Settling: a Novel by Rachel Michael Arends

Author:Rachel Michael Arends [Michael Arends, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781626818262
Publisher: Diversion Books
Published: 2015-08-03T00:00:00+00:00

Chastity and Jane sit across from each other at the picnic table. They’re under a streetlight in the dead of night, in a part of town where Jane wouldn’t feel comfortable at noon. It’s springtime, but in Michigan that doesn’t mean much. Frost is painting the anemic patches of grass along the sides of the road white.

It’s eerily quiet, except for the lulling whoosh and hum of traffic. Every now and then a scurrying sound makes Jane turn quickly.

“Why’d you get in my way?” Chastity asks.

“I was helping you, like you helped me.” Jane’s answer sounds more like a question.

Chastity shakes her head grimly. She fingers the student ID tag on Jane’s purse. “This is your new address?”

Jane pulls her bag closer.

“You think you can keep me from taking that?”

“Why would you?” Jane tries to dismiss the idea lightly but her voice wavers.

“Mick wants to know where you live.” Chastity watches the road. “You made him meaner, so thanks a lot for that.”

“He is mean, and dangerous. I hope you don’t have feelings for him, because he’s not worth it.”

“Keep your prissy purse and your opinions to yourself. I don’t want either.” Chastity scans the area around them. “Where the hell’s my bag?”

Jane sees it on the ground beside the table. She shivers as she’s hit by both an icy wind and a growing fear she’s not ready to acknowledge. “Why?”

“Can’t you see this is a dangerous neighborhood?”

“So?”

“So, I’ve got a knife in there.”

Jane looks at the bag. “You wouldn’t hurt me.”

“I say I was going to?” Chastity shrugs. “But then, people hurt people every day. You should know that by now.”

“But you wouldn’t hurt me.”

“Why not? You messed up my plans tonight. And you made my man look down on me.” Chastity stares at her like she’s trying to figure Jane out, or she’s making a plan. She fingers the ID tag again. “It wasn’t your place to interfere tonight, Jane Brighton. You’re like a missionary giving clothes to the Indians who didn’t want no damn clothes.”

“You don’t really want to die, do you?” Jane asks. “I just can’t imagine…”

“No, you can’t imagine! But this is my life.”

Jane hears dogs barking again, and a clang near the dumpsters sends a raccoon scurrying. Two. Jane puts her feet up on the bench across, recalling a story her dad used to tell about camping in Indiana as a boy. The raccoons were so bold one night, they came right up under his family’s picnic table during S’mores. He laughed about it and seemed to think it was funny. Jane thought it was funny then, too, but not anymore.

Chastity stares up into the starless sky. “My birthday’s tomorrow,” she says.

Jane gives a little gasp of surprise—tomorrow is her birthday, too. She remembers that, as a child, Chastity told her she didn’t have a real birthday, but a made up one on a different day.

“Do you know what I want for my present?” Chastity asks, leaning in close, like she’s going to whisper a little-girl secret.

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