I Kissed Shara Wheeler(11)
“Phantom,” Georgia finishes for her as they head outside, because she’s heard it five hundred thousand times.
“Monster on the outside, but on the inside, he cares about her career goals!” Chloe says. “Call me old-fashioned, but a man’s place is in the basement, preparing vocal exercises for his more talented wife.”
“You are as insane as the day I met you,” Georgia says. “All I want is a nice girlfriend in a cottage where we have philosophical conversations over scones or something.”
“And I support you,” Chloe says, “in making that your retirement plan when you’re like, thirty and tired of living in New York with me.”
“Thanks so much,” Georgia says, sliding into the passenger seat. “God, I’m starving.”
“Same,” says Chloe, whose appetite has made a quick turnaround from turduckens.
“Taco Bell?” Georgia says, like always.
“God, my left boob for a Shake Shack,” Chloe says as she cranks up the engine. “This town is so depressing. I bet nobody in city limits other than you, me, and our parents even knows who Jane Austen is.”
“My parents have kept a bookstore open here for twenty years, so I’m pretty sure the average False Beach resident isn’t that illiterate,” Georgia points out. “You know, Shara Wheeler came in for Emma a couple months ago.”
“Ew.”
“I can say her name. She’s not Beetlejuice.”
“She’s not,” Chloe agrees. “She’s worse.”
* * *
In terms of popular after-school locations for social gatherings, the Taco Bell three minutes from campus is Willowgrove’s Met Gala. It’s where you go to see and be seen. It’s where every sophomore gets their first after-school drive-thru when they score their license. Last fall, Summer Collins and Ace Torres were rumored to have had an explosive breakup in the parking lot that ended in a Baja Blast to the face.
It also means that about half the part-time staff is composed of Willowgrove students whose parents forced them to get a job. The drive-thru cashier on Tuesday nights is a Willowgrove junior named Tyler Miller with a tragic haircut and a trombone on lease from the school. Taco Bell has been Chloe’s Tuesday night tradition with Georgia ever since last summer, when her mom fixed the engine on her old car and handed over the keys, so she’s spoken to Tyler more times through a crackly speaker than she has on campus.
When she pulls up to the window, he nearly fumbles her change.
“Um, hang on,” he says after passing over her order. “There’s something else.”
The window shuts.
She shoots a confused look at Georgia, who checks the bag, then shakes her head and shrugs.
The window reopens, and Tyler clumsily hands something over.
“I’m, um, supposed to give this to you.”
It’s a sealed envelope. A pink one.
Sirens wailing in her head, she snatches the card and flips it over. Her name is written on the front. She stares down at it: the gentle arcs of the H, the perfect loop of the O.
She whips back to Tyler. “You couldn’t have given it to me at school?”
“I—she—she brought it here last week and told me specifically to give it to you the next time you came through the drive-thru,” he says.
“Who did?” Chloe demands.
His voice comes out shaky when he says it, like it’s the name of an angel, “Shara Wheeler.”
“And you just did it?”
“That’s the first time Shara Wheeler has ever spoken to me in my life,” he tells her dreamily. “I didn’t even think she knew I existed.”
“Oh my God,” Chloe says, and she slams on the gas.
Chloe,
Your mom graduated Willowgrove with my parents. You know that, right? I remember them talking about it at the dinner table the summer after eighth grade.
“I heard Valerie Green is moving back. Remember, she got suspended for coming to school with blue hair? She’s married to a woman now. They want to send their daughter to Willowgrove.”
Before your first day, I took the file out of my dad’s office. Saw your entrance exam. You did pretty well, huh?
I’ve been curious about you since before I met you, but the way things work at Willowgrove, I never could get close enough to figure you out.
High school’s almost over. Now or never, right?
XOXO
Shara Wheeler
P.S. [email protected]
Rory finally picks up on the fourth try.
“For what possible reason are you calling me?”
“Where are you?” Chloe demands, throwing a taco wrapper into the bag. She called him as soon as she dropped Georgia off at Belltower with a flimsy excuse, right after she heard back from Smith.
“I’m … at my friend’s house?”
“Which friend?”
“Jake.”
“Who’s Jake?”
“Uh, Jake Stone?”
“Stone the Stoner?” She knows him—well, knows of him. Benjy almost got suspended once for happening to be in the boys’ bathroom when Jake was caught vaping in there. Stringy blond hair, unpopular lo-fi SoundCloud music, future owner of a neck tattoo. “Okay, good, then you’re not far from your house.”