Girls Love Travis Walker

by Anne Pfeffer

  Girls Love Travis Walker

  by

  Anne Pfeffer

  Table of Contents

  In Trouble

  Bad Boy

  Cherry Lips

  Peeping Toms

  Over the Edge

  Dropout

  Bad Seed

  Wild

  Spoiler

  Hormones

  Ballbuster

  Blackout

  Proposition

  Tree Kicker

  Alligator Lady

  Imposter

  Pants on Fire

  Hoops

  Player

  Pranks

  Silly

  Fold

  Tool

  Scrambling

  Fallen Hero

  Blindsided

  Paper Blizzard

  Star

  First Date

  Setback

  The Pole

  Heat

  Terror

  Charm

  Forgiven

  Caught

  Passion

  Dirty

  On the Street

  Evasion

  Unreliable

  Fine Dining

  Towed

  Inferno

  Lemon Jello

  Redemption

  Love

  Copyright © 2013 by Anne Pfeffer

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Published March 15, 2013

  ISBN 978-1-4675-6880-7 (Kindle version)

  Publisher: Anne Pfeffer

  www.annepfeffer.com

  Edited by Meredith Efken

  Cover Design by Scarlett Rugers

  To

  my wonderful writing teacher,

  Linzi Glass,

  who stuck by me through the horrible early drafts,

  never lost faith in me, and

  made this book possible

  and to my fabulous Monday writing group:

  Leba Haber

  Toni Martinovich

  Adele Plotkin

  In Trouble

  Only fifteen minutes since I’d entered the halls of Perdido High School and already the beady eye of authority was upon me. I hadn’t even done anything wrong.

  Yet.

  “Travis!” Ms. Valenzuela called out to me from the door of the guidance office. Although she was getting old, maybe into her early forties, she hadn’t let herself go. She had great legs, which were hidden today by her lime green pants.

  “Yo.” I loped over and unleashed a grin that combined sincere remorse for my failings with my irresistible charm.

  She pursed her lips. “Don’t start with me, Travis.”

  I led the way to her office and took my usual chair while she sat at the desk across from me. “New picture,” I said, nodding to the updated photo of her two daughters. “Kelsi and … Julianne, right?”

  She struggled to keep back a smile. “Yes, Travis. Those are their names.”

  “Fifth and seventh grade, right?”

  “Yes, Travis.” Now she was smiling for sure.

  Maybe it was my blue-green eyes, or maybe my granite abs, but I could always get women to smile at me.

  Ms. Valenzuela opened my folder. “Six more absences since your last visit to my office. Plus numerous missed homework assignments. You’re this close to suspension.” She held up her thumb and index finger a millimeter apart.

  “I have to work, Ms. Val,” I said. “Gotta get ahead, you know.” I had a promising position as a bus boy at Jake’s Burgers.

  “How many hours are you working these days?”

  “As many as I can get, whenever I can get ‘em.”

  “You can’t cut back?” She knew she couldn’t push me that hard. My family’s sudden move to Los Angeles in November of my junior year, coupled with my erratic attendance at Perdido High, had screwed up my graduation credits. With all my former classmates in college, I was starting my senior year, again, at age nineteen.

  “I can’t get weekend shifts at Jake’s,” I told Ms.Val.

  She didn’t like me working there, but she should just be glad I wasn’t following in the path of my father, who knocked over a convenience mart a year ago and ended up in prison for armed robbery. Mom had gone to visit him, but I refused. He could rot there for all I cared.

  “You’ve got one school year left to graduate. I want to see you get that high school diploma, Travis. Or a GED at least.” Between her fingers, she rolled a pen. It was the cheap kind the school district bought that wrote for about five minutes before it crapped out on you.

  “Yeah, well, we’re about to get evicted,” I said, “so that’s kind of rearranged my priorities.”

  She hesitated for a moment. "My brother-in-law's hiring for seasonal work. It's hard physical labor, and there are… well, he has some pretty rough guys working for him. But he pays well and would give you hours outside the school day."

  "What kind of work is it?"

  "Brush clearance."At my blank look, she added, "you know, clearing away dead grass and bushes around the houses built in the hills. The fire department requires it every year."

  She wasn't kidding about hard physical labor. But to me it meant being outdoors and away from the constant smell of grease. I didn’t even have to think about it.

  "I'm in. I can start tomorrow."

  ##

  I left Ms. Val’s office thinking screw two weeks’ notice. I would go to Jake’s after school, for what I’d just decided would be my last afternoon of work in his fine dining establishment.

  Busy planning my next career move, I failed to see the person in front of me until she was right in my face.

  Snap. It was Brittany, as in last-Saturday-night-in-the-back-seat-of-DJ’s-car Brittany. I hadn't seen or talked to her since. In fact, I hadn't thought of her since.

  Her lower lip stuck out in a pout. A little vertical line plowed between her eyebrows.

  "Hi, Travis." Strange how in the car, she'd been all warm skin and curves and sensation, and now she seemed as prickly and unapproachable as a porcupine.

  "Well, hey!" I took a big step backward. "What’s up, Brit?" I hadn't meant to disrespect her by not calling. It's just that I’d been distracted by the flood in our bathroom, and by the fact that we couldn't call a plumber or the landlord about it due to our financially challenged situation. Also distracted by Mom losing her last job and then coming home, climbing into bed, and not coming out. For a week.

  "I would have thought you'd at least text me," Brittany said, blocking my path.

  "Yeah, well, sorry." I could've explained my problems but thought I’d do her a favor and let her peg me for an asshole early. She could do way better than me—she just didn't know it.

  We stood there for a moment, until her eyes got all big and teary and she choked back a sob and ran off. I wondered how many more women would get on my case before first period.

  Fortunately, these days I found most of my female company not at school, but at Chick’s, a local night spot that I visited with my friend DJ and our fake IDs. The girls at Chick’s were fun. They liked to have fun, too. I wondered who I would meet if we went out tonight. Picturing long smooth legs wrapped around my waist made World Geography fly by.

  ##

  That afternoon, my final paycheck in hand, I stopped at the bank and converted it into cold, hard cash. I peeled out enough for a bag of groceries, put it in my pocket, and went to see our landlady, Mrs. M.

  When she ope
ned her door, the smell of garlic almost brought me to my knees. A TV blared in some foreign language from inside her apartment, while a flushing toilet roared. Mrs. M showed me her fangs, all five feet of her in a flowered house dress.

  I stood my ground and gave her my most disarming look, like, hey, I'm here, aren't I? All prepared to make a nice, big, late, partial rent payment. I just hoped she’d cut me slack because I was paying cash.

  I pulled back my hand fast as she took the bills, so our fingers wouldn't touch. She counted the bills, then curled her lip. "Not enough!"

  I knew that. I’d given her about a quarter of the August rent, which meant I still owed most of August and all of September. Pushing aside the sick, sinking feeling in my stomach, I gave her the certified Travis-Walker-make-em-weep smile. "More to come," I announced. "In cash!"

  "When?"

  "I start a new job tomorrow – a better one. I'll have more for you this week."

  "All August rent. This week. Or else…bye-bye!"

  Beyond the ten bucks in my pocket, Mom and I had nothing. Too late, I realized my mistake. If you're going to be evicted anyway, for God's sake, don't give the landlady everything you have.

  Bad Boy

  Our little dung heap of an apartment was dark when I walked in. I flipped on the light, thinking, who would have thought, back when I was starting high school, that one day I'd be grateful just to have lights that worked and a ceiling over our heads?

  Back then, Dad was mainly law-abiding and could find construction work off and on, although sometimes only in another city. And when he wasn’t gambling.

  Hearing a noise from the bedroom, I peered in. Mom slept in one of my dad’s t-shirts, her legs bare, the covers on the floor. Her long hair fanned out across the pillow. I pulled the covers over her as gently as I could.

  Swearing under my breath, I sat down on my bed, otherwise known as the living room sofa, and called the number Ms. Val had given me.

  "This is Benny Sandoval." A man's recorded voice in a faint Hispanic accent. “For brush clearance and tree removal, leave a message and I will call you back promptly. God Bless America, and have a nice day.”

  I left my name, thinking I wanted to go out with DJ, but I couldn’t suggest it when I had no money. I lucked out, though, because a minute later, he called. "You wanna hang out?”

  "Man, I’m broke. You’d have to drive and pay." I needed to save the little gas in our car for getting to work.

  A silence. "I can cover your drinks," he said. DJ’s parents lavished money on their perfect and only son.

  I knew I shouldn’t go. I already owed him a lot. “I’d pay you back for sure. I’m good for it.”

  “I know, man. Eight thirty.”

  It was time to escape reality. Tonight, I’d get a buzz on, maybe meet a girl.

  ##

  Her name was Allison. The slope of her bare shoulders offered escape, her throaty voice, release. She sat on the barstool at Chick’s, twirling a straw and crossing and uncrossing the legs below her short skirt. I wondered how I’d ever lived without her.

  "You want to do shots?" She licked her lips.

  I could have— I wasn't driving. But I had stuff to do tomorrow, like get a new job.

  "Not really." I admired her fine cinnamon-colored eyes and the touch of sparkle at her ears.

  "What are you looking at?" She put her hand to her face, as if suddenly self-conscious.

  "You," I said truthfully. "I'm looking at you."

  ##

  If God hadn't wanted men to adore women, he wouldn't have made them smell and taste the way they do. Being with Allison was like rolling in a field of fresh cut grass, if grass were soft as feather pillows and smooth as satin sheets.

  Lying with her afterwards, I might've gone for a doubleheader if I didn’t have so much on my mind. Groaning, I sat up and reached for my jeans.

  "You're leaving?" Impossible to miss the sudden chill in her voice.

  "Yeah, big day tomorrow," I said, zipping my jeans and reaching for my shirt. In a couple of smooth motions, I slipped my feet into my still-laced sneakers.

  Fully dressed, I leaned over her. Her eyes accused me at first, then softened as I kissed her.

  "You're really awesome, you know that?" And I meant it. But this is what's weird about girls and guys. When I say, you're awesome, I mean you're awesome. But when a girl hears you're awesome, it's almost as if her girl’s brain transforms it into something totally different. Like I'll call you tomorrow.

  The girl reached out a hand to me. "Stay."

  "Naw, can't. Thanks for tonight, though." I headed for the exit.

  I guessed I should have worded that better. The silence behind me could have frozen over a thousand indoor ice skating stadiums.

  ##

  The next day in English class, my cell vibrated in the back pocket of my jeans. Seeing Benny Sandoval’s name in the display, I shot my hand up. “I need to use the bathroom.”

  "Hey, Benny. Ms. Valenzuela over at Perdido High said you needed people." I paced before the sinks and mirrors.

  "Yes. You will work after school and weekends?"

  I took a deep breath, knowing I was about to follow in the path of my loser father. "No. Full time." But only until I got us back on our feet. I would finish school for sure and make something of my life.

  A silence. "My sister-in-law, she mostly send me boys in school who wish part-time work."

  “Oh, really?” I injected a note of surprise. Hearing someone open the door, I slipped into a toilet stall. I leaned against the metal wall that was probably covered with germs from every known form of STD.

  I was a quitter, a dropout. A nobody on the road to nowhere.

  But what was I supposed to do? Live in our car with Mom?

  "Is okay," Benny said. “I need full-time, too. Report here tomorrow morning.” He gave me an address in Santa Alicia, the next town over from mine. Nestled against the eastern foothills of Los Angeles, with mansions lodged in all its canyon crevices, Santa Alicia was the diamond to Perdido’s lump of coal. Santa Alicia was the lawyers, the big-money software guys, the filmmakers. Perdido was all the people who worked just as hard for ten times less, along with an unhealthy dose of life's losers.

  And now, I was about to join the ranks of the losers.

  I looked at the address I’d scribbled down. "Is this a home?"

  “Yes. In Liberty Heights," Benny said, naming a fancy neighborhood in Santa Alicia. Liberty Heights was ten miles from my home on the map, but two galaxies away if you went by privilege and opportunity. "We will clear the brush from his hillside. Fire ordinance."

  "Hey, Benny? Will I get paid on Friday? For the week’s work?" When he didn't answer, I added, "I got me a landlady situation."

  "Yeah," he said. "Every Friday."

  "Thanks, man." I hung up.

  Yes. I’d give Mrs. M as much as I could on Friday.

  I just hoped it would be enough.

  Cherry Lips

  For four hours, our little crew toiled like prisoners on a steep hillside full of hellish, stinging grasses and clinging burrs and vines that grabbed at you indecently. Armed with chainsaws, our job was to make safe what LA’s fire inspectors had labeled a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone.

  Besides me, the group included Tiny, a guy so stoned his eyes had pinwheels spinning in them like a TV cartoon character, and a tat-covered dude named Rammer, who’d called out "Come to Mama!" as he picked up his chainsaw. Then there was Brian, who Benny had put in charge when he left to check on his other crews, and who talked non-stop while somehow taking down more vegetation than the other three of us put together. They had all worked for Benny before.

  By ten thirty, I’d already peeled off my t-shirt and sworn to myself I’d wear a hat tomorrow— as the sun broiled down, I could almost hear my hair sizzle. When Brian doused his shirt and draped it over his head, I did the same, water running in dirty rivulets down my chest and back.

  “Show off,” Rammer sa
id.

  "Jeez, Walker, save it for the ladies and put your shirt on," Brian said.

  I was used to comments like that. "You took yours off. And it’s hot out here!” Although I did work out to get my ripped body, for the most part, I’d gotten my looks in the great Roulette Wheel of Birth—along with a felon father and a mom who was slipping more and more into a coma of her own making.

  "Eleven o'clock," Brian said. "We're done."

  "What? Benny promised me eight hours of work today!"

  "The next shift’s from three to seven," Tiny said. "We don't work during the hottest part of the day." He spat into the ground.

  "You're kidding." I stared at him. I was expected to take a four hour lunch break in filthy clothes, then work until seven at night? “Where am I supposed to go like this? I stink!"

  Brian shrugged. "I'm going home. You can stay here with Tiny and Rammer, if you like."

  I decided to drive the thirty minutes each way to go home and shower, then spend the rest of my lunch hour looking for a second job in downtown Santa Alicia. With Mrs. M breathing her garlic fumes down my neck, I had to find paying work during those four-hour lunch breaks, and fast.

  ##

  Around two o’clock, as I drove by the Santa Alicia Community Center, I noticed they had a pool. Maybe they’d have showers, too, where I could get clean before I went to another job. I pulled into their parking lot.

  The Community Center was located in a city park with a playground, a fountain and benches. Posters announced regular events like a Monday Farmer’s Market, an artist’s fair every Wednesday, and bands playing on Fridays.

  Sure enough, next to the pool was a building marked “Lockers/showers.”

  Outside the Center, a dozen kids, maybe kindergarten age, sat at picnic tables in red t-shirts with the words "Safety After School." Some older girls worked with them on pipe cleaner projects. Their t-shirts matched those of the kids, except they were blue and carried the additional word "Counselor."