Free South of Sunshine by Dana Elmendorf Page B

owners won’t go out of business.” Mom turns to me just before I close my bedroom door, nodding her head. “You should call this Bren girl.” As if the brilliant idea just came to her. “See if she wants to do something.”
    “I think I will,” I say. She glows at the idea. “Maybe we can do something after church on Sunday.” This tickles her pink. I close my bedroom door and rest my entire body up against it, letting the message sink in.
    “Yes!” I leap from my door to my bed. The brass headboard claps against the wall. I refrain from dancing around the room, singing, “Bren Dawson called me.”
    It’s not easy.
    “What am I gonna say?” I whisper to myself. Ten different scenarios of how the conversation could go fly in my head at once. My fingertips drum over my lips. She could just be calling about an assignment. But why call me when I’m not in any of her classes? “You’re not asking her on a date, Kaycee. You’re just asking her to hang with you and your good ole buddy Van, and if she wants to make out, that’s okay too.” I squeal and do a manic wiggle-dance in my bed.
    I arch my back and dig my hand into my pocket for my cell phone. My finger pauses on the first number. What if my mother’s right? What if after all these years of hanging with Van, I act like a tomboy? I clasp the phone to my chest. Does Bren like girly girls? Because I’m most definitely not Chelsea Hannigan. But I’m not Charlotte Wozniak either.
    Headlights from the cul-de-sac behind our house light up my room with a yellow glow. The butterfly collection on the left wall screams girl, unless it also screams bug-collecting boy. For the record, I have never murdered a butterfly. I’ve only picked them up off the ground or out of a car’s front grill, which does not sound feminine in the slightest. Photos and images of accidental heart shapes cover my bulletin board. Girl. Just below that on my dresser sits a vintage ammunitions box filled with my love of American history, including mini-balls for muskets, Civil War buttons, and miscellaneous military trinkets my grandpa found with his metal detector. Boy. Plum purple duvet. Girl. Blue walls. Boy. Seashells from Florida. Girl. Pocketknife that I don’t carry on my person but still own. Boy. My eyes roam around the room labeling every item girl or boy, and the end result is fifty-fifty. Gah. How frustrating.
    I’m sure Sarabeth has some boy crap in her room. There’s pink and lace and teen male posters, and oh, oh, oh! There’s a Muscle Machines auto magazine on her nightstand, which is probably Andrew’s, but since I don’t know for sure, it’s Sarabeth’s—because yeah, she has a secret muscle car fetish I don’t know about.
    I’m stalling.
    Breathe.
    Dial.
    It’s ringing.
    “Hello?” Bren’s voice is sleepy and husky. So cute. Wait, did I call too late? My digital clock reads past eleven.
    Breathe.
    “Hello?”
    “Hey, Bren. It’s me, Kaycee. You know … Kay-c-double e.” I’m going for the remember-you-said-I-was-cute angle.
    “Oh, hey,” her voice perks. Score.
    “Did I call too late? I can call you later.” Though I’ve spent all my courage on this one phone call, so it may be a while.
    I hear shuffling on the other end. “No. No. I just crashed early. Shot some hoops after school, then went for a run before the football game.”
    Gah, I knew I should have gone. “The game, cool. Who’d you go with?” Jealous, much? “And how’d they do?” I hurriedly add. I already know they won. Chuck the Buck honked and screamed their victory in the Sonic drive-in tonight.
    “They massacred them, forty-two to six. I felt sad for the Dixie Opossums. You should have heard the crowd. There were a few rabid fans who kept screaming things about roadkill.”
    “You should hear them when they lose. It’s brutal,” I add. She laughs. I make a mental note that she didn’t say who she went with. “My mom said you called tonight?” Please don’t be