Wonder
2003-04-14 - 12:16 a.m.

“Do you ever wonder,” asked Georgia, “if you’re in the wrong place?”

Brian stopped his work for a moment, the shovel with which he was digging hanging in the air like a scepter-on-a-stick. After a moment’s hesitation, he stabbed the steel triangle back into the earth. “Never.”

Georgia looked at him in surprise. “You mean to tell me that you’ve never thought that your life might be better if you were just… somewhere else?”

Another brief pause, nearly indiscernible, and he shook his head and threw another shovelful of earth over his shoulder.

“Why do you ask?”

“Well,” she said, swinging her long legs over the top plank of the fence, “sometimes, I just hate living in this little place!” She infused the word “hate” with venomous bile. “If I were someplace else, I’m just sure I’d be happier.”

Brian let out what sounded like a slight chuckle. He looked up at Georgia, at her seventeen-year-old form (the secret desire of every boy in town), at her clover-green eyes (her own least favorite feature, and possibly her best), and didn’t know exactly what to say.

“I doubt it.” He said, and kept digging.

She gave him a puzzled look, unsure of whether to disagree or to let it lie. At that moment, Brian thrust his shovel hard into the soft earth and stood upright. He picked up the fresh fencepost and it slid easily into the posthole. He wiped his brow with a dirty hand, smearing brown earth across his forehead. Georgia giggled.

Later that night, they went to the soda shop, and then sat out in Brian’s car underneath the stars. They talked about the future, they remembered the past.

They had never been so happy.