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“I have to agree,” Lavena said. “That whole day could have gone completely different if we’d done what we were supposed to be doing, like going straight home from school and not wandering the streets like the hooligans we were.”
“And I was supposed to be home, eating my after-school snack,” I added. “Instead, my dumb ass took the wrong bus, panicked and got off that bus somewhere on the opposite end of the city all because my bus was late, and I didn’t realize until it was too late. If you guys hadn’t come along and kidnapped me…”
“Kidnapped?” Sasha and Lavena cried in unison.
“Girl, you practically skipped home with us.” Sasha laughed.
“I seriously did,” I agreed, shaking my head. “I just accepted that I no longer had a home and abandoned myself to my fate.”
It was fun to laugh about it years later, but at that moment, cold, scared and hungry, it had been the most traumatic event of my life. I had truly believed I would never see my parents again, that somehow, the bus had simply taken me to an entirely different country and not forty-five minutes away from my house. Seeing three little girls my age wandering up the street towards me had filled me with such unimaginable hope I had immediately burst into tears. The trio had stopped and stared at me, none of us equipped to handle that situation until Lavena had made the decision for all of us.
“You’re coming to live with me,”she’d decided with a certainty that left no room for argument. She’d given me her hand and I’d accepted without question. I basically let her take me home with her like some lost pet.
Marcella — bless her heart — had stared from me to the trio surrounding me with a warm smile edged in confusion.
“Girls?”She’d eyed me a second longer before facing her daughter still holding my hand.“Who’s this?”
Lavena had shrugged.“Don’t know. We found her outside. She lives with us now.”
Marcella’s eyes had gone enormous on her beautiful face.“Lavena Josephine Medlock did you kidnap this child off the street?”
“Kidnap?”Lavena had seemed confused by the question.“There were no ropes or duct tapes involved … this time. I just gave her my hand. She followed. Tell her, Kas.”
“It’s true, Mrs. Medlock. I was there. I saw the whole thing.”
“See? I learned,”Lavena stated, proud of herself.
Looking back, that probably summed up what an idiot child I’d been, but it hadn’t clued in then.
“You…”Marcella cut herself off, deciding her daughter was going to be no help and turned to me, her smile forcibly calm, but authoritative.“Hey there, sweetheart, what’s your name?”
From there, it took her all of fifteen minutes to find the name of my school, call it and have them call my parents, who had been waiting for me at the bus stop, frantic when I didn’t show. I was placed on a high stool at the vast and gleaming kitchen counter with a plate of cookies and a tall glass of milk. I’d forgotten all about being terrified as Lavena dumped all her dolls between us and introduced me to each one. I remembered Darius stalking in at some point to grab a Coke from the fridge, eyeing me suspiciously as he popped it open and took a sip. He watched me the entire time over the rim like I was some new painting that he couldn’t recall ever seeing before.
“Another one?”he’d asked his mom, who had only shaken her head in resignation.
I didn’t have any friends at my school. The other kids had always been so intimidating. Clustering together in their own little packs, they’d felt impenetrable and hostile, but the girlshad accepted me and gone out of their way to include me as if I’d always been one of them.
By the time my dad came to pick me up, I’d been adopted by the trio. Lavena had marched right up to him with Sasha and Kas flagging her to tell him I was required to return that weekend for a very important playdate.
The rest had been history. Sixteen years later, we were still as thick as thieves.
“I really was a dumb child,” I decided with a wince. “If you guys hadn’t found me, I probably would have hopped right into the first windowless van that pulled up promising puppies and candy.”
The two laughed, but Lavena pursed her lips and slapped my knee.
“You weren’t dumb, and you didn’t go home with some pervert in a van. You went home with us. We wouldn’t have let anything happen to you, and we still won’t.”
Feeling the sting of tears, I offered her a weak smile. “Stop. You’ll make me cry.”
“And that’s our cue for wine!” Kas declared, reaching for the basket.
The morning slipped into a lazy afternoon. We swam and chatted about days gone by. We laughed about our ex’s and made ridiculous and not so ridiculous plans for the future.
“Christmas in France,” Lavena decided. “I will not take no for an answer.”
That seemed to settle the matter and we all agreed to a Christmas in France.
It wasn’t until the sun began to dip and the air carried a slight nip that we packed things up and headed for our canoes.
