WHO WE WERE
B.M. CARROLL
B.M. Carroll has carved out a niche for writing engrossing Aussie psychological suspense and this page-turner will keep you guessing until the last chapter. The Macquarie High class of 2000 are gathering for their 20-year reunion but why are members of the so-called popular group receiving mysterious and possibly threatening messages? It soon becomes apparent that someone from the past is holding onto a very bitter grudge.
The email comes the next morning. From: admin1@yearbook.com.au
Subject: Updated Yearbook Name: Grace Coleman
(née Mccrae)
Highest achievement at school: Being Annabel Moore’s best friend.
What you do now: Mum to four children (three girls, one boy). Keen gardener.
Highlights of last 20 years: Getting married. Giving birth to your children.
Lowlights: The miscarriage between number 2 and 3.
Deepest fears: That something bad will happen to one of your children.
Lauren in particular.
Grace recoils from her laptop. What is this? Something relating to the reunion? She reads it again, more slowly, and realises it’s set out in a format similar to the original yearbook. There’s even a photo that’s recent and quite familiar: Grace’s curly brown hair lifted by an invisible breeze, her eyes – the same colour as her hair – squinting at the camera. Did Katy send this? No, Katy wouldn’t know about either the miscarriage or her worries about Lauren, and would hardly be so insensitive. The miscarriage happened at 11 weeks, before her baby bump became noticeable. Not a lot of people knew she was pregnant, which made the grieving process both easier and more difficult.
Even so, Katy seems to be the obvious person to contact. The call goes straight to voicemail. Of course, it’s mid-morning and Katy would be in class. Katy’s a science
teacher at a high school in the inner-west. Grace knows the school: it attracts ‘creative’ types and has an ethos of encouraging the students’ individuality. Grace and Tom are seriously considering it for Tahlia.
Grace decides not to leave a voicemail and calls Annabel instead. Annabel picks up straight away. It’s rare she doesn’t; she’s one of those women whose phone is like one of her limbs.
“Hey, Annabel. I got this weird email just now … Like a fake yearbook entry.”
There’s a noticeable pause at the end of the line.
Then: “Me too. A few days ago.”
Grace is perplexed. “Why didn’t you say something?”
Another pause. Then an embarrassed sigh. “There was something in there that nobody knows. Some trouble we’re having with Daniel.”
Grace wants to ask what the trouble is but senses that Annabel’s failure to elaborate is deliberate. She has always been a selective confidante.
“Mine mentioned Lauren and my miscarriage. It was really quite upsetting.”
“Look, I think it’s someone trying to be funny and missing the mark,” Annabel states with her signature curtness.
Missing the mark by a goddamn mile, Grace thinks. Then a guilty niggle.
“Hey, you don’t think it’s Melissa, do you?”
Annabel snorts. “She wouldn’t lower herself. Luke Willis came into my head. I have no idea why.”
Luke Willis. The one who did his own thing, never cared what people thought and defied all the rules when it came to popularity. Grace frowns. “Didn’t he and Katy used to be friends?”
“Yeah.” Annabel’s laugh is unkind. “I still don’t understand what he saw in her!”
Grace casts her mind back. She sees Luke singing and dancing in the Grease musical, totally at home centre stage. She sees him standing near the locker room, smirking after delivering a retort that had everyone falling around with laughter. She remembers the excitement that built in him as Year 12 drew to a close, the blatant impatience to leave school behind and strike out in the real world.
She has a moment of clarity. “Annabel, I’m pretty sure that Luke Willis hasn’t thought about you or me since the day he left high school.”
Edited extract from Who We Were by B.M. Carroll, Profile Books, RRP$29.99, out now.