by catt dahman
“That’s all?” Angel blurted.
“Cassie doesn’t have as much money as some of the rest of your families have, ladies. I’m sure what she got was exactly what she wanted most and that someone worked hard for those gifts,” Mike Orinston couldn’t help but try to rescue Cassie.
“Why? Santa and his elves can make tons of toys,” Meg said innocently.
“Oh. Well. I guess that it’s hard to explain, really,” Mike Orinston said. A few of the girls nodded knowingly, and a few agreed with Meg. He had forgotten that they were of an age when fairy tales fell apart and harsh reality popped up to ruin sugar plum dreams. He felt sad for the girls suddenly: all of them. He hated that they seemed so weak and open to being harmed.
Tiffany gulped. She saw that Cassie was shivering and handed her an extra blanket that the girls draped over their shoulders. Cassie’s jacket was hardly enough for a cool autumn and far too thin for winter. It was a size too small, worn, and worse still, Cassie’s wrists were bare because her sleeves were so short. She had to be freezing cold.
Tiffany thought hard and decided what her father would say for her to do. “Cassie, I am a little bigger than you are, and I have a great jacket that doesn’t fit me. Would you like it? It’s pink….”
“You don’t need it?”
“No. Can I give it to you?” Tiffany felt warmth fill her body; it felt good to offer help. Cassie wasn’t laughing at her either but was smiling sincerely.
Cassie nodded. “I’d like that. I bet it’s pretty.”
Samantha wasn’t as wealthy as Tiffany, but because she was a blond, blue-eyed beauty, she was as well liked and popular as Tiffany even if her father was only a minister and not a fancy banker like Tiffany’s father. One thing Samantha had, besides a childish beauty, was a large heart and loving parents, and she caught on to what her friend was doing. Her mittens matched her cornflower blue coat but deep in the pockets of her coat, she had some extra mittens that were purple, and she handed those to Cassie.
With a sigh, Cassie tugged them over her raw, white, almost frozen fingers and thanked Samantha. She was slightly embarrassed and turned to Jill, “You sure are brave to stand up to Billy.”
Jill blushed and said, “I was scared, really.”
“You were? I only stood beside you because I figured you were either brave or nuts,” Angel laughed loudly. “He smacked Nelwynn a hard one.”
“He p…p…pissed me off,” Nelwynn said. Mr. Orinston didn’t chastise her for her language, and she felt very daring to say a word she knew was a curse word. Some of the girls giggled and nodded. She felt the last of her fear and nervousness leave her.
“Billy hit you?” Mr. Orinston asked. They told him how Billy threatened to shoot Lucy as well. Their tears dried, and Mr. Orinston’s eyes went dark and cold as the ice around them. “I won’t allow that.”
“We didn’t let him,” Angel said.
“I mean I won’t allow that to stand. No boy shoots my dog, and no boy hits a little girl. Not and get away with it.”
Angel smiled and said, “It’s okay. Fat kids. We get laughed at and pushed down a lot…but it was the fat girl’s friend this time. Many times I’ve been glad to have a fat butt.” She was surprised at how intense Mr. Orinston’s face was.
“You’d get skinny if you ran with me,” Whitney said. She slapped a hand over her mouth, mortified at the sound of her words; she hadn’t meant it that way. She tried again, “I mean, you could try to run sometime with me. Mom says it makes me skinny. Once you could keep up, it’d be fun to have someone to talk to.”
She realized she had insulted Angel again, and her face blazed bright red. Tears sprang to her eyes as she considered running away.
To her relief, Angel laughed hard. “I get what you mean. Stop being embarrassed. I think you’re funny.”
Jill’s father arrived and gently with a board and Mr. Orniston’s help loaded Lucy into his truck. Jill and Meg climbed in, and the rest of the girls looked at Mike Orinston expectantly. Jill’s father told the girls to load into Mr. Orinston’s SUV and follow him to his clinic, saying they needed to warm up.
The girls sat in the chairs at the clinic and nervously kicked their feet, watching the door to the examination room. Jill tilted her head and told them, “They’ll be back there a while. Dad has to check Lucy over and bandage her, set any broken bones after X-rays, give her medicine, and see how she is. It takes a while. He has to shave her fur a little to give her an IV.”
“Do you think she’ll be okay?” Samantha asked. She was nervous about waiting, hoping that Lucy was okay. When Meg admitted she hadn’t brought a brush with her, Samantha took her own brush and brushed Meg’s long, dark red hair and braided it to keep her mind off worrying. “I like your red hair.”
“You can have it. I hate it,” Meg said.
Tiffany returned after taking her turn to call home and explain where she was. “That’s a cute French braid. You should do that with your hair all the time.”
Cassie spoke softly, “I know we’re here for a bad reason and I love Lucy, but I’m also having a good time. Is that bad?”
Nelwynn blinked behind her thick glasses. She was having a wonderful time, now that she thought about it; this was more fun than sitting in the library, and instead of Angel being an embarrassment, her only friend was making the others laugh and was fitting in. So was she. “Well, it won’t last, right? I mean, this is just for now. It isn’t like we ever can hang out again.”
“We can’t?” Tiffany exploded. “Why not? I am sorry I’m having fun, too, and I…why can’t we? Is it because all of you hate me?” Her violet eyes filled with tears quickly and overflowed, rolling down her cheeks. She angrily wiped them away with her clenched fists, but new tears replaced the others, and her cheeks flushed bright red.
“Hate you?” Jill sputtered. “Why would we?”
“No one ever talks to me! Not one besides Sammie has ever spoken to me,” Tiffany cried.
“I didn’t think you wanted to talk to me. I’m a nobody,” Jill said.
“I’m less than nobody,” Cassie said.
Angel added, “I’m twice the size of everybody and a nobody.”
“Only Sammie sits with me at lunch, or I’d be alone or with a bunch of silly, dumb girls,” Tiffany admitted. She feared that: sitting alone at a table, being ignored and hated. No one ever wanted to sit with her.
“I thought…well…I’m not good enough. I take my lunch and sit in a corner,” Cassie told them.
“Sit with us,” Meg said. “Jill and I don’t have any other friends because…well…Tiffany, we didn’t think we were good enough to sit with you. Angel, you and Nelwynn always look so smart and busy. Whitney is all over the place. We really never got along with anyone else.”
“We’re all pretty dumb to feel this way,” Nelwynn said. “I’d love to sit with you, Tiffany. You, too, Meg and Cassie, I just thought that you knew how everyone was. People have-cliques-they are called, and we’re not old like how they are in junior high and high school, but it happens.”
“So will all of you sit with me? At lunch? Can we hang out again and be friends?” Tiffany asked. Her voice was tense and strained, and it was as if she were trying to force them to form a pact born of blood and dire oaths. Her vulnerability and need were things the other girls had never guessed were possible for her. If they said no, she likely would care enough that she would burst into tears again.
“I promise,” Jill said. Meg nodded.
“Heck, yeah,” said Cassie as she smiled. It might have been a cruel joke, but she was astute enough to read that Tiffany was painfully lonely and only a person similarly as lonely could understand that.
Mike Orinston and Jill’s father came out later to tell the girls that Lucy was bruised and cut but that she would be fine; had the girls not rescued her, she might have gone into shock or frozen to death. They called the girls heroines and praised them for what they did.
Jill’s father also called th
e sheriff, who was Meg’s father. Sheriff Connors hadn’t gotten the information from Mrs. Connors as to where Meg was. But once he heard the story, understood that Billy intended to shoot Lucy in the town center, that the boys were drunk, and that one had assaulted Nelwynn, his face matched his red hair, and he began to curse creatively.
“Sheriff Connors will handle Billy and the other boys,” Jill’s father said.
“And sometimes fate and life hand out just dues,” Mr. Orinston added darkly. “Life prunes back the weeds as it does the flowers.”
Leaving Lucy to rest, the men drove the girls home, speaking to concerned mothers and fathers and praising the girls. All eight girls had a folded slip of paper with phone numbers listed so they could talk to each other and make plans to meet before school resumed in a few days, and each folded slip of paper was gripped tightly and valued like gold.
That was what happened the time it snowed and that Lucy was hit by the truck, when the girls were age eight and when they were eight in number as friends.
Chapter 3
In the school cafeteria, eight girls sat around a round table, and each of the girls was fourteen or fifteen and beginning the trials and tribulations of womanhood. To an outsider, none of the girls seemed to have anything in common and were dissimilar, yet, they finished sentences for one another and were fiercely loyal to one another; outsiders were not welcomed at the table where the eight sat.
In the past seven years, the girls had spent winters sledding when there was snow, cooking treats in fireplaces and staying warm when it was only cold, running wild in the spring, going to the park, riding bicycles, and running everywhere instead of walking, just as Whitney had taught them.
In the summer, they tanned, swam, played outside, and escaped to movies when it was too hot to be outdoors, and in the autumn, they tricked or treated, talked about Thanksgiving all they could, and impatiently waited for Christmas.
Samantha’s church made sure Cassie’s family never lacked for a good Thanksgiving dinner with turkey, stuffing, beans, gravy, potatoes, bread, pickles, fruit, and several kinds of pie. At Christmas, the children and parents always had stacks of gifts to open, thanks to Samantha’s church.
But the years had passed, and the girls were older now, each with her unique personality and quirk. At the head of the table sat Tiffany, her long, blue-black hair was in high horsetails on each side of her head, her makeup was barely noticeable, and her nails were polished to a gloss. Today, she was in her junior varsity cheerleader outfit, excited and all smiles.
Tiffany was still the most stuck-up girl in school, but she had seven friends who didn’t care at all about her attitude. She motioned for Meg to continue to talk about Rex Wisdom, the brother of the boy, John Wisdom, who had hit Lucy so many years before, the same Lucy that, today, was still spry and the object of every girl’s affection. Over two litters and two years, all eight girls had a puppy from Lucy.
“What about Rex Wisdom?” Tiffany curled her lip and wrinkled her nose.
Meg grinned and said, “We have a date tonight.” She knew Tiffany and Samantha only dated members of the football team and that the other girls didn’t date at all yet, and she was prepared for the negativity.
“No way, Meg, you’re gonna get yourself or him killed by your daddy,” Jill said. She didn’t understand her friend’s interest in the bad boy of the school. She flipped her ponytail and frowned. She wasn’t as nerdy-smart as Nelwynn, but her goals were about good grades, and she had crushes on a few musical heartthrobs and maybe took a few clandestine glances at the cute boys in her classes. She thought Jill was acting crazily.
“Jill, you don’t know him,” Meg said.
“And I don’t want to. He smokes and drinks, and your daddy is the sheriff,” Jill said as if that summed up every argument that her friend could make. “Rex gets in fights. He shoplifts, too, I heard.”
“My father’s not going to find out,” Meg said. Of the eight, she was the one who craved adventure and a little danger. The high dive at the pool or a pilfered bottle of wine or the only one on a dance floor gyrating madly were all the same to Meg; she loved the adrenalin. She didn’t particularly like Rex Wisdom, but a late-night date with him and a ride on his motorcycle were a temptation she couldn’t resist. It was pure adventure.
Whitney ate her chicken strips and protein bar, preparing for her athletics class later. She ate large amounts of protein every day and pushed herself athletically, but today she intended to run a five-mile stretch and stop flirting with her goal. The looks on her team members’ faces and her coach’s shock were her ultimate objective because it was time to let them know that she was the one who was going to get scholarships for track and shine as the school’s star.
Her freckles and golden eyes made her face friendly looking, but she knew she was no beauty, not with her mousy brown, slightly frizzy hair and skinny frame. She was not a brain, either. She had to use what talent she had. Distracted, she waved her hand in the air as she ate, muttered as she swallowed her protein drink and said, “Be careful, Meg.”
Samantha sat down in her chair after having helped one of the teacher’s aides with some of the special needs children. She was the girl that every boy had a crush on and longed to date, but other than a movie date here and there, done as almost an act of charity, she spent her time either with her friends or helping the teachers. More than anything on earth, she wanted to teach children, and since she had four years of high school to go and four years of college, she could only help as a junior aide, a student librarian, and an after-school tutor.
She was glad she got back to the table to join the conversation. “Is this about Rex? Meg, you can do so much better, but whatever you do, I support you. You’re smart enough to know what’s best for you, but remember that if you have to sneak out to see him, then it may not be a good idea,” said Samantha as her big blue eyes looked concerned.
“And don’t get grounded because this weekend, we have the cabin!” Cassie told Meg.
She was still the poorest child in the school and the object of distain from some students, but she put those facts aside and embraced the persona that got her through each day. Where once she had three, thin and worn blouses to wear again and again every day, she now dressed like a princess thanks to Tiffany and Samantha.
Tiffany gave her everything she was bored with, which meant some of the clothing still had price tags attached or had been worn once or twice.
Samantha picked over all of her church’s charity boxes, taking the best items to give Cassie, and both girls instructed Cassie about how to match up stunning outfits. She had thick brown hair and wasn’t pretty, but she kept her hair pinned back, face free of make-up, and allowed her wardrobe to become her façade. No longer teased as much, she was often stared at or was envied her clothing and her friendship with the popular girls.
Jill nodded and said, “I can’t wait to go to the cabin. This time I’m going to jump off the cliffs into the deep pool before Meg or Whitney. Watch and see.”
“You won’t. You’re still chicken,” Meg teased her.
“I am going to!”
The cabin was the strangest thing of all.
Shortly after the truck hit Lucy, Mike Orinston talked to each of the girl’s parents and explained how indebted he was for their kindness and admitted that he was sick with a slow growing cancer of the stomach. He told them that his wife had died a few years before, and he had no children; he said that he had a very unusual reward for the girls. He had changed his will and bequeathed one item to all eight: his luxury cabin on the river.
The cabin was huge, something that he called a folly and ego-booster, but he owned it and wanted the girls to have it forever. Every few months, one set of parents took a few of the girls and often all eight to the cabin for weekends of fun. In the summer, they traded out so that the girls spent almost every day at the cabin.
Except for Meg and Whitney who tended to burn in the sun in the summer, their skin turned
berry brown, their hair bleached out lighter, and they added new scars to their limbs, built stronger muscles, and renewed their confidence.
At times, some of the young ladies had other things they had to do, family functions, extra studying, and other responsibilities, so sometimes just two of them went to the cabin with a set of parents, or four of them, and other times, all eight ran wild at the cabin: swimming, playing in the woods, hiking, and sitting around a campfire.
Occasionally Mike Orinston joined the parents as a chaperone, and over the years, he became Uncle Mike. He had his own bedroom there, and a second master bedroom was for the other chaperones. The girls shared the other four bedrooms in sets of two.
From the beginning, the girls’ friendship was peculiar because each of the girls had been friendless long before Lucy was injured or before the cabin was given to them. Their parents couldn’t begin to stop the good that seemed to have come from the icy day. They had idyllic daughters who almost overnight once again loved school, who began to compete in healthy ways, who became active in school activities, and who began to get respectable grades.
Tiffany’s father was Dick Crier. When he and his wife Amelia took the girls to the cabin, they spoiled the girls and soaked up the pleasure of watching Tiffany acting like a regular little girl and having fun. She had put on some healthy weight, started gymnastics with Samantha, Meg, and Whitney, and began singing in the choir with Angel. She was a changed child now that she had close friends. Before, she was content to sit before a television and avoid the outside world, but now she wanted to go and do everything she could.
Dick Crier always bought a lot of food and treats and filled the cabin with archery sets, set up a volley ball net, and had a dock built next to the river. He liked teaching the girls sports and did so with infinite patience, finding that each had some latent ability and that it was his role to discover those hidden talents.
Whitney was a runner, but she was also a good swimmer as were Meg, Jill, and Cassie. Angel, Cassie, and Nelwynn took quickly to archery and horseshoes. Although they had to take safety precautions, Jill and Cassie were good at throwing knives at targets. Most, except Angel and Nelwynn, rode horses well, and they had even more talents that he discovered all the time.
