Merriton

Dora Palomino: Final PowerPoint Class for Cowboy Think Tank is next week.

Kit Kat sat at her computer looking at the FaceBook updates for her old friends, but Dora’s jumped out at her. It seemed so incomprehensible that Dora would be teaching a computer class, but she just HAD to know what a cowboy think tank was, so she picked up her phone and dialed the number.

Dora’s husband picked up. “Hey, Roscoe. It’s Kit Kat. Is Dora there?” Kit Kat could just imagine Roscoe’s tall frame handing the phone to her petite friend when she heard him announce her name. Dora’s voice sounded happy, “Hey Kit Kat! It’s so good to hear from you! I haven’t seen you since Ricky’s funeral. How are you holding up?”

The pain of her brother’s death hit her again. Unlike her sister, Mira, Kit Kat had felt almost a relief when she heard of Ricky’s overdose. She had pushed the guilt of it so far aside that she had completely forgotten the last time she had been forced to return to Emigration. “I’m doing alright. I heard Mira sold the house.”

Dora laughed, “Oh yes! Roscoe’s new ranger bought it. He fits right into the neighborhood. Your daddy would be proud of how clean he keeps the house.”

There was a lull in the conversation as Kit Kat thought of her parents and the house. The last time it looked like home was when she went to claim her part of the inheritance. Had it only been eight months ago? It seemed like she had lived a whole life since then.

“I was just reading your FaceBook status and it made me curious. You’re teaching PowerPoint classes now?” She could hear her friend smile on the other side of the line. “No one’s more surprised than I am. I’m the regular computer diva now.” Kit Kat fell into the comfortable rhythm of home. “I thought you were against computers.” Dora giggled, “Yeah, I was, but something happened that changed everything. In fact, we are having this event in a month and a half called the Cowboy Think Tank.”

Kit Kat smiled and started doodling on an envelope for Dave from a male-bonding drumming circle. She outlined his name and their address on the envelope. “I was going to ask you about that. What is it?” She wandered around the studio apartment, gathering the half-empty take out boxes strewn over the living area.

“Oh it’s this cool thing where we can present our ideas to venture capitalists and see if they want to invest in us. I’m suggesting this program where we take people’s old computers that they don’t want anymore, wipe the drives and load them up with Ubuntu Linux, Open Office and GIMP and give them to underprivileged kids so they can get the skills they need to get ahead in this world.” Kit Kat was frozen in midstep. She was literally standing still in shock. She could smell the putrid remains of Chinese food in one of the containers in her hand. “Dora? What has happened to you? It’s like you’re an entirely different person. Cool idea, by the way, but wow!”

“You can’t believe how different things are in Merriton. We have a new family in the Bowen house and I’m really going to miss them when they leave. It’s not like I even talk to them, but they have brought such changes to the town.” The phone was silent for a moment, but Dora started again, “Enough about me. How is it in New York? What’s it like to be an author in the city?”

Kit Kat sighed. “It’s funny. Growing up in Emigration was the perfect upbringing for me to be a Christian Romance historical novelist. Of course, I could do this anywhere. Now that I have a steady line of work, I could write these books in a shack in Montana as long as it had Internet access. I only stay in New York because of Dave.” She could hear Dora evaluating what she said. “You say that like you want to leave.”

There is nothing like the razor sharp tongue of a good friend to cut through the lies we tell ourselves. Kit Kat drew in a breath at the wound. It was true. “Yeah. I’m getting pretty sick of living in a 500 square foot studio apartment in the bad part of town. When Ricky died, I almost asked Mira if I could just move into the old house for a while, but I couldn’t get Dave to come with me.”

“Oh Kit Kat, you wouldn’t have wanted to move back into your parents’ house. It’s a very good thing that Mira sold the house. The guy who lives in it is perfect for the neighborhood.” Kit Kat consoled herself. “I couldn’t have lived there anyway. No high speed Internet.” Dora laughed. “That’s true! You can’t believe what he had to pay to have that put in. It was the first thing he did!”

The two of them laughed together on the phone for the next hour. Dora forgot about all the stress of her Cowboy Think Tank and Kit Kat didn’t have a chance to worry about why Dave hadn’t come home from his drumming circle yet.