by Quinn Loftis
Tara’s head turned slowly to look up at her best friend, her soon-to-be--dead best friend because Tara was going to smother her the next time she slept over. “Later, we will discuss the fact you just blurted that out like it wasn’t my own, personal, very private thoughts. How on earth did you remember all of that, verbatim?”
Shelly’s eyes fluttered as she sighed. “Girl, I ate that feces up. I told you that you should consider being a writer. I read those pages like ten times.”
“Boundaries, Shelly, boundaries,” Tara muttered. “Remember? We talked about this…” She turned her attention back to Elias. He was studying her as if he couldn’t quite figure out what she was. The feeling was mutual because he seemed like so much more than just a random guy.
“So are you?” Shelly asked him, obviously undeterred by Tara’s words.
“I am not claiming anyone,” Elias said without glancing at Shelly.
“Then why are you out here?” Tara asked, genuinely curious as to why he would follow them.
“I owed you an apology. I…” He paused, and Tara found herself intrigued by the clenching of his strong jaw. “Are you going to fill out the forms?” he asked, apparently having changed his mind about whatever it was he’d been about to say.
Shelly spoke before Tara could even open her mouth.
“We’re thinking about it. We’ve got some other options we want to explore. We don’t want to make any hasty decisions.”
Tara started to speak, but her BFFF nudged her in the arm as if to say, ‘Go with it.’ So she decided to keep her mouth shut, considering whatever Shelly was doing couldn’t be any worse than her blurting out what was in Tara’s diary.
After several heartbeats and what looked like a serious internal battle on Elias’s part, he gave them a slight nod and said, “If you do fill them out, you can just bring them to the school office instead of mailing them. Jax and I will be in town for a couple of weeks, and we can just pick them up. No sense in wasting money and time to mail them in. It was nice to meet you both.” He turned on his heel and strode away back the way he’d come.
Tara frowned. “Was that as odd to you as it was to me? And why on earth are they going to be staying here for two weeks?”
“Dude, I’ve given up trying to make sense of the Y chromosome. They are as baffling as a buzzing insect on a congealed lump of human excrement. As for the second question, maybe they’re doing work here. They are an environmental company so perhaps they’ve got something … environmental going on.”
“What’s baffling about a fly on a turd?” Tara asked as she turned to face her friend. Elias had made it into the gym, so there was really no reason to continue to stare after him like a lost puppy.
Shelly rolled her eyes at the same time she made a motion for Tara to get up. “The fact that anything would want to sit on a lump of excrement. How much more baffling can you get?”
Tara supposed that was a fair point. But she wasn’t convinced about Shelly’s explanation for Jax and Elias hanging around in Buffalo. They hadn’t said anything about working nearby.
“We’ve got to get to class. We have a test in English, or did you forget? We can get some extra studying in while the job fair is finishing up,” said Shelly.
Tara had actually forgotten about the test, or at least it had gone right out of her mind the minute she’d laid eyes on Elias. It was easy to forget things when she was looking at him and he had turned that intense scrutiny on her. She followed Shelly toward the front door of the school and sighed. It was going to be a long, unfocused day, and that personality test was going to be burning a hole in her backpack until she could get home and look at it.
“By the way, I’m taking you home today and we can fill out the forms together. So, forget about walking home,” Shelly said as if she could read Tara’s mind.
“I thought we were exploring other options,” Tara said with a smirk.
“There's no reason to look too eager. We won’t have any negotiating room if we look like we’ve put all our unfertilized chicken ovums in one wicker container.”
“Eggs in a basket, bitch. Just say eggs in a basket.” Tara sighed. “I thought the weird breakdown of words only applied to your profanity. You’re killing my brain cells with trying to figure out what you’re saying. And negotiating? What exactly are we negotiating? And what about when you told Jax that you were definitely in if all the males were as good looking as Elias? That wasn’t too eager?”
Shelly waved her off. “I’ve had time to gain some self-control and dignity. I’ll proceed with more caution, especially since hot Elias opened his mouth and inserted his, no doubt, hot foot. And consider my linguistic acrobats an exercise for your mind. It’s making your brain cells stronger, not killing them.”
“It’s making me want to kill you.” They reached their lockers and retrieved their books. “And don’t start with your foot fetish. It was creepy enough the last time you started talking about a guy’s feet.”
“I make no promises.”
“Fantastic.” Tara grumbled and followed Shelly, who was practically frolicking, to class. It made her want to trip her best friend. Which probably made her a bad BFFF.
“I think this is going to be a great day, Tara-bear,” Shelly said as they entered their English class.
“Do I want to know why you think it’s going to be a great day?”
“Because any day that starts with two guys having a urinating competition over you is bound to be memorable.”
“Memorable and great aren’t necessarily synonymous,” Tara pointed out.
“Don’t defecate on my urination parade,” Shelly warned.
Tara held her hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay. Just quit hollerin’ about crapping and pissing, please.”
“Deal. Now, sit. We’re going to ace this test.”
Chapter 9
Shelly passed a cup of hot chocolate over to Tara as the pair sat around Tara’s dining room table. Their day had pretty much been uneventful, despite Shelly’s declaration that it was going to be a memorable day, after the interesting morning. Tucker had sat with them at lunch and had apologized for putting Tara on the spot when he’d made the comment about her not being a rock you tossed away. She’d shrugged and told him not to worry about it, and thankfully, he’d dropped the subject.
“Can you believe these questions?” Shelly asked, pulling her TGTE aptitude test booklet in front of her on the table. The front cover bore the company’s logo set against the backdrop of a snowy mountain.
Tara grunted and chewed on the end of her pencil. “Um, no, I cannot. This is nothing like any personality test I’ve ever taken.”
Shelly’s brow furrowed as her eyes scanned the page. “I mean, even the demographic questions are weird. ‘Are your parents both living?’ ‘If not, how did they die?’ ‘Did your parents move around a lot as a kid?’ ‘Did you have vivid nightmares as a child?’ ‘If so, please describe in the blank provided.’”
“And they just get weirder,” added Tara. “‘Would you describe yourself as (a) a cloud (b) a river (c) a mountain or (d) a campfire?’”
“I’m definitely a campfire,” said Shelly.
“Why? Because you’re so hot?”
Shelly rolled her eyes. “Psh, of course not.”
Tara readied herself for what was coming. “Okay, here we go. Let me have it. Why are you a campfire?”
“Because I like s'mores so much, duh.”
Tara narrowed her eyes. “S’mores?”
“Yep.”
“And that’s all?”
“What, did you think I was going to make some sexual joke about campfires? C’mon. You don’t give me enough credit.”
Tara raised her eyebrows and nodded. “Okay, then.” She took a sip of her hot chocolate and read the next question.
“Oh, and because I love having big logs put into me.”
Tara coughed, causing hot chocolate to spew out of her pursed lips and fly halfway across the room. “
Thank you so much for that mental image,” she said, retrieving a paper towel and wiping up the expelled drink. “I knew it was too good to be true. I knew you couldn’t just make one comment without sexualizing it.”
“Where would be the fun in that?”
“Right. No fun at all,” said Tara. “What was I thinking?”
“You weren’t. Anyway, what’d you put on that question?”
“Mountain,” answered Tara.
“Hmm, yeah I can see that. You certainly have an impressive pair of twin peaks.”
“Can you please not stare directly at them when you talk about my boobs?”
“Sorry, sometimes they mesmerize me.” Shelly bounced her eyebrows up and down, causing Tara to laugh.
Tara cleared her throat. “Okay, then, moving on. Next question. ‘How long can you hold your breath underwater?’”
“Seriously, why would they need to know that?”
Tara shrugged. “Maybe some of the rocks they harvest are underwater or something.”
“I guess. But couldn’t they just use scuba gear or snorkel stuff?” Both girls shrugged as they scribbled down their answers.
“Next question,” said Tara. “‘Have you ever burned yourself?’ ‘On a scale of one to ten, how badly did it hurt?’ ‘Did some part of you actually enjoy the pain?’ Okay, that’s too strange. Why in the world would they need to know that? I mean, my answer would be no, because of the whole ‘can’t be hurt thing,’ but I can’t exactly put that down.”
“First off, that was three questions, not one. Second, I have no idea,” said Shelly. “I’m starting to think this whole thing is a bit weird.”
“I’ll say.”
“Who’s ever heard of a technology company that doesn’t require its employees to have college degrees?” continued Shelly.
“Yeah, I still think that’s a little bit hard to believe,” said Tara.
“Wait, you don’t think this is all a hoax do you? Like maybe this company isn’t even real?”
“Um, what would be the point exactly? Just to make us waste our time filling out some ridiculous questionnaire?”
“No, maybe TGT-whatever is actually a front for some secret organization.”
Tara frowned. “Like the CIA or something?”
“No, no, no. It’s probably a weird cult or the illuminati or something.”
“And what would a cult want with a couple of teenage girls?”
“Did you just ask that? Teenage girls are the main targets for cults. We’re like prime rib to those whackos. They’ll probably brainwash us, put us in a dungeon, use us as sex slaves, and make us wash the leader’s underwear. May not be too bad, actually. Except for the underwear-washing part. Let’s keep going. It’s not like we’ve got tons of prospects once we graduate from Buffalo High.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” said Tara. “You might have a point.”
“No, I don’t,” Shelly quickly said. “I have no points. Ignore me when I sound halfway rational. That usually means I have no idea what’s going on.”
“I have a weird feeling about this. Maybe we should just scrap these stupid questionnaires and call the whole thing off.”
“Are you kidding me? Did you forget Elias?” Shelly’s eyes grew wide. “Unless you’re thinking of giving Tucker a chance, I don’t really think you can afford to kick Elias to the curb.”
Tara’s heart leaped up into her throat. No, she had definitely not forgotten Elias. He’d been all she could think about since that morning. Her head snapped up once Shelly’s words had registered. “What do you mean I can’t afford to kick him to the curb?”
Shelly raised a brow at her. “T, it’s not like hotties are lined up knocking your door down and attempting to cop a feel. Why they aren’t is a mystery to me, considering you got a body that could make a straight nun renounce her faith and her hetero status. Be that as it may, right now, you got tweedle sweet and tweedle ass. If tweedle sweet isn’t going to make the cut, or at least stay in the running, then you can’t throw this opportunity away. Especially since Elias is the first guy to make your girl parts stand up and take notice.”
“Are you seriously referencing Alice in Wonderland as a part of your argument?”
Shelly grinned and nodded. “Yep. Clever, right?”
Tara sighed. Once Shelly got something in her head, she was loath to give it up. It is how they became friends, after all.
“Oh, I know.” Shelly snapped her fingers. “Get your laptop and look them up. We’ll see if they’re legit.”
“Good idea.” Tara pulled her laptop out of her bag. With a couple of keystrokes, she had pulled up a website showing the same logo that was on the front of their aptitude tests. She clicked the “About TGTE” tab. A wall of text appeared, which she read out loud. “Tellus Geological Testing and Extraction is dedicated to improving the quality of human life through the development of new technologies derived from the core elements found within the earth’s crust. Headquartered in Punakha, Bhutan, TGTE has over two hundred offices located throughout the world and operates on every continent.”
“Bhutan? Where’s that?” Shelly asked.
Tara shrugged. Shelly raised an eyebrow at her and gestured at the computer. “Oh, my bad,” said Tara, smiling sheepishly. She opened a new tab on the browser and searched for Bhutan. “Hmm, looks like it’s in Asia between Tibet and India. Kind of remote. Seems like a strange place for a big company.”
“Yeah. Go back to TGTE. Does it show a list of office locations?”
Tara clicked back to the previous page. “It does.”
“And is there one in Charleston?”
“Looks like it,” said Shelly.
“Well, I guess they are legitimate,” said Tara. “Still, something doesn’t feel right.”
“Maybe you’re just scared you’ll end up working side-by-side with Mr. Tall, Dark, Bad, and British.”
Tara shook her head. “No, that has nothing to do with it. Why would that scare me?”
“C’mon,” said Shelly. “You melted like butter when he came over to talk to us. You have got it bad.”
Tara sniffed and continued to browse the web page. “Actually, I was thinking of taking Tucker up on a date if he asks again.”
Shelly’s eyes widened. “What? Was your motor just rusty and meeting Elias got it oiled up for you? Now you’ve decided you can appreciate other good-looking guys?”
“Something like that,” Tara mumbled as she clicked on the “Meet our team” tab of the website. The very first picture that popped up was Jax’s. “Look,” she said, motioning toward her screen.
Shelly leaned forward and began to read out loud. “Jax Stone.” She snorted. “Of course, he would have sexy last name to go with his sexy first name. I wonder if that really is a requirement to work there? If so, then I totally have to change my name. Shelly Smith is about as un-sexy as you get. Well, Tara Thompson is pretty lackluster as well.”
“There is nothing wrong with my name.”
“No, there isn’t, as long as you aren’t trying to work for this super-weird rock company with dudes who have names so hot they make you want to have babies with them on the off chance that it will cause your baby to have a super-sexy name.”
“You could just name the kid whatever you wanted with whatever dude you have the kid with,” Tara pointed out.
“Not without the father’s input,” said Shelly. “That would just be rude.”
“Right, because you’re never rude,” she laughed. “Let’s just finish the questionnaire so we can turn it in tomorrow. I guess there’s no harm in submitting it.”
Shelly rolled her eyes but quietly went back to filling out the personality test.
Later that evening, Tara decided to ask Carol what she thought about the whole college thing versus this company that would offer on-the-job training.
As they sat for dinner, Tara found herself feeling a bit lighter because Carol was actually home. She’d been working the late shift a lot late
ly, and Tara hadn’t realized how much she missed her foster mom.
“It’s so nice to be home and get to eat dinner with you,” Carol said as if she’d read Tara’s mind.
Tara nodded. “You’ve been working a lot.”
“Short-staffed but not short on patients,” she said. “Makes it tough to do our jobs. But those people need someone to care for them. I can’t in good conscience leave them when they are in need.”
And that was one of many reasons Carol was an exceptional person. She cared so much for other people. More often than not, she put others before herself. It also meant she often wore herself out. Tara hoped Carol would get a couple of days off to recuperate.
“How’s school been?” Carol asked.
“It’s been fine,” Tara answered. “We had a job fair today. And there were colleges there, too, and trade schools.”
Carol perked up a bit as she leaned forward. “Oh? Did you find anything you want to do? We haven’t talked much about it. I’ve been giving you time to think without me bombarding you with my thoughts.”
Tara appreciated that. She was well aware of the fact that she needed to make a decision—should have already made one by now. “There were some interesting choices. Even the military recruiters were there. Though I don’t think I’m military material.”
Carol laughed. “I think you’d be doing a lot of push-ups or whatever it was they did to punish insubordinate people.”
Tara knew her foster mom was aware of the fact that it wouldn’t be the officers over her that would be the problem. She had respect for authority. It would be those around her who would be the issue. Her parents’ deaths had really done a number on her ability to build meaningful relationships, and it was all because of fear. Granted, she also didn’t like stupid people, and there seemed to be an awful lot of those in the world.