The Law of Tall Girls Read online

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  The Law of Tall Girls

  Joanne Macgregor

  Other Young Adult books by this author

  Hushed

  Scarred

  Recoil

  Refuse

  Rebel

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  First published in 2017 by KDP

  ISBN: 978-0-9947230-0-0 (print)

  ISBN: 978-0-9947230-1-7 (eBook)

  Copyright 2017 Joanne Macgregor

  The right of Joanne Macgregor to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form of by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying and recording, or be stored in any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission from the author.

  Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All the characters, institutions and events described in it are fictional and the products of the author’s imagination.

  Cover design by Jenny Zemanek at Seedlings Design Studio

  Formatting by Polgarus Studio

  The Law of Tall Girls

  Seventeen-year-old Peyton Lane is a tall girl. So tall, it’s the only thing most people notice about her. Not only does she try to hide herself, but she’s also hiding a serious secret.

  On impulse, Peyton accepts a bet to prove she can be as attractive and desirable as other girls. Now she just needs to go on four dates (including the prom) with one of the guys on her very short list of very tall boys.

  Number one on the list is Jay Young – the new guy that Peyton already likes way more than she should. But not only is Jay already taken, he’s also breaking her Law of Tall Girls, and he’s determined to discover her deepest, darkest secret.

  Table of Contents

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  Acknowledgements

  Other young adult books by Joanne Macgregor

  “Your playing small does not serve the world.”

  — Marianne Williamson

  ~ 1 ~

  “When I am queen of the world, the second thing I’ll do is to pass the Law of Tall Girls,” I said.

  “The law of what, now?” Steve asked.

  “I’ll bite,” said Tori. “What’s the first thing?”

  “I’ll outlaw ketchup and mustard bottles.”

  I wiped the gummed-up nozzle of another sticky ketchup bottle. So gross. Why did I always get stuck with this disgusting job?

  It was a slow Friday night at Jumping Jim’s Diner, and we three servers were clustered at the back, waiting for the last few tables to leave. Steve was polishing glasses, Tori was wrapping paper napkins around flatware, and I was stuck on condiments clean-up.

  “So, Peyton, tell us: what’s the law of tall girls?” Steve said.

  “The Law of Tall Girls,” I said, “states that no male over the height of six feet shall be permitted to date any female under the height of five foot eight inches.”

  Tori raised a critical eyebrow at me. “Heterocentric much?”

  “Sorry. No person over six feet shall be permitted to date any person under the height of five foot eight. Though,” I added, “I don’t think it matters for male couples. They probably wouldn’t want to wear heels, and would female couples really care if one of them was taller?”

  “Probably not. We’re less into ego issues like that,” Tori replied.

  She always wore super-glossy black lipstick, and a piercing of a silver skeleton hand cuffed her bottom lip, so that even when she smiled smugly, like now, she still looked threatening.

  “Yeah, well, some of us girls are not so evolved. We like our partners to be taller.” I glanced over at the table in the far corner and scowled.

  Steve shoved the polished beer mugs across the counter toward me. “Put these back on the top shelf for me? I can’t reach.”

  “You could just use the step stool,” I said.

  “Don’t need to. I’ve got you — the human stepladder.”

  Smartass. I began packing the glasses away.

  “Why, though?” Tori asked.

  “Why what?”

  “Why do tall girls need — if I understand the purpose of this proposed legislation correctly — legal protection for dating?”

  “Because there are so few tall guys. Too few to go around — even if we limit them to tall girls. And definitely too few to waste on short girls, who do not need tall guys. They have a massive pool of average-height guys to choose from.”

  A sudden burst of laughter drew my gaze back to the corner booth. A bunch of kids from my high school sat there, but the one face that kept attracting my gaze belonged to someone I’d never met. I’d have remembered.

  “Case in point: look at your table over there, Tori.” I jerked my chin in the direction of the rowdy crowd. “That girl in the blue dress — she can’t be over five-three. And she’s putting the moves on him — green shirt, in the far corner.” I ran an expert eye over his length. Six-two, I estimated. And hot. “Now if they hook up, there’s one less tall guy available for tall girls like me.”

  “You’re assuming that — even if he was available — he’d be interested in you,” Tori said.

  “Slice!” Steve cackled.

  Tori gave a sexy wiggle to draw attention to her own pint-sized figure. Even in her super-high, peep-toe stilettoes, she didn’t top five-five, and she couldn’t weigh more than
one hundred and twenty pounds – at least five of which were from her multiple piercings, many rings, and heavy eyeliner.

  “Maybe,” she continued, “he prefers petite girls.”

  That wouldn’t surprise me — the whole world did.

  “Many men do, I believe,” she continued. “It bolsters their fragile egos.”

  I lifted my chin and gave a sniff. “If he does prefer them, it can only be because he’s never experienced the superior species that is the tall girl. Once you go tall, you never go small.”

  Steve hooted with laughter. Perhaps he could hear the lack of conviction beneath my confident words.

  “Pul-lease. You know guys don’t find treetops-tall attractive — that’s why you always hunch, and wear flat shoes, and try to make yourself look smaller,” Tori said.

  I wished Chloe was here with me — she’d have a snappy comeback to put Tori in her place. Chloe had been my best friend since we both made ourselves sick eating blue, yellow and pink wax crayons in kindergarten because Billy Beaumont told us it would make us poop rainbows. She was a regular-sized package of dynamism and sass, but she never insulted me. Well, not about things I couldn’t change — like my height. Though she did nag me all the time to stop slouching.

  I stood up straighter and told Tori, “Guys can be attracted to more than a girl’s appearance, you know. They are capable of being attracted to her personality, or her brains.”

  Tori seemed skeptical — she didn’t have a very high opinion of the male of the species.

  “Not true,” said Steve. “Zombies are the only dudes that want a girl for her brains and not her body.”

  “What’s going on here?” Jim, wider than he was tall, and probably not capable of jumping at all, had slipped out of the kitchen to check on the tables and his wait staff. “What we need is less talking, and more action,” he said and treated us to the chorus of Elvis’s A Little Less Conversation.

  Jim loved Elvis, probably even more than he loved bacon-and-egg burgers with deep-fried pickles. Which was a lot.

  “Yes, boss,” Steve said. Pulling a revolted face, he grabbed a cloth and began wiping the crusted yellow goo off a mustard bottle.

  Tori sighed loudly. “Managers cracking the whip over the workers again. When I am queen of the world, I’ll abolish the class structure and redress the inequities of capitalism.”

  “Then you wouldn’t be a queen anymore. Communists and socialists aren’t big on royalty,” I pointed out.

  “Now you quit riling folks up, Tori,” said Jim. “Isn’t that table ready for their check yet?”

  “Already done. And I wasn’t riling anyone. I just said that tall guy in the corner might not actually want to date Peyton, even if the law forbade him to date the pretty petite girl beside him.”

  “Now that is nonsense. Why, Peyton is a beautiful young lady.” Jim defended me loyally. “Anyone would want to date her.”

  Sadly, experience had taught me that this was not true. I wasn’t unattractive — I had big brown eyes, shoulder-length hair with a slight curl, and a slim body, but other people only ever saw my height.

  “Heck, I’d want to date her, if I was forty years younger!” Jim added.

  Tori and Steve chortled like this was the funniest thing they’d ever heard. I stared down at my feet. My very large feet.

  “Pay them no mind, Peyton. Steve here knows less of the world than a June-bug.”

  That shut Steve up.

  “And Tori — well, Tori might know all about capitalism and such, but she would agree that she doesn’t know the first thing about what men want.”

  “Thank the goddess!” Tori said.

  “And that big fella? I reckon he’d love to kiss on someone his own size rather than putting a crick in his neck just to get to a girl’s lips. Why, I bet he’d want to kiss our Peyton just as soon as he met her.”

  “Thank you, Jim.” I gave him a side-hug.

  “You’re on!” Tori said, an evil glint in her eyes. “I’ll take you up on that challenge. You talk a good game, Peyton, let’s see if you can walk your talk. Jim, I’ll bet you a hundred bucks that you couldn’t get the Jolly Green Giant over there to kiss our Amazon.”

  “Our what?” Jim asked.

  “Peyton.”

  “No,” I said.

  “I’ll sweeten the deal,” Tori said. “One-fifty.”

  “No.”

  “Two hundred. That’s two hundred dollars, Peyton.”

  “Deal!” Jim stuck out his meaty paw and shook Tori’s hand.

  “Hang on a sec, don’t I have a say in this?” I protested.

  “You think he’s hot, don’t you?” said Steve. “I’ve seen you checking him out all evening.”

  “Yeah, don’t you want to kiss him?” Tori challenged.

  “Well, yeah, maybe — if I actually knew him. But I don’t. And I can’t just go kiss a strange man.”

  “Girl, they’re all strange.”

  “And why are you making a bet with Jim about something I’d have to pull off?”

  “Good point. It’s only fair you get something out of it,” Tori said. “Steve — you want in on this?”

  “You bet. He isn’t going to kiss her, no way, man. He’ll 401 her for sure.”

  “401?” I said.

  “Error 401: access denied,” Steve sniggered.

  “Steve and I will each give you” — Tori indicated Jim and me with a finger — “two hundred bucks if Peyton can get that guy to kiss her, within five minutes of introducing herself.”

  I ignored her ridiculous suggestion and turned instead to Steve, still stinging from his comment and not willing to let it go unchallenged. “Why not?” I asked him. “Why wouldn’t he want to kiss me?”

  “Because you’re enormous, man. You’re not even, like, a girl.”

  “You are such a jerk, Steve!”

  He just smirked back at me. “Time to put your money where your mouth is, Gigantor.”

  ~ 2 ~

  I hesitated. This was crazy. I wasn’t the sort of girl who could confidently march up to a guy and demand kisses. Heck, I wasn’t the sort of girl who could march confidently. And I wasn’t sure I could succeed in getting the hot guy to kiss me. Scratch that — I was sure. That I couldn’t succeed.

  But just maybe I was irritated enough to try.

  “I’ll give you my two hundred if you win, Peyton. When you win,” said Jim.

  I stood to win four hundred bucks, and I could seriously use that kind of money.

  Of course, if I lost … I shuddered.

  “Too scared to try? Chicken?” Steve flapped his elbows and made clucking noises.

  “Huh, more like ostrich,” Tori goaded.

  She was so sure I’d bomb out. It might be worth the embarrassment to wipe that self-satisfied smile off her face.

  “Or like Big Bird,” Steve said.

  “Fine, I’ll do it.” Had those words just come out of my mouth? Oh, jeez.

  “Atta girl!” Jim said. “But better do it quickly — they’re leaving.”

  Sure enough, the group was getting to their feet, the three girls grabbing their bags, and the tall guy unfurling himself from the corner seat. Oh, man, six-three. Short hair, pretty much the same light brown as mine, light eyes — I couldn’t tell the color from where I stood — and broad shoulders. I couldn’t decide if he was really hot, really really hot, or really freaking hot.

  “It’s got to be a real kiss, not just a peck,” Tori said.

  “Yeah, there’s got to be tongue,” Steve added.

  Panic skittered up my spine. Maybe it showed on my face, because Jim gave me an encouraging smile and a pat on the shoulder, and said, “Relax, kiddo — you look like you’re about to be fried in the electric chair.”

  I fixed a smile onto my lips. “Better?”

  “Uh, can you do something with your hair and maybe put some color in your cheeks?”

  I yanked my hair free of its ponytail and fluffed it up, pinched my cheeks, and
undid another button on my shirt for good measure. Then, to the accompaniment of Jim’s rendition of It’s Now or Never, I turned to face the corner booth, and started walking.

  I am a queen. I am a queen.

  I repeated the words silently to myself with each reluctant step, but it did no good. I was no regal creature, just a seriously tall girl. And right now I’d rather be doing anything — even writing a calculus test or cleaning up the kitchen at home — than this.

  “Hey, Micayla, Greg,” I said, when I drew up to the table.

  I recognized all of the faces — except his — from school. Four of them, including the predatory girl in the blue dress, were a year below me, but Greg and Micayla would be seniors with me when the new school year started in ten days’ time.

  Greg Baker was vice-captain of the school’s varsity basketball team, and forever trying to get me to try out for the girls’ team. I estimated his height at a respectable six-one, but he looked short beside the tall guy who stood beside him, filling my peripheral vision with green. Every cell in my body was already attuned to him, like sunflowers rotating to face the light.

  “Hey,” I said. My voice came out embarrassingly high. Instantly my cheeks grew hot. “I need to speak to …”

  My gaze slid up to the tall guy’s. Oh, boy. Six-four — six-four if he was an inch. And his eyes were an unusual olive green.

  “Oh, this is my cousin Jay Young, he’s from DC,” Greg said. “Jay, this is Peyton Lane. She’s also a senior at Longford High.”

  “Hi,” Jay said. His voice was deep and steady.

  “Hey, Big P,” said one of the junior boys. “What’s the weather like up there?”

  I blushed harder. I hated that nickname — it made me sound like giant genitals or something. If I ever found out who at school had started it …

  Jay gave me a puzzled grin and said, “Sooo, what’s up?”

  “Um …” Now what? I had no idea how to say this. I wished the rest of the group would go away and leave us alone, but they were all staring at me as if I was the bearded lady at a freak show. “Look, is there any way I could persuade you to kiss me?” I finally blurted out.

  “Say what?” said one of the girls.