Carla saw Janice turn to look at her out of the corner of her eye. She was going to be taken aback and confused, but it would be worth it.
“She’s great,” Dakota said. “I didn’t even like to read before I took her class. And she saved my friend Trace’s ass by working with him one-on-one so he could pass.”
“Really?” Carla touched Janice’s shoulder and she flinched, her discomfort seemingly mounting. “That’s so nice of you to say. I wish I’d had her for my lit professor in college. But God knows, I probably wouldn’t have gotten anything done. I mean, look at her. I never had an English professor who looked like her.”
She felt Janice tense, and at some point, she seemed to have stopped breathing.
Dakota appeared a little embarrassed and she laughed and scratched her brow as she spoke.
“Yeah, she’s great. So, Wendy says you live in Phoenix?”
“Great?” Carla let out. “She’s fucking fantastic. She’s smart, she’s witty, she’s funny. I would’ve had a serious crush on her at your age. Hell, I have a serious crush on her now and I don’t even have the benefit of having her as my teacher.”
Dakota laughed again, this time her nerves evident and she glanced at them both. She finally seemed to be getting the message. Carla drove the last nail in the coffin just to be sure.
“It was so nice of you to come over here to say hello to her, to let her know how much you appreciate her and to thank her for all she did to help your friend. Really very nice.”
“Yeah. Okay. Well, it was nice seeing you, Dr. Carpenter,” she said. “I hope you have a nice summer.”
“You, too, Dakota,” Janice said with a smile that seemed to have had to break through concrete to fully expand.
“She seemed…nice,” Carla said as Dakota walked away.
“I’m sure she did. She just about rode your leg.” She shoved Carla’s hand from her shoulder.
“I was being facetious, Janice. I didn’t think she was nice at all,” she said. “Why do you think I said the things I said?”
“I don’t know. To embarrass her? To get her to fuck off? Well, it worked. She, however, doesn’t know you didn’t mean any of it. She thinks you meant every word you said. She doesn’t know you weren’t sincere.”
“I was sincere.” Carla touched her arm. “Janice. Look at me.”
“I can’t.” Her eyes were welling. “Not right now.” She shrugged away her touch.
“Are you worried she’ll tell people there’s something going on between us?”
“You think I’m worried about what people think?”
“Are you?”
“After all our discussions?”
“You made it clear you’re okay with my being gay. But what about you? Are you okay with people thinking that about you?”
Janice visibly deflated, like a knife had just penetrated her full heart.
“You aren’t, are you?” Carla said softly.
Janice straightened like she was trying to steel herself.
“This is…crazy. I’m not doing this.”
“Janice, talk to me, please. For God’s sake. Don’t keep doing this to yourself.”
“I have talked to you,” she shot back. “I have…shared my feelings. I was scared to death to do so, but I still did it.”
“I’m not following.”
“You didn’t then, either. And obviously you don’t remember.”
Carla searched her mind, trying to understand what she was saying, when it was that she’d shared her feelings with her.
“No, I don’t.” She shook her head, totally confused.
“There’s a reason why you don’t remember.” She started to walk away. “You were drunk.”
* * *
Carla watched Janice from a distance when Rick and Cole set off their fireworks. Janice held Erica’s boys tight and shrieked with them in delight as the rockets flew and whined and the bombs exploded. She covered Victor’s ears for him when things got too loud and hugged Denny close to console him when the fireworks he brought turned out to be a dud.
Carla was watching her stroke his hair and wipe his tears from his face when someone came to stand next to her.
“It’s such a letdown when they don’t work.” Carla couldn’t see all that well in the dim light, but from what she could tell, the woman next to her was about her height with short dark hair. Her profile was attractive and her build athletic. Carla didn’t recognize her, but she could tell by her accent that she wasn’t local. She was Southern, but definitely not from anywhere close to her town.
“I’ll make it up to him,” Carla said, referring to Denny, whom they were both looking at. “I told him if any of them turned out to be a dud, I’d replace them.”
“Aren’t you a good, what? Mother, aunt, friend?”
“Cousin,” Carla said with a smile. “And he’s a sensitive little guy. I hate seeing him disappointed.”
The woman turned toward her and showed her round face and large, almond shaped eyes. She was attractive and Carla knew she would’ve remembered seeing her before. But she couldn’t place her. She didn’t seem to resemble anyone she knew.
“Protective as well,” she said. “Sweet.”
The whine of a launched firework caught their attention and it exploded in a huge ball of yellow stars, followed quickly by another and then another. The church had started its show, and though the woman next to her kept talking, Carla kept glancing at Janice, thoroughly enjoying the way the bursts of light lit up her face as she pointed and smiled with the boys.
“This is the closest I’ve ever been to big fireworks,” the woman said. “It’s amazing. These kids must be thrilled. Does this happen every year?”
“For the last few years or so,” Carla said. “The church putting it on is relatively new. For around these parts anyhow.”
“What a treat.” She looked over at Carla. “I’m Andy,” she said. She gave a wave.
“I’m Carla.” She smiled at her but didn’t offer to shake her hand. She was enjoying the fireworks and the way their beauty collided with Janice’s, enhancing hers to a degree that left Carla breathless.
“I might have to make my way back here next year,” she said. “You can’t beat this.”
“It’s something,” Carla said. “I’m usually not here for this myself. I always seem to forget how incredible it is until I return.”
“You’re not from here?”
“I am, I just no longer live here.”
“I don’t either.”
“Yeah, I know.”
She looked at her. “You do?”
“Your accent. It gives you away.”
She laughed. “You aren’t the first one to comment on my accent. I had a gas station clerk look right at me today and ask me where I’m from. And not in a friendly manner either. He said I talked funny.”
Carla laughed. “I get that, and I was born and raised here.”
“Do they look at you like you’re from Mars, too? I told him I was from Georgia and he didn’t seem to believe me.”