Laughter in the Wind by SL Harris Read Free Book Online Page A

“Me 2,” then hoisted the fifty-pound bag of dog food onto her shoulder, picked up the plastic shopping bag and her notebook in her other hand and headed into the house to tell her mother how her day had gone.

Chapter Five
     
    It was Wednesday afternoon, sitting at the desk in the Resource Room at the school, when Rebecca put it all together. She was a smart girl, all of her teachers had been saying that for years. However, when it came to people, she sometimes missed the obvious. Can’t wait to see you again. The text from Olivia hadn’t said “looking forward to next weekend” or even “hope to find a lot of clues next week.” It sounded so much more personal than that. When she had texted her back about the pizza, she had used the word “date.” There had been a few things about Olivia that had puzzled her, like the wink she was sure she had seen in the library. And then there was that funny smile Rebecca kept seeing on her face when Olivia was watching her and she seemed to catch her watching her a lot. Could Olivia be…? No…why would she be interested in me? Besides, that would mean Olivia was gay, or maybe lesbian would be the right word, or maybe even bisexual.
    Some of Rebecca’s friends at school had talked about relatives that were gay and a boy in the class ahead of her had come out his senior year. And, of course, she watched Ellen and even Rosie every now and then, but somehow they didn’t seem real to her. In the real world, in her small world, girl met guy, they fell in love, married, had a baby and life happened. Some people changed the sequence of events, some placed a college education into the equation somewhere, a few remained bachelors or, ugh, she hated the term, old maids. While she felt like a person ought to be able to live how they felt was right for themselves without other people trying to make those decisions for them, she really hadn’t given much thought to those who lived their lives outside that basic outline.
    Rebecca puzzled over Olivia every spare moment as she worked the desk at the Resource Room each day after classes, as she drove the thirty-minute trek to and from Rockford and as she sat at home with her parents, supposedly “studying” with a book in her lap or on the table in front of her. Her mother had to try three times to get her attention Thursday evening to tell her a neighbor’s mother had passed away and she and Rebecca’s father would be gone for a few hours after supper Saturday evening to attend the visitation at the funeral home in Rockford.
    Friday brought a new revelation. Rebecca had been drinking coffee at breakfast with her mother, still mulling over the possible motivations behind Olivia’s words and actions. Just as she took a sip of the steaming coffee, she switched her attention from Olivia to herself. She inhaled the coffee and began spluttering loudly when she realized that she might like the idea of Olivia being interested in her.
    Rebecca’s mother looked around the edge of her ever-present newspaper. “Are you okay, Bec?”
    As soon as she could breathe again, she croaked out, “Yeah, Mom. Just went down the wrong pipe.”
    After a few more seconds of throat clearing and wiping the tears from her eyes, Rebecca settled down again and tried another sip, this one more successful.
    Her mother placed her paper neatly on the table and caught Rebecca’s eyes in her direct gaze. “Are you really okay, though? You’ve been pretty distracted this week. Is school going okay? What about work?”
    Rebecca was slow to reply, taking another sip of the scalding coffee to give herself time to come up with an answer. “Yes, I’m fine. Just thinking about the weekend,” she admitted. She had decided a couple of years before that it was futile to lie to her mother. She always seemed to know the truth. But she wasn’t ready to share the entire truth, that she had invited a girl to spend the night who very well may have been making passes at her.