Famous in a Small Town(25)

And part of me hoped it never would. But part of me just … worried, sometimes. I worried about what she would do next year if Brit and I weren’t around anymore, if we both went away to school.

I worried about what Brit would do, if she and I went away to different schools.

I worried a lot, basically. And it was easiest to worry in times like this, when it was quiet, when I was alone, when there was nothing to distract me.

I picked up my phone again and checked my notifications, just in case Megan had somehow miraculously replied in the last two minutes. She hadn’t.

I tried to think of happier things. The last time Brit and I were over here, Flora was trying to do a makeup tutorial from YouTube with Brit as her subject. Flora loved makeup tutorials. Makeup in general. We had pooled our money and gotten her this palette she really wanted for her birthday.

Brit and Flora sat on Flora’s bed, Brit with her eyes closed as Flora brushed and swiped and blended. She had been trying to fill in Brit’s eyebrows when I finally looked up and couldn’t help but sputter a laugh.

“What are you doing?”

Brit’s eyes sprang open. “What? What did you do?”

“It might be a little much, but they said you have to go in with a strong hand,” Flora said. “I’ll fix it.”

“Lemme see.”

“No, I want to finish,” Flora said, and then grinned at me when Brit shut her eyes.

Instead of taking stuff off, Flora doubled down with the eyebrow filler, and drew Brit’s eyebrows approximately three times their normal thickness.

I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing.

When she finally handed Brit the mirror, Brit let out an unholy yelp, and Flora burst into hysterical laughter.

“What the hell? WHAT THE HELL, FLORA?”

“I knew I couldn’t fix them,” she said. “So I made it funny instead.”

“This is not—You are so—” Brit blustered, but Flora just laughed harder, throwing herself back against the pillows, tears in her eyes.

“You—look—so—ridiculous—” she wheezed, and I doubled over.

“I HATE BOTH OF YOU.”

The Brit Rule stood as follows: when she said she hated something, it usually meant that she loved it. It was the rule of opposites. But in this moment, she may have actually meant hate.

Until she dropped the mirror on the comforter and began tickling Flora.

“No.” Flora beat her fists out helplessly, laughing harder. “No, I can’t, I’m gonna pee—”

“Pee, then,” Brit said, still tickling. “Me and my eyebrows will judge you.”

“You’re nothing but eyebrows,” Flora gasped. “You and your eyebrows—are the same thing—You are—your eyebrows—”

I smiled to myself now, alone in Flora’s room, with the memory of them both laughing.



* * *



“What did you talk about with August tonight?” Flora said, when we were both in bed.

“Not much,” I said. “Band stuff mostly.”

“Hmm,” she replied, a little too knowingly.





sixteen


Kyle showed up in my checkout lane at Safeway a few days later with a gallon of milk, a big package of diapers, some odds and ends.

“Funny how she just keeps going through ’em,” he said as I swiped the diapers. I glanced up at him with a smile and was surprised to see the same tilt to his grin that August had. I had never noticed it before. Or I guess I had never known to look.

I looked away as I reached for a box of Cheerios.

“So, uh, how’s August doing?”

“Good. I think? I hope.” He scratched his chin absently. “I don’t know, I’ve been working a lot. I think you’ve probably gotten to spend more time with him than I have.” He smiled again. Brit always commented how hot he was, which made me uncomfortable because I thought of him as like a cool older brother/young uncle type. But objectively speaking, Kyle was hot in a way like he could play a too-old high schooler on a supernatural-themed TV show, or the action hero’s best friend who gets blown up in a war movie. “He’s talked about you, you know. Sophie this and Sophie that.”

“Good things?”

“Doesn’t get better than this and that, does it? That’s top-shelf stuff right there.”

I finished ringing up and started bagging while Kyle ran his card.

“So … he’s going to be staying, then? Like for school and everything?”

Kyle glanced up, nodded. “Yeah, looks like it. With the girls and everything, you know, we wanted to be careful—bringing a stranger into the house and all that, but—Not that he’s—” He looked flustered. “Just … you know. But he’s great, he’s a great kid. We love having him around. These last few weeks have been really cool, getting to know him.”

“So you didn’t …?”

“Sorry?”

“Know him.”

He looked away. “We didn’t grow up together, no. Different, uh, different dads. I lived with my dad and stepmom here; he lived with our mom in Missouri. I wasn’t … close with her at all. I didn’t really know her either.”