Competition Thirty Shortlisted: Aspirations by Joanna Miller
After Mary Ellen Mark, Amanda and Her Cousin Amy
Half the morning we’d taken glamming her up: false nails, makeup, bling. Now she stood in the swimming pool wearing a swimsuit with frou-frou frills dancing like butterflies at the top of her tanned legs, chest buds revealed, a soft, rounded stomach, the outie belly button winking in the sunshine.
“Hold it there,” the camera lady said, looking pleased, click-clicking away.
Amanda gazed heavenward and blew out a couple of perfect smoke rings.
‘You be careful around that one,’ Mom had warned, ‘nine going on nineteen, sharper than a feral kitten.’
Nobody messed with Amanda though, and I wanted to be just like her.
“It’s a wrap.” The camera lady smiled and thanked us both.
We raced up to the porch, watching her station wagon retreat down the drive, kicking up a trail of dust clouds as it went, before stopping at the gate. She turned, waved and drove off, taking a glimpse of us with her, leaving a gift of dreams.
“Do you think you’ll get to be a model, Mand?”
Amanda shrugged. “Who knows, who the fuck knows.” She dipped another cigarette in the pool, then flicked it hard into the grass.
That night, we shared a bed, and Amanda laughed, saying we were squashed together tighter than canned sardines. Later, I thought she might have been crying, but it was hard to tell with all the partying, yelling and other shit going on downstairs.
“Mand?”
“Yup.” The reply was muffled.
“If you get to be a model, will you take me with you?”
“Damn right I will,” she said.
I snuggled up against her, wishing we could make that crossing to another world, holding tight to her, my life raft of hope.
Joanna lives in Derbyshire. Her stories have been listed in various competitions, including New Writers Flash Fiction, Mslexia, Cranked Anvil, and the London Independent Story Prize. She has been published in Free Flash Fiction, Writing Magazine, the Scottish Arts Trust, Wildfire Words FF150 and Bath Flash Fiction Volume Nine.
Photo by Max Kleinen on Unsplash
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Very thought provoking. Poor girls caught in a web.