The Only Black Girls in Town: Chapters 19–29

The next day at school, Edie is sullen.

She doesn’t even look at him now as she listlessly swirls a spoon through her yogurt cup.

“Quit it, Fletcher,” I say in the sternest tone I can muster.

Maybe there’ll never be a good time with the mood Edie has been in, so I forge ahead.

“Nothing,” I said two times, but when it was apparent she would not take that for an answer, I faltered. “It’s the birthday of someone I care about very much,” I said after a pause. “And I can’t be with them.”

May raised a suggestive eyebrow. “Them?”
“May,” I said, shaking my head.

So much that I even missed the hugs of the Graham children when they deemed something I’d done for them particularly nice.

Or perhaps I was just tired. Of hiding my true self, of waiting to be discovered and chastised and kicked out of the second new life I’d made.

I stood stiff in her arms at first, then I relaxed. This wasn’t a perfunctory hug. I could feel the warmth behind it.

We’re surrounded by green lawns, Spanish-style buildings with terra-cotta roofs, and mountains looming in the distance.

We’re surrounded by green lawns, Spanish-style buildings with terra-cotta roofs, and mountains looming in the distance.

“And because we could all use a little pampering and a nice pool,” Denise counters.

“Well, first of all, I was one of the few women at the commune. And the men were quite outspoken and overbearing when they wanted to be. I was lucky to have Elliott and Kadeem, but even though they were my best friends, they didn’t really understand what it was like to be a woman there.”

“Well, first of all, I was one of the few women at the commune. And the men were quite outspoken and overbearing when they wanted to be. I was lucky to have Elliott and Kadeem, but even though they were my best friends, they didn’t really understand what it was like to be a woman there.”

I don’t even have to lift my head to know it’s Nicolette. I don’t think anyone else’s voice could be drenched in that much sarcasm.

“Don’t you have something better to do than harass us?”

Nicolette smirks, then turns to Shauna, whose snide look matches her own.

I don’t think I’m going to take off on the next one, but at the last minute I catch it with a flawless pop-up and launch into a bottom turn, maneuvering my body toward the lip. Then, as the wave starts to break, I bend my knees even lower and, gaining speed, shift my weight and try to ride along the lip of the wave.

I don’t think I’m going to take off on the next one, but at the last minute I catch it with a flawless pop-up and launch into a bottom turn, maneuvering my body toward the lip. Then, as the wave starts to break, I bend my knees even lower and, gaining speed, shift my weight and try to ride along the lip of the wave.

“Butter pecan, Alberta?” Leif asks, wielding the scooper in his plastic-gloved hand.

Her eyes flit over the ice-cream case. “Can I get a scoop of rocky road in a cone?”

Denise said Laramie’s moodiness probably has nothing to do with me, and I know Edie’s doesn’t, either.

She has her arm looped through his and he’s smirking as they saunter through the hallway to the eighth-grade wing, looking like they own the school.

They’re savoring the fries like they’ve never had them before in their life.

But her mother’s cheerfulness is so contagious it makes me feel better that I’m staying here if I can’t be at the hospital.

“Her family didn’t take a lot of her things. It wasn’t junk, but mementos. Things that clearly meant a lot to her, from years ago.”

“We’ll do it a bit more eloquently than that,” Ms. Whitman says. “We can tell her we found something that we think was her mother’s and would like to return. She might end up telling us herself...if she knew.”

Dad is so giddy on the way to the hospital the next afternoon, he barely stops talking.

I’m still feeling shaky when Tim places the swaddled baby in my arms.

“Unless you have any more questions? And you’re free to stop by the B&B anytime to make sure she didn’t leave anything else you might want to have. She had quite the extensive library.”

Cobwebs cling to every surface outside, from the sign that now says WHITMAN INN to the eaves above the porch.

A ghoulish mask of a witch with bright red eyes and a screaming mouth sits over the door knocker.

“Hi, girls! Oh, you both look so good! Let me guess—a flapper,” she says, pointing at Laramie’s gold fringe dress and sequined headband.

She stops as she assesses my costume.

The big batch is sitting in a steaming cauldron—but it’s really just ginger ale, juices, and sherbet with dry ice at the bottom.