All Out: The No-Longer-Secret Stories Of Queer Teens Throughout The Ages. Saundra Mitchell

see some hint of malice in the slope of his shoulders.

      Finally, both men were gone from sight. Clara adjusted the boom and carefully climbed to the starboard side of her little boat. Keeping her hat firmly atop her head, she peered over the lip of the hull and directly into the wide brown eyes of a girl.

      She clung to the side of the ship like a barnacle, her face barely above the water as the boat swept her along. Her hair streamed behind her, and her lips were drawn tight across chattering teeth. Clara could see that she wore a gown as yellow as the sails above, which was probably trying mightily to drag her down.

      Without a word, Clara removed her hat, then reached down with both hands to pull the girl aboard. The boat heaved and cold water sloshed over the side, but soon the girl was huddled beneath the jib, safely onboard.

      Clara tightened the sail at once. The wind was in their favor and moved them swiftly downstream, away from any who might still be searching for a runaway girl or two.

      “I’m Pearl,” said the girl. She’d found the last glimmer of sunset and sat inside it. The light made her brown hair burn and her eyes glassy and deep. “Thank you.”

      “I’m Clara. You’re welcome.”

      “I suppose you’d like to know who those men were?” Pearl asked, and without waiting for an answer, she plowed on. “The one who shouted was my brother, William, and I do feel badly for deceiving him. He’s never been cruel to me, at least, not intentionally. The other was Mr. Michael Pitts, my husband-to-be, and I don’t feel badly for him in the slightest. Mealy, indecisive and selfish. Took me to wife out of ‘the kindness of his heart.’ Pah! Well, I left him out of the meanness of mine.”

      Clara had not intended to inquire, but she was glad Pearl spoke so freely. “You ran away from your wedding day?”

      Pearl raised her chin, defiance shining in her eyes. “I did.”

      It occurred to Clara that Pearl’s dress was yellow. Not blue to signify years of faithful love, not pink to announce her purity, but yellow, the color of pagans and the wildest of flowers. This was a girl she knew already, even as she knew her not at all.

      “Me, too,” Clara answered, fluffing the skirts of her own black dress. “And I am sorry for the disappointment my father will feel, but I am full of too much life for Mr. Earwood. I’d have driven him to an early grave.”

      Pearl laughed. “Pitts and Earwood. They should be friends.”

      “After this, perhaps they will be!”

      Pearl’s smile softened. “I know we certainly shall be.”

      Something in the curl of Pearl’s voice called a corresponding curl in Clara’s breath. She did not respond and the two girls drifted in silence while the sun slowly drained from the sky. Clara sighted a particularly reedy section on the opposite side of the river from where Pearl had just fled and nosed the sloop inside it for extra coverage. It would be a cold night on the sloop, but it was still too dangerous to camp on shore. They would have to make do with what little heat her lanterns could provide.

      But Pearl would need more than that.

      The girl made no complaint, but she shivered in her layers of wet dress. She would make herself ill sleeping in such a state.

      “Here,” Clara said, offering her single change of boy’s clothing. “Put these on.”

      Pearl accepted them gratefully, cold fingers brushing Clara’s as she took them from her hands. Though they were surrounded by mere reeds instead of sturdy walls, Pearl quickly began the work of loosening her dress. Clara helped, tugging on cold, wet lacings until her own fingers burned.

      The work was so familiar that it didn’t occur to Clara that Pearl was a near stranger until the dress slid from her shoulders, leaving only the shift behind. Then it wasn’t only her fingers that burned, but her cheeks, her lips, her chest. She turned away to give Pearl her privacy and tend to the stirring in her lungs.

      “I have bread and cheese,” she said, rooting through the bag she’d stowed on the sloop ahead of time. “Jars of preserves and a few bottles of wine.”

      “You’re my savior,” Pearl said, voice muffled by cloth. “Let’s start with the wine. Tonight’s a celebration after all.”

      “You’re right,” Clara said, feeling the truth of it expand in her lungs. “We did it, Pearl. We left.”

      “And tomorrow’s all about the life we choose.”

      The life we choose. The words were said with such anticipation that for a moment, Clara felt overwhelmed. She had spent so long trying to imagine herself inside a house she had no hand in creating, imagining the rooms and cabinets and nearest neighbors she might have as a married woman in a new town. Now there was no house, no town even, and the possibilities seemed as long and steady as the river rushing past.

      The girls opened their wine and tore their bread and scooped generously of fig preserves. They drank until the bottle was gone and ate until the jar was empty, and then they lay on their backs on the flat nose of the sloop.

      “What was your plan?” Clara asked. “Just...run?”

      Pearl’s laughter sounded like merry song of a wood thrush. “From start to finish. The thought came over me all of a sudden. I was standing there, at the entry of the church, staring down that short aisle to a long future with a man who was already calculating the value of our wedding gifts. And I tell you before I knew what I was about, I was running out the doors and down the road. So, yes, ‘run’ was my plan. And it worked, I’ll remind you.”

      “Barely! And by luck alone!”

      “What was your plan, then? More than run, I assume?” Pearl leaned up on her elbow to level Clara with a playful glare. “Did you steal this boat, Clara? You might’ve chosen something less conspicuous than a sloop with yellow sails.”

      It was Clara’s turn to laugh, and she felt self-conscious as she did. “It was mine, but seeing as I was married when I took it and all my belongings were also Mr. Earwood’s, it’s probable he thinks I stole it.”

      “You’re an outlaw,” Pearl teased.

      “In good company,” Clara teased back, noting the way Pearl’s gaze slid to her lips and back again to her eyes. “And my plan was to take my sloop and ride the river to the open ocean. I’ve food and a fishing pole to keep me fed, a blade to keep me safe and skills to keep me afloat.”

      “And then what?” Pearl asked.

      Clara was almost afraid to say it. For so long, she’d nurtured this secret desire knowing anyone who heard it would think her too childish for the world. The words had been so long held back that now they feared coming out. But in the flicker of lamplight, Pearl’s smile was encouraging.

      “Do you know of the Sweet Trade?” Clara asked, fiddling with the delicate lace on her stomacher.

      Pearl’s expression was skeptical. “Piracy? That’s your plan? Become a pirate?”

      “It is,” Clara answered seriously. “All my life, people have told me what to do or taken what’s mine. The same is true for you! We’ve been raised among pirates who call themselves gentlemen. And I’m ready to turn the tables. I’m ready to take what’s mine and maybe a few things that aren’t.”

      “That sounds like a lovely sort of justice.” Pearl smiled as she leaned close, her breath sweet with figs, her lips stained purple with wine. “Perhaps I’ll join you and we’ll rule the Carolina seas together.”

      “I’d gladly take you amongst my crew.”

      “And I would gladly join it.”

      Clara felt warmth spreading through her cheeks. Pearl’s smile was softer now, her brown hair falling around her face to curl at her chin near her lips. She looked perfectly unkempt and radiant. Clara had started this day evading a kiss she didn’t