Cheshire Girl

Ch. 24

Well… a few things slipped out of my control.

                Like my mouth.

                Now I've gotten Ethan Walker involved with the idea that I was going to tell him everything—everything—this Saturday.  Maybe if I'd kept my mouth shut even more, I wouldn't have known that Charlie and Ethan had gone out. 

                I wouldn't be obsessing over it on the drive home.

                I couldn't let something so trivial like that bother me.  They dated.  So what?  They hadn't talked for over a year.  They seemed pretty fine by it.  And, maybe I was misinterpreting, but Charlie didn't seem too bothered by the idea of me and Ethan.  She seemed very supportive.

                Thanks for being a great friend and supporting us both.  Love, Ian Walker

                I almost stepped on the brakes.

                Was I reading things incorrectly, or did Charlotte and Ian have a thing?

                With reluctance, I thought about what Charlie had said, about how Charlotte was the most likely victim because she was black (I wanted to avoid the racial aspects of things, hoping that wasn't the case).  Ian, obviously, was white.  Assuming there had been something between them, just that alone possibly played a big role in what happened.

                Maybe….  What if Ian technically was at fault?  What if someone thought that they shouldn't have been together, but because Ian was white, they decided to deal with Charlotte first?

                Then it would be a town full of suspects.

                Oh, God, I really hoped that wasn't the case.

*

"I'm just meeting with Phil," editor, "and Mindy," publicist, "on Friday, but I'm meeting with some producers on Saturday who say they want to turn my story into a motion picture."

                "Another one?"  I was playing with my broccoli.  "So they dumped Fast Times at Vampire High?"

                "Vampires have fallen out of fashion," Mom conceded.  "I'm really excited about this new one."

                "You never told me what it was about."

                "It's about you."

                I dropped my fork.  "Uh, come again?"

                "It's the idea of a girl moving to a new town and… well, mostly just that part.  It's a ghost story."

                "A ghost story."

                Mom nodded.  "I know about that girl who died here.  You knew that, right?"

                "I've… heard a few things… here and there…."

                "So I took that story and twisted a few things here and there.  I mostly just designed the main character after you, but I named her Beatrice."

                … "Beatrice."

                "My grandmother.  I never met her, of course.  It's really a ghost story meets forbidden love.  I set it during a time of segregation."