Page 78 of June

“Maybe we shouldn’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“The whisper-in-the-ear thing, Enid. And your arm is over my chair.”

“It was before, too,” Enid replied.

“Jill’s here.”

“Oh,” Enid said. “Okay. I can back off.”

“It’s not that I want you to. It’s–”

“So, what did you two do tonight?” Jill asked them.

“Mini-golf and an arcade,” Enid replied.

“That’s a good idea,” Jill noted. “I thought you said you were out of date ideas.”

“You were out of date ideas?” Caroline asked.

“Mini-golf was actually Care’s idea,” Enid replied. “And I told you I was rusty with the whole dating thing.”

“We won a lot of prizes,” Caroline said for some reason. “Seriously, does anyone want any candy? We got, like, two of everything and a bunch of other stuff. Most of it is in Enid’s car, but the candy is in my purse.”

“Care won the jackpot on this game. We got a ton of tickets,” Enid added.

Caroline liked that Enid was bragging about her, but she wished she had something better to brag about than the fact that on their last dollar, she had finally won the game played by children, which she’d been trying to win all night.

“That sounds like fun,” Melinda spoke. “We should go to an arcade. I’ll kick your ass at something.”

“I’m sure you would,” Kyle replied.

“So, Sophie, when is Bryce back?” Jill asked.

The conversation went on for another hour, with questions ping-ponging around the bar and Caroline mostly sitting there, just trying to keep up. Enid did her best to try to include her in the conversation when she could, but it was clear to Caroline that she didn’t fit in with this group. She was twenty years old, had no major, no career track, and was offering people candy from the trip to the arcade she had just taken, which only made her sound even more like a kid than an adult.

???

“You got quiet back there,” Enid said.

“Huh?” Caroline asked.

“At the bar, you got quiet.”

“Oh. I guess. I got tired,” she lied.

“Care?”

“Yeah?”

Enid pulled the car up to the sidewalk in front of Caroline’s building and turned it off.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, yeah.”

“Are you lying?” Enid asked.

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