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Her glass-blue eyes are swift to swerve around the circle of benches, checking for prying eyes and ears. No one looks to be listening, so with a sigh, she turns in her seat to mirror Kate.
To Billie, it wasn’t unlike a distorted mirror, something that reminded her fleetingly of those warped ones that pass through town in summer carnivals. Kate and Billie were reflections of absolute opposites: A pink, knock-off skirt mirroring a pair of over-worn jean-shorts; a satin blouse, too shiny to pass for real silk, but it was hidden under a pale-pink cardigan—a stark contrast to Billie’s bleach-stained oversized t-shirt, so stretched out over the years that it hung off her pale, freckled shoulder and the letters that once spelled ‘NIRVANA’ were peeled and cracked now.
But it’s not just their clothes. Smooth brown skin, freckled pasty skin. Dark hazel eyes, pale blue ones. Polished and ambitious, defeated and drunk.
With each day Billie spiraled into her self-fulfilling prophecy of becoming her alky mom living out murky days in a trailer park, Kate rose up from their circumstance and set her sights onthe great. The great life, husband, career, home.
Billie smacks her gum. “It’s the best dress she had. And all I can afford, Kate. Just a white summer dress.” Her mouth turns down at the corner, tucking freckles into her skin. The scar spearing across her cheek twists something ugly and kinks the edge of her mouth. “Ok… I’m ending it. Like, for real this time.”
Kate makes to roll her eyes, but Billie cuts her instinctual reaction off—
“Look, he’s leaving. At the end of the summer, he’s going back to the city, isn’t he? Preston isn’t going to stay in Dosserport. He keeps pushing and pushing for me to come to the city with him, but… I don’t want to. I don’t want to,” she adds, defeated. “So this… is our last summer together. When it’s over, we break up… and there’s no making up after that.”
Zero hints of surprise crease or wrinkle Kate’s perfectly smooth face. Her downcast eyes betray her—like she saw this coming.
And she did. “I know you, B. I know you won’t go to Manhattan. It’s not you. I…”
Billie’s smile is crooked, smudged with faint sadness she won’t yet let herself feel. She’ll cry when the summer ends. Not before. “You thought Preston would be the one to do it?”
“Maybe.” Kate shrugs, and even that gesture on her is prim and graceful. “I don’t know what I expected with you two this summer—but your maturity? I didn’t expect that.”
Billie leans in closer, a sly smile sneaking across her pale, freckled face. “You think I’m mature?”
“No.” Kate’s expression locks down, hard. She blinks, all serious-like. “Acknowledging that it’s over, or will be over soon, is mature. I’m surprised, is all.”
Billie winks just as the familiar purr of a Cadillac draws closer, coming up the road. “You said what you said, and I’ll never forget it.”
“I wish you would,” Kate murmurs, her attention already flittering away. She flattens her hands to smooth down her skirt, a skirt free of any wrinkles or creases at all, yet she smooths it out all the same.
Billie pops the lid of her water bottle (and to give credit, there issomewater in there with the moonshine) and takes a generous swig, then caps it just as the Cadillac comes to a stop on the road behind them—
Preston and Trevor.
Eagerness breaks out over Kate’s face with an ear-to-ear smile as she pushes up from the bench and turns around. Her wave is prim, so different to the gestures Billie had gotten used to from her throughout their lives, such a drift between who she’s trying to be and where she came from.
She waves over her wasp-boyfriend, Trevor.
Billie knows what she sees in that frat boy. A future. A path to the great.
So Kate plays the role of a stick with the potential to become a wasp.
Billie pretends no such thing about herself. She’ll always be a stick, and Preston will always be a wasp.
“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Billie asks as she swings the strap of her weathered backpack over a shoulder. As she stands, the weight of the backpack smacks onto her hip and starts to ride up her already-short shorts, giving her something of a front wedgie.
Billie tugs down the hem of her jean-shorts.
“You’re working tomorrow, I thought,” Kate says somewhat absentmindedly as she watches Trevor—hands on the windshield and car door—jump out of the convertible.
He lands with silence, his designer boat shoes soft and quiet against the hot sidewalk. Billie can’t fight the pucker of her lips as she eyes him up, the slight tell on her face that she doesn’t like him too much.
He’s an Abercrombie guy. Popped collar, thick sawdust hair, and the attitude of a Backstreet Boy.
Billie turns to Kate. “Yeah, got a shift with Tonya. But only until after the lunch rush, then I’m out.” Billie flicks down her Ray Bans and, turning to face the car idling on the side of the road, watches Trevor give his wolfish grin Kate’s way. A grin that tells of mischief and play—
But one that Kate interprets as love and adoration.
They use each other, those two. At least according to Billie.
