AChapADay: Chapter Three

Thursday, April 12, 2020

Mack came out of her lesson beaming.  Finally, after weeks of trying, she had successfully gotten through a tricky piece of music that had been making her crazy.  The success had taken the nervous edge off.  When she got to the car, she grabbed her phone, opened the text she’d started, and pushed send.

*****

Sari felt her phone buzz and pulled it out of her pocket.  She smiled when she read the message.  She started a text back but stopped.  She felt nervous like she was texting a boy she liked, maybe even more nervous, which was weird.  She had always liked the other girls when they saw each other but it wasn’t like they were close friends.  She knew more about the other girls from what her mom said than she did from actual encounters with them herself.    

Sari Gershon: Hey!  It’s Sari – Grace’s daughter – and I’m excited!  Maybe we’ll get snowed in and have to stay an extra week!

She tossed her phone on her bed, almost in an effort to avoid seeing the responses (or worse, lack of responses) from the other girls, and went back to packing.  She had no idea what a “Girls Weekend” entailed.  If this weekend was going to be like every other one she’d heard her mom summarize for her dad when she’d return late on a Sunday afternoon, it would be shopping, seeing movies, and going out to dinner (and drinking wine).  Sari wasn’t clear on what that would mean for the girls.  They were all in middle school so she guessed they’d be stuck doing whatever their moms wanted to do.  It always sounded like the moms had so much fun but their idea of fun and the girls’ ideas of fun were probably different.

She heard her phone chirp and she eyed it for a second before sitting down on her bed to open the text.

Mack O’Leary: Hi Sari (INSERT WAVE EMOTICON HERE).

Brie Kemp:  This is Brie, Ally’s daughter, does anyone know what the plan is once we get there???

Sari Gershon:  Umm…

Mack O’Leary: Ha!  Nope.

Hannah Chamberlin: Sorry, was packing the car, this is Hannah and we’re on our way over to your house Sari.  See you guys soon!

They were all being nice.  And normal.  Which was a pleasant change considering the drama Sari was currently wrapped up in with her school friends.  She was sooo tired of drama.  She wasn’t even really involved.  Some of her friends wanted her involved, though, which ended up being kind of the same thing.

“Everyone will be here in about twenty minutes,” mom yelled as she passed Sari’s bedroom door. 

Sari stood, zipped up the paisley duffle bag she had packed with every single thing she could possibly need, and looked in the mirror.  The change in weather, last week it had been seventy degrees thank you very much, was really messing with her naturally curly hair.  She opened her closet door and scanned the piles of clothing, shoes, hats, bedding, pillows, and old school bags and spotted a knit hat with a fuzzy poof on top.  She pulled it down, adjusted the hair that fell around her face.

“No drama this weekend,” she whispered to her reflection in the mirror.  “Please?”