“Spence gave me a very nice and very genuine apology. And I decided that if I was expecting you to forgive Janna, then I should be able to forgive Spence for being such a jerk. But that doesn’t mean anything’s ever gonna happen between us again.” She turned to Spence and pointed at him. “Got it?”
He laughed and put his hands up in the air like he was being held up. “Easy. I got it.”
I looked around the room. Someone was still missing from this picture. “Where is Emmett?” I asked.
Molly pointed up onstage. There he was, manning Julian’s deejay booth. There was a pretty girl leaned up against the booth, giving Emmett all her attention.
“And who’s that?” I asked, pointing at the girl.
“Chelsey Thoms,” Julian and Spence said simultaneously. They looked at each other and chuckled.
“Why are you laughing? Is she okay? Because I’m very protective of Emmett, you know,” I said.
“No, no, she’s great. She’s actually a really cool and interesting girl. Lots of guys in school would kill to go out with her, but she’s just never been into anyone here.”
My face broke into a grin. If anyone deserved to find a cool, beautiful, interesting girl, it was Emmett. Just then he looked down and saw me standing there with Julian. He gave me a genuine smile, one that said he was truly happy for me. That, and he was very much enjoying hanging out with Chelsey Thoms. He held up his index finger as if to say hold on as the current song faded out.
From the very first note, I knew exactly which song was next. A huge smile spread across my face as I turned back around to Julian, who was smiling, too, memories of our first date bubbling to the surface.
“May I have this dance?” Julian held out his hand to me.
“But of course,” I said. I put my hand in his, and he pulled me close as we moved together to the opening of “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” from Dirty Dancing. Even when the music picked up a few bars later, we stayed close, alone in our own little world, happy to be starting over.
“You know, I think this song should be our anthem,” Julian said softly into my ear.
“You think so?” I laughed. I did love the song.
“Definitely. It was while I was singing this song with you at karaoke that I first realized I could really like you.”
I smiled. “But that was Janna from Hungary doing karaoke with you. I don’t know if Janna from Seattle can pull it off. Is that okay?”
“Are you kidding me? After your rousing rendition of ‘New York, New York’ tonight?” he laughed. “I’d say Janna from Seattle can pull off anything she wants to. In fact, between the singing and the cheese shirt, I’d say you’re the perfect girl for me. I told you I like different, right?”
I laughed as I looked down at my outfit again.
“I do have one request, though.”
“What’s that?”
“Next time, can you do it with the baton? Just for me? Please? I promise I won’t laugh. In fact, I can pretty much guarantee that you’ll be happy with the outcome.”
I looked up at Julian and smiled, melting into his arms. Everything I’d been through in the past month—the impersonating, the angst, the friendship ups and downs, the karaoke—had been worth it. And in the end, I not only got the guy. I got me, Janna Papp, better than I’d ever been before.
Cupidity
For Richard
Flies buzzed around the Dumpster in the alley, and the late-summer heat was brutal even in the shade. Laura Sweeney swatted a mosquito away from her arm and pushed her glasses back up her cute but sweaty nose. Her friend Taryn sat across from her on the benches behind the Dairy Queen, and both were dressed in the blue polyester uniforms of the DQ.
In time-honored lunch break tradition, they weren’t eating food from their own establishment; Taryn had just returned with goodies from the 7-Eleven across the street. She gave Laura her chocolate milk and beef jerky, while she opened up a big straw that was full of pink sugar. Mmmm, lunch.
“How much do I owe you?” Laura pulled a garish red and yellow wallet from her pocket and handed Taryn a few bucks. The plastic corners were tattered from wear, but the heroic figure of a woman warrior still graced the shiny cover.
Taryn laughed out loud and nearly spit up her sipping sugar. “When are you getting rid of your Xena wallet?” she asked in amazement.
“As soon as I give up the Hercules lunch box,” answered Laura proudly. “And speaking of my mythology obsession—I read the most beautiful love story last night. It was about a wood nymph named Egeria, who fell in love with a mortal king named Numa Pompilius.” Laura got a wistful look in her eyes, and she took off her glasses. The weeds in the alley didn’t look so bad blurry.
“When the king died,” she went on, “Egeria was so sad that she couldn’t stop crying. Nobody could comfort her, and she wouldn’t leave the spot in the woods where they always met. The goddess Diana took pity on Egeria and turned her into water. Her legs became an eternal spring, and her torso shot up into the sky!”
“Wait a minute, hold on,” said Taryn, tossing her thick black hair. “The dude dies, and the girl cries so hard that she gets turned into a fountain?”
With a sniff, Laura nodded. “That’s right.”
“And you call that a great love story?” scoffed Taryn. “I’m sorry, but when my boyfriend dies, I don’t want to be turned into a fountain. I want to find another guy with a nicer car.”
“Well, Egeria wasn’t a girl,” replied Laura defensively. “She was a wood nymph. They used to meet every night in a sacred grove, and she gave him good advice on how to govern his people. They really loved each other. I’ve got the book in my car, if you want to see—”
Taryn reached out, grabbed Laura’s arm, and forced Laura back onto the bench. “Girl, you need to get out of these fairy tales and into a reality show. In a week, you’re going to be a senior in high school, and have you ever been kissed?”
“Well, of course,” said Laura, bristling. “There was that party when we played spin-the-bottle.”
“In fifth grade!” snapped Taryn. “Laura, you’re pretty—in a bookish kind of way—and there have to be guys who would crawl after you. What about Peter?”
“Peter Yarmench?” asked Laura with a laugh. “Oh, I’ve known him since we were in kindergarten. He’s not my type.”
“What is your type?” asked Taryn suspiciously.
Laura hugged her beef jerky and smiled dreamily. “Jake Mattson.”
Her friend snorted a laugh. “Right, the most popular boy in school. He’s everyone’s type. Can’t you aim a little lower than that?”
With a pout, Laura thought about all the boys who really appealed to her, and she came up with another name. “Cody Kenyon. I like him.”
“The baddest boy in school,” muttered Taryn. “I have a hard time seeing you with a bad-boy skater dude.”
Laura squared her shoulders and smiled mischievously at her friend. “Is that right? Well, I’m going to surprise you this year. I’m for sure going to have a boyfriend, and it’s going to be whoever I want!”
“Those guys won’t even talk to us,” said Taryn bitterly. “You need a cheerleader outfit in a size four.”
Laura’s shoulders slumped and she sat back on the cold cement bench. “Not my style, huh?”
“You’re top pick for valedictorian,” said Taryn, waving her sugar straw around. “Stick to your own crew—you know, the other valedictorian types.”
Laura frowned and put her glasses back on. “Does it always have to be like this? We can never look outside of our usual circle? What if I want something … else?”
“Girl, you’ve got to try one boy before you can try them all,” said Taryn with a sniff.
Suddenly the back door of the Dairy Queen opened, and a greasy-haired teen stuck his head out. Allen was also wearing a blue polyester uniform, but he had a name badge, which neither one of them had.
“Hey, princesses,” he snarled, “your lunch break
was over five minutes ago. I need you to get back to work.”
Taryn shot a nasty glance at Allen. “We’re expanding our minds by talking about Roman mythology. Do you know anything about that?”
“Heck no,” he snapped. “I just know this afternoon is going to be hotter than Hades! We need to inventory before the rush, so hurry up.” He ducked back inside, banging the door shut behind him.
Laura chuckled. “‘Hotter than Hades.’ He knows about mythology, and he doesn’t even know he knows. These aren’t just fairy tales, Taryn—people worshipped these gods for thousands of years.”
“Well, now they worship the mean green,” said her friend, rising to her full five-foot-one stature. “That’s why we have to work. Come on, back to the custard pits.”
With determination, Laura grabbed her chocolate milk and stood up. This year is going to be different, she told herself. I’m going to make sure it is.
A week later, it was still hotter than Hades, but the school year began as scheduled. As the first warning bell rang, students streamed into the main door and through the halls of Fimbrey High School in Denton, Ohio, looking for new lockers and old friends. Laura Sweeney had picked out a strategic spot next to the central stairwell, where she could catch sight of everyone going up and down and passing through.
Fimbrey High School didn’t require uniforms, but everyone was dressed in a uniform anyway. She picked them out as they walked past: the jocks and preppies in their stylish clothes; the goths and skaters in black shirts, chains, and carefully torn jeans; the homeboys with their super low-rider baggy pants, and the nerdy types, who were the only ones actually obeying the school’s dress code.
Laura was a senior this year, which meant that she should be one of the goddesses of the school, but she didn’t feel like a goddess. Maybe the sophomores looked up to her, but nobody her own age did, unless they envied future valedictorians. She was carefully showing a little midriff, because she was skinny enough to pull it off. But she didn’t show enough skin to get in trouble.
Suddenly the crowd parted, and she could see all heads turning toward a tall, striking blond boy wearing a letter jacket, even though it was way too hot for a jacket. It didn’t matter, because Jake Mattson didn’t sweat unless he wanted to. Laura moved her glasses farther down her nose—she didn’t want to steam them up. She read about Greek gods all the time, but here was one in person. Finally a senior, Jake Mattson really was king of the school. Even his girlfriend, Megan Rawlins, looked up to him, although the head cheerleader looked down at everyone else.
Megan got to walk beside Jake, acknowledging the greetings from their chosen subjects and ignoring the stares of the peons. The heavenly couple got a snarl from Emma Langdon, a goth chick who wore more eye shadow, piercings, and studs than ten other girls combined. Her cadre of goth-activists snarled along with her, but Jake Mattson ignored the purple-hair crowd. Not everyone was going to like the king, but that didn’t change the fact that he still was the king.
The skater punks had their own hero, and he made an entrance, too. Looking like the underworld god Pluto with his shaggy raven hair, skintight T-shirt, and studded jeans, Cody Kenyon strolled down the hallway. Now it was Emma’s turn to stare dreamily as the dark lord walked past, carrying his scarred skateboard over his shoulder like a weapon. Curvy little Chelsea Williams hurried after him; clearly, Cody was cool enough to be acceptable even to her popular crowd. Cody gave Chelsea a sneering smile and wrapped his arms around her waist.
Laura wanted to step forward and say something to Jake or Cody, but her feet seemed to be rooted to the spot. Still her mouth was working, and she had once helped Jake with his trigonometry. So she worked up her courage and had lifted her hand to wave hello when a voice boomed behind her.
“Hey, Laura!”
That broke the spell, and she whirled around to see Peter Yarmench, a skinny guy with wavy red hair and numerous freckles. He beamed at her as the royal couple glided past, taking her moment of bravery with them.
“Oh, hi, Peter,” she answered, trying to muster some cheer. “How are you?”
“I’m great!” he answered, sounding impossibly cheerful. “I thought school would never start.”
And that’s why you’re so not one of the cool kids, thought Laura. “Yeah, well, here we are again.”
“Hey, I called you a bunch of times last week, but you never returned my calls.” Peter looked like her puppy when he got caught going through the garbage. She realized it wasn’t his fault she was grumpy about school starting this year … with no romance.
Laura looked away. “Well, I was working really hard down at the DQ.” That was a lame answer, she thought, but at least it was partially true.
“Hey, let’s see your schedule,” he said cheerfully. “Do we have any classes together?”
She fished around in her new planner for her schedule, but she already knew the answer. They would have at least half of their classes together, even though Fimbrey was a big high school with almost two thousand students. For some reason, she and Peter had been joined at the hip ever since first grade, and the scheduling gods never kept them far apart. Of course, they usually took the same advanced classes, and they were competing to be valedictorian.
He grinned as he studied her schedule. “Wow! We’ve got second period, third period, fifth period, and seventh period. That’s amazing!”
“Isn’t it?” she replied, mustering a smile. “Who would have thought?”
“I’m looking forward to this year,” said Peter with a crooked smile. She peered up at him, thinking he had gotten taller over the summer. “Did they give you a new locker?” he asked.
“Yes, in the old wing by the music room,” she answered. “That’s good, maybe I won’t get trampled.”
“Hey, mine’s there too!”
The last warning bell rang, and even the slouching homeboys began to hurry a bit toward their first class. Peter looked worriedly at his watch and began to shuffle off. “See you in advanced calculus. Hey, Laura, it’s going to be a great year.”
She nodded. “I hope so.”
Perhaps it was going to be a great year, but it started out like every other year of high school. Laura Sweeney attended all her classes on time and met her new teachers—all of whom were overjoyed to have such a well-regarded student in class. She saw Peter several more times that day, and she ate lunch with Taryn and all her friends from her regular group. She never did work up the courage to talk to Jake Mattson or Cody Kenyon or any of the other boys she didn’t already know.
At home, her mom asked her, “How was your day?” and she gave the usual polite but vague answers. She wasn’t going to share the fact that the only boy she had had the courage to talk to was Peter Yarmench. Her dad gave her the standard lecture about how this year she had to work harder than ever to keep up her grades, although she knew that her future place at Ohio State was secure. It was only a matter of whether she would be the valedictorian and get some extra scholarship money. Her future looked safe, humdrum, steady as she goes: no excitement, no worries, no big question marks.
And Laura was no closer to getting a boyfriend.
Being the first day of school, there was hardly any homework, so Laura went to her bedroom after dinner to read one of her mythology books. It started to rain, and the warm drops beat a steady rhythm against her window as she read. Although Laura knew the story well, she thrilled at the tale of Pygmalion and Galatea.
Pygmalion was a famous sculptor who created a statue of a woman that was so beautiful that he could love no real woman. When he asked Aphrodite, whom the Romans called Venus, to find him a living mate as beautiful as his creation, the goddess could find none. Taking pity on the lonely sculptor, Aphrodite breathed life into his fantastic statue, and it turned into flesh and blood. Pygmalion named his beloved Galatea, and they married and were deliriously happy for the rest of their lives.
Why can’t I have that? thought Laura bitterly. Why isn’t there a perfect boy o
ut there for me? Someone I really like.
In anguish, she lifted her head and shouted to the rainy sky, “Jupiter, send me a boyfriend!”
A crack of thunder startled her, and she looked around, feeling a slight chill. Her dog, Chloe, suddenly ran into the room and jumped on the bed, cowering in her arms like she always did when there was loud thunder. Chloe was not a very brave mutt, despite having been named after a brave heroine in mythology.
Laura laughed and scratched her puppy’s head. “If only real life were as simple as these fables,” she lamented, “but it’s so not.”
Outside the rain started to fall harder, and the thunder growled a low reply.
“Mercury! Mister Mercury, wake up!” The desk clerk of the Mount Olympus Retirement Home in Tarzana, California, gently shook the elderly man awake. Mercury was sitting in a wheelchair, his head completely bald except for tufts of white hair around his ears. He was dressed in an undershirt, plaid shorts, and white shoes. A little drool was running from the side of his mouth, and he wiped it on the back of his hand, which was covered with brown age spots. Mercury wasn’t just old, he was ancient, and he could be forgiven for moving a little slowly. At four thousand years old, any movement at all was a good thing.
“What?” he rasped. “What is it, Randolph? Time for my nectar?”
“No, no!” exclaimed the desk clerk, a little man with a pencil-thin mustache. He waved a slip of paper in the air. “You got a message!”
“A message?” growled Mercury, blinking fully awake. “I haven’t gotten a message since … what century is this?”
“The twenty-first,” answered Randolph.
“My, how time flies.” The messenger god blinked fully awake and cast rheumy eyes upon the mortal, who was still a young man, only sixty years old. “You say it was in my special box?”
The clerk nodded excitedly. “I didn’t open it up—do you want me to?”
“Yes, read it,” said the elderly god, sitting up in his chair. They were on the veranda of Mercury’s room in the retirement home, and it was a very nice room, if a little old-fashioned. A pair of silver winged slippers hung on the wall, and dusty statues of his family rested on half columns.
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