Page 31 of When We Were Us
She comes busting out of the house, the screen door slamming behind her. She jogs for the truck in bare feet, her long dark hair flying aroundher head. She’s got a piece of toast clamped between her teeth and a glob of jelly on her chin. She carries her sandals in one hand and her bag in the other, which drops twice before she makes it to the truck.
“Get your life together, Jameson!” I holler out the open window with a laugh and she drops a shoe.
She reaches the truck and chucks her sandals and bag through the open window before wrenching the door open and climbing up onto the seat. She looks down at her shirt just as the glob of jelly slides off her chin and lands on her white T-shirt.
“Oh, come on!” she huffs out around a bite of toast and throws her hands in the air.
I chuckle and hand her a tissue from the box on the seat next to me.
“You should know by now that you and white clothing do not mix.”
She dabs at the spot. Realizing it’s a lost cause, she wads up the tissue and shoves the rest of her toast into her mouth.
“Just drive. It'll match the orange juice I spilled on my pants.” She moves her arm and shows me a half-dried spot the size of a grapefruit on her thigh.
I shake my head and laugh as I pull away from the curb. “You're a mess, girl.”
After dropping our stuff off at the office, we’ll head to the cafeteria for a planning meeting for the annual Huckleberry Days Festival that the graduating senior class puts on every August in Timber Forge.
For the last two summers, Finn and I have volunteered at the dunk tank and the pie eating contest. This year, because we are part of the exiting senior group, we’re on the actual planning committee. We’ve had a couple of meetings already, but now that school is out, things will really kick into high gear to meet the mid-August deadline.
We pull into the school parking lot and park up front. Finn opens her bag and pulls out her wrinkled graduation gown and cap, one point bent at a right angle. A blue folder stuffed to the gills with ideas for this year's Timber Forge High School parade float comes out next. This kind of stuff is right up her alley, and that folder proves it. She hands it over to me and pulls a brush from her bag.
“That thing is a bottomless pit,” I say, pointing at her bag.
“Hold this,” she says, ignoring my dig, and begins raking the brush through her long chestnut hair.
I gather the folder and my own cap and gown in my hands and watch her as she makes quick work of her hair, plaiting it into a thick braid that hangs over her shoulder. Securing the end with an elastic band, she does a quick check of her makeup in the visor mirror—although she doesn't wear much—and opens the door to hop out.
As we climb the stairs, I move to hand her the bursting blue folder but pull it back at the last minute.
“Don't drop this thing,” I say, holding it against my chest. “We’re already late.”
“Shut up.” She laughs and swats my arm before swiping it from me.
It takes about thirty minutes to turn in our belongings and sign to receive our diplomas. As we make our way to the cafeteria, Finn rattles off her top ideas for this year’s float.
The sound of male laughter mixed with the scrape and clunk of metal chairs being set up just inside the doors draws my attention.
A group of five or six boys from the graduating class, including Hudson Hayes, is setting chairs up in a semi-circle around a white board on an easel.
Growing up in this small town, the three of us have been in basically every class together since kindergarten. But this past year, Hudson and Finn were lab partners, and it wasn’t long before he’d sort of become the third wheel to our little friendship duet. We don’t hang out with him all the time, but he sometimes comes with us swimming or to the dollar matinée movies on Sunday mornings. On the nights I work my job as a grocery bagger at the market, Finn and Hudson sometimes hang out without me.
I’m not jealous, but I have a hunch that Hudson likes Finnley more than he lets on. I asked him about it once and he blew me off. Finnley currently has ahugecrush on Zach, another boy from our class, but so far, he hasn’t asked her out, and she insists she doesn't see Hudson as anything more than a friend.
Now, he spots us across the room and waves us over with a wide smile.
“About time you got here! We’re just about ready to start,” he says, pulling on the end of her braid. He glances my way and raises a hand in greeting. “Hey Wren.”
“Hey,” I say, hiking my bag up onto my shoulder and looking around for the best place to sit.
This is about how it goes most times with us. He’s excited to see Finn, but I’ve always felt I was just part of that deal. He’s never mean. The opposite is true, actually. But he just seems to hit it off better with Finnley.
“Hudson!” calls a deep male voice.
I look up to see Hank Hayes, Hudson's older brother, striding our way.
He’s dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt, with a hoodie dangling from his long fingers, and I can't take my eyes off him. At twenty, he’s tall and handsome. All long limbs, broad shoulders, and wavy brown hair cut shorter on the sides and left longer on top.
