the girl in the green house » david dobrik au

two

LUELLA DIXIE EMMERSON

I waited until ten oh two before I snuck down my stairs as quietly as possible and out the back door, which Gloria, one of our housekeepers, always kept unlocked. She was always my favorite, simply for that reason.

David's car was right where I expected it, creeping on the side of the road with the headlights off. I smiled and waved when I saw him, quickly hopping in. "I haven't seen this car on the road in ten years."

"Yeah, my grandma is letting me drive it so she can still get to work. She told me she'd kill me if I crashed it," he laughed. "No one's driven it since my grandpa died."

It was pretty, an old, old baby blue Ford that seemed to be in pristine condition despite the fact that I knew it'd been sitting in a garage for a while.

"It looks good. You look like a natural driving it," I told him. "Turn left onto that main road, and it's just down the street. You find my house okay?"

"It's kind of hard to miss."

"Yeah," I sighed. "It's been in the family for a while."

"I heard. I heard a lot about you when I told my grandma where I was going tonight."

"Oh, really?" I raised my eyebrows, my heart almost clenching in my chest. David was supposed to be the first friend in my life that didn't have any inklings about me, and his grandma had ruined it. "What'd she have to say?"

"Nothing bad," he replied quickly, noticing my slight change in behavior. "Just about your family and stuff. She said you were the sweetest Emmerson she's ever met."

"That makes me feel good," my mouth turned up in a smile. "I'd hope so. I try to be. I know how my mother can be."

"She makes you dress like that? Like you're going to church?"

"Yeah. Turn down this road. That's why I look different now. I have to sneak out to leave at night," I explained. "God forbid Lulu Emmerson look anything but proper on a trip to the grocery store. The whole town would be talking."

"You do look different," he half gestured to my t-shirt and shorts. "Are your friends gonna be mad you invited me? It doesn't seem like much ever changes around here."

"No, they won't. They like meeting people," I pointed to the Big Creek Park sign. "Turn in there. Now you know where it is. You can meet us every night if you want to."

"You come here every night?"

"Yeah," I sighed. "I'm not really allowed to be friends with some of them. We kinda gotta sneak around."

"Not allowed to be friends?" he raised his eyebrows at that. We were officially parked, and I could see the group staring at us from the riverside wondering who the fuck we were. "Why?"

"There's... there's a way of doing things in Calhoun. The rich people don't interact with the poorer people, unless they're getting something from them. It ain't my rules; it's my mother's. Anyway, some of the kids you're about to meet don't live on my side of town. My mother thinks it'd look bad on us to be hanging around with them."

"So... you're not supposed to be with me either, right? Since my grandma's a tailor?"

"You're catching on quick," I smiled, placing my hand on the door handle. "You'll be fitting right in in Calhoun before you know it. Come on."

We climbed out of the car, and I could practically feel the group's sigh of relief when they realized it was just me.

"Who's your friend?" Corinna yelled. Corinna was the one immigrant in this town that I could be seen with, mainly because her mother was the president of our bank, which was the only bank within thirty or so miles. That made it important, which made the Kopf's important.