First, Last, and Always by Lehman Kim

Author:Lehman, Kim [Lehman, Kim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lucky Stars Publishing, LLC
Published: 2014-11-17T04:00:00+00:00

8

Charlotte

I call Lani on Saturday morning after I get out of the shower.

“Hello, hello! Hale here. Who dis?”

“Hi, Lani.” She answers the phone with the same greeting regardless of who calls, but she knows it’s me. My picture comes up on her phone. Actually, it’s not a picture you’d be able to recognize; it’s a picture of my hand over my face. I despise having my picture taken, but that did not deter Lani from taking it anyway. The only thing you see when it pops up is my right eye. “What are you doing?” I ask. I’m hoping she’ll come to the mall with me, or give me a good excuse to back out of going. My mom and aunt are dragging me with them to go to some shoe sale. Mom thinks I could use a new pair of shoes, since the only things I wear are sneakers and flip-flops.

“Today I’m helping with stuff around the house and errands.” By the sound of her voice, you’d think she was sentenced to death. “Mom needs me to get eggs and milk.”

“You’re walking to the grocery store?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s gotta be two miles each way,” I exclaim.

“It’s also an hour and a half of no crying babies.”

“Well, I guess when you put it that way.”

“You want my life, right? You’re totally jealous I can hear it in your voice.”

“It does sounds exciting,” I say, unsuccessfully hiding my sarcasm.

“Come with me,” she pleads.

“I can’t.” Shopping with Mom has a narrow margin over eggs and milk.

Her death sentence just escalated. “Fine,” she whines. “I’ll go by myself.”

“Why don’t you call Miles?” I suggest. “I think he’s free today.”

She perks up. “You talked to him?”

“Yeah. This morning. Why? Is that surprising?”

“I don’t know. It’s early.”

“It’s eleven.” I laugh.

“On a Sunday, eleven is early.”

“Okay.”

“Did he say anything?”

“About what?” I ask.

“About anything?”

I chuckle. She’s in an extra energetic mood today. “Nothing new. We just talked.”

“Okay.” She sounds disappointed.

“Why?”

“Just wondering.”

I sigh. “Okay.” I’m through trying to understand. Sometimes I think Lani has elaborate conversations in her head and everyone outside only gets sound bites of what’s actually going on.

Then she says, almost as an afterthought, “Miles is a really great guy, don’t you think?”

“Yeah.”

“I was thinking that the other day, just kind of popped into my head, what a good guy he is.”

“This is a big step for you,” I joke.

“What do you mean?”

“Seeing Miles as something other than annoying.”

“I do not think Miles is annoying.”

“You think most people are annoying,” I remind her. “Miles is just less annoying to you than most people.”

“Alright, I’ll give you that,” she admits.

“So, what happened? Was there something specific that made you realize how great he is?”

“Uh...no, not really. But I was thinking what a shame it was, ya know? I mean, here’s this great guy. This really awesome guy and he doesn’t have a girlfriend.”

“You know Miles. He’s shy. He’ll never go up and talk to a girl on his own.”

“Yeah,” Lani huffs. “I know.”

“Someday he’ll meet a nice girl. He’s one of those guys who will probably end up being totally hot in his thirties.

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