White flakes fell steadily from a gray-clouded sky. Cassie swiped her red woolen mitten across her face. Unfortunately, the mitten was already soaking wet from the constant snowfall. It chilled her face. Shivering, Cassie fumbled with the collar of her peacoat, finally pulling it up around her neck.
“So, Cassie, seeings how neither one of us has a date for this Saturday, shall we go to the school dance together?” Bobbie asked, her breath hanging in foggy clouds. The girls were dressed nearly identical. You could tell them apart because Bobbie, small and compact, had long brown hair with waves and frizz. They were the classic female Mutt and Jeff. With her height and build, Cassie could have been Twiggy’s sister, including her pixie-cut hair plastered to her face.
Bobbie had recently turned eighteen and Cassie’s eighteenth would be in June. The girls had been best friends forever and they’d finally reached their senior year. Soon they would decide which college they were going to attend together. But right now Cassie had to face up to something and she dreaded it.
How to say it? Blurt it out? Lying would never cross her mind. The teenager ranked honesty right up there with the commandments and the golden rule.
Cassie took a deep breath. “I have to run something by you, Bobbie. You see, I got asked yesterday but you won’t like who was doing the asking.”
“Silly. You could go with just about anybody. I wouldn’t mind. Except for Lenny Marek, of course. But that goes without saying, right?”
Cassie pursed her frozen lips. Her mind zigzagged everywhere but the subject at hand. Suddenly her peacoat, sodden from the snow, weighed heavily on her shoulders. The sky had turned a dirty pewter and the snow fell faster, fueled by the wind.
Realizing that Cassie hadn’t agreed with her, Bobbie stopped in her tracks, grabbing Cassie’s arm.
“Tell me it isn’t so, Cass,” Bobbie said in a low, biting voice.
“You never told me why you broke up with him,” she plaintively answered.
“WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE???” Bobbie screamed at the top of her lungs. “I dumped him. Don’t you think I had a very good reason for doing that? This is like some kind of betrayal.” Shaking her head, Bobbie mumbled over and over, “I can’t believe this.”
“I didn’t say yes. Honest,” Cassie pleaded.
“Yeah, but you didn’t say no either, right?” Bobbie practically whispered, making Cassie move her head closer to hear. “The guy is a CREEP. A lousy degenerate creep. OKAY?” Her cheeks, already pink from the cold, turned flaming red. “Stay away from him. Far away, got it?”
“Oh geez. Did the guy do something, Bobbie?”
“Not exactly, but not for want of trying.”
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. Of course I’ll tell the jerk where to go.”
“A little late, Cassie. You should’ve said no just on principle. Know what I mean?” Bobbie started trudging away in the snow.
“Wait up,” Cassie called, struggling after her in the wind and snow.
“Just leave me alone, okay?”
“Oh come on, Bobbie. Give me another chance. I screwed up. I’m sorry. We’ve been friends since kindergarten. You can forgive me, can’t you?”
“I dunno,” Bobbie answered. “Maybe. But not today.”
“Hey, hold on. We ought to at least walk together the rest of the way home. This snowstorm is getting worse.” Bobbie didn’t answer and Cassie was left to follow a few steps behind.
Breathing hard against the wind and blowing wet snow, Cassie struggled. Bobbie got further and further ahead. Cassie was the brainiac, she edited the school newspaper and wrote several of the columns each month, while Bobbie was the athlete of the duo, captain of the softball team and a gymnastics star as well. So it didn’t surprise Cassie too mulch when she lost sight of her friend. Visibility had dropped to about twenty feet. The few cars on the road inched along, even those with tire chains.
Eventually she came up to Bobbie’s house, but didn’t see anyone. A pristine field of snow lay across the front walk. “That’s odd. Bobbie couldn’t have been that far ahead of me. Where are her footprints?” Cassie wondered. “Even if they got covered over, there should still be a depression or something.” Then she thought about the backdoor, but there were no footprints in the snow leading down the driveway to the backdoor either. Cassie was bothered by the puzzle but the freezing cold trumped her curiosity. A few more steps brought her to the corner.
Almost home. Suddenly though, her foot sank deep in the snow, catching the edge of the curb that lay hidden beneath. Down she went, face first in the snowbank. The new snow, only six inches deep, covered a foot of hard snow and ice, left by last week’s snowstorm. Trying to rub her sore elbow through the thick jacket proved useless so Cassie brushed herself off and continued the difficult walk home. Someone had shoveled a path up the driveway. Wearily she trudged the last few feet, encouraged by the shining lights inside. She couldn’t wait to get into the warmth and coziness of their home, out of the freezing storm.
By the time Cassie walked through the backdoor, she was frozen to the bone. Shivering, she put her arms behind her, letting the heavy wet jacket slide off her arms onto the floor. Before Gram could come along and say something, she took it and put it on the back of a kitchen chair, shoving the chair over next to the radiator. Just about to walk away, Cassie suddenly turned back to check the radiator, making sure it was giving off heat. At least once or twice a week the old furnace in the cellar clunked out and the radiators turned cold faster than her brother could polish off a bowl of ice cream. For now, the old radiator was cranking out the heat.