Four years since she asked a girl in freshman bio why the chapter on sexual reproduction was taped shut and met Georgia, a Willowgrove student since kindergarten. Three and a half years since she ditched her goth phase and Georgia started keeping their five-year post-Willowgrove plan posted up in her locker. This year, Chloe and Benjy finally bullied Mr. Truman, the choir teacher, into choosing Phantom for the spring musical, and the two of them played Christine and Raoul, respectively.
And, it’s been four years since Chloe walked into her first class at Willowgrove and saw the girl from that billboard seated in the front row, highlighters lined up neatly. By the end of the day, she had heard: （1） That’s Shara Wheeler. （2） Shara Wheeler’s dad is Principal Wheeler, the man enforcing Willowgrove’s archaic rules. （3） Her family has more money than God. （4） Everyone—everyone—loves her.
Even Georgia, always unimpressed by Willowgrove in her own quiet way, said when Chloe asked that first week, “Yeah, honestly, Shara’s cool.”
Shara’s not cool. California was cool. Living in a place where it didn’t matter if everyone knew about her moms was cool. Shara is a vague mist of a person, checking all the right False Beach boxes so that everyone thinks they see a perfect girl in her place. What’s cool about that?
（No, Chloe still hasn’t found her own note from Shara. Yes, she has checked everywhere, including the pocket of the oxford that was pressed up against Shara’s cotton polo when they kissed.）
Chloe drops the delicate chain back into the drawer and shuts it, glaring at the bathroom mirror. Why is she looking at the only person in town immune to Shara Wheeler?
“You are cursed with flawless judgment,” Chloe says to her reflection.
In her room, she kicks a stack of college admissions booklets aside to reach her backpack. The hunt for her Shara note will have to wait for a couple of hours. She’s got a date with her French 4 final project, a full essay about uprisings in France from 1789 to 1832, which is due in three weeks. Georgia’s her partner.
“Mom, Titania ate my underwear again,” Chloe says as she sweeps into the kitchen.
Chloe’s mom, who is still wearing her work coveralls and shoving something enormous into the freezer, grunts out, “Sounds like a problem for someone who leaves their underwear on the floor, not me.”
“That’s the third pair this month. Can I have some money to go to Target tomorrow?”
Titania, the house cat in question, is perched on top of the refrigerator and surveying them both like a tiny panty-eating lord. She’s tempestuous and vindictive and has been a part of the Green household almost as long as Chloe has. Chloe’s moms like to blame her for Chloe’s personality.
“Check the change jar,” she says.
Chloe sighs and begins counting out quarters.
“What is that?” she asks, watching her mom rearrange frozen vegetables to make room for the mysterious icy bundle. “Did you kill someone?”
“Your mother,” she says as she finally manages to cram the thing in, “has requested a Southern feast when she gets home from Portugal this weekend. A very specific one.” She pats the hunk of meat once and turns to Chloe, a bit of short, dark hair falling over her forehead. She used to have Chloe help her dye it blue, but she’s kept it natural since the move. “This, my child, is a turducken.”
“You lost me at turd,” Chloe says. “But continue.”
“It’s a chicken stuffed inside a duck stuffed inside a turkey.”
“Where did you even get that?”
“I know a guy.”
“That’s … upsetting.”
Her mom nods and shuts the freezer. “My wife is a woman of refinement.”
Because Chloe and her mom were both miserable about the move, her West Coast mama resolved to be aggressively positive about discovering the South. She bought a red Bama shirt to wear in her vegetable garden and a matching set of houndstooth luggage for her work trips abroad. She even put up a framed photo of Dolly Parton on the kitchen windowsill. It’s a whole thing.
But her favorite activity has been seeking out every possible Southern delicacy. Back home, the most Alabama thing about their kitchen was the pitcher of sweet tea Chloe’s mom always kept in the fridge. Now, her mama has insisted on learning how to fry chicken thighs and green tomatoes, sampled each item on the Bojangles menu, and become a regular at every soul-food joint in town.
And apparently, she’s going to make Chloe eat some kind of nightmare poultry matryoshka, which is even worse than when she roasted a chicken by shoving a can of Miller Lite up its ass.