RE: Trailer Trash, 54 pt 3 (Patreon)

“Oh! Hey. There she is,” Alicia nodded in the direction of the entrance to the quad. “She’s always easy to spot.”

Elena was approaching them, and to Tabitha’s surprise she wasn’t wearing only black. While Tabitha had seen the baggy black JNCO jeans before and Elena seemed to be rocking one of her many black Hot Topic hoodies, overtop the hoodie this time she wore camouflage. Unlike the hunting camo that Tabitha now wore that gave her a woodsy country girl vibe, Elena’s camo jacket was military style—from a US Army surplus battle dress uniform, with its sleeves rolled up to just above where Elena’s elbows might be. Rather than bare arms, however, her hoodie sleeves were down and pulled all the way over her hands, the outlines of which could be made out clenching the cuffs closed. It perhaps leaned more punk than goth, but it looked rather fetching on Elena.

“I’m freakin’ freezing,” Elena griped as she closed the rest of the distance and stood beside them. “Can see my breath.”

“You can borrow my coat for a bit?” Tabitha offered.

“Nah,” Elena shrugged. “I’m fine. Just wanted to bitch.”

“This is new,” Alicia stepped forward with interest to inspect the lapel. “Cole Jackson?”

“Cole?” Elena made a face. “What?”

“That’s what it says!” Alicia laughed. “Right there.”

“It’s—? Oh,” Elena rolled her eyes. “COL is short for colonel, so—colonel Jackson.”

“Kernel? What?!” Alicia was skeptical. “Why would C-O-L stand for ‘kernel?’”

“No, it’s actually spelled—” Tabitha began to explain.

“Alicia, I didn’t make all the freakin’ rules,” Elena huffed out a breath that was visible in the air and then laughed as she turned around. “Was a thrift store find. I sewed a bunch of patches on the back. See?”

“Oh, nice! Sweet,” Alicia leaned back in to check them out. “Uhh—girl scout patches?”

“Yeah,” Elena nodded.

Three rows of colored patches decorated the back of Elena’s new jacket—most of them featuring cute imagery along with brief text to commemorate various occasions. SWIM PARTY ‘92 was emblazoned in little letters above a frog hopping into a pond, GIRL SCOUTS REDEDICATION showed a simple row of candles upon a blue backdrop, and Tabitha discovered that the entire middle row of patches featured OPERATION SANTA CLAUS SKATE PARTY in a succession of years from 1992 all the way to 1996. Not all of them listed a year—there was a DO SI DO one with the embroidered silhouette of a folk violinist and a pair of dancers, as well as a pink one of a teddy bear holding another, smaller teddy bear that somehow simply had the words SURPRISE KIDNAP.

“That’s so cool!” Tabitha was genuinely awed. “Are all of these yours?!”

“Yeah,” Elena said again, trying to twist around enough so that she could face them while still showing off her back. “Became this whole big emotional ordeal. It was mom’s idea, even, but when we actually took the seam ripper and started cutting them off my girl scout sash, she started crying. Think it turned out neat, though.”

“I’m so jealous!” Tabitha said with enthusiasm. “I-I didn’t even know girl scouts were a thing in this area! Am I too old to join?!”

“Tabby…” Alicia rolled her eyes. “If there weren’t girl scouts around here, where do you think all the girls come from, who show up to your door trying to peddle girl scout cookies?”

“Um,” Tabitha stared for a moment. “Well. I guess… I never really…”

“She wouldn’t have seen them,” Elena grunted. “We didn’t go door to door at the trailer park, know that for a fact. For the urban places like that near the busy streets in town, we’d just set up a table outside the doors at Food Lion. Didn’t go to trailer parks, and we didn’t do the more rural kinda areas around the edge of town, either. Not enough return on time invested.”

“Wow,” Alicia shook her head in dismay. “Just—wow. Yep, of course you would say that.”

“Well, we didn’t pull that trick-or-treating route out of thin air,” Elena shrugged. “Carrie and me and some other girls all used to be scouts together.”

Frowning in thought, Tabitha couldn’t recall even seeing girl scouts outside the grocery store. But, then again—it hadn’t been until May of last year that she got pushy about doing the shopping for the family there, and maybe that just wasn’t girl scout cookie season. She wasn’t sure why an organization like that had never occurred to her, but it was something Tabitha was absolutely going to discuss with Mrs. Macintire tonight about enrolling Hannah in. Likewise, maybe there was a boy scout or cub scouts program she might be able to find for her cousins?

“Guess I’m just surprised,” Alicia remarked. “You’re all trying to go goth, I thought you’d want to put on like—skulls, pentagrams, more gothic kinda patch stuff.”

“I’m not gonna wear pentagrams,” Elena scowled. “Alicia—I’m still a Christian.”

“Okay, okay,” Alicia held up her hands in surrender. “I’m just sayin.’”

Boy scouts might be smart, Tabitha decided. Yeah, might be less… reckless? Than trying to just introduce them to a church youth group, like I’d considered. Especially when you remember they’re goblin heathens! The last thing I need is to get called in because the boys were fighting over whether or not Superman could beat up God in a fight, or whether Batman would get still get judged for his sins, or if they wouldn’t count just because he’s Batman. Can practically already see them arguing with a youth pastor about it...

“I did look through all the patches at the mall,” Elena shrugged. “They have a bunch, just none that are very ‘me.’ South Park, Korn, Sublime. Insane Clown Posse, a bunch of random ones from wrestling stuff. Spencers has some too, but they’re all like… stoner stuff.”

“Sublime’s cool,” Alicia commented.

“I might replace some of these when I find better ones,” Elena said, finally turning back around. “The Santa Claus ones first, probably. Just thought it’d be cool to do.”

“It is cool,” Tabitha said in approval. “I want to do something like that, but—I don’t even think I have my own jacket. This one belongs to officer Macintire, the hoodie is my dad’s…”

“Jesus, Tabitha—” Alicia groaned. “How do you not have a jacket?! I wish I’d have known, coulda got you a badass biker jacket for Christmas. And, yeah, speaking of—I drew you a Christmas present. Here, one sec.”

“Oh! Me too!” Tabitha said. “Got you guys gifts.”

Alicia’s backpack, Tabitha’s jean bookbag, and then Elena’s black messenger bag joined each other on the nearby table as each of the friends opened things up to retrieve presents for each other, and Tabitha let out a nervous laugh. Just as she pulled out the pair of tapes she had for Alicia—first bell began to ring. The bmmm bmmm bmmm bmmm tones sounding throughout the school’s intercom stirred the idlers throughout the school quad. Students everywhere rose from their tables and started to disperse off in the direction of their respective classes, making the previous languid atmosphere turn busy with people moving about.

“Aw, crap,” Alicia swore with a laugh, presenting a large rectangle wrapped in newspaper to Tabitha. “S’just in a dollar store picture frame, you can put it in a better one if you uh, if you wind up liking it. Merry Christmas! ‘Lena, I got one for you, too. Here.”

“Merry Christmas!” Tabitha was touched. “Here, for you.”

“These are—” Alicia hefted the gifts from Tabitha and then carefully brought them up to her ear and gave them a little shake. “Video tapes? Can I open them?!”

“Uhhh—open them when you get to class,” Tabitha couldn’t help but smile. “Too embarrassing.”

“Yeah, you have to, too,” Alicia countered with a grin.

“Elena…” Tabitha was embarrassed to hand over a very small gift-wrapped pocket notebook to her other best friend. “Your original present kinda fell through… and then the back-up plan I had also fell through! But, it should be ready in time for uh, to make it a better gift later on this year, so. For now, I got you this.”

“You didn’t even have to get me anything,” Elena brushed off her concerns as she accepted the little present. “Thanks. I just got everyone cards, but, uh. I wrote a lot in them. Mom said just givin’ you guys five dollar bills in with the card was shallow and almost as if I was trying to buy your guys’ affection and awful—so, we put in twenty dollar bills instead. Merry Christmas!”

“Nice!” Alicia gave a bright laugh as she accepted an envelope from Elena. “Cool, thanks.”

Tabitha’s envelope from Elena felt a lot heavier now that she knew there was money inside it, but she mustered up a smile for her friend all the same. Twenty dollars in 1998, that’s like fifty bucks in MODERN DAY money!

“Aww, thank you,” Tabitha said. “You—both of you guys, you didn’t have to get anything…”

“Oh shut up, we all got each other stuff,” Elena snorted, shouldering her messenger bag again. “I’ve gotta get to class. What’s your first period, now? Maybe we got the same thing.”

The Marine Science they had both shared for their first class of the day was an elective and ended with first semester, which meant depending on what curriculum they chose or were assigned next, they probably wouldn’t have class together anymore.

“Personal Fitness?” Tabitha asked hopefully.

“Damn,” Elena shook her head. “Nah, Biology one. We’ll still catch each other here for lunch?”

“Yeah! Yeah,” Tabitha nodded, watching with a surprising amount of disappointment as they parted ways. “See you!”

“That sucks, P.E. first thing in the morning?” Alicia made a face as she hurried to zip her bag back up and get going. “You should see if you can switch out for something else. I’ve got art first thing, right here.”

“I’ve got the art room last thing, it’s my last class of the day,” Tabitha revealed with a pout. “But—see you at lunch, yeah?”

“Yeah!” Alicia waved as she trotted away. “Merry Christmas!”

That’s… a little disheartening, Tabitha thought as she trudged on towards the track and field area. Like, intellectually I KNEW we probably wouldn’t have first class of the day together anymore, but I guess I did kind of hope. Now, I’ll have Personal Fitness just… by myself, or I’ll have to work at getting to know people all over again. It’s a little daunting. What are the odds I get Gary or his friends in with the same period? That’d be okay—after all, basketball is… active? It’s a sport? They could maybe play during class? I’m not sure what it will even be like.

From what little she remembered from her past lifetime, Personal Fitness wasn’t even much of an actual class. She’d had Coach Cooke teaching for it in her Junior year, and all the kids were left to their own devices for the first fifteen minutes, after which he might pass out nutrition worksheets, or he might simply have them do laps around the field at their own pace. Most just walked and talked. It had been a course few people took seriously, and one most of the students used for goofing off or socializing—Tabitha had passed with an A+ despite spending that entire class with her nose in Anne Rice novels.

Not this time, though, Tabitha clenched her fist. Just another few days, and I’ll be cleared for physical activity again—another week or so and the cast should come off, too. Then, I can spend the mornings running. Need to get myself back into shape if there’s gonna be any chance of making it into cheer with Elena.

To her surprise, it wasn’t Coach Cooke herding up the various Personal Fitness students that were gathering in front of the bleachers. Instead, a surprisingly young twenty-something blonde woman in sweatpants and a Springton Athletics sweatshirt was marking off names on a clipboard there. Tabitha recognized her as Coach Baylor—she was in charge of a number of the school programs, but everyone knew her best for being in charge of Cheer.

After all, Coach Baylor was a cheerleader, through and through, and from Tabitha’s recollection the only reason she was teaching instead of still cheering for the Indianapolis Colts was an injury that required knee replacement. Tabitha had never had much to do with Coach Baylor in her past life, but the woman had made an impression from the few times she had substituted for Coach Cooke, and Tabitha remembered when Coach Baylor went around and spoke briefly at all the classes about homecoming and prom safety and etiquette, as the young woman was nominally ‘in charge of the girls.’

The coach was young, beautiful, and very well regarded by the general student populace. The in crowd girls were all very close to her, and naturally the more daring high school guys would joke about how hot she was, or even play at flirting with her. What Tabitha did not remember was how Coach Baylor was as a person; whether or not she kept a professional separation from the teenage girls she worked with, or perhaps was ‘one of them’ due to their close proximity in age. Was she serious and no-nonsense about training and fitness? Tabitha wasn’t sure.

I guess my BIG fear is that she goes along with the sorority clique sort of cheerleader nonsense, Tabitha thought as she glanced about the other kids in search of familiar faces. She would have to be, right? Since she’s at the center of all of that. But—how does she deal with bullying, what is her stance on the way the pretty and popular girls treat everyone else as if they’re trash? What does she—

“Awww, hell yeah!” A teenage guy’s voice jeered.

A dozen of her peers that had been queuing up for first roll call with Coach Baylor turned all at once and stared at Tabitha, with several of them even joining in with catcalls at the sight of her with a woooo! Stunned in place at suddenly being in public scrutiny again, Tabitha was just trying to figure out how to react to the attention when she realized she had no fucking idea what to do in this situation, and she simply froze mid-step, like a deer caught in headlights.

“Our prayers have been answered!”

The guy lifted his arms up towards heaven in thanks. His motion allowed Tabitha to finally single him out of the crowd of teenagers milling about for Personal Fitness, and as she recognized him she felt what must have been all of the blood in her body rushing up to her face in a furious blush.

“Bobby Anderson,” Coach Baylor pointed at the boy with her pen. “Apologize to her, and then do two laps around the field. Now.”

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