Page 82 of Cookout Carnage
Lucille pointed at Thad. ‘Get yourself gone.’
‘Can I get some iced tea first? This hump is making me sweat awful bad.’
Lucille growled at him and he made a gesture of surrender and dashed out the door.
‘Sherilyn, get your young man and take him out back to the school. I’ll deal with who’s at the front.’
She ran out, shouting at her husband to stay put.
Sherilyn re-entered the museum. Tristan stood with a glazed expression on his face that turned to relief when he saw her.
‘Thank you, Mr. Reynolds, for the tour,’ she said. ‘But we have to be going now.’
‘Oh,’ replied Truman, looking disappointed. He shook Tristan’s hand. ‘Please visit whenever you are next in town, and if you want to join me on a field trip you would be most welcome.’
‘Thank you,’ Tristan replied, folding the papers he had been given and putting them in his vest pocket. ‘It’s been verygneissto meet you.’
Truman’s face lit up. ‘A geology joke! It has beengneissto meet you too. And remember in life, don’t take anything forgranite.’
Tristan grinned. ‘I won’t.’
Sherilyn pulled him out of the room. ‘We’re leaving out the back.’
They entered the kitchen. ‘Should we say goodbye to Lucille?’ he asked.
Sherilyn could hear her voice at the front door arguing with someone.
‘It’s done,’ she said, ‘Let’s go.’
‘Do you think she would mind if I had another glass of iced tea?’
‘Not at all.’
There was no glass in sight, so she thrust the pitcher at him. ‘Drink from here.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. It’s a Southern thing. It’s nearly finished anyway.’
He raised it and drank. Sherilyn looked at his throat as he swallowed and licked her lips.
When he finished, she took the pitcher from him and opened the back door. ‘This way.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘I’m going to take you to the place I spent most of my time growing up.’
27
Midway High School was on the outskirts of town. The student body was small, but the grounds sprawled into the countryside. The low-hanging sun cast the sand-coloured buildings in a soft light, making Sherilyn’s high school memories seem even warmer. She’d enjoyed school. Two bad-ass older brothers ensured she was never bullied. She had a small angst-free circle of friends and her grades were good enough to get her to her college of choice – out of state.
She strolled with Tristan past the expanse of sports fields, their hands joined. It was as if she was operating on two frequencies simultaneously. One a low and steady hum of contentment, a feeling of rightness, as if she’d come home to discover that home was a person rather than a place. The other high pitched, an excitable oscillating buzz of energy, as nerves and desire sparked off each other inside her.
‘I love all this space,’ he said. ‘Even at a large secondary school in the UK you’d never get so many pitches.’
‘Well, we’ve got the land, and Americans love their sports.’
‘Where I grew up, we had a small park where we played football—’
