From what I remember of high school, our behavior was underscored by a hunger for sensation. Feelings were intense and events were played out in emotional extremes. While the fantasy of death satisfied a craving for self-drama, the reality was usually (fortunately) at some safe remove. We were absurdly young and healthy, and though we behaved recklessly, we never expected to suffer any consequence. The notion of a real death, whether by accident or intent, would have pushed us into a state of perplexity. Love affairs provided all the theater we could handle. Our sense of tragedy and our self-centeredness were so exaggerated that we weren't prepared to cope with any actual loss. Murder would have been beyond comprehension. Jean Timber-lake's death probably still generated discussion among the people she knew, giving rise to a disquiet that marred the memories of youth. Bailey Fowler's sudden reappearance in the community was going to stir it all up again: uneasiness, rage, the nearly incomprehensible feelings of waste and dismay.

On impulse, I parked the car and searched out the library, which turned out to be much like the one at Santa Teresa High. The' space was airy and open, the noise level subdued. The vinyl floor tile was a mottled beige, polished to a dull gleam. The air smelled like furniture polish, construction paper, and paste. I must have eaten six jars of LePage's during my grade-school years. I had a friend who ate pencil shavings. There's a name for that now, for kids who eat inorganic oddities like gravel and clay. In my day, it just seemed like a fun thing to do and no one ever gave it a passing thought as far as I knew.

The library tables were sparsely occupied and the reference desk was being handled by a young girl with frizzy hair and a ruby drilled into the side of her nose. She had apparently been seized by a fit of self-puncturing because both ears had been pierced repeatedly from the lobe to the helix. In lieu of earrings, she was sporting the sort of items you'd find in my junk drawer at home: paper clips, screws, safety pins, shoelaces, wing nuts. She was perched on a stool with a copy of Rolling Stone open on her lap. Mick Jagger was on the cover, looking sixty if a day.

"Hi."

She looked at me blankly.

"I wonder if you can give me some help. I used to be a student here and I can't find my yearbook. Do you have any copies? I'd like to take a look."