“Isn’t she something?” he says to me.
I just nod and say, “Uh-huh.” I’m watching her as I eat. Barefoot and dressed in yellow shorts and a white tank top, she looks shorter than me, about five foot six I’d guess, but her tanned legs look long and slender for her height, and her figure is good. Really good. Plus she’s got that kind of long blonde hair most girls seem willing to spend hours of breathing fumes at a salon to achieve. And she’s pretty. Not drop-dead gorgeous, but definitely pretty. I glance over at Dad and I swear he’s drooling as he watches her. Or maybe it’s the eggs.
“This is yummy, Estelle.”
She’s coming over to join us now, setting her plate opposite Dad and me. “Well, I thought with Haley here, you might want to have a real breakfast.” She sits down and gives him a coy grin. “Just don’t expect this kind of treatment every Sunday.”
My dad feigns disappointment. “Oh, just when I’d gotten my hopes up.”
“Well, I suppose we could arrange something.”
I can tell their banter is full of sexual innuendo — things no daughter should have to hear coming from her father and his girlfriend. So I decide to change the subject. “Are you from around here, Estelle, or a transplant like Dad?”
“I grew up just a few miles from here.” She rolls her eyes. “I keep telling Gordon I don’t understand why he wanted to live here in Mayberry.”
“Because it’s cheaper than Fresno,” he offers.
“But is it worth it?” She holds her fork in the air. “I mean, like the restaurants.” She looks at me. “There are two.”
“Two?” I blink.
Dad laughs. “That’s not true.” He starts naming them off, including ones like McDonald’s and Burger King.
“Those aren’t restaurants,” she says. “I’m talking about places you’d take your girl for dinner.”
He nods. “Well, I suppose you’re right. But there’s more than two, Estelle.”
“But they roll up the sidewalks by eight. And there’s only one movie theater and — ”
“At least it’s a quad,” he shoots back.
“With pathetic movies.”
“Well, I’ve heard good things about the schools in this one-horse town. Haley should appreciate that.” Dad glances at me.
Estelle gets a slightly wistful look now. “Yeah, Mitchell High is pretty good for a high school.” She sighs as she forks into her eggs. “I had some good times there.”
“When did you graduate?” I ask, hoping I’m not too obvious. But, seriously, I want to know — how old is she? In some ways, she doesn’t seem much older than me.
She narrows her eyes slightly, like she’s summing me up or perhaps offended by my question. “About ten years ago,” she tells me evenly, almost with a challenge in her tone.
“Oh. Do you think it’s changed much since then?” Hopefully this will smooth over my slightly impertinent question.
She shrugs. “I doubt it. My little brother goes there, and whenever I attend an event, it seems pretty much the same.”
“So did you get all your classes online like I told you to do?” Dad asks me.
“I think so.”
“I took care of all your fees and things,” he says. “So you should be all set for Monday.”
“Are you nervous about a new school?” Estelle asks.
Now I shrug. “I guess so.”
“Hey, I should introduce you to Buck.”
I frown. “Buck?”
“My baby brother.”
Dad laughs. “Baby brother just doesn’t sound right when you’re describing Buck Anderson.” He looks at me. “Buck is six foot four and outweighs me by a long shot.”
“He’s a defensive linebacker,” Estelle explains. “And Mitchell has a really good football team this year.”
“This town is big into football,” Dad tells me.
I let out a groan.
“Hey, you were acting like you liked it last night when we watched the Raiders game from last week.”
“Wasn’t that a great game?” Estelle says.
With them discussing the Raiders game, I take my empty plate to the sink, rinse it, and place it in the dishwasher. I consider offering to clean up, but they seem to be lingering, and suddenly I feel even more out of place. “Thanks for breakfast, Estelle. It was nice to meet you, but I want to go catch up on some e-mails. Excuse me.”
She smiles. “Someone raised you right, Haley.” She elbows Dad. “I guess it wasn’t you.”
Dad lets out a moan.
“Actually, Dad was around for most of my life,” I tell her. “It’s only been three years since the divorce.”
Estelle looks surprised. “Just three years?” she questions Dad.
“Well, the marriage was over long before that. But, yes, the divorce was about three years ago.”
Now I excuse myself again and this time I leave. As I walk to my room, I realize that Estelle is probably closer to my age than to Dad’s. And math isn’t even my strong subject. I close the door to my room and sit at my computer, but the truth is I don’t have e-mail to check. Most kids my age don’t use e-mail. They text. But then they have cell phones. And that reminds me of something. So after about thirty minutes, I go back out and find them cleaning up. I offer to help, but they’re nearly done.
“Dad?” I begin carefully.
“Yeah?” He’s pouring himself a last cup of coffee.
“I don’t have a cell phone and I’m wonder—”
“You don’t have a cell phone?” Estelle looks shocked. “Seriously?”
I shake my head no.
“Haley’s mom is, well, shall I say a bit conservative.” “
You’re sixteen, right?” Estelle is looking at me like I’m an alien.
“Yes.”
“Have you ever had a cell phone?”
Again with the shake of the head.
“Do you know how to drive?” she asks.
“My mom wasn’t comfortable with that either.”
Estelle gives my dad an incredulous look. “What is wrong with your ex-wife, Gordon?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Well, someday I’d like to hear it.” She tosses the wadded dish towel on the counter. “But I think it’s high time you got this little girl a cell phone, Daddy.”
Now my preference would’ve been for just Dad and me to go cell phone shopping, but instead I find myself in the backseat of Dad’s SUV, listening as Estelle goes on about some scandal going on in their workplace. I’m really trying to like this woman, but something about her sets my teeth on edge. Still, I’m determined to act civilized and hide my true emotions.
Estelle takes over at the cell phone shop, telling me what I want and why I want it. She even pushes me to get a hot pink phone — and I hate hot pink. But when we leave, there is a hot pink phone in my bag. I wonder if I can paint it. Maybe if I sanded it a little, my acrylic paints would stick. I study the phone and imagine how I can make it look really cool. Estelle continues to chatter away at my dad. As she goes on about a fashion-challenged coworker, I make a mental list of all the things I hate about this chick:
She is too young for Dad. if he’d been a teenaged father, she could easily be his child.
She is superficial.
She thinks she’s hot. I caught her checking herself out in the mirror several times, and she always seems pleased with what she sees.
She’s catty.
Even worse than catty, she’s a serious gossip. If her boss could hear her right now, she’d probably be out of a job.
She isn’t very smart. Already she’s misused or mispronounced at least three words.
She treats me like a child. I think this is what I hate most of all.
I’m just finishing my list when I see that we’re on the freeway. “Where are we going?”
“Didn’t you hear Estelle saying she wanted to do some shopping?”
“Uh, no …”
“You don’t mind, do you
?” Dad glances at Estelle uneasily.
“You might want to do some shopping too.” Estelle turns around in the seat and peers at me. “I mean, you are starting at a new school tomorrow, and from what I’ve heard, your mom isn’t big into fashion, right?”
“Not much.”
“I thought Estelle might be able to help you out, baby doll.” Dad sounds hesitant. “She’s pretty fashion conscious and tuned in to younger styles.”
I look at her tank top and wonder.
She laughs. “Oh, I don’t always dress like this, but it was hot today. And to be honest, I only thought I was coming over to make breakfast.”
“Uh-huh.” I just nod. I’m fully aware that I’m acting like a brat — totally unlike what I’d planned to be like.
“But if you’re not interested” — Dad is moving into the right lane — “there’s an exit ahead. I can turn around and take you home.”
“Oh, come on, Haley. Admit you need some clothes and maybe even a little fashion advice.” Estelle laughs. “For Pete’s sake, your dad is offering you clothes — what girl passes up an opportunity like that?”
Her reasoning registers with me. “Yeah, you’re right. I could use some things. Sure, let’s go shopping.”
We end up at this chic little outlet mall where Dad immediately bows out. He hands me a gold credit card and grabs his iPad. “I’m off to Starbucks for a mocha and to check the stock market. See you later.”
Estelle acts like this is perfectly acceptable. Then, practically taking me by the hand and acting like she knows this mall like the back of her own hand, she drags me to her favorite shops, and something tells me this whole “spur-of-the-moment” shopping trip was totally premeditated.
However, when I see my image in a full-length mirror at the Gap, I realize that perhaps I really did need a style intervention. There’s no denying that Mom was not only “not into fashion” but vehemently opposed to most trends, especially if she deemed them provocative. If she could’ve dressed me like a nun or Laura Ingalls, she wouldn’t have hesitated.
I stand here taking inventory of my baggy Lee jeans and sports T-shirt. If I stuffed my long dark hair under a ball cap, I might be able to pass for a guy. To be fair, I don’t always dress like this. I used to try to compensate for Mom’s fashion phobia by adapting clothes into funkier designs and/or shopping at secondhand shops with my babysitting money.
Occasionally I’d come up with something good and sneak out of the house wearing it, but if I got caught, my remodeled clothes were confiscated and a huge fight would ensue. So most of the time I just told myself that clothes didn’t really matter and that things like art and music and getting good grades were more important. Now I wonder.
“These jeans would look great on your long legs.” She holds up the latest style in jeans — the kind my mom would have a cow over. Maybe I’m just weak or maybe I want to thumb my nose in Mom’s face, but I take the jeans from Estelle, and after several tries and size changes, I decide on a pair. And I have to admit, they look awesome.
I’m not sure if it’s the jeans or Estelle’s influence, but it feels like something in me was triggered when I put them on, and so, like a fashion junkie, I let Estelle take me to more stores — picking up more clothes and shoes and even makeup. After a couple of hours and burdened down with bags and a credit card that should’ve melted by now, we go to find Dad.
“How’d it go?” he asks with a slightly worried expression.
“I think you’ve created a monster.” I hold up fistfuls of shiny shopping bags and grin. “Hope you’re good with that.”
He looks doubtful. “This won’t be a regular thing, will it?”
“I hope not,” I admit. “But you guys were probably right; my wardrobe was pretty pathetic. Thanks!”
...[CHAPTER 4].................
My first day at my new school was unremarkable. Well, except for meeting a certain guy I cannot get out of my head.
It all started when Estelle’s “baby brother,” Buck Anderson, took it upon himself to become my personal guide today, although for clarification’s sake, Buck is not the guy who’s stuck in my head. He was merely the connection. For some reason, which I’m sure is named Estelle Anderson, Buck decided to become my new best friend. It was a little awkward at first — me hanging with a guy who resembles a Mack truck — but I suppose I appreciated it on some level.
Even so, the jock and cheerleader crowd has never been my cup of tea, and that is the table I sat with at lunchtime. But I was polite, and I was also myself. I let it be known I was more into art and music than sports. I figured those kids could take it or leave it. Because there’s no way, even if I’m dressed like them, that I’ll conform to fit into their world. I suspect by tomorrow they won’t even remember my name.
Although I have to admit that I did enjoy the banter and liveliness of this group, and I was probably a bit envious of friendships that seemed fairly sturdy. But the part that sticks with me was this one particular guy. As soon as he joined the group, I could barely take my eyes off him. Not that he noticed me. But I can say, as an artist, that Harris Stephens is the most gorgeous guy I’ve ever laid eyes on. With dark curly hair, which seems a tad long for a sports jock (he’s a quarterback), and dreamy dark blue eyes and a straight nose and serious lips and a slender but great physique (muscles seem to be the one thing athletic kids have over most art and music geeks), what girl wouldn’t drool a bit?
Naturally, Harris already has a girlfriend. Not that I had any psychotic delusions that I’d ever have a chance with a guy like that. But I suppose a girl can dream. However, it’s a bit dismaying that his girlfriend is such a cliché. I hate thinking that, too, especially since I was so determined not to be judgmental. But his girlfriend, Emery Morrison, is a bouncy, effervescent strawberry-blonde cheerleader, and from what I can tell, she is everyone’s very best friend.
As I read in a book once, this girl is so sweet that sugar wouldn’t melt in her mouth. The homecoming queen election posters plastered all over the school bore testimony to her vast popularity. It seems Emery has Mitchell High in the palm of her perfectly manicured hand. And, really, she can have all that. I just wish she’d leave the boy with me.
I was so obsessed with fantasizing about Harris Stephens that the afternoon went by in a hazy blur. This is unfortunate considering how much I’d been looking forward to art class right after lunch. As I walk home from school, all I can remember from art is that a couple of kids — Poppie and Zach I think their names were — seemed fairly nice, like potential friend material. But I was so smitten by Harris that I can’t even remember what Poppie and Zach looked like.
On my second day of school, I’m surprised Buck is still hanging around me, still acting like we’re friends … or is it family? As a result I end up sitting at his friends’ table again. And this time Harris Stephens actually looks my way.
“Are you new?” he asks.
Emery laughs. “Don’t you remember her from yesterday?”
He shrugs, eying me carefully. “Not really.” “
That’s Haley McLean.”
I’m surprised she remembers my name, but then that’s kind of like her job I suppose. “That’s okay,” I tell Harris. “I’m not really very memorable.”
He tilts his head to one side. “I wouldn’t say that.”
Now I laugh.
“Harris is terrible at remembering faces,” Emery tells me in a confidential tone. “I think he has some kind of disorder.”
“I do not,” he shoots back. “It’s just that I’m not obsessed with knowing everyone and their great-aunt Betty in this entire school.” He jerks his thumb at Emery. “Because I, unlike some people, am not running for anything.”
“Oh, Harris.” She makes a pout.
“So where are you from, Haley?” Harris asks. I think he’s only giving me attention to irritate Emery, but I don’t mind and I tell him Oregon.
“I’ve been up there before,” he says with enthusi
asm. “What a great place. I wouldn’t mind living there.”
Now I start to go on about how great it is, talking like I’m head of the Oregon tourist department (is there such a thing?), but Harris still seems really interested. He even talks about the colleges up there, mentioning how they’ve had some pretty hot football teams.
I’m so nervous that it’s hard to eat my lunch, but I pretend to … and I pretend I’m not nervous either.
“So what are you into, Haley?”
I just stare at him, thinking, I’d like to be into you, but there’s no way I would say something so lame. “Oh, art and music.”
“Music?” He looks interested. “What kind?”
“I play guitar, write songs, mostly for myself.”
“I’ll bet you hope to become the next Taylor Swift,” Saundra Ketchum spouts, and everyone laughs like this is a great joke. Saundra is Emery’s best friend, the real one, but she strikes me as an insecure snob, and of all the kids at this table, I probably like her the least. But hearing her take a jab at me is a good reminder that despite Buck’s best efforts, I do not belong here.
“I actually like Taylor Swift,” I tell Saundra.
This just makes her laugh harder.
“You know, I like Taylor Swift too.”
Now everyone looks at Harris like he’s just sprouted a second head.
“I do,” he argues. “She’s talented.”
“You know, I kind of like her too,” Emery admits.
Saundra lets out a groan. “Give me a break.”
“You can laugh at Taylor Swift if you want to,” I say. “She probably laughs all the way to the bank.”
Several of them are arguing now — is Taylor Swift really talented or is she a geek? But Harris turns back to me. “What kind of music do you write and play?”
I shrug. “I’m not sure it’s a real genre, but I suppose it’s a mix of folk and R & B and sometimes a little jazz.” I smile. “I’m kind of eclectic.”
He nods. “Sounds interesting.”
“Are you into music?”
He glances around the table, like he doesn’t want to say anything.
“Or maybe jocks don’t get into things like that,” I tease. “It might mess with your game.”
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