Deserted
Ella P.O.V
It was November 30th, a Saturday. I was sitting at my favourite booth in the cafe, located on the corner of Queen St and Mary St; otherwise known as the Queen Mary corner. It was a rather warm day for the last day of Autumn and because of this I had an iced coffee instead of a hot one. Some people gave me weird looks as it wasn’t exactly that warm; but I didn’t care what they thought of my drinking habits.
I was waiting for my friends to arrive. Could I still call them my friends? After all I hadn’t seen them in a year, due to my extended trip to England. I had arrived back to the small town of Oakwood, around an hour’s drive west of Madison, Wisconsin, only yesterday. It felt good to be back in the place of my childhood. Oakwood had a stable population of 3250; everyone knew everyone and keeping a secret was a difficult thing that only few people could master. My friends and I being in the rare few.
There are five us now. Georgia Tuttle is the stereotypical ‘it girl’. Her mother gives her everything she wants with no price limit whatsoever. If she doesn’t get what she wants though she throws a fit that could compete with a two year olds. Because of her stylish ways and her terrible attitude she was detested by quite a few people and the teacher’s gave her a hard time about it, always scolding her for miniscule things that they would simply brush off it were other students. Her grades suffered as well.
Tamara Wendt is the one who keeps the group together. Although not considered the leader of the pack, nor the smartest, Tamara is strong-headed and wise. She brings us all back together in fights and she is always thinking of new ways to express our friendship, such as organising sleepovers, shopping outings, making friendship bracelets and the rest of it. She is well liked with the people in Oakwood, especially the elderly, who she goes out of her way to help.
Clover Smith was the athlete of the group. During the summer she was very much taken to sports such as field hockey and swimming, whilst in the Winter months she was dedicated to skiing, ice-skating and even ice-hockey. Because of all of the exercise that she did, she was stick thin and had the body that every girl dreamed of. She was well liked because her name brought business and put Oakwood on the map.
Maya Elliot was the ever-changing girl. She experimented in finding out who she was. For a long period she was gothic, her hair dyed black with red streaks in it. She still had the hair, but she had lost the clothing and the personality to become a musician. She played the guitar, drums and she sung. Her voice was like liquid gold and she went alongside Tamara to help the homeless, except Maya put on little concerts for them to enjoy. As well as being musical Maya was also a drama queen; whilst I was away she had been the lead in the school play.
Finally there was me, Ella Monroe, the smart one. My dream was to become mayor of Oakwood. With the current mayor getting into his sixties and his opposition getting into bad publicity when it came to the next election I would actually have a good chance of winning. I talked to townsfolk whenever I could, listening to their personal lives and how their kids where moving onto college elsewhere. I listened to the stories of grandmother’s passing away and families planning vacations. I was the one to come to when people wanted gossip. However I was good at keeping secrets; probably the best of everyone in Oakwood.
I heard the ring-ring of the bell above the doorway signalling that more people were coming into the cafe. I looked up hopeful but was only to be disappointed, it was only a little girl and her mother coming into get a cake. I looked at my watch. It was 11.10am. They were twenty-five minutes late and it wasn’t like them to be late.
“Are you done, Ella? Would you like anything else?” Mary the waitress asked, flipping her long golden hair back behind her shoulder, out of the way. Her brown eyes were soft and gentle and she had previously told me that she would vote for me when time came for the election in a couple of years time. She was only a couple of years older than me, taking an extended gap year.
