fingers together, smiling expressively.
    “You’re looking debonair tonight, Dr. Hankins.” She ran her gaze over Abbie’s sundress. “That’s sweet. Wal-Mart does such fun fashions nowadays.”
    A woman strode up wearing a reunion committee name tag and a dress that made her look like a spangled boar. Ceci waved her close, whispering and nodding at Jesse.
    “There’s no welcome pack for him, nothing. And I shouldn’t be handling the table all by myself.”
    “Should we call Kelly?”
    “No. This is the last straw. I bet she had a few belts to loosen up before she came, and now she’s home trying to put her lipstick on without running it up to her ears.”
    Realizing that we were listening, they shut up and pasted on Go, team! smiles.
    Ceci gestured to Jesse. “You remember our exchange student?”
    The boar wrinkled her forehead. “Sure. Right . . . So good you could make it.”
    They bit their tongues, staring at him. I knew they saw the wheelchair and little else. They hadn’t seen the headline, One Killed, One Critical after Hit-and-Run . They hadn’t watched Jesse spend these last years