A Different Kind of Us

Chapter 4

From the moment Sutton got out of the shower on Friday morning, she had the oddly nostalgic feeling that she was going on a school field trip. This Friday morning had the same strange thrill as all those mornings in elementary and high school, when Sutton had woken up and remembered with a leap in her stomach that her class was going to the state capitol or the Jimmy Carter Museum or the Margaret Mitchell House. Back then, Sutton had traded her private school uniform for a pair of American Eagle jeans and an overpriced Abercrombie t-shirt. Today she traded her work slacks and heels for a dark-washed pair of Levis and flats.

Her co-workers were dressed down as well, not just in clothing but also in motivation. Each one of them had a suitcase or duffle bag or, in Javier's case, a black trash bag, bunched up against their desk as a reminder of the company retreat. The sales team wasted a lot of time chatting in the break room that morning. Wyatt played Solitaire on his computer without bothering to hide the screen. And Debbie, when Sutton ambled over to talk to her, was flipping through a J. Crew catalog right at her desk.

"Don't you have any work?" Sutton laughed, half horrified, half impressed.

"It's Retreat day," Debbie shrugged. "It doesn't matter. Hey, what do you think of this cardigan?"

Sutton didn't answer. Ada had just walked across the office, her lanky frame seeming even skinnier in a pair of jeans, and Sutton suddenly remembered, with heat that felt like a fever, she and Ada wandering away from their classmates to explore the Jimmy Carter Museum on their own.

They whiled away the hours until Marta told them to shut off their computers at three o'clock. Then they left in bunches to meet the shuttle in the parking lot.

The shuttle was smaller than Sutton had hoped. She had expected a big luxury bus, one of those white chartered ones with cushy purple seats and plenty of room to stretch out.

But this shuttle was more like one of those dinky airport shuttles where Sutton always ended up banging her ankle on someone else's suitcase.

Sutton stepped onto the shuttle and assessed her seating options as fast as she could. Shit. Debbie and Wyatt, her two choices for seating partners, were already sitting together. Javier hadn't yet boarded, so Sutton could choose an empty pair of seats and hope he would sit next to her, but what if...? No, surely Ada wouldn't dare sit next to her. Had she not made it clear in the break room yesterday that she had no desire to be around Sutton? Had she not practically choked out her revulsion?

Sutton took a gamble: she sat down in an empty pair of seats. Then she held her breath and tried to act like she wasn't zeroing in on every person who climbed onto the shuttle behind her.

Go figure Ada was just a couple of people down the line. She slipped onto the bus with her usual regal demeanor, looking for all the world like she was going to a private banquet at a country club rather than on a corporate retreat with a bunch of idiosyncratic coworkers.

Ada's eyes skirted over the empty seat next to Sutton, and for a blistering moment, Sutton held her breath.

But Ada glided right past her, not saying a word. Sutton fought the urge to turn around and see where she had chosen to sit instead.

Javier clambered onto the bus next, wearing a t-shirt that said There is no defying gravity, you musical moron. He had big clunky headphones collared around his neck and was biting into a Slim Jim as he scooted down the middle of the bus. Sutton looked to catch his eye, but when he saw her, he waved noncommittally and shuffled on down the row. When she turned around to see where he had landed, she saw him settling in next to Ada.