The Bookworm Next Door: The Expanded and Revised Edition

by Alicia J. Chumney

  “…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 i
n 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.

  She knew her sister wouldn’t be happy with Stage Three of their plans.

  Delilah briefly wondered if Charlotte was forming more nefarious plans, but the stylist started asking her questions and Delilah forgot all about worrying about what was going to happen next.

  “Nope. No way. Not happening. You are not dragging me anywhere near that makeup counter. That is not happening. We’ve spent enough money on clothes and hair supplies and panties and then there was lunch and…” Delilah rambled, dragging her heels for the first time all trip. Her right eye started to twitch.

  Her sisters just ignored her, knowing that they wouldn’t actually need Delilah in order to pick out the right shades of makeup. That was the benefit of being siblings with similar coloring.

  “I would kill for her green eyes,” Charlotte mumbled as she looked at the eye shadow while searching for the perfect shades.

  “Me too. We’re just stuck with Dad’s boring old blue,” Samantha agreed, humoring her sister. Glancing over her shoulder she saw Delilah stubbornly standing ten feet away from them, glaring. “Too bad we all got Mom’s stubbornness.” She went back to searching for the perfect shade of mascara.

  Charlotte looked over at where their sister was looking at the lip glosses, “We should freak her out with an eyelash curler.”

  Samantha shuddered, “Those things freak me out.”

  “It doesn’t mean we’ll actually use it on her.” Charlotte paused, her hand on a palette of brown eye shadows, “Although we might want to show her how to use it in case she ever decides that she wants to.”

  “Or how to use it as a torture device against stubborn boys?”

  Grinning, Charlotte laughed, “That sounds perfect.”

  Taking their selections to the counter to pay, Delilah joined them to see what they had collected. Bottles and tubes and lipstick and lip gloss and containers with various shades of eye shadow littered the check out.

  The eyelash curler stood out, “What’s that for?”

  “Your eyelashes,” was all that Charlotte said before a wave of giggles threatened to overcome her.

  “Do you think you picked out enough?” She pointed to the two different shades of mascara and eye liner. The clerk rolled her eyes. Delilah crossed hers in response, but it went unnoticed by all of them as they sorted the makeup.

  “No. You’ll probably want more when you get back home. Maybe some waterproof mascara if anybody has a last minute pool party before it starts getting cooler.” As the idea popped into her head, Samantha turned to Charlotte, “Do we need to get her a swimsuit?”

  “A swimsuit? What’s wrong with the one I already own?” The clerk rolled her eyes, again, at the frantic tone in Delilah’s voice.

  “It’s a one piece that’s perfectly suited to swimming races with us, but at a pool party you don’t want to be wearing a one piece.”

  Delilah growled, “I’ll want something that can cause a wardrobe malfunction?”

  “That’s one way to get David’s attention,” Charlotte laughed. Turning to the clerk, “And if you roll your eyes one more time we’ll cancel our order, notify your manager, and buy all of these at one of the other stores.”

  The clerk looked down at the purchases, guesstimated their final total, and knew that her boss wouldn’t be happy if she lost another two hundred dollar sale. Throwing on her fake smile, she silently started ringing items up without looking at any of the sisters.

  “That’s better,” Charlotte grinned before turning back to Delilah. “Later we’ll teach you how to put on this war paint.”

  Panic began to return to Delilah’s voice. “War paint?”

  “Sweetie,” Samantha smirked, “you are going to war against the male population and will be taking no prisoners.”

  “I never fully understood that phrase.” Wide-eyed, Delilah looked at both of her sisters, confused.

  Charlotte, never dropping her grin, responded, “They are going to drop dead at the sight of you.”

  Hours later Delilah stared at the packages spread out on her bed. Her sisters, she thought, had gone overboard. All of the loose, baggy tops she had brought with her had already been sorted through and trashed (well, donated) with the exception of the five tops her sisters had allowed her to keep. She would be allowed the same courtesy at home when Charlotte would go through her closet and decide what would be kept and what would be taken to the nearest donation bin.

  She wondered what her friends would think as soon as they saw all of the clothes and shoes that her sisters insisted she buy.

  “All of this isn’t meant to impress a boy, Delilah,” Charlotte had insisted.

  “Sadly, we live in a visual world,” Samantha agreed. “Studies have shown that people that are well-dressed and look like they take care of themselves, no matter their body type, are treated differently than the people that look sloppy and dirty.”

  “Yes, you’ll get David’s attention, but you’ll also be taken more seriously at a job interview if you are wearing clothes that actually fit. It tells people that you care about yourself.” Charlotte thought about the people that weren’t called back for auditions in her school’s drama department whenever they came in wearing pajama bottoms instead of actual pants. “I see it all the time.”

  “That doesn’t mean you should overdo it,” Samantha added. “Those heels and wedges are for special occasions, not for every day or for school.”

  “People will wonder what you are trying to prove if you wear heels to school, especially every day,” Charlotte pointed out, remind
ing Delilah of some of the girls who did wear heels to school. For some of them it made sense; they were fashionistas. For others those heels were used to intimidate.

  “Or if you are trying to overreach your station. I remember some people will always be diligent about maintaining the social order at all costs. For them high school will be the main highlight of their lives.” Samantha started yanking tags off of clothes.

  Following suit, Charlotte copied her older sister’s actions with a pair of scissors, “I’m sure you know somebody who is exactly like that. Remember, I graduated with her sister. I would love to see one of the Kirkland girls being put in her place. They are just a pair of spoiled girls with the ability to play their guilt-ridden divorced parents.” Charlotte paused, “Was she really behind setting up Savannah Blake to take the fall for damaging Mr. Wallace’s car?”

  “We think so, but nobody could ever prove it. Nobody has been able to figure out how she never gets caught by the cameras.” Delilah started sorting the clothes in order to put them in the wash. “We think it was because Kelly thought that Savannah had broken up with her brother, Brady.”

  “Did she?”

  “Not really. Brady Johnson had met Hannah Stanfield through Savannah’s Bible Study class and Savannah could tell that they were better suited than she was with him. Her only condition was, since they’d been dating for weeks and he had already asked her to prom, that he still take her to prom. She doubted she could find a new date in two weeks.” Pausing as she started piling the skirts on top of the pants, “I guess the only person who didn’t realize what was actually going on was Kelly. She can be unobservant sometimes.”

  “Brady…Brady…Brady…” Charlotte repeated as if she was trying to remember something. She went on pulling tags off of the tops as she thought. “That name sounds familiar.” Looking over at Samantha, “Do you know what I’m trying to remember?”

  “No, but you are a year older than he is. He would have been in the ninth grade when I was in twelfth grade.” She tossed a black top over to the dark colors pile. “He should have graduated last year.”