Other Girls Are So Pretty

OTHER GIRLS ARE SO PRETTY

by C. S. Adler

Copyright © 2011 by Carole Adler

Published by Two Cerebral Corporation at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

With thanks to my dear writing friends at the Warrensburg, Missouri Children’s Literature Festival who have made the annual pilgrimage to the dock with me.

Chapter 1

Neither of her friends had called by the time Emily left the romance novel in which she’d been living that Saturday morning. The house breathed quietly with the parents gone and her sister Tal still asleep after a late night out with her friends. Tal had told the folks she was going out with friends, but Emily knew her sixteen year old sister had been with Harley, her latest steady.

Emily went down to the kitchen to call Leslie and Dee. At both houses, she got an answering machine and left the message, I’m making fudge so come on over. Her friends found her fudge irresistible. Emily hoped it would lure them to her house. Her stomach

rumbled. No, you can’t have anything, she told it. She was still trying, without success, to

discipline her tank shaped body into a slenderness approximating Tal’s willowy shape.

In an hour she had cooked the fudge, beaten it to creamy smoothness and left it to cool in

a Pyrex dish on the counter. Now what? She had finished her homework for all her eighth grade

classes and finished the one romance novel she allowed herself a day. A counter high pile of

dirty laundry waited beside the washing machine in the mud room, but that was Tal’s job. Besides this was supposed to be Emily’s free time, fun time, time with her friends.

Clattering heels announced Tal’s arrival. Oops, the wash, she said as she paused at the mud-room in skin-tight jeans and high heeled boots. With her black satin hair slithering to her waist, Tal had the power to make grown men stare. Would you do it for me, Emily?

Why should I?

Because I’m the wicked sister and you’re the good one. Tal grinned. Please, Emily. I’ll pay you. Harley’s waiting and I’m already late.

She’d probably spent too long brushing her hair, Emily thought, but she shrugged, so Tal blew her a kiss and left.

Dutifully, Emily attacked the dirty laundry, sorting coloreds from whites and feeding the white wash into the machine first. She couldn’t even identify with Cinderella she told herself because Cinderella was pretty and had a fairy godmother while Emily was stuck with her father’s unfortunate nose, large features, and ordinary hair. She had nice ears though. Tal had said so. But ears were boring, weren’t they? Unless there was a boy somewhere who had a thing for ears.

The phone rang. Finally! Emily rushed to answer it.

You’ve gotta meet me down at the dock, Emily. Now, right now. Her friend Dee being dramatic was normal.

Why? What’s up?

Just come. It’s important. Dee hung up. She had sounded close to tears, but then tears

slid from Dee’s eyes on the slightest pretext - new shoes that raised a blister, a teacher’s sarcasm, a sad story. Emily suspected this emergency would involve Justin, Dee’s boyfriend. Dee had had a crush on him since last fall when they had played star-crossed lovers in a seventh grade take off on Romeo and Juliet. A year later Dee was still obsessing about whether Justin liked her or not. Leslie, the third member of their tight little trio, had lost patience with Dee’s endless speculations. Only romance-starved Emily would still listen to her.

Emily had on her usual fit-for-comfort jeans and an extra large man’s sweatshirt. She considered changing to something more attractive, but if she didn’t hustle on down to the dock, Dee would accuse her of not caring. Never mind that they’d been fast friends since Dee moved into town in third grade and Leslie and Emily had taken her into their pairdom because she’d been such a pathetic little waif. You’re supposed to be my friend! Dee would cry. Whatever. Emily would end up feeling guilty. She grabbed her parka from the front hall closet and left.

The wind was busily swirling brown and yellow leaves about. Fall had come late in this part of Missouri. Emily headed down the steep hill toward the park through a veritable rainfall of leaves. For a Saturday her street was strangely deserted, and except for a woman throwing a stick for her dog to retrieve, nobody was at the lake across the road from her neighborhood, either. On the dock on the side of the lake closest to town, Emily could see a lump, which had to be Dee. The figure was hunched over with chin on knees and arms wrapped around legs. That was Dee’s favorite misery position.

Pretending that a boy was waiting for her there, a boy who was at this very minute

inscribing his initials and hers inside a heart, Emily followed the dirt path around the lake. She crossed the scruffy green lawn to the ten by twelve foot wooden apron into the water. Rowboats

had been tied up there once when the lake wasn’t such a murky mess, but now the dock was just

a horizontal message board for kids. Some of the messages were crude or insulting. Most of them were testaments to relationships. Jon Allen and me, ‘99 or Ken loves Kelly, or B.K. and O.T. That last was in a heart. Dozens of hearts had been dug into the splintery wood.

So what’s up, Dee? Emily asked.

He finally did it. She pointed a finger.

Emily followed the finger to a set of initials. Well, hey, congratulations, she said.

No. Look again. See how he did it? Dee’s pert face was drawn down, even the ends of her lips descended. Emily looked again. There among the myriad testimonials to undying love that stretched back in time to when the dock was new - which was before Emily or Dee was born - was a small square with D. K. & J. B.

What do you mean? That’s you and Justin all right. Who else has those initials?

No, but see how small they are? Like he didn’t want anybody to notice. And there’s no heart around them.

Oh, come on, Dee. He put it on the dock. He made it public.

Leslie’s voice rolled over them. Well, I’m hoarse from cheering for Mick’s team, but I got your message and came before I even took off my jacket. So what’s the big problem? The power of Leslie’s foghorn voice contrasted with her delicate features. She looked too fragile to be the serious volleyball player and weight lifter that she was.

Did he win? Emily asked. She wasn’t surprised that Dee had summoned both her best

friends. Dee mustered as big an audience as she could for her dramas.

Well, they were winning, but then in the last minute – Leslie began, but Dee

interrupted her.

Doesn’t anybody care about me? she cried.

Justin gave her what she wanted and she’s still not satisfied, Emily told Leslie.

So what else is new? Dee’s never satisfied. Leslie’s eyes went to the initials bracketed by their three sets of feet without needing to be directed. Neat. Well done. He must have used a sharp knife. What doesn’t suit you about it, Madam Dee?

The letters are small, Emily answered for her.

Well, maybe he only had a little knife, Leslie said. She pooched her lower lip out comically.

Or he wanted to be able to erase it, Dee said.

Don’t be silly. He’s got no talent for carving, that’s all, Leslie said. Besides, remember who he is. For Mr. Cool, these initials are as good as a billboard on the highway.

Justin saves his emotions for the stage, Dee said protectively.

Boys our age don’t have emotions, none that they’re willing to show anyway, Leslie said.

She kicked a pebble into the water and changed the subject. What should I get Mick for his birthday? I’ve been going crazy trying to think of something not too expensive.

Why can’t it be expensive? Dee asked. Leslie’s father ran a successful trucking business, and gave her a generous allowance that Dee openly envied.

"Because my birthday’s right after his, and Mick’s got no money except what he earns from yard work. And he’s got to buy his own clothes, plus school supplies and everything from

that."

You mean, he’ll think he has to match what you give him? Dee said.

You got it. Leslie began stretching out her hamstrings, first the right leg, then the left.

"Why don’t you give him a photograph of yourself and make a frame for it, like that

needle point thing you did?" Emily said.

Excellent, Leslie said. You’re so smart, Emily. That’d cost hardly anything. Oh, and I have a really cute picture of the two of us together. Thanks. Leslie hugged Emily in gratitude.

What about me? Dee demanded, so Leslie hugged her, too.

You know, Leslie said slyly, Justin must have used a ruler to make that square so perfect. Can you see him out here with a ruler to do it right for Madam Dee, Emily?

Oh, stop teasing me, Dee said. He didn’t even sign it love.

"Tell him you want him to carve a heart around