A Date To Die For
by Mary Lee Tiernan
Copyright 2011 Mary Lee Tiernan
Smashwords Edition
Cover design by Laura Shinn
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Every muscle in his body ached with loneliness. He tossed and turned, but couldn’t find a comfortable position. If only she hadn’t left him... if only he could find her, peace would come to him. Her love, her unconditional, total love for him, would heal his wounds and chase the devils from his sleep.
A picture of her crept unbidden into his mind, and he clenched his fists at the memory. “I will not say her name, I will not say her name...” he repeated to himself over and over, as though by not saying it, he might break the power she still held over him. Despite the desertion, despite the broken promises to care for him, despite the outrage at finding her gone, he clung to her memory. A spasm of grief washed over him.
Suddenly, the picture changed, and another face replaced hers. He thought he’d found her in the other one. He’d loved the other one too, wooed her, given her his soul. Nothing but betrayal all over again. He pounded his fists silently into the mattress. “I won’t make the same mistakes again. I won’t.” A thin sheen of sweat covered his body as anger weld up inside him.
The anger came more often now. It had been building, building, building for months, months of misery and humiliation since the other one deceived him. “Never again,” he promised himself. Never again would he expose his feelings to ridicule, or feel the sting of rejection. He’d do whatever he must to keep himself safe.
He searched for her, but she remained elusive. It was so important to find her, find her soon, and fill the empty void deep within him. And when he did, he would keep her away from temptation. She must be his, and his alone. It was so important to find her, find her and claim her, before others contaminated her. She must be his and his alone. Thoughts of their perfect world eased the tension in his body. He deserved her love. And no one had the right to take it from him.
Stacey dreaded that first day of school. New town, new home, new school, new teachers ... and no friends to help her through the day. As she changed her outfit for the fourth time that morning, she sighed in resignation. Nothing she wore was going to make her feel any better.
“Stacey, hurry up. We have to leave in five minutes,” her mother yelled up the stairs.
Five minutes. What could she possibly do in five minutes that would relieve the pressure she felt growing in the pit of her stomach? She could only vaguely remember that other first day of a new school, years and years ago as a kid on her way to kindergarten with a bunch of other scared kids. That was quite different than starting a new school in eleventh grade halfway into the school year, when everyone else already knew each other. She looked over her shoulder into the full-length mirror to check that her jeans still fit tight enough for teen standards. Oh, why did her parents have to move and change everything!
“Mom, she’s still lookin’ in the mirror,” her younger sister, Anne, yelled from the doorway of Stacey’s room.
The abrupt sound startled Stacey. “Anne, get a life!” She wanted to slam the door and shut out Anne, shut out the day really, but she heard her mother coming upstairs and resisted the temptation.
“Stacey,” her mother called.
“Tell ‘er to hurry up, Mom. I wanna go to school. Alice is gonna met me by...”
“Go downstairs and wait for us in the kitchen.”
“How come...”
“Anne, the longer you argue, the more time this is going to take. Now go downstairs and wait, okay?”
“Oh, alright... but make ‘er hurry.”
Mrs. Mills opened the door to Stacey’s bedroom wider. “Honey, I know this is hard for you, but you know you have to go to school.”
“Oh, Mommm,” Stacey said in that special tone reserved for wayward parents. “I know that! I just keep wishing I was going to walk out the front door and meet Julie and the two of us would walk to school like we always did.”
“I understand, Sweetie.” Her mother crossed the room, noticing the pile of discarded clothes on Stacey’s unmade bed. She hugged her daughter, feeling the tug in her own heart for the friends and security she had left behind. For Anne, being so young, it was easier. So many years separated these two daughters of hers. “But when Dad lost his job...”
“I know, Mom, I know ... but that just doesn’t make it any easier.”
“Judging from this pile on your bed,” Mrs. Mills said, “you must have grown seven inches and nothing fits anymore.”
“Oh, Mommm.” Then Stacey laughed, picturing herself as a six-foot Amazon. “They’d really stare at me then.”
“See,” her mother teased, “things could be worse.”
Stacey took one last glance in the mirror. “Okay, let’s get it over with.”
When they got downstairs, Anne yelled, “Finally,” and bounded out the door. “I’m first. I get the front seat.”
“Get in the back,” Stacey yelled after her.
“Mom, why can’t I ever...”
“Get in the back, and we’ll drop you off first,” Stacey said.
“Oh, alright,” Anne said as she opened the back door and climbed in.
Mrs. Mills looked up at Stacey as she locked the door. They both knew they planned to drop Anne off first anyway. Stacey shrugged. “Avoided an argument, didn’t it?”
Mrs. Mills smiled, “You’re getting better.”
Stacey was glad that she and her mother got along. Not that her mom was perfect, especially when it came to Anne. But they never seemed to have those huge fights she had witnessed between some of her friends and their mothers. “Ex-friends,” she said to herself drearily as she thought of the three thousand miles that now separated them.
Anne squealed with delight when they pulled up in front of Sleepy Hollow Elementary. Behind the chain link fence, kids chased each other across the play yard, climbed on the blue and orange jungle-gyms, or sat on the ground playing jacks and other games. Near the entrance, a little girl with long braids shifted her weight from one leg to the other. “Look, there’s Alice, just like she said. Hey, Alice!” she yelled out the window.
“Not in my ear,” Stacey groaned.
“Bye, Mom.” Anne unbuckled her seatbelt and leaned over to give her mother a kiss. “Bye, Stacey.”
“Hey, not so fast, young lady,” Mrs. Mills said as Anne was about to jump out of the car. She shifted the gear into park and walked around the car. Alice and Anne waited by the open car door, whispering excitedly to each other.
“Yer in my class.”
“Are ya sure?”
“Un-huh. I asked Miss Mori, she’s our teacher.”
While Mrs. Mills walked the girls to the entrance and checked them in, Stacey closed her eyes to shut out their enthusiasm. If only she felt one iota of that! She twisted the gold pinky ring Julie had given her before she left New York. “Like having a string tied around your finger,” Julie said, “so you won’t forget me.” Then Julie had laughed. “And I’ll always be there, right there with you.”
Be with me today, Stacey thought, I’m gonna need you. Her eyes popped back open when her mother slammed the backseat door.
When they reached Hollis High School, Stacey slunk further down into her seat. The one-story building sprawled across twice the acreage compared to her two-story high school back in New York.
“Now, do you have...” Mrs. Mills’s words were drowned out by the blaring radio from a passing car filled with teenagers. The car swerved in front of them and pulled into the parking lot.
As Mrs. Mills hit the brake, she said, “Did you see that? They just...”
“Please, Mom, not now. Look, that car’s moving. Pull in there.” Stacey searched in her notebook for her schedule of classes. Unlike the enclosed buildings back East, here in Southern California, with summer weather all year long, students actually went outside to pass from class to class! With such a huge campus, she couldn’t image how she was going to get from one class to the other on time. “I’ll probably end up with detention on my first day,” she mumbled.
“What’s that, Stace?” Hearing the familiar nickname emphasized how unfamiliar everything else was.
“Nothin’, Mom,” Stacey automatically answered.
“Do you want me to go in with you?”
“Oh, Mom.” Stacey blushed at the very idea of her mother walking her into school as though she were five years old. She could just image the looks she’d get from the other kids. “You can’t hold my hand like in kindergarten!”
“Don’t get mad, Stace. I just want to do whatever I can to make this easier for you.”
Stacey looked up once more at the blue-trimmed building and let out the breath she hadn’t even realized she was holding. “Well, here goes,” she said, then added, “I’ll walk home.” And hopefully, she thought to herself, I won’t have to walk alone.
Two eyes noticed the glint of red in her auburn hair as she stepped out of the car. From the back, he saw a slim, attractive figure. He repositioned himself slightly to get a better look at her face as she turned around. A grin spread from ear to ear.
Fortunately, Stacey recalled the location of most of her classrooms from her walk around campus the day she registered for school. First stop, Mrs. Lee’s English class. Well, here I go, she thought as she stepped into the classroom. A small group of students surrounded a petite dark-haired woman standing in front of the blackboard; others sprawled lazily in their seats chatting with each other.
From the back of the room, a tall blond boy, who’d been leaning against the window, straightened up and nudged the boys sitting in front of him. They all turned in Stacey’s direction. One of them whistled. Immediately, the room quieted down.
Mrs. Lee stepped forward and smiled. “Well, you must be the new student I’m expecting. Welcome.”
Having no idea what to say, Stacey just smiled nervously. With all the kids staring at her, she felt like a jerk.
“First, let’s get you a seat,” said Mrs. Lee.
A male voice from the back called, “She can sit over here by me.”
“Give it a rest, Westerman,” a voice yelled back.
Mrs. Lee ignored the exchange. “Jenny, wave your hand so Stacey can see who you are.”
As Jenny waved her hand back and forth, Mrs. Lee turned to Stacey. “You can have the empty seat next to Jenny. I’ll get you a textbook in a minute. Go ahead and sit down for now.”
Even though some kids were still watching her, the usual classroom noise resumed, and Stacey was relieved not to be the center of attention. She swung into her seat with a “Hi” to Jenny.
“Hi, yourself,” said Jenny with a genuine smile. “You must hate being new. At least I did when I came here last year.”
Her words made Stacey feel like she had one person on her side. The two girls started to compare schedules when the bell rang and Mrs. Lee called the class to attention. Stacey groaned inwardly when she discovered they were in the middle of a novel that she had never read. “I’ll probably spend every spare minute I have just trying to catch up,” she thought.
By the end of the day, Stacey realized she was not as far behind as she first imagined, except for that novel in English. She searched the crowd for Jenny as she neared the front door, where they had planned to met after they discovered they lived close to one another.
“Stacey, over here,” she heard Jenny yell and saw a hand waving above the sea of heads.
As she headed in the direction of Jenny’s voice, someone stepped in front of her and she ran smack into him. “Hi, again,” he said. His face looked familiar, but with so many new faces during the day, she couldn’t place him. Seeing her confusion, a slight edge entered his voice. “English?”
“I’m sorry, I...” then she remembered the whistle in English class and someone yelling out about her sitting next to him. But the faces were a blur.
“Hitting on her already, Westerman?” Jenny’s voice said.
“Just thought I’d remind her about the basketball game Friday.”
“Hey, Westerman, you comin’?” a voice called out.
“Yeah,” he shouted back. “See ya,” he said to Stacey, completely ignoring Jenny.
“What a jerk!” Jenny said as they watched him disappear down the walk with his buddies. “Thinks he’s God’s gift to women.”
“What was that about the game?” Stacey asked.
“He’s on the team. Thinks you’ll be groveling at his feet after you see him running around in his shorts for old Hollis High. But don’t be fooled. Nasty...”
After they pushed their way out the front door, a voice yelled, “Hey, Jenny, what chapters do we have to read for English?”
“Fifty-five, fifty-six, and fifty-seven,” Jenny yelled back.
“Thanks.”
“You were saying about Westerman…”
But Jenny either didn’t hear her, or ignored her; Stacey wasn’t sure which. As they wound their way to the street, she seemed more interested in tossing comments to the kids they passed along the way. As they neared an incredibly good-looking guy perched on the stone retaining wall, Stacey noticed that Jenny started to tense up. “Hey, Jenny, what’s up?” he greeted her.
“None of your business, Luke,” Jenny retorted.
Stacey was amazed. This guy was beyond handsome. What she and her friends back home called a “California hunk:” tall, blond, lean, but muscular. The kind of guy they’d die to have a date with. How could Jenny just brush him off like that?
“Who’s your friend?” he called after them as they passed by. Jenny didn’t even answer that time. Stacey was thrilled that he noticed her enough to ask.
“Jenny, what’s going on?” Stacey asked her friend. “That guy is gorgeous. How came you just ignored him like that?” She resisted the temptation to look back at Luke.
Between clenched teeth, Jenny mumbled, “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll ignore him too. He may be gorgeous, but he’s really bad news. Worse than Westerman.”
“Why? What’d he do?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Jenny answered. Stacey dropped the subject when they stopped to chat with some classmates. But she was dying of curiosity. That was two great-looking guys in a row that Jenny put down. Was the problem with them or with Jenny?
When they reached the corner where they would part and go their separate ways, Stacey joked about having a long date that night with Captain Ahab. Seeing the blank look on Jenny’s face, she added, “Earth to Jenny. Captain Ahab. Moby Dick. Reading for English?”
Jenny’s response was not what she expected. “Look, Stacey, give yourself some time and figure out who’s who before you start dating, okay?”
“Dating? I wasn’t...”
Jenny glanced down at her watch. “Oh, yuck, I’m late again. Meet ya here tomorrow about seven-thirty?”
Without waiting for an answer, Jenny walked briskly away leaving Stacey to stare after her. When Jenny didn’t stop or turn around, Stacey shrugged her shoulders and resumed walking.
She hadn’t seen the dark car that had pulled over to the curb some distance down the street when she and Jenny stopped on the corner. Nor did she notice the car pull away from the curb and follow her as she continued on her way home. As she turned into the flagstone walkway leading to the front door, she stopped to pick up the newspaper. The car pulled over again until she entered the house. Then it slowly drove past, the driver noting the number of the pale yellow house trimmed in brown and the name on the mailbox.
A rush of adrenaline electrified his body. Had he finally found her? Could she be the one? She was certainly cute enough. Not like the fat one who started school a couple of months ago. Talk about a bad case of the uglies!
Of course, he’d need to watch her to be sure. No more mistakes! He must know where she went, who she talked to, what she liked to do.
He closed his eyes and pictured her wavy auburn hair sparkling in the sunshine. He actually felt it brush across the side of his face as he imagined her leaning over to rest her head on his shoulder. Add to that the sparkle in her clear blue eyes, the inviting smile. Such a pretty picture!
Picture! He opened his closet door and rummaged through the shelves of discarded paraphernalia that once belonged to a happy, healthy boy. “It’s gotta be in here,” he mumbled to himself, as he tossed aside mementos that no longer meant anything to him. He remembered sticking it in here after the last time he used it, so many months ago, after the other one betrayed him and he no longer needed it.
As his hand grazed the side of a baseball cap, he felt a hard object underneath. Picking up the cap exposed the camera hidden beneath it. “There it is,” he said with satisfaction. The baseball cap, once the treasured symbol of his luck, fell unnoticed to the floor.
“How’d it go today, Stace?” her mother yelled to her from the back part of the house.
“Okay, I guess.”
“Meet anyone interesting?” Her mother appeared in the kitchen doorway. “Come have some hot chocolate chip cookies with us.”
Stacey joined her mother and sister, dropping her stack of school books on the kitchen table, permanently scarred from years of dropping and banging. “Guess the worst class will be English, at least for now. I’m way behind. But I liked psych class.”
“Tell me who you met.”
“I met lots’a kids,” Anne mumbled as she stuffed a cookie into her mouth.
“No talking...” Mrs. Mills began.
“...with your mouth full.” Stacey finished with her.
“ ‘k, it’s gone,” Anne said, as she gulped down the cookie. “Alice intraduceded me...”
Stacey and her mother looked at each other and grinned, but didn’t correct Anne.
“... to all the kids ‘n Laura ‘n Melissa ‘n this yucky boy ‘n ...”
“Who’d you like best?” Stacey asked.
Anne grabbed another cookie. “Alice... she’s my new bestest friend.” Anne met Alice, who lived just across the street, the day they moved in. The moving men were still unloading their furniture when Stacey first saw Alice. As the movers struggled to lift her bulky mattress up the stairs without dropping it, Stacey waited at the top of the landing to direct them to her bedroom. Anne and Alice pushed by, causing the men to stop and the mattress to wobble precariously, because Anne just had to show Alice her new room.
“Mom, do ya have ta drive me again tomorra? Can’t I walk to school with Alice?”
“Do you promise to be very careful crossing the street?”
“Promise,” she agreed, reaching for her glass of milk.
With Anne momentarily silenced, Stacey told her mother about Jenny. “In a way, she’s like Julie. She lives down the street so we can walk back and forth to school together. You’ll like her. She really helped me find my way around today.”
“Is she your new bestest friend?” Anne managed to get out before gulping down the last of her milk. As she set her glass back down on the table, they heard a knock at the back door. “That’s Alice. ‘k if I go out?”
After Anne scrambled out the door, Stacey bit into a soft cookie. She didn’t mention her encounters with the two guys, or Jenny’s odd remark when they parted. Why make a big deal just ‘cause a couple of cute guys looked at her? “The other kids were nice, but ... well, you know.”
“It’ll take time, Stace.”
“I know, Mom.” She helped herself to more cookies. “Got any more milk?”
“Sure.” While she poured the milk and gave the glass to Stacey, Mrs. Mills chatted about her day: meeting a neighbor, chasing a dog out of the flower bed, grocery shopping. “Dull stuff,” her mom admitted. “I also picked up your clothes and made your bed for you.”
“Oh, thanks, Mom. I just ...”
“Don’t explain. It’s being the first day of school is excuse enough. Now, should this happen on the second day ...” her mother teased.
Later that evening, in the solitude of her room, Stacey looked at herself critically in the full-length mirror. Blue eyes stared back at her. Her light auburn hair curled naturally beyond her shoulders. A little on the thin side perhaps, but at least she didn’t have to worry about keeping up with the latest fad diet. She remembered Luke’s eyes scanning her briefly as he called to Jenny and Westerman’s checking her out in class and after school. “I wonder what they see,” she said as she turned from side to side checking her reflection from each angle.
She heard giggles from the other side of the door. “Who’s she talkin’ to?”
“Sssh, she’ll hear...”
“Anne, get away from my door right now,” Stacey demanded. More giggles, but they faded as Anne and her “bestest” friend moved away.
Stacey remembered Anne’s earlier question when she was talking about Jenny. “Is she your new bestest friend?” Good question. Would she be? She really liked Jenny, but she didn’t like her secretiveness when Stacey asked her questions about Westerman … what was his first name? or Luke... Luke what? She didn’t know his last name.
Jenny obviously disliked both of them. But why? Had they been dating and then broken-up? Why the warning about dating? She imagined Julie, her real best friend, saying, “Hey, Stace, that’s her problem if she won’t talk about it. Go for it. They’re both gorgeous.”
The phone rang. Stacey picked it up out of habit. Being so new in town, she really didn’t expect any calls. “Hello?”
She was surprised when a muffled voice asked, “Stacey? Stacey Mills?”
“This is Stacey. Who’s this?” A click and the tone dial told her the caller had hung up. She looked curiously at the receiver in her hand and frowned. Who was that? But the phone didn’t have an answer.
The rest of the evening, Stacey sorted through her papers from that day, arranging them in her notebook, studied for a math quiz, and read the English assignment. Not that it made any sense. You can’t pick up a novel in the middle of it. She wondered if Mrs. Lee would give her some extra time to catch up. When she finished, she stacked the books on the edge of the desk. Before undressing for bed, she went over to the window to close the curtains.
From his car down in the street, he watched her silhouette linger for a few moments in the window as she gazed at the stars in the night sky. Then she closed the curtains and disappeared from view.
The next morning, she again dressed with special care, deciding on the emerald green sweater, one of her favorites. A glance at the antique clock her mother had given her two Christmases ago, when Mickey Mouse’s tired hands refused to work anymore, told her she’d better hurry or she’d miss meeting Jenny at the agreed-upon corner for their walk to school. But she took the time to make her bed and to hang up the clothes she’d decided not to wear. No sense pushing her luck with her mother.
As she passed a clump of oleander bushes, still full and lush in the winter, she heard familiar giggles and stopped. “Anne, get out here.” As Anne and Alice poked out their heads, she asked, “Why are you hiding in the bushes? You’re supposed to be on your way to school.”
“We wanted ta see your bestest friend,” said Anne. “Are you gonna tell Mom?”
“How come you heared us? We was quiet,” asked Alice at the same time.
Stacey looked down at Alice whose braids almost reached her waist, much longer than her sister’s hair, although their brown coloring was similar. “You know about Superman?”
When Alice nodded her head, Stacey continued. “And you know about his X-ray vision?” Again Alice nodded. “Well, I have X-ray hearing.”
“You do?” asked Alice.
“You do not,” declared Anne.
“Sure, I do. I grew it when we came to California.”
“You did?” asked Anne.
“Wow,” said Alice, “wait’ll we tell everybody. Come on, Anne.” She grabbed Anne’s hand and they raced off.
“I thought you wanted to see my bestest friend,” she yelled after them. But they neither stopped nor answered her. “Oh, well,” Stacey smiled to herself, “I guess X-ray hearing is more exciting than bestest friends.”
She spotted Luke as they neared the school. He sat on the stone wall at school by himself, looking up at the street in their direction. Jenny quickly caught Stacey’s arm and steered her across the parking lot to avoid passing by him.
“What’s with you two?” Stacey asked.
But again Jenny was non-communicative. With a glance over her shoulder, as though fearful Luke would follow them, Jenny maneuvered them into the crowd of kids entering the front doors. Jenny whispered to Stacey, “Don’t be fooled by him. Stay away from him.”
“But why?”
“See you in English,” was all she said as she turned to go to her own locker down the hall, leaving a puzzled Stacey in the middle of the hallway.
What is her problem Stacey wondered. Could Jenny be jealous that Luke was showing her some attention? Well, no time to figure that out now. She ran to her own locker to retrieve the books she needed for the morning’s classes.
As she entered English class, Westerman whistled and waved to her. She automatically smiled, until she saw Mrs. Lee turn in her direction.
“Don’t fall off your chair, Steve,” Mrs. Lee said.
Stacey didn’t dare turn around to see his reaction when the class laughed. But she tucked away that little piece of information. His first name was Steve.
When the bell rang, Mrs. Lee started with a reading quiz on their homework assignment. By the third question, Stacey knew she couldn’t answer. Instead, she wrote the teacher a note.
Dear Mrs. Lee,
I’m sorry I can’t answer your questions. I did read the chapters, but they didn’t make much sense. I started reading the novel from the beginning. Could I have some extra time to catch up with the rest of the class?
Stacey
Things worsened through the day. In fourth period science, the teacher announced a lab. “Listen carefully for your partner’s name and lab station... Ginger Williams and John Holmes, station two... Stacey Mills and Stan Gardner, station three...”
Besides hating labs, Stacey wasn’t thrilled with her lab partner. When she got to station three, he was already there waiting for her. “Hi. Stan?”
“It’s Stanley,” he corrected her.
Stanley? Oh, great. Then he started talking about his love for cutting up frogs and other repulsive experiments. When he said, “Watch, it’s easy,” she gladly sat back and let him take over. About halfway through the experiment, he mumbled something she couldn’t hear.
“Huh? Couldn’t hear you.”
He wouldn’t look at her, but repeated what he said a little louder. “Saw you when you first got here yesterday, gettin’ out of your car.”
Oh, God, she thought, why did I ask him to repeat that? “Oh?”
“Yeah. I’m glad you’re my lab partner.” He finally looked up and smiled shyly.
What am I supposed to say to something like that? “Glad you’re my partner, too?” But she wasn’t. “I hate having you as a partner?” Oh, nice. And she didn’t really hate it; she just would have preferred being paired with someone else. What she did hate were situations like this when people make comments you just couldn’t respond to.
At lunch, as Stacey turned the corner in the hall to get to her locker, she literally bumped into Luke. “What, no Jenny to protect you?” he remarked with a mischievous grin.
Stacey blushed, wishing some clever answer would come to mind. But before she had a chance to say anything, he bent down to pick up the books she had dropped. Leaning slightly into her as he returned the books to her, he asked, “How about a ride home from school today?”
Before she could reply, she saw Jenny fighting her way through the crowd towards them. Luke must have misinterpreted her hesitation. “Think about it,” he added as he disappeared into the crowd.
Stacey composed herself before Jenny reached her. Inside, her heart beat wildly. She still felt the closeness of Luke as he had leaned into her, his breath slightly brushing her cheek as he asked her out. Well, not exactly asked her out, but wasn’t a ride home coming pretty close to that?
She didn’t want Jenny to know, however. She felt a twang from her conscience. Jenny had befriended her right from the beginning, and she really liked Jenny ... but if Jenny remained so close-mouthed about Luke, or the other guys, and just kept making weird remarks about them, what could she do? Give up a chance to date the handsomest guy she’d ever met? Besides, if Jenny wouldn’t explain, how close a friend could she be? Close friends share secrets; they don’t hide them from each other.
By the time Jenny stood next to her, Stacey managed to mask the inner turmoil she felt. “Hungry?” she asked.
“Starved. Let’s skip the cafeteria and go out for lunch. I want a good old greasy McDonald’s hamburger.”
“Sure.” Again, the difference between her old high school and this school amazed Stacey. No way would she and her friends have fought the snow drifts to get into town for a hamburger for lunch. Maybe this move to California wasn’t so bad after all.
Stacey’s attention during sixth period faded in and out. She tried to keep focused on the lesson, but time was running out and she had to decide what to do when the bell rang. Should she met Luke for that ride, or walk home with Jenny as planned? It wasn’t fair that after only two days in a new school with so few friends, that she had to decide between them.
Her dilemma solved itself when Luke never appeared. Jenny emerged from the crowd at the front door just as Stacey arrived. “Perfect timing!” Jenny exclaimed. “Want to go to the mall for awhile before we head home?”
Stacey wanted to very much. But the expense of moving had impacted her too. “Sorry, Stace,” her father had said. “But until I get a few paychecks coming in again, and we pay off some of these moving bills, I just can’t give you much spending money.” Her own savings had dwindled to nothing, and with no job, not even babysitting, she didn’t even have the price of a coke. Not wanting to embarrass herself, she explained, “Can’t. I’m so far behind in English that I’ll never catch up if I don’t read, read, read, for the next week.”
“Can’t you get by reading Cliff notes?” Jenny asked.
“I tried that last night,” Stacey lied, “and I couldn’t answer one question on that stupid ‘reading checkup’ today.” If she couldn’t afford a coke, she certainly couldn’t afford to buy Cliff notes, but she wasn’t about to admit that to Jenny.
“Next week then,” Jenny laughed, “if you haven’t ruined your eyes from all that reading.” Jenny added on a more serious note, “You know, Mrs. Lee is really tough. If you want to borrow my class notes, you’re welcome to them.”
“Thanks. I’d like to see them.”
By now, the girls reached the corner where they parted ways. “See ya,” Jenny waved as she continued up the hill to her own house.
Stacey headed left, glad that her part of the hill climbing was over. Now there was one of the downfalls of her new town. Built on the slope of a mountain, there were hills to climb no matter which way she went. Used to flat ground, her legs ached every night from walking the unfamiliar terrain. A car, of course, was out of the question. She couldn’t afford a coke, but her parents could buy her a car. Yeah, right.
By now, only one block remained till she reached her house. Just as she crossed the last street, a car pulled up to the corner. “Tired from mountain climbing?” asked a disembodied voice from the car.
The voice sounded familiar. Her heart began racing as she recognized the handsome face materializing at the car window.
“I had a ride, but he didn’t show,” she teased, amazing herself that she joked so easily.
“Sorry about that,” Luke said. “The teacher kept us for a few minutes after class, and I missed you.” Tilting his head sideways and looking flirtatiously into her eyes, he added, “You could have waited, you know.”
As he pulled the roll of film out of the camera, he recalled each and every photo he’d taken, mostly of Stacey walking home from school. They were the easiest to shoot. With his zoom lens, he could stay safely at a distance, and she never noticed him. He’d tried taking a few pictures at school. He’d pose his classmates, for memories of the good-old days he’d tell them, but actually zoom in on Stacey standing somewhere in the background. He tried a couple shots of her framed by her bedroom window, but he didn’t have high hopes for them turning out.
He pictured her pretty face, her alluring smile, that slim but beautifully proportioned body. "Stacey," he said softly to himself, "I think you're perfect." He wanted to take her in his arms and seal their love with a kiss. His body stirred thinking about her.
As he handed the film over to the clerk in the one-hour photo-finish booth, his mind whirled. He must keep things looking normal, classmate to classmate, but not overdue the attention he paid to her. He’d already made a few mistakes in that department. But minor, very minor. After all, there was nothing unusual in showing interest in a good-looking chick, especially when she was new to school. If he cooled it in public, anyone who had noticed would think he’d lost interest. Only when they were alone, when there were no witnesses, dare he show his real interest.
“Hey,” the frustrated clerk asked for the third time, “I asked when you wanted these.”
The clerk’s shouting finally penetrated. “In an hour, jerk. Why do you think I came here?”
The anger on the clerk’s face served as a warning. Patience... patience. He must not draw attention to himself. What if the clerk remembered him later because of his rudeness and connected him with the pictures? “Hey, look, I’m sorry. Can they be ready in an hour?”
The anger disappeared. “Yeah, we’ll have ‘em ready.”
He gave his best award-winning smile as he took his receipt. “Thanks.” But as he pulled off, the smile quickly disappeared. “Jerk,” he repeated for his own satisfaction.
Stacey bounced into the house. Her mother, seeing the radiance on her daughter’s face, commented, “School can’t be so bad after all.”
Usually, she and her mother shared the news of their days when she returned from school. But Stacey didn’t want to talk about Luke or Steve, at least not yet. What could she say? Some dream offered her a ride from school and then stood her up, even though he had a perfectly good excuse? How could she explain the absolute thrill she felt at just being near him. Definitely not Mom kinda stuff.
Or what about Steve Westerman? He’d certainly indicated his interest in her with the whistling in class. Even Mrs. Lee had noticed. But he hadn’t asked her out either: just wanted to know if she was going to the game, not if she wanted to go with him. Better to wait until one of them officially asked her out.
“It’s okay, except for science lab today,” she said as she slipped into a kitchen chair. “Got any more cookies from yesterday?”
“I put a few aside or Anne and Alice would have gobbled them all down.” Mrs. Mills reached into the cupboard for the stash.
Giggles and a thump from living room prompted Stacey to yell, “Okay, you two. Come in here.”
“Oh, my gosh, she really does...”
“I only whispered real soft and she heared us.”
The two girls burst into the room. “Mom, Mom, did you know about Stacey’s X-ray hearing?” Anne demanded.
“Stacey’s X-ray hearing?” Mrs. Mills repeated and looked questioningly at Stacey.
“Yeah, she tolded us about it this mornin’,” Alice chimed in. “I only whispered and she heared us all the way in there. Did ya hear us whispering, did ya?”
“No,” Mrs. Mills admitted, “I didn’t hear you whispering.” She emphasized the word “whispering,” but the implication was lost on the two young girls.
“Wow,” said Alice, looking at Stacey with complete adoration.
In answer to her mother’s questioning look, Stacey said, “These two Bobbsey twins have developed a keen interest in spying on me. I told them I’d know they were there because of my X-ray hearing.”
“Just like Superman’s,” Anne said.
“I thought Superman had X-ray vision,” Mrs. Mills said.
“Just like that, only different,” Anne agreed.
“Wow,” was all Alice could manage to say.
Mrs. Mills laughed. “Okay, but why don’t you leave her alone for awhile?” She crossed to the back door and opened it. “Go out and play. Go ahead, scoot.”
Mrs. Mills watched the two girls run across the yard. “I understand why you did that,” she said as she closed the door, “but you might have invited even more trouble.”
“What’da’ya mean?”
“Now they’ll want to keep testing you.”
Stacey groaned. “That’s all I need.”
Mrs. Mills sat down in the chair opposite her. “So what was this about science lab?”
“Oh, I got paired off with this guy named Stan-ley.” She stressed the last syllable. “Not Stan, Stan-ley.”
“Some people prefer using their full name, Stacey.”
“Oh, Mom, he’s a geek. Big, thick glasses. Hair sticking up all over the place. Pretty smart though. I can picture him sitting in a lab or in front of his computer dreaming up evil and wicked schemes.”
“Now the other part.”
Whenever Stacey ragged on someone, her mother always made her think of something nice or sympathetic to say about them. “Walking in another person’s shoes” her mom called it.
Stacey sighed and closed her eyes. She pictured lab class. “He’s probably lonely. Doesn’t know how to act like the other kids or make a conversation work. Doesn’t seem to have any friends.”
“So a little kindness...”
Stacey’s eyes popped open. She knew the lecture by heart. “But, Mom, he even talked about watching me get out of the car yesterday. It gave me the creeps.” She rolled her eyes dramatically. “I even thought he was gonna ask me out.”
“Stacey.”
Stacey noted the warning tone in her mother’s voice. “Oh, I was nice, Mom, don’t worry.” She laughed. “I just did like we do with Anne sometimes. Changed the subject and got him thinking in another direction.”
The oven-timer buzzed. “Time to baste that roast again,” Mrs. Mills said.
Stacey grabbed her books from the table. “I’ve got an awful lot of reading to do for English to catch up. With luck I can get a chapter read before dinner.”
Stacey plopped her pile of books on the desk in her room and grabbed Moby Dick. Dropping down on her bed, she opened it and started to read, but two pages later realized she couldn’t keep her mind on it. Instead, she leaned back on her pillow and pictured what she’d wear on her first California date.
Well, one of them would ask her out, wouldn’t they? Of course, she meant Steve or Luke, not Stanley. A slight frown creased her forehead as she recalled her conversation with Luke. When she asked him about Jenny, he had been pretty vague, only hinting that they’d gone out and things didn’t work out. Why wouldn’t either of them just tell her what happened between them?
She sat up, crossed-legged on the bed, and hugged her pillow close to her. Another little worry flitted through her mind: Jenny. When she’d tried to press Luke to tell her about them, he said, “I don’t want to come between you and Jenny.” It just didn’t make sense that Jenny held such a strong grudge against someone that considerate. And she definitely didn’t like the idea of hiding her relationship with him. If they did start dating, how could she ignore him at school for Jenny’s sake when all she’d dream about was running into his waiting arms?
Reluctantly, she threw the pillow aside and reached for her English book. Worrying about Luke and Jenny wouldn’t get her reading done. Maybe in the next few days, as she and Jenny grew closer, Jenny would open up and confide in her.
During dinner, her mom said. “I forgot to tell you, Stacey. I met another neighbor today, a Mrs. Westerman, two doors down.”
“Westerman? That’s the name of one of the kids in my class.”
“Don’t think it’s the same family. Her boys are rather small. She wondered if you were interested in babysitting this weekend.”
“Oh boy, am I,” Stacey replied, thinking of the money she’d need for movies, videos, and outings with her friends. “How many kids?”
“Two. I took her number. You can give her a call after dinner, if you want.”
“Thanks, Mom, I will.”
After dinner and the dishes, Stacey ran up to her room to call Mrs. Westerman. “I’m so happy to find a sitter who lives so close,” Mrs. Westerman said. “Can you sit Friday night?" They discussed fees and Stacey was delighted to find that rates were higher here than she had been getting back home. Back East, she corrected herself. This is home now.
“By the way, Mrs. Westerman, I was wondering. One of the boys in my English is named Westerman...”
“You must mean Steve. He’s my nephew.” Mrs. Westerman didn’t sound any too happy about claiming Steve as her nephew.
“Oh. I was just wondering. Same last name and all.”
“Okay then, we’ll see you Friday at seven.”
On the other side of town, a phone slammed down. Busy? He picked up the phone and dialed her number again. Again the busy signal buzzed in his ear. His fingers curled around the science book in front of him. Suddenly, he picked it up and flung it across the room. Who are you talking to... who, who, who? The flush of anger tinted his skin. He had picked her out for him, FOR HIM. No one must lead her astray. He must keep a closer eye on her.
As Stacey and Jenny walked to school the next morning, they paused while Jenny dug out her notes on the beginning chapters of Moby Dick. A battered old car rumbled past. The driver honked the horn, but by the time they looked up, all they saw was the tail end of the car.
“Who was that?” Stacey asked.
“Don’t know. Didn’t recognize the car either.”
“How sad. Someone loves us and we don’t know who.”
Jenny laughed. “Don’t we wish.”
Steve Westerman leaned against the wall next to the door to English class. “Hey,” he said in greeting as Jenny passed.
“Hey, yourself,” she replied. Was he waiting for her? Should she stop and talk to him, or just keep going?
“So, we gonna see ya at the game Friday?”
“Can’t this Friday, maybe...” The rest was lost when someone bumped into her from behind.
“Sorry.”
Stacey turned around and recognized a pretty, dark-haired girl from her class.
“No problem.” Stacey smiled to show she meant it, but the other girl did not smile back. She simply brushed past and walked into the classroom. To Stacey’s surprise, Steve followed behind her, as though they’d never been conversing.
Just then, Jenny pulled up beside her. “A little trouble with Carrie?”
“That the girl in the pink sweater?” Stacey asked.
“That’s the one.”
“Definitely not the friendly type,” Stacey said.
“Not when it comes to Steve.”
“She going with him?”
Jenny laughed. “She wishes. They went out last year, but he dropped her.”
The bell rang and the girls ran for their seats. Mrs. Lee started passing out the reading quizzes. Stacey dreaded seeing the big “F” she knew would be on the top of hers. But when the teacher finally handed it to her, it didn’t have a grade, but a note underneath hers.
Stacey,
I know it’s difficult coming in so late into the year. I’ll give you until the new semester to catch up. If you need some extra help, let me know.
Stacey breathed a sigh of relief. One problem solved. The new semester was a couple of weeks away. Certainly, she’d catch up on the reading by then. Now if only the rest of the day went as well. It didn’t.
In science class, Mr. Beckeny passed back their lab results. No problem with the grade, she liked the red “A” on the top of the paper. She felt a little guilty about that, because Stanley did most of the work, but she certainly wasn’t going to argue about it. The problem came with a note passed to her.
Hope we can work together again.
Stanley
Oh, yuck. She looked around the room and saw Stanley grinning inanely at her. For the rest of the period, she felt like two eyes bored into her back. As soon as the bell rang, she hightailed it out of class to eliminate any chance of old Stanley talking to her.
She showed the note to Jenny at lunch. “That creep?” She threw the note into the trash. “Oh, well, better you than me.”
“Thanks a lot!”
They found a vacant table and sat down. “Why me?” Stacey sighed.
“Have you looked in a mirror lately?”