Tonya had hated that her parents had decided to send her to her aunt and
uncle’s house for the summer. It was bad enough that they were smokers, but
she had just found out that her fourteen year old cousin Alicia also smoked
now.
How could they let her smoke, Tonya asked herself. She knew if it had been
her parents, they’d have grounded her for the entire summer for even trying
smoking. Yet Alicia’s parents not only let her smoke, they even bought
cigarettes for her.
Tonya had been tempted to call her parents and beg them to let her come home,
but then she prayed about it and realized that this would be a good chance to
witness to her uncle, aunt, and cousin about Christ.
Tonight would be a good night to talk to Alicia and some of her friends. Her
aunt had agreed to let Tonya borrow the car that summer if she would let
Alicia hang around with her. Alicia had asked Tonya if she could take her and
her friends down to the bowling alley after dinner and Tonya had agreed.
After dinner, Tonya and Alicia picked up Alicia’s friends and Tonya frowned
as one by one they got into the car and lit up a cigarette. Tonight would be
a long night, Tonya thought to herself as she sat in the car with four
smoking fourteen year olds.
***
While Tammy gave Sara got a ride home from work, Sara opened up her pack of
Virginia Slims Light 120’s. She had thought about chickening out, but she had
already smoked four cigarettes. Her friend had patiently taught her how to
inhale and she was starting to get used to the head rush the nicotine gave
her. She half-enjoyed smoking her freshly opened pack of cigarettes, but then
realized she wasn’t doing this for pleasure; she was doing this to stop her
mother smoking.
“Be careful,” said Tammy, “Remember, I tried this once and it backfired on
me.”
“I know what I’m doing,” said Sara, taking a drag off of her Virginia Slim.
Sara thanked Tammy once she was home and she put her pack of Virginia Slims
back in her purse. Her mother was outside smoking, as usual.
“Hey Mom,” said Sara, sitting down on the patio across from her mother.
“Hey Sara,” said her mother as she proceeded to pull out another Virginia
Slim, “You mind if I smoke?”
“No Mom,” said Sara pausing a few seconds, “Actually, I think I shall join
you.”
Sara pulled out her pack of cigarettes and lit up. Her mother choked on the
smoke which was already in her mouth …
“Sara,” said her mother, “what the hell are you doing?”
Sara took a deep drag off of the Virginia Slim and said, “Well, I figured if
smoking was all that good, I should try it too.”
“You are not going to start smoking!” yelled her mother, “I don’t want you to
start smoking!”
“Well,” said Sara, “I didn’t want you to start smoking again, but you did. If
you quit right now, I promise I will never smoke again.”
“Sara, it’s not that easy. I’m addicted to smoking. This isn’t a game; you
could very well become addicted, too.”
“Then we will both be addicted to smoking and it will be easier for both of
us to quit if we have a buddy to quit with,” said Sara as she exhaled.
Sara’s mother thought about what her daughter was saying. Since her husband
had turned their lives upside down, she had longed to be closer to daughter.
Maybe her daughter smoking was her way of trying to get closer to her mother,
a strange way of bonding. Seeing her daughter smoking would be an incentive
to quit smoking. Sara was very stubborn once she had made up her mind. If
she wanted to smoke, she would do it whether her mother gave her consent or
not.
Sara and her mother smoked another cigarette as both of them steered the
topic away from smoking.
“You’re off of work the next three days?” asked her mother.
“Yep,” said Sara midway through an exhale.
“Let’s go on a road trip then,” said her mother.
The girls finished their cigarettes and started getting their things ready
for a three day impromptu road trip.
Her mother reached for the half-empty carton of cigarettes and realized that
it might not be enough. She would stop by the store and pick up another
carton before they left town.
***
Kayla woke up the next morning and went to the kitchen to eat breakfast. She
was still tired from the flight, but realized she would need to unpack her
suitcases and make herself at home. There was a note on the table from Kendra
which said that she was out running errands and would be home in a few hours.
Kendra finished breakfast and went back to what would be her bedroom for the
rest of the summer. She took her clothes out of the suitcase and started
putting them away. She went in the closet to hang up her clothes and noticed
a scrapbook on the floor which had “Spring Break” on the cover. She decided
to take a break from putting things away to look at it. Kayla wasn’t sure if
it was her sister’s book or her sister’s roommate’s, but it seemed to be put
together by both of them. Kayla looked at the pictures of her sister and
marveled how much they looked alike. Often they would be mistaken for twins,
both of them were tall with long blonde hair which stretched almost down to
their butts.
In the book were the usual spring break pictures which Kayla had expected,
but whenever her sister appeared she seemed to be holding a cigarette and/or
a bottle of beer. As Kayla turned the pages, it got more risqué. There were
shots of her and her friends flashing various guys on the beach. There was
even a picture of Kendra’s shocked roommate stark naked in the shower. The
final picture Kayla saw was of her sister with a cucumber. Kayla almost cried
as she quickly closed the scrapbook. She would not forget the image of her
sister and the cucumber for a long time, if ever.
Kayla continued organizing her personal belongings as she tried to forget
about what she had seen. After a while, she realized how silly her reaction
had been. She knew before she arrived that summer that she would be shocked
by her sister’s lifestyle. She laughed about what she had seen in the
scrapbook. Kayla got in front of the mirror and trying to mimic Kendra’s
voice, acting as if she were her sister.
“Hi, my name is Kendra and I smoke, drink, flash my titties and stick
cucumbers in my cootchie.”
Kendra laughed and pulled up her blouse, exposing her breast to the mirror.
Kendra laughed again and realized that maybe the jetlag was making her a bit
silly. Still, she continued joking in front of the mirror. She noticed the
cigarette her sister had put out in the ashtray the night before and
pretended to smoke it.
“I like smoking,” said Kayla as she held the unlit cigarette and took a
pretend puff. She pretended to exhale. “My favorite time to smoke is after I
have sex with my cucumber boyfriend.”
She laughed again as she continued to pretend to smoke the Marlboro Light
100. After a few minutes she put the cigarette in her mouth and decided to
dangle it for a few minutes. She sucked on it and noticed it tasted a bit
strange. Perhaps she could light it up and try just one cigarette. No one
would ever find out.
She dangled the unlit Marlboro Light 100 as she grabbed a lighter she had
seen in the desk drawer earlier. She sat down in front of the mirror and
paused for a few seconds before lighting up.
Predictably, Kayla’s first smoking experience was bad. She had thought about
stopping several times, but each time decided to continue until she reached
the filter. She tried inhaling a few times, but couldn’t quite get it right
and would always cough. Finally, on her last puff, she had a successful
inhale. She held the smoke in and the back of her throat tickled. She closed
her eyes and exhaled the smoke before crushing it into the ashtray.
Even though she had only managed to inhale once, she still got a mild
nicotine buzz and she went to the couch to watch some TV. Her sister came
home about an hour later and they ate lunch together, after which the girls
sat on the couch watching TV. A little while later, Kendra said she had to go
into Kayla’s room to get something.
Kendra quickly went into the closet in Kayla’s bedroom. The scrapbook was
right where her roommate had said it would be, so Kendra assumed her sister
hadn’t looked in it. No need for her uber-Christian younger sister to see
pictures of Kendra’s drinking escapades over spring break. Especially the
cucumber picture, she laughed to herself. Kendra looked around the room to
see if maybe there was anything else her roommate might have left there which
Kayla would find objectionable. She knew her roommate had taken her bong home
with her for the summer, but one quick check of the room wouldn’t hurt.
Kendra looked at the ashtray on the desk and noticed that instead of
containing a slightly smoked cigarette there was a cigarette that had been
smoked down to the filter. Kendra had meant to take her cigarette with her
when she left the room, but forgot about it. Now it appeared that her sister
had smoked it, judging from the ashtray. Was Kayla a smoker? Kendra decided
she wouldn’t make a big deal about it, but would ask her sister about it.
Tonya sat at the table of the bowling alley, bored out of her mind. Her young
cousin Alicia and Alicia’s friends continued to bowl. Tonya listened as the
four of them acted the exact opposite of her friends back home. The four
fourteen year-old girls had been chain smoking their Marlboro 100’s all night
and talking dirtier than Tonya had imagined four freshmen could talk. She
wanted this night to end quickly, but instead it dragged on. Then she saw
him.
Never before had Tonya experienced love at first sight. He had walked up to
the table and talked to the four girls. After a few minutes, her cousin
Alicia finally introduced him.
“Hey, Tonya, this is Kim’s brother Dave. Dave, this is my cousin Tonya.”
Tonya held out her hand and Dave kissed it as she gazed into his baby blue
eyes. If there was such thing as love at first sight, this was it. Tonight,
which she had wanted to end, she now wanted to last forever.
She talked to Dave for the rest of the night as the younger girls continued
to bowl. Dave was a smoker but even that didn’t discourage Tonya. She would
worry about getting him to quit later. She wanted to be with him *now*.
The girls eventually stopped bowling and Tonya drove them home. Tonya hoped
this wasn’t the last she would see of Dave…
***
Sara was back home after her road trip with her mother. She sat on the couch
thinking about smoking while her Mom ordered pizza on the phone. A few
seconds later she realized she had lit up without really thinking about it.
When she had started smoking to make her mother guilty about smoking, she
vowed to only smoke around her mother. What she hadn’t counted on was the
three day trip they spent together every waking moment. She wondered how much
had she smoked in the past few days. She wasn’t sure, but she knew it was
close to a pack a day. She was starting to really enjoy her Virginia Slims.
Perhaps she should stop her little experiment…
Sara and her mother chain smoked while they watched movies they had rented on
the way home. By the time the closing credits rolled on the third movie, Sara
had finished the pack of Virginia Slims she had opened earlier that day. She
opened another pack as she talked to her mother after the movie. Her smoking
experiment seemed to have backfired; it seemed far more likely that Sara
would become a permanent smoker than her mother would quit.
Sara wondered what her four friends from church would think if they knew she
was becoming a smoker. She would probably have to keep it a secret from them.
The five of them had talked about smoking and none of them had ever tried it.
She wondered if any of her four friends had ever tried smoking…
***
Kendra and Kayla sat on the couch after dinner when Kendra decided the time
was right to ask her sister about the cigarette…
“Kayla,” said Kendra, taking a drag off of her Marlboro Light 100. “Have you
ever tried smoking before?”
Kayla’s face turned a little bit red and Kendra knew her sister well enough
to know she was hiding something.
“Kendra,” said Kayla, “You know I’ve never tried smoking. I would never try
smoking.”
“Oh,” said Kendra, “So you didn’t smoke that cigarette I left in your bedroom
last night?” Kayla turned beet red as she realized her sister must have seen
the smoked butt sitting in the ashtray.
“Please don’t tell anybody,” Kayla said, looking like she was going to cry,
“It was my first one. I was just curious.” Kendra gave her sister a
reassuring hug.
“Don’t worry; it will be our little secret.”
The girls talked more since the movie they were watching was a little boring.
“So, did you like smoking?” Kendra asked.
“Oh my God; it was the nastiest thing I’d ever done,” said Kayla. Kendra
laughed.
“My first time smoking was pretty embarrassing. At least no one was watching
you smoke for the first time. I was at a frat party when I smoked my first
cigarette. I almost threw up.”
Kayla watched her sister smoke as if she had been doing it for years and the
cigarette seemed natural in her fingers.
“You make it look so easy,” said Kayla as she continued to watch her sister
smoke.
“It is easy,” said Kendra, who noticed her sister watch her smoke and
deliberately slowed down her smoking so her sister could get a good look at
the mechanics of smoking.
Kendra finished smoking the cigarette and lit another Marlboro Light 100
about ten minutes later. Kayla watched her sister smoke for a few minutes
before she got the courage to ask her sister for a drag. Kayla took the
drag, mimicking her older sister’s actions and managed to get it right.
“You go, girl,” said Kendra reassuringly.
The girls continued to smoke the Marlboro Light with minimal coaching by
Kendra and by the end of the cigarette; Kayla was feeling more confident
about smoking. By the end of the night, Kayla had shared five cigarettes
with her sister.
“It’s a bad habit to start,” said Kendra, “But if you can keep it under
control, an occasional cigarette won’t kill you.”
“I know,” said Kayla taking one last hit before going to bed, “I don’t want
to become a smoker, but I enjoy smoking. Maybe I’ll just smoke a cigarette or
so every once in a while this summer.”
Kayla went to bed with a pleasant nicotine buzz and prayed for forgiveness
for smoking that day. She truly enjoyed smoking, but hoped it wouldn’t become
a habit…