RE: Trailer Trash 66, Young Kentucky Girl in a Push Up Bra. (Patreon)

/// The full chapter 66. Minor edits and tweaks only, so if you've read through 66 pt 1 - 8, you're already caught up! For my readers not in the US, the title is drawn from a Red Hot Chili Peppers song that releases just a few months away from where events are taking place in-story right now.

    “Roger,” Mr. Moore asked into the phone. “Are we still on for today?”

    “Whoos’dis?” Roger slurred. “Gawdamn, y’know what time it is?”

    “Alan Moore,” Mr. Moore reminded him. “Wasn’t sure I’d catch you if I called to the school later, so—”

    “Ah, fuck,” Roger swore. “Yeah. Yeah, okay I remember. I’ll uh. I’ll get that old shitter hauled out and up into my truck. Damn, good thing you caught me ‘fore I headed out. Hah! Alright, hell yeah brother. I’ll meet you at uhhh. Shit. Seven good?”

    “Seven works,” Mr. Moore said. “There aren’t gonna be any problems with the school?”

    “Oh? Nah,” Roger assured him. “We’ll be all good. Anywhere else I’da had to think up some bullshit excuse maybe, but out there in athletics? Won’t be no one around to give a fuck. Separate water shutoff there, I’ll get it. Well hey man I’m norm’lly still asleep right now, so uh, so I’ll catch you when I see you in there at seven, awright?”

    “Yeah, thanks a bunch,” Mr. Moore said. “See you there.”

* * *

    “Whelp,” Roger made a show of dusting off his hands beside the bed of his truck. “This ‘un was the best of a lot. Should work. Have eight or nine of the sumbitches still in there, but looks like couple of ‘em split or cracked at some point over the winter. Fuckin’ thermal shock or all that, not meant to all be sittin’ out there in my fuckin’ shed, I guess. Fuck. We’ll uh, we’ll give this’un a good test run or two once we get the water switched back on, make sure there aren’t no uhh, hiccups or nothin’. Sound good?”

    “Well, it sure is pink,” Mr. Moore chuckled. “Damn, you weren’t kiddin’.”

    He slid the movers cloth and the porcelain throne the whole way out onto the open tailgate of Roger’s truck, and then carefully turned it around so that he could examine the bowl for any hairline cracks or fractures.

    “Hey now, she’s ‘salmon,’ not pink,” Roger laughed. “She was pink, I coulda sold her off last year easy, heh heh.”

    “Looks pretty pink to me,” Mr. Moore looked from the toilet to Roger and back again. “Isn’t this pink?”

    “Nah, ‘salmon’s’ like an orange pink, see?” Roger slid the tank and its lid out next to the bowl and gave them a slap. “Shit, ain’t you married? You should know salmon ain’t fuckin’ pink pink. They’ll lose their fuckin’ marbles at you over the different shades of everything, my friend, and that there’s a losin’ argument no matter which way you sit and spin it. Girls got this whole separate color wheel from the normal stuff—s’like they see in a different fuckin’ spectrum. But, see this? You can tell the difference a bit. See how it’s kinda more… hell I dunno, orangey?”

    “...No?” Mr. Moore couldn’t tell if the man was messing with him or not. “Just looks pink to me?”

    “Well sir, I envy you that,” Roger chuckled with a leer. “Haw, goddamn. Ignorance is bliss, s’all I’ll say. Alright, you give her a look over, I gotta cart I can swing on out here so we don’t gotta lug ‘em the whole way over. Almost dropped the fucker tryin’ ta wiggle an’ finagle it out past them busted ones in my back shed this mornin,’ so watch it. These’re slippery sumbitches, an’ if it breaks? Hell, I don’t got that thirty bucks to give you back no refund or nothin’. Turned into beer money and long gone already, heh heh.”

    After going over the bowl and tank and checking the haphazard grocery bag of parts Roger had thrown in, Mr. Moore returned to his truck and pulled out his own plastic grocery bag. A mostly new toilet tank kit, some spare lengths of PEX he’d kept handy—flexible cross-linked polyethylene plastic pipe that was just getting popular in Kentucky this past year, as well as a handful of loose copper and PVC fittings, since he wasn’t sure what kind of mess he’d be walking into back there under the stadium seating.

    Commercial restroom plumbing used one inch lines to deliver high pressure to a flush valve, because the school toilets in there would originally be tankless. This salmon-colored commode here a normal gravity-fed tank you’d find in any house, so he was going to be converting that one inch pipe to either a three-eighths or half inch residential one. Alan took a moment searching through the jumbled bits and bobs he’d gathered up into the bag at the end of the week to determine which. What he found looked to be a copper three-eighths inch reducer bushing, and he turned it over in his fingers and then checked it against the other parts he had on hand.

    So, gonna have to pull out their flush valve, since we’re goin’ over to a fill valve, Mr. Moore considered the project. Roger said these were old as hell floor-mounted flushometers, so less worries there with gettin’ the wax seal right. No, shouldn’t think that—probably where things’re gonna go wrong, with my luck.

    He was going to be committing a clear code violation, but hopefully a pretty pardonable one—after all, wasn’t it better to have two working toilets rather than just one in a girl’s locker room? He knew how catty high school girls could get with each other. It was all too easy to imagine them feuding or holding petty grudges over something as inconsequential as convenient access to the one lone commode available in there. Plumbing was often thankless work to begin with, but the thought that if he could somehow prevent—or at least alleviate—some problem like this that might turn friendly girls into enemies, it made the extra time out of his weekend worth it.

    Less for them all to squabble over, Mr. Moore told himself. Hell, between what I’ve got here and that bag Roger threw in, we MIGHT just have enough parts to get all three of the commodes in there working again. Girls are social creatures, we’ve got to do our part to reduce the pressure there with them anyhow we can. Not havin’ any of them waiting in line or hassling each other to hurry up when they go about their business? Will hopefully go a long way.

    When it came to the toilets over on the boys’ side in their locker room… Mr. Moore didn’t have any sympathy. If they’d broken all their toilets over there, they just plain weren’t responsible enough to have any, and they could hold it all in until they got back to the school building. He wanted to be as generous as he could and chalk up the issues on the girls’ side to neglect, whereas at least from what he’d heard with the floor drains, the boys had obviously been out to intentionally vandalize their fixtures over there.

    “Alright man yeah, I’ll lead ya on over,” Roger called as he wheeled out a cart. “Ain’t no one around, no worries.”

    “Yeah,” Mr. Moore said.

    Together they moved the tank and its lid off of the mover’s blanket and then used the padded cloth to wrap up and protect the bowl as best they could. The heavy porcelain was gently moved over onto the cart, and the tank lid was flat enough to place next to it without worrying about it falling off. The tank itself Mr. Moore carried, hugging it against his chest, with the shopping bag of tools and parts tucked inside. Like that he followed Roger out of the parking lot, and then down a paved side path towards the athletics field.

    The last few times he was here, he had only stopped by the parking loop and the administrative offices, and now that he was able to see the sheer scope of how much had changed here, it shocked him. It was hard not to look around everywhere across the emptiness of the paved track lanes and the broad football field without gawking a little—Springton High had changed a whole damn lot since he and Shannon attended in the seventies.

    What he remembered as their uneven ‘sporting field’ full of ruts and furrows was now the large expanse of proper graded and completely flat athletics field. In just a decade or two, the rickety two-tier wooden bench seating from his memories had become multiple four-tier aluminum bleachers on the far side of the field. On the home side, gargantuan grandstands of concrete had been erected with actual restrooms and locker rooms beneath, and even what looked like a miniature enclosed pressbox perched up there in the top corner.

    The gradual slope of forest he remembered leading on up behind the school there in the distance had been bulldozed away over the years, and now he saw only the barren stretch of a student parking lot one one side and then rows of those portable classrooms set up along paved paths. It used to be that hoodlum kids would hop a little fence during lunch and sneak off through the woods to access the street over on the other side where there were some restaurants—now, all the trees were completely gone. The high school campus grounds extended uninterrupted the whole way on over to meet the next city block there.

    Time just keeps marchin’ on and on, huh? Mr. Moore grimaced. Used to be the school felt like it was right NEXT to downtown—now it’s all part of the same sort of city center area. Springton ain’t even BIG, really. Just, it’s got to be three or four times the size it was back then.

     The chainlink fence around the track there was latched but not locked, and Roger didn’t have to produce his janitor’s keyring until all the way down when they reached the double-doors beneath the concrete stadium seating. He flicked on a bank of lights, and the sour smell of old sweat greeted them as they pushed the cart deeper inside. A quick stop to a maintenance closet and the water was shut off at the valve, and then the sweat smell was partially masked by hair spray and perfume when they entered into the girls’ locker room.

    There wasn’t much to see—banks of lockers, and past them a shower area and three stalls for toilets, with a bunch of different beach towels hanging up in between.

    “Hm,” Mr. Moore frowned at seeing several capped off and disconnected shower heads—a full third of the showers here were no longer in operation. “You have something for those? I didn’t—”

    “Ahhh, don’t even get me started,” Roger groaned, waving him off. “We gotta bust the whole way into the cinderblock to pull those out and get new ones in, s’gonna be a while.”

    “Not today, then,” Mr. Moore chuckled.

    “Not today, he says,” Roger groaned. “Not this month, not next month neither, if I can help it. Your baby girl’s goin’ here, yeah?”

    “Yeah,” Mr. Moore carefully set down the tank so that he could take a look inside the stalls. “Her first year, she’s a freshman.”

    “Well, to be completely honest—most of them girls don’t even use the showers,” Roger confided. “S’not like the old days, where the coaches’d make ‘em all shower in together. And, when it’s optional, and girls are fussy, and Betty Lou Who doesn’t want Stacy Stackhouse and her friends making fun of her for not bein’ all grown up yet—yeah. I’m not gonna say nothin’ inappropriate ‘bout underage girls, but damn, bullying don’t even describe it. You seen that movie, uhhh, Carrie?”

    “Carrie?” Mr. Moore shook his head. “Maybe?”

    “S’a horror flick, high school horror,” Roger laughed. “Like, they made all the girls shower together back then, this one gets her first period right then and there, freaks out—they all rag on her for it, throwin’ tampons and shit, pointin’ fingers, laughin’ at her.”

    “Girls are cruel,” Mr. Moore sighed. “Teenage ones especially. Seen a lot of that, recently.”

    “Well, if less of the little twats are usin’ them, less reason to fix everything,” Roger shrugged. “Uh, no offense to yer little girl, of course, I’m sure she’s an angel. The boys’ side is ten times worse, those guys’re fuckin’ animals. Ricky tell you ‘bout what they did? Old shirts and shit stuffed down the drains, water backed up so the whole fuckin’ place was flooding with gross shit?”

    “Yeah,” Mr. Moore nodded. “Sounds like a mess.”

    “Mess don’t even start to cover it,” Roger groaned. “We ever find that little shits that did it, we’re beating his ass. Don’t care if he’s just a kid or not. Ricky an’ me hadta be down on our hands and knees in that getting all the fuckin’ muck outta everything. Good God, the smell... well, you get the idea. When they say up shit creek and without a paddle, they’re talking ‘bout how that boys’ side was over there. Anyways hey—you got everything you need to get started?”

    “I should be good, yeah,” Mr. Moore said. “You stickin’ around, if I need to holler for you?”

    “I’ll be back out this way by athletics  ‘round… I don’t know, ten, eleven or so?” Roger said after a moment of consideration. “We gotta district guy comes out for mowing most of the big areas, then I gotta come back through myself with a weed-whacker, finish up some of the in-betweens and close up to the buildings he ain’t gonna cover with his zero-turn. ‘Cause, if I don’t—they’ll bitch. And oh, they’re always bitchin.’”

    “Hopin’ it won’t take that long, but I guess we’ll see,” Mr. Moore sighed. “Might be able to get all three of these commodes up and running.”

    “Ricky says you’re a real-life Hank Hill kinda guy, so I ain’t gonna look over your shoulder, or nothin’,” Roger warned. “Ain’t nothin’ round here to steal, and don’t go pokin’ around, neither. It’s the ladies locker room. No funny business, or Ricky and I’ll both beat your ass and then we’ll call the cops and have them beat your ass. Some of them other guys around town joke around ‘bout all the jailbait we must see everyday, or ‘bout peepin’ on girls changing and all that like you see in movies—yeah we don’t want nothing like that here, ‘less you’re fixin’ to try and eat corn on the cob with no fuckin’ teeth the rest of your life. Capiche?”

    “I’m married,” Mr. Moore shook his head. For a brief moment he was tempted to say he was married to THE Shannon Delaine, but those boasting years were behind him, and Roger probably wouldn’t have a clue who she had been. “I have a daughter goin’ here to Springton High, for Christ’s sake. Anyone joking around about peeking at high school girls, here? You just let me know—I got tools in my truck for that kinda problem.”

    “Hey, you’re alright, man,” Roger chuckled. “Good luck with that fuckin’ flush valve, heh heh. You just call me up anytime you want to work on somethin’ here and help get some bullshit off my list. Ricky say anything to you ‘bout getting you onboard official with the school district, here?”

    “Couple years back, yeah,” Mr. Moore nodded. “I’m doin’ okay independent, still. More hands-on stuff, less dragging a mop down the same damn hall, scrubbing down the same damn sinks and toilets every day.”

    “Hey, it’s a livin’,” Roger barked out another laugh. “Get all that usual stuff down to your routine, you don’t even pay no attention to it, after a while. Like my hands’re still workin,’ but my brain clocked out hours and hours ago, and all that. Heh heh, and Saturdays, Sundays? So long as I don’t smoke inside or have the whole place smellin’ like weed, they don’t give a fuck ‘bout what I do—just that I go on down the list and get it all done.”

* * *

    “H-hold on,” Elena begged. “I need to—I need to stop. Side stitch. Side stitch.”

    “Don’t completely stop, let’s slow to a walk,” Tabitha advised. “Change your breathing—deep, deep breaths. Breathe in, push out, breathe in, push out. Try raising both hands up above your head. Like this.”

    “I—” Elena gasped. “That—does that… help?”

    The raven-haired teen looked absolutely mortified to be striding next to her redhead friend while said friend was demonstrating a jogging posture with both arms straight up in the air. Elena started to mimic her friend and put her arms up, but after a moment she simply wasn’t able to do it. The stretch of suburban sidewalk they chose for their run was mostly empty this early in the morning but there were still occasional cars passing by. If she was forced to choose between dignity and personal comfort, she would choose to continue nursing this wretched pain folding into her side forever and ever.

    “Maybe?” Tabitha grinned. “Even in the future, there was a lot of mystery and superstition around side stitches. What they are exactly, what causes them, why some people are more susceptible than others. The theory I liked was—”

    “H-how,” Elena struggled to breathe. “How are you even talking? You’re, you’re not even like winded at all—I—I can’t—”

    “Breathe, breathe,” Tabitha took Elena by the arm and slowed their pace another notch. “The theory is, that a side stitch is just upper abdominal cramping. Your diaphragm is getting slightly pinched on one side by all the sudden impacts of your footfalls as you’re running. Stitch on your right side, or left side?”

    “Right,” Elena reported with a frown.

    “Okay,” Tabitha said. “Your body isn’t used to running, just yet. It’s feeling the pinch in weird places, I think a bit of stretching—arms up—or, changing your breathing pattern might help. There are a number of factors that all play into this, of course. Your shoes, your body posture as you run, how much you had for breakfast.”

    As their running shoes ate up pavement Elena couldn’t help but reflect on how different they each were. Elena wore brand new athletic wear—black track pants with a white racing stripe up the sides, a rather chic black top, she’d put on a bit of makeup and even tied her black hair into a ponytail with a skulls bandana in a way that looked especially stylish. Tabitha by comparison looked unkempt—she’d thrown on plain old sweatpants and was wearing a boring sweatshirt.

    Yet, one of them made this early morning run look easy and effortless, and one of them was struggling along in a total mess.

    It made Elena feel absolutely pretentious, like she was a total pretender, some wannabe superstar learning the ins and outs of exercise as her much more down to earth personal trainer ran along from the side. It was humbling and deeply instructional—Elena already wanted to reassess her outfit for next time. Comfort was going to trump fashion here, and there was nobody out here she needed to peacock for. The branded athletic wear she’d agonized over for so long while shopping already felt fake compared to the sweats Tabitha was wearing, and Elena imagined that it chafed more, slowed her down somehow, was holding her back from some deeper level of authenticity she needed to achieve here.

    “They say,” Elena panted. “They say don’t eat. Before you get into a pool. That’s the uh. The fifteen minute rule? Don’t swim. Or, you’ll cramp.”

    “I think it’s similar, yeah,” Tabitha agreed. “Unusual activity your body’s not used to, and how that affects your breathing. Guess it’d be weird if your body didn’t protest some strange new abuse, right? Is it getting any better?”

    “A, a little,” Elena said. “It just. It hurts.”

    “I’m struggling, too,” Tabitha admitted. “A lot more than I thought.”

    “Bullshit,” Elena managed to huff. “Just—bullshit. Fuck off. Don’t bullshit me.”

    “No, for real,” Tabitha said. “You’re taller than me, and you’ve got stupidly long legs. I had to run my little ass off just to try to keep pace with you right there when we started off, hah! I was like, damn, look at her go. I was like, no way am I gonna be keeping this up. I was afraid it was gonna be like, two minutes, tops, ‘til you were just leaving me in the dust. It seems shitty of me, but I was actually super relieved when you uh, when you ran out of steam.”

    “Hah,” Elena laughed.

    “Honestly, once you do build up your stamina some more?” Tabitha sighed. “You are just going to be leaving me behind. The length of our stride is too different. I already know from the future that I’m not going to get much taller than this.”

    “The future,” Elena scoffed. “That’s where you’re, you’re going to say you learned all your running stuff? The future?”

    “Some,” Tabitha nodded. “Most. I was never like an expert, or anything. And—whew man, it is so much fucking better running here when you’re young. Like, young and pliant. I can push myself to my limits just about every day and just—bounce back. Lemme tell ya, that does not happen when you’re older. Nothing but aches and pains. Could give myself a semi-serious injury just sleeping on my pillow wrong, mess up my neck somehow. I’d get a good run in, and be feeling it the whole next week. Bones all rattling around, joints all swollen. Feeling beaten and bruised inside and out. Not like here. Nothing like this. I love it.”

    “Uh-huh,” Elena said. “I think the side stitch is, uh. Mostly gone. I still feel it a little bit, and. I don’t know. Maybe I’m all jogged out for today, already? I can maybe like, power walk a bit.”

    “Sure,” Tabitha agreed. “Mind your breathing, yeah, see if that helps some.”

    They marched onward together with a purpose, crossing another street and passing by house after house in companionable silence. Running… sort of sucked, in Elena’s opinion. The actual process of it was a lot less pleasant than she had been imagining in her head. It was all just so damn strenuous, and to her dismay her mind was already immediately trying to find excuses to give up and never put herself through this again. She was going to keep trying anyways, however.

    Because I’m stubborn, Elena decided. Because Tabitha can do it, so I should be able to, too. I always wanted to be the athletic sort of SPORTY girl who can do things like this. I guess in the back of my mind I always COULD. Like, some part of me just assumed I would be able to, easily, even when other girls can’t.

    Then, she actually tried out running again and remembered why she never did this.

    Her mother used to run, occasionally, and Elena had joined her for a 5K event, once. She remembered boasting about it afterwards whenever the subject of running came up—somehow neglecting to ever mention to anyone that the 5K had been back when she was eleven, and that she hadn’t actually ran the full five kilometer distance. Just a part of it. Actually, looking back on it—Elena had maybe only ever completed a small fraction of it.

    Nothing seemed to bruise quite so easily as her pride, however. Realizing the actual difficulty of this commitment she’d made for herself simply became a sobering experience. Her stubborn nature would get her out here every morning that Tabitha did, and things would get easier once she’d trained a bit more in this.

    Those cheerleader twats can all do this, Elena motivated herself. Imagine them running on ahead of me, not even out of breath. Leaving me behind. Hustling on past me, still with enough breath to spare to make snide comments as they go on by.

    She suddenly felt like breaking into a full run again.

    In all honesty, it was difficult to picture the pretty and popular crowd there actually exercising or putting in work towards something. Perhaps that was just part of the image—a game of putting on the appearance that everything they did was perfect and easy and effortless. It made sense that a cheer team would actually have to have stamina to perform. The testing requirements for cheer were printed in black and white on a sheet Coach Baylor had given her, and Elena had read and reread the thing until she could recite it all from memory.

    The physical aspect of all of this was supposed to be the easy part!

    It didn’t seem fair that after a brief glowing first few honeymoon minutes of running, her body seemed to reject exercise and try to cave in on itself. Those first couple minutes had been beautiful, amazing—why couldn’t all of running be just like that? Why did it quickly devolve into hideous sweaty torture where it felt like she was gasping and gulping to even get any air in her chest at all? Her legs felt leaden, awkward, and clunky now, and Tabitha’s word about footfall impacts seemed to reverberate the whole way up her body now with each jolting step until it felt like she was trying to wince away from the very ground she strode upon.

    She was dying. The vibrance and vitality from those first few minutes of bounding forward had all bled out of her body and now she was shambling forward, a corpse, an absolute wreck of—

    “Hey—we’re done,” Tabitha announced, taking Elena by the arm and pulling her to a slow walk. “We’re done.”

    “We—” Elena croaked, looking around in confusion. “We’re not done.”

    They had already planned out the route they were going to take around the neighborhood. Elena had been tracking their progress in her mind, and the tedious progress had begun driving her into despair, because they were nowhere near done. The girls were barely halfway through the circuit around these streets they intended to make.

    “Okay, but we’re done,” Tabitha said with a firm voice. “A big big part of getting into this, is knowing when and where to stop. Not pushing yourself too far. Okay? Elena, you are out of steam. If we try to do the whole way around the neighborhood, you are going to hurt yourself, and need actual days of recovery. And then never want to do this again! So, no. We’re done.”

    “I—” Elena choked on her own obstinate refusal to accept this—because stubborn pride or not, her body really was done. “I’m sorry…”

    “Don’t be!” Tabitha insisted with good cheer. “We did great. You did great, especially. First day is always hardest. Okay? S’all easier from here. I promise. It gets easier! Like, think back on those first few blocks we ran, and how great that was? Pretty soon, it’ll be like that all the time. The whole way through. We just have to get you there slow and steady and not try to bite off more than we can chew. Okay?”

    “I’m not a child,” Elena grunted. “You don’t have to coddle me.”

    “You are a child,” Tabitha refuted. “I am a child. We are children. Very young teenagers. Practically babies. This is not me looking down on you, either—my mental situation is in a weird place because of my circumstances, but I will already freely admit that you are in many many ways much more mature than I ever was, even in my past life. Big parts of me just never grew up.”

    Elena didn’t know what to say to that, and she was discovering she was already out of energy to formulate a response. She was struggling to keep bearing forward and even continue walking, actually, and so right now she just wanted to quietly accept Tabitha’s superior wisdom, because Tabitha at least knew when it was time for them to fucking stop.

    “But, I’m really trying! To grow up,” Tabitha continued. “I guess I’m finally learning to exercise uh, social muscles, for the first time, and figure all of that out. Finally. And, just like with this—it sucks at first. But, it gets easier after that, better and better each time you keep at it. So, I also want to say, thank you. For uh, for sticking with me. I don’t think I could have ever even gotten anywhere, if not for you and Alicia. So. It just means a lot to me. Fuck, I’m like, babbling, aren’t I? Sorry, I’m all lightheaded. Been way too long since I ran like this in the morning. S’not just me saying you’re done, I’m done too. Phew.”

    “Yeah,” Elena said. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be like. Weird and quiet. When you say all that. But, you’re right, I really am done. I uh. I want to just flop down and never get up. I’m dead. Let’s never do this ever again.”

    “Tomorrow off, then we run next Monday morning before school,” Tabitha said. “Same exact distance we did today. We can do this.”

    “Fuck,” Elena swore. “Fuuuuck.”

* * *

    After their run, Tabitha sat with Elena on the front stoop of the Macintire household for twenty minutes while they waited for Mrs. Seelbaugh to return to pick the girl up. The acute ache from their exercise dulled as it spread out into a murky cloud of exhaustion but never completely dispersed, and the sweat they’d accumulated turned cold in a hurry after they’d stopped moving. The girls were too tired to talk much, so after a few more token attempts to lighten Elena’s mood and assure her that they’d done great and that this was a good start, Tabitha instead sat back and rested on her hands and tried to simply appreciate feeling this good kind of tired again.

    Mrs. Seelbaugh arrived, Tabitha helped pull Elena up, and they shared a quick awkward hug that was gross and clammy enough for them both to laugh about. Then, Elena was off—their shared early morning endeavor was over with, and now it was time for everyone to shower and prepare their outfits for the get-together this afternoon. Clambering inside the house with her nice new running shoes in hand, hobbling over down the hall and into the bathroom on deadened legs. Pulling off the damp sweatshirt and fighting her way out of the sports bra. The legs of her sweatpants clung to her skin and turned themselves inside-out as she tried to peel them off and she nearly lost her balance trying to step the whole way out of them.

    She felt… wretched and horrible, like an absolute zombie after returning to morning exercise after so long—but stepping into the shower made it all worth it. It had been three whole months in a cast, and she could finally immerse herself completely in the water without holding one awkward, clunky, mummified-feeling husk of an arm off to the side to keep it out of the spray. There was no need to use the plastic sleeve from a newspaper delivery or a bread bag anymore, and Tabitha turned a triumphant sneer at the remaining one hanging there from the days before, beads of water still clinging to its obnoxious plastic film.

    Because, now Tabitha could fully immerse herself within the searing heat of a shower again. Fully immerse herself—the sheer brilliant joy of having this simple pleasure return to her made her giggle and laugh to herself like a crazy person until she was also snorting and sobbing actual tears. Tabitha scraped her opposite fingernails along the inside of her forearm, she stretched out the hand that had been constrained in the cast to splay her fingers wide, she used it to catch the falling water, she reveled in feeling complete once again.

    Trying to shower while having one hand upraised to keep it out of the water made showering a total chore, and not having to do that anymore felt like it relaxed weeks upon weeks of tension out of Tabitha. She spent far longer than necessary in there indulging herself until parts of her began to prune, and when she did finally turn off the water and step out, the entire bathroom was clouded with steam. Drying herself off was once again a simple pleasure after having tried to do so without one hand for so long, and even wrapping her hair in a towel was once again just easy, straightforward.

    It feels insane how much you take for granted just living a normal life, Tabitha thought. DEFINITELY cause for celebration.

    To her surprise, she’d even considered masturbating.

    The correct mood wasn’t quite there, but feeling hale and whole once again almost brought her around. It was something she could allow herself to think about again, or maybe something she would have to rediscover—Tabitha felt sure her sexual psychology had changed quite a bit. In her past life she’d taught herself to achieve orgasm by disassociating. Because of her strong body image issues, and all of the personal self-loathing built up over the long years.

    For the first time in—ever? She felt beautiful, attractive, sexy maybe, but her mind didn’t quite know what to do with that just yet. What she wanted to do was retreat to the comfort of the familiar, pull up bookmarked erotica on her bracelet, and see if any of her old favorites did anything for her. The problem being, she did not have her bookmarks, or her bracelet PC, the saved smut of her future yesteryear had not been written or posted up yet, and indeed finding the simple privacy of even finding things like that again without having her own smartphone or personal computer became a daunting obstacle.

    Quite troublesome, Tabitha sighed to herself. I’m maybe getting the itch again—finally—but I don’t know if I can make the cookies. Or even find all the ingredients, back in this time period.

    She’d had more than half a year to determine that discovering or rediscovering her sexuality was going to have to be a solo endeavor. Tabitha was not comfortable fantasizing about her peers with the entire weird age issue going on no matter how she tried to justify anything, because that was a mental ick there was no way to scrub free from. Reading erotica instead seemed the safe and smart choice—but, the question was, would Tabitha still even be able to disassociate the same way she did before?

    SHOULD I, even? Tabitha wondered. Psychologically, is going down that path again what I should do? Is that the healthy route? Is there even anything else I can do, with my bizarre situation being what it is?

    Worries like that made even sexy thoughts lose their luster, until once again it felt like Tabitha was left with just the mild, annoying urge and nothing particularly actionable she could figure out to do with it. Getting herself off in the past had been done by removing the idea of herself from that fantasy, because nothing killed arousal for her like the visceral disgust and self-loathing of self image. Would that change, now? She’d made major strides in mentally allowing herself to be the charming young waif she could almost see before her in the fogged-up mirror, but applying that current identity towards lurid fantasies still seemed like a rather high hurdle for her to attempt.

    “Whatever, get over yourself,” Tabitha laughed at her hazy reflection. Maybe Casey will come over today? Hope she can make it. I should probably talk with her about some way of finding some uh. DISCREET web access. For self-discovery, of some kind. I don’t know that I want to completely just fall into my old habits there, but also—I dunno. I am STARTING to feel a little urge, there. Want to have something to do about it figured out, long before it starts actually bothering me.

    She hadn’t thought this would be so much of a problem.

    As a grown adult for so long in her previous life, she’d let herself begin to think of everyone underaged as innocent, chaste, and sexless. As if high school wasn’t hormones hell, as if sudden intense uncontrollable attraction, desire, naked lust couldn’t blindside teenagers like a puberty sucker-punch. It all made her very uncomfortable to think about, and that discomfort and avoidance made it easy for her to pretend it just wasn’t a thing, and that anything sexual was a total non-consideration for young people until they hit… twenty, twenty-two or so.

    Okay, so maybe some of that was also just my late bloomer mentality?

    Tabitha fixed a towel around her body, gathered up the crumpled running clothes from before, and opened the bathroom door so that the cooler hallway air hit her like a sobering slap to the face.

    She did kind of want to masturbate, but it also felt like one of those nasty areas where she might accidentally find a sudden mental landmine of absolute revulsion for herself, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to deal with that right now. Or, ever. It wasn’t fair that the cute boy she was crushing on made her feel like a creepy pedo auntie whenever errant thoughts began to inevitably color outside the lines she’d drawn up for herself. Even moreso, it really wasn’t fair knowing that all of the carefully curated private bookmarks in her browser were just deleted from existence! More collateral damage from the happenstance of time rolling back some forty-odd years.

    “Alright. Alright,” Tabitha dropped her towel and slapped her cheeks with both hands upon returning to her bedroom. “Wake the fuck up, samurai. We’ve got a city to burn.”

    Today was the day she was going to finally don her Avril Lavigne-inspired ensemble, because industry plant or not, skater-girl pop punk chic was absolute fire, and putting it all on would hopefully make Tabitha feel like a protagonist again. During the mortifying shopping spree with Mrs. Macintire she’d stood adamant against any underwear that seemed too much like lingerie, but Sandra had insisted Tabitha have at least one push-up bra to put into her dresser, and she pulled that rare garment out again for the first time now.

    Putting it on felt as weird as it had back there in the dressing room at Target—Tabitha was not used to this kind of bra. It felt wrong, even though it was supposedly doing what it was supposed to be doing. Seeing it paired with the beige-green cargo pants made things even more dissonant and wrong in the dresser’s mirror, as if she had someone else’s boobs strapped onto her own chest. When she pulled on the snug black tee that was intended to go with her skater girl look, she turned to see herself in the mirror… and then immediately grimaced and began fighting her way back out of the shirt.

    Something had gone wrong here—both items were bought back during Black Friday, the tee at the mall and the bra later at Target. But, she’d never tried them on together, and what she remembered as a tiny sliver of acceptable exposed midriff beneath this shirt hem before had somehow grown into more than a handspan of ghastly hideous white tummy visible when worn over the push-up bra. Either lifting the girls up and out with those padded cups just made that much of a difference, or she’d had a slight growth spurt—either way, Tabitha flung the tee away from her as if it had bitten her, and then stared at it with wary eyes from across the room.

    Bro, what the fuck? Tabitha wanted to laugh. Are you kidding me? There goes my whole KIM POSSIBLE look!

    She hadn’t been sensible enough to test all of the outfit combinations with the push-up bra, because her natural inclination each morning had been to instead opt for the comfortable familiar bras, and now it felt like she had to rush through her wardrobe to find the right match for today. Dragging everything out of her dresser, and then even going through the already-worn laundry from the past week, Tabitha quickly ran through every possible permutation of outfit just to see how things looked.

    The Art Club small tee was her tiniest shirt, and it somehow almost became an actual crop-top when worn over the dread push-up bra of breastly deceit. Which was no bueno, because bare midriff that blatant—as well as anything showing cleavage—were completely not in Tabitha’s comfort zone, at all. Whatsoever. The off-shoulder bridal top wasn’t even up for consideration, because that would make her bra straps even more glaringly obvious. The long-sleeved pink top that went well with her hair was one of her comfy favorites, but its thinner fabric meant the cup lines of the new bra beneath became visible in a distracting way, which she did not like at all. On the other hand her burgundy long-sleeve shirt she normally avoided… actually looked really good here. No visible bra lines, had her looking a bit busty without being too ridiculous, it made her twist this way and that inspecting her body in the mirror and being pleasantly surprised with the effect. However… Tabitha had always hated how that particular shade of burgundy seemed to bring out the orange-ness of her red hair.

    Shit, Tabitha pursed her lips at her reflection. I am in actual crisis. This would look SO FREAKING GOOD, if I just had darker hair! I would ROCK this. It actually doesn’t really go with the skater pants, either… why does only this top go great with the stupid sexy OVER THE SHOULDER BOULDER HOLDER?! When this shirt pairs well with literally nothing else I have!

    “Uggggghhh!” Tabitha groaned. Do I just say fuck it, and learn to live with my hair looking SUPER fucking orange in some unfortunate color combinations? This pushup bra in this top really is working wonders, here, I mean damn. Miracles. Like, where did THOSE things come from?! The boys at least, they won’t even SEE my hair when I’m wearing this. That is, if any of them even show up today…

* * *

    “Roger?” Coach Baylor called. “Are you in there? The double doors weren’t locked.”

    She could have sworn she’d heard the droning whine of Roger’s weed trimmer going in the distance when she was hobbling out here to the athletics building—so who the hell was rummaging around in the girl’s locker room, of all places? If this was a pervert or hooligan of some sort, or if she caught any of the girls in here somehow attempting to vandalize Tabitha’s locker—Coach Baylor was fully prepared to tear someone a new asshole today.

    “Hello?” An older male voice called out—it was not Roger. It didn’t sound like anyone she was familiar with, and that wasn’t acceptable.

    Pushing herself to limp her way a bit faster around the banks of lockers and into the shower area at the back, her bad knee protested with each step. There, Coach Baylor discovered—she actually had to pause and blink for a few moments to process what she was seeing. The third restroom stall which was typically closed and taped shut with her hand-written warning, because she did not want the girls in there, was now open. Instead of the familiar toilet with its broken bowl from that Saunders girl trying to stand on it a year or two back, a whole new commode was installed; a residential style one with a tank, the porcelain a jarring salmon color which was a stark contrast against the cinderblock behind.

    In the open middle stall just beside it, an unfamiliar man was on one knee wedged way back in between the stall divider and the toilet itself, with the toilet’s pipe assembly partially disassembled.

    “Um,” Coach Baylor felt her brain stall out. “Hello?”

    “Howdy,” the man grunted. 

    “We’re finally going to have these all working again?” Coach Baylor asked, taking a step closer to the far stall to inspect the man’s handiwork. “This one over here doesn’t look like one of the normal ones?”

    “It’s uh,” the man chuckled. “Well, it’s an old one, so. Not exactly up to code anymore, but it flushes. So, better than nothing. Alan Moore, I’m an old friend of Ricky’s. Roger has me uh, helpin’ out some today.”

    “Moore?” Coach Baylor asked, immediately stepping back around to see the man’s face. “Any relation to—Tabitha Moore?”

    “My daughter,” The man confirmed, the ghost of a smile appearing and then vanishing a moment after. “She said you were havin’ some plumbing problems here, and from the looks of it, whew yeah she wasn’t kidding.”

    “Hah, yeah,” Coach Baylor said, forcing herself to relax a bit. “That middle one there, for a few months it would just run and run, and then it stopped flushing at all entirely.”

    “Well, that’s figured out,” Mr. Moore said. “Roger or Ricky or somebody came in and shut it off here at the valve, so you guys weren’t just running water all the time. The reason it’s running water all the time—well, looks like the little bypass hole here in the rubber diaphragm got blocked up by something coming down through the intake line there. Mineral scale, rust, I dunno. Sediment of some kind. Pipes’re old. Stopped the pressure from equalizing, kept the valve open so it was just always gonna be running.”

    “Oh,” Coach Baylor said. “That’s—good? We can get it unclogged or whatever, and it’ll work?”

    “Hmm,” Mr. Moore frowned. “Well honestly no, think it’s gonna need a whole new rubber piece. But, the kit I brought with me was a residential one, for that other commode there. Roger might have some commercial parts sittin’ around somewhere, but I’m not about to go rooting through all your school district stuff. Not my place. So, just gonna shut this one back off at the valve again, for now.”

    “Okay,” Coach Baylor nodded.

    “Unless you know whereabouts they stored whatever broken toilets they pulled out from the boys side?” Mr. Moore looked up from his work—now that Coach Baylor paid attention he appeared to be in the process of reassembling that fixture. “Might be that one of them had this same exact rubber part we need.”

    “I… do not, no, I’m sorry,” Coach Baylor admitted with a wince. “Roger, Ricky, Coach Cooke, they were all messing around with the stuff on that side. I don’t know anything about what they did with any of it. It was… a mess. Wanted nothing to do with it.”

    “Hah, so I’ve heard,” Mr. Moore nodded. “Well, until then? You’ve got two commodes working, and that’s better than one. Maybe if Roger knows he just needs to swap in this one specific rubber piece, he’ll move it up his to-do list.”

    “Well, thank you,” Coach Baylor said. “Really—thank you. Um, did any of them say anything about…that?”

    She turned and gestured at the far wall where several of the shower heads were capped off with PVC.

    “I asked,” Mr. Moore said with a sigh. “Roger said we’d need to open up the wall, there. No clue what’s going on there, but not anything I’d mess with without explicit permission from the school board or whoever head honcho they’ve got in charge of it. I’m uh, technically not supposed to be in here helpin’ out today. And, if an inspector comes through askin’ which bozo installed a residential toilet in here, you’re all gonna have to shrug say don’t know, no clue, maybe one the kids did it.”

    “Um,” Coach Baylor paused as she took a moment to process all of that. “This is—it’s safe to use, right?”

    “Oh yeah,” Mr. Moore answered with confidence. “Just uses more water than it should. If you guys’d had a spare tankless one to install, I woulda just done that, or if you’d had all the parts from the ones you took out, I maybe coulda rigged one back together. But, have to work with what we have. Roger had that pink one there stored out in a shed somewhere with a buncha other ones from estate sales, they’re not up to EPA code on water efficiency no more, s’one of his.”

    “Pink?” Coach Baylor blinked. “Isn’t it more of a… salmon color?”

    “Oh, don’t even start,” Mr. Moore laughed. “It’s pink. I said so, and that’s final.”

    “Well, I’ve been wanting to get them fixed for forever,” Coach Baylor crossed her arms in front of her. “But, after the mess on the boy’s side, Edwards and them didn’t want to throw good money after bad. He said we could hire contractors to come assess things strictly with our athletics budget, and—well. We just really can’t. I’m hah, well I’m frankly terrified to ask, but how much do we owe you for your work today?”

    “Pro bono, don’t worry about it,” Mr. Moore grunted. “Anything I can do to help out my little girl, I will. I can leave you my number. You talk with your administrators about permission, and then you can give me a ring about openin’ up that wall and messing with the pipes in there for your showers. But, uh. That’s a bit bigger of a job, and if we don’t have time to seal the wall back up proper ‘fore the next weekday, you’d want to either close this area off for a bit, or—well, I dunno. School’s business how they handle things, there.”

    “Of course, of course,” Coach Baylor nodded. “I really appreciate it. You said this new toilet isn’t up to code? Would we be fined for that, if an inspector did come through?”

    “Ahyup, you would,” Mr. Moore admitted. “But, in your case—s’not any kind of big deal. Broken toilets, missing toilets like you’ve got—pretty sure that’s all already a violation of municipal code here in Springton. So, they’d mark you down ‘bout the same for having an old non-compliant toilet, as they would a broken one. You’ll get your citation notice first, with however many weeks or months warning before they’ll actually fine you. Heck, might be you have those piling up already, just sitting in someone’s office around here.”

    “I’ll find out,” Coach Baylor promised. “And. Really, thank you again. If you really can open up the wall and get the showers fixed, I’ll see about getting together some money for your time, at least. Coach Cooke and I sell donuts to the kids in the mornings to help get our department budget up to where it needs to be.”

    “Sheesh,” Mr. Moore chuckled. “I was gonna say—your guys’ whole accounting side seems like a mess. Ricky was saying how your facilities supervisor was basically robbing Peter to pay Paul when it came to financin’ your fancy new aluminum bleachers out there. Hell, I paid Roger thirty bucks for that porcelain I just installed there. Said he’s got a whole shed of them, he couldn’ta just. I dunno, donated some of them into the school, soon as he knew you all were having problems? But, instead he just—ah, I don’t know. Forget it.”

    “I will get you that thirty dollars reimbursed, at the very least,” Coach Baylor promised, feeling her blood chill. “Am I. Am I understanding that you paid our maintenance man for a fixture, so that you could do his job for him?”

    “Well, I mean I also get it,” Mr. Moore sighed. “He probably didn’t want to be liable. Ricky said you’ve got a whole office of pencil pusher types, always second-guessing everything they do ‘round the district. Roger’s probably tired of being the fall guy for that kind of nonsense, don’t want blamed for bringing things in that aren’t up to code, since then that’d be on him. Shouldn’ta said anything, sorry. Not my place!”

    “No, it’s just—well,” Coach Baylor blew out a long, tired sigh. “Frustrations all around, there. The liability and blame-gaming. Trying to keep my girls safe and out of trouble. Fighting for every little scrap of budget. Back when I first started here, the previous dean actually suggested we have Cheer do car washes to fundraise. Said that’s how they’d always done it. Fifteen-year-olds in bikinis. With all sorts of random men leering at them, making rude remarks—or worse. Yeah, I know that’s how they did it, because that’s how we had to do it, back when I was in school. It wasn’t okay then, and it only seems that much worse now that they’re my girls I’m in charge of. It’s just not happening.”

    “Hah, yeah I don’t want my Tabby doing a car wash in a bikini, no thank you,” Mr. Moore said. “Sellin’ donuts like you said is good. Matter of fact—my wife just started up at the Food Lion here, and she just said something the other night ‘bout them stickin’ her over in the bakery.”

    “That’s—that’s literally where we buy our donuts from,” Coach Baylor stared hard. “The Springton Food Lion, right there in town. We pick them up at three dollars a dozen, and then sell them individually at twice that—fifty cents each. I um, I admit it was Coach Cooke who came up with the idea. It was a good idea, though.”

    “Hm,” Mr. Moore grunted. “He might’ve already tried, but I can ask my wife—might be that you can get the store there to just sponsor you the donuts at cost, or even free, if you’re lucky. Looks good on their end, and think they get some kinda tax knockoff for doin’ it. Charitable contributions, or somethin’. I’ll get you our phone number, and you can talk to my wife. She’d be the one to go to about it.”

    “Please,” Coach Baylor said. “That would… help enormously. Thank you. I will make sure we get you reimbursed for the uh, the plumbing help, here.”

    “No, no, don’t worry ‘bout it,” Mr. Moore shook his head. “I gotta do what I can. Haven’t been able to make things right with Tabitha, and… honestly, I’m not good for too much else. This is all I know how to do, so yeah, I’m gonna do whatever I can.”

* * *

    After styling her hair and doing her makeup and then going through the house like a whirlwind tidying things up at what felt like the last minute, Tabitha forced herself to sit on the Macintire’s couch to still her nerves. Since committing to wearing the pushup bra for the first time she had chosen the burgundy top, which was now somewhat hidden as she hugged one of the large throw pillows tight. From here she could see everything—the front windows, where no cars had pulled up to potentially deliver friends. The handset phone resting in its charging dock upon the counter, which had remained silent. And the digital clock built into the VCR, where each mocking moment elapsed to the steady internal metronome blink of the colon separating hours and minutes.

    Tabitha waited.

    And waited.

    Those boys all rode my bus home, and that made me SO SURE that meant they were coming to my get-together today, Tabitha thought as her spirits sank. As if the world revolves around me. They probably don’t even remember. I’m sure they’re having a great time playing basketball over at Gary’s today—why would they even spare a thought towards my random weird non-event thing? It’s not like it’s a birthday or anything. I was celebrating for no real decent reason. Getting a cast off? Of course no one would bother.

    Knowing this sudden and dramatic sense of teenage fatalism for what it was didn’t help her keep it at bay. Being fourteen years old and enjoying the youth and vitality meant she was also just along for the rollercoaster ride that was her sudden and uncontrollable swings in mood. All she could do was hang on as best she could and try not to cry.

    She’d put too much work into her feline flick makeup today to ruin it this early.

    Just need to not think about it. Gotta just not think about the um, the GUT PUNCH I’ll feel, if the only person to show this afternoon will just be Elena coming back by. We’ll sit together in awkward embarrassment and try to watch the Willow movie, I guess. And then I’ll never try to host a get-together ever again.

    Maybe even Elena would call off—it was plausible to imagine the girl would be too tired out after their first try at running.

    No! No, bad brains. Stop doom spiraling! Let’s uh, let’s think about—cookies. We made cookies!

    Last night with Hannah they had baked a single tray of sugar cookies. This was Tabitha’s ‘test batch’ for art show concessions, and so they were large. Typically she used somewhere around two tablespoons of wadded dough to make a three inch cookie—this time she used a slightly heaping ⅓ cup measure to produce five inch cookies. These seemed to be just about the right size and heft as a snack to hand off to theater performance patrons in a napkin or slip of wax paper. Although, Tabitha had no idea how to calculate what should be charged for them or what prices would be sensible here in the nineties, and would leave that to Casey.

    The real beauty of opting for the much larger five inch plain sugar cookies was that they could each be decorated with art, in the form of icing. Which should be a strong selling point when she pitched these to the club next Thursday, as these were ostensibly for the Art Club’s art show. It would make no sense for the sugar cookies to be plain and unadorned. Unfortunately, the Macintire kitchen had a small tub of frosting but no icing, and experience taught her that those were not the same thing when it came to decorating. She would have to ask her mother tomorrow if she knew anyone in the Food Lion bakery who might sell them a set of icing packs in a spread of different colors. Which would also be a point to raise at the next art meeting, because surely someone there would have to do some actual basic  math-on-napkin accounting to ensure that they didn’t spend so much of their budget on materials that they failed to make any profit.

    That is—if they even go with my cookies idea in the first place, Tabitha thought with a glum sigh. There I go again. Getting WAY way ahead of myself. When I can practically guarantee Casey and the others aren’t even thinking about the concessions stuff there at all, yet. They’re probably still focusing on the grecian column or roman pedestals or whatever they were brainstorming to replace the cement buckets, still.

    There was the rustle of footsteps, and then the sound of the master bedroom door opening—Tabitha looked up to see Mrs. Macintire step out in slippers and a blue bathrobe.

    “Good lord—you weren’t up all night, were you?!” Mrs. Macintire teased. “I’m trying to remember. Were you sitting right there in that same spot, when we went to bed?”

    “Ugghh, no,” Tabitha showed the necessary eye-roll of exasperation she felt was expected of her. “I’m just… anxious! I invited so many people. When, probably no one will even show up today.”

    “Didn’t I hear the door earlier?” Mrs. Macintire asked. “I thought somebody came by already.”

    “Elena,” Tabitha said. “But, that was uh. We’re running, in the early mornings, now. We decided. As soon as I was cleared for physical stuff, and allowed to be active again. We did um, we did half of a loop around the neighborhood. It went okay. The first time back at it is always kinda rough.”

    “How were the new shoes?” Mrs. Macintire fiddled with the coffee maker. “You tried out your new running shoes?”

    “Oh, I did!” Tabitha perked up. “They were wonderful. I did remember to thank Elena again. The Air Maxes were great.”

    “Well, good,” Mrs. Macintire nodded and then turned to gesture towards the kitchen windowsill. “And, on that note, when’s the last time we watered poor Barb?”

    “Not yet!” Tabitha said. “The little slip that came with her said every three to four weeks in the winter time. It hasn’t been that long, yet. Cactuses are used to super dry environments.”

    “Cacti?” Mrs. Macintire quirked her lip.

    “Both are correct!” Tabitha insisted. “Cacti and cactuses both work, I swear. Cacti is the original Latin plural, and cactuses or even just cactus is acceptable as the anglicized plural! English is a complicated language!”

    “If you say so, kiddo,” Mrs. Macintire said. “My teachers always told us cacti.”

    “Do you say octopuses, or octopi?” Tabitha asked. “Because technically because of the Greek origin, that one should be octopodes—”

    “I don’t, really?” Mrs. Macintire laughed, giving her a look of amusement. “I’ve never had to. We well, Tabitha we don’t get enough of them slippery octopus buggers around these parts of Kentucky that I’ve ever had to refer to more than one of them at once?”

    “Y-you know what I mean, though!” Tabitha harumphed. “Sheesh.”

    “So, if and when some kids do start showing up today, should I take Hannah on over to the Williamses?” Mrs. Macintire asked. “So that she’s not all up in your hair when you’re with your friends. I have a friend from work coming by for drinks later on, and Hubby has off today as well, but I think he’ll mostly be holed up back there watching TV today.”

    “Oh, um—it’s up to you?” Tabitha said. “I checked the box on the tape he gave me, and the movie says it’s rated PG. Probably blood and violence? Since it’s like a sword and sorcery movie. Bobby said it might be too scary for a seven-year-old, but um, but I haven’t seen it yet, so I can’t really say. Willow.”

    “Willow,” Mrs. Macintire repeated, pursing her lips as she tried to remember. “I remember it’s Val Kilmer. I know I’ve seen it, but I don’t remember too much about it. Probably lots of blood and guts? I’ll ask Hubby dearest once he rolls his fat ass out of bed.”

    There was a distant performative groan from the bedroom to show that Officer Macintire could hear them.

    “Hup, there he is,” Mrs. Macintire winked. “I’ll go ask and see what he thinks. Willow?”

    “Willow, yeah.”

    “Be right back~!” Mrs. Macintire sang, disappearing back down the hallway.

    With a slow sigh, Tabitha released the pillow that had been hugged tight in her insecure clutches, gave it a few quick pats to fluff it back into normal shape, and then placed it back on the couch next to her. Mrs. Macintire had recognized her anxiety, and immediately set out redirecting her attention to the gifts her friends had given her. And then even teasing out one of those etymological diatribes it was so easy to bait Tabitha into! It was embarrassing to acknowledge how simple it was for someone else to manage her moods, when her own personal control over her feelings was so… slapshod. 

    Before Tabitha could sink back into her thoughts, the phone rang.

    “I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” Tabitha jolted up off of the sectional and dashed to pick it up. “Hello? Macintire residence, this is Tabitha speaking.”

    “Hi Tabitha, um,” A girl’s voice responded. “This is Grace. From school! The uh. The thing today you were having, that uhh. Were you still having it? Because—”

    “Yes, absolutely!” Tabitha blurted out. “You’re welcome by whenever!”

    Grace sounds super awkward on the phone, and then in turn I sound super desperate. What a perfect pair of friends we make?

    “Okay cool,” Grace made a sound of relief. “Cool, cool. Well then uh, then my dad and me, we’re gonna pick up Tiff, and then we’ll be on by as soon as we get there. If that’s cool. Oh um—should we bring anything? It uh, it feels weird just uh. Showing up, empty-handed?”

    “You’re not empty-handed, you’ll have Tiffany!” Tabitha assured her. “The uh, the plan was just to chill and maybe watch a movie. I guess if you bring anything, maybe something to snack on? I baked some cookies last night.”

    “Oh, cookies!” Grace said. “Cool. Cool. Uh, okay. We’ll bring snacks! Chips? Popcorn? Or something. If chips is okay? Tiff will have stuff. I’ll uh, we’ll see you soon, then. Bye!”

    “Bye!” Tabitha said.

    The call disconnected before Tabitha could remember to ask the athletic Grace about running together in the mornings, but that was okay, because it meant they would have something to talk about later. Her mind was just suddenly racing all of the sudden and she needed to try to slow her thoughts back down to normal. She hadn’t meant to feel like anyone was obligated to bring food, but mentioning snacks was what came out when she was babbling for something to say, and so now it felt like she was strong-arming everyone into providing snacks. But, that was okay! Someone was coming over today, at least. Someone was coming!

    The sinking angst she’d felt before was flooded in by relief, which continued to rise and rise until it was burbling excitement and Tabitha couldn’t help but dance in place. Tiffany and Grace were coming by! They could sit and talk—with Tiffany arriving, conversations would flow guaranteed. Because in truth once they got that girl started, it was almost impossible to shut her up. And, they could have cookies and watch a movie together!

     This is going to be so much fun!

    “Who was that?” Mrs. Macintire yelled across the house. “On the phone. Was that the power company?”

    “The—what?”Tabitha started to answer. “No, it was—”

    “Because, they keep calling asking about our refrigerator,” Officer Macintire spoke up this time. “Asking if our refrigerator is running...”

    “Don’t you dare!” Tabitha felt her face color.

    “Well then, we’d better go catch it!” Mrs. Macintire hollered. “Hah!”

    “You guys are such dorks!” Tabitha exclaimed. “I literally can’t even. Who even uses that joke any—”

    Before she could finish her sentence, the phone began to ring again.

    “Hup, there they are again,” Officer Macintire called out. “That’s the power company.”

    “You want us to get it?” Mrs. Macintire teased.

    “I’ve got it!” Tabitha responded, snatching up the phone again. “Hi, this is the Macintire residence, Tabitha speaking?”

    “Tabbyyyy,” Alicia crooned. “We’re gonna be on our way over in like—what? How far away is he?”

    A mostly inaudible voice on the other end of the line answered her friend.

    “Okay, we’ll be there in like—twenty. Jaye’s driving, we’re gonna pick up Bill and Ethan. Are there a lot of people there already? Wait, don’t answer. We gotta go, Jaye’s givin’ me that death glare, ‘cause she wants to roll. Byyye!”

    “W-wait, who’s Jaye?” Tabitha blurted out, more than a little dumbfounded. Bill? Ethan? Is Alicia just messing with me?

    “Jaye, you remember Jaye,” Alicia spoke in a hurry. “Janaye. Painter? Works in oils? And like, you met Bill right, I know you met Bill. I guess Ethan flaked on Art Club last time, but you’ll get to meet him today, he’s cool. He’s single? Maybs. Shit, Janaye’s-actually-gonna-leave-without-me-gotta-go-bye!”

    “Um,” Tabitha said to the already disconnected line. “Okay?”

    She did remember Bill—William—as the other guy in Art Club who’d shown off his binder full of artwork, and Tabitha definitely remembered Janaye. What she didn’t understand was why or how or who would have even convinced them to come to her random get together today. To say that she barely knew the Art Club group was by no means any kind of exaggeration.

    I guess maybe between Alicia and Casey, they just wanted to try to drum up some sort of show of support? Tabitha felt a little bewildered. I mean, I’m super flattered, I’m moved, okay I’m actually kind of stunned, but uh. Why would JANAYE even agree to come? She didn’t seem like she cared for me much. Apparently she’s been giving Alicia rides? I know Casey would drive Alicia around places sometimes.

    Moving past her initial shock and thinking about it a little more, Alicia inviting art people did make some sense. Although the girl got along okay with Elena, from what Tabitha remembered from the past week Alicia had never really warmed up much with Clarissa and Ashlee, and likewise all of the other girls Tabitha told them she was inviting were people Alicia didn’t know—Alicia didn’t want to feel isolated or pushed out by this sudden influx of other teenagers who might be there. Somehow that must have turned into Alicia insisting upon the art club members that they should be there today and going out and inviting them.

    Shoot, maybe I should have baked more cookies? Tabitha let out a giddy laugh. I guess at least I can show them today rather than waiting until the next meeting. I mean, REALISTICALLY SPEAKING, between Hannah and her parents the first little batch of cookies wasn’t even going to survive the whole way to next Thursday. So, good? I guess? This actually works out. If—

    The Seelbaugh’s silver minivan pulled up in front of the house again, and this time she could see that Vanessa was with them. Overwhelmed, Tabitha hurried to return the handset to its dock and then rushed to the front window. She didn’t know why she was in such total disbelief right now—it was like her expectations for today’s turnout had been ephemeral hopes and dreams yesterday, and then this morning they had contracted and contracted in fits and spasms of fatalistic realism as she tried to temper those expectations so that she didn’t wind up feeling devastated when no one showed up at all.

    Only, now it suddenly seemed like everyone was showing up. Even people she hadn’t dared to invite like Janaye, or kids she hadn’t even met yet, like Ethan!

    “Good news, I hope?” Officer Macintire shambled out into the kitchen wearing just his boxers. “Hah.”

    The sight brought up Tabitha short because who DOES that, just walk around in their underwear?! It felt like she was seeing something that wasn’t appropriate for her to see, even though he looked pretty good. Not action movie star ripped or anything, but pretty nice? It was hard for her not to stare at the puckered dimple of his bullet wound right there in the middle of his chest and stop actually seeing him as an attractive half-naked adult man. Who was ambling around the house like that, even though some of her friends were already here!

    “Uhhh,” Tabitha made a show of covering her eyes. “My um. My friends are here? Elena, she and her mom and uh, Vanessa. They just pulled up out front. You might want to get dressed? I’ll—I’ll run out and talk to them? So that you can—?”

    “Oh, cool, cool,” Officer Macintire smirked at her, taking his time to instead open up the fridge and lazily survey the prospects there. “Huh.”

    “Sandra—my friends just pulled up, and your husband’s trying to put on a show!” Tabitha tattled. “They’re already here!”

    “What? Pssh,” Officer Macintire laughed. “I am not, who’s—”

    “Darren Macintire, bring your sorry buns back here to this bedroom!” Mrs. Macintire shouted—although it was just as plain from her tone that she was teasing. “You leave them poor teenage girls alone, we don’t need them swooning all over the place into fainting fits. Who d’ya think you are, Conrad Birdie?”

    “What’s going on?” Hannah, still in her Disney princess pajamas, arrived from down the back hallway with a sleepy pout. “Why’s everyone—”

    “Uhhh—Hannahbug I’ve got to go greet my friends, I’ll be right back!” Tabitha promised her. “Brush your teeth, please! Wash your face. Good morning? There’s—”

    The phone began to ring again, and Tabitha stumbled a step, because this time she’d already made it the whole way to the front door.

    “I’ve got it!” Mrs. Macintire announced from the bedroom. “One sec!”

    “No way, I’ve got it here!” Officer Macintire leaned over the counter to grab the kitchen phone and brought the handset up to his face before anyone could stop him. “Roadkill Cafe, you kill it, we grill it. Cletus speaking.”

    “St-stooop!” Tabitha groaned, thrusting an accusing finger in his direction. “Hannah, go make your dad stop, he’s being bad! Go make him get dressed, some of my friends are already here!”

    “OoOoh, dad’s in trouble~!” Hannah mocked—but instead of going and chastising her father, the seven year old turned and went in the other direction, disappearing back down the hallway towards the bathroom.

    “Hannah!” Tabitha pleaded, hand hovering above the doorknob. 

    “Yep yep, we’re open all day,” Officer Macintire said into the phone. “Come on by whenever. Tabitha’s here. You’ve got the address? Uh-huh, that’s us! Don’t worry ‘bout food, I can fire up the grill. Oh yeah! Yep! Okay, see you then. Thanks a bunch! Bye.”

    “Who was that?!” Tabitha demanded.

    “Huh?” Officer Macintire blinked at her with a guileless face. “Oh, nobody. Solicitor, you know. Wrong number. Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it.”

    “It—It was not!” Tabitha protested with a manic giggle. “Stop. Stooop! Sandra, you better come get your husband! Put a shirt on! Put some pants on!”

    “Put some pants on!” Hannah echoed from down the hallway. “Sheesh.”

    “Sheesh!” Tabitha agreed, taking a deep breath and finally wrenching open the front door. As she did so, the phone had already begun to ring again.

* * *

    “Are we way too early?!” Mrs. Seelbaugh rolled down the driver’s side window to ask. “Leny wanted to be here first, but I said maybe—”

    “Oh no, you’re fine!” Tabitha assured her. “It’s already almost eleven. I wanted Elena to come early! So she can help keep me from losing my nerve, hah. Some of the others already started calling. Vanessa, hi!”

    When Elena hopped out of the passenger’s side and opened the minivan’s sliding side door for Vanessa, it became apparent that the goth girl was in full war regalia today. In the front black bangs were teased out to frame her face, while in the back her hair was pinned up into spiky buns—the tips of her hair sticking out of the coil of the buns had product applied to keep them pointing outwards every which way like two little crowns of thorns. Her eyeshadow was a frosted metallic red and applied mermaid glam-style, sweeping iridescent from eyelid all the way outside to her brow bone and then curving wickedly back along her cheek.

    With a black Hot Topic tee—literally, just the “Hot Topic” logo in distinctive jagged red lettering—and distressed skinny jeans with visible fishnet beneath, Elena just looked outrageously cool. Tabitha suddenly wanted to rush back inside and root through her meager wardrobe all over again. It wasn’t even just the hair or the makeup or the clothes, because Elena also had accessories! A chunky metal ball chain necklace, wristband bracelets of black cloth, featuring spikes on her left and studs on her right, and a number of different sized rings in sterling and silver.

    “Elena, just—wow,” Tabitha beamed. “You look so cool!”

    “Thank you!” Mrs. Seelbaugh answered on Elena’s behalf.

    “Thanks,” Elena had to answer with a calm nod to stay within her goth persona.

    Elena also immediately noticed Tabitha was wearing a pushup bra for once, and stared for exactly a moment too long. It took all of the self control built up over all of her lifetimes to not flush or make an embarrassed face or blurt out an excuse or subconsciously bring an arm up to cover her chest. Thankfully she made no comment out loud on it either way, which should mean that these things which felt like they were thrown out in front of her weren’t too jarring or visually obtrusive.

    “Hey, I look good too!” Vanessa complained. “Look, look!”

    “She made sure to wear everything she’s not allowed to at school,” Elena remarked with dry humor. “Vanessa, again… aren’t you freezing?”

    “I mean, kinda?”

    “You do look good!” Tabitha praised. “You look, uh. Wow.”

    It was true. Vanessa was wearing rather daring denim micro shorts too small to qualify as daisy dukes—along with a cream colored Janet Jackson—esque crop top. To the girl’s credit, showing off veritable miles of leg in this outfit achieved the effect of masking her actual short stature, and with blocky bangs falling exactly to her eyebrows and the rest of her dark hair in a chin-length Cleopatra bob, she exuded the vibe of a much older girl, perhaps even like a college girl slumming it here at the high school party.

    “Yeah?” Vanessa preened.

    “Vanessa?” Tabitha paused. “Is this literally the first time I’ve ever seen you not wearing your poofball hat? I had never even seen your hair before!”

    “Uhhhh—” Vanessa let out a nervous laugh. “C’mon, that hat’s super warm and comfy! I don’t like, dress up dress up for just lame boring school, barf. Just for special occasions!”

    “You guysss,” Tabitha laughed. “Ugh! Now I feel underdressed for my own party!”

    “No, you look really good,” Elena assured her.

    “You look so good!” Mrs. Seelbaugh gushed from where she sat in the van. “Just look at you, you’re gorgeous. I love your hair! And, I’m so happy to see you out of that awful cast finally!”

    “Oh, yeah,” Tabitha gave her an embarrassed smile.

 “Uh. Mrs. Seelbaugh, won’t you come in with us?”

    “Oh, I can’t—I’ve got a date,” The woman confided with a cheeky smile. “But, thank you for offering! You girls have fun. Kiss lots of boys, break lots of hearts! Have fun, love you bye!!”

    “Hah,” Vanessa laughed again.

    “She says that every time,” Elena rolled her eyes as the minivan pulled away.

    “Your mom’s super cool,” Vanessa huffed. “Mine would’ve grounded me like, the instant I tried stepping out of the house wearing this.”

    “And, your mother wasn’t suspicious at all when you left for a party wearing track pants and a Wildcats jacket?” Elena asked. “Because, I mean…”

    “Naw, she still thinks I’m like, ten years old,” Vanessa said with a snort. “But, like—please. She doesn’t think it’s like, a party party. Just like it’s hanging out with some friends.”

    “I mean, it is that,” Tabitha said as she led them up the short path to the front door. “Just. Also, there will be boys! Hopefully.”

    “Hopefully?” Vanessa asked. “What do you mean?!”

    “I mean—well, maybe?” Tabitha winced. “Bobby and—”

    “What do you mean MAYBE?!” Vanessa groused in mock outrage, flicking her hand out in her best approximation of a valley girl gesticulation. “You said there would be boys! Hunks! Hotties! Studmuffins! Dreamboat gorgeous handsome guys!”

    “There will be!” Tabitha promised with a teasing expression. “...Maybe?”

    “Maybe?!”

    “Anyways, this is my place,” Tabitha said, encompassing the living room with a sweeping gesture. “...Is what I would say if this was my place, hah. This is the Macintire’s. I just started living with them recently, actually. My actual family’s going through some stuff.”

    “Right, right,” Vanessa nodded. “Elena already said your thing today wasn’t gonna be at the actual trailer park. I’ve been informed. You don’t gotta get into all of that if you don’t want to. I’m being cool about it, and if anyone today isn’t cool about it, I’ve got your back. We’ve got your back.”

    “Thanks? I think?” Tabitha said. “Uh. The Macintires were all up and about a few minutes ago I swear, but now they seem to have all made themselves scarce? Probably for the best. Officer Macintire was strutting about in just his boxers.”

    “Hubba hubba,” Vanessa laughed. “Wait. Is he like, hot?”

    “He um,” Tabitha had no idea how to safely answer that. “He’s looking better? All his bandages are off, by now. He uh, yeah ‘cause he got shot in the chest.”

    “Ooh, right,” Vanessa’s eyes widened. “Wow, yeah. That’s super crazy, like—most people don’t even survive that. That whole thing sounded super crazy.”

    “Yeah…” Tabitha winced.

    She led them to the sectional couch and they all sat, and then there was a long moment of awkward silence as Elena and Vanessa glanced around at everything with interest.

    “So um,” Vanessa eyeballed Tabitha’s bust. “You uh, you look… different. Ha ha. But, good! No, you look great. I mean like, whoa baby.”

    “Don’t be lame,” Elena swatted the girl’s shoulder. “Vanessa. Chill.”

    “Thanks?” Tabitha squeaked out, more than a little mortified. “Shit, shit. Should I just change into something else?”

    “No no no!” Vanessa assured her. “They look—you look super good. Just was like, wow. I’m short, so they were all like right up in my face all of the sudden. Couldn’t not notice, know what I mean? But uh, yeah if there are boys showing up for real? Tabby they’re gonna fucking notice.”

    “I’m changing!” Tabitha stood up.

    “No you’re not,” Elena insisted. “Sit. You look good. Yeah, they’ll notice, but they’re supposed to notice. That’s the whole point.”

    “If you’ve got ‘em, flaunt ‘em,” Vanessa agreed. “For real.”

    “But… I literally don’t got ‘em,” Tabitha sighed, dropping back down onto the cushions. “That’s why the difference is so noticeable!”

    “Tabitha,” Elena said with an equally dramatic sigh. “A lot of girls at school show up every freaking day wearing at least a full extra cup size of padding. And, only because they’ll get mocked into oblivion if they try to get away with wearing more than that.”

    “Yeah, a full cup size and a whole damn Vincent Van Gogh worth o’ makeup,” Vanessa muttered. “Like, Jennifer Dern? Have you seen her?? In the summer, when it’s super hot? Her whole freaking face starts melting off, like that guy in Indiana Jones. With the Ark of the Covenant. It’s all like REEEEEE—!”

    “Not completely her fault,” Elena refuted. “She gets really bad breakouts sometimes.”

    “Um, I thought you weren’t friends with Jennifer and Carrie and all them anymore!” Vanessa asked with narrowed eyes. “Elena, what the hell.”

    “I’m not,” Elena said. “I’m just saying. Acne happens, sometimes really bad. What else can you really do?”

    “Just don’t come in to school,” Vanessa shrugged. “You call in sick. That’s what I do.”

    “Anyways, Tabitha, your tits are fine,” Elena said. “Even I—”

    “Don’t call them that!” Tabitha whispered, hunching over and wrapping both arms around herself in embarrassment. “Geez…”

    “Even I wear padded bras sometimes,” Elena finished. “With certain outfits. No one’s gonna say anything, everyone wears them.”

    “Not me!” Vanessa chimed. “I never wear ‘em, that shit ain’t comfy, sorry. Look real weird on my figure anyways. Now, heels on the other hand! Love me some heels. Wanted to smuggle out a pair today ‘cause I’ve got super cute matching ones for this top, but yeah. Didn’t want to get caught. Mega bummer.”

    “I actually really hate heels,” Elena admitted. “If—”

    “Girl, you don’t need heels, you need a stepladder,” Vanessa guffawed. “Trust me, if—”

    “What? Why,” Elena made a face. “No offense, but I’m already too tall for a freshman girl? There’s—”

    “Not if you’re gonna be trying to kiss Brett!” Vanessa pointed out with a smirk. “Elena friggin’ do the math. Measure it out. Hoistin’ yourself up on your tiptoes ain’t even gonna cut it. Stepladder might not even do it, you’re still like how many freaking inches shy of—”

    “Vanessa, we had a truce?” Elena gave her a flat stare. “Are you breaking the truce already? Or, are we gonna be cool. Because.”

    “Ugggh,” Vanessa groaned. “Fine. Yeah, truce. But, like—I’m just sayin’.”

    “W-we’re fourteen!” Tabitha exclaimed in exasperation. “Or like, fourteen, fifteen. Way too young for kissing, and all that! We do not need to be sucking face with boys already. Okay?”

    Elena and Vanessa exchanged meaningful glances, and then turned in unison to shoot Tabitha a pitying look.

    “What?!”

    “Uh,” Vanessa finally coughed into her fist. “Rest in peace Bobby, I guess? Damn. Better luck next year? Hah!”

    “Tabitha…” Elena said slowly. “The statistical average for a first kiss literally is fourteen and fifteen. So, being completely realistic here—”

    “That’s propaganda!” Tabitha jabbed. “Like, fabricated nonsense they put in there just to sell Teen magazines. Have either of you kissed a guy yet? Hmm?!”

    Her two friends exchanged glances again, and this time Elena’s expression turned awkward, while Vanessa’s face soured.

    “I mean I technically have, but I’m not counting it,” Elena admitted. “Middle school kissing is like… it doesn’t even count.”

    “Yeah, totally,” Vanessa nodded in fervent agreement. “Exactly! Doesn’t count, doesn’t count. The first real kiss has got to be freshman year. Sophomore at the very latest. Otherwise, you’re a loser.”

    “Wait—really?” Tabitha tried not to look aghast. “You’ve both had your first kiss already?!”

    “Brandon Everett, but also no, because it doesn’t count,” Elena insisted. “Like, at all. It was like a middle school kiss. Not a real kiss.”

    “Yeah,” Vanessa said. “It doesn’t count if it’s not like, a real kiss, a movie kiss. An open-mouthed kiss. Otherwise it’s just like a peck. You don’t count that! No one counts that. And, mine was from all the friggin’ way back in seventh, I barely even remember it. And, even then it was just like, yeah. Bragging rights. Didn’t mean anything.”

    “Wow,” Tabitha deflated. “Just—wow.”

    “Tabitha, I’m very specifically not going to judge you for who you were in middle school, and in return you’re not going to judge me for who I was in middle school,” Elena decided. “I was a stupid arrogant blondie back then, of course I had to be able to say I’ve kissed someone before. But, it doesn’t actually count. It was more like a chicken peck, not like—we weren’t french kissing or full-on making out, blegh. I’m not a slut like Carrie, okay? There, that’s settled and final. New truce. We do not talk about anything from back then today.”

    The phone began to ring again.

    “I’ve got it!” Tabitha called, hopping up.

    “Power company!” Officer Macintire’s voice echoed out from the master bedroom.

    “It is not!” Tabitha shot back. “Very funny! Oh uh, my friends Elena and Vanessa are both here already.”

    “We’ll be out in a minute!” Mrs. Macintire called.

    “Macintire residence, Tabitha speaking,” Tabitha said into the phone.

    “Hi, it’s Clarissa,” Clarissa said.

    “Oh, hey!” Tabitha brightened.

    “My mom wanted me to call and double check,” Clarissa clarified. “Is the thing still on for today?”

    “Yep!” Tabitha said. “Actually, Elena and Vanessa are already here. I guess come by whenever you’re ready.”

    “Okay, um,” Clarissa paused. “Is this like—should I dress up fancy, or would that be… weird?”

    “Wear whatever you like,” Tabitha also hesitated. “...Is what I wanted to say. But, then Elena shows up looking like an actual rock star, and Vanessa also looks like she walked out of a music video, so uh. Hah. I already feel like I should run back into the bathroom and like, try to do better makeup or something.”

    “You look fine,” Elena scoffed. “My mom just was all fussing and went overboard. It’s honestly too much.”

    “I’m jealous,” Vanessa shrugged. “Like, Elena damn.”

    “So ummm—” Tabitha laughed. “Not like super super dressy, but wear whatever you have that’s nice, I guess? I don’t even know what to say.”

    “No, I think I get it,” Clarissa said. “Thanks. Um, see you soon?”

    “Cool,” Tabitha said. “Bye!”

    “Bye!”

    “Well, hello!” Mrs. Macintire appeared, now dressed for the day in slacks and a tucked-in blouse. “You girls do look wonderful. Mrs. Macintire, but you can call me Sandra.”

    “Hey,” Elena gave an awkward wave, because they’d met before.

    “Very nice to meet you,” Vanessa said. “Thank you for having us.”

    “Clarissa called,” Tabitha announced. “So, that’s for sure also Clarissa, Tiffany, Grace, um. Alicia, Janaye, and apparently William and Ethan? Who was it that called right when I was going out the door?”

    “Matthew and Casey might not be able to make it,” Mrs. Macintire revealed. “Her engine won’t turn over, I think she said. They might just be by late afternoon? We’ll see.”

    “Aww,” Tabitha nodded in acceptance. “Okay. I guess that makes sense why Alicia was getting a ride with Janaye, then.”

    “Then, hubby dearest was on the line earlier with some boy named Eric,” Mrs. Macintire’s eyebrows went up. “If that rings any bells?”

    “Oh, no,” Vanessa groaned, grabbing the throw pillow and burying her face in it.

    “Ooh, yes!” Tabitha pumped her fist. “Cool, cool. Awesome. Cool beans.”

    “Whyyyyy—?!”

* * *

    “What time is it?” Bobby asked, looking across the driveway again.

    “Time for you to quit askin’ what time it is and play,” Jacob muttered as he lunged in and tried to steal the ball.

    Gary didn’t stop dribbling the basketball as he twisted and juked, and after it became clear Jacob wasn’t going to let him squeeze by on that side of the court he managed to feint a pass towards Lurch and then instead throw the ball towards the empty side of the dusty half-court they had set up. Where Lurch intercepted the ball anyways, three enormous bounding steps carrying him across what felt like too wide a distance and allowing him to snatch the ball out of the air. Bobby felt like a young kid again trying to defend the hoop against his much older brother Joe here, because with casual ease Lurch was able to toss the ball into the hoop for easy points.

    “He’s just tryin’ to distract us,” Gary laughed. “Lurch and me’re the ones keepin’ time.”

    “Naw, I really do wanna know,” Bobby protested, rubbing his wrist in frustration. “Got my eye on the big game, like the bigger picture, dawg. You wouldn’t understand.”

    Bobby had a cool watch, a Casio calculator watch with its impressive tiny row of miniature buttons he’d gotten for Christmas back in ‘96. Unfortunately it had been a long time since he remembered to wear it, and today it was somewhere atop the mess on his dresser back home. Glancing around again he saw that Brett wore one of the more boring standard normal waterproof Casios, and then Gary wore a particularly sporty Nike Triax that looked sleek and professional.

    “Teams, teams,” Jacob protested with a huff. “Bobby-boy’s fuggin’ dead weight.”

    “Agggghhh—” Bobby groaned. “Listen. Okay, so I’m a tiny bit off my game today, but when—”

    “Tiny bit, he says,” Gary grinned. “Bobby and Lurch, then. C’mon.”

    It wasn’t difficult to admit that of the boys present, Bobby was the least experienced player. Jacob was good, and Gary was genuinely great, the guy lived and breathed for the game. Brett—Lurch—was just about as skilled as Jacob, but his natural reach and height advantages were so stupendously exaggerated that he was an absolute monster to play against. The only team-ups that were remotely fair were different variations of Gary versus Brett, because Gary could be scary aggressive in getting the ball, and then once he got it he could hunker down low and still move fast across the court. Gary could still play incredibly well while keeping the ball far below where Brett could comfortably reach without sacrificing his balance.

    Of course, even for Gary getting the ball from down low to actually successfully shoot a hoop without Brett appearing out of nowhere to grab it or slap it out of the way was no picnic. It seemed like anywhere on the court was just a few easy steps away for Brett, the dude was almost everywhere at once. He could seemingly still just reach across and grab the ball out of the air for the scant few places he wasn’t. Bobby liked basketball, and there was no real play here for him—he just wanted to know what time it was, and he wanted Liam to hurry up and arrive.

    They played another set, this time with Bobby acting as Brett’s support—Gary and Jacob both stuck to Brett like glue, which made it easy for Lurch to pass it well over their reach to Bobby. Jacob was slow or maybe unwilling to disengage from Brett, but Gary was all over Bobby in an instant, a shark who’d scented blood. Bobby hugged the outside for a few seconds and actually managed to dribble the ball behind his back while juking and leaning away from Gary’s attempts to steal—but Gary was putting on too much pressure, and Bobby knew he’d lose the ball if he tried to hold it for any longer. He darted to the side just clear of Gary’s reach, and passed the ball to the empty side of the driveway.

    Brett appeared there in the vacant space, barely slowed from having to jostle past Jacob. The freakishly tall teen grabbed the ball out of the air, and then tossed it into the net. There was something easy and casual about the way the guy always did that which made Bobby want to scowl, even when he and Brett were on the same team.

     “Phhhhewwww you dirty sumbitch,” Jacob heaved for breath. “Fuck.”

    Bobby may not be the best player or even a good player, but anyone watching them play for a few minutes would realize that on a smaller half-court-sized driveway like this, all you need to do is put the ball where everyone wasn’t, and then Brett would magically materialize there. Somehow. It was actually probably a strategy that put way too much stress on Brett to use for a whole real game, but for now the guy still seemed to be doing alright.

    “Not bad, not bad,” Gary said. “See? Bobby-boy, you do okay when you keep your head in the game. Now keep your head in the game.”

    “Bullshit,” Jacob swore. “That was all Lurch. Again.”

    “S’just a little past eleven,” Brett glanced as his watch. “She said, what—noon? Noon-ish?”

    “Think so,” Jacob huffed. “We got her address, right?”

    “We should probably actually ease up, then,” Brett shrugged. “Get quick showers at least. You know?”

    “I mean, we don’t gotta show up right on time,” Gary scoffed. “We can be fashionably late. Play for another hour or so. If—”

    “Nah man, I’m done,” Bobby immediately threw in the towel. “Gonna shower.”

    “You been done, man,” Jacob chuckled. “What time is it? How does my hair look? When’s my fairy godmother gonna show up with glass slippers and a pumpkin carriage?”

    “Yeah, where is Liam?” Gary asked. “Thought we could get him in for a few rounds before we head over.”

    “He know where this is?” Brett asked.

    “He’s been by before,” Gary paused. “I think? Yeah, he has.”

    “He’ll be here,” Bobby said. “Don’t y’all go doubting my fairy Godmother, a’ight?”

    “Who all’s gonna be there?” Jacob groused. “At the thing. Besides us. Buncha girls? Freshmen?”

    “Hey man chill—same game, different court,” Gary said. “Find you some cutie, shoot your shot. S’not complicated, ‘less you make it complicated.”

    “Complicated if a bunch of her friends are all crowdin’ in an’ goin’ hard on defense,” Jacob griped. “You remember back when me and Shandy—”

    “Hey, it’s a party,” Gary said. “Right? If they’re there, they’re there to play ball, I figure. So, let’s play ball.”

    “Let’s play ball,” Brett agreed.

    “You tryin’ to be after that Elena chick?” Gary asked. 

    “I’ll see if she’s interested,” Brett said. “We’ll talk, sure.”

    “Cool, cool,” Gary nodded. “That means—Bobby’s on Tabitha, there, then it’s on me and Jacob for everyone else.”

    “Pshaw,” Jacob pshawed. “Yeah, right.”

    “Nah, I’m bein’ for real,” Gary insisted. “You play with us, you’re gonna be a proper wingman. Get our boys whatever one-on-one time they need with they girlies. A’ight? Then, next time, or whatever time it is when you or me got somebody in mind and need that, it’ll be our turn and they’ll scratch our backs. S’how it works. For real.”

    “For real?” Jacob sighed.

    “For real.”

    “Yeah yeah, we’ll see. We’ll see.”

    “Girls,” Brett chuckled. “Man, they really do just sort of uh. Form up against you, all iron curtain like. Like, s’hard for me to even imagine getting a chance to actually talk to Elena at school. Without well, without everyone else being all up in our business for it.”

    “Just talk to her,” Jacob rolled his eyes. “Fucking dweeb. ‘Stead of making excuses.”

    “Man, I want to,” Brett sounded exasperated. “S’like—that’s what she’s waiting for. But, then in that class we have together? It’s like everyone else is right there waiting to pounce in on that, too. With some bullshit or other. If there were—”

    Bobby wasn’t able to hear the rest as he headed back inside Gary’s house, but even only hearing part of it gave him plenty to think about. He’d wanted this whole thing to be a one-on-one date between him and Tabitha, and now it was instead a group celebration thing. It wasn’t that he disliked Tabitha’s friends, Alicia and Elena at least. Just, it wasn’t the same. He wasn’t comfortable being completely candid with his feelings for Tabitha while they had a peanut gallery of unimpressed goth friends or smirking art girls.

    Personal Fitness in the mornings at school should have been a super easy opportunity to spend time alone with Tabitha—it was a class with lots of free time to jog around the track together or rest periods where they could sit with one another. Only, those opportunities were also snatched away, because the circling buzzards of a whole entire clique of girls had swooped in there and gave him no room to really approach. It was so frustrating. Worse yet if those same exact girls got invited to the party today, which seemed extremely likely.

    Like most of the guys who’d popped over here for random pickup games at some point over the years and had to use the ‘loo at some point, Bobby knew where the bathroom here was. It was a nice modern bathroom with frosted window cube things that let in a ton of light, much larger than the bathroom back home, but also equally lived in, and with the random personal effects and discarded laundry from Gary or his older brothers scattered about. Borrowing a friend’s shower was always weird, but it would definitely be weirder to show up to his crush’s party gross and sweaty, so Bobby made do.

    He undressed, he figured out how to run the water with the unfamiliar set of knobs, and stepped into the nice too-big feeling stall into a spray of water that seemed strange and coarse, like the water pressure here was different or perhaps the shower head was too far removed from the one he was used to. Scrubbing himself down was squirting bodywash from a bottle into his palm and then going through the usual motions of cleaning up. There were two different shampoos here, so he gave them each a sniff and then borrowed a tiny bit of whoever here used the citrus-smelling one. Probably Gary’s brother.

    Afterwards, he found that the bathroom closet had a folding door which always stood open, and there he grabbed a clean towel from the stack there and dried off. Then, he cinched the towel around himself and walked out of the bathroom. He wasn’t scrawny or wimpy looking, and he wasn’t buff or jacked either. As a teenage dude with a pretty dead-average body he’d long since learned that no one cared, and thus there was nothing to be shy about.

    “Hey, shower’s free for whoever’s goin’ next,” Bobby called.

    “Me,” Brett volunteered.

    Brett and Gary were chilling in the living room with Liam now, and Jacob was nowhere in sight—probably having walked back to his house to shower there. Gary’s living room here had plush, brand new couches and recliners situated around a large TV, and Liam was pulling folded clothes out of a paper grocery bag to plop down onto a coffee table.

    “Bobby, got you somethin’ nice,” Liam said. “Well. Actually that same one I always lend you, but hey—we know it fits, right?”

    “Hell yeah,” Bobby advanced and grabbed a polo shirt he recognized. “You’re a life saver, man. My fairy godmother.”

    It was a dressy dark shirt, the one he borrowed to wear to church with Liam’s family whenever he wound up spending the night over there after late nights playing Tekken 3 or Twisted Metal 2. It had a collar he could pop up, two buttons he could leave open, and then it was dark gray at the shoulders and beneath that it was black and gray horizontal bars which repeated on downward in thick stripes. A fresh pair of boxers, a mismatched pair of ankle socks, and a clean pair of jeans completed the ensemble.

    “Now, for Lurch I pulled out all the stops,” Liam said. “This one’s my dad’s.”

    Presented next was a loud orange Hawaiian shirt with a repeating flowers and orchids motif in bright blues, greens, and yellows.

    “Aw, hells to the yeah,” Brett agreed, holding it up by the shoulders so he could appreciate it. “Liam man, I love you.”

    “Then, for Gary—” Liam pulled out a t-shirt and unfolded it across the table so they could see the design. 

    BIG SLAM The Ultimate Pepsi, in large brightly colored letters, while a silly smirking Shaq with eyebrows raised was depicted in the act of knocking back a can of soda. Grab it! Slam it! cartoon text along the bottom completed the garish look.

    “Pfft, are you for real?” Gary couldn’t help but smile. “Broooo—”

    “Hell, if you don’t want it, I’ll wear it,” Bobby said. “You may not recognize our lord and savior Shaquille O’Neal since he left the Orlando Magic, but—”

    “Yeah man, let’s trade,” Brett offered. “You wear the luau shirt, I’ll squeeze myself into this bad boy. Might uh, might wind up not covering everything, but—”

    “Hold up, hold up now, didn’t say I wouldn’t wear it,” Gary held up his hands. “Don’t get your panties all in a twist. I’ll fuckin’ wear it.”

    “Big pair of slacks for Brett, with a belt since no clue on your size there,” Liam said, very carefully taking out the next bundle. “Boxers might be tight on you, but hey they’re clean. You’ll have to make it work, man. Gary man, sorry—didn’t bring pants for you.”

    “I’ll make it work,” Brett replied with confidence.

    “Yeah, naw man I’m good on pants,” Gary chuckled. “Got nice new shoes, too, you’ll see.”

    “Finally, swiped all the cologne,” Liam revealed, slowly unrolling the slacks to reveal they’d been wrapped around a series of glass bottles to protect them. “Tommy Hilfigure—that one’s brand new, just this Christmas. Barely even used any, yet. This little green one’s a favorite, that’s Stetson Sierra for Men, then—”

    “I like that one,” Bobby yoinked it. “Niiice. Love this one. Always have.”

    “—Then, we got Calvin Klein Obsession for Men,” Liam finished. “S’an older one, but hey it still packs a punch. My dad’s. Lastly, also by Calvin Klein, we have Eternity for Men. This one’s runnin’ a bit low, I wear it at school.”

    “He know you raided his cabinet for these?” Brett rolled the cap off of the Obsession and ran the bottle under his nose for a whiff. “Your dad.”

    “Oh yeah,” Liam nodded. “Said what he always says—less is more. Very very very tiny bit on your wrist, on your neck. Do not overdo it, you’ll get your ass laughed the whole way outta the party, and everyone’ll remember it for years. There’s always the one guy who overdoes it, and ain’t nobody gonna let him live it down. Don’t be the guy.”

    “Obsession’s nice,” Brett decided as they passed the bottles around. “Eternity’s… meh? It’s alright.”

    “Meh? Meh?” Liam put on an indignant face. “Listen here, Stretch Armstrong—”

    “Hey I’m just messin’ wit’ you,” Brett laughed. “It’s alright.”

    “I got my own I’ll use,” Gary said. “Acqua Di Gio. Good shit. My brother and me, man we swear by that shit.”

    “Oh?” Liam gave the teen an appraising look. “Bring it out, lemme smell.”

    “Alright, alright,” Gary said. “Brett, you’re up for the shower, then it’s me. Mouthwash’s in there if you’re gon’ be makin’ out today. You hold that shit in ‘til it burns.”

    “You really wearing the Shaq shirt?” Brett asked. “For real?”

    “Hell fuckin’ yeah I am,” Gary sounded indignant. “He brought it for me, didn’t he? Rude not to, right?”

    “Anything for you, babe,” Liam brought his fist up, and each of the teenage boys in turn met him with a fist bump. “How much time do we got? You guys’re sure it’s even cool if I go?”

* * *

    “Hey wait wait wait, stop the car!” Alicia patted the dashboard in a hurry. “I know that girl up there!

    “And?” Janaye gave her an incredulous snort. “I have to stop, so you can—what, say ‘hey what’s up?’”

    “Hey girl, what’s up, how you doin’,” Ethan drawled out from the back seat. “Baby girl, what you doin’ walkin’ yo fine self down the sidewalk to-day?”

    “Dude,” William—also in the back—chuckled. “Don’t say it like that. She looks like—young. Too young.”

    “Age is just a number,” Ethan said.

    “Fifteen will get you twenty,” William pointed out.

    “Not so long as I’m seventeen,” Ethan argued. “That shit doesn’t—”

    “No, no, I mean—that’s Marisa,” Alicia said. “I’m pretty sure. She’s literally walking to this same party we’re heading to. Can we give her a lift?”

    “Really?” Janaye sighed.

    “Wait, she a high schooler?” William leaned forward. “At Springton? For real?”

    “Uhhhh, yeah freshman like me, I think?” Alicia said. “From one of Tabitha’s classes, I guess.”

    “Hey, if there’s grass on the field, play ba—” Ethan started.

    “If you finish that sentence, I will castrate you~!” Janaye threatened in a sing-song voice. “Snip snip. Chop chop.”

    “Yeah, for real man,” William said. “Hah.”

    “Can we stop for her?” Alicia pleaded, putting on her puppy-dog eyes and a pout for Janaye. “Pleeease?”

    “I mean, yeah I guess, but—” Janaye growled as she slowed her Chevrolet Cavalier. “Fine! Fine. We’ll see if she wants a ride.”

    “She has to buy an Art Club shirt if she wants a lift,” William said. “Ten—no, fifteen bucks. Twenty.”

    “Bill. William—scoot over,” Alicia demanded, turning in her seat. “Sit in the middle.”

    “Why do I gotta sit in the middle?” William protested. “She’s on Ethan’s side, so—”

    “What, do you want her sitting next to Ethan?” Alicia twisted in her seat. “Gross? What if she gets herpes, or something?”

    “Yeah… okay that’s fair,” William conceded with a smirk, making a show of letting out a heavy sigh. “Damnit.”

    “Wait wait wait, what’s that supposed to mean?!” Ethan cried in mock outrage. “The hell have I ever done to you? Huh?!”

    Ethan was an oddity—short for an upperclassmen guy, not particularly good-looking, with a receding hairline which promised he would be bald before he even got so far as college—he was somehow also an exceptionally charismatic and incredibly outgoing and confident guy. Casey had confided that back in her time, Ethan was one of the popular ones who helped make Art Club huge in years past, but with so many of the other big personalities graduating out, he’d mostly lost interest and turned toward other pursuits.

    It was rare that he even showed up for meetings, this year.

    Alicia felt guilty for persuading him to Tabitha’s get-together when the two hadn’t ever even met yet, but Ethan was one of the levers which would almost certainly compel Janaye to attend, at which point William was also easy to convince along. Because then it became an impromptu Art Club thing. Together, this group had substantial cred in upperclassmen circles, and in the rare few ways which didn’t overlap too much with the cheerleader crowd there. Reputation which guaranteed that the party could be considered a pretty big thing, rather than just some inconsequential freshman nobodies hanging out over the weekend.

    Please please PLEASE don’t give me cause to regret this, Alicia threw out a quick prayer. I’m just, like. I’m trying to do my part! Helping, for once. Not JUST being the absolute coward too afraid to stand up from the sidelines when the cheerleaders come by. It’s just, like. We CAN’T face off against a bunch of sophomore and junior cheerleaders by ourselves. Elena and Tabs need to get that through their heads. We have to make some of the other upperclassmen actually see what the hell’s really going on.

    Alicia hurried to crank down the passenger’s side window, as they’d already pulled to a stop beside the girl on the sidewalk.

    “Uhh hey!” Alicia called. “Marisa, right? From yesterday? You heading to Tabitha’s?”

    “Oh uh?” Marisa jerked in surprise. “Y-yeah? Actually?”

    “Well um, hop in then!” Alicia offered. “If you want. We’re headin’ that way ourselves!”

    “Really?” Marisa asked.

    “Yeah, just—you gotta go ‘round the other side,” Alicia pointed. “We made Bill squish over, but yeah, we can fitcha! It’s cool.”

    “Cool!” Marisa said. “Uh, cool. Thank you guys so much.”

    “And, so now we’re just packing more and more people in,” Janaye muttered under her breath. “Until it’s like I’m driving a clown car.”

    “Honk honk,” Ethan offered helpfully.

    “No, like—Marisa’s cool,” Alicia insisted. “I think she’s cool?”

    “We can fit like, three more people in here if we really try,” William said. “Cram someone else up there with ‘Licia, have people across our laps here—”

    “Fit a ton of people in the trunk, too,” Ethan suggested. “I’ve seen it happen.”

    They watched as Marisa jogged around the back of the vehicle and then opened the rear door on the other side. The girl was lanky and a bit ungraceful looking, which was one of the more common unfortunate freshmen traits, where a lot of girls hadn’t quite grown into their own style yet and seemed like they were still dressing for middle school. She had wide, expressive eyes, dull hair that might be dirty blonde in the right sunlight or seem brunette in the shade, and today this very ordinary white girl was wearing blue jeans and a very faded purple sweater.

    “Hiii!” Marisa said. “Um, so thanks again?”

    “I’m Alicia,” Alicia reminded her. “And uh, this is basically all of Art Club? The lovely and talented Jay is our chauffeur at the moment. Jay, Janaye. Oils. Beside you is Bill—William. Pencils. Then there’s Ethan, likewise pencils. We—”

    “Pencils, markers, inks, watercolors,” Ethan corrected. “Janaye does watercolors, too.”

    “Ooh, that’s so cool!” Marisa remarked. “I uh. I can’t really even draw…”

    Janaye started them forward again once she saw that Marisa had clicked in her seatbelt, but Alicia remained turned in her seat so that she could address the newcomer.

    “Well hey, super easy to learn,” Alicia said. “Art Club has meetings right there after school, every Thursday. We’d love to have you. Tabitha just joined! Just got her out of that wretched, putrescent cheerleader filth and into a proper Art Club shirt, um, it was only awesome!”

    “Wait, really?” Ethan asked. “When was this?”

    “Yeah, she seems cool,” William said. “S’what you get for missing all the meetings, my man.”

    “Most of them it’s just everyone dicking around,” Ethan rolled his eyes. “I go to the actual like planning ones where we have something real to meet about. Like for the mural, for the art sho—”

    “Ummm, no you didn’t, ‘cause just this past meeting Mrs. Hart came by ‘bout the art show stuff,” Alicia stuck her tongue out. “So, anyways. Marisa—how do you know Tabitha?”

   “Oh, uh,” Marisa paused. “We have class together? Just from the start of this semester. I have Personal Fitness with her first thing of the day, and then also third period. Math. Uh, Geometry.”

    “Freshman Geometry?” William said.

    “They’re all the same Geometry!” Janaye rolled her eyes. “They don’t change the curriculum, dude.”

    “But, there’s totally a difference in the classes,” William insisted. “No, I’m being serious. They do try to corral all the freshies into one period when they can.”

    “Don’t call us freshies, sophie,” Alicia made a face. “Be for real.”

    “Ooh, struck a nerve,” Ethan said. “Gotta watch that. Freshmen are sensitive about that kind of thing.”

    “So, Marisa!” Alicia made a point to ignore Ethan’s jab. “Were you walking far? Hope not the whole way across town, ugh. How are you not freezing? What middle school did you go to?”

    “Geez ‘Licia, ease off,” William chuckled. “Don’t gotta give her the friggin’ fifth degree.”

    “I’m being nice!” Alicia tsked. “I want her to like us. We need people to join Art Club, duh?”

    “Um,” Marisa gave them a nervous smile. “It’s not like, super far? I’m used to it. Walk out down to the store sometimes, the uh, Food Lion, and to just like, get some fresh air. I’ve got my sweater, I’m fine. Oh, and uh—I went to Maple. Maple Middle School, technically I guess, it’s in—”

    “You’re Canadian?!” William asked with a theatrical gasp. “Maple…”

    “A Canuck, ‘ey?” Ethan joined in. “Jay—stop the car.”

    “No, hah, uhh, it’s in Indiana?” Marisa finished. “Named after uh, Maple Avenue there back home, which is just like. A street? Maple Avenue. Nothing to do with Canada, as far as I know. I transferred over here just at the start of ninth grade. And uh, yeah? I’m here in Springton with my grandparents. Parents got a divorce.”

    “Hey, mine too,” Ethan quipped.

    “Okay,” Alicia nodded. “And—you’re not like, in with the cheerleaders or those types, are you? Here at school.”

    “No, no,” Marisa shook her head. “They came over like, twice to complain about Tabitha. The cheerleaders. Like came up in the middle of our class. The one day it was just like two of them, and then just yesterday it was uh, a whole gaggle of them all showed up to make a fuss about the um. The situation sort of stuff? That’s going on there. Vanessa and Tiff were like, oh no, they’re MULTIPLYING. It was funny.”

    “Situation sort of stuff?” Ethan chuckled.

    “I don’t really know what started it, but from as far as I know?” Marisa continued. “It was just like, the two mean cheerleaders are picking on Tabitha, and think they should get away with it just because they’re cheerleaders. Or like, maybe they think it’s just something Tabitha has to go along with, if she wants to be in with them. Like part of joining cheer means they have to bow down and put up with whatever.”

    “Think the words you’re looking for is ‘hazing ritual,’” Ethan elaborated. “Like you see on the news. The hell week stuff they warn freshies about when just starting up campus life, they’re—”

    “Don’t call them FRESHIES, that’s not a real thing,” Alicia interrupted. “Ugggh, it sounds so stupid. Like fishies.”

    “That is a thing,” William pointed out. “Freshfishies, freshfish. I’ve totally heard people say that.”

    “You know,” Janaye remarked with a raised eyebrow. “One might say that using derogatory terms to refer to the new year of students is its own form of hazing?”

    “Sticks and stones, Jay,” William scoffed. “Sticks and stones.”

    “Yeah, well names and false rumors and all the freakin’ gossip is one thing,” Alicia said. “But they literally just stole her stuff. And like, had it in their backpacks. They were caught with it, from what I heard. So, duh, they’re guilty. When that same exact thing happened earlier this year, the ninth grade girl got suspended for it. Yet, just because these two are in Cheer, or just ‘cause they’re upperclassmen, nothing happens to them? How in the world is that fair?”

    “What’d they steal?” Ethan asked.

    “Her towel,” Marisa answered. “We all just—”

    “Her TOWEL?!” Ethan laughed. “Whoa buddy, stop the presses.”

    “—We all just brought in our locker room stuff for first period,” Marisa explained. “Like, personal towels that we can hang up in there, for whenever we start doing showers or whatever. Not many of us even brought them in yet. Me and Tabitha uh, I mean Tabitha and I, we were like the very very first girls to bring them in and hang them up. Ours were the first ones hanging up. Since we’re the first class of the day that even uses the locker room.”

    “Someone from your same class took it?” William asked.

    “No, some cheer girls from one of the next classes,” Marisa said. “So. Somebody in our class would’ve had to snitch or say around, you know. Uh. Tell other people which one was Tabitha’s, what it looked like and all. It was a Coca Cola one, had the big claymation polar bear on it. Like in the commercials.”

    “Did you find out who snitched?” Ethan asked. “From your class?”

    “No,” Marisa shook her head. “But, it could have been a couple different girls. The one there Amanda, probably. She’s always uh, trying to talk down on Tabitha. I think it was her.”

    “I think, doesn’t matter what you stole,” Alicia growled. “If it was a binder or a towel or anything. If you stole something, you should get suspended. You don’t get to just take people’s stuff—I mean, come on.”

    “Did they have like, an excuse?” William asked. “Like, they just grabbed the wrong towel, or something?”

    “I don’t care,” Alicia was indignant. “Don’t care what whatever their excuse was. They obviously did it on purpose, s’why it’s all becoming this big huge dramatic thing with them.”

    “From what the upperclassmen are saying,” Janaye spoke up. “This started with that goth girl and Tabitha stirring up trouble because they didn’t make the cut for cheerleading tryouts. So, now they’re just trying to cry foul and get the whole team disbanded.”

    “Um, which is bogus, because Elena and Tabitha haven’t even tried out for anything yet,” Alicia insisted. “I’m being serious. I’m being so serious, you can ask them. Ask them today!”

    “I didn’t say it was true,” Janaye shrugged. “Just that it’s what they’re all saying.”

    “Well, it’s not true,” Alicia fumed. “It’s bogus and bullshit. I can’t stand that this all even became such a thing. It’s so stupid! What Tabitha should have done is just join Art Club and forget about stupid Cheer.”

    “Nah, same thing would’ve happened,” Ethan shook his head. “Either way.”

    “What do you mean?” Alicia turned in her seat again and glared back at him.

    “I mean, if word went around that she was goin’ in for Art Club, instead?” Ethan said. “Then me and Bill would’ve got jealous. Been all like she can’t do that, who does she think she is, and we would’ve stolen her sketchpad or whatever. S’just the way things go, she—”

    “I’m gonna beat your ass,” Alicia shook her fist. “Just you wait. Just you wait ‘til Jay here stops this car.”

    “I mean, we should probably take her stuff anyways,” William played along with Ethan. “Tabitha. She’s just a freshie, after all. Those freshies gotta know who’s in charge around here in the Beta Tau Upsilon fraternity.”

    “William…” Alicia growled.

    “Snip snip!” Janaye suggested.

    “Snip snip, chop chop!” Alicia agreed. “Let’s just castrate everybody. Problem solved. Off with their dicks.”

    “Yeah, the cheerleaders too,” Ethan drummed at the back of Alicia’s headrest. “Everybody. Off with their dicks!”

    “Off with their dicks!”

( 65, Open invitation. | RE: Trailer Trash | Next, 67 pt 1 )