“Mrs. Cooper would never say sug. She would say hon.”
“Excuse me.” Carrie picked at the crust on her sandwich. She wasn’t usually one to pull off the crust like a baby, but maybe certain bread manufacturers could learn to chill on the crust a bit. “I don’t want to offend Mrs. Cooper. My apologies to her.”
Leigh-Ann maintained her cool long enough to take another bite of her soggy turkey sandwich. Then, as if she remembered how funny everything was, she dropped her sandwich back into its tray and fell into a fit of laughter.
Carrie didn’t know what was so funny. Her joke? Her impersonation? Her inability to sit still once she realized she had gotten beneath her girlfriend’s skin? Boy oh boy do I get under her skin. That thought made Carrie grin wider. Their fooling around may have been minimum so far, but she was hopeful that things could get to homerun status by the end of that upcoming weekend.
There hadn’t been time for much else since that past Saturday, when Carrie ended up in lockup while her aunt, her uncle, and freakin’ Ms. Tichenor figured out what the hell was going on with Dillon and his fanatical fling with fire. The mayor showed up. The mayor! Granted, Mayor Rath had the loudest voice in the police station because she had her reputation and her daughter on the line. I’ve never seen a seventeen-year-old girl cry like that before. Christina sobbed nonstop from the time she was brought into the police station until the mayor was finally allowed to take her home. From the way Leigh-Ann told it, she and Ms. Tichenor tracked Christina down and guilted her into telling the truth about Dillon, a boy everyone told her to stay the hell away from.
Shoot, his own parents said that, and they didn’t know about the coupling yet!
Where was Dillon now? He wasn’t at school, that was for sure. Rumors spread that he was in juvie, but that wasn’t true. The boy was at home, locked up in his room and under 24/7 surveillance while the investigation continued. It took his parents exactly four hours to find him Saturday night, and by the time they dragged his ass into the station, the sheriff was begrudgingly releasing Carrie from her cell. He had wanted to make an example out of her and Leigh-Ann for trespassing, but Mr. Connor graciously declined to press charges as long as it came out that they had nothing to do with the fire. “A couple of kids being kids doesn’t bother me when they’re not being destructive.” Unfortunately for Leigh-Ann, that meant Winston Connor knew about them getting busy in the barn, and the news was out as early as Monday morning. Alongside all the other drama, too!
None of that bothered Carrie. The police were up her ass with questions about Dillon and her possible involvement, but beyond that, she was a free woman. She had a girlfriend, since the first thing Leigh-Ann wanted to do when they were finally alone was give her a big kiss and hug her until their guardians pounded on the door to the women’s restroom in the police station.
Dillon maintained that he didn’t act alone, but he wasn’t giving up any names. This made everyone roll their eyes. It didn’t help that he finally admitted to setting the fire that weekend in the lamest move to impress his new girlfriend (who immediately dumped him) and didn’t have an alibi for any of the others. Not when a whole group of teenagers admitted they hadn’t seen him at Aiden’s party until right before the deputy arrived. Without anybody willing to put him there beforehand, it wasn’t looking good.
I have a feeling he’ll admit to more if he can get a good deal with the DA. Carrie didn’t want to think about that, though. She wanted to think about the girl sitting with her at lunch on Wednesday afternoon.
“So… you free this weekend? Say, Saturday afternoon?” Carrie wished she could say they could hang out Friday evening, but she needed to work. Like she had to work Saturday evening… but that didn’t mean they couldn’t hang out before that. “I hear the hill is a pretty nice place to go. Or, you know, I’ve got a car… and there are a lot of outlooks around…”
Leigh-Ann may have rolled her eyes, but it came with a big smile and a bite of her lip that made Carrie giggle like she never had a girlfriend before. “What are we gonna do in your car, huh?”
Carrie nonchalantly shrugged, although every bit of her wanted to shout, “We’re gonna bone, girl!” “I dunno,” was what she actually said. “Pick up where we left off before my cousin so rudely interrupted us on Saturday?”
They were the only ones who knew what that meant. Nevertheless, Leigh-Ann glanced around like someone might have overheard them. “I dunno,” she said, eyes averted and cheeks turning that beautiful shade of pink. “Maybe if you bring me pizza. Feed me.”
“On Saturday afternoon? That pizza ain’t gonna be good.”
Before Leigh-Ann had the chance to say that was her price – because Carrie knew that’s where this was going – someone came up to their table and cleared her throat.
They were not expecting to see Christina, who tucked her light brown hair behind her ears and fidgeted her fingers together at the bottom of her sweater. Carrie sucked in her cheeks, but Leigh-Ann nearly melted into her seat.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Christina said, half the eyes in the cafeteria on her. “I wanted to come by and apologize about what happened this weekend. I know I said I was sorry at the police station, but I wanted to make sure you knew I really meant it and wasn’t saying it because my mom was there.”
Leigh-Ann and Carrie exchanged a glance. “Why are you apologizing?” Carrie asked. “Is our teacher making you do this?”
She knew those were the magic words to make Christina turn beet red with sheer embarrassment. Good. That’s the only apology I really need. Christina had done enough already. Carrie was grateful that the girl had come clean and done the right thing in the end, but did they really need to hash this out again?
“I also need to apologize to Leigh-Ann.” That made Carrie’s girlfriend rattle her tray against the table. “For what happened a couple of years ago. I’ve… I’ve been thinking about it a lot. About what I did and why it was really stupid of me to tell you we couldn’t be friends because we… you know.”
“Hey, it’s cool,” Leigh-Ann whispered. “You’ve got your other friends now.”
“Yeah, about that…” When Christina jerked her thumb over her shoulder, Carrie half-expected to see an empty table behind them. Instead, she looked into the vapid yet curious faces of the likes of Amanda and Chrystal, two girls who lowered their noses toward one another and whispered something Carrie couldn’t hear, not that she wanted to. “Would you guys like to come eat lunch with us? You’re always over here by yourselves…”
“How can we be by ourselves if we have each other?” Leigh-Ann asked. The thing that remained unspoken was the fact she had been sitting by herself for almost two years.
Christina was that hilarious mix of confused and promptly accepting the point Leigh-Ann so astutely made. “Yeah. You’re right,” she said. “Don’t be strangers, okay? If you guys ever wanna come sit with us, it’s cool.”
“Your mom making you say this?” Carrie asked.
“What? No! I’m serious. I’ve realized lately that I was a bit of an ass to you, Leigh-Ann. You were my best friend when I first moved to this town.” Christina glanced at Carrie. “Guess the same thing happened to you, huh?”
“Think we might be more than friends now. Hey! Same thing that happened to you!” Carrie’s index finger initially pointed to Christina, then made its way to Leigh-Ann. “Maybe you’ve got that magic lesbian energy, Leigh-Ann. Gettin’ girls left and right.”
It had the desired effect. Leigh-Ann was made speechless, and it was a miracle she didn’t faint onto the cafeteria floor.
“So, anyway.” Christina stepped back. ‘Have fun, you two. See you around.”
Carrie didn’t waste time. As soon as she was alone with Leigh-Ann again, she took her hand on top of their table and flashed her a smile.
“You. Me. My car. This Saturday.”
“Why, Ms. Sage,” Leigh-Ann said with the worst imitation of a Southern belle Carrie had ever heard, “are you suggestin
g I’m that kind of girl?”
“If you’re not already, I’m gonna make you that kind of girl.”
Whatever Leigh-Ann was about to say disappeared into the ether of Clark High School. Instead, the grotesque sound she made, which was a delightful combination of scandalized and excited, turned the heads of every other student in the room. Yup. Still got it. Carrie never doubted she lost it. She was simply happy to find someone in this town, so far away from her own home, who appreciated the kind of flirtations only an Alabaman could bring to this tiny, kitschy corner of Oregon.
THE END
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OCTOBER TWILIGHT
(A Year In Paradise #10)
Life as a small-town housewife is usually what Sally Greenhill needs. With four kids and a busy wife to keep her preoccupied, she’s got more than enough to do from sunrise to sunset - at all times of year.
But as Deputy Candace Greenhill becomes bogged down in an arsonist investigation, Sally begins to suspect that the ring of flaming rebels might be closer than any of them suspect.
With Halloween right around the corner, both Sally and Candace are too busy to keep an eye on the precocious son with an eye for adventure… and trouble.
OCTOBER 10th
Hildred Billings is a Japanese and Religious Studies graduate who has spent her entire life knowing she would write for a living someday. She has lived in Japan a total of four times in four different locations, from the heights of the Japanese alps to the hectic Tokyo suburbs, with a life in Shikoku somewhere in there too. When she’s not writing, however, she spends most of her time talking about Asian pop music, cats, and bad 80’s fantasy movies with anyone who will listen…or not.
Her writing centers around themes of redemption, sexuality, and death, sometimes all at once. Although she enjoys writing in the genre of fantasy the most, she strives to show as much reality as possible through her characters and situations, since she’s a furious realist herself.
Currently, Hildred lives in Oregon with her girlfriend and dreams of a cat.
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September Lessons (A Year in Paradise Book 9) Page 13
