Text from Tara
Emily Holly, a pretty little thing with a small, heart-shaped face, round cheeks and round wide eyes sitting above a button nose, and a cute mouth with full, pouting lips above the merest point of a chin, lay back against the fluffy round arm of the family room sofa, staring at her phone and wondering at the text from Tara. She had just turned 18 last week.
The noise of Zombie Gods rumbled over the floor, shaking the very of the room. She'd yelled at her little brother Ryan to turn it down, but he just pulled slowly from a red and white can of Pigskin Lightning, his favorite energy drink, ending the gulp with a loud burb. Emily looked away in disgust.
She'd go up to her room, but she hated surrendering any space to her brother.
So she just ignored him and tried to drown out the noise with her EarBudz.
Tara never spoke to Emily before.
She ran with a, well, unbecoming set of people, that Kristin Dale for one. Not decent.
There were so many rumors of the two of them being promiscuous. Slutty.
And they dressed that way. As much as the school would allow, which was quite a bit actually.
Short skirts, midriffs exposed, tight jeans, makeup, eyes dark with liner and mascara, glittery shadow above their piercing eyes. Tara had pale green eyes, and Kristin had bright blue eyes.
They openly laughed at both Emily and her best friend Jenny for going to church every Sunday, the silver crosses both girls wore around their necks. And when they learned Emily went to bible camp during the summer, their laughter turned into derision.
"That's wasting summer, isn't it?"
"What's it like to fuck at bible camp, anyway?"
Emily couldn't answer. She never fucked at bible camp. She didn't even like to think the word, much less say it. So she turned beet red, took Jenny arm, and walked quickly down the hall to the laughter of Tara and Kristin behind them.
Several days later, Tara apologized.
"I'm sorry we were so mean to you, Emily. Me and Kristin were just teasing you."
It didn't take long for Emily, being the kind of girl she was, to gush her forgiveness, to say it really didn't mean anything, she didn't take it to heart.
After that both Tara and Kristin played nice with Emily and Jenny.
They stopped swearing, stopped talking about sex. They started dressing a little modestly.
They lingered around Emily, talked to her openly in the halls, sometimes sat by the two girls at lunch, always complimenting and paying attention to Emily.
And Emily got used to it.
You shouldn't listen to rumors anyway, she told herself. Tara and Kristin were nice.
Then yesterday Tara asked her if she'd like to come over to her house.
"We should hang out," she said.
Emily would have turned to Jenny, but Tara had caught her by herself coming out of the girl's restroom.
Emily stared at Tara, trying to guess the girl's intent.
Tara's green eyes sparkled at her. She wore her long brown hair, highlighted with blond balayage accents, parted in the middle, two wavy sheets falling well past her shoulders. She stood a little taller than Emily, who, at 5'1" was used to looking up at the world.
Tara turned her head to look down the hall, holding head up and straight, the squarish angles of her face giving her an almost, but not quite, masculine appearance, softened and subdued by the feminine flesh of her fine, sharply defined bones. The flat profile of her face, broken only by the clear, straight incline of her nose and the round mounds of her lips, tapered to an oblate square. When she turned to face her again, the liveliness and contours of her cheeks, lips, and brows that arched in a wide, flattened arc over her green eyes surprised Emily. Although not breathtakingly alluring, Tara's expressive visage had something altogether attractive.
She really is pretty, Emily thought to herself.
Tara's dark sleeveless top, tight against her breasts, complemented her red and black plaid skirt, thigh high, exposing the bare skin of her thighs and knees before a pair of tall, shiny black leather boots engulfed her calves and feet. Emily wondered how Tara could walk in those platforms, well over the three-inch restriction set by the school administration.
A green pendant in the shape of a bird, a jade bird in flight, hung from Tara's neck on a fine silver chain. The bird floated between the hills of Tara's chest, glittering and lovely. Emily eyes focus on the green wings, the green body of the bird in flight.
"How about tomorrow after school?"
Tara's voice rolled and echoed in Emily's ears.
"Um," Emily hesitated, trying to come up with reason to say no, couldn't really find one, so finally agreed. "Okay. Send me your address. I guess I could come over for a few hours. I don't have much homework."
"Great. Give me your phone."
Tara added her name to Emily's few contacts, being sure to type her address.
"You do Instagram, Snapchat?"
"Um. No. Not really. I just. Don't," Emily stammered.
"Maybe that's what we can do tomorrow. We can set you up. I use Instagram all the time. Snapchat, too. And, well, other apps too. But we can get you started with those two."
Tara smiled a bright, friendly smile at Emily and hugged her.
"We'll have fun, you'll see."
Emily watched Tara walk slowly down the hall. Tara's entire body undulated in the confident swing of a woman with purpose. You could stand to use some of that yourself, Emily Holly thought. Then she turned in the other direction, towards her own locker.
The bell rang, catching Emily late for class.
Going to Tara's house
Emily stared at the phone.
How about tonight, the text said. Dinner with my fam?
Emily considered her reply. Then her phone rang with Jefferson's ringtone. Hesitating only briefly, she answered her boyfriend's call.
"Hey, Emily, it's me Jefferson."
"I know, you dork."
"Um, you still going with me to Stripes and Thorns tomorrow?"
Stripes and Thorns was the new Christian bookstore Jefferson had been telling her about all week.
"Of course. Why not?"
They talked for a few minutes, Jefferson gushing like a fountain then suddenly going quiet, talking himself out, his initial exuberance faded.
A few moments of silence followed. A new text from Tara popped up on the phone.
"Um, Jefferson. I need to get another call. I'll talk to you tomorrow, 'kay?"
"'Kay."
Well?
Emily quickly typed.
Sure. I need to ask my Mom, but she'll let me.
Tara looked at Emily's reply.
"Too cute," she said aloud, hopping off her bed to get ready.
Five minutes later Emily's phone rang again.
"Hey Emily, it's me Tara. Whatcha wearing?"
A strange question, Emily thought.
"Um. What I wore at school today. I didn't change. That's okay, isn't it?"
Emily looked down at her outfit. Knee-length blue and white skirt, bobby socks, white blouse with short sleeves, brown sandals on low heels.
"Sure it's okay. I just wanted to. You'll see. Also, I bought you a little something. Just a little something, is all."
This news surprised Emily. Curiosity piqued, she asked, "What?"
"Oh, just the cutest little necklace. You'll love it. It'll go great with your eyes. Bye for now."
Then Tara hung up.
Later, Emily sat at her vanity desk looking in the mirror at her silver cross.
It's kind of silly to wear it to Tara's, she thought. She'd think that I was showing off my religion. I mean, everybody at school knows. Besides, she bought me a necklace, and I'll have to try it on.
Unhooking her necklace she laid it carefully on the top of her vanity chest.
At Tara's
Emily's blue Honda Civic pulled into Tara's large driveway, one of those U-shaped turnarounds in front of a huge, vaguely Mediterranean house in a new suburban development, gated naturally. Emily guessed the house to be easily 7-bedrooms. It wasn't the largest house in the neighborhood, but it wasn't the smallest either.
Emily rang the bell on the side of the wide, double doors, made of heavy oak, stained dark, with a window on both doors, covered in wrought iron.
Tara answered, dressed in a short, baby blue skirt with white vertical stripes that billowed around her hips, showing plenty of thigh. She wore a white, sleeveless blouse, her top buttons undone to the beginning of her cleavage. Emily tried to look away, but her glance caught the jade bird hanging on its silver chain.
"You like looking at my necklace, don't you?"
The question sounded strange to Emily. She wanted to deny what almost sounded like an accusation.
"Yes," she said, almost meekly.
"You want to touch it, don't you?"
"No," she said, continuing to stare at the green bird in its stationary flight. "I mean," she gulped, "can I?"
Emily held her hand in mid-air, poised to grasp the pendant.
"Sure," laughed Tara. "It's just jewelry."
The bird hung just below the first button closing Tara's blouse, above which the girl's milky white breasts pressed together, fine blue lines of her veins giving her bosom the appearance of marble.
The backs of Emily's knuckles dragged across the surface of Tara's breasts as she caught the chain in her fingers, pulling it away from the girl to get a better look. To inspect more closely the jade piece of work, clearly a masterpiece of sorts.
"It's beautiful," Emily mouthed, setting the necklace down gently, her fingers once again brushing the bare skin of Tara's cleavage. A strange thrill passed through her, but she ignored it, and it passed.
"You're just in time for dinner," Tara smiled. "Let's go. I hope you like lasagna."
Tara extended her hand to Emily, dropped it at the last minute, started the girl by hugging her briefly, and then startled her more by grabbing her hand to lead her to the dining room.
Dinner passed quietly, without much to remark. Tara's parents started the dinner politely enough, asking Emily questions, giving her their full attention, and doting on their daughter. But they grew silent as dinner went on, almost entirely ignoring both Tara and Emily, talking to each other as if neither girl sat at the table with them nor even existed.
Tara sat next to Emily, turning to her frequently, swiveling on her hips to turn her front to Emily, who couldn't help but stare at Tara's necklace, much to the other girl's amusement.
The jade flashed green in Emily's mind, Tara's voice echoed in her head, but she couldn't pay attention to the words. She knew they were a series of statements, declarations posed as questions, questions not really requiring Emily's response, but she found herself agreeing to them anyway.
"You like wearing skirts, don't you? You like to wear skirts all the time, don't you?"
Emily nodded. It was true. She did.
I mean, jeans are good too, she thought. I like to wear jeans. I like baggy pants and sweats too, especially around the house.
"You don't like jeans, do you? They're just so constraining. You like your legs to be bare and free, don't you? You like the feel the naked air on your legs."
Emily shook her head.
She liked to wear jeans.
"I like jeans," she said, feeling proud and strong. Assertive.
Tara let the matter drop, placing her hand on Emily's bare knee.
