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Chasing Lightning
Excerpt 1: Chasing Lightning by Rachel York y Rachel York

"Hey, Sleepin' Beauty, don't you think it's about time to be gettin' up?" yelled Ollie Mae up the stairs. "It's nine o'clock!"

"Oh, Momma. Come on. It's Saturday."

"You promised you'd go shoppin' with me, young lady."

"I know," answered Scarlett and she raised her voice to its sweetest pitch. "I just thought I'd finish making your birthday surprise instead."

"Oh!" sputtered Ollie Mae, her face lighting up.

"It's looking real pretty," lied Scarlett, turning over in bed so the sun wouldn't hit her face.

"Well, if you need a little more time, I guess that's all right. I'll see you when I get home," said Ollie Mae, putting on her hat with all the bright, dangly fruit. "Don't forget to eat your breakfast," she reminded Scarlett and with that was out the front door to do the Saturday grocery shopping.

Scarlett Faye covered her shameless, lying face with a pillow. She felt terrible, at least momentarily. Ollie Mae's birthday was in two days and she hadn't even started that silly gift she had promised her mother. In fact, she hadn't even learned how to stitch yet and she probably never would now that Wanda was avoiding her. She had been on the dodge since that night earlier in the week when her husband beat her up. Scarlett figured it wasn't just the awful beating that had Wanda sidestepping her. It undoubtedly had a lot to do with Thelma and the pain behind all those almost revelations.

Scarlett knew she should get out of bed. If she just put her mind to it, she would come up with something for her mother's birthday. But she was having trouble concentrating. Instead of thinking about presents, thoughts of Wanda and Thelma kept popping into her head. The notion they may have once held and kissed each other threw Scarlett's imagination into overdrive. She couldn't get rid of the pictures in her head. They just kept coming.

Unable to control the feverish procession of images any longer, Scarlett jumped out of bed and shot over to several large stacks of books in the corner. She began frantically tossing them down on the floor in a desperate search for one in particular. She found it on the bottom of the last pile, safely tucked away from her mother's prying eyes where she had once taken such great pains to hide it.

When she bought the book at an old thrift shop some years before, Scarlett thought it was about girls studying and getting smart like she wanted to do. It was a logical assumption. The book was called The Adventures of Two Girls at College. Its front cover had an innocent picture of two girls on campus, all loaded up with books, looking very studious. Since the blurb had been torn away there was no way for Scarlett to know what the book was really about until she read it. But she soon found out. She had finished it in a single afternoon down by the river.

Scarlett recalled that the two girls in the title were sorority sisters at a college in California. Somewhere around 18 and 19 at the time, they were pretty with lots of smarts and plenty of boyfriends. As the two became better and better friends, an inexplicable tension developed between them and they started arguing. Neither one could figure out what upset them so much or why they fought. Then one night, at a walk-in theater near campus, they found out.

As they watched the movie, their arms and legs began brushing involuntarily up against each other's. Then it wasn't so involuntary and they moved closer together. They didn't dare look at each other because it was then that they realized the unthinkable, they wanted each other. The more bold of the two put her hand on the other's leg and hid the daring beneath a coat. Her hand sat there until the other girl finally had the courage to place hers on top of it. The connection was instant and electric.

The college girls were so positive everyone around them could feel what they had just felt they quickly pulled their hands away and sat there bewildered, watching each other's breasts rise and fall, aching for each other's touch. But they were scared, petrified. Girls weren't supposed to have feelings like these, not for each other anyway.

Scarlett hurriedly leafed through the book looking for the "dirty part." That's how people referred to "doing it." All loving, when it got physical, somehow got dirty.

Norma and June, as the two college girls were called, left the theater way before the movie was over. Norma's roommate was away for the weekend and they went to her room. Once inside they locked the door and dissolved in an embrace so powerful it felt like their hearts might collapse. But they didn't and then the passion came full on.

Their mouths found each other and they hungrily devoured each other's kisses. But it wasn't enough. Nothing was enough and somehow they had to feed the hunger. They quickly began undressing each other and when they were both naked to the waist, June looked at Norma and said—

"I need help. I got a ton of groceries down here," announced Ollie Mae. "You still up there in your room?"

"Oh, Momma!" yelled a profoundly irritated Scarlett. "Of course, I am! What do you think?"
"What I think is that you better get that tone out of your voice and get down here and help your poor mother unpack all this food. Right now, young lady! Get down here!"

Scarlett dog-eared the page and threw the book on the floor. June and Norma's fireworks would have to wait. Her mother had just frustrated another delicate moment in literature and along with it, her daughter's precarious well being.

Excerpts courtesy of Rachel York

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Chasing Lightning

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Rachel York was born in a small town in Texas and educated in the United States and Europe. While at the University of Madrid studying languages and anthropology, she supported herself doing commercials for Spanish television. She currently resides in Los Angeles where she ghostwrites for others. This is her first novel and she is working on a sequel. For media inquiries contact Sherry Stinson at (918) 336-7927 or via email. You may also visit Rachel's Web site, where she has a blog that she occasionally updates.

Chasing Lightning Author: Rachel York Category: Romance, coming-of-age Paperback: 384 pages Published: March 2003 ISBN: 0758203683 Retail: $10.50 Publisher: Kensington Click here to buy CHASING LIGHTNING

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