The Bookworm Next Door: The Expanded and Revised Edition

by Alicia J. Chumney

  When the world was trying to sleep.

  All six Matheson siblings, Laurel, and their parents were crowded around the table, waiting for either an announcement from the couple or for Mrs. Matheson to drop the food in the middle of the table for them to fight over.

  After waiting a few minutes and pointedly looking at Evan, she got up and brought out two baskets filled with rolls, followed by the ham she placed in front of her husband. Mashed potatoes with butter in front of the couple. Green bean casserole. Corn on the cob. A bowl filled with salad that only three people would end up eating from. Four people if she could get her husband to take some without yelling at him in front of Mr. and Mrs. Grant. It wouldn’t look good if he started yelling around Evan’s future in-laws.

  Jennifer looked at all of her siblings while her mother brought in the food, refusing any of her children’s assistance. Even Jennifer remembered the giant accidental food fight one Thanksgiving when she was six. She wouldn’t touch green beans for a year.

  Chaotic or not, they all knew how things were going to happen. Mr. Matheson would say grace and carve the ham. The other food bowls would pass around the table until they returned to their original places. Then the meat would be passed around. Then they would start talking again and chaos would reign supreme.

  Except this time everybody looked at Evan and Laurel. And waited. Silently.

  “They know,” he whispered, knowing it would still be heard in the quiet dining room.

  “You think?” Laurel whispered back. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a ring. “We’re getting married!” she announced as she held up her left hand.

  Mrs. Matheson jumped up excitedly to give her soon-to-be daughter-in-law and the Grants a hug. Gage, sitting closest to Evan smacked him on the back. Walker started talking excitedly to Julius. They had a bachelor party to plan.

  “No strippers!” Laurel stated firmly, drawing everybody’s attention to her until they noticed where she was glaring.

  “Come on,” was over-ruled with, “I’m agree with Laurel.”

  Then, the very words that sent fear racing down Jennifer’s back. “Jen, will you be a bridesmaid?”

  Visions of dresses with ruffles and butt bows crossed her mind as Jennifer calmly answerer, “Certainly.” She automatically started plotting ways to get out of it.

  Then the other brothers started shouting about never seeing Jennifer in a dress before and if was Laurel certain she wanted to jumpstart the end of the world by putting Jennifer in a dress?

  She wanted to curl up in a corner with the bowl of mashed potatoes and a basket of rolls and stuff her face. Maybe if she gained twenty pounds Laurel would change her mind. It would work if she didn’t have Track to keep her in shape.

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Prom season meant that Aimee Kirkland had to watch everybody initiate ‘cute’ prom proposals. The balloons and flowers. That one baseball player who paid the announcer to ask his girlfriend in the middle of the game with the local rival team.

  She even had to deal with David Carver asking Delilah to Prom by buying her a bunch of books with the word “Prom” in the title. She knew they would be going in the boring bookworm’s locker. He’d been leaving her books in there all year, but this was the first time that he actually came in the bookstore instead of sending his mother after the books.

  “Hello, David,” she purred, touching his hand as he slid the books over to her. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m fine,” he answered stiffly, wishing that he could have sent his mother after these books, but without a set list it she would have refused to help her son. David wondered if she would try to touch him again when he handed over his debit card. Mr. Ray wouldn’t like to know that his cashier was flirting with his customers and he really needed to get a card reader that the customers could use. “I’m in a hurry.”

  “What’s the hurry?” she whispered, batting her eyelashes at him.

  He wanted to tell her that she looked ridiculous. Her fake lashes were too big and one looked like it was coming unglued. “I’m meeting Delilah,” he said instead, grabbing his bag and card before escaping through the door.

  “I’ll see you later!” Aimee called after him.

  But watching Delilah getting her invite wasn’t the point that nearly broke her. It was watching Garrett Bryant ask Kelly to the Prom. He just walked right up to her and asked. Aimee watched Kelly excitedly say yes and tell him about the dress she had already bought. How she had no problem sharing a limo with Will and his date.

  She knew that they were still friends, even after everything else from the previous semester. Aimee just wondered why watching Will and Kelly make prom plans – with their dates - without her hurt so much.

  It hurt even more when nobody asked her to be their date except for the sleazy guy with bad breath that nobody else wanted to go out with. To make it worse, he’d said, “I’ve already asked five other girls, but I’m hoping that your answer will be different. Will you let me rock your socks at Prom?”

  He’d planned it all perfectly. He’d even talked to the masters of sweet romantic gestures: David and Kyle. David had his book plan. Kyle asked Grace to Prom through the school newspaper.

  That didn’t stop the tiny bit of doubt that hung around the back of Wesley’s head. Jennifer was not like the other girls. She had five older brothers and very few female influences. She wasn’t like Delilah with two older sisters and a hopeless romantic streak a mile wide. Heck, everybody knew what Delilah’s favorite book was and the famous literary couple between its covers.

  Even Grace had a small handful of younger sisters mixed in with her younger brothers – even today he wasn’t certain how many siblings Grace had; he’d just learned that her parents were strict Catholics.

  David and Kyle’s suggestions were not going to work with a tomboy.

  Taking his phone out, he sent a quick text to the person he’d brought in to help him. Cancel plans. Forming Plan B

  A few moments later, What am I supposed to do with 25 balloons?

  Sell them to somebody who looks like he’s panicking about how to ask somebody to the prom? Wesley texted back the suggestion, adding And keep the money.

  What was the cost of twenty-five helium-filled balloons anyway?

  No, Wesley had to come up with Plan B.

  “Can you believe it?” Kelly squealed, bouncing up and down while holding her lunch tray. “Garrett Bryant asked me to Prom!” Taking a deep breath, she slid into the seat next to Jennifer. “Hannah, are you going? You can catch a ride with me and Will? We’re all pitching in for a limo. Although,” she looked at Delilah and Grace, “you two can join in and we can get one of those limos that can hold like ten people.”

  Jennifer swore – silently – that if Kelly hadn’t been sitting down she’d still be jumping around excitedly.

  “Jennifer?” she asked.

  “Umm…” Jennifer hesitated. “I’ll have to get back to you on that.” Even barely listening she still heard Kelly’s offer for her and Wesley to share in the expense of the limo.

  She just didn’t know if she would be going to the Prom with Wesley. Everybody assumed she would because they always went out together whenever there was a group date for bowling or the movies or something.

  Jennifer and Wesley knew that not everybody had realized that they had broken up. She understood that not making the knowledge well-known meant that her dates were limited to those group dates and whenever they decided to go out to get out of their respective houses.

  No, Jennifer had a theory that very few high school relationships lasted and that the allotment of forever relationships was already filled with Hannah and either Delilah or Grace. She couldn’t explain where her theory came from. Maybe it was from watching her older brothers. Maybe she had a realistic approach to high school relationships.

  She actually felt more strongly about the potential for former high school classmates reconnecting years later once they started to mature
more.

  Besides, as she had told Wesley, she had more important things to deal with. She was in the middle of Track and Field season and desperately was trying to get an athletic scholarship – in addition to the almost guaranteed academic scholarship she’d get for being in the top three of her class – to help supplement her limited college funds.

  Still, she poked at her salad and hamburger – Jennifer willingly paid extra to get both – instead of eating either of them.

  “Jenn,” Wesley whispered, sitting down in front of her, “you need to eat. You have a track meet today.”

  “I know,” she whispered back while she ignored his nickname for her. She couldn’t get him to stop calling her that no matter how much she complained. “We’re expecting a recruiter for me today.”

  But that wasn’t why she was picking at her food. She was wondering why Wesley hadn’t asked her to Prom yet.

  If it hadn’t been for her brothers advising her to give Wesley a few more days she would have already started demanding answers from him.

  Wesley knew a few things.

  He knew that his father had let him borrow the SUV to get them all to Jennifer’s track meet two hours away.

  He knew that they would have to be careful to keep her from noticing that they were in the stands, even though they’d often made the trip after school to watch her meets.

  If keeping hidden wouldn’t work – and he seriously doubted that it was possible – he’d have to keep those signs hidden until after Jennifer’s last race. That might be the bigger problem.

  She knew they were in the stands.

  The recruiter was sitting at the top of the stands near the finish line. He wasn’t sitting up there alone.

  Her friends were sitting behind her teammates, trying to be supportive and not disruptive at the same time.

  Honestly her teammates liked it when her friends came to cheer them on. Often Kyle and Grace would be working on homework. Mark and Penny would be sitting near each other, but talking to other people. Usually it was people from other teams. Delilah and David would be flitting about everywhere; David often found people he knew from the other schools and he enjoyed showing Delilah off.

  Jennifer was a bit surprised that Delilah wasn’t reading whatever David had stashed in her locker for that week – The Hobbit – but didn’t think anything about it.

  She was down in the front, stretching and getting ready for her final race. Fifteen hundred meters didn’t seem like a lot, only four laps around the track, but she knew she was worn out after her mad dash down the last 200 meters. This time, instead of going and spending some time with her friends after the 1500 meter race, she had sat down by herself and popped in her headphones. She really wanted to recover after that second place finish.

  She needed to rest for the 800 meter race.

  Wesley sent David a text to let them know to get back over to where the others were waiting. Jennifer’s race was about to start and they needed to be in position for when Jennifer returned to the stands.

  He couldn’t think of anybody else who’d taken such pains to come up with the right way to ask somebody to the prom. He’d worked several days on the signs and had threatened to strangle somebody if they spilled anything on them before the signs had served their purpose. Everything was planned out. Jennifer was eager for this race, but he couldn’t let everybody raise the signs up until after she had finished her run. It wouldn’t do for her to get distracted during this important race. Not with a recruiter – or three – in the stands.

  Wesley knew that she was a bit annoyed about how long it was taking him to ask her to the Prom. She’d even sent him a few pointed hints. Delilah had raved about the other girl’s dress and strongly hinted at flowers in Jennifer’s favorite color. He had noticed Jennifer looking at him whenever the other girls were talking about their Prom plans; including the limo he had already paid their part of in advance.

  He could see her getting in position, spikes on her feet instead of her every day running shoes. Two laps. That’s all it would take. Two laps.

  “Remember,” he turned to the others, “Don’t hold up your signs until she passes that finish line.”

  She could hear the cheering from the stands. The support from her friends. She was secretly thrilled that they’d thought to come to this race. It scarcely mattered that she already qualified for Regionals with her time from the previous week’s races. Wesley had been there for that race.

  But, she knew what she had to do. Within seconds she blocked out all noise except for her coach and the officiant on the sidelines. She wasn’t the only racer aware of the recruiters in the stands. She knew that any of these girls would try their hardest to beat her just to get noticed.

  This was her race. She’d been training for four years to get to this point. She’d even suffered through Cross-Country at her coach’s recommendation. She hadn’t been running for four years to let some sophomores and juniors mess everything up now.

  “On your marks,” she heard.

  Steady.

  “Get set.”

  Damn. Some freshman got too eager. One less person to deal with. Jennifer settled back into position, shaking her arms loose as she waited for the freshman to get off the track.

  “Let’s try this again,” the lady on the sidelines chuckled. “Tough crowd.” Taking a deep breath, “On your marks.”

  Steady.

  “Get set.”

  Steady.

  “Go!”

  Two laps. That’s all it would take. Two laps.

  She took off running, remembering to pace herself until the last third of the race. She even let some of the juniors get ahead of her in the curve, not that it was that difficult when everybody had to stay in a lane until they reached the marker at the end of the curve.

  Okay. There went the freshmen. The people from that school that tried to distract me during the 1500 meter. The juniors.

  She passed every single one of them.

  It was the seniors that she would be keeping pace with for the next 400 meters. It wouldn’t do for them to think they couldn’t beat her until the last 100 meters when she would give it her all in the straightaway.

  The crowds were a distance buzz. She could hear her coach yelling, “Run, Jennifer, run!” The sentiment echoed among her teammates, except the sophomore she’d already passed.

  Two hundred to go. As soon as she made it around that final curve she’d find the last of her energy reserve and sprint down the remainder of that track.

  She’d have to do it again for the 400 meter, but she’d have time for a break then. Wait until her friends saw her race that one.

  But this was her race.

  One by one the other seniors either slowed down or were passed. Jennifer expected about a seven-second gap between her and second place.

  It wasn’t until she passed the finish line did she allow herself to notice her surroundings. Except for her coach coming down to congratulate her, she noticed nobody else. No other noise. Until…

  “Hey, Jenn!” Wesley shouted. “Congratulations!”

  Looking up in the stands, she noticed the words. “Will you go to prom with me?” Each one of her friends was holding one of the words with Wesley holding the “me?”

  “One second,” she said to her coach, before shouting, “YES!” into the stands.

  Turning back to her coach, she waited for him to give her the times he’d recorded down, to congratulate her on her improved times – she’d cut three seconds off of her previous time –, and sent her into the stands to give her ‘boyfriend’ a sweaty hug. “Don’t forget about the 400,” he reminded her before preparing for the next race.

  Grabbing her water bottle from where she had left it, she climbed the stands to where Wesley was standing. “I was starting to think you were never going to ask me.”

  “I don’t know where you got that idea.”

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Jennifer wisely did not ignore Delilah’s summon
s to get dressed for Prom over at her house. “All you need to do is shower, shave, and dry your hair. Don’t style it. My sisters will help take care of our makeup and everything else.”

  Some of those words were enough to get Jennifer to start a mental stream of profanity that would have made her brothers blush. Well, maybe her brothers’ significant others. Or Penny.

  Yes, definitely Penny.

  But on the other hand, once Jennifer’s panic receded, she acknowledged that she did want to look pretty for Wesley. They might not be in a relationship, but she still wanted to look nice for him. She still wanted to knock his socks off.

  That’s why she found herself with Grace and Delilah in Charlotte’s room. The college sophomore had agreed to help out. There was also the added benefit that Samantha wanted to try out several formal hairstyles for her upcoming wedding that summer.

  That would be one of the two weddings where Jennifer would have to wear a dress. In one summer. She couldn’t wait for it to be over.

  But when they looked at Jennifer and back at themselves, Samantha acknowledged that they couldn’t go ‘fancy’ on Jennifer. “It just won’t work. She won’t look right.”

  “Well, what should we do?”

  “I don’t know,” Samantha tilted her head. “Have you ever curled your hair?”

  Jennifer looked between the sisters, “I don’t know. My mom might have when I was little.”

  Charlotte looked at Samantha, “So we don’t know if it’ll hold.”

  “It might if we use enough hairspray.”

  “And if we use the wand instead of the curling iron.”

  The sisters went back to looking at her. She could hear Delilah putting on Grace’s makeup in the other room. Delilah had escaped with the other girl once Charlotte had finished Grace’s hair.