by Alyson Noel
He’s really tan, with sun-streaked brown hair that falls just short of his incredible, long-lashed, topaz eyes. And when he smiles my heart stops.
Temporarily, but literally.
And so determined to be cool I say, “Hey, Jas.” Only it comes out sounding like “Hey, Jath!” Like I have a speech impediment or something. Which I don’t! But now he probably thinks that I do. Great.
After Ms. Tate takes roll call she tells everyone just to continue with their projects. Then she comes over and sits next to me on the edge of the long wood desk, and even though she’s thin and petite, the desk creaks really loudly when she does that, like it’s gonna break or something.
“So, Rio,” she says, picking off pieces of white lint from her black cotton smock. “We’re all working on a series of projects, some of which will be chosen for the upcoming art show held every year in Laguna Beach. You’re getting a late start, but I’d still like you to try to contribute something. This year I’ve had each of the students pick a theme, value, or idea and then express it in a medium of their choice.”
“Can I use photography?” I ask.
“Sure. Whatever you like. The darkroom is over there.” She points to a door across the room that has a sign on it that says DARKROOM. “I’m sure Mason or Jas will be kind enough to show you around.”
So, of course, I immediately picture Jas (Jath!) “showing me around,” then I feel myself turn bright red when I realize he’s looking right at me.
Ms. Tate smiles and says, “I’m looking forward to seeing your work.” Then she rises from the table slowly and carefully so that it doesn’t creak again. But it still does.
When she’s gone, Mason leans across the desk and says, “You’re into photography?”
“Yeah.” I nod. Then I look over and see Jas looking at me, so I quickly look away.
“Who do you like?” he asks.
YOU!!!
But luckily I just say “Um, well, I love how Irving Penn shows the beauty in the most simple things, and how Annie Leibovitz gets right inside the soul of her subject, oh, and Helmut Newton’s work is so amazing.” Okay, I could go on and on but I make myself stop before I go too far and out myself as a total geek. I mean, most people my age have no idea who I’m talking about.
“Helmut Newton rocks.” Jas nods.
“And I love Irving Penn,” Mason says.
“You do?” I ask.
“Yeah, and Herb Ritts and Bruce Weber and Richard Avedon and Mario Testino. Wouldn’t that be the greatest job? To be a photographer?” Mason says.
“Totally,” I say, wondering if I should tell her how I met Herb Ritts once when he photographed my mom. But I don’t want her to think I’m bragging, so I don’t say anything.
“So where’d you move from?” she asks.
“New York.”
“Wow, I’ve always wanted to go there. What’s it like? Is it better than here?”
“I don’t know yet.” I shrug, even though I know it is.
“Anywhere’s better than here,” she says, rolling her eyes. “You’ll see.”
“Don’t listen to her.” Jas shakes his head. “It’s not so bad. We’ve got great weather and awesome beaches. Have you been to the beach yet?”
“I’ve driven past,” I tell him.
“You’ve got to go to the beach. Do you surf?”
“I’ve gone boogie boarding in the Hamptons.” I shrug.
“You should come with us at lunch,” Mason says.
“Where?” I ask. “Surfing?”
“No, we’re going to Jas’s house. He lives right at the beach and he’s a great cook, he’ll make you whatever you want.”
“But is there enough time? I mean, I thought we couldn’t go off campus,” I say, sounding like a law-abiding good citizen. Gag, why did I say that?
“Technically that’s true,” Mason says. “But we’re skipping the assembly, so there’s plenty of time.”
“No worries,” Jas says.
And when he smiles and pulls his fingers through his bangs, exposing all of his gorgeous face, there’s no way I can say no.
Four
Jas lives in a gated community with a private beach, in a house like you see on the cover of File Decor. It’s like this big, sprawling space on a cliff overlooking the ocean, and it’s filled with all these really cool masks and paintings and sculptures and all this foreign-looking ethnic stuff that Jas says he and his dad have collected on their travels around the world.
So I go, “Around the world?”
And he goes, “Yeah. Last summer we went to Morocco.”
Wow. The only traveling I’ve done is the usual summer exodus to the Hamptons, two Christmas trips to the Caribbean, and countless train rides from my old house in Scarsdale to Manhattan. Not that I’m complaining, but it hardly seems as glamorous as Marrakech.
As he’s busy grabbing food from the fridge, Mason wanders off to the bathroom, leaving me alone with him and it makes me kind of nervous. So I pick up this silver-framed picture of a dark-haired woman. Her mouth is spread wide with laughter, and her eyes are all crinkled up so I can’t really tell what color they are. The blue green of the ocean is right behind her, and it’s a really good picture, so I go, “Who’s this?”
Jas turns from the fridge and squints briefly at the photograph. “Oh, that’s my mom. I took that the summer we went to Greece. I think that was in Mykonos.”
“You took this?” I say, impressed. “It’s really good, really natural.”
“Thanks,” he says, turning from the fridge and juggling an armful of Tupperware containers.
I reach out and catch the one from the top just before it falls to the ground and ask, “So where is your mom?”
“She died of breast cancer four years ago,” he says, opening the containers and spooning the contents onto these square black plates.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I say, feeling like an idiot. “I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay.” He shrugs. “How could you know?”
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” I ask, trying to change the subject.
“No, it’s just me.”
“Me too,” I say. “I mean, I’m an only child too. But I always wondered what it would be like to have a little brother or sister, you know?”
“Yeah.” Fie nods. “Me too.”
We look at each other for a moment and it seems like he’s about to say something more, but then Mason comes into the kitchen and goes, “Let’s eat in the backyard. It’s so nice out.”
I’m holding my plate in one hand, a glass of iced tea in the other, and I’m just about to sit on this lounge chair when this yellow Lab comes charging toward me and sticks his cold, wet nose straight in the crotch of my hot-pink sweatpants.
Oh, god.
I can’t push him away since both of my hands are full, so I lift my knee up high, trying to shield myself, as I shove him (gently but firmly!) with my foot.
But he’s very determined, and refuses to give up, so I end up hopping around in this totally uncoordinated, one-legged dance, trying to dodge the dog without spilling my drink or the food on my plate.
Mason starts cracking up so hard she’s doubled-over, but Jas is really embarrassed, and he comes running over and goes, “Holden, stop it! You know we’ve talked about that.”
He drops his plate on a chair, grabs Holden by the collar, and drags him away. And I swear, you can actually hear the dog whining and scraping his nails in protest the whole way.
Holden reluctantly settles in the shade next to Jas’s chair, but he continues to look at me with these big, sad, brown eyes. “Sorry about that,” Jas says. “He means well, but he has really bad manners.”
“Did you name him after Holden Caulfield?” I ask, casually wiping a bubble of canine juice from my crotch and trying to act like I’m not totally mortified.
“I did.” He nods. “Kind of embarrassing now, but it seemed like a good idea four years ago when I got him.”
I smile nervously and look down at my plate. “Um, what is this?” I ask.
“Endive and watercress salad with mustard-seed vinaigrette, baked rigatoni with sausage and Portobello mushrooms, followed by a piece of pear and dried cherry cobbler for dessert,” Jas says, smiling.
“Do you guys eat like this every day?” I ask between spoonfuls, thinking how I could definitely get used to this.
“Only when Jas supplies the leftovers,” Mason says, eating her dessert first.
I’m chewing my pasta and looking at my two new friends, and the Jacuzzi right next to us, and the ocean right below us, and it seems like such a postcard-perfect image of O.C. living, that I start to feel better about being forced to live here. I mean, maybe it won’t be as bad as I thought. It’s only my first day and I’m already having an awesome lunch with the cutest guy I’ve ever seen in real life. I can’t wait to tell Paige.
After lunch Jas stacks the plates and takes them inside, and when he comes back out he has a box in one hand and a thick stack of papers in the other. He hands Mason the papers and sets the box on the end of his lounge chair, then he lifts the hinged lid and pulls out a bag of weed and some rolling papers.
I just sit there and watch him casually lick the edges and twist the ends, then light it up and take a deep drag. When he passes it to me he’s still holding his breath and like a ventriloquist with his lips barely moving he goes, “Do you smoke?”
Well, the real answer to that question is probably no, even though I did it a few times before with Paige and Hud. But that was back in junior high when we found Paige’s sister’s not-so-secret stash hidden in a Nirvana album jacket.
Because her sister was really pretty, four years older, and would barely ever speak to us, we were in total awe of her. So we used to sneak into her room when she wasn’t home and look at all of her cool, “grown-up” stuff. She had this stack of vintage eighties albums, even though everyone else was into CDs, and we liked to look at all the covers and vote on who was the most kissable. I always voted for Bono because I thought that he was not only cute but also a good person. But Paige voted for Adam Ant because she said it was just about kissing, not marriage, so it was okay to just go for looks.
So this one day we’re looking at the picture on the Nevermind jacket of the naked baby swimming after a dollar bill, and we’re thinking about poor, misunderstood Kurt Cobain, when Paige tipped the album on its side and three joints fell out. She quickly scooped them up and held them to her nose, and after one sniff she looked at me, and her eyes went wide, and without saying another word, we stuck the joints in my backpack and raced over to Hud’s.
We found him in his backyard in the tree fort his mom kept threatening to tear down, and the three of us lay on the rough wood floor and smoked one of them ‘til there was nothing left. Then on a dare, I climbed down and snuck into his house, and when the maid wasn’t looking I grabbed a brand-new box of double-stuffed Oreos and ran it back to the fort. We lay there eating and laughing until it was dark, and then we hid the other two joints for future use.
But all that happened like way long ago, and I haven’t really done it since. But not wanting to look like a total geek, I go, “Yeah, I light up every now and then.”
And then I pinch it from his fingers, take a long, deep drag, and go into a major hacking coughing fit that’s so bad it wakes up Holden, and Mason has to lean over and slap me on the back a few times until I stop. When I calm down my eyes are all watery, and my face feels like it’s all red, and there is absolutely nothing cool about me now.
After passing it around a few more times, Jas stubs it out, and Mason shows me the papers she’s been holding. Apparently they used to work on the school newspaper. The Sea Crest Chronicle, but last year when Jas wrote an article protesting the war in Iraq it sparked a whole lot of trouble. All of a sudden parents started calling the school to complain and threatening to pull their kids out unless something was done.
“They said I was anti-American and didn’t support the troops. Can you believe that shit?” Jas says, shaking his head.
Mason goes, “Yeah, and since I was the editor, we both got called into the office. So we go in and we’re sitting right across from the principal and he looks at us and says, The parents are upset.’ So I just shrug you know, ‘cause like, what do I care, right? It’s not like my mom was upset. And then he goes, I want you to write an apology.’ ”
“And I go, ‘forget it. I quit,’ ” says Jas.
“I told him, ‘me, too,’ ” says Mason. “And we walked out. Then after a while we realized we missed working on it but we didn’t want to go back so we started a ‘zine. We call it The Sea Crest Chronic, and we write whatever we want. Because we don’t have to answer to anyone.”
She hands me a copy and I’m looking through it when Jas says, “At first it started really small with maybe like twenty copies, but then it started to get out there, and people seemed to like it, so we started printing off a couple hundred. It’s mostly just us, but sometimes we invite other students to contribute music reviews, artwork, opinion pieces, just whatever, as long as it’s interesting.”
“Yeah, it’s like the only ones still reading The Chronicle are the jocks and cheerleaders since they’ve pretty much taken it over and filled it with stuff about themselves.”
“Can I keep this?” I ask.
“Of course,” Jas says, standing up. “But we should bail now.”
So Jas parks his Toyota Prius (the same kind of hybrid car that Leo and Cameron drive!) in the student lot, and we nonchalantly head for the gate surrounding the campus. The secret to coming and going, they told me, is just to walk with authority, like you have every right to be doing this.
But just as we’re approaching the gate, Mason and Jas are in front and I admit, I’m totally checking out his back view, when Mason casually drapes her arm around his shoulder, leans in, and says something so softly I can’t hear it.
And then they laugh.
And it makes me wonder: Are they boyfriend and girlfriend?
Ohmygod. I can’t believe I just now thought of it. I’ve been so into how I felt about Jas that I wasn’t even thinking that they could be a couple. Uh, duh? They’re together all the time, with school, and lunch, and the zine, and now watching their little inside joke, I can’t believe what a total idiot I am. I mean Hel-lo? It’s so obvious.
And when Jas puts his arm around Mason and pats her on the shoulder, well that just happens to be the exact same moment I’m supposed to step onto the curb.
Only I don’t.
Because I’m completely obsessed with watching Mason and Jas engage in what I now recognize as foreplay!
And when my knee hits the ground, immediately followed by my right hand, and then my chin, I start cracking up. Maybe it’s the pot. I don’t know. But I can’t seem to stop laughing.
Then Mason goes, “Oh, shit.”
And Jas goes, “Are you okay?”
And school security says, “What’s going on here?”
Five
Detention. On my first day of school. Detention for an entire week, when I’ve never been in any real trouble in my life! I mean, I’ve always been the kind of girl that teachers can depend on, and kids nominate for hall monitor. So being sent to the principal’s office is all new to me.
I tried telling Principal Chaney that I was totally unaware of the off-campus rule. That Jas and Mason were just doing me a big favor by getting me something out of his car. But no way was he buying it.
“You’re not going to call my mom, are you?” I asked, right before he dismissed us.
But he just looked at me and said, “This is a very bad way to begin your school year. I hope I don’t see you in here again.”
Then he picked up the phone and called my mom.
When I get home an hour and a half after school let out, my mom is pretty fired up.
I’m halfway up the stairs when she goes, “Rio?”
Shit. I pause in midflight.
“I think we need to talk.” She’s standing at the bottom of the stairs holding a water bottle in one hand and a damp towel in the other.
“Um, what about?” I ask, clutching the banister.
“I think you know.”
I surrender. I let go of the banister and begin the long walk down the stairs toward ultimate doom.
I’m standing in front of her, bracing for trouble, when she shrieks, “What happened to your face?”
“What?” I panic, my hands racing to my cheeks. And then I remember how my chin hit the pavement a few hours earlier. “Oh, this? It’s nothing,” I say, patting it gently. “It’s just a scrape. I fell.”
She looks at me for a moment, eyes full of judgment, then she shakes her head and says, “The school called.”
“I know.”
“And what do you have to say for yourself?” she asks, using her damp towel to tap at a ring of yogalates sweat that’s formed around her neck.
“Um, not much.” I shrug.
“Rio, this just isn’t like you.” She shakes her head in frustration. “Do you have any idea how much we are spending on your education? Tuition to your little private school is costing us twenty-two thousand dollars a year, and that’s just tuition! It doesn’t include the extras like books and clothes and activities.”
“Dad can afford it.” I glare at her.
“That’s not the point. The point is that it’s a privilege to receive an education like that and I will not have you throw it all away. When I was your age—”
“Yeah, I know,” I interrupt her. “When you were my age, you were working as a model to put food on the table for you and Nana. You walked sixty blocks in the New York snow, just to save on cab fare.” I roll my eyes.
“Well, it’s true, Rio. I didn’t have the advantages that you do.”
Well you seem to be doing all right now, Mrs. Louis Vuitton-Yogalates!
But I only think that, I don’t say it.
“How’d you get home?” she asks, peering at my chin like it may hold the answer.