So Not Happening (2009)

by Jenny B. Jones

  “Is Coach Lambourn always that rough on Jared?” Seems all he's accomplished with his practice is demolishing his stepson's self-esteem.

  “He's hard on all of them, but I think he expects more from Jared.”

  “It must be hard to grow up in the shadow of his all-star stepbrother.”

  She shrugs a shoulder. “I guess. He seems okay with it. Jared loves the sport. It's everything to him. We haven't won state since Coach Dallas's day, so I think everybody's just focused on winning right now. It helps the players get scholarships, and it helps the coaches keep their jobs, especially the newer ones.”

  Yeah, but at what cost? “So you mean if they didn't win this year, some of the coaches might be fired?”

  “Yes. It's just how it is. Their jobs depend on winning seasons.”

  And how far would Coach Dallas go to keep his job and restore the Truman Tigers to their former glory?

  When practice is over, Jared Campbell finds me sitting on his hood. I hand him a water bottle. “You look like a thirsty boy.” Maybe in time I'll like him as more than a friend.

  He takes the bottle and scoots next to me on the car. “Could you have picked a hotter seat?”

  I consider telling him I prefer my buns toasted, but decide against it. “Rough practice.”

  He grimaces. “It always is. What are you up to? Didn't see you in school today.”

  “I was in New York. And I hear you took a bunch of notes today in English. I thought maybe we could hang out and I could catch up on what I missed in class.”

  “Now?”

  “You don't want to?” I need to get into his house and see if he has access to the Brotherhood's MySpace page.

  “Well, yeah, but I'm a disgusting, sweaty mess.”

  He really is.

  “I know,” I purr. “We can go to your house, and while you clean up, I'll jot down the notes. Then you can fill me in on everything that happened at school today.” He looks doubtful. “Don't worry. I won't stay long. I have to babysit my little stepbrother tonight.” Surely his password to MySpace is saved. “You'd be doing me a huge favor.”

  “Okay. For you.”

  “Perfect! I'll follow you.” And maybe your computer will lead me to the proof I need to get Coach Dallas in some very big trouble and end the Brotherhood forever.

  “So I'm going to take a quick shower. Help yourself to the fridge. I'll be out before you can dunk your first Oreo.”

  “Thanks. I really appreciate it. I'd hate to work on an empty stomach.”

  He saunters down a hall, and I watch him walk into his bedroom. Tapping my fingernails on the table, I try to take some deep breaths and calm my racing heart. I might not find anything on his computer, but I have to make sure.

  When I hear the water start, I get up and tiptoe down the same hall. I stand outside his door and listen. After a minute, I decide he has to be safely in the shower. I peek in his bedroom and, seeing no signs of Jared, I push on the door and creep inside.

  My eyes home in on an iMac sitting on a corner desk. Here we go. Steady now. You can do this.

  I click on his Internet icon and wait for it to load. Hurry!Hurry!

  When Jared bursts into “Friends in Low Places,” I stifle a scream, my heart lodged in my throat, until I realize he's still in the shower. And a really terrible singer.

  His home page pulls up, and I see the ESPN logo and a list of game scores. My pulse skittering, I check his favorites. Scanning, scanning. Nothing.

  I type in “MySpace.com.”

  “What are you doing?”

  I jump like a cat, my hands clutching the chair.

  Coach Dallas stands in the doorway. His meanest coach's stare is trained on me, and I can't seem to form a coherent thought.

  “I... I...” This is had. This is very had. “Your brother is loaning me some notes from class. I was hoping to”—Snap my fingers and disappear. Jump out the window. Ask God for a swarm of locusts—“save some time and use his computer to type them up.” I hold up my French-tipped nails. A girl can ruin a manicure with all that writing we do in AP English.”

  “Where is my stepbrother?”

  Oh, do I detect some fraternal sensitivity?

  I jerk my thumb toward the bathroom. “You can't hear his American Idol audition in there?”

  “So you're in his bedroom while he's in the shower?” His lips quirk.

  Yeah. Not only am I a snoop, hut I'm a perv too. “I wasn't peeking or anything.” Believe me, all I wanted to see of Jared's was his computer.

  “I guess the rules have changed in this house since I lived here.”

  Coach Dallas relaxes, and I begin to breathe again.

  “What are you two doing?” Jared walks out of the bathroom, a towel knotted at his waist. My face floods with heat. Luke would have a coronary if he knew how badly I was bumbling this.

  “I'm sorry, I'm in such a hurry with the babysitting thing.” I speak to the general space beside Jared. “So I came up here to see if you had a computer. I was hoping I could type your notes. I can do sixty words per minute.” I'm rambling! Boy in towel! Look away! “I think I'll wait in the kitchen.” Maybe try to drown myself in the sink. Gouge out my eyeballs with a can opener.

  “Don't go anywhere.” Jared steps behind the door for a split second then reappears in a pair of shorts. “How did you think you were going to type my notes if I hadn't even given them to you yet?”

  I giggle like a space cadet, “I heard singing, and I had to follow the sound. It lured me in here, Jared Like a siren from the Odyssey.” Or a scratched CD “And I thought, As long as I'm here. I'll check out his computer” My face is as sincere as a TV preacher-though what I'm saying makes absolutely no sense. “If you'll just get me the notes, I'll leave you two alone while I copy them the old-fashioned way in the kitchen.” And get the heck out of here.

  “No, that's okay.” Jared's eyes flash for a moment, their usual gentleness replaced with something fierce. “Dallas here was just leaving.”

  “Actually, I wanted to talk to you for a minute, little brother.”

  I scoot around the desk chair and pass between the two guys. “I'll just get out of your way.”

  “No, Bella, wait.”

  I wave a hand and back out the door. “No problem. Finish your talk.” I stop halfway down the hall and listen.

  “I have a lot riding on this season.”

  “That makes two of us,” comes Jared's angry voice. “Back off, Dallas.”

  “If the team goes down, we all go down. The school board will terminate all of the staff, and you won't even get to play as a college walk-on, let alone get a scholarship.”

  “I know that! You think I don't feel the pressure?”

  “Dad's been talking about cutting you from the starters. I've held him off, but I can't much longer.”

  “Nice to know you care.”

  “This team's important to me. And to Dad.”

  Jared laughs, his bitterness obvious. “Winning's important to you two. Not me, not the team. I care about the team. I care about the players. They're not even people to you—just a means to an end. Quit trying to relive your high school days through me.”

  I replay this in my head, wanting to store it word for word for Luke. Coach Dallas is so our man. Now I just have to get someone to admit it. To confess and hand over the video files. Maybe one more party with Jared, and he'll let me in. He has no reason to protect a stepbrother he doesn't even like. Especially at the cost of his friends.

  Two minutes later Coach Dallas sails through the living room. I wave at him from the kitchen table as he slams the front door behind him. Nice guy, that one.

  Jared reappears, this time wearing a shirt. “I'm really sorry about that. Dallas and I aren't exactly best friends.”

  “So I see. It must be hard to live in a family of two coaches.”

  “He just doesn't get it. He wants everything to be like it was when he was in school—same plays and everything. He thinks he kno
ws what's best for the team, but he doesn't even know us.”

  “You know, Jared . . . if you ever want to talk, I'm a great listener.” And snooper. “And I hear I give some pretty good advice.” And this would all he over if we could go to the police together.

  “Thanks.” He hands me a stack of papers. “Your notes and an invitation to the Thursday night party.”

  “You're the best.” I smile and clutch the ticket like it's gold. “Is it okay if I just borrow the notes tonight? It's getting late, and I really do need to get home for babysitting duty.”

  “You seem a little more adjusted with your new family.”

  I think about this. “I guess I am. Except for one stepbrother. All he cares about is making my life miserable.”

  Jared nods, a faraway look in his eyes. “Then I guess we have that in common.”

  chapter thrity-six

  No friends over. No parties. No leaving for any reason. And keep your eye on Robbie at all times.”

  “He will not so much as tinkle without my presence,” I tell my mom. She and Jake stand on the front porch ready to leave for his amateur wrestling match.

  “I do not pee with an audience.” Robbie pulls his cape around him, his hero's pride totally insulted.

  “Emergency numbers are on the fridge.”

  “Go, Mom. We'll be fine. Superman here will not escape this time.”

  “I'm Spiderman tonight.”

  “What you are is dead meat if you so much as step a foot out of this house.” I shut the door behind our parents.

  “I know, Dad's already told me. No CNN for a month if I don't obey your every command.”

  “Oh, really?” I walk into the kitchen, Robbie following my every step. “So if I tell you to clean my toilet with your toothbrush, you're going to do it?”

  “I'll clean it with somebody's toothbrush.”

  I grin and open the freezer door. “Mom said you want pizza for dinner.” I pull out pepperoni, his favorite. This kid eats nothing that doesn't come from a box.

  Robbie grabs a bag of chips off the counter and pulls out a handful as his brother appears. “Hey, Budge.” He shoves the whole mess in his mouth. “Want thom pitha?”

  “Nah.” He runs his hand over Robbie's head. “I gotta go sell some hot dogs. I'm up for a raise this week.”

  “That's great.” I've decided to try with this guy. Maybe I'll win him over with kindness. “You must be the best thing that's ever happened to the Wiener Palace. The, um . . . Chief Wiener must be so proud of you.”

  Budge takes a potato chip from Robbie's greasy hands. He chews it as he stares at me. “I heard you went to see Kelsey Anderson.”

  “Yeah. Nice girl.” I cut into the plastic wrap on the pizza.

  “She said you asked a lot of questions about the accident. What do you hope to gain by digging into that? You can't bring him back.” The edge in his voice makes me put down my scissors.

  “No, I can't bring him back, Budge.” That would take a miracle, and that's God's department. “But I can expose the truth. If he was pressured into racing his car that night, people need to know. And if there are specific people responsible, then they need to be stopped.”

  His expression is blank, neutral. But for once he's not looking at me with uncontainable venom. Budge nods his red, frizzy head. “Okay.”

  “Okay?” I have my stepbrother's approval? “Zach never said anything to you about any of the coaches? The football players? Nothing that would help us out?” I slide the pizza in the oven.

  “He just talked about being under a lot of stress. People telling him what to do. But then Zach pretty much stopped talking to me last year. He wouldn't admit it, but I think the players made him cut me out. He only hung out with the team—and Kelsey, of course.”

  “But even she said he had grown really distant.”

  “You think you can really get to the bottom of this?”

  “I'm going to try.” I take a step closer to him. “I could use a prayer or two if you want to help.”

  The anger slips back over his face. “I'm done with that. Take care of my brother.” And he walks out, his sultan pants swishing as he goes.

  “Bella, there's someone at the door.” Robbie chews on a fingernail. “He looks mad.”

  That doesn't narrow it down. Who haven't I made mad lately?

  “Okay, I'm putting you in charge of watching the pizza. Not much longer, maybe ten minutes, and we'll eat.”

  Robbie throws himself over a chair, his arms drooping to the floor. “I feel my superpowers draining. I need food.”

  Walking into the entry, I see Luke's brooding face staring back at me through the screen. With a final glantr at Rubbie. I step onto the porch. “Hey.”

  “Hey, yourself.”

  I see his frigid editor ego has returned. Oh, how I missed him. Like a too-tight bra.

  “I got your text. You said you visited with Jared tonight and we needed to talk.”

  “Yeah, I tried to check his computer to see if I could log on to his MySpace.” Without taking a pause to breathe, I fill him in on every thing that happened. “And that's when his brother stormed out.” I finish, expecting to see Luke beaming with pride over my efforts.

  He pushes off from the porch railing and plants himself directly in front of me. “You were told not to do anything alone. I meant that, Bella Kirkwood.”

  He really needs to work on his “atta girls.”

  “I'm not in any danger. I went over to get notes from Jared. I was in his room for a little while, no harm done. I was there less than thirty minutes.”

  “And just enough time for Coach Dallas to catch you pulling up MySpace.”

  “He didn't see that. Just saw me on the computer. No harm done.”

  “You don't know that.”

  “And you don't know that harm was done. Get over yourself, will you? You're just mad because I took the initiative. If you had a better idea for getting into Jared's computer, I didn't hear it.”

  “Here's a scenario I don't want to hear: you snooping in his bedroom, and Jared in a towel.”

  His blue eyes are liquid intensity. I have to turn away from them. “Okay, so it doesn't sound like the most wholesome situation. But it's Jared, come on.”

  “He's a guy with a girl in his bedroom. He's not to be trusted.”

  I lean in until my nose is inches from his. “What are you, my dad?”

  “No, I'm . . . I'm ...” He crushes his hair with a hand. “I'm your editor. And I'm still in charge of this project.”

  “It's my story.”

  “Not at this rate. I warned you once, Bella.”

  “I'm not some underling you can boss around. We don't have time to waste. If I have the means, what's wrong with me taking some initiative and getting some information? The sooner we expose Coach Dallas, the sooner names can be cleared, people can heal, and football players are saved from any more catastrophes.”

  “You are a catastrophe—waiting to happen.”

  “You're an egotistical ogre!”

  “You are not to do anything on this story that isn't cleared through me first. You'll hurt yourself. You'll hurt this story. One mistake, and it's all over. Right now the Brotherhood is too cocky to take it underground completely.”

  “Well, if anyone knows cocky, it's you.”

  He closes the small space that separates us. “You're off the story.”

  “No, I'm not.”

  “There's no party this week, so we have some time. Stay away from the football players this week. I'm working on a few things, and I don't want your interference. It's important.”

  “So you can operate solo, but I can't?” I stomp away from him, pace the length of the porch, then return to face him. “You're just jealous because I have an in with Jared Campbell. You want to be the big dog here because that's how Luke Sullivan operates.”

  “This is about playing it smart.”

  “This is about playing by your rules. Well, I'm not in this to st
roke your pride, so Thursday, there is a party. And I'll be there. And I will come away with information that ends it once and for all.”

  “Who told you there's a party?”

  “Jared invited me.”

  “Then how come nobody's talking about it? There aren't any more initiations left.” His forehead furrows deeper. “You're off the story, Bella. Stay away until told otherwise.”

  I toss his words back to him. “Stay away from me until told otherwise.”

  “Bella!” Robbie's shrill voice calls from inside. “The pizza's burning!”

  Luke steps off the porch. “Glad you've got everything under control, then.”

  My face is a picture of serenity and composure as he leaves. Then I run like mad to the kitchen. The fumes are worse than a New York sewer grate.

  “What happened?” Grabbing oven mitts, I place the charred remains on top of the stove. “Five hundred degrees? Did you change the temperature?”

  Robbie studies his Spiderman belt. “Maybe. I was hungry though. Starving! I just wanted it to hurry up.”

  Ugh! I turn on the oven fan, but it does nothing to diminish the black smell. “Find some candles, Robbie.” I open windows in the kitchen, then the living room, pressing my nose to the screen to suck in some good air.

  Fifteen minutes later, with the sun barely visible, I pray over our peanut butter, jelly, and potato chip sandwiches. Candles glow all around like we're holding a memorial for the dead pizza.

  After helping Robbie with some reading homewor(I read, he made sound effects), we settle onto the orange couch for The Incredibles, a movie he's seen exactly one hundred and four times.

  By the time the credits roll, Robbie's drooling on my shoulder. I scoop him up and carry him upstairs. He snuggles into me, bringing a smile to my face. Odd as he is, I do like this kid. When he's twenty-five, he'll probably be the inventor of something to rival Google, he'll be a Jeopardy grand champion, and he'll still wear his Superman underwear. He doesn't even stir when I lay him down on his comforter.

  I return downstairs to extinguish all the candles and sandblast the pizza pan. The phone in my pocket beeps. A text. From Hunter.

  I'm so sorry. Pls call me. Need 2 talk. We can work thru this.Temporary insanity.