The Boy Who Fell Off a Lawn Mower | Watty's '18

3. A Secret or Two

Chapter 3

A Secret or Two

"So I've been dying to ask you this all afternoon," gushed Tiffany, a hefty interest oozing from her voice that made everything she said feel warm and valuable, yet slightly intimidating. She spoke as she drove her car down the busy road.

Aida looked Tiffany in her eyes, confused but wildly curious as to what she wanted to know so badly. They'd spent the afternoon at the nail place and stopped at a few stores for Tiffany to run some errands. It'd been full of useless light chatter, but enough to make Aida finally feel welcome. "Go on."

"Where did you come from?" Tiffany sort of blurted it out, but her confidence covered it well. "What I mean by that, is why did you move here? You're rich and seem fun. You seem like you should have grown up with us all!"

Aida wasn't sure how to handle the backhanded compliment besides answering the question truthfully. "Well, my father worked as a part of a small branch of a rather large company my whole life. It was a businessy-type job, working with money and numbers and whatnot. They closed the branch about five months ago, but the corporation is quite successful and paid to move some of their favorite associates to larger branches. So, they relocated us to this lovely California neighborhood, picked out the house for us, and put us in it!" Aida failed to mention that she was also very poor before the company had whisked them away from her past life. It was an opportunity her father had needed to take and therefore he did; there hadn't been much room to think about it. Aida left it out of the discussion due to remembering Tiffany's comment about Mr. Lawnmower. Poor people apparently weren't relevant in this town.

"Oh... cool." Tiffany didn't seem pleased by the answer, most likely in hopes of some tragic backstory that caused a move. She was searching for something more like fleeing a crazy ex-boyfriend, moving away from a someone stalking her father, or something along those lines – something to spread like wild fire. Giving up those hopes, she continued driving back towards the high school, where Aida's car was.

They sat in silence for a few moments, listening to music as Aida dozed, thinking about how she saw Mr. Lawnmower at her school. She wondered what he was like and what his interests were. She knew it certainly wasn't fashion due to his simplistic style of dressing and thought about it being music or painting, but also figured those were incorrect. A bit shaken from the brief encounter and unable to pinpoint why, she turned to the driver. "Tiffany, do you know anything else about that boy in the hallway?"

"Who?" she replied, taking her eyes off the road to look at her new companion.

Aida contemplated delving further into the matter, but realized he must have been completely irrelevant to her. If she had learned anything from their few hours together, it was that people who had money mattered here and these opinions were ingrained into them from their parents and so on. It was just how it worked in this town. Aida used the excuse of pulling into the parking lot to change the subject and disguise her slight embarrassment.

"Isn't that your friend?" asked Aida, pointing out the closed car window towards some people standing by another shiny car in the relatively empty lot. There was a girl with long blonde hair that Aida recognized as Diane, Connor from English class, and a face she didn't know.

"Oh! Yes! Diane!" Tiffany pulled a fast, and slightly frightening, ninety degree turn towards the car as she rolled down her window, consequently driving away from Aida's car. She wasn't a bad driver, but also wasn't a good one. "Hey!" she yelled out the window. Aida had felt out of her element all day and was starting to worry Tiffany would recognize it when pitted against her other friends. The two girls got out of the vehicle, one more tentative than the other.