Black Tuesday

by Susan Colebank

If she told Ellie . . . she couldn’t tell Ellie. Ellie would start asking her stupid questions again, like, “Do you think you’ll still get into Harvard, Jaynie?”

  How the frick would she know?

  But her grams? Jayne could tell her. She wouldn’t say anything.

  Heck, she’d probably forget by the time Wheel of Fortune came on tonight.

  “So. Grams.” Jayne cleared her throat and focused on the ladybug opening and closing its wings. “I kind of got a bad report card.”

  She took a deep breath and, for the first time since she’d flushed the Palm Desert High letter down the toilet, said the unspeakable aloud.

  “Two B’s.” She swallowed and took a deep breath to force the rest of the words out. “And four C’s.”

  There. She’d finally said it. She might as well say the rest, too.

  “There’s no way I’m going to be valedictorian now.” Another swallow, another breath. “Who knows if I’m even in the top ten percent of the class? Or even up for that Senior Student award anymore?”

  Was she talking too loud? She looked over at Ellie, whose yellow bikini top pushed her boobs up all perfectly. In a quieter voice, she added, “Harvard’s definitely not going to give me the time of day now.”

  The last words were really a question. She waited for Grams to say she was an idiot. That Harvard was still in the cards.

  She waited. And waited. The ladybug flew off.

  A raspy snore finally broke the wait. Jayne looked up to see the Bloody Mary tipped over into the pool, the red liquid mixing with the chlorinated water.

  16

  C’MON, TOMMY.” Jayne fell back onto her bed, the cordless under her chin. She turned on the TV and flipped through the channels, the volume on mute. Tom hated it when she talked to him with the TV on. “I have to be there for three hours a day, five days a week.”

  Summer school started tomorrow. And Jayne was dreading it.

  Possibly worse than the time she had to go to the dentist to get all four wisdom teeth pulled freshman year.

  “And how is me being there three hours a day, five days a week, going to help you?” Tom asked.

  “By keeping me company at the break.”

  “That’s only fifteen minutes.”

  “We can pass notes.”

  “Jayne, you don’t pass notes. It goes against your ‘shh, the teacher’s talking’ code.”

  “A girl can change.” She had one more way to get him to say yes. She just had to be careful about how she phrased it. “Taking classes now can help you stock up on more honors classes in the fall, you know.”

  “What’s the point? You’re set as valedictorian, right?” There seemed to be an open-ended question there. Did he know about her grades? She felt her eyelid twitch.

  And Tom finding out about her grades was somehow fifty times worse than if her parents did.

  Why, she didn’t know. She just . . . felt that it would be. Worse.

  Embarrassing, somehow. Like he’d be disappointed in her.

  “Jayne, are you watching TV?”

  “Why?”

  “You didn’t answer my question. About you being valedictorian.”

  Guiltily, Jayne clicked off the TV. She flipped on her stomach and stared at the shadows the tree outside was making against her wall.

  “You never know, right? I could mess up calculus next year.” Cover your tracks, Jayne, cover your tracks.

  “Right. You never mess up anything.” Was that pride in his voice?

  “Okay then, maybe my scientific calculator starts going wonky on me and gives me all the wrong answers?” She tried to laugh off the answer. It was hard, though. There was nothing to laugh about when it came to those fourth-quarter grades. Or the doors that were now shut because of them. “Or maybe I’ll decide to cut down on my honors classes, take that photography class I’m always thinking about.”

  In a softer voice, she added, “Maybe I won’t even take any honors.”

  This was the first time she actually voiced that thought aloud. She’d been thinking about it for a while. Ever since she started to think hard about why, exactly, she couldn’t be an average teenage girl.

  Like a certain younger sister in this house.

  “Yeah, right.” He laughed. For like three minutes straight.

  Giving up on honors classes wasn’t that stupid an idea.

  Was it?

  “If you take summer school with me, I promise I’ll bring . . .” She searched her memory for his favorite foods. There were a lot to choose from. “Those turkey jerky strips you like.”

  “Nah. Too salty.”

  “Cheetos?”

  “Too messy.”

  She was almost out of food groups. “Twinkies.”

  “Now you’re talking.”

  “Good. I’ll bring a box of Twinkies tomorrow.”

  “A box of Twinkies a week.” Before she could disagree, he added, “And those kung fu movies I like and you don’t? You’ve gotta watch five of them with me this summer.”

  She would watch five hundred if that meant he’d come.

  Not only would she be in a boring class for three hours a day for five weeks, but she would also be back on campus for the first time since school ended.

  Since the last day of school. When someone put pictures of car crash victims on her locker.

  And wrote KILLER in red paint.

  “Deal.”

  “Hey!” Tom sounded like he hadn’t expected her to cave in to the kung fu movies. “Not so fast. I’m still negotiating here. I also want to get out of all chick flicks for the rest of my life, a lifetime of you never doing your happy dance when you get a higher grade than me . . .”

  Tom listed his demands. Jayne stuck by her guns.

  He got Twinkies and five kung fu movies.

  She got a friend in hostile territory.

  “Okay, people, we’ll take a short break. Get some caffeine, get some sugar. Maybe find some spare brain cells. Meet you back here in”—Mr. Munroe looked over his shoulder, his comb-over more apparent from the back—“twenty minutes.”

  Twenty minutes. Not nearly enough time to recuperate from the last hour and a half. Hopis, Navajos, Papagos, Pimas. There were a lot of Native American tribes to remember. And each was more boring than the last.

  And Mr. Munroe talking about them—actually, reading about them straight from the book, word for word—was killing her brain. Which was a feat, since her brain had felt numb for months.

  Today it felt like he was lobotomizing her, one word at a time.

  “You feel like going to a movie tonight?”

  Tom stretched, his long frame taking over about three rows.

  “Can’t. I’ve got my thing after this.” There were still a couple of kids in the class, lingering over horror books or text messaging. No one needed to know what the state was making her do at Outreach Arizona.

  Jayne got up, checking her money situation. Time to reboot her brain. She started walking into the hall.

  “You’re not trying to get out of your promise, right? About the five kung fu movies?”

  “No, I’m not getting out . . .”

  She stopped talking. Words were failing her.

  Lori was by the soda machine, kicking the dispenser, saying in an overly loud voice, “I pushed the diet, it should give me diet. Not root beer, and definitely not regular root beer.”

  Jenna sat at the table in the vending area, a closed bag of Fritos in front of her. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, and she had on a wrinkled T-shirt. Her usually bouncy, shiny curls were dull and frizzy, gathered haphazardly on top of her head.

  They hadn’t seen Jayne yet. She turned and headed in the opposite direction.

  “Jayne, I can get you your food.” Tom was right next to her, his arm pressing into hers. “What do you want?”

  “That’s okay. I’m good.” She hugged her wallet to her chest, her steps fast and furious.

  “No you’re not,” he scoffed.

&nb
sp; No, she wasn’t.

  All she knew was that the vending machines were in enemy territory.

  And she was the enemy.

  17

  I HAVE BOLOGNA on white bread, a Hostess cupcake, a pack of Twizzlers, and a bag of Doritos. What do you have to trade?”

  “Chicken on whole wheat, an apple, a protein shake, and pita chips.”

  “Yuck.” Meadow started opening her sandwich. “What’s up with the healthfest?”

  “I started basketball camp and feel really slow on the court.” Darian patted his flat stomach. “Time to trim down.”

  Jayne cradled the can of Diet Pepsi in her hands, her head down as she stared blankly at one of her mom’s tabloids she’d brought with her. She never ate lunch since she didn’t usually have an appetite. Instead, she nursed twelve ounces of pop and stared at the same magazine page.

  Celebrity love lives and catfights. Nowadays, they were the only stories she really read. She hadn’t even begun to read her Arizona history book.

  And the class had started four days ago. And they had a test next week.

  “Hey, princess.”

  Jayne turned the page, slurping the last of her pop.

  “Jayne.”

  She looked up. Darian was smiling at her. He pushed his Ziploc of pita chips toward her. “Want any?”

  She shook her head. She gave him a small smile. “No thanks. I’m covered.”

  “Yeah, Darian, eating those will totally ruin her cred as an Ana.”

  “Ana?” Jayne asked the question before she realized that doing so would suck her into conversation with Meadow.

  “Yeah.” Meadow squeezed her cupcake before licking the cream with her tongue. “You’re anorexic, aren’t you?”

  Jayne was too surprised to answer right away. She looked down at her hands holding the pop. They were bonier than usual, her wrists standing out in sharp relief against her skin. She’d had to wear a sweatshirt over her jeans today because the waistband was too big and gapped away from her skin.

  But they still stayed up, so she hadn’t thought she’d lost that much weight.

  Then again, her mom had told her she looked good this morning. “To be your age again, Jayne. A size zero and the whole world in front of me.”

  She was far from a size zero. But her athletic size-eight body had definitely shrunk. And sitting here getting called anorexic and having her mom compliment her on seeing the bones . . .

  She didn’t have enough money for anything other than the pop. She scanned the food in front of the other two. “Feel like sharing that second cupcake?”

  Meadow pushed the cake toward her.

  A chair scratched against the linoleum floor. “So, Princess Jayne, what made you lose your appetite?”

  She smiled at Darian. Somehow, “Princess Jayne” sounded cute. Not vindictive, like Tattoo Girl’s “princess.” She didn’t feel like going into the accident, so she settled on a distant second. “I’ve got some mom issues.”

  “Amen, sister.” Meadow slid her bag of Doritos across the table, the opening facing Jayne. “I can totally relate to the mom thing.” In an exaggerated whisper, she said, “Mom’s the one who called the cops on me about the Ritalin, the witch.”

  “Jayne, what’s your mom like? I don’t see you being a Ritalin dealer.” Darian grinned at Jayne around a bite of sandwich.

  “She’s just a mom, I guess, with usual mom flaws.” Times a billion. But she didn’t want to get into that with these two. She didn’t feel like getting into how her mom was Gen Thompkins, local celebrity.

  “Like what? Name one.” Meadow sucked at a cheesy thumb. “Amuse us.”

  Name one? That was tough.

  A thousand were darting through Jayne’s head.

  “Like she only wants me taking honors classes. Nothing else. I wanted to take a photography class freshman year, and she didn’t understand how that would get me into H . . . college.”

  “So why didn’t you take the photography class?” Meadow looked like she didn’t understand a word Jayne had just said.

  “Because my mom didn’t want me to.”

  “So?” Meadow slurped the rest of her root beer. “Your mom isn’t registering for classes, right?”

  “No, but . . .”

  “And you go to public school, right, so she doesn’t have to pay for your books?”

  “We have a really good public school where I live. Best in Arizona.”

  “And the books are free?”

  Jayne nodded.

  “So what’s the problem?”

  Jayne thought about it. Actually, there was no problem. Gen wasn’t living Jayne’s life. Making her day-to-day decisions. She could sign up for whatever and take however many honors she wanted to. And the electives she wanted to take.

  Like photography.

  But knowing her mom, she’d do something to control the situation.

  “If I don’t sign up for what she wants, she might take away my bus pass.” As soon as Jayne said it, she knew it sounded lame.

  “No car?” Meadow raised an eyebrow. “Your boyfriend drive you places?”

  Jayne’s cheeks got hot. “I don’t have a boyfriend.” She had nothing to be ashamed of. “No need for one. I live on the bus route.”

  “Ah-so,” Darian said, and Jayne immediately thought of Tom and his kung fu movies. “You use boys for their cars, eh?”

  Jayne laughed. “Whatever. The bus and I get along just fine.”

  “But the bus?” Meadow said the word like Jayne had just said “rat-infested sewer.”

  “You’re not the only princess around here, Jayne,” Darian said. “Our little Meadow here has a family that’s richer than Trump himself.”

  “Whatever.” Meadow put her hand a few inches from her face as she checked out her nails. “The Olsen twins, maybe.”

  Jayne flipped off the TV and wondered if it was possible for brain cells to die from watching too much TV. She’d just finished a three-hour marathon of Gilligan’s Island and now she was staring up at the ceiling.

  Not doing homework.

  Not checking e-mail.

  Not going to the movies with Ellie. Who had gone without her. Who hadn’t even bothered to ask her along.

  The only thing to think about were the fifty weeks that were left until she was done with Outreach Arizona. The second most boring place on earth, after Arizona history class.

  Darian was okay, she guessed. Meadow was . . . tolerable. Ryan ignorable.

  But she didn’t need the constant reminder about the accident.

  That left her mother’s Xanax. She’d been taking it on and off for a couple of weeks, making sure she didn’t take too many so her mom wouldn’t notice the pilfering.

  Her folks were downstairs playing Scene It with some friends. Her dad had come up three times already to ask her if she wanted to play. All three times, she’d shaken her head and turned up the TV as her answer.

  Jayne picked up Animal Farm from her nightstand. She’d started reading it back in April, before . . . Before. She was ten pages into it.

  She’d read only a page in the last two months. Tonight wasn’t much better. She read two sentences before she put it away and decided to just stare at the ceiling.

  It wasn’t like it mattered if she finished it or not. It was a book on the Harvard reading list. A list she’d downloaded two years ago. She’d read 132 of the books on it so far.

  Out of 300.

  But those 132 books weren’t going to get her into Harvard. Her grades would’ve.

  Would’ve. Could’ve. Should’ve.

  Jayne felt the bed vibrate. Britney ambled up from her napping spot at the foot of the bed and climbed up Jayne’s leg before curling up on her chest. Sometimes Jayne had a feeling Britney thought she was a cat.

  But she didn’t try to move the pug. Her twenty-pound body wasn’t comfortable, but it was comforting.

  Jayne scratched behind an ear. “Hello, little buddy.”

  The pug looke
d at her with her head cocked to one side, like she was trying to decipher what Jayne had said. She put her head on her paws, her bright eyes staring at her human servant.

  Instead of feeling loved, Jayne felt lonely. Tom was busy with basketball camp this week, so she only got to see him in summer school.

  Britney started snoring, doggy breath exhaling on Jayne’s mouth. Jayne eased out from under the pup. She looked at the TV. Nah. She was getting bedsores from watching that thing. She looked at her computer. Maybe Tom had e-mailed her?

  She clicked on the computer. No e-mails from Tom. Then again, he’d said he’d be busy with that camp.

  She did have one message. From an E. Thompkins.

  When’d Ellie get a new e-mail? Her sister was CalvinSucks@ yahoo.com. She pretty much used it for sending Jayne chain letters. She hadn’t in a while, though, ever since Jayne had starting living the life of a hermit.

  Jayne clicked on the e-mail. There was only a hyperlink on the page: www.cutepuppypics.com.

  For once, Ellie had sent her something Jayne might actually look at.

  She clicked on the link.

  And forgot how to breathe.

  A picture of Jayne was centered on the page. It looked like it was the photo from the junior class yearbook.

  In red, bleeding letters, were the words “Most Likely to Go to Hell.”

  18

  JAYNE FELT LIKE she’d been drugged.

  It took her a couple of tries, but she finally slipped her key into the lock, turned it, and used her weight to open one of the double doors that led into the Thompkins home.

  Friggin’ fug. She was tired.

  Then again, it’d been a long day. Three hours at summer school, listening to Mr. Munroe drone on about the four C’s of Arizona: copper, cotton, something, and something. She’d tuned out by the third C and doodled for most of the class.

  Then she’d spent the next six hours answering Maria’s phone at Outreach Arizona. (Jayne wanted out of that place. Six hours a day, five days a week, would get her out in ten months instead of twelve. She’d done the math. In between doodling on her paper-bag-covered history book.)

  The day had been really busy because Maria’d gotten a lot of calls. Some event was happening this weekend and everyone wanted to cover their butts with Maria.