Here With Me

“Ms. Debbie, you need to pass across the center of the stage. You’re the light of freedom.” Maddie waves her arms and infuses her voice with optimism.

“I’m not standing by her.” Ms. Turner casts a withering glare at Ms. Wilson.

Ms. Wilson holds an oversized American flag on a pole. “As if I want to stand by a hussy like you, Debbie Turner!”

“Oh, this is good.” Mrs. Irene puts her hand over her mouth to hide her chuckling. “Maddie Gamble should get a medal of freedom if she manages to pull this off.”

“I’m just glad it’s not me.” I bite my bottom lip to keep from laughing. “She only has two more days.”

The inaugural Ms. Silver Peach pageant will be the closing event of this year’s festival on Sunday afternoon.

“And to think they used to be best friends.”

That pulls me up short. “You’re kidding!”

“Well, not so much best friends as best rivals. If Olivia dated the captain of the basketball team, Debbie had to date the quarterback of the football team.” She leans closer. “You’ve heard the expression ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer’?”

“Is that friendship?”

“Not any I’d like to have. Not like you and Noel.”

The mention of my bestie makes me jump. “Oh, I’ve got to run. I promised Noel I’d pick up her stock for Ma’s table this afternoon.”

“You’re a true friend.” We walk arm in arm toward the back of the room. “Did you talk to Sawyer?”

“I did.” My chest has been heavy ever since our afternoon at the pond.

“How did it go?”

“We’re still going to the Peach Ball together.”

“That’s good.” Her eyebrows rise with her smile. “Did he tell you what’s been troubling him?”

“No, and he said he wouldn’t.”

Her lips tighten, and her blue eyes cast down. She basically says with her expression everything I’m feeling. It sucks, and it’s no basis for a relationship. Still, I was strong. I said what I needed to say, but I also reminded him what he had last weekend. I used my sexuality as a weapon, and I don’t care. He’s got a much stronger advantage, if you ask me.

We take a few more steps, and her hand tightens in the crook of my arm. “The Peach Ball is a magical time. Who knows what might happen when you’re there together, dancing in each other’s arms. Your aura is bright red, which means your attraction is strong. Use it.”

I pull her close and kiss the top of her head. “I love you. You’re catching a ride with Ramona and Miss Jessica?”

She nods. “I’ll see you tonight at bedtime.”

With that, I leave my old friend at the civic center. It’s a short drive to Noel’s shop. She’s inside moving fast with her little mini-me Dove marching around and carrying boxes of face cream, soap, body lotion, lip gloss, wherever her mother tells her to go.

“Oh, thank God you’re here. I thought you’d forgotten.” Noel meets me with a hug at the door. “I’ve got everything for your mom’s table in the box behind the register.”

“Why all the panic stations?” I look around the bright peach room with the white wainscoting.

“Sawyer didn’t get out here to check the place until last night.” She’s placing bottles of lotion on a shelf and turning them so they all face front. “Then he was weird and didn’t even tell me he’d done it. Taron told me this morning.”

“What was he checking it for?”

“Oh, you know… I couldn’t take a chance there’d be rats.” She does a full body shiver.

Dove watches her with wide eyes then blinks to me. “Mamma doesn’t want to meet Angelina Ballerina in person.”

“Nobody does.” I step forward, taking two handfuls of all-natural peach-infused soap out of the box in Dove’s arms. “I can help. Where do these go?”