Disclaimer: Rent is not mine. At all. In any way.
Angel
Mimi liked to flirt by looking young, and in a way she could pass for twelve. She had these amazing eyes, big and brown and deep like you could fall into them and saturate, lined with long, curling lashes she could blink have six guys over a barrel. She looked innocent when she blinked, like a little girl who doesn't know why, and the way her lips would pout…!
Don't get me started.
Mimi looked twelve, but a little taller and with amazing breasts. Her chest started inflating like balloons at around eleven, when she was still all double-dutch and basketball and royally pissed that her body wanted to change. She tried to hide it by wearing her stepdad's big t-shirts, but everyone knew. And Mimi did her little flameball act, turning feral puppy on anyone whose gaze lingered.
Then high school started, and somehow it seemed Mimi had evened everything out. Everyone stared, and she let them. She was killer. Guys stared, girls stared, teachers stared. They stared like she was a new student they hadn't picked on for years, because she looked like the truth and they wanted to believe it. I stared, too, feeling envy for the perfect evenness of her breasts. I noticed breasts a lot those days, and I didn't know why yet because they didn't turn me on or anything, but I knew most girls' were uneven. Not Mimi's, maybe because she was ambidextrous? Whatever the reason, she had amazing breasts.
She still waited for me after school, though, and came over most days. Our feet found a bubblegum rhythm together and I heard her voice and my own answering, though we were silent.
"Hey, let's stop here."
She pulled me into the 7-11 where a man in a burgundy turban looked up when a jangling bell announced our entrance. Mimi went up to the counter and flirted while I surveyed about forty different types of gum. You could tell he didn't like being flirted with. He had skin the color of NesKwik before it's mixed in with milk and seemed to blush up underneath it, and he sneaked a lot of glances at Mimi. She leaned forward to look at the lotto cards we weren't old enough to buy; her hand flicked up to brush a strand of hair out of her eyes and "accidentally" hit the top button on her blouse.
"That is enough! You must get out now, buy something or get out!" he cried, and from the color in his face and that little jump in octave I knew why.
Mimi turned. "C'mon, Angel," and she headed out the door, jangling that little bell again. I gave the man an apologetic smile and followed.
She was still laughing when we were halfway down the block, her arm looped through mine, stumbling against me because she couldn't stand up.
"You're so weird, Mimi!"
Mimi laughed. "Sez you," she replied, making a very loving insult. She reached into my pocket and pulled out a candy bar. "Hey, Angel, I want you to be my first."
I asked, "Your first what?" even though I knew what she meant.
We arrived at our building. I unlocked the door and we raced up to the third floor. Mimi was the first to touch the blue door. "I'm first!" she said.
"Are not, are not, I was here first!" I insisted, even though I wasn't. I unlocked the door while Mimi called me a liar and we sat at the kitchen table doing homework and drinking Ovaltined milk. Well, I sat at the kitchen table doing homework and drinking Ovaltined milk. Mimi sat at the kitchen table examining her blue-painted nails and drinking Ovaltined milk.
After a while she tapped them against the edge of the table and said, "So do you want to be my first or what, Angel?"
to be continued
written for rentfichallenge on livejournal... which is awesome. Hint, hint.