Jayne winced. Even she thought the story was Swiss cheese.
“You couldn’t have just given her a ride?”
“The bus stop is just outside, Mom. The girl had some appointment she had to get to, and I’m trying to finish up Ellie’s hair before tennis practice.”
Jayne had already figured out this fictitious girl was going to decide that she didn’t have time to come back here tonight to pick up her car. That meant Jayne had to deal with the car later.
Jayne held her breath. She wasn’t the greatest at lying, but the key was to play the scenario out like a little movie in her head. That’s how she figured out tests: she put herself back at her desk in her room, with her CDs playing in the background, and she tried to remember during what part of which song she’d memorized the bit of information that she had momentarily forgotten.
She knew her mom’s next questions before she asked them.
“Who is Danielle?”
“She’s one of Ellie’s mall posse.”
“And why aren’t you at tennis practice yet? Doesn’t it start at four?”
“Practice starts late today. Coach had a teachers’ meeting.” Jayne grimaced at Ellie. Her stomach hurt. Lying had a weird way of doing that to her.
The girls were quiet as they waited to see Gen’s reaction.
Ellie whispered, “Danielle? Mom’s going to want to meet her at some point. Nice, Jayne. Couldn’t you have used one of my real friends?”
“You have a car out there that doesn’t belong to either Janice or Megan, dweeb.” Jayne checked her watch. For once, she wanted time to move faster. “And you better remember all this when Mom quizzes you later. I didn’t put my butt on the line so you could screw me over.”
They heard their mom’s heels click down the hall. “Well, make sure you get out of here in the next ten minutes so you’re not late, Jayne. Harvard’s not going to take you just on grades alone.”
Jayne wanted to say, Well, duh. She wanted to so badly. The words were there, on the tip of her tongue. She just had to open her mouth and say them.
But she didn’t. Instead, like usual, she sucked the words down.
3
C’MON, THOMPKINS. What’s the answer to twenty-three?”
Jayne hunkered over her paper. She had two more essay questions to go and fifteen minutes left. She didn’t have time for Lori Parnell.
Instead, she needed to spend the next nine hundred seconds worrying about herself.
Jayne took another look at the clock. Fourteen minutes and counting. Her eyes hurriedly scanned the question again, her leg jiggling. If F. Scott Fitzgerald were alive today, would he have written Gatsby . . .
“You suck, Thompkins.”
Jayne sat up a little straighter. Lori was a jerk. But she should’ve been used to the Loris of the world. She’d been dealing with them since first grade, when she won her first class spelling bee and someone called her a poophead.
She put Lori out of her mind. Or tried. She looked at the clock. Twelve minutes left.
C’mon, Jayne. You know you don’t suck. What is going to suck is you flunking this test because you didn’t finish these two essay questions. And then blowing an A average. Harvard won’t like that much. And your mom definitely won’t like that.
She ended up finishing the essay questions right before the bell rang. But she wasn’t happy with her answers.
Or the way she had let Lori harass her.
“You’re sure I’m still number one?”
“Yes, Jayne.” Angie Challen, junior guidance counselor and all-around granola, folded her hands on top of the file in front of her. She had tiny bird hands that went with the messy nest of red hair secured on top of her head with three number-two pencils.
She didn’t look too upset with Jayne’s line of questioning. After all, Jayne’d been asking the same question for the last two and a half years.
Miss Challen was also a family friend and knew how much Jayne and her parents wanted Jayne to get into a good school. And by parents she meant Jayne’s mother. And by good school she meant Harvard. She knew Jayne’s dad would be happy to see her go to college—any college.
But Gen Thompkins liked to say, “The rest are crap, Jayne. And I’m not sending my daughter to a crap school like I had to go to.”
Miss Challen winked at Jayne. “If you want, you can stand over my shoulder while I add everything together again.”
Jayne pushed herself away from the doorjamb. “That’s okay, I believe you.”
She smoothed her blue tennis skirt over her thighs. She had the highest GPA for the eleventh quarter in a row. She only had to keep it up for five more quarters—then she’d be valedictorian.
And then she’d be off for four more years of straight A’s.
Crap.
Where’d that come from? That . . . resignation? Sure, she had to work for A’s. She sometimes had to put in forty hours of studying a week.
She liked studying. She liked A’s. No big deal.
But sometimes it’d be nice to be normal, like . . . going to the mall. And slurping an Orange Julius with Ellie. And not getting an “I told you so” look from her mom when she got an A-minus a few days later.
She stole a glance at her watch. Twenty-five minutes to get to practice. Between meeting with Janice to talk about the car wash for the French Club next week and now sharing small talk with Miss Challen, she was running late. She had to be on time today. After covering for Ellie yesterday, she knew that if she was late today, Coach could quite possibly make Missy Travers captain.
And Missy Travers didn’t deserve captain. She always hit her forehands into the net. Missy getting to put “captain” on her college résumé was totally unacceptable.
“Did you turn in the Senior Student application?”
“Yesterday.” The Senior Student was the best academic award in Phoenix. Probably even in Arizona. The winner got to spend all four summers during college living and learning in different places around the world. Like excavating in Egypt and learning about wildlife preservation in Alaska.
Over one thousand people were said to apply for it.
Jayne didn’t care where the scholarship took her, as long as it was far away from her insane family.
“Sent in my transcripts, my three letters of recommendation, and an essay about my greatest personal achievement.”
“Which was?”
“My grades.”
Miss Challen looked up at the ceiling and shook her head. “Grades aren’t an achievement, Jayne. They’re more of a quantifier for the achievements you make in each class.”
“Exactly. And I’ve accumulated a lot of great quantifiers.”
Jayne had actually written about a different topic. About how hard it was to stay motivated through almost all twelve years of school and still get A’s a hundred percent of the time.
But that was too personal to share with Miss Challen. She hadn’t shared it with anyone, actually.
“Hey, before I get going, what number is Tom? Tom Gerome?” Jayne couldn’t help herself. Tom may have been her best friend, but he was also her closest academic competitor.
“He has the second-highest grade in the junior class.”
“By how much?”
Miss Challen shook her head and tsked, but she kept smiling. Jayne knew that smile. The academic adviser had always told Jayne she was the most competitive, grade-focused person she’d ever met in her life. “You know I can’t divulge that information.”
Jayne shrugged, splitting her blonde ponytail apart and pulling it tighter. “That’s okay.” She grinned. “I’ll ask the loser later.”
“Always good to see what a good sport you are, Jayne.”
Jayne said the words she always heard her mother say, but she said them with the humor her mother always lacked: “It’s called having a healthy competitive spirit.”
Jayne was walking down the last hallway, heading toward the parking lot, when her cell phone rang. She checked the c
aller ID before flipping the phone open. “Sucked any face today?”
“Not yet,” Ellie chirped back, “but the day’s still young. Hey, are you still at school?”
“Yeah. I’m on my way to practice. I’ve got”—she checked her watch—“fifteen minutes to get over to the club. What’s up?”
“I left my biology homework in my locker. Could you get it for me?”
Jayne slowed down her steps, but she didn’t stop. “I’m really running late, Elle. And Coach Reynolds told me he’d make Missy captain if I was late again. She’ll love gloating about that.”
“She’s just pissed that you’re only a junior and she’s a senior.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Jayne felt her feet slowing down even more, her body warring with her brain. Her brain knew she had to get to practice. Her heart—and her feet—knew that Ellie was flunking biology. FIT didn’t care if prospective students had a 4.0 GPA, but it definitely wasn’t looking for students with a D or F average.
Jayne turned and went back down the hall, walking fast and furious. Ellie wasn’t the brain in this family. A bad science grade might have a domino effect on the rest of her grades and lead Ellie to drop out, get a GED, and live in a double-wide trailer out in Mesa. Bye-bye, bright future. “Fine. I’m on my way to pick up your homework, slacker.”
“You know you’re my favorite sister, right?”
Before Jayne could call Ellie on the load of crap she was shoveling her way, Lori Parnell and her best friend, Jenna Deavers, sprinted by in their blue-and-white cheerleading uniforms. They were two of the most popular girls at Palm Desert High, not because they were the smartest or the prettiest or even that nice, but because they were the meanest.
Behind their backs, everyone called them the Wicked Witches of the East and West.
But to their faces, everyone was nice. That was because they ran a blog that no one wanted to be on: Palm Desert’s Pathetic Losers.
No one who was anyone wanted to make that list. As a result, everyone invited them to their parties. And kept the Wicked Witch comments to themselves.
Jayne hadn’t made the list. What were they going to say about her? Jayne’s too smart and gets all A’s. What a loser. Ow. The pain.
As they trotted past her, Lori called out, “Does it ever get tiring to be such a wench?”
I don’t know. How does it feel, lard butt?
In her head, she said the words. But Jayne didn’t say them aloud. Even though she could’ve. Lori must’ve had the most cellulite of any sixteen-year-old, ever.
Jenna giggled. She was always giggling over anything Lori said. That’s what lackeys usually did.
Jenna said, “Wench. Awesome word.”
“Who are you talking to?” Ellie’s voice pulled Jayne out of her thoughts about the Wicked Witches.
“No one important.” Jayne stopped at her sister’s locker. She tried to get Tweedledum and Tweedledumber out of her head. Otherwise, her backhand was going to be crap today. “What’s your locker combo again?”
Ellie recited the numbers. “I totally owe you one, Jayne.”
“Yeah?” She started turning the dial. “What are you going to do for me if Missy gets made captain?”
“I’ll make like Tonya Harding and break her kneecap.”
4
ONE BIOLOGY HOMEWORK assignment later, Jayne made her way to the underclassmen parking lot. It was behind the football field and as far as a person could walk and still stay on campus.
She had about twelve minutes to get to practice.
“Jayne!”
“What!” Jayne didn’t even turn around. She knew that voice. She’d first heard it in fourth grade asking to borrow a pencil.
“Have you been to see Challen?” A boy with wavy brown hair and a runner’s body loped up beside her.
“Do you even have to ask, Tommy?” Jayne spared him a sideways glance as she pulled out her car keys.
“Then you know you’re number two?” He tried, but he just couldn’t hold the lie. His left eye blinked. That left eye of his was Jayne’s lie detector. No blink—he was telling the truth. Blink—he was lying.
“Nice try. I’m still holding at number one.”
“Well, did you know I’m number two?” He jostled her with an elbow in the ribs. He smelled like Old Spice deodorant and Bengay. He’d done a few too many curls the other day at the gym when he tried to out-curl Jayne. He’d forgotten to take into account that he had a thirty-five-pound dumbbell and she’d been using a ten-pounder.
“Yeah, I did.” Jayne smiled up at him, squinting against the sun and into his dark blue eyes. Tom really had the nicest eyes she’d ever seen outside of Ellie’s. “That makes Jenna Deavers number three.”
Jenna was a witch, but she was a smart witch.
“Four.”
“What?” Jayne was almost shocked enough to slow down her speed walk. “How?”
“A B-minus in PE.”
Jayne smiled. She believed in karma, and Jenna had just gotten a visit. “That makes sense. She spent a month in study hall instead of PE because we had to run a hundred laps in four weeks. So she made up some inner ear thing to get out of it.”
Jayne spotted her sweet-sixteen birthday present at the far end of the parking lot and pointed her remote at it. The white Jetta’s headlights blinked and the horn beeped as she unlocked the doors.
Tom wiped at his mouth with the neck of his “Property of Palm Desert High” gym shirt. “Why are you still here? Don’t you have tennis practice?”
“Ellie called and—”
“—and she asked for favor 3,298. Got it.” Tom put a hand on her elbow to slow her down. “Hey, I heard about Danny Broden’s car. Genius.”
“Thanks.” Jayne flashed him a smile before focusing again on the car. One call to a tow-truck company had solved all of Jayne’s problems. Ellie’s little boy toy hadn’t been too happy about his visit to Joe’s Tow Service, but when Jayne reminded him about how cold the military schools got in Alaska, he’d shut up.
Tom cleared his throat and lightly touched her forearm. “I have to get to track practice, but I was wondering if I could talk to you for a second.”
“Weren’t we just doing that?” She had to get to practice herself. The panicked feeling in Jayne’s stomach was starting to spread through her whole body.
She pulled away from his grasp and opened the car door, throwing her book bag on the passenger seat. “Give me a call later, ’kay? If I’m late, I can kiss being captain good-bye.” She put on a pair of wire-rimmed sunglasses hanging from her visor. “And you know Missy’s going to lord it over me the rest of the year if that happens.”
They smiled at each other as they said in unison: “Bee-yotch.”
Yep, Tom was her best friend for a reason. They definitely were on the same wavelength. Not on a boyfriend-girlfriend level, but that would’ve just messed things up anyway. Romantic feelings always messed things up.
Ellie was the prime example of that.
Jayne punched the key into the ignition and turned toward Tom. He looked like he was going to say more but changed his mind.
“I won’t be home till late,” he said, “so I’ll talk to you tomorrow at school.”
“Or e-mail me tonight.”
“That’s okay. It can wait until tomorrow.”
Jayne didn’t notice the tiny blush on Tom’s face. She was already closing the door and thinking how fast she could drive to practice without getting pulled over.
The clock on the dashboard said 3:57. Come on, come on, come on! She was behind a grandma in a Toyota Camry whose left blinker had been on for the last five blocks. They were going twenty-eight in a thirty-five zone on a two-lane road. Jayne had half a mind to cross the double line and pass the clueless driver. The fear of getting pulled over by a hidden cop stopped her.
She really didn’t have time to devote a Saturday to traffic school.
Beethoven’s Fifth started playing over the CD that had started up as soon as
she’d turned on the car. Jayne flipped open her cell, not even checking the caller ID. Ellie probably wanted to cajole her into doing her biology homework.
That was so not going to happen.
Again.
“What is it now?”
“Jayne! Good. I have two minutes before I meet with my producer and I need to talk to you.”
Jayne clenched the steering wheel. Gen Thompkins was Arizona’s number-one-rated newscaster. She reigned over the six o’clock and nine o’clock news on channel 16. The five-year-old show had Gen in her element: wearing thousand-dollar Saks Fifth Avenue suits while stirring up eggs Benedict with a local five-star chef or getting on-air Botox from the best plastic surgeon in the Sonoran Desert.
“What do you need to talk about?” Jayne’s foot hovered over the brake while she silently cursed the mentally deficient driver in front of her.
“As usual, I’m up to my ears in work.” As usual, her mom was in “me” mode. “But I really want to do something for your dad’s forty-fifth.” She paused. “I want us to throw your dad a surprise party.”
The grandma in the Camry finally turned, making a right as the left-turn signal continued blinking. Jayne jammed her foot on the accelerator and tried to keep from looking at the clock.
She heard her mom mutter something to someone on her side of the line before turning her attention back to Jayne. Gen liked to think she could multitask, but she wasn’t good at it. Something—or someone—always ended up getting the short end of the stick.
“Now, we both know you’re on much better terms with your grandmother than I am,” she started saying. “I need you to call your grandmother and have her bring some baby pictures of your father. I want to get the production guys here at the station to put together a slide show, a kind of This Is Your Life thing.”
Jayne sped through a yellow light. Only one more street to go and she’d be at practice and would secure her spot as captain of the Palm Desert varsity tennis team.
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