Alone.Just like Auggie had been with her aunt and uncle so many years ago.“Thank you.Want to sit and talk for a bit?”
She just shrugged.“I guess.”
“What did you think about the dance?”
It had been the first time they’d taken the girls to a community dance.It was just one of those things the town did every quarter and had for almost a century.Flo Talley had insisted all the girls who worked at the diner go when they were younger, and first working for her.She’d even made a rotating schedule; and had closed the diner two hours early every time.Auggie’s aunts and uncles had started going back twenty years or so, too.Everyone in town was invited, but usually only a few hundred people showed up at one time.
Some of Auggie’s favorite memories had happened at those dances.Some of her worst ones, too.Her cousin Pip had been assaulted at one when she’d been a teenager, that was hard to forget.
But tonight…had been January’s first.
“It was okay, I guess.A lot of people.”
Including a teenage boy no older than fifteen.A friend of their cousin Deacon.Auggie had supervisedthatvery closely.“There usually is.”
“A lot of beer.I don’t like that.”
No.Their father had usually had a beer in his hand from the time he’d show up until the time he’d leave.Especially after her mom had first left.She suspected it had been the same for January’s childhood.“Just in the one part.”
“It had smelled really bad.”
“And it brought up memories.I know; for me, too.”
And the girls had all been told explicitly to stay out of that part.No kids were allowed in that section, ever.“What’s bothering you?”
“I’m sorry about what the girls did to Slater and Royal Davis.”
Auggie winced.“I thought they had to have had something to do with it.It was ice cream, wasn’t it?”
Chocolate ice cream down the hottest actor in Hollywood’s pants.Of course her girls were responsible for that.Of course.
“I think Nova gave them the idea, honestly.She was saying something to Avril about a bad Hollywood man trying to take Aunt Robin once…”
Auggie was too familiar with that story.Their cousin Nova, right between Tobi and Avril in age, had used her ice cream with extremely accurate aim against the Hollywood director Rowland Bowles once.Right in the zipper.
Royal and Slater Davis had ended up with ice cream all down their leather coats tonight, too.Expensiveleather coats.And it had ended up all down Slater’s pants.Auggie would try to reimburse them, now that she knew.But those were expensive coats.
Slater had told her his baby brother Quade was probably responsible for the mess, anyway.Wonkus McBubbles usually was responsible for all the mishaps Slater and Royal faced.Slater had promised to lock McBubbles in a cupboard before the next dance—Quade Davis, the actor who played Wonkus, had agreed.They were really nice men, under those gorgeous exteriors.
“I am not so sure what happened or why.But they did it.”
January nodded.
“I think they were afraid.They think…if you and Em and Junie have boyfriends or date or anything, that means that…the guys will be…like our dad’s girlfriends.He had a few before…Sheila.After Mama…And they weren’t very nice.”January was always really…monotone…whenever she spoke about life with Bruce.Like she was just relaying information to get it out there.Like it didn’t bother her at all.
Auggie suspected it was her sister’s way of compartmentalizing.“I see.I can’t say that we won’teverdate or anything like that.Especially…Em and Junie.Dating is normal and healthy for people.”
They would want to marry someday, she thought.Have their own lives.They couldn’t all nine stay here at the ranch forever.
Her stomach tightened thinking about that.Had she even thought about that since waking up in the hospital to get the girls?She had seen the men tonight—they found her sisters funny and attractive, and it was just a matter of time before Em and Junie felt the same, right?
What did she want for her sisters, besides for them to be happy?If that was there with her and the rest of the heathens, fine.But…what if it wasn’t?
What if they didn’twantto become crazy spinster sisters living at the ranch for their entire lives?
“I told the girls that.Well, Jules, anyway.She thinks it’s romantic.She saw everybody dancing tonight.Jules thinks people falling in love is a great thing.She believes in it.Happily ever afters and things.”And January didn’t.She was too…afraid.Because she was young and didn’t understand relationships—because until recently she hadn’t seen any healthy ones up close.“She wants you and Em and Junie to fall in love and live happily ever after.Like the girls in the books she reads.I told her those kinds of books weren’treal.People didn’t really fall in love and live happily ever after.They just don’t.”
Oh, Auggie’s heart broke completely then.So much cynicism and pain in a voice so young.It was wrong; it shouldn’t be like that.
