Tattoo

Chapter 1 "Passion Purple, Fruity Fuchsia, Playful Pink." Delia Cameron smiled as she came to the rose-colored nail polish. According to Delia, pink was the new pink. She'd tried to explain it to me once in terms of the color orange, but fashion wasn't really my forte, and I was pretty sure I had completely missed the point. At the age of fifteen, I more or less had to face the fact that, unlike my best friendDelia Cameron, fashion goddessthere was a distinct chance that I didn't actually have a forte. "Divine Yellow," Delia continued, picking up the next nail polish container on the shelf and examining it like a detective looking for clues in a case of paramount importance. Beside me, Annabelle grinned wryly, and the half smile softened her typically solemn features. To the outside world, Annabelle Porter was an almost alien creature: quiet and shy, too serious for her own good, and too smart for anyone else's. Once upon a time (in the seventh grade), she'd seemed that way to me, too, but nowthree years, two hundred and six sleepovers, thirteen embarrassing karaoke nights I'm sure we'd all rather forget, and an unofficial initiation into our tight little group later, I knew Annabelle well enough to know that the crooked half smile was some kind of commentary on Delia's nail polish manifesto. I grinned at Annabelle, and she bit back a bigger smile. We'd both been in this exact position many, many times before. Blissfully unaware (or maybe deliberately ignoring) the silent exchange between the two of us, Delia picked up another bottle of polish and became instantly and absolutely entranced by it. "Mango Mermaid," she breathed in the reverent tone most people reserved for the birth of their first child. "Mango Mermaid?" the fourth member of our group asked, her voice low, dry, and incredulous. She looked at me. "Mango Mermaid," she repeated flatly, shooting me a tortured look. I patted her consolingly on the shoulder. Poor Zo. Shopping with Delia took a certain kind of endurance, and Zo Porter, Annabelle's cousin and more or less my other half for practically as long as either of us could remember, didn't have it. "Yes," Delia replied, rolling her eyes at Zo. "Mango Mermaid. Just look at the shimmer and composition. It's perfect." "We've found the perfect nail polish," Zo said, her voice still completely flat. "Hurrah." With a tiny, almost pixie-like build, blond hair, and baby blue eyes, Zo didn't exactly look like your typical tomboy, but there was no mistaking the fact that she was anti-girly and had been even before the day her mother had dropped five-year-old Zo off at my house for playgroup, left the state, and never looked back. Delia, the Mango Mermaid polish held safely in her left hand, tucked a strand of chestnut brown hair behind her ear with her right. In typical Delia fashion, she was completely unaffected by Zo's scorn for all things feminine. "Says the girl wearing her brother's sweatshirt," Delia said, eyeing Zo's gray sweats disapprovingly. "I don't have a brother," Zo said immediately. Delia arched one eyebrow. "Oh," she said with a look of faux surprise. "My mistake." Annabelle watched the repartee between her cousin and Delia and then tilted her head to the side. "Did you hear that?" she asked me. "What?" I asked. I saw the twinkle in her eye a moment too late. "That," she said, her voice as soft and serious as always, "was the sound of civility flying out the window." Zo, Delia, and I had been best friends for as long as any of us could remember. The two of them liked to pretend that they just tolerated each other for my sake, but in reality, arguing was practically an Olympic sport with thoseBarnes, Jennifer Lynn is the author of 'Tattoo ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780385903639 and ISBN 0385903634.