The Loverboy

by Miel Vermeulen

  you go?” It was directed at her. She looked around and saw tall handsome boy walked up to her. He was 5"11” and was tanned. His

  hair was black and well groomed. He looked 18 or 19 years old

  and had the brightest smile she had ever seen. He was fit and

  dressed very well. Who was this? What did he want? She was

  stunned in surprise and by his appearance. The cheerleading

  squad that had not been bringing cheer to her had the same

  reaction. What could this hunk want from a loser like Kim Brown?

  He walked up to her and kissed her on the cheek. Then he

  said “I stopped at the store where you got the shoes and they

  apologized about the mistake. It appears one of the warehouse

  employees was stealing shoes and replacing them with knock offs

  and then selling the real ones. They told me to bring them back

  and you would get new ones. They are very embarrassed about it.”

  Then he turned to the cheerleading squad that he had

  skillfully ignored and asked “Are these your friends from

  school?”

  She was still trying to figure out what was going on and

  after swallowing the lump in her throat, she managed a faint

  “Yes, this is Alexia, Megan, Marcia and Natasha.”

  Then she pointed at him and said “And this is……” trying to

  introduce this guy even though she had no idea who he was.

  “Jake” he interrupted her quickly and exactly at the right time. “It"s a pleasure” he said.

  Then he quickly turned to Kim again and completely ignored

  the four girls again. They were clearly not used to that kind of

  treatment. They were always the center of attention because they

  were beautiful, rich and popular. Now they were just stunned.

  “Come on” he said, “I want to do a bit more shopping.”

  He had a bit of an accent that she couldn"t place. It

  wasn"t weird or annoying; it actually made him even more

  attractive as if that were possible. She followed him in the

  direction of the shoe store. Finally she was beginning to

  process things. He had seen what was going on and he had rescued

  her from her predicament. It would only be short lived though.

  Tomorrow she needed to show up at school wearing those new shoes

  or the cheerleading squad would see right through it. When they

  were out of earshot of the girls she looked at him and said

  “Thanks.”

  He smiled at her the most wonderful smile she had ever

  seen.

  “Don"t mention it, I couldn"t let those bitches get away

  with that” he said.

  They walked into the shoe store and she said “I"ll wait

  here and sneak out when they are gone. I"ll be ok now. Thanks.” He looked at her and said, I don"t think that will work,

  you need to have those shoes tomorrow at school or they will

  come down on you twice as hard.”

  It was as if he had read her mind.

  “What"s your size?” he asked.

  “Seven” she said.

  He walked to the counter holding one of the shoes.

  Two minutes later the clerk came out with a box with the

  size seven shoes that her knock offs were supposed to resemble.

  She tried them on and he asked “Do they fit?”

  “Yes” she said but I can"t afford these.

  They were seventy dollars at the cheaper stores. At this

  one they were eighty-five dollars. He looked at the price and

  pulled a wad of cash out of his pocket. He pulled a one hundred

  dollar bill from the wad and gave it to the clerk.

  “This should cover the shoes and tax, keep the change and

  burn the old shoes” he said.

  The clerk nodded and he grabbed her by the arm and they

  walked out the door.

  “I can"t accept this” she said, “I can"t pay you back.” “I don"t want you too” he said and smiled.

  When they walked out of the store she felt like she was

  walking on air. Partly because of the shoes but mostly because

  of this handsome stranger that was paying attention to her. She

  noticed the four girls in the distance watching the store as

  they walked out. They were checking up on her. They quickly

  pretended that they weren"t looking at her and she did the same.

  He grabbed her hand and told her “We have to make it look good”

  and winked at her.

  Then he led her to the store front where she had been

  assaulted by the cheerleader squad. They stopped in front of the

  window and he pointed at the outfit and said “That would look

  great on you.”

  “I wish” she replied.

  He looked at the price and dragged her into the store. Not

  ten minutes later they walked out with 2 shopping bags. So this

  is how it feels she thought. No wonder women on TV call it

  therapy. Then they walked to the exit of the mall. When got

  outside he gave her a card and circled his cell number.

  “If you ever need me to scare off more bullies call me” he

  said. Then he gave her a kiss on the cheek and walked out to the

  parking lot. In the parking lot he got into a beautiful Porsche

  Boxter and sped off.

  She stared ahead in disbelieve over the events of the last

  thirty minutes. Then she looked at his card. Jake Juliano it

  said and listed a cell number, a few pager numbers and an email

  address. No physical address, company name or profession. Odd

  she thought but it looked very elegant. Finally she noticed the

  cheerleading squad standing at a distance. For a moment she was

  afraid they would come and harass her again but when they saw

  she noticed them they quickly walked back into the mall and

  pretended they had just stepped out for a smoke.

  With large steps and get head in the clouds she headed home thinking of this her own mystery man, Jake Juliano.

  Chapter 3:

  She arrived at home and quickly hid the new outfit under

  her bed. She wouldn"t have been able to explain that to her mom.

  The shoes were fine she thought. Her mom would not notice the

  difference, which was not her interest. The kids at school were

  obsessed with making sure they looked perfect and were able to

  spot a fake a mile away. She felt relieved that she didn"t have

  to worry about that anymore now. After hiding the bags with

  clothes she hurried to Mrs. Simons and picked Ally up. She

  thanked Mrs. Simons and had told her she had missed the bus and

  had to wait a half hour for the next one and apologized

  profusely. Mrs. Simons hadn"t minded.

  When they got home it had been past six. She didn"t like

  taking advantage of Mrs. Simons but today she felt the reason

  she was late had more than justified the being late even though

  she didn"t feel like she could talk about it to anyone. She

  would tell Annie tomorrow. Annie was the only one she could

  trust to understand. Ok, Annie wouldn"t quite understand about the problem with the shoes being knock offs or the need for

  fashionable outfits.

  Annie in fact might be the only one at school to get away

  with dressing however she wanted where everyone else had to

  adhere to the strict dress code or face ridicule. Kim had always

  pondered why Annie could and she couldn"t get away with it and
<
br />   decided that it was because a combination of reasons. First of

  all Annie chose to dress the way she did. If she wanted too she

  would have a wardrobe of the latest fashions. All she would have

  had to do was give her dad a call on his satellite phone as he

  was probably off on some remote corner of the world on a

  drilling island. He would just tell he were his credit cards

  were and which one she could take. He would tell her not to

  spend over a certain amount but that amount would just be

  mentioned not to seem like a dad that just spoils his kids. The

  amount would be far greater then Kim could ever imagine spending

  on a shopping spree without flying to New York, Paris or Milan.

  Second of all, Annie genuinely didn"t care what people

  thought. If people didn"t like something about her then that was

  fine. She picked her friends because she liked them. Not because

  they fit a certain physical appearance. So picking on her

  generally had no effect and thus was no fun for the bullies. In

  the worst case scenario she might catch you off guard with one of her witty comebacks and the bully would end up being

  ridiculed. This low return on making fun of her combined with

  the risk of it generally was not considered worth it and thus

  she was left alone.

  The cheerleaders called her odd or crazy behind her back

  but she really didn"t care what they thought. All this was why

  Kim couldn"t pull it off. First of all she didn"t have a choice

  about what she wore and second of all she did care what other

  people thought. Most of the time she could do a pretty good job

  on pretending that she didn"t care but the especially vicious

  girls could see right through that. Almost like a shark smelling

  blood a mile away in an ocean.

  She made microwave meals for her and Ally as her mom had

  another shift at the diner and wouldn"t be home until nine. Then

  she helped her with her homework and did her own while Ally

  watches another iCarly episode from a DVD set she had gotten 2

  years ago. Ally had seen it at least fifty times but she liked

  it and since they couldn"t afford cable it was her way of

  pretending that they could afford cable.

  It was hard to get her homework done. Helping Ally was easy

  since she had to talk to Ally about it and couldn"t drift off

  but when she was working on her own it was just her and her

  thoughts and her thoughts had no plans to stick to the tasks on hand. She kept trying to think about her Geometry assignments

  but all she could think of in relation to algebra was the lines

  and shapes of Jake"s face. When she tried to focus on Social

  Studies all she could do was compare the colors in the graph

  that displayed the religion percentages in a certain African

  country to the color of his eyes.

  At eight thirty she gave up and put Ally to bed. Then she

  lay down on the couch and zapped through the channels. She

  paused on the news as it was the most interesting of all the

  channels and after a few minutes she dozed off. She dreamed

  about Jake. It was the best night sleep she had had in a long

  time. In her dreams he had taken her away from her drab life in

  the apartment and they were living together in a beautiful

  house. For fun they would cruise around in his convertible and

  go to the beach.

  No way would they be living in Milwaukee. They would be in

  California or the Florida Keys, anywhere but Milwaukee. If she

  heard the word “bubbler” instead of water fountain one more time

  she would scream. She woke up at six am. Her mom had her hand on

  her shoulder and she was covered by her blanket.

  “Good morning sleepy head” her mom said.

  “What? Didn"t you just come home from work?” she asked. “No, didn"t get home until almost 10 last night and you

  were sleeping on the couch. I didn"t want to wake you so I

  covered you up and went to sleep myself. I need to go though.

  Have to get back to work” her mom said.

  “Ok mom. Love you!” she said.

  Her mom walked out the door and said “I love you too! Thank

  you for helping so much with Ally. I really appreciated it.”

  Kim got up and was still enjoying the remains of her dreams

  last night before they could fade away and she couldn"t remember

  them anymore. Then she walked to her bedroom which she shared

  with Ally and woke her up. They brushed their teeth and she made

  them breakfast. Then she showered while Ally got dressed. While

  showering she fantasized about sharing it with Jake. She had

  only met him for thirty minutes and in that short time he had

  made quite the impression on her. She wished she could have made

  the same impression on him. Maybe she had. He did spend over two

  hundred dollars on her in a matter of minutes after meeting her.

  But then again, he surely could have any girl he wanted. What

  would he want with plain old Kim?

  Suddenly she noticed the hot water running out. How long

  had she been in the shower? She quickly got out and got dressed.

  Ally was already ready and she saw they had 3 more minutes before they had to leave. She grabbed her coat and ran into her

  bedroom. When she came out she was wearing her new outfit but

  had secured her coat zipped up high over the top. Ally commented

  on the jeans and Kim just said something like them being hand me

  downs from Annie. Ally frowned but was not given any chance

  voice her disbelief. We have to go or we will miss the bus.

  The bus rolled up as they ran up to the bus stop. They got

  in and took their seats. Ally tried to bring up the jeans again

  but Kim ignored her and soon the bus was filling up. Before long

  they got to the middle school and said goodbye. Kim told Ally to

  go to Mrs. Simons house after school. She had something she

  needed to take care of. She didn"t but she was planning to go

  back to the mall to see if Jake would be there again. After Ally

  left the bus she finally could open her coat. She was getting

  pretty hot despite the cold weather.

  She would be cold again when she got out but there was no

  way she was going to cover up at school when she was finally

  looking good. When she got to school she was met by Annie.

  Annie looked at her and said ”Wow, that"s a different

  look.”

  “Do you like it?” Kim asked. “Yeah, I guess I have to get used to it. A bit too much

  like all the others but if you like it that"s all that is

  important” and she smiled.

  This was actually the reaction she expected from Annie but

  she didn"t need to impress Annie. If she"d wanted to do that she

  would have plant trees or something. She wanted to impress the

  popular crowd.

  Annie wanted to know where she got the clothes and Kim told

  her it was a long story. They would talk at lunch. They hurried

  off to class. Throughout the morning Kim noticed people staring

  at her and she got a complement or two from teachers. None of

  the other kids said anything. They just pointed and whispered.

  She didn"t mind. She looked good and what could go wrong.

  When lunc
h came around she met up with Annie and the

  grabbed a table in the corner of the cafeteria.

  As soon as they sat down Annie said “So what"s up.”

  She was about to start when she noticed the cheerleading

  squad from the day before at the mall standing at her table.

  Alexis asked “So who was your friend yesterday?”

  She thought quickly. She so badly wanted to tell them he

  was her boyfriend but then she might have to produce him at a later date which could prove difficult. She decided to be vague

  about it.

  “Oh, him? He is a friend that I met a while ago” She said

  as casually as she could.

  “Is he your boyfriend?” asked Megan in an exaggerated high

  pitch voice.

  “No, just a friend” She responded trying to stay

  nonchalant.

  Natasha quickly piped in:”No way could she land someone

  like him. He must have been a distant cousin being forced to do

  his family duties. That"s the only way someone like that would

  ever pay attention to someone like Kim here.”

  They turned and walked away. She couldn"t win she thought.

  She looked the part and they made her feel even worse about that

  than when she dressed in her old boring clothes. Just as well

  she thought. She wouldn"t be able to keep it up anyway. It"s not

  like she could change her image with one outfit.

  “Don"t mind them” Annie said loud enough for the 4 girls

  and half the cafeteria to hear, “they are just jealous.” The girls turned and shot her a look. If looks could have

  killed Annie would have been a little pile of ashes right now.

  Annie didn"t even notice the glares and turned to Kim.

  “Ok, out with it. Now I am really curious about what

  happened yesterday.”

  Kim told her everything, the mall, the cheerleaders and

  Jake. Annie hung on every word.

  “No, way” she said when Kim was done.

  “Are you going to call him?” she had asked.

  “And say what?” she said “Hi this is Kim. The pathetic girl

  that you rescued on Thursday and that you spend lots of money

  on. Can you come and do that again?”

  They both snickered at the statement.

  “Well, maybe you will run into him again sometime” Annie

  offered up happily.

  “I sure hope so” Kim said “Do you want to come to the mall

  with me after school?”

  “Sure” Annie said.

  Kim knew she hated the mall so she must be really intrigued