The Tall Girl's Friend

By Alicia Agos

The Tall Girl's Friend tells the tale of 10 year olds Olive and Suzee, social outcasts but in decidedly different ways, and the after-school friendship they form while hanging out in the model homes of a nearby tract home development. There, they meet Lola, a once-famous and now homeless actress who has been living in the model homes. Olive and Suzee join forces to transport Lola home from Southern California to Portland, Ore. via the Amtrak Coast Starlight for a reunion with her estranged family. The journey north is filled with obstacles and set-backs, and when Lola's mysterious past is revealed; forgiveness, acceptance, and friendship. Olive is forced to begin to come to terms with her parents' divorce along the way, and Suzee finds that she is not as alone in the world as she once believed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alicia Agos
• Release date: Aug 9, 2012

Book preview

Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Prepared for publication by

JD France

Cover photo by

Penny Lane

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2010 Alicia Agos

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters and events are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without written permission from the author.

For my sister, Tish,

a beautiful tall girl.

Chapter 1

Olive could tell instantly that the skirt didn't fit.

Skirts in particular never did.

They were either too big in the waist (like this one) or too short in the length (definitely like this one).

Why don't you just wear something else? Willow asked from the door of Olive's bedroom. Willow was Olive's sister. Olive was 10 and Willow, who was 14, had clear skin, a proud nose, and modeled.

Like what? Olive answered, tears suddenly stinging her eyes. The hyper excitement of the first day of school was already starting to wear on her and the day had barely begun.

Like this, Willow pointed. Olive couldn't believe it. Willow, who was venturing out into the ennui of ninth grade in a pair of pink silk pajamas, rhinestone sandals, and the most effortlessly heavy application of Aloha Rose lip gloss, was actually suggesting that Olive wear a yellow polyester ... polyester ... dress with cap sleeves, no waist, and a high collar that was supposed to be somebody-who-was-never-going-to-wear-it's idea of cute but was in reality just plain awful.

Willow, I hate that dress, Olive said, shocked that her sister would even broach such a fashion topic. That dress is from the third grade.

Willow shrugged. It still fits, right?

Only because it was two sizes too big for me then and Mom lost the receipt and we couldn't take it back.

Okay, wear your skirt then. I don't care. Willow rode her Praying Mantis legs back to her room.

There was no way Olive could wear the skirt. It was simply too short.

Not mini-skirt short. Olive was, way down inside where she thought she hid it pretty well, shy.

Maybe shy wasn't quite the right word. Vulnerable. That was a better word. Tender. Kind. Much better words.

Olive just didn't know how to show these things. Wasn't comfortable laying herself bare to these things.

So she hid them, mostly behind a lot of chatter, jokes, some sarcasm. Sometimes tears. The tears were really Willow's department but Olive didn't have a lot of time to worry about that this morning.

This morning she was all about the skirt and how it didn't fit, which came as something of a shock.

See, her mom, Cordie, had made the skirt moons ago, at the beginning of the summer, just as school had gotten out. Olive had picked the fabric and everything, a pale green 100-percent cotton print dotted with a lovely maze of small white flowers. A little Prairie, yeah, but Olive liked it. She liked things that were uniform. Proportional.

The skirt was A-line, settled low on her waist, and was meant to fall gently and--this was part of Olive's plan--easily and beautifully, at mid-shin.

Olive's Plan. She had a lot of plans. One was to get her own place to live so she could get some peace from Willow's emotional highs and lows. The other, on this first day of the fifth grade, was to be happy. And that happiness had to do with the skirt, which didn't fit.

Olive knew she had grown over the summer. The way her other clothes fit told her she had. The rather undeniable fact that Cordie had measured her on her birthday in August told her she had.

Five-feet-one-inch, Cordie announced then, drawing a pencil line at the top of Olive's brown head. They were in Cordie's (who was 6-feet-even) bedroom, the one she had shared with Olive's dad, Carmine, before the Big Split. It wasn't exactly big. There was never any fighting. No grand scenes. It was more of a gradual thing. Carmine (6-feet-6-inches) was simply out of the house more and the more he was gone the more of his stuff he'd take. Slowly. Like an unspoken divorce by attrition.

When she could sense that things were getting really bad between her parents, Olive took to patrolling the house, on alert for missing items: two hand-carved wooden elephant figures that used to grace the glass coffee table in the living room; a painted sign in the wet bar that said, 'The bartender is in.' When his shaving kit disappeared from the bathroom, she knew it was over.

You've grown three inches since Valentine's Day, Cordie had informed her younger daughter.

Olive thought it appropriate to get herself measured on every significant holiday and for Olive, who loved to celebrate, all holidays were significant: Easter, Fourth of July, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas (especially Christmas), birthdays. You name it, she'd get out the crepe paper and go to town.

But three inches! She did not want to be 5'1". She wanted to be smaller. Less noticeable in such a noticeable way. The same as everybody else. Accepted. Normal. Not freakish.

Which was part of her immediate Plan with the skirt.

You should have worn that skirt this summer, when it still fit, said Willow (5-foot-eight-inches), who had returned to Olive's doorway that first morning, a black suede mini-backpack slung over her shoulder. Clothes are meant to be worn.

No kidding. Willow spent every penny of her modeling money on the purchase of new clothes. Jeans, leggings, cat suits, suede capris, long sleeved cashmere sweaters with neat little extensions that went over her thumb and crossed her palm, almost like a built-in glove. Willow was all about the clothes. And did she share any of them with Olive?

They're for research, Willow said to Olive and her skirt. She knew what Olive wanted.

Olive knew Willow knew what she wanted but she was going to ask anyway. She felt light headed. The box of Cheerios had sat un-poured in the kitchen.

Willow, she began in a nice voice, one that didn't really belong to her. Can I please borrow something from your closet - - -

No. Besides, you can't. Nothing's clean.

Nothing? Not even anything from the six trillion boxes you've got crammed into the garage? Olive asked. Willow had kept all her clothes, every scarf, every belt, every button, from the six years she had worked as a model.

Nope, Willow said resolutely.

I'll be really careful, Olive pleaded. The clock was ticking steadily toward departure.

Oh, like the time you spilled orange juice on my blue linen shorts? Willow shot back.

I was six years old! Olive cried. And by the way dry cleaning is bad for the environment. You should have hand washed it.

You should really thank me again for letting you get on a payment plan.

Olive rolled her eyes and sighed huffily. Sometimes she wished Willow wasn't so pretty. It was actually quite tiring being forced to look at an incredibly beautiful person day in and day out.

Yes, Willow was striking, especially compared to her plainer younger sister. If Willow's nose was proud, Olive's was more like a perky gumdrop. If Willow's hair was a cascade of dark chocolate, Olive's was more like a puddle of dirty rainwater. And Willow's legs, oh, her legs went on for miles. They started way up around her armpits and went on forever and tomorrow until they inserted themselves into one of her 82 pairs of shoes.

Olive was tall. Don't get her wrong. She knew that. But it seemed Willow's height was more of an official explanation for her work, where Olive's tended to be more like a fascination. Or an oddity. Or a car wreck.

A small sampling of the thousands, thousands, of height-related questions Olive had endured during her relatively short time on earth:

Were you really long as a baby? This asked with a frown, and a suspicion.

Have you always been so tall?

Oh, yes, Olive always wanted to reply. I was five feet tall as a toddler.

Sarcasm.

Wow, you're so tall!

Really? Olive wanted to reply. Maybe it was something I ate.

Jokes.

Boy, you've really grown!

I know, Olive wanted to cry. But please stop talking about this because can't you see my face is beet red and everybody in the room is staring at me right now?

Vulnerability.

And, drum roll, please, the favorite:

"How tall are you? asked, demanded, in the manner of, How many snails did you lick off the pavement this morning?"

Olive had, as of last year, decided to tell people she was 4-feet-10. Four feet ten inches somehow sounded more acceptable. Less objectionable. Like when a pair of shoes is sale priced at $29.99, which seems affordable, as opposed to $30, which seems completely out of the question.

Olive wanted to be shorter. She wanted to be popular. She wanted her dad to remember her birthday.

So, yeah, the skirt didn't fit. It hit her maddeningly and incessantly at mid-kneecap, right where she didn't want it.

Olive felt like an elephant, her knobby knees bulging out under the hem of little white flowers.

Girls! I'm leaving! Cordie called from the hallway.

Pleeeze, Olive tried one last time, pressing her palms together, prayer-like. How about the yellow jean jacket you got last year? If I wear that, maybe no one will notice my skirt.

The Mink-lined jean jacket? I don't think so.

It's fake Mink and you know it, Olive said. It goes in the washing machine with everything else.

Girls! Cordie said again. Olive could hear car keys jangle.

Please, Willow, Olive said quietly. I don't want to feel like this.

Willow paused. She wasn't made of stone, for goodness sake. Besides, everyone knew Olive was her sister and if she went out looking like that... She disappeared into her room and Olive's heart soared. The jacket! A great day! It was to be hers!

Willow returned and held something briefly behind her back. With a camera-ready smile she produced a dowdy dark green silk scarf, the shade of which clashed mightily with Olive's pale green skirt.

You can use this as a belt, Willow said. Or drape it over your shoulder like a beauty contestant sash. That would be different.

Different. Yeah, Olive wanted different about as much as she wanted a hole in her head.

Are you girls coming with me or do you want to walk? asked Cordie, who didn't usually give rides to school. Didn't seem to like the whole notion of a child being chauffeured to school.

Cordie gazed at her