The next day, Rachael began to put her plan into action. She went to school like normal and rode to school with Cindy and Tess. She didn’t let on that she had any special interest in Tess and tried desperately to keep everyone from mentioning what they would be doing after school. She went to all her classes and then went to cheer practice. Afterwards she had Cindy drop her home and everything was in place. She knew how much time she had and what she had to do. She was past the point of considering ramifications and possible distaste. She was in full action mode.
She came home and saw that her mother was in the living room looking at her old beauty pageant sashes. She usually went in and talked to her when she was like this, in a depressed mood. But there was no time for that now, Rachael had precious little time to get to work.
“Hey mom, I just remembered something I left at Cindy’s house, I am going to run over there real quick,” she said. Her mother didn’t respond. She just nodded. Rachael dropped her bags and ran up to her room. She got changed out of her clothes and into a tight white t-shirt and a tight, short skirt. She didn’t usually dress sexy, but she felt she looked good when she looked in the mirror. Good, but not overpowering.
It was about half a mile to the Womack house and so Rachael jogged. She was glad that it was a cool day and she didn’t sweat. She stopped about a hundred yards from Tess and Cynthia’s house and caught her breath and her nerves. She knocked on the door and felt her heart beat faster when Tess answered the door.
“Hey is Cindy there?” She asked quickly, smiling at her best friends little sister. Tess looked beautiful, with her warm smile on and wear tight little shorts and a small wife-beater.
“No, she is at piano practice,” Tess explained comfortably.
“Oh damn it,” Rachael said shaking her head, “I completely forgot about that. Shit!”
“What’s wrong, do you want to come in?” Tess asked and Rachael walked right in. She walked into the kitchen and quickly sat down at the table. Tess sat across from her and stared at her. Rachael had never noticed it before but Tess had a strange look in her eye when she looked at her. Not lust by any stretch of the imagination, but she realized the girl idolized her. So weird because they were the same age, but the fact that Cindy was her older sister must’ve rubbed off on Cindy’s friends as well. Besides, Rachael oozed cool, adult responsibility and poor Tess still seemed young.
“Oh it’s nothing I guess. I just wanted to talk to her about something,” Rachael said and then looked away like she was embarrassed. They sat in complete silence for a minute. Tess smelled nice across the table. Like roses or something. It made Rachael’s heart beat a little faster.
“Sorry,” Tess said finally.
“It’s okay,” Rachael said, turning back to the redhead. She paused for a second and then smiled brightly and said in a cheerful voice, “Hey! Maybe you can help me?”
“Me?” Tess said in a voice that sounded like a combination of fear and pride. She tried to play it cool, “Sure, what’s up?” She was not looking Rachael in the eye, but staring at her hands instead. She was obviously nervous. This was one of her sister’s friends. Here was a chance to impress.
“Well, It’s my mom,” Rachael explained. Tess had only met Mrs. Farmer once and thought that she was a beautiful and funny woman, if a little bit batty, “I think she is going to want to sign up for this adult beauty pageant I heard about on the radio.”
“She is very pretty,” Tess said and Rachael gave her a withering stare. In an attempt to save herself, Tess hastily added, “But I totally wouldn’t want my mom doing something like that. How embarrassing!”
“I know!” Rachael said. She liked how this was going. She decided to try something. She reached forward and gently put both of her hands on top of Tess’ hand as it perched daintly on the table. She felt a bit of tremble. She didn’t know if Tess was sexually attracted to her, but she could tell that the girl was impressed and a bit intimidated by her and that was a good place to start, “I just wish she was more like your mom.”
“Oh!” Tess said, thinking about her own, somewhat matronly 55 year old mother and couldn’t for the life of her figure out why anyone would trade Mrs. Farmer for her. She wasn’t even as nice as Rachael’s mom.
“I’m sorry,” Tess said.
“Can I tell you a secret? I have never told anyone this and I can’t believe I am going to tell you,” Rachael said. It was more a declaration than a question, but she waited for a response.
“Sure!” Tess said, trying and failing not to sound excited.
“I feel like I don’t respect her anymore,” she said wondering how untruthful she was being. Maybe not very, “I mean she is stuck in her glory days past and she married a guy way older than her all those years ago just to get his money and now they sleep in separate bedrooms. I don’t know…” she trailed off. She felt a little guilty. Maybe she had just told a secret when she was just trying to be manipulative.
“You know,” Tess said, “Everybody feels that way sometimes I think. I don’t know your mother. But I know you and you are really cool and… special. If your mom wasn’t who she was you’d be someone completely different. I think you shouldn’t worry about it. I think everything happens for a reason.”
Rachael thought for a moment. She considered this as it pertained to her mother and she considered it in relation to what she was being forced to do by Ariel. She realized that it seemed to make sense. She was almost happy that she had to do it now, Tess had actually helped her.
“I think you’re right,” Rachael said and Tess beamed. She didn’t want to stick around too long she was just planting a seed.
“Thanks,” Tess replied.
“Well, I guess I better shove off,” Rachael said, giving the girl a little squeeze on the hand, “Thanks for giving me something to think about.”
“Sure,” Tess said, she had wanted to say more, but she didn’t know what. She wanted Rachael to stay. Rachael made her feel… special. She had this way of talking that made it feel like she was really listening, rather than just waiting for her turn to talk. She wondered sometimes if Cindy realized how special her best friend was. But Rachael was already out the door. She was walking home and she was smiling. This was going to work.
The next day Rachael decided to let Tess hang a little bit. She didn’t want to start hanging around her too much. She didn’t say anything more than hello to her in the car when she and a quick wave as she got out at school. Tess seemed excited to see her when she first got in and then a little bit upset when Rachael didn’t acknowledge the sudden growth of intimacy between them. Rachael didn’t feel bad, she understood that she had to think strategically and sometimes that was going to cause a little bit of discomfort.
The rest of the day was very routine, including cheerleading practice and everything else. In unguarded moments if seemed strange to Rachael that despite the absolute bizarre nature of her life at this point, that everything else in the world just kept going on like normal, as if nothing had ever happened. It didn’t bother her so much as just make her feel odd about the world. Things were so much less certain than they had once been.