"Miss Flora? Are you alright?"
I pulled my aching head off the desk and forced a smile to my face. Vivian gazed at me, her worry slightly distorted behind her black-framed glasses. I attempted to make my gargoyle grin more realistic.
"Of course, Miss Vivi. Just resting my eyes. We don't stay young forever, you know." She seemed shocked by my statement.
"How old are you, Miss Flora?"
She had the grace to look discomfited, so I laughed gently.
"I'm sixty-five years older than you, Vivian. Younger than your grandmother"- I knew her family well-"but sometimes I feel much older."
The girl calculated my age in her head.
"So you're... seventy-seven ears old?"
"Well, if you're twelve, I'm seventy-seven. We share the same birth month, if I remember correctly."
Vivian frowned a little. "Actually, Miss Flora, you and my sister have the same birth month. My birthday's in December!" she added proudly.
I smiled again, a real one this time.
"That's right, a Christmas baby. I remember your parents were so happy they got another girl. Well now, you'll be a real young lady. Or at least a teenager," I winked at Vivi, "which should not make your mom happy. Two teenage girls? Scary." As soon as the words left my mouth I wished I had kept my lips zipped shut. Vivian looked over her shoulder as if checking for someone.
"Mom and my sister don't get along at all," she confided quickly. Her brow furrowed like it did when she was working on her math homework. "Mom doesn't think she's trying hard enough in school, and she doesn't like being home anymore. She's looking"- here Vivian's voice became even softer, like she was telling a dirty secret, "-At early admission colleges."
Vivian's mother was not one to allow her children to buy an apple without her permission. I couldn't imagine her permitting her eldest daughter to even consider leaving the nest early. And if she did leave, all of her attention would be left for Vivian. I could tell that the precocious girl knew that as well, by the frown her forehead sowed.
A little girl should not have the wrinkles she bore.
YOU ARE READING
Meeting in the Margins
Short StoryCassidy and Drex are strangers. They've never met, they don't know the other's last names, and they don't know the other's age. But they share one thing in common. They converse through the pages of an English classic at the town library. The pair's...
