Page 4 of September Lessons
Leigh-Ann didn’t dig into it. Nor did Carrie dwell on it, for she was too busy casting a glance over her shoulder every time the girls at a nearby table moved. Which they did alot,because that was where class clown Chrystal Greytree sat. She was the master of impressions and facial expressions, and nobody found her funnier than her best friend of two years, little Ms. Christina Rath.
“You know that girl, huh?” Carrie asked with a lowered voice. “’Cause she’s pretty hot, if you’re feeling my fire.”
Leigh-Ann could hardly believe it. Of all the girls in Clark High, it was Christina the new girl was crushing on?
“Yeah, I know her. Everyone does.”
“Uh, clearly, new people do not know who she is. Hook me up, huh?”
With a scoff to make her choke on the last of her sandwich, Leigh-Ann said, “That’s Christina Rath. The mayor’s daughter.”
“Mayor of what?”
“Paradise Valley.”
“If her mom ain’t the mayor of Roundabout, then maybe it’s not verboten for me to talk to her or whatever the problem is.”
“Like I told you,” Leigh-Ann continued, “Christina is straight. Straightest girl in this whole school.” Not really. That award went to Lily Smith, who had a new boyfriend every few months. She was a junior now, but she already hung around the new crop of freshmen, probably looking for the most post-pubescent one of the bunch.Good luck. They’re all five inches shorter than us.“It would be a huge waste of time. You’re better off admiring her from a distance.”
“You and her go back huh?”
“What do you mean?”
Carrie was not conspicuous at all as she looked between Leigh-Ann and Christina, as if there were something truly scandalous there. “You her ex-girlfriend or something? Then again, how could she be straight if you’re her ex?”
“I’m her ex, all right.” Before Carrie could get any more radical ideas, Leigh-Ann explained. “I’m her ex best friend. We were like that before sophomore year.”
“Classic story, huh?”
“I guess so.” Leigh-Ann had seen it plenty of times on TV, but she didn’t think about how realistic it was. “We were in the same group of friends until a couple years ago.”
“So, what happened?”
Leigh-Ann licked potato chip salt off her finger. “Dunno. One of our mutuals moved away. Guess she was the glue holding us all together. One month I was having sleepovers at the mayor’s house, next month I’m spending my weekends at home alone. Whatever. It wasn’t like we had a big fight or anything…”
That’s what Leigh-Ann had told herself for the past two or three years. No, she and Christina didn’t have afight.But they did have a falling out that led to a mutual agreement. Of sorts.“You stay away from me, and I’ll stay away from you.”Christina had uttered those words with the kind of fury Leigh-Ann was not inclined to ever hear again.
Carrie was too hung up on something else Leigh-Ann said to respond tothat.“What’s this about the mayor’s house?”
“Oh, right. Christina’s the mayor’s daughter. I forget not everybody knows that.” Christina and her family moved to Paradise Valley when Leigh-Ann was still in elementary school. By the time Karen Rath was elected, Christina had ingrained herself into the miniature social circles that dotted Paradise Playground. Leigh-Ann thought herself mighty great for being BFFs with the mayor’s daughter. Who else could say they were allowed to call the mayor by her first name, if only because Leigh-Ann struggled with the name “Rath” when she was a kid?
“Mayor’s daughter?” Carrie let out a whistle. A few people looked in their direction, but paid them no further mind once they realized the new girl was drawing attention to herself. “Go figure. I always have these lofty ambitions. Oh, well. She’s probably seventeen, anyway.”
“You already eighteen or something? We got Romeo & Juliet laws around here. Don’t be some weird twenty-year-old hitting on freshmen and nobody cares.”
Carrie tilted her head with a wan smile. “What if I told you I’m actuallynineteen?”
“Whoa.” No, Leigh-Ann had not been expecting that. “Why the hell are you nineteen? You get held back a year somewhere?” Had the unlucky misfortune of being born in late summer, like Leigh-Ann? It was one thing to be the oldest kid in the class. It was another to be the oldest because you were held back!
“You could say I got held back. Couldn’t finish my senior year back in Alabama, so I’m doing it here. With any luck, I’ll get that diploma and then get outta here.”
You had to come all the way to Oregon from Alabama to finish your high school diploma?Weird. But, Leigh-Ann wouldn’t judge. Lots of girls and women moved to Paradise Valley for their own reasons. Sounded like Carrie was openly queer, which might not have been the best move, depending onwherein Alabama she was from.You can say the same thing about Oregon.Paradise Valley was often called an oasis in a sea of judgmental pricks. Things had changed a lot in Leigh-Ann’s short lifetime, but if she were gay, she wouldn’t be holding hands with girls on the coast, that was for sure.
Or in Eastern Oregon… or down south by the Rogue River Valley. Hell, she had heard some stuff about Salem, the state capital. If places in the Willamette Valley could be closed-minded, then maybe that said something.
“Good luck,” Leigh-Ann said. “This place isn’t exactly hard to graduate from. I’ve been getting Cs and Bs my whole life, and nobody gives me crap.”
“Good to know.”
