“What kind of place doesn’t have cell service?” Chloe said the second Sawyer picked up.
“Hell, Calcutta, and Blackwood Hills Estates. Scratch that. I think Calcutta’s gone fiber-optic now.”
“So, convo—wait, what did you call it?”
“Convocation.” Sawyer smiled. “Aren’t you supposed to be the smart one?”
“No, I’m the scrappy bootstrap one who will win a scholarship for her writing prowess, making everyone in the trailer park titter.”
Sawyer jutted out one hip. “Titter?”
“It’s a TP thing. You tract home chicks wouldn’t understand. So, are we hanging out or not?”
Sawyer’s lower lip pushed out. “Doubtful. I’ve got sparkling apple cider and an apparent baby sister.”
“Cider?” Chloe sputtered into the phone.
“And a baby sister on the way.”
“And they expect you to toast the mutant spawn with sparkling cider?”
“I don’t think she’ll be a mutant. Tara’s gorgeous.” Sawyer looked around the eco-green kitchen. “And so very environmentally correct.”
“Whatever,” Chloe said, rattling cellophane on her end of the phone. “You know what goes well with sparkling cider?”
“What’s that?” Sawyer asked, pouring herself a mammoth bowl of cereal and rearranging herself on the glazed granite countertop.
“Beer.”
Sawyer wrinkled her nose, crunching her cereal. “That sounds gross.”
“You want me to head over? If I leave now I can be there by next Tuesday.”
Sawyer frowned. “No, thanks. I’m not feeling company-worthy right now. Can we convocate next week?”
“Wow, convocate?”
“I think I just made it up. Anyway, I think I’m just going to eat my celebratory pizza chaser after my cereal, take a bath, and resign myself to failing Spanish.”
“Que bueno. Have a great night in the graveyard of American dreams.”
“Try not to let your Airstream rust.”
Sawyer set her bowl in the sink and changed into her pajama pants, turning on every light in the house as she went. Though a new build, the Dodd house still settled and creaked in ways that made the hair on the back of Sawyer’s neck stand up. She turned on the television and cranked the volume, letting the canned laughter and faux family’s voices fill her empty house.
***
The rest of the week passed uneventfully with no new notes and Sawyer burying herself under a mountain of college applications and midterm prep. So when the door of her Spanish class opened the following Friday afternoon, Sawyer was knee-deep in Spanish verb conjugation hell and didn’t look up.
“Flower-grams!”
Sawyer’s heart ached, remembering last year’s onslaught of fundraising carnations. She and Kevin had just started dating and he had showered her—a dozen per class—in pink and white beribboned flowers, each bearing a special message: I love you, You’re beautiful. Those flowers were pressed in a cardboard box marked “Sawyer’s Room” now, right next to the note she thought was her favorite—a fuzzy bunny rabbit drawn on binder paper with the words I’ll never hurt you printed across it. Sawyer swallowed back a lump, hid her moist eyes behind her book.
Maggie was the head of the flower fundraising forum, and she marched into the classroom now, beaming in a waft of carnation-scented air, her minions flanking her, arms laden with blooms.
“Mr. Hanson, members of the junior class. As you know, our flower-gram program not only raises school and personal spirit—”
“I think I feel my lunch being raised,” someone muttered.
Maggie shot daggers. “As I was saying, these flower-grams raise spirit and cash for our junior prom. So, if you’re one of the few who don’t receive a flower today, there are still three more days to get yours.” Maggie donned a dazzling, pageant-worthy grin and narrowed her eyes at Sawyer. “Or consider sending one to yourself. No one but you and I will know, and it’s for a good cause.”
Sawyer rolled her eyes and went back to the verb to play.
“Now, without further ado, your flower-grams.”
Maggie cleared her throat and started reading off names as her minions zigzagged through the classroom, depositing single stems, sentiment cards tied with ribbons and fluttering like leaves.
Maggie paused, seeming to choke on the next name. “Sawyer Dodd.” She said it with a curled lip, no attempt to mask the disdain in her voice. “Two flowers.”
Maggie’s minion deposited two flowers on Sawyer’s desk without making eye contact. Sawyer lowered her Spanish book. It seemed as though the room dropped into a curious—and accusatory—silence. If Sawyer’s boyfriend was dead, their stares seemed to say, who was sending her flowers?
Sawyer unfurled the first note with trembling fingers. Would her admirer reveal himself—clear up the mystery message?