Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
A Note on the Author
Books by Janette Rallison
To the 2002 cast of
Chandler Teen Drama, whose
disastrous (but politically correct)
play was appreciated by at least one
parent. and especially to asenath,
our drama queen, whose life keeps me
well equipped with plot ideas
One
In my opinion, children ought to be able to choose their own names. I mean, think about it. Most people wouldn’t let their parents pick out their next pair of shoes, but these same parents pick out the names their offspring are stuck with for life.
Is that really fair?
I would have never chosen the name Jessica for myself. First of all, there are enough Jessicas in the world. Even though Three Forks, New Mexico, is small by anyone’s standards, there are four Jessicas in my junior class. It’s hard to have a sense of identity about your name when you only have a quarter ownership in it.
Second, when I graduate, I want to go to UCLA and major in acting. I need a Hollywood name—something that shouts, “This person is destined to put their hands in the cement outside of Grauman’s Chinese Theater.” Jessica sounds like the type of name you’re most likely to see on the vest of a person working at Wal-Mart. Which, incidentally, is where I work after school two days a week and all day Saturday.
Mostly I stock things and direct people to the cat food, or whatever. It’s all pretty boring, and while I’m working, I think about my future life of fame and glory and how one day I’ll sit on the set of the Tonight Show and laugh about my crummy high school jobs.
“Well, Angelique,” the host will say to me . . . or maybe, “Well, Cassiopeia,…”
When I reach stardom, I will also have hot Hollywood-babe boyfriends who drive Porsches, and I will totally not think about the fact that Brendan Peters dumped me back in my junior year of high school. At least, I will not think about him except for those times when he tries to scale the walls to my estate in attempts to see me and beg for my forgiveness. Then I will have my security guards escort him away. After all, one doesn’t easily forgive a guy who dated you for an entire year and then, without two words of explanation, dumps you for some stupid cheerleader. I mean, excuse me, the only redeeming qualities Lauren Riverdale has are a good set of pom-poms.
It’s been a week and a half since Brendan broke up with me, but I try not to think about him. He only crosses my mind when I see Lauren and him walking around the hallways holding hands, or when they eat lunch in the cafeteria sitting so close together you’d think they were Siamese twins, or when I cry myself to sleep every night. But besides all of that, I’m doing really well.
On the night I met Jordan, I wasn’t thinking about Brendan at all. After my shift at Wal-Mart was over, I walked out into the parking lot debating the merits of boy names for girls instead of dwelling on the fact that it was Friday night and Brendan and Lauren were out somewhere practicing their Siamese twins routine.
And when you come right down to it, none of it was my fault anyway. It was my father’s fault for buying a silver Honda Civic when there are already approximately three billion silver Honda Civics clogging up streets and parking lots across America. I had a car with as much originality as my name. My Honda was the Jessica of the car world.
The whole thing was also my father’s fault for not believing me that the starter motor on our Honda only worked half the time. “It always starts up fine when I drive,” he told me. “You just need to be gentle with it.”
Right. It’s a car. You’re supposed to put the key in the ignition, turn it, and—voila—the engine should work. Gentleness has nothing to do with it. Still, I took to patting the steering column sympathetically before I put the key in and saying, “There, there, be a good car.”
Mostly, however, I blame my mother for the incident. She’s the one who’s always cautioning me about the massive criminal population who lurk around waiting for unsuspecting teenage girls to walk by so they can jump out and mug us.
I live in a city where half the population doesn’t lock their doors at night, but I’m still paranoid every time I leave work after dark. Wal-Mart is in the center of downtown. The parking lot is well lit, and there are two restaurants in the same strip mall. So it’s not like the place is abandoned even at nine o’clock, when I get off. Every few minutes somebody walks by.
I was only jumpy because of Mom.
I walked across the parking lot, jangling my keys like I was keeping rhythm to a song. Sheridan. I could see myself as a Sheridan, or maybe a Taylor. I checked among the shopping carts and parked cars. Nothing suspicious.
A quick glance over my shoulder revealed a teenage guy who had come out of Wal-Mart about a minute after me. His brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail. He wore some biker-looking leather jacket, and a couple of holes spread across the knees of his jeans. He strode across the parking lot in the same direction I was walking. Definitely a guy with “lurker” potential. I hurried to my Honda, got in, and locked the doors.
Of course, this didn’t actually make me safe. The front window was halfway rolled down, and since the windows are electric, I couldn’t roll it up until the car started.
I put the key in the ignition and turned it. Nothing happened.
I pulled the key out, put it back in, and patted the steering wheel. “Come on car, don’t fail me now.”
Nothing again. Not even the grinding sound I sometimes got when the car was being difficult.
“If you start, I promise I’ll stop calling you a go-cart-with-delusions.” I turned the key and got the same results. The car obviously knew I was lying.
Something moving outside my window caught my attention. I turned and saw the lurker guy standing two inches away from me, leaning down so he could look in the window.
“Ahhhhhhh!” I jumped so high my legs banged into the steering wheel and the keys tumbled from my hand into the darkness of the floor.
I stared back at him, my heart beating as quickly as I wanted the car to go. He’s just lost, I told myself. He wants directions or something. He has a perfectly legitimate reason for leaning up against my car.
He tilted his head at me and sounded impatient. “What are you doing in there?”
I had to find the keys. Keeping my eyes on him, I reached down to the floor, feeling for them. “Do you need something?” I asked.
“Yeah, I need you to get out.”
So that was it. He wasn’t even going to pretend to be anything but a criminal. Forgetting the keys, I grabbed my purse from the seat next to me. It was the only thing I could use as a weapon, and I held it unsteadily in front of my chest. I could swat his arms with it if he tried to reach in and unlock the door. “Get away from the car or I’ll scream!” I yelled.
He didn’t move away. In fact, I’m pretty sure he rolled his eyes.
I let out a scream at the top of my lungs. Unfortunately, I was still so frightened I choked on it halfway through, which made it sound more like a poor imitation of a yodel than a cry for help.
He looked around. I looked around. We were still alone in the parking lot.
“Are you going to get out now?” he asked.
Suddenly I remembered my cell phone. I unsnapped the flap of my purse. “I’m calling the police,” I told him.
He folded his arms.
“Yeah, you go ahead and do that.”
As I rummaged through my purse I kept glancing back up at him to make sure he didn’t reach into the car to unlock the door. I memorized his features so I could give an accurate description to the police.
He was at least my age, probably older. Maybe even in his twenties. It was hard to tell since he looked like a thug in his leather jacket and ponytail. He had dark brown hair and brown eyes that stared impatiently back at me. Square jaw. Broad shoulders, at least six feet tall. He wore a single gold earring. I would have thought him attractive if I’d seen him under other circumstances—which, sitting in the car searching for my phone, was a strange realization. At any rate, I’d definitely be able to pick him out of a lineup.
My fingers sifted through lipstick tubes, old receipts, a pack of gum, loose change, an emergency tampon, and then another emergency tampon because I can never remember whether I put one in my purse or not, a half-eaten power bar, my wallet, a hair scrunchy . . .
He put one arm on the top of the car. I could hear his fingers tapping against the metal. “The number is nine-one-one,” he told me.
Great, I was going to be mugged by a sarcastic criminal.
“Yeah, I know,” I told him. “I’ll call it as soon as I find my phone.”
More tapping from his fingers.
I’d reached the bottom of my purse. The phone wasn’t there. I started searching through the contents again, spilling them onto the seat in my hurry. I still didn’t find it. I must have left it home sitting on the charger.
“The nine is the number that looks like an upside-down six,” he said.
Sarcastic, and mocking to boot. I took a deep breath and tried to stay calm. “How about I just hand you my purse, and you go away.”
“No dice. I’ve seen your purse, and there’s nothing in it I want.”
He didn’t want my money. A bubble of panic caught in my throat. I screamed again, this time louder.
You’d think someone somewhere would have heard me and come out to see why I was screaming. No one did. The only effect my noise had was that the lurker guy took a step back from the car. While he did, I bent over, feeling along the bottom of the car until I found my keys. Fumbling with them a second, I took the Honda key and jammed it into the ignition. I wrenched it forward without any thoughts of gentleness.
Nothing.
I tried again, this time turning the key so hard it cut into my finger.
Still nothing.
The lurker guy bent over toward me, putting his hand on the top of the driver’s side window. With my purse I smacked at his fingers, spilling pencils, receipts, and loose change everywhere. And all the while I pumped the key with my other hand.
“Ow!” he yelled at me, but more with irritation than pain. He moved his hand away but tilted his head back toward the window. “Look, I don’t know what your problem is, but will you please just get out of my car?”
His car—he was a carjacker. No wonder he hadn’t taken my purse. He wanted my car. I tried desperately to start it a couple of more times.
If ever there was a time when I needed this stupid Honda to run, it was now—right now—but it wouldn’t. I jerked the keys out of the ignition in disgust.
“You want to steal this car? Fine. Go ahead. The joke’s on you because it won’t run. Good luck trying to get it out of the parking lot.”
He took a key chain from his jeans pocket and held it up for me to see. “Well, it usually helps if you have the right key.”
I stared at his hand for a moment, not realizing what he was saying. And then I saw it—behind him and off to the left. Another silver Honda sat in the parking lot. A silver Honda that inexplicably had my license plates.
I screamed again, but not loudly. It was more like a yelp of humiliation. I looked around at the seats, still not quite believing it. For the first time I noticed a circular charm with a figure of a man in a maze hanging from the rearview mirror.
“This isn’t my car!” I gasped.
“Yeah. Big surprise. Do you want to get out now?”
For another moment I sat stunned in the seat—staring at him, then at my car, then back at him. I shut my eyes, both relief and humiliation washing over me. I wasn’t going to be a mugging victim tonight, just a complete idiot. “I’m so sorry,” I sputtered. “It’s just I have a silver Honda too. See, it’s right over there, and I thought this was my car . . .” With shaking hands, I grabbed the stuff that had spilled out of my purse and shoved it back in. As I did some of my anger returned. “You know, you scared me to death. Why didn’t you just tell me this wasn’t my car?”
He shrugged. “I came out of the store, and some stranger was sitting in my car talking to it. What was I supposed to think?”
I slipped my purse over my shoulder, unlocked the door, and swung it open. “So you thought I was crazy?”
“Well, most people would have suspected something was wrong when their key didn’t work the first time.”
I stepped out of the car, glad he couldn’t see me blushing in the darkness. “Yeah, but my key turned in your ignition, and besides, my car only works half of the time anyway. It doesn’t like me.” And then because he might think I was crazy after all, I added, “I mean, the starter motor doesn’t work all of the time.”
He nodded as though this made perfect sense, but I knew he just wanted to get rid of me. “No harm done,” he said as he slid in. “Well, probably.” Then he looked at the ignition as though I might have broken it with all of my key twisting.
“Sorry,” I said again, then trudged over to my car, my keys still in my hand and my purse thunking against my side the whole way.
Stupid car.
Stupid lighting.
Stupid guys who think you’re crazy instead of calmly informing you that you’re sitting in the wrong car.
I yanked open my car door, dropped onto the front seat, and tossed my purse down beside me. I shoved my keys into the ignition, and turned them. The car mumbled a weak grinding noise in return.
I turned the keys again. More grinding.
Not again.
Not now when I really, really wanted to go home and forget this evening ever happened.
“Don’t do this to me, you horrible car,” I said, and not gently.
I tried the ignition again. And again. A pathetic clicking noise replaced the grinding noise.
For the fourth time that night, I screamed—although really softly, since I figured with my lousy luck someone would actually hear me this time, call the police, and then I’d have to explain why I was sitting alone in my car screaming.
I leaned back in my seat and reviewed what, if any, options I had that didn’t involve screaming—although technically speaking, everything I thought of involved screaming at my father when I got home for not fixing the car in the first place.
The other silver Honda pulled up next to mine, and the lurker guy rolled down his window. “Car problems?” he asked.
I nodded back at him limply. “The starter motor. Apparently it’s gone from working half the time to working none of the time.”
He draped his arm out the window. “Do you need a ride home?”
It was obvious I did, and really nice of him to offer, considering a few minutes ago I’d been smacking his hands with my purse and threatening to call 911 on him.
“Thanks, but I’ll just walk back into Wal-Mart and call my parents.” I shrugged and smiled, hoping he wouldn’t be offended. “My mom would totally freak if I got a ride home from a stranger. You know how parents are.”
“Yeah, I know.” He cut his engine, and then reached for something in his car. A moment later he held a cell phone out of his window. “Here— I’ll save you the walk back to the store.”
I reached for the phone, stretching my arm out as far as it could go, but it wasn’t enough. He leaned farther out his window to help me, and the phone brushed up against my fingertips.
“Got it?” he asked.
“Just about
.” And then I did have it—that is, it was in my fingers for a good two seconds before it slipped out of my hand. The crash sounded very much like plastic cracking against pavement.
Which is when I realized I was not just an idiot, I was a complete jerk because this guy tried to help me and I’d probably broken his phone. “I’m so sorry.” I flung open my car door, trying to find his phone on the pavement and praying I wouldn’t have to give it back to him in pieces. The darkness made it hard to see anything, and I bent over and peered underneath my car.
I saw nothing but a few rocks and indistinguishable litter.
His car door opened, then shut, and he joined me in my search. A second later he said, “I found it.”
I straightened up. “Is it broken?”
With a flick of his wrist, he flipped open his phone. “Doesn’t appear to be.”
He handed me the phone, and I held on to it firmly. I was not going to drop it this time. “Sorry,” I said again. My hands shook as I punched in my phone number. With the phone to my ear, I studied the lurker guy out of the corner of my eye—only I couldn’t think of him as a lurker anymore, since in our brief encounter it turned out he’d been the normal one and I’d been the deranged lunatic.
He leaned against his car with his arms folded, and watched me.
After a minute my little sister, Nicki, answered.
“Can I talk to Dad?” I asked.
“He’s not here.”
“Can I talk to Mom, then?”
“Not here either.”
“Well, where is everyone?”
“I’m here,” Nicki huffed. She’s fourteen and gets huffy easily.
“Yeah, but you can’t drive. Where are Mom and Dad?”
“They’re out grocery shopping. How come you need someone who drives?”
“Because my car won’t start. When will they be home?”
“I don’t know. Soon, I guess.” She didn’t sound overly concerned.
“Well, as soon as they get home, have them come pick me up, okay? I’m in the Wal-Mart parking lot.”
“Okay,” she said, but I could hear the sounds of the TV in the background and wasn’t sure if she was listening to me anymore.