I raised my brows and followed her glance. “Well, don’t believe everything you hear,” I told her, though to be honest, so far everything she’d heard had been right. I looked to the right of my mom, where Josh nuzzled Candy’s neck.
Jane approached Josh from behind, scowling at the three girls who were watching her advance. I didn’t notice I was smiling her way, not until Hailey not so subtly pointed it out.
“You got a thing for bad girls, Zack? You look like you’re going to leave a puddle of drool on the floor.”
“Hardly.” I paused. “Is Jane a bad girl?”
“Well, look at her.” She gestured her head towards Jane.
“Looks are deceiving…that’s what my mom always tells me.”
“Your mom?”
I didn’t answer, but I wasn’t embarrassed by my relationship with my mom. She’s one of my favorite people in the world. Didn’t matter to me that I was supposed to hate her at my age. Sometimes she pissed me off, the way she talked about hockey as if it were the most important thing in life. And then there was her refusal to see the truth sometimes. But mostly she’s my rock.
“Jane is totally dark. She hasn’t worn anything besides black since eighth grade. And, all she ever does is read at the rink.” Hailey shook her head.
“I don’t think that makes her bad.”
“Morose then.” Hailey’s eyes squinted suspiciously.
“Nothing wrong with angst. We’re teenagers, right?”
She blinked at me. “You for real, Zack?”
“That’s what they tell me. You for real, Hailey?”
She stuck her tongue out at me. I laughed.
I liked her. She was blunt and got points for not being afraid to use big words. Vocabulary makes most kids my age nervous. I liked that words made them uneasy and approved of Hailey’s choices. My eyes drifted back to Jane. She’d pulled out car keys from her layers of clothing and dangled them in her thin fingers.
“Jane drives Josh to all his practices and to most of the games when the team doesn’t take the bus. He’s not allowed to drive since he failed a Breathalyzer last year. Jane is stuck chauffeuring around Candy and her friends sometimes, too. She really hates it.”
“I bet she does.”
My glance moved back to my mom and aunt. Mom motioned to her wrist, tapping her watch.
“Well, it looks like I’ve got to go. It was nice meeting you. Hailey.”
“You too, Zack.”
“I’ll see you at school,” she said. “People have been madly reporting Zack spottings on-line since you moved here. You’ll probably be swarmed by the curious. If you need help finding your way around, or if you feel like the newest animal at the zoo, look for me.”
I nodded, pushing myself away from the counter and walking away from Hailey. I pitched my half-empty Coke into the trashcan as I approached Josh with his sister and the other three girls.
“See you around, Josh.” I turned to his sister. “Drive safely. He’s an important hockey player.” I winked at her.
She made a face at me. It wasn’t a nice face.
I saw my mom and aunt watching. They both appeared a little startled by her expression.
I picked up my hockey bag. “Come on. Let’s go.”
My mom and aunt followed behind me.
As we strode through the parking lot, my mom hurried to catch up to me. “Who was the unpleasant girl with the serious fashion issues?” she asked. Mom wasn’t exactly following the fashion police rules for women her age; she dressed in jeans and form-fitting t-shirts. She looked good, but different from most of the other moms--who usually wore mom jeans with sweater sets.
“I don’t know,” my aunt interrupted. “I kind of liked her look.” For once I was happy about her desire to be involved in every conversation my mom and I had.
“I would be gothic and mysterious if I were sixteen.” Aunt Diane gestured down to her Levi’s jeans and plaid shirt, topped with a down vest. I smiled, thinking of the lesbian comment.
“I think I would wear really short skirts to show off my youthful legs,” my mom said. “All I ever wore when I was a teenager were pants and jeans. God, Diane, remember when we didn’t have any worries about cellulite, even though we lived on French fries with gravy?”
I tuned them out as they dove into a conversation about their long-lost youth, speedy metabolism, and great legs. My mom handed over the car keys, knowing I’d take every opportunity I could to practice driving. I clicked the car doors open using the remote, and held the back door for my aunt. My mother scooted around to the other side to hop in the passenger seat beside me.
Across the parking lot, Jane climbed into the driver’s seat of a Pathfinder, while the other three girls giggled around her and Josh got into the passenger seat.
Something about Jane intrigued me. She was different. Chances were she was smart. I liked that. She was good-looking, but obviously not caught up in her looks. She actually tried to disguise them. She was the total opposite of Claire. Proper, conservative Claire, who, as Hailey helpfully pointed out, broke my heart.
Jane was the anti-Claire. And I was definitely interested to find out more.
CHAPTER TWO
SUPERSTUD
Haletown wasn’t so different from Kirkdale. Same stuff, different faces. People stared at me. In the hallway, in my classrooms. Mostly I ignored the eyeballs. I spoke with those who spoke to me. After they saw I was a boring dude who didn’t do anything out of the ordinary, life at Jefferson High turned out to be pretty much like life at most of the other schools I’d gone to.
There were cool kids and kids who were not. Sometimes it was more a question of what a guy considered cool. A few weeks in, and I’d already figured out who belonged to which groups. The Haves and the Have Nots. There were Jocks, and the kids who dated them. The Heads smoked pot in on school grounds. The Arts were drama or rock and roll wannabes. Then there were the token Freaks and Losers, and a whole lot of people in the middle somewhere, all trying to find a place fit in. Like Jane and Cassandra.
I drifted on the edges of acceptability. No one had any bones to pick with me. The Jocks acknowledged me without getting too chummy. The Heads and the Arts left me alone, probably because of my size. And I preferred it that way. No allegiance to anyone. A lone wolf.
By mid-October, the Huskies were on a losing streak. I tried to care, but for the first time in my life, it was hard to work up the energy. I just wasn’t motivated. Mac showed zero interest in us playing like a team. The other guys were afraid of him and wasted time trying to make Mac shine. I didn’t have the patience to show them what we were capable of when Mac wasn’t spouting off and hogging the puck. So other than certain girls in the crowd, hockey actually kind of sucked. I lacked my usual drive to be the best, to win, and to stand out. I knew I wasn’t playing with any sort of passion, but I really couldn’t pinpoint exactly why or what I could do about it. Mom, on the other hand, worried about it often and none too quietly.
On this day at school, I navigated crowded hallways, trying not to be too obvious as I checked out Jane at her locker during the mad rush to change classes.
“Ouch! Hey, Superstud, watch where you’re going.”
I screeched to a halt and stumbled, trying not to bowl over Hailey. People swarmed around us, voices buzzing in the air. The rush was on, with students rushing to lockers, classrooms, or off to a free period. Everyone was in a hurry.
Hailey planted herself in front of me, clutching her books to her chest the way she always did, as if she were trying to cover the size of her boobs. She looked at me with the patronizing, yet sympathetic expression she seemed to favor whenever she talked to me. Which was a lot these days. We’d become buddies. Friends, even.
“Sorry, Hailey. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.” I glanced at Jane’s locker, then quickly back at Hailey.
“I noticed. You’re staring at your girlfriend again.” Hailey blatantly moved her eyes to where I’d been starin
g.
Trust Hailey to notice I’d been focusing on Jane, who leaned against her locker talking to her best friend, an overweight but flamboyant girl wearing a long dress with colorful scarves draped around her neck. Her short spiked hair must have kept at least one gel company in business.
“I don’t know why you didn’t fall in love with me instead,” Hailey said. “God knows it would have made your life a lot easier.”
I turned my attention to her and opened my mouth to speak.
“No. Stop. Don’t humiliate me with an actual answer,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I was kidding, anyway. I know, I know. We’re friends. My charms are lost on you.”
I grinned, glancing for a moment at Hailey’s books blocking her abundant chest.
“Your charms are so not lost on me, Hailey,” I teased. Who was I, not to notice her assets?
She smacked my arm with her hand.
“No, really, I was talking about your unique personality.” I laughed.
“You’re lucky I decided to be your friend at all.” She squeezed her books again and glared at me.
“I didn’t have much choice did I?” I grinned. “Don’t worry. I’m just kidding. You’re da man.”
The truth was, in the almost two months I’d been at school, she was my only real friend, besides some of the hockey players on my team. And those male friendships were superficial at best. The guys didn’t know how to take me. I was one of them, but not really one of them. I wanted to be the best, but I didn’t. My head was messed up.
Somehow, Hailey had figured me out and she was okay with me being odd. How could I not be? I’ve been hanging out with my mom and moving for most of my life. Hailey sensed I didn’t fit in, using the radar misfits seem to have for each other. She’d apparently decided to take me on, maybe as a project or something. The unhockey, hockey player.
“You know, Zack, since I’m probably the only virgin in this whole school, you’re better off chasing other girls anyways.” She smiled to show she joked about me loving her. But she didn’t appear to be joking about the virginity part.
I didn’t bother telling her she was wrong, and as a matter of fact, I was a virgin, too. But what Hailey didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.
How I ended up a virgin at my age, me, a decent looking hockey player with plenty of opportunity, was mostly due to a cruel twist of fate named Claire. In ninth grade, I gave my heart to Claire. And she didn’t go all the way. I didn’t mind. I mean, I wasn’t wild about waiting for her, but I waited. I thought I loved her, and I didn’t want to make her do something she’d regret. And she seemed to be getting closer....
Then, after denying me for almost two years, when she found out I was moving, she got really drunk at my going away party. She disappeared, and when I finally found her, she was in the bushes going at it with another guy.
For the first time since I’d known her, Claire went past second base. Too bad it wasn’t with me. Instead, she experimented with Neil, a guy on my hockey team. After I found them together, I just took off. On my way out, I turned back and saw her puking her guts all over the same bushes. Neil appeared to have vanished.
I’d almost gone to her. But in the end, I didn’t.
After that, it was pretty clear we were over. I mean, what do you say after that? She didn’t even try to call me.
From what I heard, she tried dating Neil for a few weeks, but it didn’t work out. I could have saved her the grief. Neil wasn’t renowned for his ability to be with only one girl at a time. I was almost more pissed at him. Claire was acting really immature, but he was just an asshole.
It’s one of the reasons Hailey slipped so easily into the role of best friend. She’d never steal my girlfriend.
I shook off thoughts of Claire and turned my attention back to Hailey.
“Hey, what’s this virgin thing? What about Josh Parker?” I still remembered what Josh had said the night I met Hailey.
“Oh God.” Hailey’s face changed color and her eyes wandered around the hallway, which was quickly thinning out as people dashed to class. “I never really slept with him. I know he’s told people, but I didn’t know he’d said that to you. He was so drunk, he doesn’t even remember what happened. All I did was take him home. Maybe we kissed a little, but I’m not desperate or anything. Anyhow. I don’t mind. It makes me sound more exciting.”
“You think it sounds exciting? I think you’re crushing.” I’d seen her looking at Josh when she didn’t know I was watching.
“You’re the one with the crush.” She peeked over at Jane, who had pushed away from her locker. “Not me.”
I followed her gaze. Jane didn’t know we were watching. Her head was thrown back, laughing. Her feminine, soft-looking neck was visible because she’d pulled her dark hair into a ponytail. With her hair off her face, the scowl replaced with a smile, she was really cute.
She turned her head slightly and then her eyes met mine. Suddenly she stopped smiling. Across the hallway, she stared at me for a second, emotionless, and not quite frowning. Then she lowered her gaze to her feet. My stomach performed a tribal dance.
“Damn,” I said out loud.
Hailey started to laugh.
“I can’t believe you’re falling for her.”
“I’m not.”
She laughed some more. “Sure, Zack. Whatever you say. You know she’ll never go out with someone like you.“
I shrugged. The truth was, I couldn’t stop thinking about Jane, and I saw her at practice almost every day. No matter when we were in the rink, she was almost always there, sitting in the warmest part of the arena, sipping hot chocolate and reading her books. Every once in a while I’d look up from a scrimmage, and then I’d catch her watching with those amazing, dark-rimmed eyes. For some reason, without even talking to me, she’d managed to get under my skin.
I started walking again.
“You going to Mac’s Halloween party?” Hailey asked.
I shrugged. Mac, otherwise known as Trevor MacDonald, announced he was throwing a Halloween party at practice last week.
“You might want to dress up as a captain,” he said to me. “It’s a dress-up party, after all. You may as well act out your fantasy.”
The other guys laughed nervously, but I’d just smiled. He’d obviously heard rumors about our coach talking to me about taking over as captain. The coach wasn’t too pleased with the team’s losing streak, or with Mac’s total lack of leadership.
I turned the coach down. I wasn’t really into it. I didn’t need the “C” on my chest to know I was a better player. Plus, I didn’t want the responsibility. Mac didn’t seem to need the extra hassle of having his leadership tested, either. My mom frothed a little when I told her. She wanted me to go for it, forget about Mac’s ego or the fact that his dad was a crazed maniac. Sometimes, actually most of the time, my mom is way more competitive than I am.
We agreed to disagree. She wants so badly for me to make it as a hockey player at almost any cost. It’s because of my dad--as if she can somehow bring back a part of him if I follow down his golden career path. Like I’d ever aspire to be like “dear old dad.”
Mac had been playing with the Huskies all through high school, and he’d been captain every year. Far as I could tell, he was the product of the kind of a father who made headlines in local papers. And I don’t mean good headlines, either. His dad yelled at referees and called the opposition swear words from the stands. Very embarrassing. He timed shifts and came down on the coach if Mac wasn’t getting enough ice time. Even though Mac was an asshole, I could relate to living in a father’s shadow.
I wrote off most of his dorky behavior because of his dad. Of course, his dad hated me, too. And my mom. Because we all knew I played better than Mac could ever hope to move on the ice.
“You listening?” Hailey asked, bringing me back to the school hallway.
I glanced towards Jane’s locker, but by now she was gone. I started walking towards my next class. Hailey followe
d me, nipping at my heels like a puppy. A cute one, but kind of annoying.
“You know Jane will be there, right? At Mac’s party?” Hailey pulled on an amber curl.
I watched the curl stretch out and then snap back to her head. I looked in her eyes to see if she was playing me.
“I’m totally serious. Here’s the thing. The only way Josh can go to the party is if Jane drives him there and home. So I heard him begging her after practice. Candy’s going, and he isn’t going to let her loose at the party without him there to watch her. And for good reason, too. He was trying to bribe Jane.”
Hailey’s job at the arena had benefits. Eavesdropping, included.
I shrugged. “So she’s going to go?”
Hailey smiled and nodded. She bounced up and down on her heels. I stopped. I’d reached my next class.
“So are you going?” Hailey asked.
“Are you?” I peeked into the classroom where I needed to be within seconds.
“Me?” She started to laugh. “You think they invited me?”
“They did if you come with me,” I told her. “And, I just invited you.”
She stared at me. “Kewl. A friend with privileges. So to speak. All right! I’ll come with you. Somebody’s got to keep you out of trouble. It’s a dress-up party, you know.”
I glanced back into the classroom. Kids were taking their seats, but Mrs. Smiley hadn’t sat down yet.
“What are you going to dress as?” I asked Hailey.
“I don’t know. Hey, I’m thinking, maybe Cupid. I have a morbid sense of humor.” She laughed with her big baying laugh.
I shook my head and started walking into the classroom. “I gotta go, Hailey. I’ll call you later,” I said over my shoulder.
We both knew I was going to the party because I wanted to see Jane outside school or the hockey rink.
I walked down a narrow aisle of empty desks and sat in the middle of the classroom, beside a couple of girls who were like a pair of Siamese twins.
“That your girlfriend?” The more outgoing one asked as I sat.
PLAYING FOR KEEPS Page 2
