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Chapter 1
Chapter 1: The Email That Started It All
The email arrived at 7:43 AM on a Tuesday, which Maureen Plimpton would later cite as the first red flag. Nobody sent emails at 7:43 AM unless they were either deeply unwell or trying to establish dominance.
SUBJECT: REUNION WEEKEND 2024 - OFFICIAL ITINERARY (PLEASE READ ENTIRE EMAIL BEFORE RESPONDING)
Maureen set down her coffee and opened the attachment. The spreadsheet that loaded onto her screen was so aggressively color-coded that it looked like a bag of Skittles had exploded across her monitor.
"Oh, Teddy," she murmured. "Oh no."
Teddy Baumgartner had been their senior class president, prom king, and the only person in Westbrook High history to letter in three sports while maintaining a 4.0 GPA. Twenty-six years later, he was apparently still trying to organize everyone's lives.
The spreadsheet had thirty-seven rows and twelve columns. There were conditional formatting rules. There were dropdown menus. There was a legend.
Maureen, who had spent the last eighteen years as an accountant before her divorce had prompted what her therapist called "a period of professional reassessment" and what everyone else called "quitting in a blaze of glory," recognized a cry for help when she saw one.
She scrolled through the itinerary:
6:00 AM - Optional Sunrise Yoga (Lake Dock)
7:30 AM - Breakfast (Continental Style - See Dietary Restrictions Tab)
9:00 AM - Kayaking/Paddleboarding (Life Jackets MANDATORY)
12:00 PM - Lunch (Potluck Format - Sign-Up Sheet Tab 3)
2:00 PM - Free Time (Please Initial Your Preferred Activity)
4:00 PM - Group Photo (Matching T-Shirts Provided)
6:00 PM - Dinner (Catered - Venmo Teddy $47.50)
8:00 PM - Bonfire/Reminiscing Hour
10:00 PM - Quiet Hours Begin
The phrase "Quiet Hours Begin" made Maureen laugh so hard that she snorted coffee up her nose.
Her phone buzzed. A text from Darnell Hutchins:
DARNELL: Did you see it?
MAUREEN: I'm looking at it right now.
DARNELL: He has a tab for bathroom schedules.
MAUREEN: He does NOT.
DARNELL: Tab 7. "Facilities Coordination."
Maureen clicked to Tab 7. Darnell was not lying. Teddy had assigned bathroom time slots.
MAUREEN: I've been divorced for eight months. I am not driving four hours to share a bathroom according to a schedule created by a man who peaked at seventeen.
DARNELL: Bold words from someone who cried at graduation because she thought she'd never be that happy again.
MAUREEN: I was RIGHT, Darnell.
DARNELL: Fair.
Maureen stared at the spreadsheet. She should just decline. She should write a polite email explaining that she had other plans, that the weekend didn't work for her, that she had developed a sudden and severe allergy to lakes.
Instead, she clicked "Edit" and changed "Optional Sunrise Yoga" to "Absolutely Not Sunrise Yoga."
Then she clicked "Share" and sent the link to Darnell.
Three minutes later, Darnell had changed "Kayaking/Paddleboarding" to "Kayaking/Paddleboarding/Existential Dread."
The war had begun.
