Nora
I stuff another bite in my mouth and mutter, “Aubry, please. I will be fine.”
“Three months in the middle of nowhere with a stranger is not fine,” she says seriously.
I finish chewing and swallowing. “It’s a job. Tutoring an eleven-year-old girl. It’s three thousand dollars for three months! I can’t turn that down.” I give her a pointed look.
Aubry stares at me with narrowed blue eyes but relents, no doubt thinking about the money. I looked and looked for a job here in town since freshman year of college finished but the pickings turned out to be pretty slim. Now it is nearly June and I have ten weeks until the fall college semester starts and I’m short most of the tuition for first semester.
“Tell me one more time what this Holden dude was like.”
“Actually, kinda hot. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s probably thirty. He said his girlfriend left him last month and she was homeschooling his little sister, Charlotte. His hair was a little long—scruffy kinda—but besides that, he looked presentable. He was charming, Aub. I swear. Not a weird hillbilly. He seemed really nice.” Holden was lean and tall. Probably from all the farm chores. He had these piercing green hazel eyes that had made my stomach flip over on itself when he first looked at me. And his smile was . . . beautiful. Could a man even have a beautiful anything? He’d made me feel capable and pretty, with just his smile. It had put me at ease immediately. No one had ever looked at me the way he had.
“Why doesn’t his sister go to school?” Aub asks, pushing a chunk of waffle through syrup.
I push some food around my plate. “He runs a farm or ranch or something like that out in the middle of nowhere.” I shrug. “I guess the trip to the closest school would take hours each way by the time she was picked up and dropped off.” Lots of kids in that part of the state are homeschooled because of the distance. I need this job. I need the money. It’s the best way to make fast cash and it will allow me to have a decent bundle saved for community college in the fall.
“But . . .” Aubry sighs. “There’s really no visiting while you’re away?”
I frown at her. “Nope. I can mail you letters when we go into town for stuff. He doesn’t have internet or electricity. He said they live off the land and you know, it’d be too expensive to run all those power lines up to his house.”
“Are you camping or tutoring?” Aubry jokes. I laugh because it is strange. I was a little uneasy at first when Holden was telling me about the ranch, but he was so kind and calm and easy going, that I figured I’d get over the lack of luxury offered.
“Both, I guess. I mean, there is a house though,” I tell her. “And Aub, it’s three thousand dollars.” I emphasize the last three words.
She emphasizes hers more. “You hate strangers. And you’re even weirder about guys. And now you’re going to go live with a strange guy for like three months and be okay?” She reaches across the tabletop and grabs my hand. I bite my lip and stare at my plate. She’s right. This whole scenario is very unlike me. I’m the shy, reserved one. She’s the outgoing one. I’m the reader. The lover of words. I’d rather be in my house alone than at a party.
“I have to. It’s the only way I’ll be able to start classes in the fall.”
“Will you write me once a week?”
“Will you?” I ask.
She giggles. “Nope. I won’t miss you at all, so there’s no reason to write.” I pick up a piece of toast and throw it at her. She squeals when it hits her forehead.
“I will mail you a letter whenever I can,” I tell her and I will because Aubry is my best friend. She brings me out of my shy-shell and forces me to interact with the world. She keeps a smile on my face, even in the darkest of times.
“So, when you do start?” she asks and steals a home fry from my plate.
I swat at her hand. “June 1st. I have to take a bus to Pocketville and he’ll pick me up there.” I stab at my eggs.
Aubry’s shoulders slump and she pouts. “Pocketville is so far away.” Emphasis on so. I giggle.
“I guess the farm is another hour’s drive from there. It’s only three months.” I wave my hand through the air dismissively.
“Three. Long. Months.” Aubry is such a Sarah Bernhardt. She should have taught drama at school. Or be headed off to a theatre arts college.
“You’ll be fine,” I say. “Plus, that’s three long months you get to live in my house. On your own. And it’s really only 86 days, so not quite three whole months.” I smile at her.
“Maybe I can convince Mom to send you a care package.”
I furrow my brow. “Don’t. She has enough to deal with and I’m not her kid.”
I am nobody’s child. At twelve, my parents were killed in a car accident. My mother’s youngest sister moved into the house to take care of me. But what twenty-three year old wants to be saddled with a kid? Not a single one. That’s what. The last time I saw Aunt Amber, I was sixteen. Out of pure fear, I didn’t tell anyone except Aubry that she was gone. I was only a few years off from eighteen and I had my parents’ house and life-insurance money to sustain me. I didn’t need much. Just the basic utilities and food. I paid the bills online from the account Aunt Amber had put my parents’ insurance money into. I went to school like normal. Kept my grades up. I didn’t need anyone to look after me by that age.
Aubry shoots me a look. “She’s practically raised you.”
I nod in agreement. “But she has her own three kids to deal with.”
“She’s pissed at you anyway,” Aubry says, but she doesn’t mean it.
“What did I do now?” I ask.
“You stopped coming over. She misses you.”
“You’re always at my place,” I counter.
“Because you make me come over!” Her grin is mischievous. We both laugh until our bellies are sore because her exclamation is true. I do make her come over.
“I’ll come over before I leave. Tell her that.” And I will, because Angela Clark is the closest thing I have to a mother. I’ll just make sure Anton isn’t there and everything will be fine. Just fine. Aubry widens her eyes, inviting me to a staring contest. “You better,” she says.