“Actually, no, I wouldn’t know.” I gave her a wry smile.
“Yeah, right. Sorry, I forgot—sh…shank steak!” Ruthie veered sharply to the right and hit the brakes. As a vegetarian who was trying to quit swearing, she had begun substituting cusswords with different meat entrées.
“Did you see that? There it is!” Ruthie pointed to the side of the road, where the trees began.
I couldn’t believe it! It was the wolf in my dreams, dark brown with light-colored markings around its face and underbelly. The fur looked incredibly thick, even from this distance. And the wolf seemed to glance back at us before it faded into the tall bushes next to the road. We were on an old road that was considered “deep woods” until about ten years ago when several new housing developments went in, my parents’ for one. Some forest conservation group had stepped in before all the houses were finished, and nothing new had been built in our neighborhood since then. We often saw wildlife along the road, but this was something new.
“Tru, that was a freakin’ big dog! I’ve never seen anything like it. And damn—I mean, dang, if I didn’t see a lot of animals this summer! That must be a cross between a Great Dane and a German shepherd, you think? That thing needs its own corral!” At my silence, Ruthie looked at me.
“Hey, are you okay? Did you bump your head or something? Sorry I stopped so fast.”
My vocal cords finally remembered how to work. “No, I’m fine.” I cleared my throat. “You just really scared me for a second. How’d you ever get a license?” I joked hollowly, the image of the wolf still flashing through my head.
“Ha! Ha! I probably saved your life and ol’ Cujo’s back there.” She swept her hair over her shoulder and pulled back onto the road, carefully checking her mirrors. A couple summers ago, Ruthie and I decided to become horror movie experts, starting with the old classics like the killer dog movie Cujo and the ghost movie Lady in White, ending with the Scream series. She’d slept with the lights on for at least two months; I just didn’t sleep.
“You mean wolf,” I said.
“What? Wolf? No way. We don’t have wolves around here, silly. Just coyotes. And maybe wild dogs.”
“When did you become a wildlife expert?” I laughed. “Yeah, I’m probably wrong. It’s just so weird.”
“Tell me about it! I wonder what it means, you know, first day of school and all. It must be a sign or something.”
Ruthie was always trying to find a special meaning in every event that happened in her life. She also liked to sneak in a horoscope reading when she could, although she always insisted she didn’t really believe in them. Her veggie persona had been born when she entered high school. The newly defined Ruthie seemed to give her a place in the crazy high school factory of “un-originals.” I could understand, I guess.
So what are the odds that I would dream about a wolf (aka very large dog) the night before one crossed my path, literally? Maybe Ruthie was on to something. Maybe if I figured some of these dreams out, I would stop having the dumb nightmares.
“What would you say if told you I dreamed about a wolf last night?”
“No sh…stuffed veal, girl! You better spill right now!”
Not sure if I should have mentioned my crazy dreams, I made it short and sweet.
“Oh, I don’t know. I’m in this smoky forest and this wolf howls and runs up to me and, you know, chomps me. That’s when I wake up. Silly, huh?” I’d left out the screaming and waking up Dad part.
“That is supa-freaky! It’s a sign for sure. Something out there is trying to talk to you. New you, new grade. You feel overwhelmed. And maybe you, like, physically manifested your fears into a large dog running across the road. Whoa! You have some kind of psychic power, girl! That’s awesome!”
Maybe, but it was more like I had some psycho power. No small stretch for me to believe that one. Who needs a shrink when you have a best friend…
Brown Eyes
By the time Ruthie and I rolled into the school parking lot, we were back to discussing the most important things in a teenage girl’s life—clothes and boys. Just like old times.
“You have to show me where you got those jeans! The pockets rock!” Ruthie gushed. “Okay, how’s the makeup?” She pursed her lips and gave me her most seductive look. I rolled my eyes.
“Are you kidding? You look perfect, as usual. You remind me of Jennifer on Court of Palms,” I assured her. Court of Palms was Ruthie’s favorite teen soap, and she considered Jennifer the hottest girl on the show. I only watched it when we were hanging out. Ruthie commentated each episode with paparazzi-like detail. A spontaneous giggle bubbled up inside me at the memory, but it was pierced with a happy cry at the fond memories and sudden gratitude that I had my best friend back.
She stared at me, wide-eyed, moisture welling up in them. “Oh, Tru!” She started fanning herself. “You’ve been watching our show!”
I gave her a trembling grin. “Of course! I had to catch up on all that soap smut before you got home so we could be ready for the new season, right?” To Ruthie, this was one of the best ways for me to show I was 100 percent back to BFF status.
“Oh, good gravy, girl! You’re gonna wreck my mascara!” She gave me a smile, fanning her watery eyes with her hands.
“But…like…” I amended with my best valley girl accent, “Don’t let it all out at once. You better, like, put on your Prada glasses.”
With a wink, she played along. “You are so right! They can’t handle all of me yet.” She pulled out her black Prada glasses, which looked great with her purple belted tunic and skinny jeans. A long gold chain hung down to her stomach, which somehow emphasized her ample chest—a purposeful move on her part, I was sure. Large gold hoops swung from her ears. She finished her outfit with black mid-high sandals, giving her more height than she normally had.
My ensemble was mild in comparison. The topaz jewels on my back pockets were my only adornment. The jeans were dark denim. The yellow stitching stood out, emphasizing the back pockets and elongating my legs, which ended in gold Converses. Yes, gold. How awesome is that? My white T-shirt had a gold and brown owl on the front—profile only, thank goodness, because two owl eyes on my chest was asking for the wrong kind of attention. The T-shirt fit snugly in all the right places. My hair hung in waves down my back, my “golden lava look,” according to Ruthie. While Ruthie went all out on the makeup, I stuck to mascara and lip gloss. Ruthie disliked my makeup-less style, but she rarely pressured me to wear more after our makeovers at the mall, after which, she had looked chic and fashionable while I had resembled a Vegas street walker. I stuck to neutrals after that.
Even though I knew I looked better than I ever had at this school, I couldn’t bring myself to open the car door. Facing everyone after being such a loser last year was starting to bring on a minor panic attack. Unfortunately, I knew what one was because I’d had one in front of everyone—my worst school moment ever. Ruthie noticed my dilemma. She reached over and hugged me.
“Tru, you seriously have nothing to worry about. Your new hotness will cancel out last year like it never happened. Trust me!”
More thankful than I could say, I hugged her back.
“Let’s do this,” I said, and reached for the car handle.
“Who is that?!” exclaimed Ruthie.
I looked out the windshield. Walking through the parking lot in front of us was, well, a really hot guy who looked familiar. And beside him was the most gracefully beautiful girl I had ever seen.
“Holy tri-tip! That’s Isaac and Phoebe Efoti!” Ruthie’s jaw hung open. So did mine.
“No way! They look like they grew a whole foot since I last saw them. And wow!” I lost my train of thought. “Wow,” I repeated. Had I been so out of it that I hadn’t noticed how much everyone around me had changed? No, I was sure they had looked very different at the end of the previous school year.
I remembered Isaac as cute in a short and adorable kind of way. No one was going to describe him like a
teddy bear this year. I had gone to school with him last year, but I hadn’t gotten to know him very well. Walking across my vision, he looked like the kind of guy you asked for help when you needed to move a piano—upstairs, three stories. He towered over the other students, and his neck and shoulders were lumberjack thick. I remembered he was some beach bum kind of boy. I could easily see him jogging down a beach with a surfboard. I kind of liked envisioning him running down the shore.
His sister, Phoebe, walked alongside him. She looked like a Hawaiian princess, or that actress turned princess, Grace somebody, only Polynesian. While Isaac sported curly dark hair, with sun-bleached ends, Phoebe’s hair was smooth and straight, like ebony fabric. They totally didn’t look like twins, but they did look related.
“Man!” whispered Ruthie. “They must feel like giants next to their mom. She’s from Taiwan, I think, and I never thought the twins would get tall, let alone awesome tall. Double dang! Looks like they’re going with the Tongan DNA.”
“Yeah,” I said. Now I remembered what I knew about their parents. Their dad, a Pacific Islander, was more of an average-sized guy, definitely under six feet. But even so, he looked like the Incredible Hulk next to their mom.
“Did you know that Isaac had a crush on you last year?” asked Ruthie.
“Really?” I was surprised. “You never told me.”
“Well, you would have noticed yourself if you weren’t…well, you know,” she finished lamely.
She was referring to my dark phase, the year I wanted to forget. But even though I didn’t remember the details, I was constantly reminded of the consequences. It was going to haunt me forever. Luckily, Ruthie hadn’t totally bailed on our friendship like all my other friends. She’d been loyal the whole time, hanging out with me even when I was dead boring. I hadn’t had the energy to invest on other friends, and one by one, they had dropped away. I had been an emotional dark hole. So it was no surprise, really, that I never noticed someone taking an interest in me. Besides, as I recalled, I was pretty dweeby-looking my first two years of high school—and I had the yearbook pictures to prove it. Who would have thought anyone like Isaac would be interested?
“Oh yeah, you hung out with them a lot last year, right?” I sidestepped the delicate subject of mental absence last year.
Ruthie gave me a considering look.
“Well, you’ll always be my best friend, Tru, but I needed to re-energize with a few others last year, because, well…you just needed some space.”
“Ruthie—”
“No, it’s totally okay!” she consoled me. “I probably would have lost it, too. But, look.” She squeezed my hand. “You’re back. You were coming back before I left for the summer. It really sucked that my parents made me leave.” She grimaced, but then turned back to look through her windshield. “Hey, it’s a new year and for freakin’ fried chicken! Isaac Efoti is a hottie! Did you see him?”
I laughed. She pronounced Isaac’s last name wrong to make it rhyme with “hottie.” It was going to hang around my brain like the chorus to a good song. But that was so Ruthie.
“You go, girl!” I said. “I may have to amend your boyfriend projection. Who needs a week?” Laughing, we hurried out of the car to cut a path toward the twins.
“Hey, Phoebe! Isaac!” yelled Ruthie. They looked like they were about to step around the first building when they heard her.
Phoebe was the first to react. She swung back and screamed, “Ruthie!” When we caught up, they grabbed each other for a hug. That left me looking at Mr. Hottie Efoti.
He must have been six and a half feet, towering over my not-so-short 5’9” stature. And he looked like he just stepped off the pages of Island Beach Babes. His full Polynesian lips widened when he saw me, and his white teeth stood out on his tan, sculpted face. His big brown eyes twinkled under his long, curly eyelashes. Wow, I thought again. When I got to his eyes, I noticed him checking me out, too. I felt my face go red.
“Hey, Parker,” he greeted in a deep, husky voice. I was ga-ga enough to think that him calling me by my last name was cute.
“Isaac. So…how was the beach this summer?”
“A little crowded for me, but that didn’t stop me from catchin’ some sick waves!” He smiled widely, and his teeth actually looked bleached next to his tanned skin. He should do dental commercials, I thought. Man! What were we talking about? I had totally lost the train of our conversation, and I felt my face go pink in embarrassment. I quickly found the sidewalk to be very interesting.
Ruthie saved me by hauling herself at Isaac, who despite the full force of her body blow did not move an inch. He just swept her up into a hug. I totally felt out of the loop now. How did I miss this last year?
Ruthie held both of them under her arms—well, at least she tried. Instead, she ended up with her arms more around their waists. A little part of me was jealous. Maybe a large part.
Ruthie said, “Man, I missed you guys this summer!”
“Me too!” said Phoebe. “But don’t feel bad about taking off. We were hardly here. We had a lot of, uh, family stuff going on.” She exchanged a look with Isaac before turning to me.
“How…was…your…summer…Tru?” She talked slowly, and overemphasized her words like she was speaking to a three-year-old.
If I was pink before, I was cherry red now.
“Geez, Phoebe, she’s not an idiot!” Isaac reprimanded. Ruthie looked a little surprised. “Can’t you see her summer was very good to her?” His eyes locked onto mine like radar, and I couldn’t look away. He began to sing, low and magnetically. I could almost see waves in the air pulling me toward him.
His big voice was raspy like a country singer, but the song was some old band boy tune that I knew but couldn’t place because the way he sang it was much more intimate. I felt like we were alone, just the two of us, and that I was the center of his world—
“Please! The Jonas Brothers? Really?!” Phoebe interrupted my drooling, rolling her eyes. I blinked. Ruthie and I were suddenly very close to him. I couldn’t decide if I should melt into a pool of embarrassment or run for the hills. I settled for picking my jaw off the ground and dipping my head to allow my hair to cover my awkwardness. What just happened? I wondered. Those were the corniest lyrics ever, but somehow so amazing.
I peeked over at Phoebe. She was reassessing me. I just wanted to sink into the ground—she had caught me drooling over her brother! Talk about awkward. I noticed her arm on Isaac’s. I didn’t remember seeing her move. Was I losing it? I shook my head as if to clear it.
Ruthie roared with laughter. “Oh my gosh, Isaac!” she sputtered, fanning herself. “You should try out for American Idol!” I felt a little better seeing Ruthie just as breathless as I. But still. Way awkward!
How could he do that? I puzzled. He didn’t show an eensie bit of embarrassment after breaking into song—in public, no less. Not that he should be. His voice was a sexy, deep baritone, and the words had sizzled me down to my bones. Obviously, since Ruthie and I had almost jumped his.
Phoebe smacked Isaac hard in the stomach.
“Don’t do that!” she said, almost angrily.
“Ow!” He looked a little chagrinned. It was actually funny to see him cowering from his sister—he was such a big guy.
“Seriously, you are such a dog!” laughed Phoebe. Isaac just smiled, clearly proud of himself. His smug look annoyed me.
I noticed Ruthie fluttering her long eyelashes spastically, apparently ready to start an Isaac fan club.
“So, you’re back in the real world, now, are you?” Phoebe asked, appraising me again.
Ruthie finally pulled her gaze from Isaac and said, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” before cheerfully throwing her arm around me. “It’s awesome!”
The warning bell rang. Isaac was smiling widely, clearly aware of his effect on us. I hated that he made me feel like a slow, gawky girl. And there was something that didn’t feel right about it, anyway. Ruthie grabbed my arm and started pulling. I narrowed m
y eyes at him and let her drag me away.
“We’ll catch up with you guys at lunch if we don’t have any classes with you before then. Let’s compare schedules!”
She started running, and I took off with her, my backpack slapping against my back in our rush. We both had Mr. Pham’s Algebra II class first period.
Mr. Pham was writing on the board as we hurried in just as the bell rang, trying to be nonchalant about our lateness. We found two seats next to each other on the far side and slid into them just as he put down his marker.
Ruthie pulled out her binder and scribbled on a piece of paper. She passed it to me.
I read her hasty scribbles. What the hell ham hocks was that all about? I looked up at her and just shrugged. She snagged back the note, ran her pencil across it, and slipped it back to me. He still likes you!
I wasn’t one for getting in trouble in class and didn’t want to risk the teacher’s wrath the first day by passing notes. So I just mouthed “later” to her, slipped the note into my binder, and turned my attention to the teacher. Besides, my reaction to Isaac bothered me. That had just been weird.
Blue Eyes
Ruthie and I didn’t have any classes together for the rest of the day. We had already compared our schedules over the weekend. I knew most of the kids in my classes, but they didn’t seem to recognize me. The guys looked me over with interest, the girls with curiosity, at least until my name was called for attendance. Then people really looked at me. They stared and whispered. Awkward. My attempt at “normal” didn’t seem to be working out this year. With each ensuing class, I shrank deeper and deeper into my seat, hoping to get the day over as fast as possible. I practically ran from my Physics class. I headed out the door and planned to keep walking until I walked through my front door, but something turned me toward the quad, where everyone hung out for lunch. It made me pause enough to rethink my situation.
Secrets of the Sleeper: True Nature Series: Book One Page 3