My Mother Grows Wallflowers by C. L. Howland

Author:C. L. Howland [Howland, C. L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: contemporary fiction, Public
Publisher: Random Tangent Press
Published: 2017-12-17T05:00:00+00:00

August 1993

“Okay, girls. Are you all set?” Mina asked.

“Yup,” both girls said at once. Sleeping bags pulled up to their necks to ward off mosquitoes, Sarah and Emma laid back in the reclining lawn chairs.

“Good. The movie’s going to start in a few minutes. Sam and I’ll be right here in the car. Don’t wander off anywhere without telling us.”

“We won’t,” Emma assured her. “Can we have popcorn?”

“Popcorn? We just had pizza. Are you hungry, really?”

“Well, not yet, but I’m sure I’m gonna be.”

“Fine. We’ll go down and get some in a while.” Mina opened the car door and slid into the front seat.

“They okay?”

“Sure. Emma’s already requesting popcorn.”

“How can that kid be so skinny?” Sam laughed.

“I don’t know, but obviously we didn’t get the same genes when it came to that.”

“I like your genes just the way they are.” Sam leaned across the seat to give her a kiss.

“Very funny,” Mina said, but smiled nonetheless.

He straightened back up, but left his hand tucked into the crease of her jeans behind her knee; his thumb reflexively rubbing back and forth.

She studied Sam’s arm, fascinated with watching the muscles in his forearm move from the slight shift of his thumb. Working outside had shaded his skin a warm bronze and…there was that tug again. Brother, it’s only his arm. Get a grip. But she couldn’t help it. Mina liked everything about him. They’d spent every moment together they could manage since school let out.

Calm down. You’ve only been going out with him for a couple of months.Yeah, but you’ve loved him forever.

Shifting a little in the seat, she noticed how the plain black t-shirt emphasized his chest, built up from a summer’s worth of lifting. “How’s work going?” she asked, needing a distraction.

“Hot, dirty, but fun I guess. It’s like playing in the dirt with big Tonka toys. I told you, the old man is a drill sergeant on the job.” Sam’s dad was a foreman for a construction company, and Sam went to work on his crew. According to Sam, nepotism definitely wasn’t an issue. He swore his father worked him twice as hard as the other guys.

“Would you rather work with Joe?”

“Hardly,” he snorted. “I’m not one to schlep food to tables. But I’ll give it to Joe; he makes great money in tips. Can you believe it? He came home with almost three hundred bucks last night. I don’t get it.”

I do, it’s his charm. What would her father say? He could sell ice cream to an Eskimo? That was Joe. Not to mention he worked at Night Cross, an exclusive restaurant on the outskirts of Hanover. “Good for him.”

“Yeah. He’s going to be able to buy a sweet ride.”

“When’s he leaving?”

“In a couple of weeks.”

Joe graduated in June and was headed off to college. All the Miller boys had their licenses now and had been saving to buy their own cars for a while. Mina had taken drivers ed too, but hadn’t gone for her driver’s test. She had no car to take it with, so it didn’t matter.

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