15. The Rest of the Story
The Rest of the Story
She’d kissed her.
It was all Pearl could think about since she’d left Driz last night.
She stumbled through her door, dry paint flaking off her hands after finishing the two buildings beside Molly’s. She wasn’t a talented painter even when she could focus with half her brain, but she got the job done. It looked fine from a distance.
She’d kissed her.
She stomped up the stairs, stripping out of her sweaty clothes that clung to her skin, taking a moment to clean up. The sun hung low, approaching the horizon. Driz would be waking soon.
As Pearl ran the washcloth over her face and neck, it caught on the necklace resting against her sternum.
Pearl paused and unclasped it so she could study the old-fashioned piece better.
The star was made of lightweight tin accented with brass instead of true silver and gold, and the center gem was obviously just cut glass.
But then she moved through the low-angle sun streaming in her window and she paused, holding the pendant back up.
Tiny rainbows of light scattered across her room, tugging a smile from her lips. A miniature suncatcher.
Her smile disappeared as she realized Driz would have no idea what this was. She would never have seen it in the sunlight.
The simple charm couldn’t have been worth much. But it was pretty.
Pearl didn’t remember the last time she’d received a gift just because it was pretty.
She had nice things, like her favorite blue shirt and her inlaid revolvers.
But those were practical, and she’d chosen them for herself.
This necklace had no function. And Pearl almost felt pretty herself with it around her neck.
Pearl had lived long enough to know she wasn’t, by any standard of the word.
She had attributes women found pleasing, and she had skills.
But she wasn’t a beauty, with her missing teeth, and her splotched, damaged skin.
And usually, she was at peace with that.
So why had she lashed out with cruelty when Driz called her beautiful last night?
Pearl sank down on her bed, fingers still playing with the pendant and mind fixed on Driz.
Pearl was attracted to her. It shocked Pearl in one way, but not in another.
She’d noted Driz’s physical form beyond her frightening features the first time they’d met, though it hadn’t been more than a thought.
After spending time with her, however, and trusting her—
Pearl trusted Driz. Part of her thought she shouldn’t, but it was too late.
She’d been forced to put her faith in Driz more than once, and Driz had not let her down.
She had proven each time that she was dependable.
That she was thoughtful. That she was kind.
The combination was hazardously appealing.
They were from entirely different worlds. They could never be together as anything more than lovers, if it came to that. So it was perfect. Why shouldn’t they take pleasure from each other while they could? It would be simple, and then it would be over.
Pearl determinedly didn’t examine why that thought made her chest heavy. Or all the very valid reasons why it was perhaps the stupidest reasoning she’d ever come up with. She didn’t want to be reasonable in her fantasy right now.
She lay back on her bed and skimmed her free hand between her legs.
What would Driz do if she could see her?
If she knew what Pearl was doing? Driz obviously liked her, but was Driz attracted to Pearl in the same way?
Was Pearl misreading everything? She shoved that unsettling thought aside and believed she was right as she trailed her own practiced fingers through the wetness she refused to be ashamed of.
Her pleasure arrived swiftly, with the image of Driz above her, arms cradling her, protecting her as wings kept them dry from a storm.
Pearl panted, staring at the underside of her ceiling and the watermark where the corner leaked sometimes. Then she finished cleaning up, dressed, and went three doors down.
Molly was on her back porch. Buster’s tail drummed against the wooden boards beneath him as Pearl ruffled his messy fur on her way past, coming to perch on the railing in front of Molly.
Old, weathered paint peeled off it at the lightest brush.
Since it wasn’t street-facing, they hadn’t bothered with this side yet.
“You’re blocking my light,” Molly grumbled, never looking up from her hemming, her movements steady and quick, stitches perfectly even.
Pearl shifted sideways and watched Molly work for a while. “I might’ve done something stupid.”
Molly hummed. “Probably.”
“Hey.” Pearl flicked a pain chip at her.
Molly finally looked up. “So what’d you do this time?”
Pearl opened her mouth, but wasn’t quite sure what to say. How could she explain? What was there to even say?
Buster’s ears perked as Pearl heard it too. The faint sound of jangling beneath windchimes came from the street.
“Gail?” Molly asked, her face lighting up.
“Sounds like it.”
Pearl stood, waiting for Molly to pack away the piece she was working on and follow her through the house and to the front that faced the street, the sound of the trinket trader’s cart louder now.
Gail looked exactly the same as she had when Pearl first met her decades ago.
Her unusually tall frame was draped from head to toe in various shades of purples and blues, from the high silk scarf to her midnight boots.
The rest of her features were always mostly obscured under the intense shadow of the broad brim of her hat.
She moved with both grace and chaos at the same time, unburdened by the heavy cart she hauled behind her by hand. Several local children trailed her excitedly until she stopped near the center of the street.
“Pearl, Molly,” she greeted with a nod as she moved around to throw open the wooden sides and back of her cart, expanding it to reveal the traveling assortment of items.
Driz would have loved to pick through Gail’s collection.
“We haven’t seen you in a while,” Molly said. “It’s been what, a year or so?”
“That sounds right,” Gail agreed, dancing around to the other side. “Anything new to show me? Anything you fancy? Because I might just have it.”
Molly wheeled down the ramp by the steps into the street so she could look closer, Pearl right behind her.
Pearl leaned forward to look at a wooden box inlaid with bone beside a shiny pair of cooking pots, but feathers tickled her in the face.
She jerked back and glared at a hanging sculpture made of beads woven with colorful thread and the entire dismembered skeleton of a bird, shifting creepily in the breeze.
Molly was inspecting a collection of three thimbles, two made of stamped tin and one sculpted of thick ivory porcelain. “What the hells is this for?” Molly asked, picking up the porcelain one.
“Whatever you want it for,” Gail answered easily. She shifted, as if unable to stay still, her feet not seeming to touch the earth sometimes.
Molly huffed. “Well, it wasn’t made for sewing. It weighs a brick.”
Gail’s hum lilted pleasantly, but a shiver ran down Pearl’s spine as the air around them chilled for a moment. “If you don’t like it, don’t get it.”
Pearl’s gaze caught on a linen pouch with faded print on it. She picked it up, the contents jingling. “What d’you want for this?” Pearl asked, ignoring Molly’s curious gaze and focusing on Gail.
“Make me an offer.”
Pearl considered. “I’ll be right back.”
She hurried to her door and up the stairs to her room. She knew Gail would rather trade than get a dollar. She always had.
Pearl rummaged through the drawer in her dressing table and pulled out the five abalone buttons she’d purchased on her last trip to Plainsburgh.
She’d bought them thinking to replace the ones on her duster jacket, but her current wooden ones worked just fine.
She threw three back in the drawer and pocketed two.
When she returned to the street, Gail was already closing up the back of her wagon. She was always like that, a passing breeze, hardly staying long enough to make a deal. Pearl lengthened her strides and thrust the buttons at her.
Gail peered down at the offer, brushing one finger over them. Something like disappointment pinched her face, but she nodded. “Done.”
Pearl dropped the buttons in a shallow dish and grabbed her faded bag, the closing wagon side nearly crushing her hand.
She stepped back as Gail picked up the two handles at the front of her cart and started careening away. “Until next time.”
Pearl climbed up onto Molly’s porch and watched her rattle her way down the street.
“A bit of an odd one,” Molly commented, also watching the wanderer leave.
“Aren’t we all a bit odd?”
Molly sighed. “I suppose. You need food?”
“Nah, I’m meeting my ma. Thanks, though.” Pearl leaned down and pressed a quick, chaste kiss to Molly’s cheek.
“Wait, you never told me the stupid thing you did.”
Pearl shrugged, already off the porch and halfway across the street to the saloon. “Never mind.”
She passed through the swinging doors and nodded to Spencer on her way to the back corner table. Not long after, Sheriff Oak entered and joined her.
“You missed Gail,” Pearl said in greeting.
“So I heard.” The sheriff sank back into her chair. “You were out late last night.”
“And?”
“You got a new woman? It’s not Rosie, is it?”
Pearl shot her a sideways glare. “No, it’s not Rosie.”
If her mother only knew. A sliver of guilt wedged its way under her skin, until she thought of Driz again. Her hand reached for her throat, playing with the chain.
“What’s that?” Sheriff Oak asked, a small smirk on her face.
“Nothing.” Pearl quickly dropped the chain, but the sheriff reached out and caught it, tugging until the pendant fell free of Pearl’s collar.
All amusement and color drained from her face. “Where’d you get this?”
The hairs on Pearl’s neck stood on end. “Why?”
“Where?”
“Don’t remember,” Pearl lied.