‘He rhymed “Callie” with “Jelly”. As in, you turn my legs to. It doesn’t even rhyme properly. He should have rhymed it with wally. Which is what he is.’
‘That doesn’t properly rhyme either.’
‘Better than jelly.’
Callie chuckled.
Mae noted how the sunlight twinkled in Callie’s dark eyes, the curve of her smile, the way her buxom chest rose and fell as she laughed. It wasn’t hard to see what drove the local boys mad. Mae was glad she didn’t have it. She was too busy for the level of adoration her best friend was constantly fighting off. Callie didn’t really have time for it either with her responsibilities, but Mae had to suppose it was simply something she needed.
‘When areyougonna let one board the bus?’ Callie asked, as though reading her mind.
‘You say that like people are trying. No one’s trying,’ Mae told her plainly.
‘They would. If…’
‘If?’ Mae prompted.
‘If you didn’t scare them,’ Callie said with a cheeky grin.
‘Me? Scary?’
‘Don’t pretend you don’t know they call you “the hot bitch at the bakery”.’
Mae had not been pretending. ‘What?!’
‘You really never heard that?’ Callie asked suspiciously.
‘You’re making that up,’ Mae told her.
‘I’mnot,’ Callie said. ‘I guess they just don’t say it to your face.’
‘Well, people can say whatever. I don’t have time for all that,’ Mae said dismissively.
‘All what?’
‘Silly business,’ Mae said plainly.
Callie smiled at her as though she knew some delicious secret. ‘I think one day you’ll get very into silly business.’
‘Will I?’ Mae asked dryly.
‘Yeah. You just have to meet the right one.’
‘I’m sure,’ Mae snapped another blade of grass in half, thinking,Yeah,right.
She didn’t sit around mooning after people. She barely noticed anyone that way. She had better things to think about. Work, her dad, Callie.
Callie could have all that. Mae didn’t have the time for it.
Ten
Now
The sound around Callie blurred. Neil’s instructions to the crew, Hannah’s exclamations, and her mother’s ability to crack the air with a simple tut were all muffled, like she was hearing them underwater.
‘You all right?’ Mae asked.
Callie stuttered a reply of some kind and was amazed she could even manage that.
