Page 46 of Let’s Make a Scene

“You know what I’d love right now?” Hannah pipes up thoughtfully. “A bag of… like…”—she casts about as if searching for the right word—“overskirts.”

“Overskirts?”

“Yeah.” She nods seriously. “M&M’s overskirts. The overskirts they wear. Not the chocolate. The skirts.”

I wrinkle my brow. That doesn’t seem right. “The shells,” I say. “You mean the shells.”

Hannah laughs. “Shells? Like from the beach? I don’t think so. I don’t want to eat shells, Cyn.”

I laugh too, because words are funny.

“Do you think they have any in the kitchen?” she asks after a moment, her tone hopeful.

“Any what? M&M’s shells?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I’m going to go check.” She gets to her feet. “I’ll be right back.”

“If you find any with their skirts on, bring them out,” I call after her. I think I could eat an entire family-size bag without blinking right now.

Hannah lifts her hand in acknowledgment and I watch her make her way back toward the house, calling out to people as she passes, including Patty and Arjun, who ignore her because they’re currently engaged in a very heavy make-out session. Patty is sitting in Arjun’s lap and his fingers are buried in her hair.

“Do you mind if I sit down?” a voice asks, and I turn and peer up to find Jack looking down at me. I reach automatically for the animosity I feel around him, but I can’t find it.

“Sure,” I say. “Pull up a cushion. The fire is being… hot.”

“Fire will do that,” Jack agrees, sitting down beside me, not so close that we actually touch, but close enough that I can feel the warmth from his body wrapping itself around me along with the heat from the flames. It’s… a lot.

He’s misunderstood what I was trying to say about the fire, but I don’t correct him, only smile.

“Let me guess,” he says, examining my face like it’s a piece of art up on the wall. “You’re stoned.”

I only smile wider. “You’re not?”

He shakes his head, picks at the grass by his feet. “I don’t. No judgment,” he’s quick to add. “It’s just… My family has a bit of a history when it comes to drugs and alcohol, so I avoid the first and keep a pretty tight lid on the drinking.”

I frown, considering this. There’s something deeply sad and heavy at the center of what he just said, but I can’t focus on it right now. “You were drinking though,” I say finally. “In the pub.”

“Yeah, a bit more than usual. I was driven to it by my awful coworker.”

I know those words would usually make me angry, but now I only hear a teasing note in them, and I laugh. Jack laughs too, sounding surprised.

“So,” he says after a moment, “where did you learn to sing like that?”

“My mum,” I reply, leaning back, away from the fire so that the cool air caresses my cheeks. “She was always singing. She wanted to be a performer, but she had to give up all that when she had me.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack murmurs.

“Why?”

“You just talked about her in the past tense, so I thought…” he trails off, and I think if I stay quiet, he’ll just change the subject. Normally, that’s what I’d do.

“Oh, she’s not dead,” I say instead. “She left us. When I was eight. Poof.” I make a gesture with my hands, splaying my fingers to indicate that she disappeared like a puff of smoke. My hands are tingling, and I make the gesture again, enjoying it. “She has a new family now.” I stare into the fire, dimly aware that saying all this would usually hurt, a needle of pain, sharp under my skin, but the weed has acted as an anesthetic, and it’s surprisingly easy to open up to Jack. He’s watching me, careful and steady.

“Not that she knows that I know that,” I continue. “I tracked her down last year. It’s funny; I thought she left so she could go and chase her dream of stardom, but all she did was move to Norwich and have a bunch of other kids. Ones that she actually wanted, I guess.” I shrug. “I don’t think they even know about me and my dad. It’s like we never existed at all.”