Girls in Trucks by Katie Crouch

Author:Katie Crouch
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Coming of Age, Contemporary Women, Middle class women, Bildungsromans, Family Life, Charleston (S.C.), General, Fiction - General, American Contemporary Fiction - Individual Authors +, Young women, Fiction, Domestic fiction
ISBN: 9780316002110
Publisher: Little, Brown
Published: 2008-04-07T07:00:00+00:00

You know what’s funny? My mother knew he would leave me from the start. I hated her for saying it. “He’s an honest-to-God old-fashioned man,” she said when she met him. “He’s not Southern, but he’s old-school. You’re going to have to go beyond yourself to keep him. That’s a tiring thing.”

I ignored her. What did she know? He was such a fun person. We did so many fun things together. There was that one time he took me to dog-training school just because I said I loved puppies. I can’t have one in my apartment, it’s too small, but he took me there just to pet them and watch them play with balls. He made me waffles on Saturday mornings. He bought me a dress when I lost ten pounds from being in love. He told me I was strong. It made me feel stronger. He told me I was beautiful. I freaked.

And the sex. Oh, Jesus. I’d never had sex like that before, the kind of sex where I’d walk in the door and he’d close it and push me up against a wall. He told me that my skin was alabaster, that my legs were delicious, and even while he was flipping me down toward the bottom of the bed and covering me with his body, I was regretting it, because it was so good, so sweet, that I sensed, I knew that I’d never be able to be with anyone else without thinking of him.

Unfortunately for me, it seems I was right.

The next day, I decide to get coffee at my old special place. It’s not really on the way to work. Three blocks in the wrong direction, actually, but the soy lattes, when I allow myself to have them, are good there. They make them just the way I like them. Fine, they make them that way at every Starbucks, but my special chair is there. It’s a big green chair, perfect for reading the paper. It also happens to have a great view of Max’s street.

It’s no big deal. Not as weird as it sounds. I’m just going there to read the paper. And when I don’t see him, I just go to work and forget about it. Mostly. Except for the fact that I spend the afternoon calling a few mutual friends to see if they’ll say anything about the Chinese girl. They don’t. Sure, I go to the coffee shop the next day. And the day after that. I start ordering Macchiatos because they have more calories, and counting them as breakfast and lunch. The other regulars begin to recognize me. Some guy asks if I live in the neighborhood. I say that I do. I point to Max’s building. That’s where I live, I say. I live right over there.

I start researching China. Instead of fact-checking the story I’ve been assigned, I read about Mao. I read about his wife, who would do anything to rule the country, even kill her old lovers.

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