Vanilla Sky…Part six.

I’m scared and excited and terrified and elated and bouncy all at the same time because we’re going shopping and I have my own money and I’m going out with other girls my age.

We pile into all the vehicles and we head off down to new Minas where the closest mall well actual mall is and it’s kinda small compared to what I’m used to more like a galleria down in the states.

We all talk about where we want to go for supper first and end up going to Boston pizza which I didn’t think we had up here in Canada but we do and the food’s good. I mean who doesn’t like pizza? Well apparently dad and them are pasta people but me I’m a fan of a good slice and I get mine or mine and the girls with extra sauce and extra pepperoni.

Pepperoni pizza is my favorite pizza really just because it’s simple but I avoid the extra cheese and I blot. Okay blotting your pizza is just taking napkins and pressing down on top for a few minutes to soak up the extra oil and grease off the pizza. You’d be surprised at how much you don’t get into your system that way.

Food’s going to be something that I want to watch actually…I want to be smaller not bigger and stuff. I don’t want to go all psycho about it and like bulimic and stuff but just being careful.

Still it was good even if it tastes different. Not bad but different like they make all the stuff differently up here compared to home which they probably do. It’s actually spicier up here than down home which I thought would be the other way around.

After that though we’re not long in kissing the parents and taking off down the mall together.

Suzy Sheir, Pseudio, Northern reflections, Eclipse, Sears and all sorts of other places we go to and we mostly shop by looking at things and trying stuff on and that’s soooo much fun1

God I’m so tired of living a life where I was just skulking around and wanting and needing and aching for my life to start. I don’t even buy a whole lot of stuff but just try things on and watch and look and learn.

I meet Katelyn Prichard and her friends at City Streets. “The girls all do the “Hey Katelyn…” and she smiles and then I’m introduced.

“So…you’re the new girl?” She’s so pretty with big green eyes and long dark hair and a hint of something ethnic in her blood to give her this dusky look. Okay picture Catherine Zeta Jones as a teenager with none of the poise and grace lost.

“Uhm yes…Hi…I’m Samantha.”

“Katelyn, Sam…I like the name it fits you?”

“Really?”

She smiles and laughs. “Yes, much better than whatever you were born with.”

Oh shit.

I blush and look down. She moves and starts looking at one of the displays. “Sorry…pretty much everyone knows who you are.”

“Oh…”

“Hey, it’s alright I haven’t really heard a whole lot of bad about it.”

“You haven’t?”

“No…I mean for the most part you actually had some of us worried.”

“Worried?”

“Yeah some of the kids, some of the other girls we’re scared you were going to show up and be all hot or super hot like that model girl that Trump tried to block from going into the pageant that time.”

“Oh…well…I’m never going to look like that.”

She laughs; I don’t think most of us are going to look like that really.”

I look at her. “I think she is a PAIS girl.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s where your body doesn’t accept hormones right and you’re almost like rejecting the male hormones.”

“Oh…never heard of that.”

“The whole gender thing is actually really messed up and stuff.”

“Sounds like it, man…add that and the whole sexuality thing and there’s a double whammy.”

I nod. “There’s a lot of Whammy just being normally transgendered. I’m a little jealous of some of these people like that or are femininely leaning while being intersexed…it seems like such a head start compared to me.”

She looks at me. “Maybe but I think they have their own brand of hell too.”

I smile a little shyly at her. “Thanks for not freaking out about this Kate.”

“Katelyn…I’m not a fan of the short form of my name really I like the celticness of it. I’m glad that you’re not too freaked out by us not being bitches about it. You kind of get a different perspective down here in the Maritimes anyway just as long as you’re not in deep redneck country.”

“Really, I mean people are, they’ve been really good actually.”

She nods. “We’re a small area but we’re an area with a lot of colleges and tech schools and you get people here from all over. Gay people, Lesbian People, even people like you Sam so I guess well it kind of came down to either the whole area look like a bunch of inbred hillbillies and be all offensive or let people just be.”

I look at her. She’s really smart and well spoken for a girl our age and I think that’s kind of cool. Plus I’m really used to girls acting dumber than what they are so they “fit in” like they do back home.

“Still…Thanks Katelyn I’m really, really not used to the understanding here yet.”

One of the other girls with her laughs. “Katelyn’s just applying the sic degrees of toilet paper thing again.”

“Eeew…six degree’s of toilet paper?” I extend my hand to the girl. “Samantha.”

“Natasha, yeah it’s a karma thing.” She shakes my hand and that’s just strange too. I’ve never really shaken hands with a girl before. And I don’t know why either.

Katelyn rolls her eyes. “It’s not really a karma thing. Okay you’ve heard of the whole six degrees of separation thing?”

I nod. “I think so.”

She gestures with her hands when she talks so maybe there’s some Italian there. “Okay we all know the only major things about high school is getting through it to either get a job or get into university. Most of what happens in high school doesn’t have a huge bearing on what’s going on in the rest of your life after that…for the most part.”

I nod again. “Okay I guess…”

“Well that’s only true if you’re average with people or even decent. But if you’re a total shit to people, they remember it. They remember the people that were the bullies and that made their lives hell and you know what?”

Okay I’m interested because I have those people that I can’t stand like that not even including my family but a whole list of assholes from home. “Okay what?”

“That’s where the six degrees of toilet paper come in. If you were a miserable person and treat people like shit then going by the laws of the six degrees of separation it’ll come back to them…they’ll be doing something and they’ll meet someone that’s heard of them or gets mentioned to a friend or a friend of a friend but it will come back… “That person’s a bitch, don’t hire her she hurt someone I know.” And voila…their own shit they forced on others get’s smeared back in their face by a totally different party.”

I’m giggling. “Eeew gross, but actually kinda cool it’s still like karma though.”

“Oh well maybe but you explain that to the haters and they sort of get that a whole lot better than the whole karma thing.”

I nod and grin and we both quote. “Teaching this generation about good karma’s like teaching this generation about good credit.”

We both start to laugh. “Jinx!” We both say it at the same time and we actually end up laughing together and she actually gives me a hug. “Welcome to the valley Sam.”

“Thanks, you girls want a coffee? My treat?”

Both she and Natasha say sure and we get the others girls together and we head off to Tim Horton’s?

There’s almost ten of us actually and we’re laughing and chatting and headed into the coffee place.

They all know…they all know and they don’t care and it just really doesn’t seem to matter.

Okay…coffee and sugar and some more shopping.

And we walk into the place and I slow down and stop almost as I see other kids there and not just other kids but there’s boys there.

And they’re looking up at us all as we’re coming in.

Eeep…shit do I look alright?