Peachtree Beauty

Chapter 1

"S

o we are just watching the clock. We've got, like, three minutes left until we hit fifteen minutes; seriously, I'm still pissed that the generator went out five minutes before registration opened. Normally I love Gram's cabin, but being secluded in the middle of nowhere when registration opens is how you end up with a discussion session that meets every Friday at 6 p.m. hoping your T.A. is more than fifteen minutes late so you can legally leave. Who thought it was a good idea to schedule a mandatory discussion section for Friday night? Friday night! And I had to take the class this semester, you know, so every Friday I've been schlepping it to discuss what the author meant when blah blah blah while everyone else is heading to get their weekend on."

"Awe, poor baby," my older sister Charlie, named after our Grandpa Charlie, Gram's husband, coos into the phone. She is mocking me and my very real college plight. "You have to wait an extra hour before you can go out drinking. Your life is so hard," she teases. "Do you know the last time I went out for a drink?"

"Last week. You called me drunk."

"I was wine drunk on my couch! That doesn't count."

"You were wine drunk on your couch because you didn't want to put on pants."

"True story. I'm still at work now though," Charlie pouts.

"You live on the other side of the country. It's still working hours there."

"Aren't you going to give me any sympathy?"

"Ugh," I say with a roll of my eyes, but I can't help the smile on my face. As big sisters go, Charlie is one of the greatest. Being six years older than me, it would have been easy for Charlie to leave me behind. We've spent our whole lives being in different stages of life, with me just entering the stage Charlie and her friends were desperately trying to leave behind in a bid to be older and cooler. Charlie never shunned me for being a baby. My big sis had no problems sitting in the driveway playing Barbie with me and asking her friends to wait five more minutes so we could finish Barbie's wedding to my Troll doll. Her friends would even join in, serving the role of the My Little Pony minister, or the Transformer who objected to our wedding because he was still madly in love with my Troll. She and her friends may have been off to a concert or some cool big kid thing somewhere, but Charlie always took the time to make me feel loved, included, and special.

"Fine. Pants suck."

"Damn right they do!"

"And I guess you do work more than nine to five most days."

"So, so many nights. Where did my youth go Audrey?"

"You're still young."

"So, so old. Do you want to know my plans for tonight?"

"To sit on your couch without pants and drink wine?"

"Well, no, I'm meeting friends at a bar as soon as I can cut out of here. I've got my outfit in my bag so my couch can't tempt me."

"Wait, I'm suffering through class and you are going off to a bar?"

"You mean the class that you aren't in right now?"

"I was in there. We had two minutes left until we gained our freedom and the weekend could start."

"Ah, the fifteen minute rule. I miss the fifteen-minute rule. I wish I could just leave and not have to attend a meeting if the meeting starts fifteen minutes late."

"Anyways, my T.A. walks in..."

"Is he cute?"

"No. Like, not even on a good day, and today was not a good day. Seriously, he looks like he hasn't showered since we saw him last week. He was in jeans and his sweatshirt, soooo stained. How did it even get like that? Did he use it as a plate? Was there a food fight on his way to class? How? Just, how? Oh! And his hair looked like Barley that time dad put that cooking oil in a milk carton and left it sitting on the railing outside, and the oil ate through the carton and was dripping down onto Barley who was happy as a clam to get a golden shower and lick the drippings."