Seeing her in that bikini unlocked a new neural pathway. Bee and her neon green bikini were now linked in my mind like peanut butter and jelly, but sexy.
I’d noticed her figure before today. Of course, I had. Those vibrant outfits she wore always drew my attention her way. The fact that she kept herself buttoned up in thick fabrics and chunky layers made me wonder what was concealed underneath.
There had been this one time as I passed her café. She was up on a step stool, a brown corduroy skirt lifting over bright purple tights, and reached up to a top shelf to grab what appeared to be a troublesome cat. I watched a moment too long before I realized what I was doing. When I glanced up from her legs, our eyes met through the glass. A slow smile began to light up her features, but I tucked my head and walked away before I could see it at full wattage. I had no idea what to even say to her. That night, I had a very inappropriate dream about her, where she was my librarian, and I had to be quiet.
She shifted.
“It’s a long story,” she mumbled, anger staining her cheeks and ears red.
I leaned back, crossing one leg over the other.
“Lucky for us, we have nothing but time.” I opened my arm to welcome her back into the cocoon of warmth we had created.
She shimmied herself back up next to me so I could wrap us in the foil heat blanket. I took a long, deep breath of cold air todistract from focusing on how her soft curves fit perfectly against mine.
“You know that statue in town? Outside the plaza, between the yoga studio and the newer weed shop, High Altitudes?” she asked.
It took me a second to locate the statue in my mind because that had been so far from what I expected her to say.
“Laura Ingalls Wilder?”
Bee gasped and turned toward me. “That’s her name?” Hope shone from her big brown eyes.
“No.” I chuckled. “That’s just what I call her. Because of the author of thoseLittle House on the Prairiebooks.”
“Damn. I thought that name sounded familiar.” She sat back, deflated, and let out a long sigh that pursed her lips. “Do you know her actual name? Or anything about her?”
I shook my head slowly, still waiting to understand the connection to the bikini. And not just because I enjoyed contemplating the bikini.
“Dangit. You’re not alone.” She fidgeted with a Velcro pocket, not meeting my gaze. “I walk past that statue every day.” Here, she hesitated, and her shoulders rolled forward as though she were protecting herself. “I sort of became obsessed with her, my Jane Smith. There is no information on the statue. She’s terribly overgrown and neglected, and nobody in this town can give me a single answer about who she was or why she’s been memorialized. Here is this larger-than-life memorial for a woman who has now been lost to time.”
Her eyes crinkled with a frustrated sort of disbelief as she spoke with more genuine sincerity than I’d seen from her yet.
“My fixation began slowly enough. I asked Mel, my boss, first. She hasn’t lived in Slippery Slopes her whole life, but as the owner of the cat café, she knows a lot of the town lore. She didn’tknow anything about the statue. Neither did the town manager, Jean Sparks, Deckard’s mom. Neither did Samuel Clemens?—”
“You were really desperate. Talk about aTwainin the ass.” I cut in, trying to break the tension, and she huffed a soft laugh.
If that was even his real name, Samuel Clemens touted to know everything about everything and dressed suspiciously like Mark Twain. He was a wealth of knowledge but had a hard time stopping once he got going.
“I know. I lost an hour of my life talking about the history of the printing press.” She shrugged. “Actually, it was pretty interesting, but he didn’t know about Jane. I also asked the oldest man in town, Ned Fled. He said he might have an idea, and we were supposed to meet again to talk more about it, but he forgot about me or rather our plans.” She flicked a look at me and laughed, but I didn’t think it was funny. How could anyone miss a chance to talk to her more? She hedged on before I could say something.
“Anyway, I even asked the head librarian, Connor Finkle. My questions began here and there at first, and then I became more focused. I looked online. I studied old newspaper clippings. But nobody knows who she was or why we have her in our town. And nobody seems to care or notice besides me. An important fixture diluted to a PokéStop for those still playing and nothing more.” She let out a long sigh.
“Nobody knows anything about her,” Bee went on. Her pale hands twisted in her lap. “I don’t understand it. There isn’t a single document. It’s a big statue! At least twenty GPs tall. Shouldn’t there be some sort of registry for that stuff? It feels so reprehensible that somebody with such an important role in life—worthy of being immortalized—can still be forgotten.”
As she spoke, her eyebrows twisted with worry. For all her fiery, impassioned persona, she was a deep well of vulnerability that only became more apparent in time. I was starting tounderstand why she might feel an affinity for the statue, but I didn’t want to jump to conclusions. Sharing this story of her Jane Smith statue felt like a confession she wouldn’t share with just anybody. I wanted to support her and say the right thing.
“I think that’s the nature of life. We’re all eventually destined to fade into oblivion,” I said, then winced internally.
“Wow. So comforting.” She poked the back of my hand with her gloved finger playfully.
I ground my molars. Why did I think I could be her confidant when I never said the right thing? Why did I think I could make her feel better and not worse? She didn’t want to talk to me about important things.
She groaned in discontent. “But doesn’t that scare you?”
“It doesn’t matter when I think,” I said, feeling ashamed, knowing she wouldn’t want to talk philosophy with me.
“Of course it does,” she said. I sat still, looking forward until her hand moved to gently touch my chin. I let my head be turned in her direction until I looked down into her curious, dark eyes filled with sincerity. “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t want to know,” she said. “I want to know more about you.”
