Chapter 9 Small-Town Dreams
SMALL-TOWN DREAMS
“So what do you think?” Anna held her arms out, showing off her new outfit.
I sat on her bed, scrolling through places I could sell blood or organs to. I needed money. “You look fine?” I didn’t look at her. I had no time for Anna and her perfect life. I bet her mom didn’t spend her college savings.
“You’re not even looking. And it’s more than fine; it’s Gucci.” Anna twisted to look in the mirror. “This shirt cost three hundred dollars. Chelsea got the knockoff.”
I looked up from my phone. That was more than I earned in a week working thirty hours at the café. Which was another thing that Anna and I didn’t have in common. She didn’t need to worry about money and where it came from. “It’s nice. Did you take the—"
“I got it.” A big smile cut across her face. “When I got home, I had a terrible headache, so I lay down, and when I woke up, there it was. It’s light, but it’s still there.”
“You should still—”
“No. It’s done. Okay? It’s done. I just want my life back. Are you going to wear that?” Anna looked me up and down.
I looked down at my ripped jeans and T-shirt. “Well, since my evening gown is at the dry cleaners, this is it.”
Anna rolled her eyes and turned back to applying her lip gloss. “Okay, but Austin is going to be there.”
“And he’s enforcing a dress code?” I picked at my nails.
“No, but he did ask if you were going to be there. He said he wanted to talk to you.”
“Anna,” I warned. “Don’t start that bullshit or I will leave.”
She opened her mouth, and I shot her a warning look. “What bullshit? I’m the only one who will say what needs to be said. You are wasting your senior year with some loser who had his hands down another girl’s pants. He’s done it before; he’ll do it again.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Tristan had never had his hands down anyone’s pants but mine. “Anna.”
“It means once a cheater, always a cheater. I, for one, am done wasting my time on stupid high school boys.” Anna stood in front of the small makeup table that was covered in eye shadow palettes and sparkling brush holders. “I am ready for college boys.”
I let her shitty little comment about Tristan go. I didn’t have the energy to argue with her. “What about Matt?”
“We broke up. And I’m glad. I have bigger dreams than some small-town boy, and so should you.”
“Tristan doesn’t have small-town dreams.” He didn’t want to go to college, but that didn’t mean he had small-town dreams. There were plenty of things he could do without a college education.
“Oh really? What college did he get into?” Anna brushed her long lashes with another coat of mascara. “What were his SAT scores?”
Anna’s mom had been letting Anna wear makeup since the fifth grade. My mother used to care how much makeup I wore. I think she only did it because that was what my father expected her to do. Care about me.
“What were yours?” I threw back at her. They were low, which was why she had to go to Mankato. That was where her mother had gone and donated a large sum of money.
“At least I got into a college,” she said to me in the mirror.
“You don’t need to go to college to have dreams. There are plenty of jobs out there.
He’s good at fixing cars and things. And he drove a beet truck last summer for Sasha’s grandparents.
” He had lasted three weeks and couldn’t handle the long distance from Noah, who had spent a lot of those nights camping out on my bedroom floor.
“Perfect. That means if you stay with him, you’ll either be a waitress or maybe you can get a job down at the courthouse stamping people’s parking tickets.
Set your standards higher, Ev. Austin is going to the U of M on a football scholarship.
My dad says he’ll be able to get any job he wants once he graduates. ”
My dad had said the same thing. Whoever came up with that slogan for the U should get a pay raise.
I hadn’t been overly excited that Austin would also be at the U.
But he was going for business and I psychology, and it was a really big campus.
“Well, good for him.” I sat up and started shoving my work clothes into my backpack.
“Don’t you want that? A rich husband that will take care of you?
” Anna flopped down on the bed. She looked like the girls on social media.
She hit puberty in the eighth grade. The same year Tristan had.
They both left seventh grade looking like everyone else.
But come September, Anna had soft curves, where I had boney hips and no boobs.
I was still behind Anna in the boob department, but most girls were.
Her whole life, Anna had been told she was pretty. She had been Miss Parkfield this year and homecoming queen the last two years. She could have any guy she wanted. Except Tristan. He wanted nothing to do with her and everything to do with average me.
“Nope. I want a husband that loves me.” Austin wanted a wife like Anna.
One that fit into whatever mold he chose.
“You should go out with Austin.” Austin and Anna had more in common.
Both their parents owned a business in town and were part of whatever secret society met in the back room of the VFW the third Thursday of the month. Anna wanted a U of M graduate husband.
My family had more in common with Tristan’s. My father set up picnic tables in the spring and plowed snow in the winter. The only reason we lived in the same neighborhood as Anna was because my grandmother died and left the house to my father.
“I tried, remember? He’s too high-maintenance for me. Plus, I’m done with boys. I’m ready for college men.” She flipped her long blonde hair over her shoulder.
They hadn’t worked out because Austin and Anna were too much alike. There wasn’t a stage big enough for both their egos. She turned to face me, her lashes leaving little black smudges under her eyes.
“I want you to listen to me, Ev. I mean, really listen to me and think about it.” She cocked her head.
“Tristan is no good. He’ll turn out just like his dad.
He’ll work at the french fry factory and get drunk at The King’s Toilet.
You’re my best friend, and I want us to stay that way.
I want us to live down the street from each other.
Raise our kids together. Bitch about how fat and ugly the other mothers are. ” Anna checked her profile.
“And you don’t think we can do that if I marry Tristan.” I hadn’t told Anna I had been accepted to the U. She thought we’d be sharing a dorm room. We wouldn’t survive college together. I wanted to study and learn. Anna wanted to screw around and party.
She looked at me. Her large blue eyes looked brighter because of the dark eye shadow she wore. “You’d marry him? Like, seriously marry him and have kids with him? Why?”
My mother had asked the same things. She had almost fallen to her knees and thanked god when she found out we’d broken up.
She thought I’d end up like Laura. But Laura had never left Parkfield.
Neither had my mother or father. James Anderson had been the only one to leave.
He came back but he had left. Tristan and I wouldn’t come back.
“He’s not a loser, and I would appreciate it if you stopped calling him that. And I’m not living here and raising kids.”
“Neither am I. We’ll move to the Cities. Where they have Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s. Where we can sip craft beers and sample artisan bread. Go to Starbucks every day. I don’t want to live in this tourist trap. Say you will. Say we will be friends forever.”
I wanted this night to be over. And it was easier to just agree with her.
By the time she figured it out, she’d have a new best friend, and they could go to Starbucks.
“Sure. After college, we’ll live on a cul-de-sac.
We can plan our Whole Foods shopping trips and sip whatever seasonal Frappuccino from Starbucks,” I agreed, zipping up my backpack.
“I had hoped our lives would be more exciting than grocery shopping. How much organic kale can a person eat?”
“Oh, screw you,” Anna said, standing, checking her reflection. She lifted up her boobs with both hands and admired her cleavage. “The college men won’t be able to keep their hands off of me. Matt will be begging me to take him back.”