The Wallflower

by Jan Freed

  The kids? Elaine marveled. As if Sarina wasn’t one of them herself. Gazing down at her completed quiz, Elaine knew the transfer student had already earned more respect from classmates than she had during three years at Roosevelt High. Not that she blamed them.

  How could she expect them to admire her when she didn’t even like herself?

  CHAPTER TWO

  AT 5:35 THAT EVENING, Jack shifted into Park, listened to the stuttering engine of his old Volvo, and fought an overwhelming urge to back out of the driveway and keep going until he reached Los Angeles. That’s where he needed to be. Near the film industry professionals in search of promising new screenplays. Far, far away from here.

  Having his own place would’ve helped ease this restlessness, he knew. But his modest salary wouldn’t cover a mortgage payment, apartment rent and living expenses for three people. The house would be paid off in two years, though. His sister would graduate in three. The future possibilities made his heart beat faster now.

  He leaned his head back, closed his eyes and succumbed to his favorite fantasy. Sleeping as late as necessary to recharge his brain. Reading the morning newspaper cover to cover. Doing lunch with his faceless-nameless agent to review his newest action thriller movie treatment. Then heading back home to sit at his computer long into the wee hours, the time the prankster god of creativity had seen fit to make Jack most productive.

  Heaven. Pure nirvana.

  Tap-tap-tap. “Jack?” a muffled voice called.

  He tensed against a stomach spasm, then lifted his head and opened his eyes. Outside the passenger door, Vera Morgan stood in the dusky twilight, her knuckles raised as if to knock again. She met his gaze and lowered her hand while he rolled down the electronic window.

  “Dinner’s ready,” she said, irritation sharpening her voice and hazel eyes. “What are you doing out here?”

  Only years of practice kept his own voice even. “I was listening to the engine idle. It needs a tune-up.” That much was true enough.

  “Oh. Well. I’m sure you’ll take care of it later. Hurry on inside before the pot roast gets cold. Your sister hasn’t had the courtesy to come home on time, so we might as well start without her.”

  Before he could speak, she turned and headed for the front door of the modest house they’d moved into after his dad had died. Her shirtwaist denim dress flattered a trim figure, her short dyed brown hair appeared freshly combed and sprayed. From the back she looked more like a girl than a fifty-three-year-old widow.

  It was only from the front that her deep frown lines marred the illusion of youth.

  Jack rolled up the window, cut the engine and reached for his spiral notebook. Where the hell was Kate, and why wasn’t she home yet? A fifteen-year-old girl should be safe inside by dark.

  Just then a deep rhythmic rumble vibrated the air, the Volvo’s dashboard, his very bones. He opened the door as a souped-up engine roared somewhere blocks away. Sliding from behind the steering wheel, he stood and shifted toward the sound, kept shifting as the source traveled closer and closer. High shrieks and laughter joined the dissonant pounding, the whole cacophony growing louder by the second, tensing his muscles, drawing his reluctant gaze toward the cross street fifty yards away.

  A black Chevy pickup burst into view, its bed sprouting fluttery arms and swaying torsos and a familiar white ski jacket that narrowed Jack’s gaze. Overshooting the corner, the truck nearly turned on two wheels and teetered. Startled screams of terror competed with the squeal of rubber tires against concrete.

  Miraculously, the pickup righted itself. Incredibly, nobody fell out. Unbelievably, by the time the Chevy braked to a stop in front of the Morgan house, the three girls and four guys in back were bragging in the hyperactive way of kids at the end of a roller-coaster ride.

  As Jack’s breathing returned slowly to normal, he singled out a pair of wary eyes and slammed shut the Volvo door.

  “Shit, it’s Mr. Morgan!” someone warned.

  Glowing cigarette butts arced from the truck to bounce against the street. In the sudden absence of voices, the deafening boom of a rap song rattled the truck windows.

  “Get inside, Kate,” Jack commanded.

  Kate’s mutinous gaze captured the waning light and glittered a challenge. She scrambled quickly over the side of the truck to the curb, called out, “Thanks for the ride, Tony,” to the shadowy driver, then whirled to run up the front walk. The sight of Jack’s purposeful stride toward the truck stopped her short.

  For an instant her face changed from a sullen stranger’s into the little girl he loved and had raised like his own daughter. Please, please, don’t embarrass me, she begged him silently.

  His heart twisted. He slowed his steps.

  “C’mon, Tony, get your ass in gear. I’ve gotta be home in five minutes,” an aggressive male voice yelled.

  Jack threw Kate a silent plea for understanding before loping out to the street and slapping a staying palm on the hood. Holding the driver’s surprised gaze through the windshield, he rounded the bumper and motioned to roll down the window.

  The glass lowered, releasing four hundred watts of subwoofer bass that nearly blasted his eyebrows off. So much for Tony’s upper register hearing range as an adult.

  “Turn it down,” Jack mouthed, slicing the air near his throat with an index finger.

  The rap song cut off midboom.

  His ears ringing, Jack peered inside the cab. Whew! It reeked of cigarettes, but at least not the unmistakable fumes of pot. No sign of alcohol. The boy’s dark brown eyes were clear, alert—and defensive as hell. Obviously Tony Baldovino hadn’t expected to run into Jack. And Roosevelt High’s star athlete wasn’t happy.

  That makes two of us, kid. Curling his fingers over the lip of the window, Jack adopted a neutral tone. “Hi, Tony. I didn’t know you and Kate were friends.”

  “We’re not,” Tony said, lifting a broad shoulder.

  Jack glanced over the cab roof at Kate’s stricken expression, then returned his gaze slowly to the person responsible.

  After several seconds Tony’s casual slouch straightened, his olive skin growing a shade paler. “Hey, I’ve seen her around school, okay? She asked me for a ride home from the mall.”

  Perfect. “She asked you for a ride?”

  “Yeah. Her and Pam.”

  “She and Pam,” Jack corrected absently, turning toward the back of the truck. He recognized and dismissed the four boys as part of Tony’S entourage at school. The girls were strangers to him. All three went into high alert under his appraisal.

  It used to fluster him; young girls preening and posturing for his attention, testing their budding sexuality on a male old enough to be forbidden, yet young enough to make the experiment exciting. Wendy had flirted so aggressively and persistently he’d resorted to cold rudeness in order to stop her advances. He’d never encouraged Wendy or any young girl. Never even been tempted.

  Memory of a pair of violet blue eyes, shrewd and mocking, kicked the air from his lungs. Damn, he didn’t need this!

  He refocused on the three faces painted as garishly as any hooker’s. “Which one of you is Pam?”

  A blonde with dark roots giggled and raised her hand.

  “Next time you’re with Kate and need a ride home, you have her call me, okay?” To soften his uncompromising tone, he added a full smile.

  Three pairs of heavily made up eyelids blinked. Three pairs of heavily glossed lips started to smile back. Four male snorts ranged from disbelieving to disgusted.

  “What’s the problem, man?” Tony asked, drawing Jack’s narrowed gaze.

  “The name is Mister Morgan. And the problem is your speeding. If you have a death wish, son, that’s for you, God and your counselor to work out. But don’t assume that eight other people want an early funeral, too. As the driver, you’ve got responsibility for everyone’s safety.”

  Tony turned and stared through the windshield, his Italian James Dean profile defiant and brooding. No wonde
r half the girls in school were infatuated with him.

  “We were havin’ fun,” he muttered. “Nobody got hurt.”

  “Nobody got hurt this time,” Jack amended, making sure his voice carried to the kids in back who thought themselves immortal. “When I was your age I hopped in the back of a pickup with a couple of buddies of mine for a ride through the neighborhood. No hot-rod stuff, just cruising past girls’ houses, honking and yelling our heads off and having ‘fun.’ The front tire hit a curb. Next thing I knew I was yelling again, staring at the bloody femur piercing right through my new pair of Wranglers.”

  Tony’s fascinated gaze swung slowly to Jack. The girls in back murmured, “Eeuuwww.”

  “One buddy got up without a scratch,” Jack continued, his focus turning inward. “The other one, my best friend, had landed on his head. We thought he was dead. He should’ve been dead.” The horror of that surrealistic scene shuddered through Jack, but still he kept it graphic. The kids needed to hear the truth. “Part of Jimmy’s skull had cratered. We could see bits of bones mixed in with his brain. Like fresh roadkill.”

  Swallowing hard, Jack forced himself to go on. “A neighbor called Jimmy’s mom. She got there right before the ambulances did. She and Jimmy were real close, you know? She took one look at him and made this...noise.” After sixteen years, Jack still had occasional nightmares about that sound. “She grabbed his hand and wouldn’t let go. Not for the neighbors. Not for the ambulance technicians. Not for the emergency room staff—they wheeled me in minutes after Jimmy. I heard that the doctors had to sedate her before they could get him up to OR.”

  Jack’s own mother had been pretty hysterical, too, but his dad had still been alive then to soothe and calm her down. It was the last crisis Brian Morgan had ever handled for his pregnant wife and their teenage son. Two months later Jack had inherited his dad’s role as head of the family.

  “So, what happened to Jimmy?” one of the girls asked in a subdued voice.

  Jack snapped back into the present. “Jimmy never came out of the coma. He weighs about seventy pounds now. His mom still visits him every day.”

  As he’d hoped, Tony looked distinctly uncomfortable. Jack held the boy’s gaze. “Let your friends call you a loser. Let them call you a wuss. Believe me, Tony, anything’s better than having their moms call you a murderer.”

  Registering the flicker of shock in deep brown eyes, Jack pushed off from the driver’s window and straightened. “Promise me you’ll drive these kids home safely.”

  Tony tried for a casual shrug, and failed. “Yeah, sure.”

  Nodding, Jack extended his hand and waited a long moment. Finally, the hand that spiraled the most accurate bullet passes in Roosevelt High’s history crept through the open window and clasped his for a firm shake.

  Satisfied with Tony’s new air of responsibility, Jack stepped back and watched the Chevy roll forward to about twenty-five miles per hour, maintaining that speed until it turned out of sight.

  Kate hadn’t moved from the front walkway, he saw with a start. Even more surprising, she waited for him to join her before heading for the door.

  “You never told me that story,” she said, her upward glance curious. The straight dark hair bisecting the back of her white jacket to the waist slithered to one side. “I mean, I knew you broke your leg before I was born, but I never knew how.”

  “And why would I want to admit how stupid I was at your age?” he asked, slinging an arm around her shoulders and drawing her in close. When she didn’t pull away, his spirits lightened a few tons. He’d save the lecture for later.

  “You mean you haven’t always been perfect? According to Mom and her friends, you have wings hiding under that shirt somewhere.” The bitterness in her voice told him just how much the constant criticism she received hurt.

  He stopped, gripped both of her shoulders and stared down at her dainty features. The thick eyeliner and bold lipstick failed to harshen a delicate beauty that would coil some poor bastard’s guts in the future.

  “Mother knows I’m far from perfect, Kate, but she’s scared I’ll leave her when you graduate. It’s in her best interest to treat me nicely these days.”

  Kate’s eyes widened, acknowledging the first adult confidence he’d shared with her. “Are you? Going to leave when I graduate, I mean.”

  Excitement flew aerial loops in his chest. “Maybe.” . He firmed his jaw. “Probably. I’m tired of trying to be perfect. It’s damn hard work. I’m more than ready to break a few commandments.” His sister’s astonished expression was so comical he chuckled.

  Her sudden devilish grin gave him pause. “I heard you had a new student today who broke a few of Morgan’s Commandments,” she said slyly, erasing his lingering grin. “What’s the matter, big brother, are you slipping up already?”

  How in hell had word spread so quickly about Sarina Davis? He’d spent a good part of the hours since she’d defied him wondering why he’d lost control of the situation; why he’d compromised one of his rules instead of marching her down to the administrative offices and letting her duke it out with Principal Miller or Assistant Principal Kaiser.

  “I’ve got everything under control,” Jack reassured himself as much as his sister. They resumed their companionable hip-to-hip stroll up the walk. “New students only get one second chance. Sarina used hers up the first five minutes of class. From now on, I treat her just like any other student.”

  There’s only one problem. Teach, an inner voice jeered as he opened the front door. Sarina ain’t like any other student.

  LYING ON A PLUMP peach love seat, Sarah contemplated the whirring brass ceiling fan of her new safe house. Since anyone tracking her might eventually check out Donna’s condominium, her grandmother’s guest house behind the stately Kaiser home had been a more sensible hiding. place.

  This way, Donna could visit under the pretense of seeing her grandmother. And the guest house was close enough to the school for Sarah to walk both ways.

  She rubbed her big toe absently against the blister forming on her opposite heel. “I’m telling you, Donna, I blew it. Between my defense of Generation X feminism in social studies, and my lecture to Moses in English class, Sarina Davis must be a hot topic in the teacher’s lounge.”

  “Kids mouth off every day,” Donna murmured from her matching position on the full-size sofa. “I’m sure it’s not that bad.”

  “This is me, remember? It’s that bad. I’ve gotten used to speaking my mind and having adults listen. This subservient student act is going to be much harder to pull off than I realized. Oh, and can you please get my schedule changed so I won’t be late to Mr. Morgan’s class?” Sarah rolled her eyes. “He probably has a list of ‘inappropriate’ students tacked up by the lounge coffeepot, and I’ve been added in red pencil. I can’t believe you actually like someone who’s so, so...”

  “Handsome?” Donna supplied.

  The image of a darkly masculine face popped into Sarah’s head.

  “Hardworking?”

  The image expanded to include broad shoulders huddled over a notebook, a tanned hand writing furiously.

  “Honorable? Heterosexual? C’mon, Sarah, you’ve got to admit he’s 4-H material,” Donna persisted, using the term they’d coined in college referring to prime date prospects.

  Sarah blinked, then narrowed her eyes. “Yeah, but two of those h’s stand for hard-nosed and highhanded.”

  “Jack’s a great guy.”

  Something in her friend’s tone made Sarah roll her head toward the statuesque red-haired beauty. Despite having just arrived after a school day lasting until six o’clock, Donna looked morning fresh. Amazing. Her conservative navy blue suit wasn’t even wrinkled.

  Moses would heartily approve.

  “Are you two dating?” Sarah asked.

  “We’ve...had coffee a couple of times.” The wistful gleam in Donna’s blue-gray eyes said coffee wasn’t the only thing she’d like to have with the man.

  �
��Donna, the guy’s a control freak. I swear I’ll go to sleep tonight hearing that stupid little...ding!” Sarah mimicked the annoying sound. “I kept waiting for him to yell, ‘Number eight, your order’s ready!’”

  Chuckling, Donna unclasped her barrette and massaged her scalp, creating splashes of wavy dark red against the peach fabric. The hothouse orchid blend of colors lent an exotic lushness to her classic beauty.

  “Jack may be a little strict,” she admitted, “But I admire his sense of responsibility. He’s been like a father to his younger sister Kate, and from what I gather, he’s pretty much supported his mother for years.”

  “Is his mother ill?”

  “Not physically,” Donna said, her dry tone implying an alternative. “Mrs. Morgan and I have had a few talks regarding her daughter. Kate is looking for trouble, but Vera refuses to deal with anything unpleasant. Any time I suggest that she take disciplinary action, she defers responsibility to Jack.”

  “Jack is—how old? In his early thirties?”

  “Thirty-two.”

  “Hmmm.” Sounded like Jack was a mamma’s boy who came with a lot of extra baggage her friend didn’t need. “Whatever happened to David what’s-hisname? The banker.”

  “The gigolo?” Donna said on a laugh, flapping a dismissive hand. “He got married two years ago to another bank customer and quit his job to be her ‘investment manager.’ Good riddance.” She toed off her navy pumps, wriggled her hosiery-webbed pedicure and arched her neck in a blissful sigh.

  Sarah’s focus blurred. When had her career become more important than keeping in touch with a treasured friend?

  “I’m sorry I involved you in this mess, Donna. I just...didn’t know where else to turn. Risking your job, buying me clothes, letting me stay here...it’s more than I deserve.” More than anyone else would’ve done for me.

  Even if her parents’ home in Fort Worth hadn’t been the first logical place a hunter would scope out, Sarah knew what she could’ve expected from Denise and Bob Davidson. Fierce hugs, followed by irritation because Sarah had inconvenienced their lives, finishing with escalating arguments between husband and wife over what their daughter should do. At which point Sarah would slip away and they wouldn’t even know it. She’d lived the same scene over and over during her childhood.