A haze of cigarette smoke filled Courtney McPherson’s car as it almost always did as she drove the streets of suburban Minneapolis on a dreary mid-February afternoon with the windows completely closed, but today it was twice as smoky as she had a fellow tobacco user occupying her passenger seat. Courtney’s younger sister Haylee sat silently on the opposite side of the console, peering out the window with a half-smoked Camel Pink No. 9 dangling from her lips and avoiding eye contact with Courtney as much as possible but occasionally giving her a split- second side-eye both as a quick conveyance of her displeasure with her older sister and to see if Courtney was looking her way. Block after block on the car ride, the two sisters played this awkward game of cat and mouse, darting their eyes in the other’s direction but only moving toward each other physically in the brief moments when one of the girls extended her arm to the butt can in the console to ash their respective cigarettes. It might have been a short ride to the dentist’s office, but it was gonna seem like a cross-country voyage for as awkward as it was.
The sisters had been estranged ever since New Year’s Day, when Courtney confessed to Haylee that she had had sex with Haylee’s one-time boyfriend Grant. Courtney knew it wouldn’t go over well but was still a little surprised that Haylee had held on to the anger for more than six weeks considering Haylee had been broken up with Grant when the incident happened in the first place, but Courtney knew she had done wrong and the guilt was as tangible on her face as the anger was on Haylee’s as Courtney continued to drive. But in addition to the anger, Haylee also seemed anxious, powering through the last few drags of her cigarette and then immediately pulling out another one from her pack. Courtney looked Haylee’s direction a little longer than usual as Haylee used the butt of one Camel Pink No. 9 to light a new cigarette even though they were only a couple of blocks from their destination, her hands noticeably trembling. As Haylee leaned over to crush her expired cigarette out into the butt can, Courtney decided she should at least attempt to engage.
“There’s nothing to be too nervous about today. It’s just a checkup,” Courtney threw out there in a tone intended as the latest in a long line of benign peace offerings toward Haylee, none of which had been well-received in prior weeks. “The novocaine shots can be a bastard but they’re not gonna give you one of those today since it’s just a check-up,” Courtney added as she approached a red light in traffic, taking a deep drag from her Marlboro Light Menthol 100 while locking eyes on an unresponsive Haylee who continued to just sit there looking out
the window with her freshly lit Camel Pink No. 9 hanging from her mouth, rising up and down from her lips as she dragged.
Haylee could feel Courtney’s eyes trained on her and smelled the blast of mentholated cigarette smoke that Courtney just exhaled flow into her airspace, and finally broke the silence with a curt “Whatever!” mumbled through a talking dangle.
Courtney’s head sunk in sadness that she was unable to find even the faintest hint of forgiveness from her sister, which she had hoped she might find when she volunteered to drive Haylee to this dental checkup. Courtney turned into the dentist’s office parking lot, mindful that she still had the ride home to possibly orchestrate a breakthrough, but knew the odds were against her given the continued frosty reception from Haylee. As the car came to a stop in front of the dentist office entryway, Courtney added as Haylee was stepping outside, “Your appointment is an hour long so I’ll be back at 5:00, but if you get out early just text me and I’ll come right over and pick you up, okay?”
Now out the car, the half-smoked cigarette still hanging poutily from Haylee’s lips, she finally made eye contact with Courtney. Courtney could almost feel the resentful judgment as Haylee looked her up and down, surveying the matching black leather jacket and leather pants along with the beautiful, long blond hair and late teen face of her older sister behind the steering wheel as Courtney exhaled yet another monster drag from her cigarette. Just looking at Courtney personified to Haylee the amoral seductress who defiled the boy that Haylee at least at one time wanted for herself. All Haylee could muster up was a deliberately pissy “Yeah,” before slamming the door with a flourish and walking towards the front door of the dentist office.
Courtney once again came to terms with how much she deserved the snub as she watched her 14-year-old sister walk away, decked out in a pink winter jacket that fit Haylee’s style but seemed more fitting for a girl a few years younger than Haylee. Courtney continued to watch as a late 20s woman stepped out of the dentist office with a young child through the same door Haylee was approaching, and Courtney quickly assessed the woman was probably making a swift but similar assessment of Haylee’s youthful appearance in the pink jacket, albeit with the added contrast of that out-of-place cigarette hanging out of Haylee’s mouth. Courtney’s eyes darted back and forth between her sister and the woman’s response to her sister as Haylee obliviously began a rapid-fire triple exhale off the dangle, puckering her lips around the filter of the cigarette and dragging hard while jets of smoke simultaneously blasted out of both nostrils. Haylee let the cigarette go limp for a split second before puckering up to repeat the process, an endless expulsion of
smoke pumping out of her face just as intensely as she continued to pump new smoke into her body with her subsequent dangling drags. The late 20s woman walked through the giant cloud of Haylee’s secondhand smoke as they crossed paths in the doorway and watched in disbelief as Haylee finally removed the cigarette from her mouth, casually flicking the butt into the snowbank just past the woman and her child before cutting loose a mid-spectrum-intensity smoker’s cough and then hocking up a lugie and launching it to the pavement in the other direction, only inches in front of the entrance door.
Watching this from 15 feet away, Courtney’s despair briefly shifted to amusement upon seeing this complete stranger’s reaction to this vulgar display from her younger sister, knowing that the woman probably hadn’t seen a girl Haylee’s age smoke like this in her entire adult life while the young daughter had likely never seen it. The woman shook her head in absolute disgust as she and the young girl progressed toward their car in the parking lot. After the initial buzz of voyeuristic good times, Courtney became bummed again, having just witnessed the immaturity and relative innocence of her younger sister and how she had been responsible for taking some of that away. Worse yet, even after the confession on New Year’s, Courtney had two additional moments of weakness in the weeks since where she picked Grant up and had sex with him, her teenage hormones raging in the middle of the relationship time-out she had been having with her 40-something boyfriend and boss until her 18th birthday, which had finally come and gone a week earlier on February 4th.
Courtney’s moment of introspection was interrupted by the notification from her phone of an incoming text message. Courtney’s face filled with dread upon hearing it, figuring she was being contacted by one of two people…..either Grant, the 15-year-old boy she’d been having sex with, or Curt, her 43-year-old boss and formal boyfriend who she resumed a sexual relationship with as planned when she turned 18 last week, but neither of whom she really wanted to hear from right now. She finally looked at her phone and was surprised to see the text message was not from either of them, but from her brother Trevor’s girlfriend Lauren, reading “Hey when are you gonna be at work again? I’d like your help with getting Trevor’s Valentine’s gift!!”
For the first time in quite a while, a smile splashed across Courtney’s face as she texted back to Lauren that she’d be working tomorrow afternoon. Lauren texted back “I’ll see you there!” and the exchange ended with Courtney becoming melancholy again wishing her relationship was as uncomplicated as Trevor and Lauren’s. Instead, she’d let her primal desire for dangerous sex put her in a situation where she was taking advantage of a young boy who was now officially
felony jailbait for her and allowing herself to be taken advantage of by a middle- aged man who had been doing the same thing to her only a week earlier. She inserted another Marlboro Light Menthol 100 into her lips and fired up, sending a rocket of exhaled smoke into the windshield that blended in rather smoothly with the crust of dirty snow under the windshield wiper on the other side of the windshield. As she put the car into drive and began to pull out of the parking lot, she briefly acknowledged that she’d have another moment of sexual weakness soon enough, but it wasn’t gonna be today.
***
“Haylee McPherson,” called out a late 20s blond dental hygienist inside the dentist’s office, calling the teenage Haylee in to see the chair after only a couple of minutes in the waiting room. A visibly anxious Haylee reluctantly began to follow the smiley hygienist down the hallway toward the room, making small talk with the 14-year-old light brunette who she could tell was not thrilled to visit the dentist.
“We haven’t seen you for a while have we Haylee?” the hygienist asked perkily, trying to recall if she’d ever seen this girl before and wrinkling her nose at the overwhelming tobacco stench coming off of Haylee’s jacket.
“It’s been a while,” Haylee added as the hygienist looked at Haylee’s file which was she was holding in her hand.
“Wow…three years,” the hygienist said, then looking down to the name of Haylee’s parents in the file to see if that rang any bells. “You’re Becky’s daughter, huh?” the hygienist asked, and as Haylee responded affirmatively the hygienist started putting together that Becky McPherson was a heavy smoker and she figured mom must have driven daughter to the dentist that day, which was all the hygienist could allow herself to imagine possible in explaining why Haylee stunk of cigarette smoke so badly.
As they arrived in the dental office with the chair, Haylee could feel her anxiety to rise as the hygienist introduced herself as Jamie and shook her hand while taking Haylee’s coat to hang up on a hook at the edge of the room, the stench becoming that much more intense to Jamie as she took hold of Haylee’s pink jacket. In moments, Haylee was lying on the dental chair as it began to recline backward, and Jamie requested that Haylee open her mouth.
The scenario that Jamie had forbidden herself from accepting as possible was proving itself to the correct one a nanosecond after Haylee opened her mouth, a wave of fresh cigarette breath quickly rising from Haylee’s mouth and dominating
the airspace of her hygienist. As Jamie looked at the layer of black buildup along the gum line of Haylee’s teeth, it was pretty clear that Becky McPherson’s mother was not the only heavy smoker in the household. The surgical mask over Jamie’s face helped disguise to Haylee the olfactory revulsion and general disbelief on the hygienist’s face as the anecdotal evidence of very heavy tobacco use by this young girl became more clear with each passing second as she inspected her mouth.
Jamie began asking a series of standard questions to Haylee about brushing frequency and technique, all of which Haylee was nervously answering, eventually getting to the question which she most wanted to hear an answer to, “Do you drink coffee or use tobacco?”
“Yeah I smoke,” Haylee casually muttered, not even considering how unusual it was for a 20-something dental hygienist to hear that answer from a 14-year-old girl this day and age.
“How much do you smoke per day?” Jamie continued to probe, pulling back her dental equipment for a moment to let Haylee answer without obstruction as Haylee did the math mentally in her head before answering the question.
“Probably like two packs a day,” Haylee responded, with a continued no-big-deal vibe to her response.
“Oh goodness, Haylee! That’s really bad!” the hygienist responded with passion, briefly pausing to keep from getting emotional. “That’s terrible for your teeth and just really awful for your health in general!”
“I know,” Haylee responded, again not picking up on the intensity of her hygienist’s emotional response.
“How long have you been smoking?” Jamie pressed on with the interrogation.
“Ummmm…” Haylee paused once again to try to remember when she had taken up this habit that she’d had just about as far back as she could remember before responding, “I think I started when I was 11.”
Jamie now pulled in to really dig into Haylee’s teeth for the dental cleaning, holding her breath whenever she got close in a futile attempt to evade some of the most intense cigarette breath she could recall in her seven years as a hygienist. Jamie also punctuated the cleaning with a drumbeat of antismoking editorializing, passing along to Haylee a litany of mostly urban legends about the toll of tobacco use on patients that Jamie had heard from colleagues over the years. For her part, the
last thing Haylee wanted to hear as a sharp metal pick was grinding away at her teeth was a lecture about quitting smoking, so she began to tune Jamie out and travel elsewhere in mind. Based on the recent troubles with sister Courtney and the trip down memory lane from her hygienist on when Haylee started smoking, Haylee began to envision herself in her bedroom at the McPherson home a little more than three years earlier…..
***
An 11-year-old Haylee McPherson was sitting in her bedroom in the mid-summer of three years prior. Clearly up to mischief by the look on her face, Haylee walked over to the drawer on her desk and pulled it open, lifting a couple of books out and revealing three Marlboro Light Menthol 100 cigarettes lying at the bottom of the drawer next to a pink lighter. She lifted the cigarette to her lips and sparked it up, taking a drag that was clearly the work of a smoking rookie but just as clearly not the first time this girl had ever taken a drag from her cigarette. Also clear by the pleasure on her face and the way the thin and pale line of freckles perked up on her forehead after she took a drag was that Haylee was liking this latest experimentation with cigarettes. She placed the cigarette to her lips and took another quick drag, unable to fully relax as she smoked. Seconds later, a knock on her bedroom door reminded Haylee why she could never fully relax.
“It’s Courtney. Can I come in?” announced the mid-teen female on the other side of the door with a voice quite a bit less husky than present-day Courtney.
“Just a second!” Haylee responded, with terror in her voice visible to Courtney even through the closed bedroom door. Haylee fiercely waved the haze of mentholated smoke in front of her away as much as she possibly could before migrating to the plant in her window sill, quickly burying most of the cigarette in the dirt in the flower pot just as she’d been doing with the butts of the other cigarettes she’d been smoking in the last month. Finally, a good 30 seconds after Courtney knocked, Haylee gave her the green light, saying “Okay you can come in now.”
Courtney opened the bedroom door and even though the entire McPherson home reeked of cigarette smoke based on how much she and her mom smoked, Courtney was still able to smell fresh smoke in Haylee’s room. But Courtney decided against confronting her right away, instead merely asking “whatcha doing?” in a way that seemed out of character for the two sisters who didn’t often socialize by choice.
“Nothing,” Haylee said with a nervous pause before adding, “Just reading” after coming up with that better but equally unconvincing response with an additional
couple of moments of deliberation. “Why what do you want?” Haylee added with an air of impatience that Courtney was all too familiar with. As Courtney closed the door behind her and approached her, Haylee knew it was serious and that she’d likely been busted for the exact reason she thought she was. It became official when Courtney pulled her pack of Marlboro Light Menthol 100s out of the back pocket of her jeans.
“I’ve been noticing these disappearing on me in the last few weeks Haylee,” Courtney said accusingly, opening the flip-top of the cigarette pack to reveal a handful of cigarettes left. “I had a feeling I knew they were going but I counted them a few hours ago. I went from 10 to 7 without smoking any of them.”
Haylee was doing a very poor job of disguising her guilt as she fired back with “Well I certainly didn’t take them!”
Courtney tilted her head in Haylee’s direction with a “C’mon now” gesture on her face, reaching down to her pack and taking out a cigarette, which she lit up. Courtney could see the desire for nicotine on Haylee’s face as Courtney took a deep drag and sent a blast of smoke in front of her, not quite pulling off the distance that an 18-year-old Courtney was capable of generating on an exhale but still providing a solid visual framework for what would become the legendary long- distance exhales Courtney had become accustomed to. After exhaling in Haylee’s direction and picking up on Haylee’s body language, Courtney decided it was time to broach the topic directly.
“I was your age when I started sneaking mom’s cigarettes, Haylee. Based on the footsteps I heard you make in the direction of your window I’m betting you put your butts in the flower pot right?” Courtney asked with a smirk.
Haylee knew she was in over her head already and decided to come clean rather than further embarrass herself denying it. “Fine! I’ve tried some of your cigarettes! Just a few though!” Haylee then looked up to Courtney pleadingly, “Please don’t tell mom and dad!!!”
Courtney took another drag and furrowed her brow as she began to respond in a talking exhale, “You don’t really have to worry about mom and dad. I was scared to death of them when I got caught too but mom smokes so she’ll understand. She’ll probably just say she’s ‘disappointed’ but knew it was coming. That’s what she told me anyway.”
“What about dad?” Haylee asked.
Courtney shrugged, taking yet another drag. “He won’t care either. Mom wears the pants in this family.”
Haylee laughed along with Courtney in agreement but still shook her head with dread about a formal revelation.
Courtney pressed forward, “Once you come clean mom will start buying cigarettes for you and then you can smoke as much you want. That’s what she did for me anyway.”
Haylee hung her head down, clearly still terrified at the prospect of confession, adding “I don’t know.”
“I get to smoke a full carton a week!” Courtney added to inform Haylee of just how much she’ll be able to smoke once she gets the green light”
“Oh I’ll never smoke that much!” Haylee responded with confidence, leading Courtney to smile having said the same thing three years earlier.
“I’ll tell you what. Tomorrow when she gets home I’ll tell her…as long as you’re there with me. I promise it’ll be no big deal.”
Haylee eventually shrugged in agreement, recognizing that the upsides of coming clean probably outweighed the downsides and that having Courtney as the go- between was likely the best arrangement she could finnagle.
Courtney smiled back taking yet another deep drag, rapidly filling Haylee’s bedroom up with a haze of smoke above and beyond what Haylee’s rookie lungs had thus far been capable of. “Just stick with me, kid. I’ll take care of you,” Courtney responded jokingly, generating another unusual burst of laughter from her usually aloof younger sister, and recognizing that she was ultimately relieved to have been busted. But now Courtney decided it was a good opportunity to offer Haylee some additional relief, opening the flip-top on her Marlboro pack, “Want to smoke one with me?”
After a split second of panic, Haylee agreed and took hold of the cigarette from Courtney’s pack. Haylee held the cigarette up to her lips with two fingers and Courtney reached over with a lighter to fire up the first cigarette she’d witness her little sister smoking. Courtney watched intently as Haylee took the first drag after the flame hit the tobacco cylinder and was taken aback by the level of pleasure intensity visible on Haylee’s face when she inhaled. As Haylee removed the cigarette from her pursed lips and expelled the smoke, Courtney knew Haylee was a natural at this just as she had been three years earlier.
“That nicotine hit off the light-up feels pretty fucking great doesn’t it?” Courtney asked with a shit-eating grin and Haylee laughed once again as the two of them began one of the few moments of genuine sisterly bonding they had shared in their many years under the same roof, a stretch of sisterly bonding that spanned more than an hour and multiple cigarettes as they talked about their respective smoking histories and life in general.
***
Haylee’s extended moment of reflection in the dentist’s chair was interrupted as her dentist came in for a formal diagnosis of her x-rays, taking over from the hygienist at about the halfway point of the cleaning. “I’m Dr. Elwood,” the 50- something male dentist introduced himself to Haylee, vaguely remember her from prior year’s checkups. “I don’t think I’ve seen you since you still had your baby teeth”, Dr. Elwood added upon reflection. “Do you remember me?”
“Sort of,” Haylee responded, opening her mouth wide again as the dentist leaned forward over her mouth and still got in on some of the residual tobacco on her breath that the hygienist had gotten a much more direct assault from.
“Whoa…looks like you got some serious build-up around your gum line,” Dr. Elwood said, looking at the half of Haylee’s mouth that had not yet been cleaned by Jamie, probing for some context from his hygienist which he’d soon get.
“She smokes,” Jamie said in a dramatic, tattling tone, adding “…..two packs a day” with a mic drop-style flourish to convey that the situation was pretty desperate for this teenage girl.
Dr. Elwood kept a poker face to hide his disappointment, having spent more years as a dentist than Jamie had a hygienist and having worked on teen smokers before, albeit nothing like this recently. Still, he knew Haylee’s mother and had been given her mild-mannered lectures for years, and even though those lectures hadn’t seemed to have worked on Becky, he was hoping Haylee was still young enough that it might break through.
“Haylee, the first thing I’m gonna prescribe for you is a special smokers’ toothpaste that could help whiten your teeth between cleanings and cut down on some of that black build-up at your gum line….but for a more long-term solution you’re gonna have to quit smoking….”
Haylee once again let her mind drift back to more than three years ago, the day after Courtney busted her and when she helped her come clean officially with her parents.
***
Haylee anxiously followed Courtney into the kitchen that warm July evening, with Courtney confidently strutting in her tanktop and jean shorts with cigarette in hand but a much more hesitant 11-year-old sister in a similar albeit pinkish-hued ensemble following her without the cigarette. As the two sisters approached their parents in the kitchen, 13-year-old middle brother Trevor observed from the corner of his eye as he sat on the couch in the living room watching TV, immediately sensing that something was up and turning the TV volume down.
“Mom….dad,” Courtney introduced casually through a talking exhale and then making the revelation quickly, “We got another smoker in our midst.” Courtney nudged her head in Haylee’s direction, adding “Found her sneaking smokes out of my pack. Said she’s been one of us for over a month.”
Haylee stood mortified as all eyes trained on her, startled by the complete lack of buildup Courtney had provided and wondering if she should have just told them herself using more diplomacy. Steve rolled his eyes while Becky put her head into her hand mildly agonizing over the revelation.
Becky broke the silence saying in her raspy smoker’s voice “Well we’re not thrilled about this Haylee but your sister and I have set a pretty bad example for you and we’re not gonna tell you that you can’t smoke if you want to.”
Becky had spoken for Steve whether he knew it or not and Haylee seemed surprised that it was this easy even though Courtney had assured her that it would be.
“But let me ask you this, Haylee…..” Becky added, “Why did you want to start smoking anyway? It’s gonna limit some choices you have in life.”
Haylee just shrugged unable to find an answer but Courtney then took the opportunity to speak for both of them, “Oh c’mon mom. You smoked like a freight train throughout your pregnancies. We were all addicted to nicotine before we popped out of your belly,” Courtney said with a bratty teenage laugh at the moment she approached the cigarette to her lips for another drag.
“Courtney!” Steve finally chimed in with exasperation at his oldest daughter’s mouthy interruption. “We’re talking to Haylee here!”
“Oh c’mon, dad” Courtney continued to hold serve, partly because she liked to lip off to her parents but mostly because she agreed to help take the heat off of Haylee and knew that taking the reins of the back talk would do just that. “Haylee started smoking for the same reason I did. Mom smokes all the time and we saw how much she loved it every time she takes one of her million drags per day. We were curious, tried it, liked it, and continued it. End of story! Now you just have one kid left to discover he loves it too,” Courtney said pointing briefly in the direction of the living room where she knew Trevor was sitting.
Trevor had now turned the volume of the TV completely down and sitting silent and motionless, not wanting to miss a single word of this. The fantasy he’d been entertaining for years of his younger sister smoking was becoming a reality. He lurched his eyes as inconspicuously as possible in his parents’ direction when Courtney ended her sassy rager.
Steve finally broke the silence, “So how long have you been smoking Haylee? A month?”
Haylee meekly responded, still not quite able to make full eye contact as she responded, “About that.”
“And are you sure you want to smoke knowing everything we’ve told you about it?” Steve added.
Haylee finally made eye contact and nodded affirmatively, her case being helped as Courtney took yet another drag right next to her and thoughtlessly exhaled it in the direction of her deliberating, nonsmoking father.
Becky then chimed in, “Well I’ll start buying you some cigarettes then. But the deal I made with your sister holds for you too. You’re gonna have to do some chores around here and help out the neighbors with some odd jobs as well. We’re not buying you cigarettes with no strings attached at all. Is that a deal?”
“Yeah that’s fine,” Haylee responded with rising excitement realizing that this was about to happen.
“In fact,” Becky said, pausing as a thought crossed her mind, “the Wagners next door said they’ll be needing a babysitter for baby Jarrod,” in reference to the two- year-old neighbors’ son.
Haylee didn’t love the sound of babysitting a two-year-old, but at this point was telling her parents whatever she thought they wanted to hear and agreed to the terms.
“It’s done then,” Courtney exclaimed, opening her pack and getting ready to offer Haylee one. “Haylee, will you give me the honor of giving you your first ‘official’ cigarette?” turning around and winking at her kid sister when her back was to her parents, handing Haylee the cigarette and her lighter.
“Don’t put your sister on the spot Courtney,” Steve fired back, doing his best to camouflage his raging curiosity about seeing Haylee smoking a cigarette just as his wife and especially his son was. But Steve’s words fell on deaf ears as Haylee placed the long all-white cigarette with the green-ringed filter between her lips and gingerly worked Courtney’s lighter to fire it up, not appreciating being the center of attention but knowing that everybody’s eyes were laser-focused on her.
As Steve and Becky observed the look of pleasure on Haylee’s face as the first nicotine hit worked its way through her brain receptors, they immediately resigned themselves to the fact that Haylee was indeed her mother’s daughter and that smoking was almost certainly gonna be part of her life from this point on. Trevor, meanwhile, was watching from afar and could feel his heart race probably faster than Haylee’s as the image of his younger sister smoking in front of him was happening.
Several drags ensued from there as Haylee continued to be interrogated by her parents, but with a quick acceptance that she didn’t expect and was actually creeping her out a bit. After a few minutes of it, she looked at the long ash on her cigarette and decided that was a good excuse to leave the room, wandering into the living room where an ashtray sat on the coffee table. She saw Trevor was on the couch but figured he’d be the last person to ask awkward questions about her smoking, having no idea that Trevor’s heart was leaping out of his chest watching his 11-year-old sister walking toward him with a cigarette. He squirmed on the couch and did his best to cover his crotch and hide his erection, glad he was wearing a baggy shirt and shorts to hide it. Feeling on the spot himself as Haylee sat down on the couch near him, ashing her cigarette into the butt bucket on the coffee table, Trevor uncharacteristically vocalized a faux displeasure with the latest revelation, saying “Great! Another smoker in the house!” in a tone he hoped would come across as half-joking.
“Sucks for you!” Haylee said dismissively while taking another drag, not recognizing Trevor was watching her out of the corner of his eye as she went through the entire motion of puckering up her lips to draw in the smoke, inhaling it, and then letting loose a thin stream of smoke that seemed so surreal coming from his younger sister’s mouth. Courtney followed Haylee and sat on the nearby
recliner, lighting up a cigarette of her own to strike while the iron was hot on the sisterly bonding.
Trevor generally welcomed his role as the silent odd man out in this household, and especially so tonight as he pretended to watch TV for the next hour to come, yet was stealthy able to sneak glances the entire time of his sisters smoking only feet away from him. As time went on, Haylee reached for her bottle of bright pink fingernail polish, quickly realizing she was about to paint her toenails. Haylee was in mid-cigarette when she started painting them and didn’t seem to know what to do with the cigarette as she approached her big toe with the brush, and took the opportunity to place the cigarette in her mouth and briefly dangle it while attending to her toes, an image that would soon enough be the quintessential Haylee smoking pose.
Trevor had been staring at Haylee for an unusually extended period during this dangle and she turned her head and busted him when she turned to remove the cigarette from her mouth. “What?!?!” Haylee snapped at Trevor through the first talking exhale he’d seen from her.
Trevor had to be fast on his feet to talk his way out of this and decided to just go with what was on the tip of his tongue as he looked at Haylee’s pink T-shirt and shorts as well as the pink toenail polish she was putting on her toes, asking in a faux sarcastic tone, “Don’t they make any pink cigarettes for you to smoke?”
Haylee rolled her eyes and focused back on her toenail polishing until Trevor’s question triggered a light going off in Courtney’s eyes as Courtney responded, “Actually they do.”
“Really?” Haylee asked curiously, with Trevor licking his lips quietly in the background being aware of the cigarettes that Courtney was talking about and being thrilled at the prospect of Haylee smoking them.
Courtney smiled at Haylee and then yelled into the kitchen, “Mom…..” to alert Becky who was still preparing the evening meal. As Becky asked responded from afar, Courtney maintained eye contact with Haylee as she instructed Becky to “pick up a pack of Camel Pink No. 9s for Haylee tomorrow. I think she might like that brand.”
An unusually perky smile splashed over Haylee’s face at the chatter about a pink cigarette and couldn’t wait to expand her tobacco palate.
***
Haylee drifted back to present-day as she felt the dental chair she’d been sitting in for almost an hour recline upward again. Her cleaning was over and it was time for her to go. The dentist had long since left the room but hygienist Jamie had some final thoughts to share.
“You got lucky for not being here for three years. No cavities. But I hope we see you again before another three years pass. I’ll be in contact with your mom to see if we can get you in for cleanings every six months.” Jamie then paused to pick up a couple of small boxes of toothpaste. “In the meantime, this is a special toothpaste for smokers. I recommend you use it until you’re able to quit smoking to take care of the dark line that forms along your gums. But please, make a serious attempt to quit smoking, okay?”
Haylee seemed far more upbeat than when she arrived and agreed to Jamie’s suggestions with far less attitude than Haylee evoked when she walked in, being happy to have this dreaded appointment behind her and very eager to get out of that office. Jamie sensed she was not getting through to the teenager as she sent her on her way, with Haylee putting on her pink jacket which still reeked of cigarette smoke after all this time since her last cigarette, following Haylee down the hall and shaking her head from behind seeing this innocent-looking 14-year-old girl in a pink jacket and black leggings like so many other young girls that came and went in the office, yet unlike them having this massive nicotine monkey on her back that nobody in her life seemed to take seriously as a major health problem. As Jamie watched Haylee head for the door, she could see Haylee pull the cigarette pack out of her jacket pocket and just knew that less than a minute after the closing words of her lecture, the first thing Haylee was gonna do when she stepped outside was light another cigarette.
For her part, Haylee’s brief burst of positivity having the dental appointment behind her and getting the opportunity to smoke her first cigarette in an hour quickly reverted to discomfort when she realized she was about to embark on another awkward ride home with Courtney. Haylee wasted no time flicking her cigarette to life as she stepped outside, observing the mass of smoke spilling out of her mouth and nose and making a mental note how much harder-core of a smoker she was today compared to those days three years ago that she had just been recalling while in the dentist’s chair. She could see Courtney’s car a few stalls ahead in the parking lot and grudgingly walked toward it with the cigarette continuing to dangle from her mouth. While the trip down memory lane had softened Haylee’s fury toward Courtney a little in the last hour, she still wasn’t in any hurry to make nice.
***
In the moments after the 11:30 bell, the halls at Jefferson High School were bustling with teenage humanity, most of whom were dropping off their books in their lockers and then heading to the school cafeteria for lunch. Trevor McPherson was doing the same, walking through the rows of lockers until he got to his own. As he opened his locker, a familiar female face emerged from a few lockers over. A cutesy and exaggerated wave was accompanied by an over-the-top and breathy verbalization of “Hi Trevor.”
Trevor gave a halfhearted smile back to the long-haired dark brunette looker Chloe Mays standing before him in designer blouse and jeans, acknowledging that she was mocking him as she’d been doing for a year and a half now, and as she walked past, Trevor’s freshman sister Haylee heard the nails-on-a-chalkboard voice of Chloe taunting her brother and came to a stop to survey the situation from afar. Haylee hoped Trevor would develop enough of a spine to put the bullying Chloe in her place but was disappointed when he just said “Hey Chloe” in response and then began to walk away. Haylee then began to leave herself until Chloe surprisingly prolonged the conversation with Trevor.
“Umm, Trevor….” Chloe called out with more seriousness in her voice, and even a bit of intimidation, than he’d ever heard before. Trevor turned around and looked Chloe in the eye as she approached him, surprised to see that the girl who’d been toying with him for the amusement of herself and her friends was now looking at him with entirely different eyes, albeit with a brief nose wrinkle at the whiff of residual cigarette smoke that seemed permanently attached to his clothes.
“Yeah?” Trevor responded, curious as to what Chloe could possibly have to say to him that didn’t involve the usual effort to emasculate him.
“How do you feel about going to the Valentine’s dance with me on Friday night?” Chloe asked, the power dynamic between the two of them having completely turned on its head compared to the dozens of exchanges they’d had in the past with Chloe being the attractive “IT” girl getting her jollies off of messing with the shy, awkward boy. Trevor hadn’t fully realized it yet and Chloe hadn’t really put her finger on the specifics either, but Trevor wasn’t that boy anymore, giving off a new energy and confidence this year because of his relationship with girlfriend Lauren.
“You serious?” Trevor responded with genuine surprise, wondering if Chloe was just setting him up for a more elaborate joke than usual.
“Well yeah,” Chloe replied, fidgeting awkwardly as she struggled with this new power dynamic where she didn’t have a date for the dance and suddenly found
gawky old Trevor McPherson an attractive enough prospect to ask out. “I mean, I know we’ve joked around with each other in the past, but you’re a pretty cool guy. I’d like to go to the dance with you. What do you say?”
Trevor still couldn’t believe what he was hearing and grew increasingly flattered as he realized this request was sincere. But he shrugged dismissively and stood up tall with pride as he rejected her offer. “I can’t. I got a girlfriend.”
“Ohhh,” Chloe responded with a combination of genuine surprise and skepticism at the revelation. “I didn’t know that.”
“Sorry”, Trevor replied, barely able to contain a smirk about the fact that one of the hottest girls in his grade had asked him out…and that he was in a position to cut her overgrown ego down to size a bit by rejecting her.
“Who is she?” Chloe said, her skepticism rising along with her frustration about putting herself out there to a boy she recently believed was not high enough on the social food chain now turning her down for a dance invite.
“Her name’s Lauren. She goes to school in Maple Grove.”
“Uh-huh,” Chloe responded with a smugness that she hoped conveyed that she didn’t believe Trevor’s story and that he might just be trying to get back at her for all the past ridicule. Chloe then reverted back to the breathy, exaggerated tone she opened the exchange with, leaning forward to remind Trevor, “My offer still stands if you change your mind.”
Trevor grinned and nodded, saying “I’ll keep that in mind,” before turning and walking toward the lunch room, leaving Chloe standing there rejected, humiliated, and angry.
Haylee pumped her fist with delight from afar at seeing Trevor spurn Chloe’s advances. She’d never been close to her brother, but he was family and she didn’t want to see some spoiled popular bitch make a fool out of him. Haylee then went about the continued pursuit of her “alternative lunch time” plans, carrying her school bag with her and peeking inside of the bag to identify that her pack of Camel Pink No. 9’s was in there. Back in September, Haylee had found a crawl space in the furnace room sandwiched between the janitor’s closet and the girl’s bathroom where she could go to sneak cigarettes during her lunch break. Five months into the school year and she hadn’t been caught yet. She picked up her pace heading in the opposite direction of most other students, badly jonesing for a cigarette having not had any since before school that morning. Most days she squeezed in four cigarettes during lunch break, and even though stopping to
witness the exchange between Trevor and Chloe got her off to a late start today, she figured she still might be able to suck down four cigarettes before 12:15 came around.
***
The sounds and smells of sex filled Lauren Nelson’s bedroom later that afternoon, as Lauren laid on her bed with her boyfriend Trevor holding her legs apart in the air and thrusting his male parts into her female parts. Ever since Lauren’s mom secretly put Lauren on the birth control pill after New Year’s, Trevor came to Lauren’s place two or three days a week after school for sex, whenever her parents were still at work and younger brother Brian was at basketball practice. They had experimented with multiple sexual positions over the last seven weeks, but whenever Lauren was in the mood to be completely dominated, she would request Trevor perforate her in the spread eagle position. Today was one of those days and the passionate moans Lauren was bellowing out with each insertion of Trevor’s manhood inside of her represented something of a freedom cheer for them as a couple, celebrating the freedom to have sex at their convenience and to be as loud and primal as they wanted when they did.
Lauren approached her Marlboro Light 100 to her mouth, her hand trembling as the rest of her body quaked from the carnal domination, but she still managed to redouble the pleasure by dragging hard on the cigarette and filling her lungs with the same naughty pleasure that her reproductive parts were experiencing. The moans grew to screams as the two of them approached climax, with both of them treating the other to showers of bodily fluids released in unison. Moments later, Trevor collapsed on to the bed exhausted, hitting the pillow next to the hyperventilating Lauren, whose exhausted lungs were forced to endure another beating as she breathed directly from her cigarette for three straight drags. Trevor watched as a quarter inch of red hot tobacco ash glowed bright on the end of her cigarette after the three intense drags, and then watched as a geyser of smoke exploded straight up in the air from her respiratory system. Trevor laid on his stomach and watched the show from the side when Lauren finally got around to verbalizing her pleasure.
“Oh baby you’re getting so good at this!” Lauren complimented him yet hoped in the aftermath of her comment that he wouldn’t take it as an indictment of his past performance which had still rocked her world.
“Thanks,” Trevor responded, surprised at the degree to which he was still recovering from the sexual workout as well.
Lauren made sustained eye contact with him and flashed her Category 5 smile his way, the kind of smile he only got when Lauren was most satisfied with him. She reached for the butt bucket on her nightstand which she had just emptied that morning and placed it on Trevor’s chest, playfully testing if he could balance it there. Trevor gave her a confused but playful look that Lauren giggled at, approaching the tip of her still red-hot cigarette to the rim of the butt bucket and ashing it inside.
A second later, an intense look emerged on Trevor’s face as he said “Whoa!” A confused Lauren hadn’t put two and two together until Trevor added a couple of seconds later, “That’s hot!!!”
Lauren jerked into motion and lifted the butt can from his chest, not appreciating that the hot ash would be felt right through the bottom of the plastic ashtray. “I’m sorry baby! I didn’t know it would be hot,” Lauren said, an adorable look of concern spread across her face as smoke spewed from her mouth and nose and she put the butt bucket back on the nightstand. She then looked to Trevor’s chest to make sure there were no red marks, leaning down to press her nicotine-stained lips onto the spot on his chest which didn’t seem any worse for wear.
“Oh I expect I’ll live,” Trevor responded, hearing a murmur of a giggle from Lauren through her puckered-up lips on his chest. From there, Lauren just rested her head on his chest and cuddled up to him. Trevor loved the feeling of his girl pressed against him with her bare breasts touching his side. He began to gently stroke the rim of her vagina with his index finger, a gesture than only enhanced her peacefulness resting there. The stasis was broken about every 30 seconds when she pulled her free hand up to her lips to take a drag from her cigarette, her body decompressing after the drag as she fell back onto Trevor’s chest with an exhale that plastered him directly in the face.
As the smoke from Lauren’s exhale consumed Trevor’s airspace and the sidestream smoke from what was left of her cigarette flowed into his face from there, Trevor was struck by the epiphany that even though he had grown up in a home full of rude smoking females and had been exposed to a relentless assault of secondhand smoke his whole life, Lauren had nonetheless pushed the boundaries of his secondhand smoke tolerance level. After a few months of intimacy with her, she had grown comfortable with exposing him to a merciless level of very direct smoke exposure that even his mother and sisters had not prepared him for. Lying here with Lauren in his arms, smoke rolling into his face from her cigarette and from her respiratory system, he had absolutely no escape from her smoke. He was completely at her mercy at this moment, and even
though a clean breath was denied to him for the foreseeable future, he wouldn’t have it any other way. And the best part was that Lauren didn’t seem to have any idea how much she was dominating him with her smoke, a domination every bit as intense as what she had been on the receiving end a few minutes earlier during their primal fornication.
As Lauren’s cigarette reached its end and she had to lean up to crush it out on the nightstand butt bucket, Trevor allowed his thoughts to divert back to what had been consuming it earlier that afternoon. Lauren crashed back onto his chest and Trevor’s curiosity got the better of him to the point where he broke the prolonged silence by asking, “So how would you feel about going to the Valentine’s dance at my school on Friday night?”
Lauren’s eyes darted up from Trevor’s chest to look at him and see if he was being serious. “Adance? Really?”
“Just curious if that was something you’d be interested in. No pressure if you’d rather not.”
“Ummmm…..” Lauren stalled, clearly not thrilled by the prospect of attending this dance. “I don’t know. It doesn’t really sound like our style.” She paused and then added so as not to seem too selfish, “If you really want to go, I’ll go but I’d just as soon we did our own thing on Valentine’s.”
Trevor leaned over to kiss Lauren’s forehead and responded. “No worries, babe. Just thought I’d throw it out there,” then changing the subject to “What would you like to do instead?”
A naughty smirk re-emerged on Lauren’s face as she made eye contact again. “You’ll just have to seeeee!” she said with a flirty flourish. “But I’m gonna need you to take me to the mall to buy some gifts.”
“Valentine’s gifts??” Trevor asked playfully in response.
“Mayyyybeee!” Lauren said with a giggle.
Trevor needed to buy Lauren’s gift as well. She had given him endless hints about a necklace she wanted, so Trevor’s job was easy this year. After another 10 minutes or so of lying in each other’s arms, they decided it was a good time to get to the mall and buy each other’s gifts. As soon as they rose from bed, Lauren reached for her cigarettes and Trevor lit up another for her, with the young couple then dressing the other, with Trevor getting off on putting on Lauren’s bra and panties for her, and then pulling up her tight pale blue jeans over her waist, with
smoke spilling from her face and into Trevor’s airspace every step of the way. They were soon fully clothed and ready to ride to the mall.
***
An hour later, Trevor walked down the corridors of Willow Creek Mall with a small Rogers Jewelers bag in his hand containing the necklace he had just purchased for Lauren. He had no idea what Lauren was getting for him and made a point of averting his gaze straight ahead, hoping not to see her and spoil the surprise. But he walked past the candy store and realized a box of Lauren’s favorite chocolates would be a surprise supplement to the necklace she most likely knew she was getting. A few minutes later and he was on the way to the car with his bounty, where he’d simply wait for Lauren’s return.
But as he approached his car in the parking lot, he heard a familiar female voice from several car lengths away exaggeratedly exclaiming, “Heyyyy Trevor!”
Trevor looked down the lane of cars to see Chloe Mays approaching the mall in the company of her attractive blond mid-teen friends Taylor and Madison. Trevor mustered up as little enthusiasm as possible to return the greeting, popping the trunk on his car in hopes of putting away his bag before getting interrogated by the approaching trio of teen girls, to no avail.
“What’s in the bag, Trevor?” Chloe asked breathily as she rapidly approached Trevor’s car with her friends.
Trevor tossed the bag into the trunk and slammed it shut before Chloe had a chance to see what it was. “Just something I bought,” he responded dismissively.
“Valentine’s gift for that girlfriend of yours?” Chloe asked, enunciating “girlfriend” in a way that expressed doubt about him really having a girlfriend while putting him on the spot in front of his friend.
“Yes, actually,” responded a blushing Trevor.
“Oooooh!” rang out a chorus led by Chloe and followed up by Taylor and Madison before Chloe ramped up the ridicule. “Hear that, girls? Trevor McPherson is now a laaaadies man!” The girls giggled in the way they did when teasing Trevor a year earlier, but Taylor and Madison both gave off body language as though they felt a little gross acting this way towards him now, yet followed along with Chloe’s lead like they usually did.
Trevor just played it off, bantering with the girls for a few moments but not revealing much information that could later be used against him. He really hoped Lauren would delay her departure from the mall long enough for him to lose these airheads, but the faint and familiar aroma of cigarette smoke in the chilly February air drew Trevor’s attention to the presence of his mate almost like a wild animal with a marked scent. He looked over to see Lauren approaching, shopping bag in one hand and freshly lit cigarette in the other, and their eyes met with a mutual deer in the headlights instinct with Trevor in the presence of these three attractive females.
An introduction was at this point unavoidable with Lauren approaching the car, the three girls with their backs to her slowly becoming aware of someone approaching from behind based on the sound of clicking heels and the smell of cigarette smoke. But just as they were turning to see who was coming, Trevor got the jump on them by popping open the car trunk on his key chain, making eye contact with Lauren and informing her to “go ahead and put it in the trunk.”
A startled Chloe, Madison, and Taylor looked over their shoulder to see the girl- next-door dark blond Lauren shyly walk past them toward the car trunk, wrinkling their noses about Lauren’s smoking but otherwise being pretty impressed by the cute and wholesome-looking blond in the black leather jacket and pale blue jeans who seemed like a good catch for Trevor. Lauren stalled as long as she could putting the purchase in the trunk and hoping the girls would go away before having to be formally introduced, but realizing soon enough that they wouldn’t.
Chloe was clearly surprised that the “girlfriend” she had just heard about a few hours earlier appeared to be real, but tried to appear unphased by the revelation as she asked Trevor, “So is this your woman?”
Trevor nodded affirmatively and then introduced Lauren as casually as possible to Chloe and her friends, with Lauren smiling timidly looking upon this trio of intimidating girls who reminded her of the mean girl posses that had bullied her in years past at her own school.
“Way to go Trevor!” Chloe exclaimed with a put-on jubilation that came across every bit as artificial as it seemed. “She’s really cute”, Chloe followed up with her friends concurring. Lauren then approached the cigarette to her lips for a drag and the girls’ look grew far more judgmental, with Chloe taking the lead with a passive- aggressive follow-up comment, “I guess now I know why I can smell you from three lockers away at school though.”
The other girls snickered as Lauren looked to the pavement, getting confirmation that these girls were exactly what her first impression suggested and becoming triggered by their meanness.
Trevor picked up on Lauren’s reaction and decided it was time to fire back, directing a salvo back at Chloe that he knew would leave a mark, “So did you find another date to the Valentine’s dance after I told you no?”
The smirk on Chloe’s face turned to stone in a split second, with Taylor and Madison looking Chloe’s direction to judge based on her response whether it was true that Chloe Mays had really asked Trevor McPherson to the Valentine’s dance. At least for a split second, Chloe was indeed the most vulnerable person in this group but bounced back quickly saying, “Yes actually. Logan Bradford asked me this afternoon. I’m actually here with my girls today to pick up dresses.”
Trevor nodded approvingly, knowing he drew blood and saying “I hope you two have a good time. He’s a good guy,” hoping the comment would bring closure to this awkward conversation, which was clearly even more awkward for Lauren, who was now taking the final drag from her cigarette. She’d done her best early on to exhale away from the mean girl trio but made a point of exhaling the final drag in their general direction and then crudely flicking her Marlboro Light 100 butt into the parking lot a few yards away from them, a gesture that Taylor watched with particularly disgust as her eyes followed the butt from Lauren’s fingers to the wet pavement where it smoldered to its end.
“Thank you so much!” Chloe said with continued exaggeration, now training her eyes on Lauren seeing how intimidated she was before adding, “And it was sooo nice to meet you, Lauren! You guys make the most adorable couple.”
Lauren looked up meekly to respond to the gesture, as phony as it was, with a half-hearted, “Thank you,” before working her way toward the passenger seat as Trevor’s cue to get her out of this situation.
Trevor began to walk toward the drivers’ seat as well, less intimidated by the girls than Lauren was and bidding Chloe adieu with “I guess I’ll see you at the lockers at school tomorrow. Good luck finding the dress you’re looking for.”
“Thanks again!!!” Chloe said with a final flourish before her trademark demeaning “Byyyye Trevor” closing greeting in the moment before she and her friends parted company with Trevor and Lauren.
Trevor got behind the wheel of his car and knew an exasperated Lauren would be waiting for him, her face animated as she pointed in the direction of where Chloe
had been standing and asking, “Was she for real?” as she plucked another cigarette out of her Marlboro Light 100 pack.
Trevor rolled his eyes as Lauren handed him her lighter, and he began to explain while approaching the lighter to the unlit cigarette now dangling from Lauren’s lips, “Unfortunately yes. I’ve been dealing with her shit for almost two years now. Her last name is Mays so our lockers have always been close together.”
Lauren listened intently and repeatedly dragged from her cigarette as Trevor continued explaining his history with Chloe and how she was a standard-issue bully showing off for her friends most of last year but seemed to have grown up some this year….”until lately”, with Trevor avoiding the elephant in the room about the dance invitation in his description.
“What an entitled bitch!” Lauren said through a talking exhale, a rare snapshot of anger from Lauren that Trevor found adorable when accompanied with the smoke spilling out of her face. “Did she really ask you out?” Lauren added, wanting to know the full story since Trevor hadn’t volunteered it.
Trevor nodded affirmatively, “Yeah she asked me to the Valentine’s dance today. I think she feels a little embarrassed that I said no,” shrugging and then adding “I guess she’s Logan Bradford’s problem now.”
Lauren shook her head while taking another drag from her cigarette, clearly deep in thought even while Trevor was trying to change the subject to the Valentine’s gifts they’d just purchased for each other. Lauren was having none of it though, finally breaking her silence with, “You know….I think I might want to go to that Valentine’s dance at your school on Friday night after all.”
Trevor was taken aback by the delayed acceptance to his invitation, and then noticed an unusually evil smile emerge on Lauren’s face. “Okay then. Valentine’s dance it is,” Trevor said, appreciating by Lauren’s look that she changed her mind about wanting to go to this dance for the same reason that Trevor had suggested it to Lauren an hour earlier….to rub Chloe Mays’ nose in the fact that she wasn’t gonna get what she wanted this time.
***
Two nights later, Haylee McPherson stood in front of the mirror in her bedroom admiring herself in the sparkly pink minidress she was wearing, the same dress she wore on New Year’s Eve when Lauren’s parents came over. But tonight she was fitting into the dress for another reason. She’d told her parents she was
babysitting Joshua and Jarrod tonight and was heading down the street to the Wagner house, but she had asked the Wagners for the night off so she could crash that Valentine’s dance at the high school.
Haylee removed the Camel Pink No. 9 dangling from her lips long enough to apply a neon pink lipstick to her lips that matched both the dress and the markings on the cigarette, which she placed back into her lips to dangle seconds after applying the lipstick, the stain on the filter immediately evident in Haylee’s mirrored reflection. A school dance was the last place a loner like Haylee would ordinarily spend a Friday night, but when she heard Trevor turn down Chloe at school, the seed was planted in her mind that it might be a good place to go to get her mind off of Grant and possibly meet another guy. She’d been feeling sorry for herself long enough and it was time to try something new, she thought as she began applying eyeliner, the pink-soaked cigarette still dangling from her lips and getting even more stained as she puckered up for her dangling drags.
She quietly opened her bedroom door and could hear her parents eating dinner in the kitchen, realizing this would be a great time to cut out of there and not be seen all dressed up, tiptoeing her way down the hall toward the front closet where she put her jacket over her dress, shouting “Gotta run or I’ll be late. I should be home by 11. Love you guys,” through a talking dangle to her parents and flew out the door before they had a chance to react.
Steve and Becky looked at each other with suspicion in their eyes about Haylee’s abrupt and far-less-moody-than-usual exit as they bid her adieu in the split second before the door slammed shut. Haylee hustled as fast as she could in her pink high heels, cigarette dangling from her lips every step of the way, walking the four long blocks to the high school on the snow and ice-glazed Minnesota sidewalks, all to avoid letting her parents (or anyone else she knew) know that she was gonna spend the night at an event as dorky as a Jefferson High School Valentine’s dance. Unfortunately for her, she couldn’t have possibly cut a more conspicuous profile to any and all drivers heading past her on the residential street.
It was shortly before 7:00 when Haylee arrived at the school, finishing off two cigarettes before going inside, her teeth chattering from the long, cold walk. Right away upon entering the gymnasium, she felt her first bit of buyer’s remorse surveying the room and wondering what could have possessed her to spend her Friday night here. She only had a few friends at school and none of them were the kind who’d be caught dead here, meaning that the freedom she sought coming here would also be incredibly limiting as she didn’t recognize a single face in the emerging crowd of anybody she’d ever socialized with. Still, many eyes were on
her as she proceeded into the gym, especially the male ones, as everybody seemed to be making loose associations with who this hot freshman chick in the flashy pink dress was and how well she cleaned up.
It was an awkward march for Haylee, not used to having so many eyes trained on her, as she headed along the periphery of the still-quiet dance floor toward the punch bowl, and observing that just about everybody else here had a significant other on their side. That made sense given that this was a Valentine’s dance, and it made Haylee feel that much more foolish about coming here by herself. She arrived at the punch bowl and poured herself a glass, leaning back toward the gym wall in relative isolation and thinking to herself that this could be a short night.
Only a few minutes later, the first player of the evening approached her, and Haylee cringed at the sight of Jacob Roth, a handsome but sleazy senior with a reputation for seeking out wounded little freshmen birds.
“Hey I’m Jacob,” the smooth-talking young man introduced himself to his prey, briefly taken aback by the fresh odor of cigarette smoke clinging to her hair and dress. “I’ve seen you around the school but I can’t place a name to that pretty face.”
Haylee faked a smile, not buying what this was selling but still choosing to indulge him for a while rather than standing there alone, “I’m Haylee. Nice to meet you,” extending her hand and giving Jacob the green-light to extend his routine.
Jacob did most of the talking and Haylee found herself physically attracted to him as he groomed her, fluttering her eyelashes and flashing her Stepford smile back with those recently polished teeth, but she was confident her self-control was strong enough to fend this guy off at any point in the night. The exchange continued for a good 10 minutes and Haylee always kept one eye on the gym entrance as new people kept rolling in, as at this point she was hoping for one casual acquaintance to chat with over the course of the night. Instead it was the arrival of the last people she expected to see at this dance that turned the evening on its head, with Trevor and Lauren walking in the door arm-in-arm.
Haylee’s mouth hung open in teenage terror at the moment just before Jacob asked her if she wanted to dance. A flustered Haylee looked up to him with a nervous smile and said, “Maybe later….” pausing for a hot second and then adding, “Right now I gotta go to the bathroom”, before quickly picking up her purse and racing towards the other gym exit as quickly as she could in her high heels. Jacob was confused watching her walking away, but smacking his lips watching her tight body in that dress hustle on off, hoping he’d be seeing her again.
Haylee kept on boogeying into the dimly lit and scarcely populated school hallway, a flurry of anger and self-pity filling her heart that her brother and his girlfriend couldn’t even let her have this one night to be about her. With nobody else in sight, Haylee walked right past the girls bathroom and slipped into the furnace room, crawling down underneath the furnace apparatus as she had done nearly every day the entire school year during her lunch break. Crouched down, Haylee opened her purse and extracted her pack of Camel Pink No. 9’s, lighting one up and then letting the tears flow. She usually bottled up her emotions but tonight, in this dark and isolated place, sharing a vent with the girls bathroom next door where she could hear other girls her age having fun with each other, it seemed like an excellent time to let weeks worth of pent-up tears roll down her cheek. The last several Friday nights, Haylee sat at home and chain-smoked the night away. Despite her best efforts to try something different tonight, she was now resigned to this Friday night ending up pretty similarly, the cigarette from her lips stained a shade of neon pink every bit as bright as the ones she lit right after putting the lipstick on….only now with a much darker and less glamorous backdrop.
***
Trevor and Lauren were no less awkward in their early mingling at the dance than Haylee was, as they may not have been the absolute center of attention but in their imaginations they were. Trevor classed it up in dress pants and a suit vest while Lauren was dolled up in a red and black dress with red high heels that were clearly foreign to her feet and challenging to maneuver in, her long dark blond locks bearing illustrous curls that flowed down her back onto the dress. Like Haylee before them, they made a straight line to the punch bowl area which seemed to serve as something of a holding pen for couples and individuals not quite ready to show their stuff on the dance floor.
But before they got there, Lauren made eye contact with Chloe Mays on the dance floor with her date Logan. Trevor soon picked up on the frosty glare from Chloe from afar as well, and as the three of them locked eyes on one another, Trevor smiled back, sending an exaggeratedly flirty wave and lip-synching “Hey Chloe!” from 15 yards away, stealing Chloe’s thunder and shaking up the power dynamic. Lauren giggled at Trevor’s gesture before they looked away from Chloe, knowing she was likely apoplectic and having to explain herself to her date. But Chloe Mays soon became an afterthought when Trevor ran into his friend Nick and his date, introducing Lauren to a couple of people from his school who he figured she’d get along with better than Chloe.
The next hour ticked by quickly, with Trevor and Lauren socializing with several of Trevor’s friends and really enjoying themselves, glad that they’d decided to climb out of their comfort zone and attend this dance. Either Trevor or Lauren occasionally looked onto the dance floor and whenever they noticed Chloe, it seemed like she was always looking at them at the same time. It appeared their strategy of “the best revenge being living well” was playing out some as they both seem to recognize that they got inside Chloe’s head.
But it was when Cardi B’s song started playing on the gym’s sound system that Lauren took the evening in an unsuspected direction, grabbing Trevor by the arm as she said, “I love this song. Should we dance?” leading a surprised Trevor onto the dance floor without really giving him a choice to decline.
Trevor seemed on the spot as he had absolutely no experience with dancing beyond goofing around with Lauren at home at the beat of music they were hearing, but now here he was on the cusp of having to shake his hips to an uptempo song in front of all of his peers. Lauren was surprisingly uninhibited as she took the lead, to the point that Trevor wondered if the punch bowl had been spiked as the only time he’d seen Lauren this peppy was when she was drinking on New Year’s. Sensing his apprehension, Lauren tried to calm him saying, “You’re doing great, baby!” as she shook her hips and tried her best to maintain her balance on those unfamiliar heels. Trevor’s initial trepidation slowly began to wane as he followed her lead, admiring the infectious joy on her face and reminding himself how much he had grown to love her. It was at that point that his insecurity about others seeing his lackluster dance moves became less important and he really began to embrace the moment.
Another fast song followed and Trevor and Lauren remained on the dance floor, but then a slow song began playing and the tempo slowed. Couples across the gym began embracing their significant others by the waists and serenading them at a more relaxed and intimate pace. Trevor and Lauren looked each other in the eyes and pulled in for a quick kiss in the middle of the song, with Trevor whispering to her something he’d only said a few times….”I love you”. A beaming smile filled Lauren’s face as she responded in kind before quietly dancing for the rest of the song. But Trevor had known Lauren for a long time and if there was one thing he recognized from 10 miles away, it was when Lauren was getting fidgety from nicotine withdrawal.
Trevor gave her an evil smirk as the music from the slow dance began to die down, rhetorically musing, “You’re dying for a cigarette, aren’t you?”
Lauren gave a heavily animated look of teenage exasperation before responding, “Yes!!!”
As they began to drift off of the dance floor onto the punch bowl, Trevor offered, “You could probably sneak one in the girls’ bathroom.”
Lauren responded with playful nervousness, “But what if someone catches me?!?”
Trevor smirked back and answered, “What are they gonna do? Suspend you from a school you don’t attend?”
Lauren giggled and gave him a teasing whack on the arm, agreeing that she might as well take the risk. “Be back in a few minutes,” she said, before walking over to the large cluster of bags and purses at the edge of the gym where the students had placed their stuff. Trevor furrowed his brow once again as he saw Lauren pick up the large gym bag that she brought to the dance with her and head out of the gym towards the bathroom. Trevor figured Lauren must have put her cigarettes in the bag, but found the bag ridiculously large for cigarette storage and figured Lauren had just brought a change of clothes in case her dress got uncomfortable. But Trevor soon found himself with a more pressing matter as he watched Chloe, Madison, and Taylor walk out of the gym only a few moments after Lauren did….and he figured that couldn’t be a coincidence.
Lauren progressed into the hallway and saw a cluster of girls coming out of the bathroom, increasingly nervous about the idea of sneaking a cigarette in there figuring it was super crowded. But as she opened the door and peaked in, checking under the stalls for feet in front of the toilets, she saw she had the place to herself and decided it was a perfect time to pounce. She stepped into the stall with the bulky gym bag and closed the door, opening up the bag and hastily extracting her pack of Marlboro Light 100s, firing one up.
She took a massively intense drag off of the light-up, her made-up cheeks hollowing out and her face lighting up with nicotine relief after more than an hour since her last cigarette. She had planned from the outset to make quick work of this cigarette, but with as desperately as her body craved the nicotine, that wasn’t gonna be a problem, pumping her second drag into her lungs immediately after the first. But she only had about 15 seconds to let herself relax before her attention was directed to the sound of the bathroom door opening. Instinctively, Lauren attempted to wave the airborne smoke away and direct it toward the toilet, but almost immediately became petrified at the sound of a vaguely familiar female voice and knew she was busted.
Chloe Mays stepped slowly into the bathroom and mockingly mused, “Taylor, am I crazy or does it smell like cigarette smoke in here?”
“You know, Chloe. I smell the same thing,” Taylor snarked back, playing along.
“Yeah but it can’t be!” Chloe jockeyed back impishly. “Smoking is banned on school property. Anybody who smokes at this school would get in BIG trouble,” pausing again for dramatic effect before adding, “Besides, only old people smoke now and this is a high school dance!”
Lauren became paralyzed with fear as she saw the three girls standing directly outside the stall a second before kicking the stall door in, with Madison waiting with her camera phone at the ready and snapping a photo of a petrified Lauren holding her cigarette in the split second before dropping it into the toilet, too late to discard the evidence.
“You are so finished, Maple Grove girl!” Chloe sneered, still not quite sure what she’d do with the photo now that she had it but clearly loving having Lauren’s back against the literal wall.
***
Meanwhile, on the other side of the wall, Haylee sat crouched in the furnace area crawlspace with the latest of a string of a half dozen consecutive cigarettes hanging from her mouth that she’d smoked since she got there an hour earlier, hiding from the world, her eyes puffy and her makeup smeared after an extended cry, and drowning her sorrows in a tide of nicotine. She had plenty of time for introspection and was finally starting to settle down some, yet still had no desire to venture back into the gym and risk being spotted by her brother. She’d been listening to the crowd coming and going from the girls’ bathroom through the nearby vent all night, but the sudden commotion was the first real action she’d experienced for the evening. At first the idea of a catfight in the girls’ bathroom was fun to contemplate, until she realized she knew the voice of the girl on the receiving end of the bullying. It was Lauren!
Haylee deliberated for a few moments, listening to the encounter in the bathroom and recognizing it was escalating and that the mild-mannered Lauren was outnumbered and outwitted. As the verbal attacks began to get more personal and the threats more physical in nature, Haylee couldn’t take it anymore. She took a final dangling drag from the stub of her cigarette and then crushed it out on the cement next to five other neon pink-stained butts she had intended to take with her and throw in the trash, but allowed to continue lying there as she now had another
priority, squeezing out of the crawlspace in her flashy pink dress and cutting loose a final smoker’s cough while en route to a ladies’ room intervention….
“Just let me through! I’m not doing anything to you!” Lauren pleaded, attempting in vain to penetrate the barricade that Chloe, Madison, and Taylor formed outside the stall.
Chloe led a fierce chorus of evil laughter among her friends, lapping up how easy of a target Lauren was and responding, “It doesn’t work like that Maple Grove. If you think you’re gonna come to our school and take our men, we’re gonna keep you here all night. In fact, girls, I’m thinking swirlie, how about you?”
Lauren’s already terrified look ticked up another couple of notches as the prospect of her head going where her cigarette just went as she listened to Taylor and Madison whoop it up in response to the prospect of plunging Lauren’s head into the toilet water. But everybody’s attention was diverted to the bathroom door when it came swinging open. Lauren couldn’t immediately see who it was, but her tormentors all glared to the vaguely familiar freshman girl who burst in demanding them to “Leave her alone or I’m calling someone in here!” Lauren was startled and relieved to hear Haylee’s voice.
“Should we know you?” Madison sneered, looking the attractive light brunette in the flashy dress over and not knowing what to think as Haylee fearlessly strutted on up to them.
“I’m not gonna ask again. Let her go!” Haylee demanded.
Chloe wrinkled her nose as Haylee got upclose, smelling the intense cigarette smoke clinging to her. “You stink as bad as her!” Chloe said, pointing to Lauren. “You guys are like the only people I know under 60 who smoke cigarettes!”, she added taking the cue to reach inside the bra of her dress to take out her Juul pod which led to Taylor and Madison to do the same. Chloe took a large draw from her Juul pod and then exhaled a massive blast of water vapor just before telling Haylee, “You should try it and move into this century!!!”
Taylor then started putting two and two together, saying “My friend Suzie has a science class with her. She said she stinks up the entire classroom the second she walks in!” She then leaned in to Chloe and added in a near whisper, “I think she’s Trevor McPherson’s sister.”
Chloe then connected the dots as she took another draw from her Juul pod, sneering again for both Haylee and Lauren’s benefit, “Poor Trevor. Between his
sister and his girlfriend the kid’s gonna die of lung cancer before he’s out of high school. I feel even more sorry for him than usual!”
Haylee smirked brashly and revealed the nugget of information she knew but Chloe probably didn’t think she did, “Oh please. He feels sorry for you! That’s why he turned your skanky ass down when you asked him to the dance the other day.”
An enraged and startled Chloe got physical, giving Haylee an abrupt shove that caught her off guard standing on her heels. She fell into the bathroom stall and stumbled cheek-first into the entryway before falling to the floor. Lauren was briefly terrified and even the three bullies were nervous they had gone too far for a passing moment, but Haylee quickly bounced back, rising up and looking at Chloe with a new fire in her eyes, a laser-focused fury that put Chloe on notice. Chloe was briefly spooked at what Haylee might be capable of with this burst of rage- fueled adrenaline.
But instead, Haylee dialed it back in the seconds to come, calming herself down and pointing Lauren’s direction as she slowly climbed up from off of the bathroom floor. “That girl is the sweetest person I know. If you had gotten to know her even a little you’d have seen that. Instead, you’re just worried about her taking what you think you’re entitled to….”
The trio of girls, especially Chloe, stood silent as Haylee continued with her speech.
“…..she has been going out with my brother for…like six months now. She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him. She brings him so much happiness. You could never be for him what she is.” She paused before finishing up with, “Can’t you just let the two of them be happy?”
Lauren was inspired by Haylee standing up for her, and with someone having her back, Lauren found some backbone of her own, addressing the trio of bullies and Chloe in particular in a way she’d been to intimidated to when she was worried about getting a swirlie.
“You got a really cute guy out there. Is his name Logan?” Lauren asked rhetorically. “All three of you have cute guys. Why aren’t you out there having fun with them? And let me have fun with my date? I don’t want any trouble. I just want to spend Valentine’s Day with my boyfriend.”
Lauren’s good-natured tone further tempered the situation, and it was clear from the looks on the faces of Taylor and Madison in particularly that they knew they
had overreached and could no longer do the bidding of their jealous friend. Madison looked at Chloe and said, “C’mon let’s just go.”
Chloe wasn’t quite ready to let go but could tell she had lost the room as Taylor and Madison began to walk towards the bathroom door. She gave Lauren one more clenched-jaw stare down as a flimsy attempt to maintain the upper-hand, but quickly accepted the inevitable that the encounter was over. She quietly followed Taylor and Madison out of the bathroom, leaving Haylee and Lauren alone in the facilities.
Once they had the room to themselves, an extremely appreciative Lauren walked up to Haylee and hugged her, eventually getting around to saying, “Thank you so much Haylee! I don’t know what they’d have done to me if you hadn’t helped.”
Haylee consoled her as they embraced for several moments, Lauren let a quick display of emotion roll out before Haylee set her straight, insisting she “head on back out to that dance floor and have a good time with your boyfriend. Don’t let those bitches get to you.”
Lauren recovered quickly and then turned her frown into a mischievous smile, before responding, “Actually, I think I’d like to get out of here. I have something else in mind.”
***
Trevor stood in the gym and after 10 minutes was becoming very concerned about what was going on with Lauren, especially since Chloe and her friends had been away for most of that time. He saw the three of them return and, after another couple of minutes of waiting for Lauren, was about to leave the gym in pursuit of her. But just as he was about to start walking in the direction of the girls’ bathroom, the familiar face of his girlfriend re-entered the gymnasium at the most opportune moment during an intermission of the music. Lauren had gone to the bathroom wearing a red and black dress, but was returning with an entirely different look….
With a shit-eating smirk on her face, Lauren strutted toward Trevor decked out in a skin-tight, candy apple red leather top that left several inches of exposed midriff on display, with a matching pair of fire engine red leather pants that were equally as tight. The red high heels she wore supplemented the image and made her shapely body look that much more soaked in sex appeal, both to Trevor and a growing number of people in the room who also took notice. Once Lauren knew Trevor’s eyes were locked on her like an eagle, she lifted an unlit cigarette from her left hand and let it dangle from her mouth, a motion that produced shocked
guffaws among the dozens observing. But this show was all for Trevor, and even though no music was playing at the moment, a generic backdrop of 80s hair metal was playing in his mind as it just seemed to fit the image of this naughty little cherry bomb heading his way, her cigarette serving as a Cupid’s arrow piercing his heart with love. Suddenly, Trevor realized what Lauren had been carrying in that big gym bag.
In the seconds before Lauren arrived at her destination in Trevor’s arms, an exasperated middle-aged male chaperone swooped in from out of nowhere to scold Lauren. “There’s no smoking in the school, young lady!”
Undeterred, Lauren kept right on walking and blew the chaperone off with an uncharacteristically cool, “Relax….we’re just on our way out.”
The chaperone continued to hover and bark at Lauren that he’d be “informing her principal” and a bunch of other tough talk that Lauren and Trevor both completely ignored until the moment arrived right in front of Trevor and put her hands around his waist with almost the entire gym watching in stunned silence. Through a talking dangle of the unlit cigarette, Lauren mouthed a simple request of Trevor…..”Happy Valentine’s baby. Let’s get out of here.”
The apoplectic chaperone finally began to back off as Trevor and Lauren began walking toward the exit, even though the cigarette was still dangling from Lauren’s lips. The room remained quiet, with the gaze of nearly every male in the room locked on Lauren’s spectacular ass in those red leather pants just as Lauren repeated her gesture from the mall the prior fall, lifting Trevor’s hand off of her waist and placing it on her ass. As the unlikely young couple made their final approach to the exit, all those gawking high school boys were wishing they could be with Lauren at that moment instead of their own dates.
Trevor put on his winter jacket at the bleachers near the exit door while Lauren slipped into Trevor’s favorite black leather jacket of hers, fitting in its own way with the rest of her “sexy valentine” ensemble. They exited the school and almost immediately after stepping outside, Lauren handed Trevor her lighter.
Lauren posed briefly in the outfit as Trevor approached her cigarette with the lighter asking, “So how do you like your Valentine’s gift?”
As Trevor applied the flame to her Marlboro Light 100 and she dragged off of the light-up, Trevor said, “You are so damn sexy! And you’re also a little nuts.”
Lauren’s giggling response sent smoke spewing from her mouth and nose in adorable little curlycues that drifted towards Trevor’s face. She touched her hand
to his face as Trevor put his hands on Lauren’s midriff, slowly walking their way toward Trevor’s car in the parking lot.
“I think you know what you’re getting but I got it in my trunk. How about we go back to my place and I’ll give it to you?”
Lauren removed the cigarette from her mouth and let a big frosty exhale loose into the late winter air before smirking in advance of another surprise. “Actually, I have a better idea.”
Trevor’s brows perked up wondering what Lauren had in store for him next.
“I just texted my mom and asked her if there was any way she could take my dad and Brian out for a Friday night movie. They’re on their way now,” she added, fluttering her eyebrows at Trevor who quickly recalled that it was Lauren’s mom who surprisingly let her go on birth control in the first place and was the only one of either of their family members who knew they were sexually active.
“You really are full of surprises tonight,” Trevor responded with the vocal flair of a young man who knew he was about to get laid.
They climbed in Trevor’s car and Lauren took a drag from her cigarette, exhaling it to quickly consume the car with a haze of tobacco smoke, turning to Trevor and putting her hand on his upper leg, feeling a little extra frisky and empowered having talked down the bullies moments earlier with Haylee’s help. “I just have one request,” Lauren added with a pause to make sure Trevor was paying attention. “I think I want to be on top tonight.”
The fire in Lauren’s eyes matched the fiery red of her leather outfit, and Trevor was only too willing to be at her mercy, starting the car and heading toward the Nelson home where he could let the love of his life dominate him in her bed. Trevor just had a hunch that this might the roughest and most passionate sex they’d had yet. He hadn’t heard anything about the catfight that almost got going in the girls’ bathroom, but nonetheless knew that something had to have happened which filled Lauren’s soul with a burning and untamed aggression beast that only Trevor’s manhood would be capable of slaying. As Trevor kept driving toward Lauren’s home, he found himself just a little intimidated by what she had in store for him, and would later learn that his concern was well warranted.
***
Haylee had slinked back into her favorite crawlspace and smoked two more cigarettes after the bathroom altercation, but knowing that Trevor and Lauren were leaving and having just defused a hostile encounter with a friend who she cared about, Haylee now had a new energy in her heart and soul. She came to this dance to break up her routine and to have some fun…..and it was time to have some fun, damn it.
Haylee strutted out on to gym floor for the first time in an hour and a half, the mascara and eyeliner that had been smeared by her tears now far less visible. There was a new confidence in her step as she approached the punch bowl this time, getting agreeable looks from male upper-classmen, but there was one upper- classmen Haylee was specifically looking for until she finally laid eyes on Jacob, the senior who had been trying to seduce her when she arrived. Jacob seemed very surprised as Haylee approached him with a more open-for-business body language and all-around different energy.
“I came back to take you up on that dance offer,” Haylee added with a come-hither smirk before Jacob followed her out there, rather surprised that he had become the prey instead of the predator in his quest to pop the cherries of horny freshmen girls. Haylee dug in deep with her flirtation as they danced, holding Jacob close and making it very real to the boy that Haylee is a heavy smoker who smells like a heavy smoker. Haylee was looking for a fun night with a cute guy whose company she enjoyed. She knew he’d tried to con her into taking things too far as the evening progressed….but she also knew she’d have the moxie and willpower to turn him down for anything beyond a few slow dances and maybe a few exchanges of tongue.
As she engaged in that slow dance with Jacob, her mind was all over the place but eventually drifted to the favor she just did for Lauren having been a sisterly move… much like Courtney taking the burden off of Haylee three years earlier by confessing to their parents that Haylee had started smoking was also a huge sisterly move that she didn’t fully appreciate at the time. While Haylee was still mad about what Courtney had done with Grant, she realized that it could and should be forgiven. It might not happen tomorrow, Haylee thought to herself, but she was definitely working up to normalizing their strained relationship. But tonight, all she wanted to do was dance with a hot guy….
At one juncture in the slow dance that Haylee and Jacob were both enjoying considerably, Haylee put her tongue to her teeth and noticed that one felt jagged, slowly putting two and two together and recognizing her tooth must have chipped when she was pushed into that bathroom stall earlier. Haylee grimaced with the
realization that she’d likely soon be back in the dentist’s chair getting that chipped tooth fixed. But she didn’t realize how much her hygienist and dentist would be dreading her return, knowing they’ll be bathed in intense tobacco breath for the entirety of the procedure.