The week passed slowly. No one seemed to notice that Ashley was spending more and more time with Katelyn, including the nights, and if they did, they didn’t seem to care. The others mostly kept to themselves, though Dalene and Rose were rarely home. Everyone knew that Dalene hung out with the so-called popular girls as well as promiscuous guys, but no one knew where Rose spent her time. She remained evasive about her life whenever Ashley would try to initiate small talk with her in the kitchen when they’d happen to prepare meals or snacks at the same time.
“So, where have you been hanging out these days?” she asked Rose one evening when they were fixing themselves a cup of tea.
“I started working out,” Rose told her. “Mainly weight-lifting.”
“Oh, yeah?”
Rose nodded.
“That’s cool. Excited about going home for Christmas?”
Rose nodded mechanically and left the room with her tea.
Ashley took her toasted coconut almond tea, not to her room, but to Katelyn’s. Katelyn was sprawled out on her bed studying. She let Ashley have the desk. They studied together about four nights a week and made love almost every night. They took walks on weekends, browsed through stores together, and either ate out or had pizzas delivered. They listened to music together and sometimes watched TV. Where you’d see one, you’d see the other. Katelyn asked that Ashley not go out alone in light of the recent murders, and she was never happier to oblige.
For Ashley’s twentieth birthday, her aunt mailed her more money than she usually did on a weekly basis, and Katelyn surprised her with a gold heart-shaped necklace with I Love You inscribed on it as well as a dozen pink roses and a small box of chocolates.
“My goodness!” exclaimed Ashley with excitement. “You really went all out.”
“You’re worth it.”
“Thank you so much,” said Ashley, kissing Katelyn on the lips, “though you didn’t have to go so overboard.”
“I could never go overboard for my Ashley,” Katelyn insisted with a smile. Then her expression became serious. “The necklace speaks the truth, Ash. I really do love you.”
Ashley’s eyes glistened with emotion. “And I love you. I have for a while now. I just wasn’t so sure I should say anything. I mean, when this is all over…” she gestured at their surroundings.
“When this is all over, we’ll find a way to be together. If we both truly love each other, we’ll find a way. Hell, I’ll move to Las Cruces if I have to.”
Ashley’s eyes lit up and she grinned widely. She threw her arms around Katelyn. The two needed no more words at that point as they fell onto the bed, hearts afire with love, bodies aflame with lust.
Ashley thought she’d be thrilled to go home for Christmas and New Year’s, and while she truly was, a part of her wasn’t looking forward to it because she knew it meant not seeing Katelyn for nearly two weeks. They exchanged phone numbers, promising to call every couple of days or so just to touch base.
“See? You won’t be totally without me throughout the holidays, after all,” Katelyn told her before she left with her mother, who seemed to be a very pleasant woman.
“I’m so glad to meet you,” she had told her. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
After Ashley made one last search of her room to make sure she wasn’t leaving anything behind that was of value to her or that she needed, Katelyn’s mother was kind enough to drop her off at the bus depot where Ashley soon boarded a Greyhound bus bound for Las Cruces. It was barely 9 AM, and with Las Cruces being so far down by the Mexican border, she wouldn’t arrive until around midnight.
For a while, she simply gazed out at the passing scenery, glad to be at the back of the bus with no one next to her. After a while, she pulled out a paperback. When she felt herself growing sleepy, she leaned her head back and closed her eyes.
She tried to get her mind off Katelyn and to focus on her aunt and her friend Joy. She smiled when she thought of how her aunt would no doubt be waiting at the door as soon as the taxicab pulled up, eager to take her in and give her milk and cookies as if she were a child all over again before they turned in for the night.
She thought of the clothes her aunt would no doubt shower her with this Christmas. They’d be a touch on the conservative side, but nice nonetheless.
Then she thought of Joy, who would undoubtedly catch her up on the neighborhood gossip. She couldn’t wait to tell her more about Katelyn. She knew she was very fortunate to find someone as smart and as mature as Katelyn was and at such a young age. She gently fingered the heart-shaped necklace she wore as thoughts of Katelyn seeped back into mind once again, displaying various images of the tall, sexy brunette across the screen of her brain.
She was exhausted when she finally got off the bus and into a taxicab, and to make matters worse, the driver wouldn’t stop talking. The older, filthy, pockmarked guy was probably as lonely as he was desperate. She wished she’d taken her aunt up on her offer to pick her up from the bus station. It’s just that she hated to put her out and so late at night, too. She couldn’t have been more grateful once the cab finally pulled up in her aunt’s driveway ten minutes later as the cabby flashed her a nicotine-stained, partially toothless grin.
However, it wasn’t her aunt who waited at the door, but her aunt’s best friend Iris instead. She was in her mid-sixties like her aunt, with two grown kids.
Iris? Why would Iris be waiting up for her? Her first thought was that her aunt had been stricken with a bad cold or the flu until she exited the cab with her suitcase in hand, purse slung over one shoulder, and strode over to the front door. Even in the dim light cast by the low-wattage porch light, she could tell by her expression that whatever inflicted her aunt was much more than a cold or flu.
Ashley felt herself begin to tremble. Though she tried to console herself by urging herself not to jump the gun, she knew she had every reason to feel the tendrils of dread that were slowly yet surely winding their way through her.
Always trust your gut instinct, both her aunt and her mom had told her. What you suspect is probably true.
“Iris,” Ashley said, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice.
Iris opened the screen door wide enough for Ashley to squeeze through.
“Oh, darling. Darling, darling, I am so, so very sorry.”
“F-for what? Where’s Aunt Hilary?” Desperation now rang through Ashley’s voice.
“She’s gone, dear,” Iris replied, red-eyed from crying.
“Gone? Gone where?” Ashley asked, though she knew full well what ‘gone’ meant.
“They tried to resuscitate her, but it was to no avail.”
“Iris, what happened?” Ashley demanded, now on the verge of hysteria.
“It was a stroke. It was so massive that she was pretty much gone by the time the ambulance arrived. We had been playing bridge together when she reached for her head as if in pain, then she slipped off the kitchen chair…”
Iris’s words faded along with the light as Ashley succumbed to the safe recesses of total darkness where loved ones didn’t die, leaving you with no other family whatsoever to call your own.
When Ashley did come to, daylight was streaming through the window. For a minute she was confused and even forgot where she was. The sight of her aunt’s friend looming into view above her was a stark reminder as she lay on the living room couch with an afghan over her which her aunt had made. Ashley felt incredibly groggy as if she’d been drugged.
“Hello, dear. You gave me a little scare for a minute there last night when you passed out on me. How are you feeling now?”
Ashley thought about it for a moment. “Pretty out of it and depressed.”
Iris looked sympathetic. “Oh, but that’s to be expected, honey. It’ll get easier with time. You’ll see. Meanwhile, as Hilary would want you to do, you’ll go back and finish your schooling and have a wonderfully productive life.”
Ashley shook her head miserably.
Iris continued on anyway. “She left a sufficient amount of money for you to get by on till you’re independent and working somewhere, so don’t you worry your pretty little self about finances. You can also call me anytime with anything you need…”
“When’s the funeral?” Ashley interrupted.
“Tomorrow. As executor of her will, I have her being prepared the way she requested to be at the mortuary.”
Shakily, Ashley swung her legs over the side of the couch and sat up.
“I have some breakfast made up. It would really be a good idea if you got something in your stomach. We don’t need you getting sick now, you hear?”
“Thanks, Iris. I appreciate all you’re doing, but shouldn’t you be getting on home?”
“Oh, nonsense,” said the matronly woman as if Ashley had said the silliest thing. “What’s an old widow like me going to do sitting at home at a time like this?”
“What will become of the house?” asked Ashley.
“We’ll put it on the market after the funeral. I know Hilary would want us to do that so you could use the money to get yourself a little apartment somewhere once you graduate. Certainly, you wouldn’t want the responsibility of this house at such a young age, even though it’s all paid for, would you? And before you’re working somewhere?”
“No, it’s too big for me anyway, Iris.”
“On the other hand, you might want to think about hanging onto the house, dear, for when you have a husband and some children.”
“I don’t want a husband and some children, Iris.”
“Oh,” said Iris. “Didn’t some special gentleman give you the lovely heart necklace you’re wearing?”
“No, a special lady did,” Ashley said, gazing directly into Iris’s eyes, unashamed.
“Oh. Oh, well, to each their own, right?” Iris said nonchalantly.
“Yes, ma’am,” Ashley said with a tone that suggested they should change the subject.
Ashley went through the rest of the day in a daze. She felt numb. Not even Joy’s normally comforting, cheery presence could perk her up. She felt lost and alone, though she appreciated everyone’s effort in trying to rekindle her spirits.
She knew she had Katelyn and that she’d do what she could for her, but she didn’t want to burden her with her loss and make her feel obligated to do anything she might not have otherwise done once they graduated. She almost hoped Katelyn would forget to call, but on the other hand, just how true would she really be if she didn’t call when she said she would?
When Iris answered the inevitable call that came that evening in the kitchen, Ashley said she’d take it in the living room. As soon as she picked up the phone, Katelyn was offering her condolences.
So she wouldn’t have to tell her after all.
“I really think I should get on the next bus heading your way,” Katelyn said, voice dripping with concern as well as empathy.
“That’s really sweet of you, Katelyn, but I hate to see you lose out on your vacation, too.”
“It wouldn’t be any loss to me, sweetheart. If I came, it would be because I wanted to. When is the funeral?”
“Tomorrow.”
“I could leave real early in the morning so I wouldn’t get there too late.”
Ashley thought about it for a moment. Then said, “You know, to tell you the truth, there’s no face I’d like to see more at the moment than yours, so if you’re sure you want to do this…”
“Absolutely, babe, absolutely. I’ll catch a cab from the bus terminal. That way your friend or your aunt’s friend won’t have to bother with coming to fetch me.”
“Thanks, Katelyn. Thanks so much.”
“No problem, sweetie. You just hang in there for now, okay?”
Ashley nodded as if Katelyn could see her. “I will, and Katelyn?”
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
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