Page 62 of I Kissed Shara Wheeler
Georgia’s at the front desk sorting through a box of literary fiction, and she gladly accepts the iced coffee Chloe hands her.
“Anything good this week?” Chloe asks.
“Not unless you’re into marriage dramas about straight white people who can’t stop having affairs,” Georgia says.
“I’m good,” Chloe says. “Let me know if you have any horny monsters though.”
“You know I’m always on horny monster watch for you,” Georgia says. She glances around, making sure they’re alone before she adds, lower, “And lesbians with swords.”
It’s not as simple for Georgia as it is for Chloe, being queer. Georgia isn’t sure how her parents will take it, much less her entire extended Southern Baptist family. The first time she came over to Chloe’s, she stood across the room staring at Chloe’s moms making dinner together for so long that Chloe worried she might be homophobic. It wasn’t until later, when they were on her bedroom floor cutting pictures out of magazines to stick to their notebooks, that Georgia quietly mentioned she’d never seen a married lesbian couple in real life, and Chloe figured out what was going on.
Chloe leans in to help unpack the box.
“Where’ve you been all week?” Georgia asks. “We were supposed to work on the French paper on Thursday.”
Chloe winces. “Crap. Were we?”
“We were,” Georgia says. “I went ahead and wrote the first three pages.”
“I got the last three, then,” Chloe says. “I promise.”
Georgia nods. “Okay.”
“And I promise I’ll make it up to you one day when I’m a hotshot editor and you’re my most prized author and we’re taking the literary world by storm.”
“All right, all right.”
“And I promise to give you more than your share of space in our fridge next year,” Chloe says. “You can store foraged mushrooms to your heart’s content.”
Georgia fusses with the barrette holding back her hair.
“Yeah. Um, there’s actually something I wanted to talk to you about,” Georgia says.
“Hm?”
She glances over Georgia’s shoulder, at the shelves behind her. The Austen section, specifically, where Shara must have stopped a few weeks ago when she came in to buy Emma.
Wait. Why would Shara come here, of all places, to buy a book?
“I’ve been—um, what are you doing?” Georgia calls after her, but Chloe’s already across the room and at the shelf, opening an illustrated edition of Pride & Prejudice. She should have ransacked the whole Austen selection as soon as Georgia told her the story.
“I just realized I—” Shara must have seen Georgia reading Austen at school and figured that if she bought a book by the same author, Georgia would mention it to Chloe. She pulls Persuasion next, but there’s nothing inside either cover except book smell. “I think I left something in one of these books.”
“What?” Georgia says, putting down the hardback she’s holding. “Why?”
“I, um, was gonna buy it but I changed my mind,” Chloe lies, shaking out Northanger Abbey to no avail.
“You don’t remember which one?” Georgia asks, audibly perplexed.
The last one Chloe tries is a hardcover of Mansfield Park, and there, tucked into the front flap, is a pink card. And inside the card is a piece of loose-leaf, folded three times.
“Found it!” she says, tucking both into her pocket before Georgia can see. “But, oh, crap, I just remembered I’m—I’m supposed to be doing puzzle night with my moms, so sorry, gotta go!”
She’s out the door and in her car before the entry bell finishes jingling behind her.
Parked in the driveway at home, she reads the letter for the third time. It’s by far the longest one Shara’s left behind, and it’s addressed only to Chloe. She can’t stop touching the pen strokes on the paper.
Hi, Chloe,
