“Hot and sweaty kisses?” His gaze settles over mine, heated and heavy as steel. “Sounds combustible.” He takes a step in, closing the gap between us and pressing out that killer smile.
Any normal red-blooded American girl would seize this opportunity, take a step in the right direction (read toward Jessie), and accept one of those kisses he so easily doles out like a sexual PEZ dispenser. But instead, my twisted feet take an awkward bunny hop back, and I can’t seem to stop.
“Hot and sweaty kisses!” I scream into the night as if I’ve just discovered his serial killer alias.
“I’ll look for the two of you at midnight!” he shouts as I stumble into the crowd. “You know, in case you need a hose!”
I slip behind a trio of stoners and pant my way to a partial high—not that I need it. My entire body strums with a strange mixture of excitement and fear. My ears and chest pulsate in unison while my heart claps loud as a shotgun blast straight through my skull.
“In case you need a hose.” I shake my head. A dull laugh streams through my lips as I run for the exit.
A familiar bright red Honda CRX fires up, and I give a spastic knock over the rear window.
“Amy!” I slip inside the passenger’s side and buckle up before she can extend the invite. Amy Brineman lurches us forward at warp speed out of the Amalfiano’s driveway as if a rabid herd of Jessie’s hickey harem were after us. And they might be after I embarrassed myself so badly in front of their crowned prince.
“Where to?” she asks, taking a neck-breaking right at the end of the street without bothering to slow down.
“Home, please.”
“No problem. That’s where I’m heading. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I don’t know what I was thinking talking to, flirting with Danny Potter. I feel like I’ve just made an Alcatraz-worthy escape.”
“You and me both.” I don’t bother telling her that, in a strange way, I, too, am making a prison-worthy break from poor unsuspecting Danny.
Amy turns up the radio as Wham belts out “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,” reminding me that I forgot to say goodbye to both Heather and Melissa. I make a mental note to call them as soon as I get in and leave a message, letting them know that the Hot and Sweaty Serial Killer didn’t off me by way of his vampire-like kisses. And, sadly, if Jessie would’ve kissed me, it probably would have caused a major myocardial infarction and killed me on the spot. For a second, I envision him coming in for the proverbial kill, his eyes glazed over with lust, those full lips of his parting to greet me—then with a pronounced finality, his soft tongue mingling with mine.
My entire body blushes, catching fire right down to my heated bones.
God, I’m so going to need a hose.
* * *
In the light of an early morning dawn, after a night of some serious verbal diarrhea that took up twelve solid pages in my brand new diary, my eyelids spring wide open, still in disbelief of all that transpired just a few hours earlier. It’s just after six, and the silver morning sky hasn’t quite met up with a virginal splash of the sun. I pull on my sweats, bra, and toss on a T-shirt and a jacket. I sink my feet into my gym sneakers, and throw my hair into a quick and dirty pony. For a second, I toy with the idea of starting off the new year with a touch of wild to make up for all the mild that went on last night, but sleep still lines my lids, and I don’t have the motivation to unleash a Maybelline makeover on myself at this ungodly hour.
I snap my Walkman off the dresser and head downstairs, where the tangy smell of coffee already permeates the air. Mark is still asleep, snoring soundly through his bedroom door, but my parents, on the other hand, have always been early risers. I suppose I’ve inherited this bizarre up-with-the-sun character flaw from them. They love to rise early, like four a.m. scary early, but, then, they like to hit the sack before eight, too. I’m usually a six a.m. riser, not that I mind. It helped cement my status as a serious Saturday morning cartoon aficionado. I’m pretty much up on all things animated. I’m pretty shameless about it, too. If someone wants to delve into a deep psychoanalytical breakdown regarding the Super Friends and their archenemies, I’ll be right there with them, breaking down psychological profiles with the best of them.
“Happy New Year!” my parents whisper-shout in unison. My parents, Rod and Rebecca Barkly, are the epitome of the perfect couple—never argued a day in their marriage, never shed so much as a frown at a person in their lives. They’ve been known to coin their own clichéd phrases that would make any self-help guru barley-green with envy. Mom and Dad are sort of everybody’s dream parents. I know because my friends are not shy to bring this to my attention. Diary “Katie” will love them to perfect pieces.
“Off to get some fresh air in your lungs?” Mom leans over her mug while a single strand of steam wafts over her features like a vellum curtain.
“Fer sure.” I try not to make a face as I snap my headphones around my neck. This feels a lot less like getting some fresh air in my lungs, and a lot more like running from that self-induced disaster that panned out last night. Jessie Fox must think I’m certifiable. Hell, after that drivel that streamed from my lips, I think I proved that I am.
“Oh, hey”—Mom leans in—“you got a call from a family on The Hill about a tutoring gig starting next week.”
“That’s great!” I give a little hop when I say it. For a second there, I thought my tutoring “gigs” were a thing of the past (it makes me cringe a little when Mom uses that word, but both she and Dad are hippy children of the sixties, so I hear a lot of groovy and cool, man vernacular coming from the two of them). That being said, I do appreciate the spare cash lining my pockets from said “gigs” because it fuels my obsession with the record store. I swear, they know me by name down at the Warehouse on Western.
“Go enjoy your run. I’ll give you the details when you need ’em.” She gives a quick wink over her coffee. Mom is sweet, perky, and beautiful. Back when she and Dad first met in college, she dreamed of getting her law degree, then going into the judicial system as a judge, but “life got in the way” as she likes to burp out with a laugh. That burp would be my brother. She likes to share the story of how one unprotected night put a damper on her education, but she’s never made Mark nor me feel anything less than loved. Now, she works part-time in the women’s bra department at Buffums’ and sells Tupperware on the side. I lean in and give her a hug through all the formidable layers of sweaters and turtlenecks she’s packed on. She feels comfortably swaddled in batting as if I were hugging my oversized Raggedy Ann doll.
Dad leans over and offers a sweet, coffee-scented kiss to my cheek. “Be careful. You got that mace I gave you? Don’t talk to weirdos,” he says that last part without looking up from his paper. He’s recited it so often I mouth the words right along with him. Yes, I have the mace, the Thomas Guide he gave me for Christmas—in the event I deviate from any known roads—and a four pack of Black Cherry New York Seltzers for those occasions my incomprehensible thirst demands quenching, all floating around in the backseat of my car.
“Will do!” I hop into my freezing car, making the long drive over to Glen Heights for what is slowly becoming my new routine, running track before the world wakes up on the weekends. I’ve been a runner all my life—running from my brother, Mark, when we were kids and he’d chase me for no good reason, running from the fact I felt awkward and lanky in the seventh grade, running from the fact it feels a bit lonely now that my two best friends would much rather hang out with their boyfriends than do boring things like listen to albums with me. And, today, I guess I’m running from the fact I embarrassed myself severely last night in front of the boy whom I’ll forever be reminded of when I’m watering the lawn.
I park and head out into the billowing fog as the sun still struggles to rouse from its deep slumber. The truth is, I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night just thinking of all the ways that conversation with Jessie could have mapped out better. Any other girl on the planet could have handled
it with ten times more finesse and charm than I did. Why did I panic? Why do I always panic?
My feet hit the ground, and I start mercilessly for the track with hardly a warm-up to prepare my stiff muscles for the brutal punishment I plan on doling out. Back in the day, pre-license to drive, I would simply run around the block in my neighborhood. Then, when I was a little older, my parents let me sprint down to Dean Junior High, and I would hit the track while the ladies from the Rotary club indulged in speed walking, stalking angrily around the oval chalk outline while I carefully lapped them. Eight trips around equaled a mile. But once I got the keys to my very own car, I made a beeline to the big leagues, the sprawling red soil of Glen Heights High. Four laps is a proper mile at Glen, and somehow this diminished number makes it psychologically easier for me to double my distance without batting an eye.
The field sits empty as Missing Persons belts out “Destination Unknown” so loud though my headphones my eardrums threaten to burst. Not even the requisite, stray, older crowd that usually stalks these grounds training for the L.A. Marathon is out and about, sporting their headbands, their neon wristbands, their well-worn Nikes. But it’s cold and steely, plus it’s Wednesday. Christmas break is in its death throes since school starts Monday. Most of the kids that go here are sleeping in. Heck, it’s New Year’s Day. The entire world is sleeping in. So much for testing out my wild side last night—more like cementing my mild status for all to see.
My feet move faster as I pound the earth with a vengeance. My middle name might as well be Mild. Jennifer Mild Barkly.
My heart pounds like a fist over my chest as if begging for attention.
I bet they’ll put the M word on my headstone one day. She was mild! My obituary will read, Born to be mild and died that way, too! It’s safe to say one can assume my clothes are all tagged with the letter M because of my demeanor, not my medium build. I’m mild. I’m boring, humdrum, tame. I’m a poster child for Pollyannas the world over. An expert at lying low and avoiding the radar of life. I’m seventeen years old, and I still wake up early to watch Saturday morning cartoons while eating bucketfuls of Captain Crunch—the kind with berries because if not what’s wrong with you?
The scenery speeds past me in a blur, stalwart and predictable, like the inevitable unmarked days of my life are panning out to be. I’m going to graduate in five short months, never knowing the freedom of letting loose and breaking a few rules, breaking a few hearts. I’ll get into an average college and get good grades—because let’s face it, I won’t be getting average grades. But I’ll find an average boy, who is at every turn my average, predictable counterpart. I’ll spend the next few decades easily forgotten and often overlooked by friends, colleagues, and bosses. In a fit of irony, Danny Potter and I will reconnect one day. He’ll have ironed out all of his surfer quirks, and we will have an average romance, have a gnarly wedding, probably on the beach with surfboards staked in the sand all around like a bunch of overgrown tombstones. My mother will cringe for the first time in her happy-go-lucky life because her only daughter has settled for second best, all because she never had the guts to take her wild side for a test drive.
The wind whips over my face, cold and strangely heated at the same time, making my skin tighten as if it were sunburnt.
Tears sting my eyes as I continue to pummel the dirt in an effort to race across the field.
I am going to live a dull, average life until one day when I’m eighty years old I have a rare, lucid moment and shout Enough! Then, in a fit of remarkable regret and disillusionment, my gray-haired, heavily wrinkled, cane-in-hand self will take to the streets and begin flashing random strangers my wrinkly, very much sagging ass.
Tears roll down my cheeks in long iced tracks as the wind freezes them against my skin with an icy sizzle.
Mooning. I’m going to go wild and start mooning people at eighty because I was too fucking chicken to live out the rest of my senior year like a normal red-blooded American teenager and have a real conversation with Jessie Freaking Fox at a New Year’s Eve party laden with kegs! I’m an idiot! A moron!
I can’t let my life slip by like this. I can’t do it. I can’t be an eighty-year-old nut job with a cane and a propensity to moon everything in sight in an effort to make up for lost time.
The sun breaks free from the clouds, and its tangerine eye needles down over the world with a fiery fury. The sun is not going to be average today. It is saying Look at me. Look at my bright and shining eye. You will see me. I’m going to burn across the sky, race to the other side of the planet in a fit of wild flames.
Something loosens in me, something unhinges, and suddenly, the rest of my scholastic career at Glen crystalizes in front of me with a startling clarity. I’m going to do it. I’m going to change my destiny. I am not going down average. I am going to sow my wild oats right here in the homestretch of my senior year.
My heart thumps wildly with approval as if clapping up a storm. My feet move swift as a gazelle’s. I’m soaring, flying high as a kite in my newfound freedom. The rest of my senior year will be a lot of things—but, for damn sure, it will not be boring.
My body ignites in an inferno as I throw off my jacket, dropping it to the track as I race by. The frozen air kisses my bare arms, and I do the unthinkable. Without another thought, I whip off my T-shirt and laugh as the icy wind licks at my stomach. I marvel how foreign it feels to have the wind hugging me tight in places unfamiliar. Then, in one lightning quick move, I snatch off my bra. A blood-curdling scream of delight rips from me as I race faster down the track. Duran Duran shouts “Hungry Like the Wolf” into my ears as I turn up my Walkman all the way, feeling it pump through me, affirming my present need to run track partially naked, thus unspooling an entire lifetime of boredom. I’m editing my future before it ever begins. Things will be different from here on out. They are different already.
I’m sick and tired of nobody knowing my name, of being downright forgettable to the population at large. I’m rewriting the rules, crossing out of my lane, coloring outside of life’s lines. I will not let senior year define me. I am going to define senior year.
Here it is—the moment in which I shed the proverbial mild coat I’ve swaddled myself in from the beginning of my life, running track with my boobs flailing helpless in the wind, wild and free as can be with nobody to witness the spectacular event but the empty sky, the red dust kicking up in my wake, and a few panicked squirrels.
I take the turn toward the gym and stop cold. An entire group of boys—every other one holding a basketball—stares back at me wild-eyed, craning for a better glimpse of my mostly naked body, and I reflexively cover my boobs, knocking my headphones off in the process. The music, all of life seems to stop in this one grievingly embarrassing moment.
A familiar dark-haired boy, tall, all muscles, takes a few steps in my direction—Jessie. My feet begin to move again, faster than before, as my enthusiasm is quickly replaced with a sober dose of heart-stopping reality.
Life as I know it is effectively over.
My feet carry me straight off the field, straight into the parking lot as I dive into my Suzuki and drive the hell away from Glen Heights High, leaving my bra and dignity strewn across the field, right along with my sanity.
I speed home, ironically wild, panicked, topless, and in tears.
I just defined senior year all right. I spelled out crazy in front of the entire basketball team and a startled wide-eyed god named Jessie Fox.
Sobs come hard and fast.
I don’t think I’ll have to worry about anyone not knowing my name anymore, about being forgettable.
Come Monday, the entire school will know who Jennifer Barkly is and exactly why she is suddenly so unforgettable.
Jessie
“Wait!” I shout into the parking lot as the girl with no top on careens out onto the street.
“What the hell just happened?” Danny and the rest of the team catch up to me, out of breath.
“I don’t kn
ow.” I grip my hair at the temples. “Shit. Go scan the field. There’s probably some damn pervert out there she’s obviously trying to get away from. I know her friends. I’d better make a phone call.”
I make a run for my car phone and get ahold of Joel. It takes two minutes before he can figure out what the hell I’ve just said to him. He tells me he’ll get his girlfriend on the horn and try to hunt down Jennifer.
Coach called and had us come in this morning as a part of his year-round punishment. He’s still not over the magnificent losing streak we’re on this season, thus the seven a.m. practice on New Year’s Day.
I hit the gym, still thrown off by what we just witnessed. I know Jennifer Barkly. I don’t know, know her, but I know of her. Both Russell and Joel are going around with her friends, so we’ve been at the same place at the same time by default. From what I can gather, she’s nice, decent, and mostly sane.
That brief conversation we had last night runs through my mind. I’ll admit, she looked pretty hot with that tight red dress, but it was those glowing green eyes of hers that hooked me. I knew as soon as I spotted her at the party that I wanted to get to know her better. What a joke that turned out to be. What a joke I’ve turned out to be. Girls can’t seem to act normal around me. They lose it and assume I’m going to attack them with my lips. I guess I’ve sort of brought that on myself. Not that it’s a bad thing. All my life I’ve had girls throwing themselves at me, literally at times. It’s like I achieved rock star status for no real reason. Not that I haven’t taken advantage of this. I get it. They like what they see, and, in exchange, it’s given me a sick sense of power. I don’t think there’s been a single girl I’ve wanted that I’ve been denied. Last night, I went over to Jennifer Barkly, who looked hotter than a fire in her red dress, and tried to point my finger at her, but things didn’t exactly go as planned.
Hold Me Now Page 3