by Sarah Kinsey
“No. You’re not ordering pizza. Let me treat you to dinner before you go home,” Sarah said. “If we can’t do ice cream, then let’s do dinner.”
“Sarah, that’s so much more than an ice cream cone would be,” Bessie said, fidgeting. “I-I... I don’t know what to say.”
“I know your money has been tight lately, tighter than you had anticipated, and I want to help.” Sarah smiled. “Just let me buy you dinner. You’ll be able to enjoy a good breakfast tomorrow instead of leftover pizza, and you could even buy it on the road.”
“Thank you, Sarah.” Bessie knew better than to argue with Sarah when she got like this. “Do you have a restaurant in mind?”
“I know just the place, and you’re going to love it,” Sarah replied.
With that, they finished up packing without another word on the subject of food. Bessie appreciated the offer Sarah made, but she knew that Sarah would have done that even if Bessie had been staying and had been able to cook for herself that night. It was how Sarah operated. She wanted to make sure her friends were safe and taken care of.
“You’ll text me when you arrive home tomorrow, right, Bessie?” Sarah’s voice broke her thoughts.
“Yes, of course.” Bessie smiled. “You will know the moment I have arrived home,” she promised.
“Ok. I want to know you’re home safe and that everything has been stored for the moment. Where do you store it when you go home, anyway?” Sarah furrowed her brows.
“We have a storage unit. It’s never really been full, but it has been nice for storing my things for college,” Bessie replied with a shrug. “Since I’m only two hours away from home here, it makes sense to keep everything there instead of paying for a unit up here.”
“I see.” Sarah nodded slowly. “I would do the same if I didn’t live so far away.”
“Why don’t you pay for one here? You have the money,” Bessie said. “I don’t mean to pry, but it seems like that would be an option.”
“I don’t want to, plain and simple. They like to overcharge students here,” Sarah replied with a wave of her hand. “I did that my freshman year.”
“I see...” Bessie nodded.
And that was the end of that. Sarah got into her car, and Bessie took the directions she was given to get to dinner. She was not at all surprised when Sarah showed her the place as they drove up; it was exactly the kind of place she had expected Sarah to treat a friend to. It was classy, but it was not expensive classy.
“This is beautiful, Sarah,” Bessie said. “You didn’t have to.”
“I know, but I wanted to,” Sarah replied. “Now, let’s get you full and send you home with good thoughts.”
Chapter 3
Bessie had enjoyed her night with Sarah, and now, she was back home. She had been able to pack the car up relatively quickly, as she had not ended up with as many boxes as she had thought she would. Now she had packed everything she could into the storage unit, and she was at the house. Her parents were not yet home from work, and since her siblings didn’t live at home either, she was the only one at the house. She texted Sarah to let her know that she was home.
That done, her thoughts drifted. She was still thinking about the suave, handsome gentleman by the name of Marc Laurent. His French accent had been the stuff of her dreams, and she sincerely regretted not having asked for his number before she left her class. There was nothing more she would have liked than to have been able to text that she had arrived home safe and sound to a handsome man such as himself.
Sarah replied to her text, and soon enough, they had set up a video chat.
“What do you plan to do about Mr. Handsome and French, Bessie?” Sarah put the straw in her mouth after speaking; she had gone to some random coffee café nearby, and had brought the drink back to her apartment after hearing that Bessie was all ready to go for a video chat.
“I don’t know. I forgot to even ask where he was going to go to law school, Sarah,” Bessie moaned. “I suppose that’s my own fault.”
“Yes, it’s your fault,” Sarah chided softly. “Come on, now. Are you still miffed at yourself for that?”
“Yes, I am. I don’t know if he’s going to France now or what, but I know that he’s not going to be on campus next semester,” she said, putting a pillow on her face. “What do I do, Sarah? What do I do?”
“Even if you knew he was going to be in France, you wouldn’t know where,” Sarah reminded her. “Just calm down. You’ll find someone else that piques your interest, and soon you’ll forget all about this man.”
Then, there was a knock at the door.
“Hold on, Sarah. Come in!” Bessie turned to her bedroom door.
Her mother walked into the room.
“I suggest you get packing, Bessie,” her mom said. “We’ll be leaving for South Carolina tomorrow.”
“I thought we weren’t leaving until next week... what happened?” Bessie frowned.
“The tickets were rescheduled because the airline lost our reservations. The hotel is willing to give us a room for the week that we will be there before our original reservations,” her mother explained. “Now, hurry up. We leave bright and early for the Salt Lake City airport tomorrow.”
“If you had told me that, I would have waited to bring all my stuff home,” Bessie said. “I could have stored it at Sarah’s until we were back.”
“I know, honey, but I just found out this morning,” her mother replied. “Now, get up. Bring your bathing suit and make sure you pack plenty of other things to keep you busy. It’s a long flight to Myrtle Beach.”
“Yes, Mother. I’ll get right on that.” Bessie sighed. Her mother left the room at that point, and there was nothing more Bessie could do but get off the bed.
“Hey, think of it this way, Bessie: now, you have something to get your mind off the man,” Sarah chimed in. “Do you think you’ll enjoy Myrtle Beach?”
“I loved going to the Great Salt Lake as a kid, so I bet I’ll enjoy the beach, too,” Bessie mused. “Do you want to stay on the line while I pack?”
“That sounds like a wonderful idea. I’m going home later, so seeing you pack will help. I’ve not packed to fly for a long period of time in so long,” Sarah said. “How do you do it? How did you pack your suitcases to get everything home, anyway?”
“I actually packed them the same way I’m going to pack them for this trip,” Bessie replied. “I could teach you. Pull out some random clothing, and a suitcase.” She smiled.
Sarah took her laptop off the small desk in her bedroom and put it on the floor. Bessie set her laptop on a small black end table that had somehow ended up in her room after this year of college. It was supposed to be in the living room, but there was not room for it in there anymore.
“Any clothing?” Sarah frowned at the screen.
“Any clothing, as long as you have some tee shirts, jeans, underwear, the basics, you know. What you might pack for your trip home,” Bessie explained. “I’ll have all the same things and beachwear.”
“You’ll have more beachwear than anything, probably.” Sarah laughed.
“Probably,” Bessie agreed, “But for the purposes of this demonstration, I’ll start with my bigger suitcase. My carry-on can’t fit everything I’d need for a week trip to the beach.” Bessie taught her friend how she had been packing to get to and from her dorm room for the last three years. It was easy enough; she started with alternating jeans, cuffs at one end beside a waistband and back and forth until she was out of room on the bottom. It kept her jeans flat. Then, she packed shirts alternating the hems and the necks across the width of the suitcase.
“Those are the basics of how I pack. I follow this pattern with jeans until I have packed them all, and when I run out of tee shirts to pack, I use pajamas to fill in the gap. Underwear and whatever shoes I’m packing are put on top, and I pack my toiletries in a small bag in one of the pockets on the front,” Bessie said. “It keeps everything organized, too, since I can just kind of poke
around until I find the right layer and pull from there.”
“I see...” Sarah nodded slowly.
She had attempted to follow the instructions and had somewhat ended up doing it right.
“I don’t see how I could have messed that up so badly... show me another layer of jeans?” Sarah frowned, her eyebrows furrowed.
Bessie did another layer of jeans, though this time it was shorts. Since they were very short shorts, they didn’t reach all the way to the other end of the suitcase, but she showed the principle again. If one pair had the waistband at the left end, the next pair would have the pant cuffs at that end.
“Oooh!” Sarah finally got it. She repacked the layer of jeans to make sure she had done it right.
“There you go,” Bessie said after a few minutes of watching her friend struggle. “And when you run out of jeans, you could do dresses or skirts, or even dress slacks.” She shrugged. “I have never needed to pack more than a suitcase and a carry-on, but that’s been for moving up to campus. I make do.”
“So do I. I came out with four suitcases of things, and now, I have enough clothes to fit into three of them,” Sarah said, laughing. “I have downsized quite a bit.”
Bessie could believe that. She had met Sarah shortly after their freshman year began, and she remembered that closet. “I know, I know,” Bessie said. “Well, I should take out those first pairs of jeans. I won’t need them in the summer; it’ll be too warm over there. Besides, shorts are the best thing ever.”
“Are you going to take the pair of jeans with the embroidered flowers?” Sarah smiled.
“The capris?” Bessie frowned. “Why would I want to take a pair of capris?”
“In case it’s colder than you expect one day,” Sarah replied. “You never know. Besides, they make your butt look beautiful, more so than any other pair of pants you have, I believe.”
“You want me to come home talking about a guy,” Bessie said. She laughed as Sarah’s cheeks turned a bright red.
“No... I would never!” Sarah attempted to deny it.
“Uh-huh... sure.” Bessie shook her head. “You’re wonderful, Sarah, and I thank you for trying.”
That made Sarah smile. They continued to talk about what they both hoped would happen over the next week, and Bessie realized her expectations were much different than Sarah’s. Sarah wanted to be able to enjoy a week without having to worry about working and getting hit on by customers; she currently worked at a small café that had closed for renovations.
Bessie, on the other hand, wanted to enjoy some time with her family. Her mother had been diagnosed with stage two liver cancer. While she had been attending classes this last semester, her mother had been going to chemotherapy and radiotherapy and all kinds of doctors to try and put a damper on the cancer’s growth. It had worked, but her mother was still weaker than she had been before all the treatments. In fact, her mother’s long hair had only regrown to her ears so far.
“Well, I should be going. The rest of the family will be home soon for dinner, and I can smell my mother’s amazing tacos from here,” Bessie eventually said. “Thanks for talking with me.”
“Of course! I already miss you, even though you’re only... hey, what do you think of me trying to come down sometime this summer? You’re only two hours away and I have a car,” Sarah said. “Do you think your family could host me?”
“I can certainly ask,” Bessie said. “I think that would be a lot of fun. We do have a guest room since I’m the only one living at home right now.”
“I see,” Sarah smiled. “Well, I will talk to you later.”
“All right. Talk to you later, Sarah,” Bessie replied.
Inviting Sarah over for a little while this summer sounded like a fun idea. Last year, it had not happened because Sarah had been needed back home all summer, despite having paid to stay and store things in her dorm room. Her father had repaid her that money, a little gift to her for having to come out so urgently and without much warning. Hopefully, Sarah’s family would be able to spare her for most of the summer instead of needing her home to help care for her little brother.
Bessie walked out to the kitchen and found her mother cooking. “Do you want some help, Mother?”
“Would you be a dear and set the table? Your sister’s coming over for dinner, and I want to use her favorite plates,” her mother replied. “Only problem is that I can’t get up on the stool to reach them.”
“I got it, Mom,” she said. She got up on the stool and got the plates out. She set the table, all the while enjoying the smells that had accented the kitchen. It would be a good dinner.
Chapter 4
The next day, they landed in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Bessie smiled as she looked out the window. Though it looked like a typical airport, she knew that just beyond it, there would be a beach and sand and sun and a beautiful view.
“Are you ready for some summer fun, Bessie?” Her mother, sitting beside her, interrupted her thoughts.
“Yes!” Bessie smiled.
For once, they were taking a large family vacation that wasn’t just to the Salt Lake. Bessie had enjoyed it, but all her childhood, she had dreamed of seeing a real beach where she could enjoy the ocean breeze and smell the salt. Well, less salt than the Salt Lake.
Her father sat beside her mother, on the aisle, and on the other side of the aisle, her three older sisters sat together – Marie, Jessica, and Naomi. Bessie was the baby of the family, but that didn’t bother her. She loved having older sisters who had passed their clothing down to her when she was a kid. Getting Jessica’s fishnet tights when she had been a teenager had been an interesting phase, and she had ended up buying some of her own because Jessica was tired of not finding her tights when she wanted to wear them. Well, Jessica had bought some for Bessie to wear so that Jessica could find her tights. That had made her giggle as a teen, and Bessie had repaid Jessica by buying a few more pairs of tights so that she had enough to match Jessica’s collection.
“Come on, then. Let’s get off this plane!” Marie exclaimed.
Her father laughed, and Bessie only shook her head. Marie was always looking for a good picture for any of her social media outlets. She was what they called an influencer, being paid in goods and money by brands to show certain things in her posts. When she had found out they were going to Myrtle Beach, Marie had offered to sponsor bikinis for the week.
And boy, had she ever gotten offers for that!
They eventually got off the plane, and Bessie made a beeline for the bathroom with her mother. Neither of them had wanted to wake her father up, so they both had to use the restroom badly. Once that was done, they met the rest of the family at the baggage carousel. They found their luggage, and then piled into the rental car their father had gone to get.
The hotel wasn’t too far away, and they were soon checked in and sorted out into the three rooms. Her parents would, of course, be sharing a room. She would share with Naomi, and Jessica and Marie were sharing their own room. Until Jessica realized how much stuff Marie had brought with her to make sure she could model this week. Since Bessie wasn’t planning on being in the room much, she offered to switch with her elder sister, and that was agreeable to Jessica and Naomi both. Marie didn’t really care who she roomed with so long as they didn’t touch her cameras. Bessie could abide by that rule.
“It’s been so long since we’ve been able to have a good week as a family, Bessie,” Marie said as she started to inspect her equipment to make sure it had not been damaged during their travels. “How was your semester at school?”
“It was good. I’m going abroad this fall, and I can’t wait for that,” Bessie replied. “I’ll be going to France, Marie. France!” That was honestly what she was most excited about, spending time surrounded by the French cuisine. “Can you believe it?”
“I believe that’s what you’re most excited about, yes,” Marie said with a smile. “You’ve always loved the French – whether it was the fashion, the
food, or the place itself, you’ve always wanted to go.” She shrugged. “I’m glad you’re getting to go.”
“Would you go abroad if you could?” Bessie wondered if Marie had ever wanted to go abroad. Perhaps she had gone and had not shared much of the story with her because it was a little too... personal.
“I would, yes. In fact, I was offered a chance to go model in Belgium this fall,” Marie answered. “I took it; I fly out around the time your semester starts, so we’ll probably be flying the same day now that I think of it.” She laughed. “Are you going to Belgium? I would not be surprised if you are going for the culinary delights of Europe. They have some of the best chocolate in the world.”
“No. We’ll be in Spain and Luxembourg in addition to France, but that’s it,” Bessie said. “They wanted us to have a few distinctly different opportunities to learn about the food.”
“Ah, so it is about the food,” Marie laughed. “Why am I not surprised? I’m happy for you, though; it’ll be a lot of fun. You’ll have to send me lots of pictures, and especially some of you at the Eiffel Tower. I’m sure you’re going to go, right?”
“Yes, I already have my ticket to go up and everything,” Bessie said. “I’m excited; the Eiffel Tower, Paris, Spain... oh, what a trip it’ll be!”
“Hey, can you hold this for me and just take a picture? I want to make sure the rattling noise I’m hearing isn’t a bad noise...” Marie held a small camera out to her. “Come on, then.”
Bessie took the picture, and sure enough, she heard a rattling noise.
“Oh, phooey... I think this one is dead.” Marie frowned. “It’s supposed to print the picture, you know, like cameras did in the 1900s.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that it broke on the ride,” Bessie said. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“No, no. I’ll send it to get repaired. Hopefully I can get it sent in to Salt Lake and that’ll be that.” Marie shook her head. “Now I know why they said I should have paid extra for all the camera bags instead of stuffing all the cameras in one suitcase.”