“C'mon, let’s get you out of those muddy clothes! No adoptive daughter of mine is going to be filthy if I can help it!” harumphed Peggy, driving Bobbi further into the house by her thin waist. A frown clouded her face as she bustled her kinda-daughter through the kitchen, and she gave the taut tummy of her ward an approximative squeeze.
“We need to get some more food in you too, darlin’.” she tutted. “I swear, you could eat five buckets ‘a wings and not gain ‘n ounce!”
“You know that’s not true, Mrs. Reed!” whined Bobbi. “I get all hippy and my jeans barely fit!” She put a demonstrative wiggle in her step, answering the loud snort this elicited from Peggy with a cheeky grin.
“You kids these days,” sighed the interim-super with mock disapproval. “You grow like weeds, but yer minds don’t catch up fer years.”
Foster mother and daughter shared a giggle as they pushed their way past the small, but well-stocked kitchen and into Bobbi’s room. It was surprisingly austere in its decorations, a peeling punk-band poster salvaged from her old trailer the only notable piece of furnishing, and maybe the pink-sheeted bed would catch someone’s eye.
Everything else though, looked like it got hit by a category 5 pubescent hurricane. The dresser was strewn with magazines for your garden variety teen, every Valentine’s Special Edition cover creased from heavy use. The vanity had a plethora of products on it; lipsticks from purples to reds to blacks; fifteen eyeliner pencil-nubs; and enough moisturizers and lotions to keep Nosferatu’s skin soft and supple.
A slightly ajar white door led to a compact attached bathroom with so many jars of perfume that it smelled like a candle store, and makeup wipes used and unused litter the sink.
Bobbi practically skipped into her room, parking herself firmly in front of the magazine-replete dresser. The third drawer down — underneath a compacted layer of boyfriend-shirts and hoodies stolen from Jules — contained a variety of sheer fabrics and lace that, heretofore and probably for a good bit longer (Valentine’s and Jules’ birthday were a ways off) were unused, but the mere sight of it might give Ms. Reed a heart attack.
But before she could lovingly but firmly dismiss her foster mom from the room, the rotund woman started setting about Bobbi’s clothes with maternal vigor.
“Agh, stoooopit!” squealed the redhead, bapping at the liver-spotted hands pawing at her clothes with both of her hands. “I can get undressed mysmrgh—”
Whether it was due to the fact that she didn’t want to hurt one of the few positive female role models in her life, or that the fact that Bobbi’s exercises were primarily for aesthetic — and Jules’ — benefit, it didn’t matter.
What mattered that Peggy Reed was able to divest Roberta Bolstrum of her tank top and then proceeded to stare with disapproval at the unveiled and unsupported peaks revealed.
“Bobbi...” she hemmed, with the disapproving lilt that all mother-figures had mastered.
The eponymous girl put her hands on her hips, twisting her face into a sullen pout. “What?!” she huffed.
Ms. Reed arched an eyebrow.
“I-it’s to celebrate our six-months-and-twenty-day anniversary!”
The other eyebrow went up.
Bobbi sighed and tucked a strand of silky red hair behind an ear, looking away. “It’s not like anything happened.”
Ms. Reed sighed and folded the tanktop into a little white-stained-brown square, wistfully smiling. “I just want ya to be happy, darlin’.”
The impudent expression melted from Bobbi’s face, and her lip started to wobble. Overwhelmed by familial sentiment, the teen once again collapsed into Ms. Reed’s arms, who, once again lightly stroked the girl’s hair as she gently guided her to the bathroom.
Peggy helped the girl out of the pair of particularly tight — and wet from mud, she hoped — jean shorts while trying to avoid the drip of mucus. She refrained from commenting at the scanty pair of panties, choosing instead to thank the Lord that at least the girl had worn something down there.
She cranked the hot-and-cold knobs of the shower as Bobbi sat on the toilet seat, blubbering happy and sad tears in equal measure. Peggy could remember comforting the Bolstrum girl in a similar state when she was younger; whether it was the pet grasshopper that she had accidentally squashed or the sad Disney movie she had watched a few minutes ago, a couple’a gentle coos and maternal affection fixed her right up.
Or she could cry herself out, an option that her deadbeat biological mom had tended towards.
But Ms. Reed had expected Bobbi to, well, change as she got older. Instead, the girl stayed at a fairly high level of emotional volatility as she grew up and, um, out. Sure, the Verner youngun could’ve probably handled the situation better — and if she heard word that he didn’t treat her lil’ Bobbi right, the boy’s ass was grass — but the constant games of emotional Minesweeper with the Bolstrum girl didn’t always pan out for her, so it was a bit of a tossup.
She shoved the girl into the shower as delicately as she could, nodding at the indecipherable words sniveled into her ear. A brief frown was leveled at the trail of snot left on her blouse, but she shrugged it off. It’d go in the laundry with everything else.
“You good with biscuits n’ gravy, darlin’?”
Onomatopoeic sobbing echoed from the shower.
“Bobbi dear, I can’t quite understand you.”
A shaky red-capped thumbs up extended above the shower curtain.
Peggy smiled again. “It’ll be done when you’re out.”
Inside the shower, Bobbi let a wobbly sad smile stretch across her face. She was so truly blessed, having someone like Miss Reed take care of her.