Heart Of Gold

Into The Fire

By the end of her shift, it was just Rose and Gail left to close up the flower shop. The manager had gone home for the day and the door was firmly bolted closed behind the last customer.

All that was left to do was the count the cash.

Math wasn't Rose's strong suit and she had to recount the money four times to make sure it was right. She counted out loud to keep track of the numbers as Gail restocked the shelves around the till with garden gnomes the size of a fist, and little packets of fruity gum.

"You almost done?" she pestered.

Rose laughed. "You could come and help, you know."

"I'm even worse at math than you are," Gail grinned. "If I helped, we'd be here all night. Then we couldn't go out and meet cute boys."

"Where exactly do you plan on going to meet these boys?" Rose raised an eyebrow. "I doubt there are any hanging around here."

"You're right," Gail groaned. "Why doesn't anyone interesting come to town?"

"I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's probably because we live in Summerland," Rose laughed. "Seriously, who in their right mind would want to drive through here, let alone get out of the car long enough to chat us up?"

Rose ran her hands through her hair, trying to undo a knot hiding at the nape of her neck. "How much do you think it would cost to road-trip to Vancouver for a week or so?"

"Not that much. I have a cousin who lives downtown. Mom can't stand her so we wouldn't be able to say that we were staying with her, but we definitely could. You've heard her going on about Lucy before right?"

"It rings a bell..."

"Well, she's totally chill. I swear, we could smoke pot in her kitchen and she'd just want to join in."

"She sounds kind of cool, actually," Rose laughed. "Are you sure she'd let us crash there?"

"Definitely. I'll give her a call and ask when we can come."

"Don't do it yet." Images of college campus flyers floated in Rose's mind. If she was going to make it to Vancouver, she needed a way to set time aside to look at the colleges she could actually afford. But she didn't dare tell Gail about her dream -- not yet.

Talking about it made it feel real. Like something that could shatter in an instant.

"No worries," Gail smiled. " We would need to figure out a cover for my mom anyway. She'd flip if she found out we were seeing Lucy."

"Okay," Rose laughed. "But where do you want to go right now?"

"Is your mom home? We can order pizza and watch something on Netflix."

"Pizza sounds perfect," Rose smiled. "But why don't we go to the theatre? There's a bunch of new movies playing."

"Yeah let's do that," Gail nodded. "We can just grab pizza downtown before we get to the theatre."

The girls walked outside into the spitting rain and climbed in Rose's ancient car. She'd saved for three years before she was finally able to afford the beat-up blue rust-monster and the car was her pride and joy. She'd named her Nelly-Belle.

Payday was the only time the car ever had a full tank of gas.

"Can I borrow this?" Gail reached for the red lipstick Rose kept in Nelly-Belle's cup holder. It was her favourite going-out accessory for nights like this when she was stuck wearing the same clothes she'd been in yesterday.

"Go for it! Actually..." Rose quickly swiped a layer across her lips before handing the tube to Gail. The bright red contrasted with her dark blue eyes and made her look like she wasn't completely exhausted.