“Oh! Look at this one, Amelia.” Lena passed a photo to her.
Amelia inspected it closely. Two young women ran through a city street, hand-in-hand, soaked to the skin by a rain storm. There as inches of standing water and they clutched their shoes in their free hands. Jeanette Fleming and Ada March, 1934 was inscribed on the back. “Did you see the back?”
Lena pressed her chin to Amelia’s shoulder. “They look so young.”
“They were,” Amelia replied. “Jeanette was born in 1920 so she would have been fourteen at the time. I’m not sure about Ada, but I think they were roughly the same age.”
“Jeanette’s lovely in this photo, but she really grew into herself in her late teens.” Lena shifted so she was sitting upright.
Amelia reached over and poked Lena’s thigh. “Stop perving on my grandmother.”
“It’s only because you resemble her so much.”
“Nice save.” She leaned in and brushed her lips against Lena’s.
“I wonder who took the photo.”
“I have no idea,” Amelia admitted. “I feel like this box of photos raises more questions than it answers.”
Lena nodded, her expression thoughtful. “Is this the only box?”
“No, there’s another. Actually, if I remember right, there are letters in the other box. I inherited them both after grandma’s death and haven’t had time to sort through them until now. Amelia had stumbled across them in the guest room closet a few days ago. Looking at the photos had derailed her spring cleaning plans, but she and Lena were having too much fun to care.
Lean’s eyes lit up. “Letters? I wonder if there’s anything juicy in them.”
“I doubt it. Probably lots of talk about church festivals and such.”
“Your grandmother was a pin-up girl, Amelia. She may have attended church festivals, but the woman clearly had a rebellious streak.”
“You have a good point. Still, I highly doubt they’re that juicy. If they were romantically involved, they would have been breaking the law to do it.”
“Well, let’s stop talking about what might be in the letters and read what is in them. I’m dying of curiosity.” Always decisive, Lena stood and strode from the room. Her skin gleamed in the late afternoon sunlight, on display in the denim shorts and white tank she wore. God she was beautiful. Running had honed her muscles to a sleek definition. They’d gone to the lake recently and she was lightly tanned. Sometimes just looking at Lena made Amelia’s heart stop.
“What’s that look for?” Lena gently sat the box on the floor beside the couch.
Amelia shook her head to clear it. She’d been so lost in thought she hadn’t noticed Lena’s return.
“Thinking about you.” Amelia lay back on the couch and held out a hand to Lena. “As curious as I am about the letters, I think they can wait a bit.”
Lena smirked as she closed the distance between them, settling over top of Amelia. “What did you have in mind?”
“I don’t know. But hopefully something juicy enough to include in a letter.”
Lena laughed softly as Amelia drew her in for a kiss, the boxes of photos and letters temporarily forgotten.
Technically, the timeline doesn’t really work for these photos. Today’s photo is clearly of a later time period than 1934, but it worked so well with the previous flash fic I’d written that I couldn’t resist!
A novel telling Lena and Amelia’s story and their hunt for clues about Jeanette and Ada’s relationship is starting to come together and I’m really looking forward to writing it.
Please visit the flash fic group on Facebook and check out the links to the other authors’ flash fics.
I look forward to seeing you next Monday!