Seeking Carolina. Terri-Lynne Defino

flipped at the truth she unwittingly told. She took the cup from his hand and sniffed at it. “It doesn’t even smell right.”

      She wore a red, fuzzy beret like a frame around her face. Stray curls peeked out there at her forehead, her left cheek. For all her wildness, Johanna Coco could have been an angel looking up at him through those heavy lashes, for the wide innocence of her eyes, the porcelain of her skin. Charlie tried to find words, any words to fill the prolonged silence.

      “Who’s the Brit?” he asked.

      “Efan, Julietta’s…friend. He’s Welsh actually, but had to tone down the accent to teach here in the States.”

      “He teaches where?”

      “The boarding school up in Great Barrington.”

      The familiar mischief in Johanna’s smile, in her eyes, flipped Charlie’s gut. He never had been able to guess what she was thinking, even when they knew one another so well they could sit for hours without saying a word. Johanna would grin that grin and anything could happen, and usually did.

      “I’ll be home for Christmas. You can plan on me. Please have snow and mistletoe, and presents on the tree…”

      Johanna turned to the voices singing. Charlie heard them only as sound somewhere far, far away, in a place that might be Bitterly on a December night.

      “I love this one.” And she sang along, loudly. Sweetly. Swaying as if she waltzed. For a split moment, it was summer, and he was in the woods, his head on her tanned, flat belly, listening to her sing through the thrumming of her body.

      “I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams.” Johanna clapped with everyone else.

      Charlie did not.

      “Aren’t you going to sing?” she asked.

      “I’d rather listen to you,” came his automatic response, and Charlie blushed like the boy he had been. “I forgot what a beautiful voice you have.”

      “Ha! Never got me a part in the school play, though.”

      “Because you didn’t play by the rules,” he said. “The good parts always went to the kids in chorus.”

      “Chorus was boring.”

      “And Stacy Kinnigan didn’t have anywhere near the voice you have.”

      “Stacy Kinnigan. Oh, wow. I haven’t thought about her in years.”

      “She was here for the reunion,” he told her. “She lives in Ohio now.”

      “Of course she does. Ohio has to be the most boring state in America.”

      “You’ve been there?”

      “No.” She smiled up at him. “The name is boring. Only four letters.”

      “What about Utah?”

      “Fine. I see your point. So you’re saying I should visit Ohio?”

      “No. It’s the most boring state in America.”

      “Charlie.” Johanna shoved him playfully. Voices lifted in a rousing rendition of “Jingle Bells.” She slid her hand through the crook of his elbow. “This is fun.”

      “It is.” He covered her hand with his. Their joking, these gestures—it felt right. All around them, snow and song, sleigh bells and string-lights. All around them, Bitterly. Charlie saw only Johanna. “You want to have dinner with me tomorrow night?” he asked, and again the blush too many times creeping up on him this evening burned. He held her gaze and his breath. Johanna looked up at him. Her angelic face changed from girl to woman but otherwise, exactly the same. “I’d love to, Charlie. It’s about time we caught up.”

      “Yeah, it is.”

      “What time?”

      “How’s seven? Too early? Too late?”

      “Seven is perfect.”

      “Jingle Bells” had degenerated into “Batman Smells.” The band switched songs. “Silent Night.” Voices hushed and rose into the clear night. Johanna sang, softly this time, her head coming to rest against the arm she held.

      Charlie fixed it all in his head, the perfection of this evening, like a snapshot lodged inside. If she vanished again for another eight years, he’d have it to pull out, to remember, to cherish. And if she didn’t vanish—Charlie’s throat constricted. His skin prickled and his body warmed—if she didn’t, he would be able to look back on this moment as the beginning of the best part of his life.