Beau was twenty-two and she was seventeen, and she knew that could get him into some trouble, but she liked flirting with him anyway. Flirting with him passed the time when she was in between boyfriends, and she and her ex, Mateo, had broken up a month ago.
“Ain’t that the Foxberry boy?” Mimi asked as Caro put her seat belt on. She looked over to see two shadows shoving each other by the garbage cans in the alley. She quickly recognized Trey by his height and the way he was moving his arms. He was a big boy.
“Yep,” Caro said as Mimi drove away.
“Boys sure can act like dumbasses sometimes, can’t they, Ladybug?” her grandma said, coasting through the yellow light.
Caro mm-hmmed and turned around, waiting to see if the boys would spill out of the alley, but from where she was sitting, everything looked pristine and peaceful. Like a backlot from a comforting movie with a happy ending. Even though she knew it was the furthest thing from the truth, as she looked down that small-town street, it seemed Goldie was a place where nothing bad could ever happen.
*
The next morning at school, first thing, Kasey took Caro by the elbow and led her to the corner by their lockers.
“Girl! Silas kissed me last night and asked me to prom. Asked me to be his girl. It was wild…I wasn’t expecting it, but of course I said yes. It was…it was wild—” Kasey said.
“Excuse me?! What? Tell me everything right now!” Caro said.
As Kasey filled her in, Caro couldn’t help but feel like she’d missed out on something super you had to be there important. It hurt her feelings that Ada knew all this before her. Also, Caro was jealous because she still didn’t have a date to prom, but she was happy for Kasey too. They talked until the bell was about to ring, then went their separate ways.
Caro saw Trey Foxberry on her way to class. Most of the time he ignored her, but they’d gone to the same schools since elementary. He was looking real dumb but kind of cute in his Goldie High hoodie and jersey shorts, slowpoking down the steps with a copy of Wuthering Heights and a busted lip.
*
After school, the girls went to Rosemarie’s, where there was a tray of fudgy brownies waiting for them. Rosemarie’s parents had lived on more than one commune as they made their way from California down south, and in true hippie fashion, their house was forever stocked with far-out after-school treats. Spinach salads with apples, pepitas, and homemade dressing. Cookies made with carob chips and tofu. Sun tea with fat lemon wedges, fresh mango, and banana smoothies with almond milk. Vegan cheese grilled between the bread Rosemarie’s mom, Leilani, made. When Leilani baked “special” brownies, she pretended like they’d disappeared, never asking if the girls had eaten them.
“Those are the pot ones; these are the boring ones,” Rosemarie said, pointing. The pot brownies were in purple glass, the regular ones in a metal tin. Caro had to be at the diner in a few hours, so she put a boring one on her plate; Ada did too. Rosemarie and Kasey dug in with their fingers, chomping fat chunks of chocolate they took from the purple glass.
Rosemarie picked up her guitar and played for a little bit as the girls hung out in the kitchen, talking and laughing and touching things. Rosemarie could sing anything; she had a soft, angelic voice like her mom. One of those light, wistful voices that could make you cry before your heart caught up to it, like Dolly Parton or Billie Holiday.
Rosemarie turned on Grateful Dead’s “Sugar Magnolia” as the girls walked through the beaded curtain separating the kitchen from the living room. The Kingston house was an explosion of color—the kitchen walls were psychedelic purple, the fridge was orange, the back door was Grecian blue. And so much green: hanging pothos in macrame holders that Rosemarie’s mom had made, aggressive unidentified vines wrapped around a trellis. The girls climbed into the conversation pit, where everything was tie-dyed pillows and marigold velvet. The Kingstons’ beloved mutt, Jerry Garcia, followed them and flopped down onto a triangle of sun on the floor.
“Y’all should paint stars on the ceiling,” Kasey said, and Caro knew she was feeling the brownie already because of how she said it, all dreamy-like.
“Yes! Like fractals repeating and repeating from this end all the way over there. Or like The Starry Night,” Rosemarie said, letting her arms go wide and keeping them that way.
“Wait. Is this Roy’s weed? Please don’t tell me your parents get their weed from Dumbass,” Kasey asked.
“Pshh, y’know Daddy grows his own. Organic. My daddy wouldn’t touch Roymont’s weed,” Rosemarie corrected her and rolled her eyes, giggled, and kept giggling. “By the way! Why is he named that?”
“His mother thought it was a great name. She made it up,” Kasey said.
“I hate this conversation,” Rosemarie said.
“I do too. Fuck you, Roymont! Why won’t you die?!” Kasey said as loud as she could. Rosemarie repeated it and belted the last part like it was the big finale of a musical. They kept saying it and singing it until they were both laughing so hard they had to stop. The two of them were off in their private purple haze.
Ada and Caro didn’t even mind being left out, because they were happily talking about boys—which ones were ramping up their cuteness as the school year drew to a close, which ones were slacking off.
“All the cute boys smell like wood, don’t they, Kasey? We’ve agreed on this point,” Caroline said.
“Yes! It’s true! It’s totally true! It’s a fact from God. Cute boys smell like wood, aaand boys love wearing socks, like, constantly. What’s up with that?” Kasey asked.
“Dude! Dudes love socks. I don’t know why, but they do. That’s a God-fact too, it is, so write it down somewhere,” Rosemarie said.
“Seriously, though, are you and Grayson getting married? Is that what you want? He’s never going away to college?” Caro asked Ada, as Rosemarie and Kasey slunk away to their weed-world again. Grayson had graduated last year and now he worked for his family’s construction company, and Mrs. Castelow owned and ran the adorable B and B off the town square. The power-merging of the Plum and Castelow families would be such a big deal their families probably would’ve wanted to arrange it if it hadn’t happened on its own.
Ada leaned her head on her hand. Rosemarie and Kasey were cracking up about something new that Caroline had missed. Rosemarie was literally rolling from one end of the couch to the other while Kasey did a poor job of catching her breath. The girls were making so much noise Ada and Caro could barely get through their conversation.
They always had the most fun at Rosemarie’s. Her place was cozy and enchanted, with the ever-constant music from the bamboo wind chimes mingling with the birdsong. There were hand-painted feeders on both the porch and the back deck, several birdbaths, and birdhouses in the yard.
“I think so. I think we really will get married. Someday,” Ada said. “Okay, my turn. Do you continue to have a lethal crush on Beau?”
“Wow, interesting, but the thing is, I don’t have a crush on Beau,” Caro said, squinting her eyes at Ada and playfully slapping her bare leg. The girls liked to tease her about Beau, and although it didn’t bother her, there was a part of her that was protective of him. She didn’t want anyone getting the wrong idea about their friendship. She didn’t want him getting into any trouble for it. He’d never been inappropriate with her, although yes, she thought about…stuff. He was cute and young and strong, and she liked how, even when the diner scent hung heavy on him, he still smelled a lot like the fresh wood shavings she used to put in her guinea pig’s cage. One of her favorite smells.