The Bookworm Next Door: The Expanded and Revised Edition (12 page)

              On Monday morning Aimee paced back and forth in front of David’s locker and waited.  She was diligently ignoring the fact that she had been caught hooking up with his best friend at the party and focused all her anger on the cops being called.  She had just managed to make it back to the party after having to move her car – finding a new spot was a pain – before having to take off running back to her car while wearing heels!  Heels!  Ever try running in heels?  It’s damn near impossible. 

              Delilah noticed the girl stalking her neighbor’s locker and decided to head in the opposite direction.  She had already heard the speculation that Aimee insistently pushed about Delilah being the person who had called the cops all because she wasn’t invited to the party. 

              Turning abruptly, she ran face first into David’s chest.  “Sorry,” she stammered.

              “It’s not a problem,” he smiled as he tried to steady her.  “Have a book to return?”  Confused as to why Delilah was starting to narrow her eyes, David backed up suddenly.  “What did I say?”

              “Have a book to return?” Delilah quoted with a twist of snark mixed in, feeling defensive without just cause.  “No, I’m avoiding your girlfriend!  Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she hissed before striding hurriedly away. 

              Turning as he watched her leave, “I wasn’t… I didn’t… Damn.”  Shaking his head, “Foot meet mouth.”

              Turning to face his locker, he saw what Delilah meant and why she was scurrying away in the opposite direction.  “Great!” 

              “There you are!” Aimee’s voice carried.  “Get over here!”

              “Yes, your annoying majesty,” David mumbled, catching a few people nearby off guard.  Giving them a wain smile, he shuffled over to where the self-proclaimed Queen of the School was waiting to dig at him.  It was probably about the rumors she had started about Delilah calling the cops. 

              “Can you believe that that… that… that… nobody dared call the cops on us?” Aimee started off her rant without a ‘hello’ or ‘good morning.’  Pacing back a forth, “I really should do something to put that bookworm in her place.”

              Releasing a sigh, “Delilah did not call the cops on Saturday,” David stated.  “Somebody else called the cops.  Anyway, Delilah and her family were at the hospital.”  He wondered if he should address the point that she was violating their agreement from freshmen year.

              “Why would somebody do that?” Aimee whined. 

             
Underage drinking? Loud music? Cars parked in flowerbeds?
  These were all thoughts that flew through David’s mind at the question that Aimee really didn’t want answered. 

              “It’s so unfair,” she complained.  “Everybody else is allowed to throw parties.”  Aimee could hear the childish note in her voice and chose to ignore it. 

              “Some of my neighbors are more uptight than I expected.” 

              Maybe if he didn’t think it she wouldn’t bring up….

              “Look, about Will and me…”

              “It’s not a big deal.  It’s not like we are in a relationship anymore; we haven’t been in one in years as a matter of fact.”  David shut the door to his locker, hoping that it was the end of the uncomfortable conversation. 

              “But I’d like us to be.” 

              How had he never noticed that when Aimee particularly wanted something her voice had a slight nasally whine?  David wondered if he could slam the locker door on his head. 

              “We just don’t work.  Actually, I think you would be better off with Will.  You both like the same things…”

              “Will has a crush on Hannah,” Aimee laughed.  “Why can’t he see that she’s somebody he can never have?”

              David stared at Aimee, wishing that she got the irony of the situation.  When no lightning bolts struck, he grimaced at the thought of what he needed to say. 

              “We are not getting back together.”  Turning her to face him, “I’m serious.  We don’t work.  It is not happening.  Ever!  I’m sorry, but I’m just not interested in you.” 

              Letting David leave, Aimee narrowed her eyes as she watched him walk away, “We’ll just have to see about that.” 

              She realized that something big was about to happen to the life she knew as soon as she saw the expressions on her older sisters’ faces.  Samantha, the eldest, wore a smug look on her face as soon as she saw her youngest sister, Delilah, with her head in a book.  It was almost always in a book unless they were dragging her out for a run around the neighborhood in the mornings.  

              Unsuspectingly, Delilah glanced up from where she was struggling to understand the language in Hawthorne’s
The House of Seven Gables
.  She had wondered if maybe it was just
The Scarlet Letter
she had trouble fully understanding last year in English class, but no it was just Hawthorne.  His writing style could set her head spinning. 

              “Uh, hey Sam, what’s with the expression on your face?” Delilah hesitated, not entirely certain if she wanted to know the answer to that question.  Maybe it was good news and not some nefarious plan that her sister tended to have whenever she wore that look. 

              Maybe she was planning on eloping with her fiancé Jacob and wanted help escaping to Vegas or Gatlinburg.  Maybe she was…
Maybe I need to get my head out of books,
Delilah thought wryly. 

              “We…” she started, pointing towards herself and Charlotte, as their middle sister entered the room carrying a gag, “are going shopping.”

              “And you are coming with us,” Charlotte continued, “even if we have to hog tie and gag you.”

              “Are you going to the bookstore?”  Delilah asked, knowing that they weren’t going to the bookstore, but it was worth a shot. 

              “No,” one of the sisters flatly stated.

              With a smile that Delilah classified as evil, “We are going back to school shopping,” said the other sister.

              Samantha took back over the line of answers with a calmer smile on her face, “For clothes.”

              “For you.”  Delilah swore that Charlotte cackled those last two words. 

              At least her sisters were standing side by side, making the tennis match of looking back and forth between the two of them easier.  Sometimes she would get quite dizzy trying to follow which sister was saying what whenever they decided to gang up on her; as the baby of the family it happened often. 

              “I have clothes.  I have the school uniform pants and shirts from last year,” Delilah grinned, thinking that she had just gotten out of the now dreaded shopping trip.  She hated clothes shopping with a passion; all of that standing around, sorting through racks and shelves, the taking on and off of clothes that either didn’t fit or didn’t look quite right.  Nope, she was going to stay safely home and suffer through Hawthorne. 

              She would be suffering either way and it was better to suffer with a book than without a book. 

              “Have you tried them on lately?” Samantha grinned. 

              “Of course not,” Delilah admitted slowly.  “They are at home.”

              The girls had agreed to visit their maternal grandmother during their summer break that year.  It had been a nice long trip and a very welcome break from having to watch the comings and goings from a certain next door neighbor’s house. 

              Samantha, a Psychology Major in her final year of college, grinned.  “I know that look.”

              Confused, Delilah looked at her eldest sister, “What look?”

              Charlotte examined her younger sister with a groan, “Not that look.”

              The youngest of the trio repeated, “What look?”

              Suddenly, Delilah found herself surrounded by her sisters.  “Delilah, when was the last time you had a date?”

              “I’ve never had a date,” she admitted.

              “Are you still hung up on David?” Charlotte asked, remembering when she saw Delilah glaring at David’s house when he brought his treasured Mustang home for the first time. 

              “Of course she is,” Samantha grinned.  “Let me tell you something about boys,” she turned her sister to look at her while Charlotte stole the book that Delilah wasn’t paying any attention to; she could keep it if she liked. 

              Looking Samantha in the eye, Delilah pointed out, “I do have male friends, you know.”

              “Acquaintances don’t count,” Charlotte huffed.  “Besides, you don’t have eyes for anybody but the boy next door.”

              “He’s an idiot,” she stubbornly retorted.

              “He’s a boy,” Samantha pointed out needlessly.  “He’s a boy and they are very visual creatures.  They’ll go for the good looking food that tastes like crap before they even touch the weird looking stuff that tastes amazing.  That’s just what they do.  Jacob does it all the time.” 

              “How is Jacob,” Delilah asked, hoping to get her sister off of the topic of David and onto the topic of her fiancé. 

              “That won’t work,” Samantha scolded. 

              “Look,” Charlotte added, turning Delilah to face her, “David picked Aimee because Aimee came in a pretty package and you were covering yourself from head to foot in baggy clothes.  We,” she said, pointing towards herself and Samantha, “get why you did that.  We understand what he didn’t, but you cannot let Mom being a bitch ruin what is left of your high school experience.”

              Samantha took up the gambit next.  “David sees pretty, shiny things.  Even his car is pretty and shiny.”

              “And red; don’t forget red,” Charlotte added.

              “He is just like any male and is attracted to the pretty, bright, shiny things and you, our dear, darling, sweet bookworm of a sister are not a bright and shiny thing.”  Samantha looked over at what her sister was wearing.  Dark jean capris, a loose gray t-shirt covered Delilah’s frame.  Her toe nail polish was chipped, finger nails trimmed short.  Hair pulled back in a ponytail.  “No, this won’t do at all.” 

              Delilah was getting dizzy with her sisters turning her back and forth between the two of them.  It was almost difficult to follow the conversation.  She recognized the tactic for what it was however: they were ganging up on her even if they had to hog tie and gag her to get her to do what they wanted. 

              Then one of them said the one thing she didn’t expect them to say, “Your pants won’t fit because of all of the running you have been doing with us.  We have already replaced half of your pants with a size smaller without you even noticing.”

              “I thought they looked different,” Delilah admitted.

              “But,” Charlotte started to point out, “your khaki pants won’t fit right and you’ll end up looking like a bag lady.”

              Samantha added, “And we already know that you were wearing a size too big as it stands.”

              “So…”

              “…we…”

              “…are…”

              “….going…”

              “….shopping.”

              If Delilah was not already dizzy, she was after that.  At least they had stopped turning her back and for between the two of them. 

              “And you have no say in the matter,” Grandma Denise added in from her perch in the doorway.  “And I’m paying for it.  No arguments.” 

              Rack after rack, shelf after shelf of clothes taunted Delilah until she was about ready to run screaming from the store.  In a way she wished that she had gotten the shopping gene that her sisters apparently had since birth. 

First it was the pants…

              “No, really, I think my pants at home will be perfectly fine,” she protested as Charlotte handed her three pairs of pants in different styles to try on.

              “Only if the school doesn’t care that they’ll keep falling off of you even with a belt.  I’m sure all of the guys won’t mind seeing your underwear on a daily basis.”  Charlotte paused, “That reminds me...”

              “…underwear.  Check.  We also have to go look at bras.”  Samantha seamlessly picked up the rest of Charlotte’s sentence, writing it down on their master list so neither sister would forget everything they needed to buy.

              “Bras!” Delilah screeched while her arms were still filled with the pants. 

              “You cannot keep wearing a sports bra to school,” Samantha cautiously explained.  “They offer no support.” 

              “And you went up a few sizes.” 

              “I wish I had gone up a few sizes like that when I was in school,” Samantha sighed thoughtfully, looking down at her chest. 

              “You already had John panting after you like you were pizza and he needed you to survive.”  Charlotte let out a chuckle at the imagery.  “I’m also fairly certain that Jacob is fine with your body.”  Turning to face her other sister, “Now,” she smiled wickedly while pushing Delilah into the dressing room, “try these on and let me know which ones fit best.  We want tight but not too tight in certain areas,” she explained with arm and hand gestures indicating what areas.  “If in doubt just ask.  Sam will be going and looking at the skirts while we decide what style of pant works best for your body type.”

              “Skirts!”

              “Yes, skirts.  You might not see yourself clearly in the mirror, but we do.  When David Carver sees you on the first day of school he’s going to drop his notebook.” 

For the first time since they had left the house, with Grandma Denise’s credit card in hand, Delilah stopped resisting.  Charlotte knew that the mention of David would momentarily halt Delilah’s panicked and scared expression.  Everybody could tell she still had a thing for the boy next door even if she strongly resisted. 

“You think so?” a dreamy look momentarily crossed Delilah’s face.  She knew it was pointless to pretend otherwise with her sisters; they had witnessed almost the entire relationship between her and their neighbor – from birth until they were freshmen in high school. 

Samantha smiled when she returned holding a few different types of skirts, “She isn’t freaking out anymore.  What did you say?”

“That David was going to drop his notebook when he sees her,” Charlotte smiled coyly.

Nodding her head, Samantha agreed, “I’ve seen the way he looks at you when he thinks nobody is looking.  I bet he regrets being the biggest idiot ever.”

              “If he isn’t regretting how he treated you then he deserves the treatment I’m sure Amanda Kirkland’s little sister is giving him.”  Charlotte rubbed her arm, “I still remember how she blocked our driveway when they had that last party at David’s house.”  Her arm had very recently been removed from the cast and gave her phantom pains whenever the barometric pressure changed. 

              Samantha sighed thoughtfully, “I wish I was there when Delilah was yelling at David about his girlfriend hooking up in the treehouse with Will Cooper and how he needed to get her out so that she could move her car.  I bet he looked worse than when you did and you were the one who broke an arm.” 

              “What about the fact that Dad thought David was hiding in the treehouse when he stumbled in on Aimee and Will,” Delilah giggled.  “I remember how red his face turned.” 

              “Do you still have the picture on your phone?”

              “Yes, but I don’t know what I’m going to do with it.  It isn’t really that great of a piece of blackmail.”  Delilah pondered, wondering why she would ever need something to blackmail Will or Aimee with in the first place. 

              Charlotte led her sister into the dressing room, “Because you never know when you will need the leverage against somebody like her.”

              “Everybody already knows that they were hooking up in the treehouse,” Delilah pointed out.

              With a final shove, “Just trust me.  We know what we are talking about.” 

              Turning to face her older sisters one last time Delilah asked, “Are you so sure about that?”

              “Yes!” both of the sisters nearly shouted.  “Now try on those jeans.”

              Once all of the clothing part of shopping was taken care of Delilah had five new pairs of pants, five new skirts, and five shirts.  (“One for each day of the week!” Charlotte had explained excitedly, hoping that some of her love of shopping would rub off on her little sister.)

She also had a headache forming behind her eyes as she tried to ignore her sisters’ enthusiasm.  For a moment she wished that she had stayed at home with Hawthorne.  She had been trying to read him all summer and was about forty pages away from being finished. 

              The headache had started to form somewhere during their trip into the under things departments.  She wasn’t sure if it was around the panties, bras, or support garments.   

“You’ll want pretty panties to match your new bras,” Samantha insisted.

Charlotte looked down at the bras in her hands, “I wish I had jumped up to a C-cup when I was in high school.  I had to deal with it in college when it wasn’t that convenient.”

              “That’s because you gained more than the freshmen fifteen in college,” Samantha teased her sister. 

              “Whatever,” Charlotte grumbled.  “Anyway, you’ll want pretty underthings just in case David proves himself and you let him under your uniform.”

              “But he has to prove himself,” Samantha insisted.  “In fact, you need to make him work for it.” 

              “Don’t let him get the milk for free when he needs to buy the cow,” Charlotte giggled. 

              Both Samantha and Delilah turned to look at her after the old-fashioned statement.  One of them wondered if Grandma Denise had had a ‘talk’ with the middle sister. 

              Shaking her head, “She’s right in a way,” Samantha conceded.  “He needs to earn your trust back; he did publically reject you not that long ago.”

              “I was there.  I remember.”  Delilah barked as she remembered waiting for David to show up to study for their World History test and him never showing up.  She still hoped he had failed that test. 

              He had ignored her for most of the next day until she cornered him and Will Cooper before class.  With Will egging him on, David had implied that she wasn’t worth his time.  It was not until later that afternoon that he was pleading with her to understand that while they could not be friends anymore at school they could still be friends at home, when none of the popular crowd was looking.  That they could be friends when he wasn’t with Aimee or Will: his new girlfriend and new best friend. 

              No, Delilah was good enough for the random study session and Tuesday night hang out when he needed help with homework, but not if somebody else wanted him for something.  She wasn’t even good enough to talk to when he had to turn around to take something or hand out something during class. 

              “It’s going to take quite a while for me to trust David Carver ever again,” she said, semi-dramatically.

              “Don’t say that,” Samantha whispered, making eye contact with her youngest sister.  “He truly is regretting his decision; anybody with eyes can see it.  Whenever you are both outside he’s tracking your every move.  He’s probably trying to figure out how he can apologize to you.” 

              “He can suck it,” Delilah stubbornly stated.

              “Sweetie,” Charlotte comfortingly tried to hug her currently prickly sister, “then we’ll make him regret being an idiot.  That doesn’t mean you can’t forgive him eventually.  We don’t know what is going to happen when school starts.”  Gradually, Delilah softened into the hug. 

              Grabbing for the black bra in front of her, “David Carver is going to drop his notebook when I walk right past him on the first day of school.”  Nodding her head, Delilah firmed her resolve to follow through with her sisters’ forced make over. 

              “Now,” Samantha grinned, “We need to look at body shapers.”  At the look on Delilah’s face, “No, you don’t need them, but they help hide underwear lines and if you accidently fall then you won’t have to worry about your skirt riding up and showing everybody your thong.”

              “We didn’t buy me a thong,” Delilah whimpered, wondering if she should double check the arm full of clothes.

              Charlotte leaned in to whisper back, “I think she is having a flashback to that really bad date she never would talk about.” 

              Yes, Delilah definitely had a headache forming.  Maybe next her eye would start twitching and her sisters would decide it was time to stop with the torture.

              The next place they took Delilah was to the hair salon.  Even she admitted that sometimes her long hair got in the way. 

              “I want a pixie cut,” she declared, all in and ready for a change.  It also meant that she would get to sit down for a while and not have to try on any more clothes. 

              “Whoa!”

              “Wait a second!”
              Both of her sisters kept protesting and shaking their heads.  The blue-haired stylist looked between the three girls before slowly backing away. 

              Clearing her throat, Samantha whispered, “Do you remember when I graduated high school and decided that it was a new chapter in my life.  What did I do?  I cut off my hair.  Do you remember just how badly a pixie cut looks on our bone structure?”

              Charlotte laughed, “John cried for a week.”

              “John cried for a week because I went with somebody else to prom.”  Samantha paused.  “I wonder how John is doing.”

              “He’s engaged to a girl from a literature class he had to take his sophomore year,” Delilah supplied.  “Mrs. Carver came over and told us the good news before school let out.  They’ll be getting married sometime in the next two years after they both graduate.” 

              Samantha smiled, “Good.  I don’t think I could take his disappointment when I bring Jacob home over Christmas Break this year.”  She looked down at her ring and reached for her phone.  “I’ll be back.”

              The remaining sisters looked at each other before chuckling.  “How long did that take?”

              Delilah answered Charlotte, “Three hours.”

              “Who won the bet?”

              Delilah looked at her phone before answering, “Grandma did.”  Stopping to think about it for a moment, “Does it really matter that we’ll owe her twenty dollars when we’ve spent over two hundred on clothes?”

              “Nope.”  Charlotte turned to the hair stylist that was patiently hoovering, “She’ll have about five inches cut off.  It needs to fall right below her shoulders.  Her bangs also need shaping, but not too short.  She needs to be able to pull them back with bobby pins when she goes running.”  Nodding her head in conclusion, Charlotte wandered over to the newspaper rack and started flipping through a three-month old fashion magazine.