The van didn’t have license plates, and in retrospect they should have noticed it. Kristin and Megan were too engrossed in their conversation, though, and what would have been just two girls walking from their neighborhood to the store turned into something entirely different.
It was one of those lovely June days in the summer between the two girls’ last year of high school and what was supposed to be their first year of college. They had grown up and gone to school together since they were ten, but for the last few years Kristin had been even more conscious of being in her friend’s shadow.
It wasn’t that Megan wasn’t a good friend, and she didn’t even seem to be aware of the effect she had on Kristin. It was just that everything she did had the effect of making Kristin conscious of her shortcomings. Being self-conscious and shy was one way in which Kristin felt she didn’t measure up to her outgoing and vivacious friend, who never seemed to be at a loss for words or out of her depth in social situations. It didn’t help that Megan was a tall and radiant blond, whereas Kristin, barely taller than five feet and one of the few black girls in their wealthy suburban school, didn’t feel the same amount of male attention. Even though Kristin had developed curves and gone through puberty earlier, Megan was the one who’d had boyfriends from the age of fourteen, where Kristin had never seriously dated or had sex with anyone.
Kristin was very attractive, though between her shyness and the fact that she had been somewhat chubby in her early teens, she wasn’t aware of it. Her baby fat was mostly gone now and her butt and breasts would have been the envy of many girls. Her legs were quite long for how petite her body was and her waist and thighs were narrow. While her face wasn’t as striking as Megan’s All-American cheerleader look, she was quite pretty in a girl next door sort of way. While she thought men ignored her, she in fact drew the attention of quite a few, though her shyness made many of her classmates feel she was unapproachable. Her skin tone was medium-dark and her hair hard to do anything with other than keep medium-length and iron-straight.
Megan, on the other hand, was tall, blue-eyed, naturally blond, and slender, with average-sized breasts and hips. Her sparkling smile and cheery demeanor were much more a part of her appeal than any of her physical features, though. As usual, she dominated the conversation with her talk of what sororities she planned to rush and what classes she would take when she went off to college. In addition to being beautiful and popular, Megan had always enjoyed academic success and had received a full ride scholarship to a premedical program in a prestigious school a few states away, not that her doctor parents couldn’t have paid for her tuition anywhere. While Kristin had always been a good student, she was attending the state college only a couple hours away from home, and with her parents being mid-level school district employees, fully expected to have to take out student loans to do it.
Despite her self-consciousness, Kristin enjoyed being with Megan. Megan really did like Kristin, though she wasn’t always much help talking about boys and the like. Still, her talkativeness complemented Kristin’s shier demeanor well, and Kristin was a good listener and couldn’t help but be buoyed a bit by Megan’s perpetual high spirits. The day was beautiful, the sun was shining, the robins were chirping, the cul-de-sacs smelled like cut grass, and life for both girls was pretty good.
And so it was, absorbed in conversation, that they didn’t notice the windowless blue van with the logo of a plumbing supply company on its side pull out of its parking spot behind them and up to the stop sign at the nearest intersection. As they walked alongside it, they did notice a man leaning out the passenger side window.
