Babineaux Bléu

2

In Good Company

Three weeks later, Siani was walking limp-free alongside her best friend, Rachel, at the local supermarket shopping for her grandmother, Esther. Her parents were long gone. They extended their stay after Sinai's incident and left a week later back to the island.

They trusted Yolanda, the newly hired nurse, to do her due diligence in caring for Esther and told Siani to call them immediately should anything happen.

The extra precautionary was expected of them, but Siani didn't feel there was any need for it. Mrs. Yolanda was doing a fine job.

Not a lot of people would tolerate her grandmother's stubbornness, and she was as stubborn as they came, but Yolanda proved to be as patient as she was mulish.

"So, what are we doing this week?" Rachel asked, slowing her walk with Siani. The last she'd seen of her friend was nearly a month ago. She'd gone back to her hometown Quebec and returned with a fresh haircut dyed honey blonde and a few healthy pounds at her waist. She looked good. Siani thought it was cute and complemented her golden complexion well. Maybe one day she would finally psyche herself up enough to do the big chop. It'd be a good kind of change from the curly bush she'd known since she was a little tike.

"Um, I don't know. I really just started to enjoy going outside again." She leaned over and retrieved an assortment of fresh fruits. Her break from school began yesterday and, against her will, she spent the remainder of her day hanging with a few classmates at a local coffeehouse in town.

"You never really went out much before," Rachel said.

"My point exactly." She placed the items in the half-filled cart and pushed it forward.

"No, I mean, even before your grandmother got sick."

"That's not true. I went out...sometimes."

Rachel rolled her eyes. "Whatever, you barely went out. All you ever did was facetime Anel."

Siani smiled, not at all insulted. "I did not. I went out. Matter of fact, I spent most of my time with you."

The mention of Anel did make Siani feel a bit of guilt. She did miss him when she thought about him, which wasn't very often these days.

If it wasn't her grandmother it was her academics keeping her from thinking about anything else. But speaking on the now, she would make sure that wouldn't happen again, and she would definitely call him once she got home.

"Hey, look who it is!" Rachel exclaimed and walked down the snack aisle, leaving Siani. She couldn't see the person she was walking towards and didn't care to move around the sign advertising potato chips that read 'buy one get one free' blocking her view.

With a sigh, she plucked a few bags of chips from the shelf at the end of the aisle and tossed them in the basket before following her friend, lazily tugging the cart behind her.

Lyle's arms wrapped around Rachel in a tight embrace. It had been a while since he'd last seen her.

"What's up? How've you been?" She patted his arm, a wide smile pushing her cheeks.

"Good. I'm liking the hair." He complimented. "How was Canada? You came back yesterday, right?"

"Yeah, and it was expensive." She shook her head, disfavored. "I've gotten so used to the prices here I blinked twice at almost everything ."

"Yeah, but you were always cheap." He chuckled, resting his foot on the back of his cart.

"Other than that, family is always nice to see." She shrugged. "We had an early Thanksgiving feast. It was nice."