"I can't believe you said yes to a date with that clod."
Seated at her little dressing table, nineteen year old Kristen Taylor tried her best to ignore that jibe. With so much yet to do before she was ready to go, the last thing she wanted to do right now was take the bait her sister was offering. It was a wasted effort as the other girl always found a way to penetrate her defenses, yet she felt that it was important to at least try.
Kristen focused her attention on combing out her long auburn hair, counting each and every smooth stroke from her very best brush and admiring how lustrous her hair looked since she started using that new shampoo. She fretted over what make-up to wear, wanting to highlight her bright green eyes and make her full lips look perfectly kissable while somehow making her nose look a little smaller. She plotted out what clothes she should wear, wanting some jeans that would show off her slender figure, nice legs and tight butt, and a top that would make her small but perky breasts seem at least a little bigger.
She had so much still to do before she was ready for this date that she should have been able to just tune out that teasing voice, but it hampered her efforts considerably that the very same mirror that was allowing her to work on her appearance was also clearly showing her that evil girl as she reclined on the bed right behind her, watching her.
The confident sneer she saw on her eighteen year old sister Ruth's face though was the death blow to her attempt to ignore the girl as she could never resist trying to wipe that look from her face.
While her big sister might have been classified as a statuesque beauty, Ruth could have rightly been dubbed the tomboy type. She was lean and strong from many hours of running around outside playing this or that sport with her friends and even now was dressed in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt that were comfortable but badly worn thanks to her active lifestyle. She had a girlish sprinkle of freckles across her nose and spilling onto her cheeks and shared her sister's full lips and warm green eyes, but her hair was noticeably darker and cut short. There was nothing at all girlish about the size of her bosom though and it was a source of constant consternation for Kristen that her little sister should have been gifted with breasts that were twice as big as her own.
Kristen averted her eyes quickly with a little grumble when she saw those big breasts sway under her sister's shirt, wishing the other girl would wear a bra more often.
Ruth had waited to see what kind of a reaction her insult would get her and was not discouraged in the least when her big sister did not answer her. She knew Kristen even better than she knew herself not merely because they were sisters, but because they had been forced to share the same bedroom all of their lives. Put at it's simplest, she knew how to press all of her big sister's buttons for the simple reason that she had installed most of them.
How could she possibly have missed the tension in the other girl's shoulders, the way her jaw was set, or how she kept sneaking peeks at her in that mirror?
With laughing eyes and an even bigger smirk, she decided it was worth the effort to try again.
"Tommy Halpern is such an idiot! Why on earth would you want to go on a date with someone like that?"
Kristen was unable to resist trying to defend her choice of dates this time, shooting the other girl a look in the mirror which was pointedly ignored. "Why wouldn't I want to go on a date with him? He's one of the most popular boys in school!"
Ruth scoffed at that."So what? It's only because he keeps winning football games for us."
"Exactly! He's the star running back! That boy is directly responsible for our team winning it's last three games!"
"Great!" Ruth squealed with blatantly false enthusiasm."He knows how to run and how to catch balls!" She dropped all pretense however to add, "Now if only he knew how to do anything else, maybe he wouldn't be such a clod."
Kristen knew full well that she should just ignore the other girl's teasing, that nothing good would come of this if she let this argument drag on, but was helpless to resist the impulse to stand up for her date this evening. "This from a girl who spends all her time running around and catching balls! Tommy is big and strong . . ."
"And dumb as a brick!"
Kristen slapped her brush down on the dressing table in irritation. "He's not just some muscle bound jock, either. He's a gentle giant. I've never known anyone so sweet . . ."
"All of which is a point in his favor," Ruth conceded, "but it doesn't make him any less dumb."
"Ruth . . ."
"You know, Charlie has a couple of classes with him. He says that Tommy kept having to ask for help whenever his shoelaces came undone because he couldn't figure out how to tie them. That's why he wears those sneakers with the velcro straps these days."
Kristen scowled, turning around at last to face her tormentor. Her first inclination was to take the obvious shot that at least she had a date when her sister would be left sitting at home all night, but she managed to hold her tongue. While her sister was being incredibly annoying, this was still just playful teasing. The last thing she wanted right before her big date was to see this escalate into a real cat fight.
"Like I care what your weird friend has to say about anything. Tommy Halpern is . . ."
"Is as dumb as a brick!" Though she bristled at the insult to her very best friend in the whole world, Ruth did not take the time to stand up for him. Tonight was all about pestering Kristen after all and she refused to be diverted.
"I'm warning you, Ruth . . ."