Taylor

I sat on the tire swing in my front yard, watching the movers carry cardboard boxes into Chloe's old house. I had been watching for a while and even though I'd wanted to leave, the Georgia heat had melted my legs to the tire and frazzled my hair. I leaned my head against the chain that held the old tire onto the tree and tried to swing. My toes, which could barely touch the ground, propelled me a pathetic three inches. So, I returned my attention to the movers. Their muscular bodies rippled through their soaking wet shirts. I watched in awe. If Violet were here, she'd ruin this awesome moment by prancing around in one of her way too short dresses and tossing around her blonde weave just to distract them. If there was one thing the neighbors needed know, it was to stay away from Violet Mallory.

"Samantha!" My mom called from inside. "My cobbler's ready! Let's go!"

Oh right, I'd forgotten. My mom was dead set on killing our new neighbors with one of her disgusting watermelon cobblers. If our neighbors are into a watermelon soup with brown stuff that my mom is trying to pass off as dough floating around in it, they will be over here 24/7 because that's all my mother wants to make. At least if this goes like all of the other meet-and-greets with the neighbors, I won't have to see them much.

My mother appeared at the door, holding a pie dish full of death. My mother was embarrassing as it was. She wore her awful cherry patterned overalls and a white shirt. Her work boots had been replaced with sandals that showed off her twisted toenails that had been painted a sickly shade of green and enough corns to feed a family of twelve. Everything about her screamed help. Ugh. Better get this over with. I separated my thighs from the tire swing with a painful ripping sound and walked over to my mother. She smiled at me and handed me the pie dish. It was worse than I'd imagined. The watermelons smelled burnt and the set up made me want to hurl. I silently hoped that the people next door didn't eat it as we trekked the four feet next door.

"Shouldn't we wait until they get situated?" I asked my mother. "I mean... they might not even have a place to put this."

"Nonsense, Samantha. Now stand up straight. You want to make a good impression on these people. They will be here all summer. Then, Chloe will be back and it will be all over." Thank God. I straightened my back as much as I could as my mother rang the doorbell.

"The door's open, Mom. We could just go right in."

"Now, Samantha, you wouldn't like someone just walking into your house, would you?"

"No, but that doesn't stop them!"

In Monroe, no one really knocked. If you were at home, they just opened the door and came on in. It was one of the downsides of living in a small town. They always know where you are, what you are doing, and who you are doing it with, even when you don't. So, we waited at the open door like a bunch of idiots for someone to answer. Movers walked around carrying heavy boxes marked Fragile, occasionally looking at us weird. Finally, a young woman came over to us.

"What are you doing?" she asked. Or at least that's what I thought she said. She was wearing a sheet with a rectangle cut out for her eyes.

"We're your new neighbors," my mother said. She extended her arm. "I'm Janelle and this my daughter, Samantha."

"Sam," I corrected. "We made you a watermelon cobbler. If you were wise, you wouldn't eat it."

"I'm Tehra," the girl said. She had pretty hazel eyes and a soft voice with a thick accent. When she extended her arm, I could see that she had red paint on her hands. It formed an elaborate sun on her hand. "I'll take that. Madame Genevieve will enjoy it. She likes watermelons."

"Not this one," I murmured as we followed Tehra inside.

I was in awe. The walls, which once had ISA in big blue Crayola letters, were repainted baby blue. The carpet which had many stains from barf, poop, pee, and blood had been deep cleaned until it was white. I had no idea it was white and I had been in Chloe's house every day since I was born. The stairs where Chloe's brother, Michael, had broken his skull had been recarpeted so that the sharp parts were covered by white carpet cleaned vigorously. I was impressed even though I still hated them.

"Madame Genevieve, we have company. This is Miss Janelle and her daughter Sam."

"Sam," I corrected nonchalantly.

Tehra looked at me funny. "Isn't that what I said? Sam?"

"She'll answer to either," my mom lied while I stared at her dumbfounded. I only answered to Sam... Maybe even Samurai. Not Samantha. It was such a stupid, simple name. "I love what you've done with the place."

"Merci," Miss Genevieve said. Her voice was thick with a French accent. She almost sounded like Mademoiselle Bordeaux, the crazy French teacher who hated my guts. "It took some work.The carpet was filthy. I dropped fifty euros to get my brother Christophe to clean it. He wasn't happy about it either."

"I'll bet. The Risadeaxs were very messy people." Why my mother was ratting out my BFF to the foreigner was beyond me. "They had six children."

"My parents have ten children and we aren't messy," Tehra said innocently. "We are very neat."

My mother smiled like she always did when she was embarrassed. "Where are you from? You have a very thick accent."

Tehra covered where her mouth should've been. Miss Genevieve answered for her. "She's a foreign exchange student from Iran. She was the top in all of her classes and her father pushed for her to be sent to school here even though her mother was against it. She's in her third year of college."

"How old are you?"

"I'm twenty-one," Tehra said through her short fingers and her sheet. "I do online schooling though. Officer Nelson is always getting called away and we have to move again. After the summer we are going to Tokyo. I've never been and I'm so excited!"

"You travel a lot with them?" my mother asked Tehra. She smiled and nodded.

"She's been with us since she was nine. She's practically my second daughter."

"Don't you miss your family?" I asked. I mean a few weeks in paradise but twelve years!! That's just insane! And I hate my family.

"We Skype every day. My younger sister, Ganya, had just had a baby. She named him Samar. He's a cutie."

"Don't you go to see them?" I said. I think I'd be a little pissed if Violet didn't at least try to hold her son in for another eighteen hours so I could be present. "I mean, you didn't even get to see your nephew be born!"

"Well, I did see him be born. It was nasty beyond belief!! And I'll see him in March. I go to see them every spring break. I get to go back to Tehran, the city for which I was named, and see my brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews and my poor old dad and his wife and her family."

"Isn't it dangerous?"

Tehra laughed. "You've been watching too much FOX News. It isn't that bad over there. I mean, I'm a woman so it will kinda always be bad over there for me but it isn't as bad as other countries. I think it's better than Israel and Gaza and places like that."

My mother smiled at me. "Why don't you two girls go play in the backyard while us adults talk?"

I looked around for another teenager around but Tehra shrugged off being called a child. "Come on, Sam. Let's go talk upstairs. I think they've set up my room already."

I followed Tehra up the stairs to Isa's old room. There were still spots where you can see that Isa was trying to write her name through the light yellow paint. Tehra had a laptop case sitting on the window seat that was the sight of many broken noses and jaws. Her window had a new curtain that wasn't broken and torn up. The closet door had been repaired and repainted white along with the bedroom door. There were dressers and a bed assembled around the room. In the corner, there was a guitar case. "Wow..."

"Yeah. This room was a wreck. It reminded me of when I was little and I had to share a room with my younger sister, Aja. She'd write my name all over the walls and blame me just so she could watch me get spanked."

I went over to her guitar case. "Is this real?"

"Yeah. Who just has an empty case?"

"Where'd you get it?"

"Taylor got it for me."

"Is that one of your sisters?"

"He's more like a brother than a sister. There he is now. Hey, Taylor."

I looked out of the door and felt like I had been punched in the heart. There was a muscular guy at the door. He had tanned skin and long shaggy hair. His eyes were stunning and wore a faded Holister shirt that was soaking wet. I almost fainted. "Hey Tehra. Made a new friend?"

"Something like that... This is Sam."

"Hey Sam. I'm Taylor."

Oh my gosh, he said my name!!! "Uh... Hi..." I murmured stupidly.

Taylor walked away and I sat on the floor. "He's... Where's you get him?"

Tehra laughed. "He and his older brothers are like my brothers. He was four when I met him. He just grabbed my leg and held on like he never wanted to let go. It was awkward. I was like nine and he scared me so much. They all did. Aubrey pulled him off of me and was really nice about the awkwardness of that. She made me feel right at home. She and Off. Nelson. You know I really..."

Tehra's voice faded from my mind. All I could see was his eyes and his smile. Taylor. Taylor. Taylor, Taylor Taylor. Maybe this summer wouldn't be so bad after all...