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 Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 1:49 pm
Tallulah pursed her lips and scanned the wall of colors, deep in thought. Deciding on a polish was always the trickiest part of a trip to the nail spa - as a lifeguard with another month left until the pool closed, she wanted her toes to look good. Pick the wrong color and it was basically a waste of twenty bucks. Too bright and she'd look washed out. Too dark, and it would just look like black.
"What color should I get?" she asked, inclining her head towards Dani. When they were both still at Meadowview it had been easy - the swim team always got their toes done Meadowview Orange before meets, to show solidarity. But Tallulah had left that world behind at graduation, and being able to paint her toes a color other than Portland Orange was both liberating and daunting.
She trailed her finger along a row of greens, but worried that with her red uniform swimsuit that would look too costume and Christmas. "I bet I'm tan enough right now to pull off yellow," Tallulah mused, pulling a bottle of gold polish and another of pastel jasmine and holding them up to the skin on her wrist. "What do you think? Does it wash me out?"
Serious questions required serious answers. Her toes were going to be this color for the next month, and it had better look good.
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Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 2:05 pm
Dani liked pink. She wasn't one of those girls who liked pink because pink was a girl's color and they were supposed to like pink or some dumb bullshit like that; she just liked pink because it was bright, cheerful, and looked good on her toes. It always made her feel a little better to be able to look down at her feet and see something bright and peppy on her toenails, and that was why she usually got little flower decals on them too -- well, the big toes, anyway. The rest of her toenails were too small to really have any decoration to great effect, but she had enormous big toes and had decided to embrace them as canvases.
"Why don't you try like, a powder blue?" she asked, holding up two bottles of pink nail polish. They were probably microshades different in color, but the fact was that they were different. "Or a periwinkle or something. I kind of want to see your toes in pastels."
She placed one color of polish back on the rack and snatched up a brighter, more vivid pink, now torn between the two of them. "And after this we should go get some anklets or toe rings or something."
Dani's money was burning a hole in her pocket, and it had been a while since she'd pampered herself or really gone out of her way to look cute. It was high time she had a girl's day, and she planned to take full advantage of it.
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Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 2:20 pm
"Oh, that's a good idea!" Tallulah set the yellow bottles back on the shelf and reached for a pastel blue that looked a little bit pearly. She bent over and held it against her toes. "Yeah, I like that!" Trust Dani to be excellent at color picking - she'd always been more into fashion and pampering than Tallulah, but they were both hooked on going for mani-pedis at the little Vietnamese nail salon on the corner.
Straightening up, Tallulah held the bottle up to compare it to her friend's hair and laughed. "It matches you! You've got an ulterior motive! Painting you all over my toes! Marking your territory!" As if anyone besides Dani could ever claim Tallulah. Boyfriends came and went, but they would always have each other. Chicks before dicks. Hoes before Bros. Ovaries before Brovaries.
"You should alternate them," she continued, pointing to the bright and pastel shades Dani held. "It'd look cute!" It was still going to be sandal weather for another few weeks - they'd might as well make the most of it!
"Make up your mind and let's go stake out two massage chairs that work, yeah?" she asked. Tallulah was already drifting in that direction, her eyes set on a faux-leather throne and a battered copy of People magazine.
Good company, trash tabloids, and a chair that went vroom: all a girl needed to keep her mind off of everything in her life that was going horribly wrong.
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Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 2:37 pm
Dani hadn't actually considered that she was matching Tallulah's nails to her hair, as she was still deeply deliberating on the color choice for her own nails, but when it was brought to the conversation she laughed. It was kind of true, actually; in her life, the only real constant aside from her family was her best friend. Sure, she'd had Parker, but when she couldn't give him everything he wanted just as fast as he wanted it (and god damn it, she'd given him a lot pretty fast) he hadn't wanted anything to do with her. The nice thing about Tallulah was that they gave each other exactly what they needed all the time -- there were no demands, and neither of them wanted more than the other could give.
It was probably as close to the perfect relationship as she was actually ever going to get. Well, whatever. No one really ever expected a boyfriend-to-eventual-husband to be perfect anyway, and that was why girls would always have their best friends.
"You know me. I'm all territorial with something to prove, like a little dog with a bone or something." She clutched both nail polishes in her hands and nodded, looking triumphant. "I think alternating pinks will be cute, too. I'll get the lady to put some hawaiian flowers on my toenails or something."
Well, she'd try, anyway. She wasn't sure exactly how to communicate sometimes, because it seemed like only half of the ladies working there spoke English.
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Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 2:59 pm
"I mean, not that I mind being yours," answered Tallulah pointedly as she kicked off her sandals and climbed carefully up onto the massage chair. They were little tiny water hazards - one of these days she was going to fall butt-first into the tub and then it wouldn't be so funny. But there were worse things in the world than being marked as Daniela's Number One Main Babe by the color of your toenail polish.
Tallulah's best strategy for navigating nail salons was to rely on body language. So long as you raised and lowered your feet when they wanted you to and didn't ask for anything fancy, your toes would look great and you'd get a decent massage out of it. She sank her feet into the unnaturally blue water, set her chair to knead, and flopped the limp issue of People open in her lap.
Turning to Dani, she asked, "So who are your teachers this year?" Probably there'd be some overlap - Meadowview wasn't that huge, even with as many APs as Tallulah had taken, Dani was probably saddled with some of the same classes. "I'll give you all my old notes, if you want. They're color co-ordinated."
That was some fancy s**t right there. Tallulah flipped a few pages in her magazine and held a photo spread up for Dani to look at. "Who wore it better?" she giggled. "Well, neither of them exactly wore it well."
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Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 10:32 pm
Dani rattled off her teachers' names casually, not really paying all that much attention to the conversation as she settled herself into her massage chair and got comfortable. School was school, and whereas it had once been the most central part of her life, now it sort of took a backseat to her senshi duties. Sure, she still did her homework and pulled decent grades, but she had a lot more to stress about than her upcoming project in whatever class these days. If she was anything, Dani was an excellent compartmentalizer, and she was doing just fine.
"That'd be great," she said in response to the notes, plucking up her own gossip mag and flipping through the pages. "I'll use them to, like, supplement my own notes. It'll be a huge help, especially when I'm cramming between my extra-curriculars."
It was code, and easy code at that, but she got her point across. Senshi duties and school duties were about equal to her at the moment, especially since she had a new mission, as far as she was concerned. Plus, it was her senior year. She had to keep her marks up for when she applied for college, but she had an excellent transcript so far and would probably be fine.
She made a face at the celebrity blotter page, not all that disturbed to be called away from it to examine the ladies in Tallulah's magazine. After a moment, she said critically, "At least Kate Winslet has boobs. She pulled it off better, if you want my honest opinion."
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Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 6:25 am
Tallulah nodded, recognizing at least some of the teachers Dani had landed, and also fully understanding the extra-curricular code. "Have you thought about where you want to go with your after-school activities?" she asked. "I mean, I applied to a lot of places out of town but a lot of colleges once you get out of Destiny City don't have the program..."
This was pretty blatant; their only saving grace was that the nail technicians had so far indicated they were far less than fluent in English. "I mean, I was going to go to Dartmouth-" This wasn't a secret. Everyone had known when Tallulah Cowden got into her dream school. It was posted on her facebook with twenty exclamation points. "Except... extra-curriculars."
Sometimes, being a senshi could really put a damper on your plans - even if you wouldn't trade it for the world. Part of Tallulah had never gotten over the thrill of henshining up, becoming someone else, and having super-powers. So even as much as she resented some of the turns her life had taken (well, a lot of them recently), her transformation pen was never far away.
She took the magazine back, nodded in agreement, and turned the page. "Okay. Question. James Franco - gay or not gay?" Not that Tallulah even cared, but chatter was chatter was chatter, and Dani was bound to have an opinion.
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Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2011 12:28 pm
"I'm going to go to DCU," she sighed, flipping through the pages of her magazine. It was a good school and all, so it wasn't really that bad, but Dani had sort of wanted to get out of town. She'd been kind of planning it since she was a freshman at Meadowview. Senshi duties took those plans and lit them on fire, though, because apparently the Negaverse and Chaos and all that crap had decided to hit Destiny City with the angry fist of a god and pretty much ignore the rest of the world.
It was just damn handy that so many senshi seemed to gather in Destiny City! Probably some kind of magic juju that got them all together or something. She had no idea.
Folding her magazine again, Dani considered James Franco. "I don't know," she said finally. "Maybe he's, you know, himself-sexual. I saw a video clip of him kissing himself."
It had been weird and also hot.
"It was weird, and also kind of hot." So saying, she opened up her magazine again.
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Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2011 2:17 pm
"When you think about it that way, I guess lots of people are themselves-sexual," agreed Tallulah, wrinkling her nose. She had some basis for that, she thought, in that the whole time she'd been dating Jaimie it seemed like he was as much in a relationship with his almost-identical twin sister as he'd been with her. Although, in all fairness to Jaimie, this was probably an exaggeration on Tallulah's part.
"Are you gonna live on campus?" asked Tallulah, changing the subject. Truthfully she was eying Dani as potential roommate potential, but the fact that her friend still had a year left in high school sort of put the kibosh on that. Since Kat's 'disappearance,' Tallulah had been living back at home and was starting to get a bit... stir crazy, for lack of a better word.
"There's kind of this great debate," she continued. "Is it cheaper to live on campus or in an apartment or with your parents and of course the answer is with your parents but who would want to?" She sure didn't. Taking the bus to class every morning was starting to be a major drag, plus her social life was taking a major hit.
"I mean, ideally I'm going to find a new roommate who's doing the same extracurriculars," she shrugged, flipping pages listlessly. Although, look how that had turned out last time. "I mean, can you imagine rooming with someone playing for a rival team?"
Hint, hint.
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Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2011 9:13 pm
Dani had given serious thought to living at home through college... for about five seconds. She had already had it about up to there with her parents' helicopter parenting, and even though she knew where they were coming from, it was really going to cramp her style if she lived with them until she was like, twenty-some years old. Dorms were a possibility, sure, and she would be looking into those, but honestly, she had been considering asking her parents what they thought of her getting an apartment.
She was looking for jobs, hopefully would have one soon, and she was good at managing money. Since she'd been too busy lately to go to concerts or anything fun like that, she actually had a good chunk socked away in her savings, too. Having to buy more first-aid crap that normal put a dent in that, sure, but she was actually doing really well. There were some apartments that didn't cost all that much, and it would definitely be easier to sneak out of her own apartment than it would a dormitory...
"I've been considering an apartment," she said, finally giving up on the magazine. Giving Tallulah a significant look, she added, "Just easier all around, I think. Plus I've saved up some money, so I've reasonably already got a deposit on hand. I know my parents will help out with rent, and I've been looking for a job, so."
She set the magazine aside, rolled her neck and sighed. Man, she was so stiff and sore all the time. What she really needed was a full body massage. "Once I graduate, I'm sure my parents will understand that, like, I need more independence. They'll probably want me to find a housemate, though."
Dani eyed her friend, raising a brow. "You considered apartment living at all?"
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Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2011 8:43 pm
"I was in an apartment all summer," sighed Tallulah distantly. "Rooming with my cousin because it was closer to the pool and DCU?" She flipped the magazine pages anxiously. Sooner or later the truth was going to come out to Dani - it was just a matter of what, where, and when. Her senshi side ached to warn Magellan about the new threat on the horizon, but Tallulah only wanted to keep herself as far away from the subject as possible.
"Had to move back home, though," she groaned, sinking her foot back into the water at the manicurist's tap. "Stuff happened." Tallulah shifted so she could turn her head to catch Dani's eyes. She desperately needed to convey things that she couldn't say out loud. "Kat's AWOL."
It could have meant anything, but the look on Tallulah's face left little room for imagination - even if Dani didn't know the first thing about her friend's cousin, she would at least get the gist that something terrible had happened to her.
"So I moved back home," concluded Tallulah, though her face said there was more to this story and it would all come out later over cocoa and s'mores in the Cowden's living room. "And I am about to chew off my own foot just to get out again. It takes forever to get to campus in the morning."
This earned her an odd look from the manicurist.
"It's a figure of speech," Tallulah assured her.
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Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2011 12:32 pm
"Ahhh," Dani said. She wasn't sure exactly what Tallulah was alluding to -- except that something bad had happened to her cousin -- and that was enough to make her frown. It wasn't really the time or the place to discuss it, however.
Sleepover, yeah. That was an idea. She hadn't spent time away from her own house for a while, and she was going to go crazy if she was under that roof for much longer. Maybe she could take a newspaper over and Tallulah could help her look for apartments.
"That sucks." She sighed, letting her head drop back so that she could stare at the ceiling. "We'll have to do a sleepover or something and look at apartments. I'm not ready to move out yet, but probably once I finish up this school year. It's a good idea to start looking at price ranges and stuff like that anyway."
What was she going to major in when she went to DCU, anyway? She had no idea. Ugh, that was something else she had to think about.
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Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2011 2:59 pm
Tallulah couldn't be sure that Dani had understood her coded messages, but the point had been gotten across. She'd tell Magellan the details later, tearfully and probably over ice cream eaten on a rooftop at two in the morning. Cliche? Sure, but it got the job done.
"It's not that hard to find a place here in DC, lucky us," she continued, glancing back down at her magazine. Some spread about celebrity bridal gowns, and Tallulah's love life was looking as barren as the Sahara desert. She flipped the page quickly, lest she be reminded. "Housing market's in the toilet, people will practically pay you to rent from them."
The upside to magical warfare of course being that the cost of living went down for everyone in the area. People should have been thanking the senshi! Property values might have been down, but it was as good a time as ever to move. (Unfortunately, no one seemed exactly keen on moving to Murder Capital USA.)
"I'm totally down on the sleepover idea, though," she added, leaning over to look at how her toenails were coming along. "Oh, it looks good! You've got a good eye for color, Dani!"
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