The shrill chorus stopped her in her tracks. Zoe gave a horrified little spasm before clearing her face and turning toward the giggling.
The Fenton sisters. Two perfect, redheaded porcelain dolls with hearts of ice. Zoe had to fight to put a fake smile on her face. She fought even harder against the urge to run.
“Hello,” she voiced tonelessly. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“Well, well. You’ve certainly changed,” one said. The other eyed her up and down, probably gauging the cost of her outfit—skinny jeans, ankle boots and a black velvet tunic—to the nearest dollar and, from her sneer, figuring she’d overpaid.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” Zoe shot back with a smirk of her own. “And yet, neither of you have at all.”
Julie and Jackie, or Jingle and Jangle as Zoe had dubbed them in school due to their shrill voices and her lack of ability to tell them apart, engulfed her in perfume-laced hugs. Just as oblivious as she remembered, they didn’t even notice her stiff-as-a-board lack of a reaction. They just launched into a babbling cacophony of chatter and gossip. As though she was one of them.
Zoe’s eyes narrowed. The twins had never had time for her ten years ago. She’d have sworn that if it weren’t for Candice’s sour-grapes gossip-fest over the award, they wouldn’t have even known her name. And now they were welcoming her and acting like she was their friend?
What were they up to?
“Did you hear Brad Young is here? He’s divorced now, I heard. And still the hottest thing ever, but now he’s rolling in the dough.” Jangle tittered.
It was all Zoe could do not to look around in case Brad was actually here in the lobby. How had he aged? Did he remember her? More important, did he remember their one and only date? The one he’d cut short for no reason, mid makeout session. The one that had broke her teenaged heart and leveled her tentative faith in the acceptance of her peers.
Zoe shook off the irritating memories and the doubts they dredged up and focused on the twins’ speculation about how Brad, who’d needed that football scholarship to go to college, had struck it rich. Jingle shot Zoe a snide look, her smile dripping glee. “Remember that crazy rumor about you and Brad at the drive-in?”
Had they read her thoughts? Zoe narrowed her eyes, glad that she’d never been the blushing type. The redheads’ giggle made it clear just how unbelievable they thought the idea of Zoe and the captain of the football team doing the movie mambo was. The speculative look, the disdain in their cornflower-blue eyes, confirmed Zoe’s suspicion. They weren’t welcoming her as an old classmate. They were priming her for fodder.
She sighed. Figured. In school, they’d been the gossip queens. Nothing happened but they got the first dirt on it. Obviously they were reprising their grimy roles all over again.
Zoe ground her teeth to keep from telling them to mind their own business. She knew this gossip game was her best shot at tracking down clues on Gandalf. If she wanted to win, she had to play. She considered a coquettish giggle of her own but figured she’d choke on it. Instead, she arched one brow and gave a naughty smile.
Lashes fluttering like stiff caterpillars, two sets of heavily lined eyes widened and the women stepped closer.
“Hey, I’m not a kiss-and-tell kind of gal,” she said. The twins exchanged shocked looks. Perfect. Maybe they’d be willing to barter for information on who might be the gaming wizard. From her research, four of the guys in the graduating class were possibilities. Much to her dismay, one of them happened to be Brad, who’d gone on to be a computer-science major.
Zoe hoped that a little gossip-gathering, some more online research once she got her hands on the attendee bios at the reunion welcome party tonight, and she’d have all the info she needed to pinpoint Gandalf. But she couldn’t deny the thought of facing Brad put her on edge.
“Of course, I’m sure nobody’s interested in my little secrets,” she said, launching the gossip-gathering portion of her plan. “After all, I’m not one of the graduating class to go on to fame and fortune. I’ve heard quite a few did, though. C’mon, all the former classmates’ lives can’t be complete secrets. Don’t we know what a few people are doing? You know, like who’s married to who, where everyone is living? Or who’s hit it big?”
“Well,” one of the sisters said, exchanging a look with the other, “we do have a few details, of course. I mean, keeping up with what everyone’s been doing is sort of a hobby of ours.”
“Do tell,” Zoe encouraged while mentally mocking her vapid performance.