As she walked over to the car, she told herself to be brave. She looked down at her barely-there cleavage. It was true, Sophia had bigger breasts but still Elle was older and she had to be around to look after her cousin. As planned, when she was three feet away from his car, she accidentally dropped her change. She had to bend over in a certain manner and pick up each dime and nickel, one by one so that she felt a breeze between her thighs. After she had picked up each coin she stood with her hands tucked in her pockets and smiled at him shyly. She looked back at the girls who were sitting on the guardrail of the 7-11 pretending not to watch.

Elle pulled Sophia’s signature move and ran her fingers through her hair and folded her hands on top of her head. When the man exited the car, he walked right up to her. Before he even removed his sunglasses, she blurted out, “Hi. Could you possibly buy me some beer?”

The man knitted his brows together. He took off his sunglasses and squinted into the sun and said, “Elle-Belle?”

It was Pam Pure’s dad. His lips began moving as if trying to work out and weigh what he was going to say next. But no words came out. Elle looked back at the six-pack waiting anxiously. A few of the girls had gotten off the guardrail and now stood with their hands clasped upon their chests as if in prayer. Elle turned to Sophia who nodded at her and then blew a smoke ring into the air, a small tribute. Ashley was nodding her head too and repeatedly mouthed the same words, Work-it, work-it. And then Mr. Pure cleared his throat and before he could say anything, she ran.

Elle ran right past the school, past the track field, past the church, and the storefronts, and her favorite ice cream stand. She ran until she was out of breath and until her body hurt and until she was in such pain that she could no longer think. She wanted to stop thinking about how lame she must have looked and how stupid she was. Elle wanted to forget the image of Sophia’s horrified expression and how she had covered her face with her hair in shame.

After the incident, the six-pack girls were icy and Sophia didn’t come by after school any more. Sophia was with the six-pack so often that it was rumored they either they had to change their name (since now their were seven of them) or they were going to dump Jessica who had grown a little chubby.