Small Town Girl

By Noni Nelson

Caro Miller was sure they’d never heard of internet speed dating back in her small west Texas hometown. But busting her butt at two jobs wasn’t leaving any time to find that special woman to share her life, even if one of those jobs was at the popular lesbian bar, The Butterfly. But a girl needs to be careful – you just never know who is on the other side of that computer screen!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Noni Nelson
• Release date: Feb 13, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458050878

Noni Nelson

Noni Nelson lives on the sun-drenched coast of Western Australia. Besides writing poetry and stories,she enjoys travel, roller-skating, gardening and walking, especially on the beach.

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Small Town Girl

Published by Noni Nelson at Smashwords.com

Copyright Noni Nelson 2011

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Chapter 1

I met her online! Lord, I wonder how many people’s stories start off like that these days. It’s become the modern equivalent of an office romance or being set up with your best friend’s brother. Of course in my case, technically that would be my best friend’s sister! Internet romances, once thought unique and risky, are now so commonplace in our electronic world that no one thinks twice about declaring themselves to be in a relationship with someone they have never met face to face. Especially in the lesbian community; we seem to have taken to techno romance, cyber-sex and long distance relationships with more enthusiasm than any other group. Perhaps, I once pondered, it’s because it takes the element of appearance out of the equation in the beginning stages and lets you get to know the person living behind the face, and inside the body, that society deems to be what matters most. And women seem to open up more quickly on screen, about their true feelings, thoughts, needs, desires, than they might otherwise do in a series of dates in noisy bars or restaurants. Who knows? Certainly not me. I’m no expert on matters of the heart that’s for sure.

Hey, little-big sis, you are gonna fossilize if you keep rocking on that porch swing like an old granny every night.

My internal philosophizing was interrupted by my youngest brother, Clint, as he came barreling through the front door of our parent’s house and took the porch steps in one bound. Even on ground level he still stood a head taller than the railings.

Who are you calling a fossil? I retorted. Look at you all dressed all spiffy with your hair spiked up. Seems to me you’re keeping pretty steady company with that girl Noreen. Shouldn’t a young guy like you be out sowing some wild oats amongst the multitudes of beautiful women in Plainview? I was teasing but there was a touch of cynicism in that last crack. My home town was not a place the young girls stayed these days; it was more like a jumping-off station for the bigger towns that promised the bright lights and job prospects not available in this west Texas farming community.

Clint missed the irony completely. No way Caro, if I even look sideways at another gal some fellow is going to cut in and try to make off with her. Anyway, he continued earnestly, I’m nearly twenty six now and it’s time I started thinking about my future. Well, I had better move, don’t want to keep her waiting. See ya later.

I smiled as I watched Clint jump into his pick up and pull out of the driveway. It really cracked me up to hear him talking so seriously but at the same time his comments threw my own situation into stark relief. I’d recently turned thirty and for someone who rarely gives her age (or anyone else’s) a second thought, that had stung somewhat. Not that I had a life plan etched in stone you know but maybe it was less about what I had expected to be doing when I turned the big Three O and more about what I hadn’t. Certainly my plans hadn’t included being back in the family home, with Mom and Dad, Clint and Zeb, our ancient, overfed cocker spaniel. Hell it had never even entered my head when I first lit out on my own after college that I would ever see the city limits of this podunk little Texas town again, except for the regulatory visits on holidays or birthdays. And I certainly hadn’t expected to be single, dateless and worst of all, with no desire whatsoever to change this pathetic state of affairs.

The screen door creaked as my mom pushed it open and stepped out onto the porch. It was getting dark much earlier these evenings as the long, hot summer nights slid into the more bearable temperatures of fall and for a moment she failed to register my presence, curled up in the corner of the swing.

Oh, there you are Carolyn, your daddy and I were just about to play a few hands of pinochle. How about you come in and join us?

My momma was the only person who ever called me Carolyn. I had been Caro to my Dad and brothers from the day I was born. When she called me by all three of my given names – Carolyn Judith Ann, it usually meant I was in big trouble.

Thanks momma. I replied. I’ll be in a little bit. Why don’t you whip the pants of daddy a few times, then I’ll come finish him off? My folk’s evening routine rarely changed from what I had seen in the months I had been back home. They had dinner early, just as we had when all five kids were still living here. Afterwards they washed up together, daddy would open his one and only beer for the night and the two of them would settle down at the big pine table in the kitchen with a deck of cards. Often I joined them, but tonight my thoughts were restless and I needed to be alone with them a while. Before Clint had intruded I had been thinking about her, trying to understand how my life could possible have reached the point it had since I left Plainview all those years ago.

Looking back I had to laugh at how naive I was in my assumption that the big city was just waiting to be dazzled by my brilliance. Firstly in my field of expertise, the computer repair business, and secondly on the gay bar scene. Oh how I was going to shine in both those arenas and for a while I guess I did. Within a few months of arriving in Dallas I had landed myself a junior position with WOW Electronics. As well as general repairs, they had an exclusive contract with a large brokerage firm downtown. Plus I celebrated my first pay packet in a popular gay bar where I quickly earned myself a reputation as a pool shark extraordinaire! Hey, I may be a computer nerd but when a girl has four brothers to compete with, she learns a trick or two along the way. And although the beauty pageant agents haven’t exactly beaten a path to my door, in those days I had a certain country girl wholesomeness. Combined with a tall, lean body, inherited from my Dad’s side of the family, it helped deflect attention away from a pretty ordinary face and mousy- brown straight hair. Becoming a blonde overnight improved that aspect of things somewhat. Hell, I wondered, running my hands thru my short crop, how long since I had even bothered to put in a color? Just another thing that seems to have landed in my ‘too hard’ basket of late.

The evening breeze picked up a little, sending a soda can rattling down the street and making me shiver. I should have gone in and joined my folks but I was afraid the pain tonight’s memories were evoking might be etched on my face. Mom worried about me too much as it was. There was a soft throw rug folded on the other end of the swing and I wrapped myself in that and settled back to watch the stars make their appearances in the purple sky. Small towns may be short of a lot of the things I had started to take for granted in Dallas but there’s an abundance of stars. Growing up here on the west Texas plains I took the sunny days followed by starry nights for granted. I sit fourth in a family of five and as the only girl I went everywhere with my brothers from the time I could toddle, with no comprehension that I was any less equal to them in any way. Thankfully, when my poor mother realized she hadn’t got a quiet little girl who had tea parties with her dollies or wore frilly dresses and ribbons in her hair, she bowed to the inevitable and let me run free. But that idyllic lifestyle didn’t last too long. From the ages of seven or eight, when I was no longer allowed to run under the sprinklers with the boys in my shorts only, I had railed against being a girl and all the limitations it began to pile upon my young head. Then came the indignity of a training bra! I loathed that contraption and my budding breasts with all the hate a ten year old heart can muster. At twelve came the unkindest cut of all! The dreaded monthly periods and the restrictions that placed on my swimming career; strangely enough the only sport at which I was halfway decent despite my tomboy upbringing.

In high school I discovered my two greatest loves - the insides of computers and girls. Actually I think I discovered them pretty much simultaneously on account of being paired with Janey Richards for my intro, ‘lets take these computers to bits and see what makes them tick’, class. She looked across the desk at me, pointed to the pile of mother boards, circuits and other assorted pieces of hardware and mouthed the words Help me! Is that all she wanted me to do, just help her? Right at that moment, as my mouth went dry and my fourteen year old heart started beating in double time, I would cheerfully have climbed mountains, slain dragons and fought WW111 for that cute little redhead with the freckled nose. Some weeks later I was abruptly assigned a new partner and later heard through the grapevine that Janey had complained