Becoming Grey: Episode 2

Chapter Two 

July 1st, 2017 — Late Afternoon 

Callie stood from where she’d been crouched beside an endcap of potato chips and stretched until something in her back gave a satisfying little pop. 

“Done.” Callie said as her hair fell over her shoulders.  At least, done enough that nobody could reasonably accuse her of abandoning her responsibilities. 

Probably. 

She made her way toward the back of Grey’s, passing through the swinging doors separating the sales floor from the stockroom.  
 
The old stockroom door beyond them was solid oak, a survivor from an earlier version of the store, and announced itself with a long, complaining creak every time someone opened it. Dad had attacked the hinges with WD-40 more times than Callie could remember. 

The door had apparently decided this was a matter of principle. 

“Making a break for it?” 

Callie looked over and Gus stood beside a pallet stacked with cardboard boxes, clipboard resting against his stomach. 

Gus had worked at Grey’s for nearly as long as Callie had been alive. He was a heavyset man with enormous hands, thinning hair, and a belly laugh powerful enough to carry from produce to frozen foods. 

Callie smiled. 

“Of course. My shift’s over. You can’t expect me to spend my entire Saturday here.” 

“Could.” 

“You could,” Callie corrected. “Mom could. Dad definitely could. Doesn’t mean I’m volunteering.” 

Gus chuckled. 

Callie grabbed the small backpack she’d left beside the office and slipped one strap over her shoulder. 

“Just don’t tell Hannah I’m leaving.” 

Gus raised an eyebrow. 

“She’ll want to come.” 

“Terrible thing, having a little sister who likes you.” 

“That’s because you don’t have to live with her.” 

“You’d better hurry, then.” Gus nodded toward the sales floor. “Quick one, that girl.” 

“You saw nothing.” 

“Never do.” 

Callie gave him a little wave and pushed through the back door. 

Warm July air hit her immediately. After hours beneath fluorescent lights and air conditioning, the afternoon felt almost startlingly alive. The sun was still high, heat radiated from the pavement behind the store, and somewhere beyond the buildings came the low mechanical growl of traffic moving along Ridgemont Avenue. 

Callie pulled her phone from her pocket before she’d made it halfway across the employee lot. 

She tapped Maggie’s name. 

Her friend answered after the second ring. 

“Hey—” 

“Maggie, I’m free.” 

There was a pause. 

“Congratulations?” 

“I have spent most of a perfectly good Saturday stocking shelves. I need to know what everyone is doing before my parents discover another job for me.” 

“We’re at the creek.” 

Callie immediately changed direction toward the sidewalk. 

“Who’s we?” 

“Me, Jensen and Luke.” 

There was splashing in the background, followed by a boy shouting something Callie couldn’t make out. 

Maggie’s voice became more distant. 

“Luke swears he can make a bigger splash.” 

Then, louder: 

“But we know he can’t!” 

“The unfaithful will be punished!” Luke shouted somewhere beyond the phone. 

Callie laughed. 

“Was that Luke?” 

“No,” Maggie said. “The creek has become sentient.” 

“I heard that!” 

Another enormous splash came through the speaker. 

Maggie laughed. 

“Get over here, Callie!” 

Luke’s voice followed immediately. 

“Bring someone who appreciates greatness!” 

Callie adjusted the backpack against her shoulder. 

“How long are you guys staying?” 

“As long as we want.” 

Which, translated from fourteen year old, meant until someone’s parents demanded they come home. 

“Give me twenty minutes.” 

“You walking?” 

“Bike.” 

“Fifteen.” 

“Shut up.” 

Maggie hung up. 

Callie slipped the phone back into her pocket and headed around the side of the building toward the bike rack. 

For the first time all day, she wasn’t Stuart and Sally Grey’s oldest daughter. She wasn’t one of the Grey girls. She wasn’t free labor at the family grocery store, She was just Callie. And there were still hours of Saturday left. 
 
Callie found her bike exactly where she’d left it that morning, chained to the metal rack beside the employee entrance. 

It was a few years old, dark blue, and had once belonged to one of her cousins before being passed down to her. Dad had replaced the tires last summer and insisted there was absolutely nothing wrong with it. 

Callie maintained that this was because dad wasn’t the one riding it. 

She spun the combination on the lock, pulled the chain free, and stuffed it into the bottom of her backpack. 

The moment she swung one leg over the seat, the back door of Grey’s opened behind her. 

Callie froze. 

“Callie?” 

Hannah. 

Of course. 

Callie pushed off. 

“Bye!” 

“Where are you going?” 

“Out!” 

“Where?” 

Callie was already pedaling across the parking lot. 

“Somewhere!” 

“Can I come?” 

“No!” 

“CALLIE!” 

She risked a glance over her shoulder. 

Hannah stood beside the back door with both hands planted on her hips. 

Callie lifted one hand and waved. 

“Love you!” 

“I’M TELLING MOM!” 

“LOVE YOU MORE!” 

Callie turned the corner and laughed to herself as Grey’s disappeared behind the neighboring buildings. 

There were advantages to being the older sister. 

Not many. 

But there were some. 

She stood on the pedals and accelerated along the sidewalk before settling back onto the seat. 

Ridgemont was warm that afternoon, properly warm in the way Minnesota summers could become after spending half the year convincing everyone that human settlement this far north had been an administrative error. 

The breeze against Callie’s face made it pleasant enough. 

She passed a gas station, then a strip of small businesses she’d seen so many times she barely noticed them anymore. A barber shop. A Chinese restaurant. A tax office. A little insurance agency with an electronic sign informing everyone that it was eighty three degrees. 

Traffic rolled steadily along Ridgemont Avenue beside her. Callie knew better than to ride in the street there. Her mother would somehow find out. That wasn’t paranoia. It was experience. At the next intersection, she pressed the pedestrian button and rocked impatiently on one pedal while waiting for the light. A pickup stopped beside her. 

The driver looked over. “Hey, Callie.” 

Callie stared for half a second before recognizing him. 

“Hi, Mr. Peterson.” 

“How’s your dad?” 

“Good.” 

“Tell him I’ll have those strawberries Monday.” 

“Okay.” 

The light changed. 

“Have a good one.” 

“You too.” 

Callie pedaled across the intersection. 

She had absolutely no idea what strawberries Mr. Peterson was talking about.  

Dad would.  

Probably.  

She’d tell him later. 

Maybe. 

The commercial stretch gradually gave way to one of Ridgemont’s older neighborhoods. Traffic thinned. Mature maples spread over the street, their branches meeting high above the pavement and breaking the afternoon sunlight into shifting patches beneath Callie’s tires. 

She relaxed. This was better. 

Small houses sat behind green lawns and flower beds, some brick, others covered in siding that had probably been fashionable sometime before Callie was born. Kids had drawn enormous chalk shapes across one driveway. Someone was mowing a lawn. A sprinkler swept rhythmically across another yard, sending a glittering fan of water over the grass. 

Callie smelled charcoal from somewhere nearby. She passed a little girl wobbling along on a bicycle while her father jogged behind her. 

“No, no, keep pedaling!” 

“I AM!” 

“You’re doing it!” 

Callie smiled as she passed them. 

She remembered her dad teaching her. 

Mostly she remembered crashing into a hedge. 

Twice. 

Ridgemont opened around her in familiar pieces. She passed Saint Matthew’s, its stone bell tower rising above the trees. Two blocks later came the old train depot, restored years before Callie was born and now surrounded by flowers and benches. Downtown appeared beyond it in brick storefronts and upper mfloor apartments, busy enough on a Saturday afternoon without ever feeling crowded. 

People sat outside cafés beneath umbrellas. 

A farmers’ market was winding down near the municipal plaza. Vendors folded awnings while the last customers wandered between tables. A pickup crawled away with empty wooden crates stacked in its bed. Callie recognized one of the farm names painted on the side. Grey’s bought sweet corn from them.She kept going. 

At one corner she passed the old Ridgemont Milling Company building, although nobody her age called it that unless they were doing a history assignment. The enormous brick structure was a brewery now, and the patio outside was packed with adults apparently willing to sit in the sun for the privilege of drinking something Callie assumed tasted terrible. 

She pedaled harder. Fifteen minutes, Maggie had said. Callie checked the time on her phone while coasting. Twelve minutes already. 

“Crap.” 

She shoved the phone back into her pocket and stood on the pedals. The buildings began spreading farther apart as she moved away from downtown. This was one of the things Callie liked about Ridgemont. You could watch the city disappear. Apartment buildings became houses. Houses became newer subdivisions. Sidewalks became narrower. Then, almost without ceremony, the neighborhoods simply ended. 

Callie turned onto Creek Road. 

Corn stretched along one side of her now, rows upon rows of green stalks following the gentle roll of the land. On the other side was a pasture enclosed by wire fencing, with a cluster of cattle standing beneath the shade of several cottonwoods. 

The city was still behind her. She could see the Ridgemont water tower when she looked back. But ahead there were fields. The air smelled different out here. Warmer somehow. Grass, soil, growing corn and the faint earthy smell of water somewhere beyond the trees. 

A car approached from behind, and Callie eased farther onto the shoulder as the tires whispered over the pavement behind her. It slowed slightly while passing, the driver lifting two fingers from the steering wheel in a casual wave. Callie raised a hand in return without thinking. She had no idea who it was, but that hardly mattered. It was Minnesota. You waved anyway. 

The road began to slope gently downward, and the open farmland ahead gave way to a thick gathering of trees following the shallow valley carved through the fields. The shade beneath them looked cool and dark after the bright afternoon sun. Somewhere beyond the first line of cottonwoods and maples, hidden down near the creek, Callie could already hear voices carrying through the leaves. 

A moment later, laughter followed. 

Then, from somewhere beyond the trees, a voice carried up from the creek. 

“DO IT!” 

Callie grinned immediately. She knew that voice. 

She turned off the road onto the narrow dirt trail that cut between the trees and made it perhaps twenty feet before deciding that riding had been a terrible idea. Thick roots twisted through the packed earth like knuckles, catching her tires one after another. The front wheel bounced hard over the first, skipped sideways over the second, and nearly twisted out from beneath her. 

“Whoa.” 

Callie squeezed both brakes and dropped one sneaker to the ground before momentum could make the decision for her. She stared down the increasingly rough trail, then at her bike. 

“Nope.” 

There were limits to her commitment. 

She swung off the seat and walked the bike the rest of the way, guiding it around exposed roots and patches of loose dirt as the trees closed in around her. The temperature seemed to fall several degrees beneath the canopy. Sunlight slipped through gaps in the leaves overhead, scattering restless patches of gold across the trail, while the smell of warm pavement and open fields gave way to damp earth, moss, and the faint muddy scent of creek water. Mosquitoes hovered wherever the air went still, and Callie slapped one away from her forearm before it could settle. 

The creek gradually appeared between the trunks ahead, first as flashes of reflected sunlight through the leaves and then as the familiar bend itself. 

It was not particularly impressive. Nobody from Ridgemont was ever going to put it on a postcard. The creek widened here as it curled through the shallow valley, forming a broad pool that became deep enough in the middle for swimming once summer settled in. One bank was muddy and worn smooth by countless shoes, while the opposite side rose into a broad slab of exposed rock warmed by the afternoon sun. Cottonwoods and maples crowded close to the water, their roots gripping the banks, and generations of Ridgemont teenagers had apparently reached the same conclusion about the place. Narrow footpaths had been worn through the undergrowth in several directions, scraps of old rope still hung from one branch over the water, and one unfortunate tree near the bank had accumulated so many initials and crooked hearts that there was hardly a patch of untouched bark left. 

Several bikes had already been abandoned in the grass beneath the trees, some lying flat where their owners had dropped them and others propped carelessly against trunks. 

Callie added hers to the collection, leaning it against a tree before turning toward the voices coming from the creek. 

“About time!” 

Maggie stood ankle-deep near the bank, still wearing denim shorts over her swimsuit, her hands cupped around her mouth as if Callie were arriving from the opposite side of a football field instead of twenty yards away. 

Callie pulled out her phone and glanced at the screen. “Seventeen minutes.” 

“You said fifteen.” 

“I said twenty.” 

“Yeah, and I told you fifteen.” 

Callie looked up at her. “You changing the number after I say it does not make it the number.” 

“It does if your number was bad.” 

“That is literally not how anything works.” 

A head broke the surface behind Maggie. Jensen shoved his wet hair out of his eyes and squinted toward Callie. “She’s been doing this for, like, five minutes.” 

Maggie spun toward him. “I mentioned it twice.” 

“You asked me what time it was four times.” 

“Because you kept saying you didn’t know.” 

“I was in the water.” 

“You still know what time is.” 

Jensen stared at her. “Do you think being wet gives me a clock?” 

Maggie scooped both hands through the creek and flung a sheet of water at him. Jensen barely managed to suck in a breath before it hit him in the face, and a second later he disappeared beneath the surface. 

Callie laughed as she slipped her backpack from one shoulder. “Where’s Luke?” 

Maggie didn’t answer. She only pointed. 

That was never encouraging. 

Callie followed her finger toward the broad rock ledge overlooking the deepest part of the creek and found Luke standing at the edge with his back to the water. 

She stopped. 

“What is he doing?” 

Jensen surfaced again, coughing and wiping water from his face. “Making history.” 

“Trying to paralyze himself,” Maggie said. 

“I heard that!” Luke shouted. 

“You were supposed to!” 

Luke looked over his shoulder and spotted Callie. His entire face brightened. “Callie! Yes!” 

“Oh, no.” 

“You came at the perfect time.” 

“For what?” 

“To see this.” 

Callie stared at the drop behind him, then back at Luke. “See what? You get airlifted?” 

Luke scoffed. “Nobody’s getting airlifted.” 

“Your head is, maybe.” 

“That sounds like jealousy.” 

“Of what?” 

“My athletic ability.” 

Jensen snorted loudly enough for all of them to hear. 

Luke pointed at him. “You shut up. You couldn’t even do this.” 

“I have no desire to do this.” 

“Because you know you’d fail.” 

“No, because I enjoy walking.” 

Callie dropped her backpack beside Maggie’s and stepped closer to the creek. “Seriously, what are you trying to do?” 

Maggie leaned toward her, lowering her voice even though Luke could obviously still hear them. “He’s trying to backflip.” 

Callie looked at Luke again. 

Luke gave her a confident little nod. 

“How long has this been happening?” 

“Like twenty minutes.” 

“Seventeen,” Luke corrected. 

Maggie folded her arms. “Oh, now seventeen minutes matters?” 

Callie laughed. “Has he actually landed one?” 

Maggie gave her a look. 

“That bad?” 

“He landed one on his knees.” 

“That counts!” Luke shouted. 

“No, it doesn’t!” 

“I rotated all the way around.” 

“And then you ate mud.” 

“That was the landing.” 

Callie looked toward Jensen. “Why is he still doing it?” 

Jensen shrugged from the water. “Because he’s Luke.” 

Callie considered that for half a second. “Okay. Yeah. Fair.” 

“Thank you,” Luke said, apparently deciding that counted as support. 

“It wasn’t a compliment.” 

“Still taking it.” 

He backed another inch toward the edge and bounced experimentally on the balls of his feet. 

Maggie looked up at him. “You’re gonna belly flop again.” 

“It wasn’t a belly flop.” 

“You made a noise when you hit the water.” 

“Everybody makes a noise when they hit water.” 

“Not that noise.” 

Callie had barely been there two minutes and already understood exactly what she had missed. 

Luke rolled his shoulders, shook out his arms, and took an exaggerated breath like an Olympic diver preparing for the defining moment of his career. 

“Okay,” he announced. “Nobody talk.” 

Jensen immediately said, “Don’t die.” 

“Dude.” 

“What? That was supportive.” 

Luke pointed accusingly at him, then at Maggie. “Both of you are ruining my focus.” 

“You don’t have focus,” Maggie said. 

“I absolutely have focus.” 

“You fell off the rock ten minutes ago because a dragonfly flew by.” 

“It flew at my face!” 

Callie covered her mouth, already laughing. 

Luke looked at her. “You too?” 

“I didn’t say anything.” 

“You’re laughing.” 

“Because you almost got taken out by a dragonfly.” 

“It was huge.” 

“It was a dragonfly.” 

“You weren’t here.” 

Callie held up both hands. “Okay. Fine. Massive dragonfly. Terrifying. Go do your stupid flip.” 

Luke grinned. “Thank you.” 

“That also wasn’t support.” 

“I’m counting it.” 

He turned back toward the water and raised both arms over his head. 

Maggie sighed. “Here we go again.” 

Luke bent his knees. 

Then, for no reason Callie could understand, he shouted, “WITNESS ME!” 

“Oh my God,” Maggie muttered. 

Luke jumped. 

For perhaps half a second, it actually looked like he knew what he was doing. His legs kicked upward, his body curled, and Callie’s eyebrows rose as he made it farther through the rotation than she expected. 

Then everything went wrong. 

Luke opened too early, twisted sideways, and seemed to briefly forget which direction the creek was in. His arms pinwheeled once before his entire body came down nearly flat against the water. 

The slap cracked through the trees. 

Everyone froze. 

Ripples rolled outward across the creek. 

Luke surfaced several seconds later with his hair plastered across his forehead and an expression of deep personal betrayal. 

“Ow.” 

Callie lost it. 

She folded over laughing, one hand braced against her knee while Maggie dropped backward onto the muddy bank. Even Jensen had to grab the edge of the rock beside him, laughing hard enough that he kept slipping back into the water. 

Luke wiped both hands down his face. 

“I hate all of you.” 

“You said witness you!” Maggie gasped. 

“I meant respectfully.” 

Callie straightened enough to breathe. “You looked like somebody dropped a folding table.” 

Jensen made a strangled noise and disappeared underwater again. 

Luke stared at her. “Wow.” 

“What?” 

“I wait all day for you to get here and this is what I get?” 

“You yelled ‘witness me’ before belly-flopping off a rock. What did you think was gonna happen?” 

“It was not a belly flop.” 

Maggie pointed at the water around him. “You made a bigger splash than the last one!” 

“See? Improvement.” 

“With your entire back!” 

“Still improvement.” 

Callie was laughing again as she sat down on the grass and tugged off one sneaker, then the other. Her socks followed, stuffed carelessly into her shoes before she stood and hooked her thumbs beneath the straps of her backpack. 

This was what she had been trying to escape Grey’s for. 

Not anything important. Not some grand summer memory she would tell stories about years from now. Just Maggie arguing about seventeen minutes, Jensen heckling everybody from the water, and Luke attempting increasingly stupid ways to throw himself into a creek. 

The kind of afternoon that meant absolutely nothing. 

Which, at fourteen, was sometimes exactly the point. 

Just Maggie still giving Luke grief from the bank, Jensen failing miserably at pretending he wasn’t laughing, cold creek water slipping past the rocks, mosquitoes whining beneath the trees, and half a dozen bikes abandoned wherever their owners had dropped them. The whole afternoon stretched ahead of them, warm and bright beyond the shade of the creek, with hours left before anyone had to think seriously about going home. 

Callie pulled her T-shirt over her head, revealing the swimsuit she had put on beneath her clothes that morning. 

Maggie noticed immediately. “Wait. You wore that to work?” 

Callie tossed the shirt onto her backpack. “I had faith.” 

Maggie pressed a hand to her chest. “In us?” 

“In getting out of there.” 

“Ouch.” 

Callie grinned. “You were part of the plan.” 

“Oh.” Maggie nodded, satisfied. “Okay. Better.” 

Callie stepped down the muddy bank and eased one foot into the creek. 

The cold wrapped around her ankle. 

She stopped. 

“No.” 

Maggie’s grin widened. “Yes.” 

“No, seriously. Why is it this cold?” 

“It’s a creek.” 

“That doesn’t answer anything.” 

“You get used to it.” 

Callie stared at her. “That is what people say when something is terrible and they want you to suffer too.” 

“It’s fine once you get in.” 

“Then why aren’t you all the way in?” 

Maggie glanced down at the water around her ankles, apparently realizing too late that she had undermined her own argument. 

Before she could answer, Jensen swept both hands through the creek. 

Callie saw the splash coming a fraction of a second too late. 

Cold water slapped across her stomach. 

She sucked in a sharp breath and jumped backward. “Jensen!” 

He was already swimming away, laughing as he scrambled toward deeper water. 

Callie stared after him. 

Jensen looked back once. 

That was his mistake. 

“You’re dead.” 

His expression changed immediately. “Wait, wait, wait. Callie, hold on.” 

She charged into the creek. 

The cold stopped mattering after about three steps. Water splashed around her thighs as she fought her way after him, Maggie shouting something behind her and Luke yelling encouragement that was mostly useless. Jensen made it perhaps ten feet before Callie caught the back of his shoulder and shoved, sending both of them crashing sideways into the water. 

When Callie came up again, sputtering and pushing wet hair from her face, Jensen was laughing, Maggie was laughing, and Luke had already started climbing back onto the rock despite everything that had just happened. 

For a while, Grey’s General Store might as well have been miles away. 

There were no shelves waiting to be stocked, no customers asking where something was while standing directly in front of it, and no clock hanging over the register slowly chewing through the afternoon. There was nothing Callie needed to be doing and nowhere else she was supposed to be. Whatever came later, high school, college, jobs, choices, all the distant things adults kept insisting would arrive sooner than she thought, belonged to some other version of her. 

Right now there was only Maggie yelling at Luke not to try another backflip, Jensen splashing Callie and immediately regretting it, sunlight flashing silver across the creek, and the thick green canopy overhead stirring whenever a breeze found its way down into the valley. 

There was only summer. 

And at fourteen, Callie had no reason to believe she was running out of it. 

Related Images: