Candy Floss

chapter nine | lemon bars

props to me for including ap gov in here. yay. 

chapter nine | lemon bars

Apparently Eunice forgot about our feud, because she called me. “Oh my gosh, Flossy. Guess what just happened to me? It’s really the best thing ever.”

“What happened to you, Eunice?”

“Do you remember, Alfie? The boy that I met in Pinto?”

“I remember his name…”

“Okay, well, I’m dating him!”

“You’re not…”

“I am!”

“I don’t think he’s right for you, Eunice.”

I could just see her pouting right now. “I asked him out and he said yes. I actually wasn’t expecting him to. Our love is a miracle.”

“Oh, so now you’re in love?”

“Well, no, but I could totally see myself falling in love with him. He’s just so quirky, Flossy. I love that he’s not like every other guy. He doesn’t like me for my looks and he doesn’t want to get into my size gabillion pants. I think he’s good for me, Flossy. I really do.”

“Right, well, congratulations then.”

“I know you really don’t mean it, but thank you!”

She was right. I really didn’t mean it. Did that make me an awful friend? I knew that Alfie would be another name on her already long list. And unlike Santa, I hoped she wouldn’t check it twice.

“I want you to meet him, Flossy. Come down to Pinto next weekend.”

“I really can’t…”

“Come on. It’s a friend thing. He needs your approval. I need it.”

Eunice was kidding herself. She didn’t need my approval. It didn’t matter what I thought because she would always go her own way without giving one thought to my advice. She wasn’t too keen on considering other people’s ideas. That was one of her major flaws. The other was her lack of healthy motivation.

“Fine, whatever. You have to pick me up though.”

“I can do that. Thank you, Flossy!”

+++

 

I looked outside the passenger window. “This is Pinto? This is it?”

I was expecting something a bit more extravagant. Well, extravagant wasn’t the right word to use. Something more than nothing. I was expecting something. Pinto was literally the middle of nowhere. I saw a chapel, a dead downtown, a sad looking park, and a bunch of houses that had no character. “This is a ghost town, Eunice. Why did you bring me here?”

“It is not a ghost town!” she argued. “This place is filled with life and happiness. And it’s not like you’re living here. You’ll be back in Catalonia in no time. You’re just here to meet Alfie. Then I’ll take you home.”

“Fine,” I grumbled.

She pulled into a driveway. The house was white. The houses next to it were white. Come to think of it, every single house in this town was white. If that screamed diversity, I didn’t hear it. It looked like a town where everyone knew each other. That, in my opinion, was boring. I bet the younger generation was just itching to move away and never look back.

“That’s Alfie’s house,” Eunice said, pointing to a house with a porch swing on it. It was to the left of Eunice’s cousin’s house.

“Oh, he’s your neighbor? How perfect.”