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  She shrugged it off. She was used to defusing our father-daughter “conversations,” especially when he was grouchy.

  “I’m sorry, baby girl. How was your day? Do you like all your classes?” he asked her sweetly. He did a complete Jekyll and Hyde. If I wasn’t so used to it, I would have been suspicious and started looking in the basement for his laboratory.

  As she proceeded to tell him about her day, he listened avidly, putting aside his paper and showing genuine interest. I was glad that out of the two of us, it was Aria who was getting his love and attention. I felt that my soul could handle rejection more than hers could. I had been at it longer, after all. She was sweet by nature, even as a child never taking adverse things well. When things got too much for her, she was known to have one of her “A-1 meltdowns,” where she would run away to some place of significance to her at the time or just become different, and usually I would be the only one who knew where to look or how to talk her back down, so to speak. She hasn’t had one of those since she was six and her pet hamster died. I had found her by her father’s grave, huddled in a ball crying with her hamster in a shoebox. She had wanted to bury the hamster with him so that the two would be together. That’s the kind of person she was.

  “Dinner is ready, guys,” Mom said, breaking me from my reverie.

  Dinner went without fail. Dad was his normal grouchy self to me and Trevor, then excused himself when he was done. Mom said he was just tired from working, but I knew better. He would rather eat dinner at Opal’s than with me. It was something I had come to accept. Truth was, it was better if I pretended that my family consisted of the three of us: me, Mom, and Aria.

  Mom had bought blueberry pie from the store and was taking out plates for dessert.

  “Trevor, would you like some pie?”

  “Actually, I don’t like blueberry. Do you have any apple pie by chance?” he asked apologetically.

  “No!” we all cried in unison.

  “Okay,” he sang out as he looked at the three of us like we had all just flashed him.

  “Sorry, babe,” I explained. “Aria is allergic to apples, like deathly, so no apples cross unto this house.”

  “Really?” he asked, looking at her in disbelief.

  “It’s true,” she stated proudly.

  “It’s why she’s so wired,” I teased. “What red-blooded American child doesn’t eat apples or has never had apple pie or apple cobbler?”

  “What’s ap-p-l-e cobdl-er?” she asked in her best impression of a Valley girl voice, vacant eyes and all.

  “Nice—did you learn that in Acting 101?” I laughed.

  “We did actually, but I added the Valley girl. What do you think?”

  “I think—” I paused for dramatic effect, tapping my finger to my chin.

  “Dac!” She slapped me on the arm.

  “Okay, okay. I think you’re gonna kill in theater, little sis.” And I wasn’t even joking a little bit. I really did think she had what it took.

  “Right?” She beamed.

  Mom just did her usual thing and shook her head as she always did.

  “So how did you guys find out she was allergic?” Trevor asked.

  “Oh, we were at the county fair when she was ten and Dacey gave her a candied apple, and her face and throat swelled up and she had to be rushed to the hospital for going into anaphylactic shock,” Mom explained.

  “I think I remember there was some big commotion one year at the fair,” he mused.

  “That would have been me, causing a scene even then. I was destined for stardom,” she stated, raising her hands over her head as if presenting herself to the world.

  We all laughed, and I looked over at Trevor, who had a weird look on his face, but when I asked him what was up, he shrugged it off.

  “I’m just tired. It was a long day at work,” he said.

  But somehow, I didn’t think that was what it was. By the time we had our dessert and said our good-byes, it was going on nine thirty and I had to be up for class and Opal duty at seven. The car ride back to my dorm was uncomfortably silent as I was still caught up in thoughts about how to deal with Aunt Opal’s increasingly declining health, and I assumed Trevor was caught up in thinking about work and other stuff.

  “Man, it must really be bothering you,” he muttered.

  “Huh?” I asked, half-listening.

  “Exactly, you’ve been so in your head you didn’t even notice where we were.” He chuckled.

  I looked out the window and saw that we weren’t at my dorm but at his home over by the Shaddy Groves Memorial Hospital.

  “Why did you take me to your house?” I asked, confused.

  “Floor show,” he said before grabbing my hand and kissing it.

  “I thought you were tired,” I accused.

  He gave me a knowing look. “I’m never too tired to perform to the best of my abilities,” he said, then got out of the truck, leaving me to process that.

  I scrambled from the truck to catch up to him as he unlocked the door to his small and modest home he shared with his mother. He had never known his father, as he had died when Trevor was very young, so it had always been just his mother and him, and his mother worked all the time. He had told her that because he had the job at the animal clinic now, she didn’t have to work so much, to which she retorted that she liked to keep busy. She worked as a librarian, and even though the public library closed at eight, she always stayed well past then, doing some project or another or organizing and cataloging books.

  “I’m guessing your mom is not home?” I asked.

  He closed the door and pinned me to it, giving me a kiss that said, “Would I kiss you like that if she were?” The kiss told me all I needed to know.

  I kissed him back eagerly while his hands eased down my side and hiked my legs up around his waist, picking me up off the floor. We moved into the interior of the house, down a small hallway that led to his bedroom.

  “This is a promising start to the floor show,” I said breathlessly when he broke the kiss to open the door to his room.

  He set me down on my feet long enough to close and lock the door behind him, then he turned to me with that look in his eye I knew all too well.

  “Shhh, there is no talking during the floor show,” He said, and he crushed his mouth back to mine.

  I lived for when he kissed me like this. These kisses were fervent and soft rolled into one, and they made me feel as though I was the only person in the world he gave them to, which, for his sake, I had better be. “Okay,” I said breathlessly, “I won’t talk during the floor show, but I just want to say I love you.”

  He paused and studied me for a moment, enough to make me feel slightly uncomfortable, before saying, “And it goes without saying that I love you. Now shhh.” And I didn’t utter an identifiable word the rest of the night.

  Chapter 3

  I awoke at about five thirty in the morning, tension-free. I looked over at Trevor and kept myself from laughing as I always did when I woke up before he did. Trevor was a mouth breather, so his mouth was wide open like he was trying to catch flies, as Opal would probably say. Sometimes, just to mess with him, I would stick my finger in his mouth and just let it hover there to see if he would somehow feel it and wake up, but he never did and I would always wake him up by shaking with silent laughter.

  I reached over and brushed his hair back from his forehead, the movement causing him to stir.

  “I love that your touch is the first thing I feel in the morning,” he said, his voice heavy with sleep.

  “Is that really the first thing you feel?” I asked, looking pointedly south of the covers.

  “Besides that, smart ass.”

  “Me too. I wish I could do this every morning,” I sighed.

  “You could. We could get our own place, you know.”

  This wasn’t the first time this conversation had come up. He had been pushing the issue for about three months now, but with school and Opal, I just didn’t
think it was a good idea to move in together at the moment.

  “Babe...” I began.

  “I know, I know. Forget I brought it up,” he said moodily.

  I hated that he thought I didn’t want to move in with him for any other reason than I just wasn’t ready. I wanted to go into it further, but he got up to go use the bathroom. I got up to put my clothes on and head back to the dorms. I always hated feeling like I was doing the walk of shame in his house. I didn’t want to run into his mom. It’s not like she didn’t know I was here most nights. If Trevor was here, then she knew I was too, but I felt like a ho because we spent the night in the same room and, well, this was a small town and people talked. He told me on many occasions that his mom wasn’t like that, but one could never be too sure.

  When he came back out, he saw that I was getting dressed and started to silently put on some basketball shorts and a tank top.

  “Hey,” I said softly, making my way over to him. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing,” he said, hugging me. “I just hate that you have to leave me.”

  “I know,” I said. “But it’s only for a little while so I can get some learning.”

  He smiled but he wasn’t really into it. “Yeah. Come on, let me get you back.” He took my hand and intertwined it with his as he led me out to his truck and only let go to get in, then resumed holding my hand once we got on the road.

  He dropped me off with a kiss and a promise to call me if anything changed with Rufus and said he would see me later. I went in and gathered my shower caddy so that I could take a long, hot shower.

  Once I was done, it was already going on six thirty, so I decided to head over to Opal’s early, knowing she wouldn’t mind, plus it was always good that I showed up early from time to time, just in case.

  When I arrived at Opal’s, I let myself in with the key she had given me and found her in the kitchen frying fish, at six forty-five in the morning like it was totally okay to be doing so.

  “Um, hi, Auntie”

  “Oh, hey, chile,” she said as the grease from the pan sizzled and popped.

  “Um, whatcha doing?”

  “I’m fryin’ up summa this here ol’ catfish I got from the store,” she explained.

  “Why,” I asked patiently, “are you doing this at six forty-five in the morning?”

  “Oh, pshh. Haven’t you eva had fish an’ grits for breakfast befo’? You were raised in Florida.”

  “Yes, but, Aunt Opal, we usually fried the fish up the night before so we didn’t have to get up so early.”

  “No sirree, Bob. That ain’t the way to do it. Then it’s not fresh,” she said as she clucked her tongue.

  I realized that Aunt Opal was completely lucid, not crazy lucid, but lucid lucid. This was a rarity in and of itself. The last time I saw this side of Opal was almost three weeks ago. Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, whatever that meant—it was a mom-ism I picked up—I went over to see if she needed any help and looked into the frying pan.

  “Did you do something different to the catfish?” I asked, puzzled. “It looks funny.”

  “Oh, this ain’t no catfish. I don’ already ate that. This here is toad.”

  Oh dear god. Lucid went out the window. Back was crazy Opal. And gross-as-hell Opal.

  “Auntie, where did you get a toad from?” I asked, trying to take the frying pan from her.

  “I caught him myself, out back,” she stated self-importantly, not letting me take the frying pan from her.

  “Haven’t cha eva had toad befo’, chile?”

  I swallowed back bile before I replied, “No, that was never on the menu at my house.”

  “Figured. Y’all young people don’t know good food.” She leaned over and inhaled the aroma I’d mistaken for fish.

  “I’ll stick to not knowing. Let me help you with that,” I said, trying a different tactic to get the frying pan, which worked, as she relented and let me take over. I immediately turned off the stove and moved the pan over to a different burner, without Opal even noticing.

  “Lookha’ here,” she smacked her teeth, “I got somethin’ stuck in my tooth. Come see if you can get it out with your fingernail.”

  “What? No,” I said, glancing around the kitchen half-expecting a camera crew to burst through the door and Ashton Kutcher to yell, “You just got punk’d.”

  “Well, how else am I s’pose to get this out?” she asked snappily.

  “Let me go find some floss,” I said. As I passed the kitchen sink, I saw that she had at some point made catfish and grits, as the dishes were still in the sink. Her spurts of lucidity were coming less and less often, and soon it would be apparent that she could not be left alone. That would be problematic. I couldn’t be here 24/7, and she wouldn’t go into assisted living, even as crazy as she was. She was sure about that.

  I came back from the bathroom with the floss, and because she was insistent and I was born and raised Southern, I relented and helped her floss, but my fingers went nowhere near her mouth. I more or less guided her hands while she flossed. I helped her clean up the kitchen and discreetly got rid of the toad, gave her an update on Rufus, and told her that he should be home in a couple of days if she promised not to give him any more chocolate milk, which she promised.

  As I was about to leave, my phone rang with Tina’s ringtone, some upbeat Latin song asking someone to kiss them that she had programmed into my phone. She never called.

  “What’s wrong,” I answered apprehensively, my stomach already dropping.

  “Day, my dad got transferred to a bigger hospital,” she said gravely.

  “Okay?” I stretched out like I didn’t get it, but I did.

  “Day, we are moving,” she practically screamed into the phone.

  I knew it. I mean, I knew that people didn’t live in Shaddy Groves forever. I knew that they moved away and got better jobs and better lives and left this small, sleepy town, but why my best friend? “Do you have to go?” I asked stupidly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We could get a place together. I could give up my dorm, and we could get an apartment. That way you wouldn’t have to start school all over again and move.” And leave me.

  “You would do that?” she asked, surprised.

  “Of course. You’re my sandbox. I would do anything for you. Why do you even have to ask?”

  “No me entiendan mal,” she said, asking me in Spanish not to misunderstand her. “I just thought you and Trevor would be moving in together pretty soon, that’s all.”

  It hadn’t dawned on me until just now how it would look to Trevor if I moved in with Tina when he had been hounding me for the past two months for the same thing. Fuck it, she was my sandbox. I couldn’t just let her leave. I would talk to Trevor to make him understand that moving in with your best friend is not the same thing as U-Hauling it with your boyfriend. “I guess, sure, someday, but not until after I finish with school, Trevor understands that,” I said.

  “Yo no se. I don’t think Maria would let me stay in a different city than her. You know how she is,” she muttered.

  I did know how her mother was. I had blurted out the idea, but deep down I knew it wouldn’t work. “When?”

  “Next week, and I have to withdraw today. We are going to register me at my new school tomorrow,” she said somberly.

  “Where?”

  “Miami.”

  Of course. Latin capital of Florida and two hours away from small-town Shaddy Groves.

  “I’ll be there in ten,” I said and hung up.

  On my way over, all I could think about was that I was losing my best friend. Sure, Miami wasn’t that far away and I would still text her every day, but it’s not the same when you are used to seeing someone every day for eighteen years. I know how it is when you move out of town. You say that you’ll keep in touch and that things will stay the same, but they never really do. I mean, how can they? There would be no one to help me with Opal: The Untold Story
and no one for me to bounce ideas off of. I had other people in my life, true, but no one could take the place of Justina. She was my sandbox.

  Her front door was unlocked when I got there, and she was in the kitchen with her mom, but as soon as I walked in, she told her mom we were going upstairs to her room. Her mom didn’t protest, as she knew we needed to talk.

  “I actually asked my mom about staying,” she began, “and she shot me down like one of those things people use for target practice.”

  “You mean skeets?”

  “Whatever,” she said irritably. “The point is she said no.”

  “Well, we knew that.”

  “Yeah, but I was hoping since I am an adult and all she would at least listen to me before shooting me down.”

  “Well, you get an A for amazingly nice try,” I said as I gave her two thumbs up and a halfhearted smile.

  “Whatever. Your life is gonna suck without me in it every day, heifer,” she said vehemently. “I mean, I’m awesome, so I’ll do fine, but you will wither and die without me.”

  I knew that underneath all that overconfidence, she was just as upset by this sudden move as I was. “You’re my sandbox and always will be,” I said, hugging her. “And you are awesome,” I added, ignoring the “wither and die” crack.

  “And you better not forget it, bitch,” she said haughtily.

  “Oh, I don’t think you’d let me.” I smiled. We could still make this work.

  “I want an Opal update every day. You know I needs my fix,” she rubbed her hands together. “Speaking of which, I know you were there when I called, so what tale do you have for me today?”

  I sat down on her bed and folded my legs underneath me, while Justina laid out sideways on the bed. I began to tell her the fried toad story.

  “Wait, so she actually had it just frying away?” she interrupted.

  “Yup.”

  “What did it smell like?” she asked, making a face.

  “I don’t know, actually. At some point she had actually cooked catfish, so all I smelled was that and I assumed that’s what she was cooking.”

  “Dios mío. I think I would have blown my chunks right there in the frying pan next to the toad.”