From “Girls”

Ada had invited herself along on the four-hour drive to Corvallis with her daughter, Billie, for one reason: she intended to see if her girlhood friend, Esther Cox, was still living. When Billie had let drop she was going to Carvallis, Ada had decided. “I’m coming too,” she said. Billie frowned, but didn’t say no.
    “Should I wear my red coat or my black one?” she’d asked Billie. “Why don’t I pack a few sandwiches.” Billie had told her to wear the red coat and not to bother about sandwiches; she didn’t like to eat and drive. Ada packed sandwiches anyway.

Billie had on the leather gloves she used when she drove her Mercedes. When she wasn’t smoking cigarettes, she was fiddling with the radio, trying to find a station. Finally, she settled on some flute music. This sounded fine to Ada. “Keep it there, honey,” she said.
    “Esther was like a sister to me, an older sister,” Ada said. “I don’t know anyone I was closer to. We did the cooking and housekeeping for two cousins who owned mansions next door to one another—the Conants was their name. Esther and I saw each other every day. We even spent our evenings together. It was like that for nearly four years.” Ada leaned back in her seat and stole a look at the speedometer: seventy-five miles an hour.
    “It’s like a soap opera,” Billie said. “I can’t keep the names straight or who did what when.” She brought her eyes up to the rearview mirror as if she were afraid someone was going to overtake her.
    Ada wished she could make her stories interesting for Billie and make it clear who the people were and how they had fit into her life. But it was a big effort and sometimes it drove her to silence. “Never mind,” she’d say. “Those people are dead and gone. I don’t know why I brought them up.” But Esther was different. Esther was important.
    Billie pushed in the lighter and took a cigarette from the pack on the dash. “What are you going to talk to this about after all these years?” she said.
    Ada considered this for a minute. “One thing I want to know is what happened to Florita White and Georgie Ganz,” Ada said. “They worked up the street from us and they were from Mansfield, where Esther and I were from. We were all girls trying to make a go of it in the city.” Ada remembered a story about Florita. Florita, who was unmarried, had been living with a man, something just not done in those days. When she washed and dried her panties she said she always put a towel over them on the line so Basil, her man, couldn’t see them. But that was all Ada could remember Florita saying. There had to be more to the story, but Ada couldn’t remember. She was glad she hadn’t said anything to Billie.
    “You might just end up staring at each other,” Billie said.
    “Don’t you worry,” Ada said. “We’ll have plenty to say.” That was the trouble with Billie, Ada thought. Since she’d gone into business, if you weren’t talking business you weren’t talking. Billie owned thirty llamas—ugly creatures, Ada thought. She could smell the llama wool Billie had brought along in the backseat for her demonstration. Ada had already heard Billie’s spiel on llamas. There were a lot of advantages to llamas, according to Billie. For one thing, llamas always did their job in the same place. For another, someone wanting to go into the backcountry could break a llama in two hours to lead and carry a load. Ada was half-incline to think Billie cared more about llamas than she did about people. But then Billie had never gotten much out of people, and she had made it on llamas.
    “Esther worked like a mule to raise three children,” Ada said.
    “Why are you telling me about his woman?” Billie said, as if she’d suddenly been accused of something. She lit another cigarette and turned on her signal light. Then she moved over into the passing lane. The car sped effortlessly down the freeway.
    Ada straightened herself in the seat and took out a handkerchief to fan the smoke away from her face. What could she say? That she had never had a friend like Esther in all the years since? Billie would say something like: if she was so important then why haven’t you seen her in forty-three years? That was true enough, too; Ada couldn’t explain it. She tried to stop the conversation right where it was.
    “Anyway, I doubt if she’s still living,” Ada said, trying to sound unconcerned. But even as she said this Ada wanted more than ever to find Esther Cox alive. How had they lost track? She’d last heard from Esther after Ada’s youngest son had been killed in a car crash, twenty years ago. Twenty years. Then she thought of one more thing about Esther, and she said it.
    “The last time I saw Esther she made fudge for me,” Ada said. “You’ll see, Billie. She’ll whip up a batch this time too. She always made good fudge.” She caught Billie looking at her, maybe wondering for a moment who her mother had been and what fudge had to do with anything. But Ada didn’t care. She was remembering how she and Esther had bobbed each other’s hair one night, and then gone to the town square to stroll and admire themselves in the store windows.

From The Man From Kinvara. © 2009 by Tess Gallagher. All rights reserved.