I Kissed Shara Wheeler(28)
FROM THE BURN PILE
From Georgia’s composition book for Creative Writing, junior year Assignment: Describe a person with one word
There’s a girl with brown eyes who reminds me of the first book I ever loved. When I look at her, I feel like there might be another universe in her. I imagine her on a shelf too high for me to reach, or peeking out of someone else’s backpack, or at the end of a long wait at the library. I know there are other books that are easier to get my hands on, but none are half as good as her. Every part of her seems to have a purpose, a specific meaning, an exact reason for being how and what and where it is. So, the word I would choose to describe her is “deliberate.”
Annotation by Chloe: Who is this about????
8
DAYS SINCE SHARA LEFT: 8
DAYS UNTIL GRADUATION: 35
“Sorry,” Chloe’s mom says, folding her arms across her chest. She leans against the side of the truck, where the logo of her welding company is painted in black. “You went to a party where last night?”
This is how it always goes with Chloe’s moms. They talk about everything, so every secret feels huge. She lasted until Sunday morning, then folded on the ride to the Birmingham airport.
“Dixon Wells’s house.”
“Why does that name sound so familiar?”
“Because he’s a douchebag of nuclear proportions. I’m sure I’ve complained about him before.”
“And this was when you said you were with Georgia?”
“No,” Chloe hedges, “I said I was going out with a friend. Which was true because I went to the party with a friend. Well, technically I met him there, but we went together.”
“Playing pretty fast and loose with the concept of truth there, junior. Do you want to tell me why you went to the house party of an atomic asshole?”
“Nuclear douchebag.”
“Sure.”
Since she knew she’d end up breaking, she already has her story. The whole hunting-down-her-academic-rival thing is too complicated to explain, and if she claims she wants to make peace with the Willowgrove elite as a graduation goodwill gesture, her mom will probably rush her to the ER for a head injury.
“I’m in a group project with a football player in my Bible class,” she says, “and I needed to tell him to stop blowing me off and do his part.”
“Ah, yes.” Her mom grimaces. “Mandatory Bible class.”
Bringing up Bible class always works. Her mom isn’t any happier than Chloe is to be stuck in False Beach, which is the main reason Chloe can’t be mad at her for dragging them here. Resenting Willowgrove has been a bonding activity for them these past few years.
“Yeah,” Chloe says. “Coach Wilson takes time away from his busy schedule of training the baseball team to inform six classes of seniors every day that premarital sex is a sin and homosexuals are an abomination. It’s great.”
Her mom looks like she has something to say, but then the automatic doors slide open and there’s her mama, looking the same as ever in a pair of loose linen overalls, tugging along a suitcase full of opera gowns. She has Chloe in her arms in a second, scooping her up and burying her fingers in Chloe’s short hair.
“Oh, sweet girl,” she says in Chloe’s ear. Chloe feels her throat go tight. She coughs into her mama’s shoulder. “I missed you so much.”
“Did you get grayer?” Chloe asks into her hair.
“Probably.” She releases Chloe, then turns to Chloe’s mom, gathers her up at the waist, and gives her a long, open-mouthed kiss like they’re on the bow of the freaking Titanic.
“Okay, okay,” Chloe says. “We’re still in Alabama. Let’s go.”
On the way home she recounts the story of Dixon’s party. She does get in trouble for lying, but the extent of her punishment is having to endure a thirty-minute lecture from her mama about the importance of open communication within a self-policing community, even one as small as a family of three. Chloe checks Shara’s Instagram for updates and says “uh-huh” in all the right places. There’s nothing new, just the same purposefully curated grid of warm-toned fake candids.
When she’s done with Shara’s Instagram, she returns to her group chat with Smith and Rory, where they’ve been discussing the postscript on Shara’s latest note. Chloe’s sure the word “records” is a reference to Rory’s music collection and wants to do a search of his room, but he responded via perturbed voice note this morning that he’s perfectly capable of looking on his own and neither of them are allowed back in his room ever again.
?????, Chloe texts, which the others know by now is her way of demanding a status report. Rory replies with a middle finger emoji.
At home, they eat the accursed turducken, over which her mama describes her hotel in Portugal and its fancy balconies and the room service custard tarts. After dinner, there’s homemade cheesecake with sugared cherries on top, which reminds Chloe of Midsummer and Shara, and then she’s itching to take her phone out and check Instagram again.
She drops her plate in the sink and heads for her bedroom.
“Hey, where are you off to?” her mama says, brushing a long lock of graying hair back into her braid. Her mom grunts past her in the hallway, hauling an armload of blankets out of the master bedroom. “We’re renting You’ve Got Mail.”