Taylor Swift Meets Lisbeth Salander

I posted this on Writercize, a very cool blog that offers writing prompts.

Taylor Swift is sitting in the green room, waiting for her guest appearance on Jay Leno. She’s looking chaste and blond in an ivory-colored confection with long, lacy sleeves, high neck, and a full-length skirt. It’s the sort of getup that treads a fine line between sincerity and irony. You could almost say typical Taylor, a girl who seems capable of pulling off anything.

 

Opposite her sits Rooney Mara, you know that chick who played the character Lisbeth Salander from Stieg Larsson’s award winning Millenium series. She’s in black, from head to toe, her leather clad bandy legs parentheses above her Miu Miu nosebleed boots.  Twin rings, one through her nose and one through her bottom lip and a bicycle chain bracelet provide silver relief from the black.

Taylor smiles, a sincere toothy welcome that makes her blue eyes crinkle. “I’m so nervous,” she says. “I know, I shouldn’t be, I mean this is like my hundredth show, but I can’t help it.” She leans toward Rooney hands clasped between her open knees, tomboy-like.

Rooney crosses her leather legs, lowers her head and levels a gaze at Taylor; a silver stud in her eyebrow glints through a lock from her asymetrical shag shadowing one heavily kohl-outlined eye, making her look dangerous. A deadpan stare, like why are you talking to me. Either she’s in her Lisbeth mode, the much maligned butt-kicking man-hating heroine, or she’s hating this blond goddess.

“Um, I really loved your movie,” Taylor continues. “I so admire the courage of the character you played, the way you just nailed it.”

Rooney just stares at her. You get the feeling she’d love a cigarette. Or is it her Lisbeth character who would love a cigarette?

“You uh, I’d love to do something like . . .” Taylor trails off and sits back.

A woman with a clipboard bustles into the room and smiles at Rooney. “Ready?”

Rooney rises to her feet, totters for a moment on her impossibly high heels then leans over and with both hands reaches for Taylor’s. Her bullet eyes melt and she looks like she might cry. “I just love your moxie.”