“What? Alexander Rushings?” Amber gasped and turned to look.
“No, Alexander the Great,” Tamara rolled her eyes.
“If you ask some girls, they'd agree with you on that,” Amber laughed.
Her giggle fit was cut short when her eyes fell upon Hannah and Alexander. Her arms wrapped around his neck and Alexander's hands rested on the other girl's too-skinny waist. Their lips were pressed together and Amber could see their tongues darting between mouths.
“Yuck,” Tamara said, “What I don't understand is why all these boys want to swap spit with her! You think they'd be afraid to break her. She needs to get some meet on her bones. She needs to look fit like me.”
“And me,” Amber added.
“You're skinny too,” Tamara laughed.
“Not all of us can be incredible volley ball players and have big-hulking-she-muscles like you,” Amber teased.
“I don't have big-hulking-anything’s, unless you're talking about the puppies I have to carry around in my bra all day. Speaking of which, I wish my mom would hurry up and get here. I want to get home and get this damn thing off. I let her talk me into buying a bra with and under-wire and it's killing the pups,” Tamara said.
Amber knew that Tamara was right. Her BFF wasn't too muscly. Tamara wasn't like the bulged-out-veiny female body builders from television. Amber's BFF had an athletic build. It worked well with her dark ebony skin and straight forward attitude. Amber bit the inside of her jaw when Tamara began to talk about bras and their contents. Next to Tamara she felt that the contents of her bra left much to be desired. She was beginning to wonder if Joshua Nelson would notice her if she had larger breasts, when Tamara's mom pulled up.
“Thank God,” Tamara sighed loudly and gave Amber a quick hug before darting into her mom's car.
Amber kicked her feet and shifted her weight to readjust her backpack.
“He's never going to notice me,” Amber frowned, “I might as well give up and go be a nun, because that's exactly how much attention he's given me over the last seven years: NONE!”
HONK! HONK!
Amber startled and looked up. She twisted her lips into a lopsided grin as she slid into the passenger seat of her dad's old Dodge Ram.
“How's it going, kiddo?” he asked.
“Okay, I guess,” Amber lied.
She looked at her dad in the rear-view mirror and seen her own green eyes looking back at her. Her hair was brown with red highlights, where as her father's was blonde. Amber often wished she had inherited her father's blonde hair and her mother's blue eyes. Then maybe Joshua Nelson would notice her.
“You sure?” her dad asked.
“Yeah, I'm fine, dad. There's this big dance coming up at the end of the month and Tamara wants me to go dress shopping with her on Saturday. Would it be okay if I went?” she asked.
“Has Joshua Nelson asked you to the dance?” he grinned hopefully.
“No, Dad,” Amber sighed, “No one's asked me to the dance. No one ever does.”
“You just need to talk to boys more,” he chuckled.
&nb
sp; “Maybe. Can I go shopping this weekend, please, Dad?” Amber asked.
“Sure, honey,” he frowned.
Amber knew her Dad felt guilty about his lack of girly wisdom. She tried to keep him in the know, but some things she just couldn't tell him. How was she supposed to tell him that she might die of bliss if she could just touch Joshua Nelson's dimples?
“Do normal girls tell that to their mothers?” Amber wandered silently.
Amber's mom lost her battle to breast cancer almost ten years ago. She wasn't able to recall much about her mother that wasn't related to the disease. Amber flinched when she remembered her mom's thick wavy blonde hair thinning, splitting, and finally falling out. Her mom had cried more with every clump of hair she found on her pillow. Her frail frame had heaved and shook with every sob, sending the six year old Amber running from the room, yelling for her dad's help. Amber had never known how to handle it.
She could only bring to mind one memory of her mother that didn't include her battle with cancer. They were sitting in an ice cream shop and her mother was wearing a light green summer dress. Her mom ordered a banana split and they shared it, eating bite for bite, teasing one another about sneaking extra bites.