Taking Flight (4 page)

“Like I said: I’ve been doing this for a while, Lauren. It’ll take more than that to shock me.”

“I have more than that,” I countered defensively, resisting the urge to drop the lesbian bomb an hour into my stay.

He smiled at me again. “Then we’ll have an interesting seven months together, it seems.”

“Five,”
I corrected mentally, and at last, he let me have my silence.

*   *   *

We entered the small town of Collinsville, Georgia after another hour of driving. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. The roads were mostly deserted, both in vehicle and pedestrian count, and there were hardly any streetlights: only stop signs. David claimed we were driving through the center of town, but some of the roads that branched off from ours were made of gravel, and the only noteworthy buildings I spotted were a small convenience store and a bank. I wanted to hurl solely from lack of civilization, and that want only got worse when we finished driving through the main part of town and got back out into the country. It smelled like cow shit.

David was informing me of the lovely fact that the nearest movie theater was a twenty-five minute drive away when we pulled into the gravel road that functioned as the Marshall’s driveway.

Their farm was a small one, but their house was actually nice from the outside. It was two stories, with a long porch that ran across the entire front side of the house and along another side of it as well. There was a wooden porch swing at the end of it, and I pictured an imaginary version of twenty-year-old Scott Marshall swinging back and forth with a straw hat and overalls on, spitting sunflower seeds. Then I felt like hurling again.

Behind the house was a pasture. I could see a stable from where I sat in David’s car, which confirmed that they had horses, and I saw cows grazing out in the fields near a barn. I tried to remember which animals had been listed on the paper. Horses, cows, and… something else. Hopefully not pigs.

David got my suitcases out of the car for me and carried them to the porch. Grudgingly, I followed, my purse in my hand, and looked down at the ground, trying to watch my step. I was in heels and it was getting darker by the second. Eight o’clock had come and gone just minutes ago.

I was almost to the porch when the front door flew open, and out came a plump blonde woman with her arms outstretched. “Oh, dear, look at you!” she gushed, pulling me into a hug, and I knew then that I’d seen hell.

When she was finished crushing me, she grasped my biceps and pulled away to get a good look at me. I scowled. “David, she’s so pretty! Oh, she’ll have such a good time here! Come on in, sweetie.”

David gave me a small smile, like we were in on some secret regarding how much dislike I already held for his wife, and I glared back at him, letting him know that I blamed him for this. He was, admittedly, not a Southern stereotype, but his wife was pretty damn close to one. She was just missing a thicker accent.

I became more self-conscious once I was inside. I’d felt enough like an outsider from the moment we’d entered the county limits, but standing in the Marshall’s country home’s living room, sporting heels, a short skirt, and hoop earrings, I felt more out of place than ever.

“Where are Cam and Scott?” David asked, placing my bags in the living room.

Wendy scoffed. “Being rude, as usual.” She looked to me hastily. “Forgive my manners as well, honey. I’m Wendy.”

“Lauren,” I forced myself to say, but she seemed preoccupied with walking to the bottom of the stairs rather than listening to me. I jerked with surprise when she let out a shout.

“SCOTT! CAMMIE! OUR GUEST IS HERE! GET DOWN HERE!”

There was a thump and a muffled curse from somewhere upstairs, and Wendy practically flushed with embarrassment, glancing at me again. Both of my eyebrows were at the top of my forehead, and I struggled to hide my amusement. Okay, so the parents were intolerable, but maybe their kids wouldn’t be so bad.

Scott came downstairs first, running a hand through his hair self-consciously as he reached the bottom. He had the dark hair of his father rather than the blonde of his mother, and he was dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, the latter of which had a small dirt stain on the right thigh. I grimaced even as he raised his own eyebrows, taking me in.

“Hey there.” He smiled, holding his hand out. “Wow. Uh, I mean, nice to meet you and all.” His accent was strange: a mix between his father’s Midwestern and his mother’s mild Southern. Trying to hide my distaste for his hygiene, I shook his hand and made a mental note to wash mine as soon as possible.

Wendy, meanwhile, scowled at him. “You better not let Jill hear you talking like that.”

“C’mon, Mom,” he sighed out. “I’m not allowed to think another girl’s pretty?”

“Not if you wanna marry Jill, you aren’t.”

I pursed my lips awkwardly as Scott rolled his eyes, and David tried his best to change the subject. “Scott, where’s Cameron?”

Scott shrugged. “Probably up there doing her physics homework. You know how she gets.”

“Sorry!” a female voice called, and down came Cam, her blonde hair bouncing in a ponytail even as she caught sight of me and grinned.

I felt an immediate sense of anxiety. She wasn’t cute. She was
hot
.

Cameron Marshall was not a round-faced, doe-eyed Southern girl that looked like the type to go to church every Sunday and probably wanted to wait until marriage to have sex. If what David had told me was any indication, she probably had the
personality
of that round-faced doe-eyed Southern girl, but she looked like the opposite of all of those things, and while it was relieving to have a hot girl around, my brain and libido were a little conflicted by her presence.

My libido was saying “hot girl,” but my brain was saying “bigoted Southern girl” and they were
both
saying “innocent girl,” and it took me a moment to realize she’d offered her hand for me to shake.

“I’m Cammie. Lauren, right?”

“Yeah,” I replied shortly, and shook her hand for less time than I’d shaken Scott’s. There was no template in my head for how to react to her, no set of dialogue that I knew would guarantee she’d like me. I was completely out of my comfort zone.

“Cool. Well, I don’t know if Dad’s told you yet, but if you have any questions, I’m the one to ask. You’ll be staying in my room.”

I nodded. “He told me.” The Marshall family was a strange one. They each had different accents, and to varying degrees. Cammie had her father’s, with just a barely audible Southern twang. But I’d avoided my worst nightmare: five months full of “y’all”s and “ain’t”s.

“Cammie, help Lauren take her bags upstairs, and then we’ll have dinner. Scott, help me set the table,” Wendy ordered. Both of her kids immediately obeyed. Scott headed into the kitchen, and Cammie brushed by me to grab my larger suitcase. I followed her up the stairs with my smaller one, silently wondering if I’d eventually wind up following instructions robotically the way that they did.

Once Cammie and I were alone in her room, I put my suitcase down and surveyed the area. The room was surprisingly large, featuring a walk-in closet and two single beds with a nightstand resting between them. There was a Bible on that nightstand, and Cam had a couple of posters on her walls. Both were of Ryan Hansen movies. He was this cheesy romance novel writer, and I couldn’t stand his stuff.

I also noticed a large, open briefcase on a desk by the far wall, filled with rows of organized colored pencils and pastels. Beside it on her desk was a large piece of paper, although I couldn’t see what was on the paper from my position on the other side of the room.

“Here we are,” Cammie declared. I could tell she wasn’t quite sure how to handle my arrival, and it pleased me to know that I wasn’t the only uncomfortable one here. I tried to look at the situation from her perspective. I was a kid that had misbehaved enough to warrant a flight across the country, and I was wearing four-inch heels and an outfit that wasn’t exactly modest. I’d probably be intimidated by me too.

I pointed at the open briefcase. “What’s that?”

She followed my gesture and her eyes widened. I watched her hurry over, close the briefcase, and then tuck the paper underneath it, thinking her actions strange even as she forced a smile my way. “Nothing. Sorry. I should’ve cleaned up before you got here, but I lost track of time.” She cleared her throat and clapped her hands together. “Anyway, we should get down to dinner. Mom made steak tonight.”

She left the room and gestured for me follow. I took one last glance around, murmured, “Fucking Ryan Hansen?” and then moved to trail behind her.

*   *   *

They joined hands and prayed before their meal. I sat between David and Cammie, and he simply sent me a knowing smile and reached past me to take Cammie’s hand under the table, unbeknownst to Wendy and Scott. I could tell Cammie was confused by the gesture, but she didn’t protest it, and I feigned joining in until Wendy’s eyes had closed and she was no longer paying attention to me. As she spoke, I made a half-hearted effort to listen.

It wasn’t that I was an Atheist… well, I guess I was, but it wasn’t in an effort to be anti-religion or anything. My parents weren’t religious, and the few times I’d gone to church with friends, it just hadn’t been my thing. So, in the same way that far more children grow up Christian, I grew up nonreligious. And by the time I hit thirteen or so and realized I wasn’t a part of the majority religiously, it was too late to convince me God existed.

It wasn’t like I hated Christians or anything, though. I mean, give me a Christian version and an Atheist version of the same person and ask me which one I’d rather hang with and honestly I’d probably pick the Atheist version, but only because that version is a little more likely to avoid telling me I’m a sinner who’s gonna burn in hell, and I like that in a friend.

I was dreading fighting with the Marshalls about church in two days. Mostly because I had a feeling its attendees were of the extremist variety, the Marshalls included. But David trying to ease my discomfort by not forcing me to take part in the family prayer was a good sign, at least.

When they finished praying, they immediately dug into their steaks, which were served with mashed potatoes and green beans. I reached for my knife and fork and was about to cut into my steak when I froze on the spot, a wave of nausea abruptly hitting me. I thought of the cows out in the pasture.

David was the first one to notice I wasn’t eating. “Are you okay, Lauren?” he asked.

I shook my head, my lips pressed together tightly. I was sure I was going to vomit. My eyes were trained on the small amount of red juice that had pooled on the plate beneath my steak.

David set his utensils down. I could feel four pairs of eyes on me. “What’s wrong? Do you feel sick?” he asked.

I nodded, swallowing hard, and then spoke quickly, eager to shut my mouth again. “Steak is cow, right?”

The entire family was silent for a moment. And then Scott caught on first, clearing his throat just after he swallowed a bite of the meat. “Oh. Yeah, I forgot to let you know, Dad… ol’ Bessie put up a fight at first, but by the end of the struggle, I think she knew it was her time to go. Isn’t fresh meat the best kind?”

“For God’s sake, Scott,” Wendy reprimanded even as Cammie chuckled beside me. Wendy turned to me. “We don’t eat our own animals, dear, unless you count the eggs from the chickens.” She shot Scott another glare even as I felt some of my queasiness dissipate, and he grinned over at me.

“She reminds me of Cammie,” he said, nudging his sister. “Remember? You were eight and Dad told you where hamburgers came from? You didn’t eat meat for three years.”

“Shut up,” Cam mumbled.

With a little trepidation, I went ahead and began to cut into my steak. “So nothing that was ever alive out there will ever end up here?” I clarified before I took a bite, pointing first in the direction of the pasture and then to my plate. David nodded beside me.

“That’s right,” he said.

“Good,” I replied. If the Marshalls did eventually manage to force me into making contact with dozens of nasty farm animals, I honestly wouldn’t be able to look any of those cows or chickens in the face knowing I’d be eating them later.

They were still gross, though.

*   *   *

I wanted to go upstairs and take a shower in Cammie’s and Scott’s shared bathroom after dinner, but David made me stay at the table while everyone else cleared it off and took their plates to the sink. David took mine, much to my relief. I wanted to be a pain in the ass, but I was majorly jet-lagged and didn’t really have the energy to argue with anyone today. If they’d made me do my own dishes, I probably would’ve agreed just to avoid any hassle. Tomorrow, on the other hand, was a different story.

I found out why David hadn’t freed me from the table after the dishes were cleaned. The rest of his family left us alone, and he sat down across from me and cleared his throat, lacing his fingers together and resting them on the table. “So what do you think so far?”

“I’d like to go home,” I said, and he nodded expectantly.

“I know. But it’ll get better.”