Surfacing - Book One in the Swans Landing Series

Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

“Well, hello there, sugar,” Miss Gale greeted me as I slid into the starfish-painted bar stool at Moody’s Variety Store. “Come back for another one of my famous peach milkshakes?”

I was relieved to see she was working today. I had almost left when I walked into the Variety Store only moments ago. Two men and a woman had stood near the register, chatting with Jim, the old man at the front counter. They all stared at me when I walked in, their conversation forgotten. The men leaned against the counter, slowly chewing a wad of tobacco stuffed in their cheeks, while the woman shifted a bag of flour from one arm to the other.

Their accusing eyes had followed as I squeezed past them, trying to disappear into the maze of duct tape and MoonPies. I didn’t let out my breath until I’d reached Miss Gale’s counter and heard the tinkle of the bell on the door as the other customers left.

“No, thanks. I’ll have a Coke instead.”

Miss Gale shook her head, letting her long white braid fall over her shoulder. “You got to have more than that to put some meat on your little bones. I insist on it.”

I’d never exactly been a skinny girl—one thing I had inherited from my mom was an ample set of hips—but Miss Gale’s hips were bigger and so in her mind I must have been a bit scrawny.

“I just fixed a banana pudding this morning,” she said. “You can have a bowl of that.”

Once Miss Gale had slid the gooey concoction of bananas, cookies, and pudding toward me, she said, “So what are you up to today? Making everyone talk about you again?”

My eyebrows shot upward. “Who’s been talking about me?”

Miss Gale leaned over the counter, stretching her sun-spotted and wrinkled arms across the battered wood. “My granddaughter for one. Since you arrived, I ain’t heard the end of her ranting.”

I rolled my eyes as I licked a bit of meringue off my finger. “Figures. She never thanked me for helping her out with those kids at school, not that I expected her to.”

Now Miss Gale’s eyebrows rose, deepening the lines along her forehead. “What happened at school?”

“Sailor didn’t tell you?” I had assumed Sailor and her grandmother were close enough to talk about anything, much like I used to be with my mom. “Elizabeth Connors seems to really have it in for Sailor. Or maybe Sailor has it in for her, I can’t really tell.”

Miss Gale nodded slightly. “What was it this time?”

“I don’t understand what it was all about,” I admitted, stirring the softened bananas and cookies around with my spoon. “We were in the library doing research and Elizabeth started harassing Sailor. Stupid stuff that doesn’t make any sense, like does she cry when people eat fish?” Sailor ate meat during lunch in the cafeteria, so I knew she wasn’t a vegetarian.

Miss Gale pressed her lips together as she wiped the countertop with a damp cloth. “Uh-huh,” she said. Her movements were tight and controlled and her bright eyes had darkened a little. She didn’t look as smiling and sparkling as she had moments ago. “And what did Sailor do?”

“That’s just it. She sat there and took it. She said a few words back, but nothing that would make Elizabeth back off. I don’t get it. You know she threw a basketball at Elizabeth in gym class to stop her from going after me? Why wouldn’t Sailor fight back against her this time?”

One side of Miss Gale’s lips curled into a half-smile. “Sailor has put up with a lot from that little Miss Connors. Sometimes she gets tired of fighting back.”