Her Last Word(35)

“I was only here my sophomore year. I never graduated.”

“That doesn’t matter to us. Once you’re a Saint Mathew’s student, you’re always one.”

“Thanks. I might try to come by this afternoon.”

Dr. Williams removed a VHS tape from a drawer. “I did find this when I was looking in the archives for the old yearbook. VCRs were state of the art when the tape was made, but there are still a few machines around to play it.”

“What is it?”

“A video of Gina. We have a VHS player in the teacher’s lounge, so I watched it. She made it right at the beginning of senior year. It made me smile and cry. We can go up there now and see it, if you’ve time.”

Kaitlin accepted the tape. It had been fourteen years since she’d heard Gina’s voice. And she wasn’t sure how she’d react. “I can get a video player at the university. Thank you. Is there anyone else here at the school who might have known Gina?”

“We do have a teacher on staff who graduated about the same year as Gina. Angela Baxter. She’s here early like me to set up for the fund-raiser. We can ask her if she’d be willing to talk to you.”

“That would be great. Mind if we do it now?”

“Sure. I’ll walk you to her classroom.”

Dr. Williams led Kaitlin up a flight of stairs and along a hallway decorated with glittering paper shamrocks. She paused at a door and knocked. “Ms. Baxter, I’ve a visitor who’d like to speak to you.”

Angela Baxter capped a red pen and rose up from behind a wooden desk covered with stacks of papers. Bright images of rainbows painted by the students splashed the walls of the room, and large windows overlooked a student vegetable garden. In the rear of the room was a display of ten science projects, all contenders for first place in the school competition.

Angela came around her desk, and her smile froze when she looked at Kaitlin, who still didn’t fit the Saint Mathew’s mold as an alumna or parent of a prospective student. Still, she extended her hand and introduced herself. “Angela Baxter. I remember you.”

Kaitlin accepted her hand, remembering the girl had been a gossip in high school and was always in everyone’s business. “Angela. You look just like you did in high school.”

Angela grinned. “You don’t look like you’ve aged a day. Are you here for the alumni event?”

Dr. Williams explained why Kaitlin was there, and Angela’s bright smile sobered. “Sure, I’d be glad to talk about Gina. I’ve a few minutes now.”

“That would be great,” Kaitlin said.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Dr. Williams said. “Kaitlin, I’ll be in my office if you need anything.”

“Thank you.”

The principal laid her hand on Kaitlin’s forearm. “You and Gina are in my prayers.”

When Dr. Williams left, Kaitlin and Angela sat at two front-row student desks. Kaitlin pulled out her notebook and recorder and explained her project again. “What do you remember about Gina?”

Angela smiled. “I first met her in the third grade when I transferred to Saint Mathew’s. We weren’t friends right away, but even then she was the one everyone gravitated to.”

“I remember you were friends also in high school, right?”

“We ate lunch together sometimes and shared a few classes. I wouldn’t call us close friends, but in a small school like Saint Mathew’s, we all knew each other.”

“I remember you telling me that you’d heard rumors about Gina. Can you talk about those rumors?”

“There were some who thought Gina had staged the whole thing and that she’d run away. She fought with her mother the morning she vanished. And everyone knew she’d been under a lot of pressure to stay perfect.”

Kaitlin caught herself before she rebutted the idea. Part of the podcast’s purpose was to play devil’s advocate and explore all the angles and theories.

“Do you believe that?”

“God, no. Gina loved the school, and she had the golden ticket to the Ivy League schools. She had it all. I mean, yes, she was under a lot of pressure, but she looked like she could handle it. Though when you arrived she seemed a little more stressed.”

Kaitlin had upended her aunt and uncle’s family. She’d not been easy or grateful for the chance. “How did things change?”

“You didn’t fit in.” Angela fiddled with a pencil resting in a groove on the desk. “But you hadn’t grown up with us. I came to the school in third grade, and I was the new girl for years. No way as a sophomore you would’ve fit in.”

“It was more than that, wasn’t it?”

Angela nodded and shrugged. “You didn’t want to be here. You weren’t crazy about wearing a uniform. You definitely weren’t happy about Friday-morning prayer. And then you decided if you couldn’t be perfect like Gina, you’d be bad. That’s when you started dating Randy Hayward. You know he ended up in jail.”

“Yes, I heard. What do you remember about Randy?”

“He had come home for college spring break and announced he wasn’t going back. He showed up at senior prom for God’s sake.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“He snuck in the back. Security caught him. Said he was an alumnus and was just visiting. They made him leave.”