She began to comb her softly waving hair, and again she looked at herself in the mirror, seeing the way the mini-skirt clung to her buttocks and was more than half way up her tanned thighs, with slight creases in front where her legs joined her hips. With sudden awareness, she realized that she could almost see the lips of her vagina – was the jumper too daring for tonight? A forbidden thrill raced through her. Well, she'd soon know!

There was a sudden, shrill blast of a born, and the "rumm-rumm!" of a car engine being revved. Eddie was here! Early at that!

She shoved her feet into a pair of scuffed loafers and ran out of her room. "Mom!" she called, "I'm going now!"

"Aren't you going to give your mother a kiss?" Carla said from the kitchen.

"Sure," Tamera said, and hurried into the kitchen to peck her mother on the cheek. "Now, take care," she said.

"You take care, darling," Carla admonished.

"I will, and I'll be home early, like I said."

"Scat, before I change my mind," her mother said smiling.

Tamera was gone quick as a wink, her exit a slammed front door and the squeal of tires on the pavement as Eddie's car roared down the otherwise quiet residential street.

Carla West went to their own car, a beat-up old station wagon, and took the last sack of groceries into the house and began putting the groceries away. She stared morosely at the stuff she'd bought. The silence of the house oppressed her for it's emptiness. It was always thus when Tamera wasn't home with her, and with the remembrances of Arnold and his death, the house seemed to be like a tomb to her, still as death and just as vacant.