I don’t want to be one of those people who give themselves a pep talk to ease their nerves but I can’t help it. He is just a boy. Albeit the most gorgeous boy you’ve ever seen but still, just a guy.
“You could get lost but you would probably find your way since this town is pretty small.”
I realize his question was rhetorical and not an actual question. He smiles the way you’d smile at someone who has brain damage, cautiously.
I turn around to walk away but see Amber waving at me like she’s shooing away a stray dog. If I go back to the table without making plans with Jamie I’ll never hear the end of it and I’ll be suffering through hours of N*sync and I think that might be worse than embarrassing myself in front of the new boy.
“You don’t get many newcomers here, do you?” Jamie asks, as he pulls a piece of cheese off the pizza and shoves it in his mouth.
I grab a grilled cheese sandwich from under the heat lamps and pull some money from my bag as we reach the cash register.
“That will be $5.74,” an elderly lady with hair netting says to me.
Before I have a chance to hand her the money Jamie launches his arm in front of me and hands the woman a $20 dollar bill. “This should cover both of us,” he says.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I say as I stare at the soggy sandwich on my tray.
“Sure I did, because now you have to show me around as thank you,” he says as, he takes a sip of soda. “Come on, April. What’s the harm in showing the new guy around?”
“Don’t you see it?”
“See what?”
“These,” I tug at the metal surrounding my neck.
“Yes I see them. So what?”
He isn’t even looking at them, it's like they aren’t there. ”Don’t they scare you?”
Jamie smiles and leans into me. “The only thing that scares me is driving right into the Atlantic because someone won’t show me around this strange little town.”
From the looks of it most of the girls in here would happily volunteer to show him around, they’re staring at him like he’s Channing Tatum, but he wants to spend time with me? This is surreal but Amber hasn’t left me much of a choice.
I take a deep breath; close my eyes and say, “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yes, fine, I’ll show you around.” I cannot believe I just said that.
“I thought your busy schedule wouldn’t allow for such debaucheries.” Seriously? I just changed my mind about showing him around and he is mocking me?
“I’ve had a clearing in my schedule. So if you still want me to, I’m happy to show you what life in Perkins Harbor is really like and don’t worry we’ll avoid the ocean.”
Jamie smiles wide enough to show teeth and I feel like I am about to melt into a substance formerly known as April.
“How about tomorrow night?”
“Sure, I’ll give you my address, if you think you can find my house in one piece.”
“Oh I am sure I can manage.”
This is it; the moment I know my entire life is about to be seriously messed up.
~5~
Marlo slid into the brace and almost immediately she knew life was going to change. The brace, tight and cold against her skin, clung to Marlo like a baby clinging to its mother. She felt trapped and knew that if she didn’t get out of there soon it would be too late. and although there was air she felt like she couldn’t breathe.
I found my muse and this is all I have to show for it? I always hear authors talking about their muse and how once they find it they can’t stop writing so why have I been sitting here staring at the cursor blinking and taunting me for the last hour? I’ve been thinking about this story ever since Dr. Meresh showed me the original brace. Marlo, my protagonist, is a teenage girl whose life gets turned upside-down when she gets trapped in a back brace. But in the book the brace gives Marlo the power of invisibility. Something I sometimes wish I had. “This book could be really cathartic for you,” my mom had said when I told her about it on the ride home from Dr. Meresh two-years-ago. I know writing a book takes time but shouldn’t I have more written by now?
“Hey Ape,” Amber says as skips into the room. It didn’t take much convincing to get her to come over to help me get ready for my date with Jamie tonight. “Working on your book?”
I slam the laptop shut and swivel around on the chair. “If you call debating hitting the delete all button working on it then, yes I am.”
Amber rolls her eyes and begins digging through the closet. “If you keep deleting it you’ll never get anything done. Didn’t you say that most published authors say to write it as it comes to you and then go back and edit it later on?”
I hate it when she quotes me to me.
“Yes, but when you’re writing garbage editing becomes impossible,” I explain.
“Okay, whatever you say Ape. Write tomorrow, tonight it’s all about your date with Jamie!”
I’m not even sure it’s really a date, he just asked if I could show him around town; is that an official “ask out” or am I reading too much into it? Everyone who knows about it thinks it’s a date and when I told my parents my mother practically flew off the couch and into my lap.
“I told you that brace wasn’t the end of your social life!” Mom gives me a big hug and says, “I’m happy to see you’re realizing that there’s more to life than five guys dancing around and singing.”
Anna and Jason Marks don’t necessarily encourage me to date but they also don’t discourage it. I am a sensible person and have never done anything to make them question me. They trust almost all of my choices, thus far, but they’ve been terrified these last few weeks that I’ll lock myself in a depression and wither away as the new brace consumes me. So the idea of me going out and being social is like winning the lottery to them.
“Is it even really a date?” I ask, almost in a whisper.
“Is anyone else going with you tonight?” Amber lines a floral dress against me.
“No, at least I don’t think so,” I reply.
Amber tosses the dress into a growing pile of discarded outfits on the floor and continues to browse through the closet.
“Nothing looks good with this damn brace on!” I scream. “That’s five dresses we’ve tried that won’t work and these stupid bars just rip my shirts if the neck isn’t wide enough. You know my mom and dad took me shopping for new clothes the day after I got this brace and still…”
“Oh stop that, we’ll find something,” Amber assures me. “I thought for sure you were going to try to convince your parents to let you leave the brace off for the night since it’s a special occasion.”
“I did, but they had a brief phone call with Dr. Meresh, who said it wouldn’t be wise, and they turned me down. I don’t see how a few hours without it is going to change anything other than to improve my mental state.”
“I’m sorry Ape, but it is going to be okay,” Amber says as she lines up a black skirt and pink blouse, which I would never wear.
“Maybe it’s not a date,” I flop onto the bed and dangle my feet over the side, “and I’m freaking out for nothing.”
“Is he picking you up?” Amber asks.
“He’s meeting me here, yes.”
“Then it’s a date.”
I feel sick. “Maybe I shouldn’t go.” Amber cocks her lips to the side and stomps her foot. “Okay, I’ll go. I just wish you were coming with us tonight. You would have been a great buffer during all those awkward silences we’re going to have.”
Tonight it is going to be Jamie and me, alone. Solo. Mano-y-mano. Nope, I can’t do this. My head is spinning. I focus my thoughts on the Backstreet Boys poster hanging above my bed. Since the rest of my room is covered with other posters, pictures and musings from the group, the ceiling was my only option. I don’t mind waking up and seeing the five guys, in their white suits and top hats, staring back at me. Actually, I wish they could sing some sense into me right now.
; “Why did I let you talk me into this?” I whine as I throw my arms over my face for dramatic effect.
“Oh stop being so dramatic, Ape. You must have wanted to go otherwise I would not have been able to,” Amber raises her hands to use air quotes, “talk you into this.”
“Fine. Give me that,” I say swiping from her hands the cream lace dress that she had just pulled out of the closet. Amber folds her arms and taps her foot on the ground impatiently. “Unless you plan on throwing dollar bills at me, turn around so I can change.” She does.
I slide into the dress, which surprisingly goes on easily, I really thought the lace would get stuck on the brace and tear apart. Lucky break I guess. I flip my hair so none of the stragglers get caught between my skin, the brace and the dress. Amber is still standing with her arms folded and tapping her foot impatiently but she has her eyes closed tightly as if loosening them will reveal her naked friend. Since she talked me into going tonight, sort of, it’s time for a little payback. I’m not going to tell her it’s okay to look, not yet. I wonder how long she’ll stand like that until she realizes I’m messing with her. I tiptoe over to the floor length mirror that my father nailed to the back of my closet door.
“Leave it down,” Amber says as I pull my hair up then let it down and pull it up again.
Damn, she figured out that I was messing with her.
“Yeah, but I look so young with it down. I feel like I’d be on a play date rather than a date, date.”
I have the type of face that makes me look at least three, sometimes, five years younger than I really am. I complain about it a lot but everyone over thirty always tells me, “You’re going to be grateful for it when you get to be my age.” Well that might be true but I am not grateful for it now. I’m 17-years-old but still get carded at R-rated movies. Talk about embarrassing. Who gets carded at movies anymore?
“You’re impossible,” Amber says grabbing a butterfly clip off of the dresser. She pads toward me with annoyed determination and slaps my hands away from my hair as she ties it up in a messy ponytail using the clip to hold it in place. “There, better?”
Sort of, now if I could do something about the plainness of my face and the metallic rods that shout, “Look at us!” I slip into the white flats that Amber has already pulled off of the shoe rack hanging on my bedroom door and physically I am ready.
“You’re acting as if you’ve never been on a date before, Ape.”
She’s right, this isn’t my first date. When Charlie and I were together we had many dates and we even had a first date but I was never this nervous with him. He was a fine enough boyfriend and not a bad looking guy but that relationship was forced; two friends who thought dating might be fun. And it was...for Charlie. To me he was and will always be the boy who used to pick his nose and then eat whatever came out.
Jamie is different. I get those butterflies in my stomach when I think about him and I was immediately picturing what it would be like to kiss him as soon as I saw him walk into Mrs. Honor’s class yesterday. Everyone waits for that moment in their lives when they know everything is about to change. Whether it be good or bad they know that after that moment nothing they knew will ever be the same again. And yesterday I had that moment.
Amber’s voice comes back like a radio being turned louder. Apparently she has been talking to me but I haven’t been listening.
“Are you even hearing me?” Amber says as her voice regains its full and obnoxious volume.
“What?” I say, realizing that I’ve been staring at my reflection this entire time. “Sorry I didn’t hear you.”
“Good grief, April, take a picture it lasts longer.”
I flatten my dress and head out of the room. Amber follow me down the stairs and into the kitchen where my parents have left out last night’s dinner; turkey meatloaf. There’s a note attached to the plate that reads:
April,
This is just in case you’re hungry after your big date. Dad and I will be home tomorrow morning but Granny will be there around 8:00 so our house isn’t a proper after-date hang out...you know how your grandmother gets. Have fun and don’t do anything you wouldn’t normally do.
Love,
Mom
I can hear her British accent now teasing me, “Don’t do anything you wouldn’t normally do.” My mother ladies and gentleman; sometimes I wish she’d be more mother than friend, it can be embarrassing when your mother teases you about sex in front of your entire class. And oh yes, it has happened before. She always claims that people from England are far more sophisticated but it’s hard to take her seriously when she says raunchy things to my father or worse, me.
I forgot that every year on this date the Hills and my parents go out to celebrate the anniversary of their first day working together at The Anchor. They eat and drink themselves silly, which ultimately leads them to getting a hotel room for the evening. I always protest that I don’t need my grandmother to come and stay with me for the night but since I’m not eighteen my parents aren’t comfortable leaving me alone. Tonight I’m glad that Granny will be here when I get back from my Jamie date. This way if it goes as badly as I am expecting someone will be here to pick up the pieces.
“I forgot about the workiversary tonight,” Amber says as she browses through the fridge. “Looks like Alex and I will have the house to ourselves again!”
The Hills are far less worried about leaving their 17-year-old daughter home alone than my parents and I don’t even have a boyfriend. Amber has free reign when it comes to, well everything. Her parents gave her only one true rule, “Don’t come home pregnant.” Sounds stupid but I know at least five girls in school who are.
“Oh come on Amber, I already know exactly what’s going to happen between you two tonight. You’re going to sit on the ratty old couch in your living room and watch Just Friends for the hundredth time then toy with the idea of fooling around. It’ll never get further than a make out session because by the time the end credits of the movie roll, Alex will be passed out.”
But of course, at school tomorrow, Amber will brag that she and Alex did “it,” and I’ll have to play along because that’s what a best friend is supposed to do.
Amber slides into the bench at the breakfast nook that overlooks the backyard with the rusted swing set that my father bought for me when I was little. It should probably be taken down but I know that for my dad it’s more of a nostalgia piece than anything else.
The meatloaf has clearly just come out of the refrigerator because the carrots have an oddly light color but that doesn’t stop Amber from picking at it.
“This is gross,” my best friend says spitting the piece of half chewed meatloaf into a napkin.
“Maybe because it needs to be heated up,” I retort as I pull the lazy Susan away from her.
She brushes her hands together, jumps off of the bench and heads for the front foyer. “Okay, well we should get going. You have a date on his way over and I need to prepare myself for a night of hot loving.”
“You do that,” I snicker. “But before you go…final thoughts.”
I twirl like a Princess showing off a lavish gown fit for a ball.
“Perfecto. Jamie is going to be drooling at your feet in no time.”
“Shut up,” I say and shove them out the door.
“Can’t wait for all the gory details!” Amber says as she skips down the driveway.
Gory details? Please. I already know that this date is doomed.
Jamie should be taking someone like Liza out not Ms. Plain Jane, April the Hunchback Marks. We’re going to spend an hour max together and then he’s going to create an excuse and bail early. I’ll come home feeling like an idiot and tomorrow at school everyone will be talking about the brace girl who thought she was going on a date with the new kid. I should call him and cancel before it’s too late. I’ll just tell him I came down with something.
I shuffle over to the cordless phone that my parents insist on keeping even though no one uses
a landline anymore, and begin to dial his number. Sign number one that I am a pathetic loser; Jamie gave me his number yesterday and I have already memorized it.
Ding dong.
Oh no, Jamie is here! Crap, crap, crap! I can’t do this! No, this is too much. Help!
-6-
Ding dong. Ding dong.
Okay that’s twice in a row. Crap!
I turn the triangle knob that my mother bought at a garage sale last week until the door clicks open.
“Hey April,” Jamie says with a wide grin. “I was beginning to think you were ignoring me until I got the hint and left.”
Caught!
“I know I’m sorry I was listening to music and didn't hear the doorbell” I lie.
“You look beautiful.” Jamie is looking at me like I’m a shiny dessert waiting for him to devour.
I wonder if this is how cannibals look at their meals before chopping them up and throwing them into a stew. Cannibalism, seriously this is what I am thinking about? I am so glad mind reading isn’t actually a thing. I wish I could say that he is the only one looking like he wants to devour the other but he’s not. Why does he have to be so damn good looking? It is making it difficult for me to pretend like I’m not excited to see him.
“Thank you,” I reply grabbing my purse off the coat rack that Grammy gave us for Christmas some years ago. “Shall we head out?”
“You mean you’re not going to invite me in to meet your parents? Are you that embarrassed by me?” Jamie is clearly teasing me but the thought of him meeting my parents makes me queasy.
I picture him walking into the living room and seeing the framed Yin-Yang poster hanging above the fireplace, the torn and stained pink couch and enough old furniture that makes it look like an antique store threw up, and him running outside screaming, “April’s a freak! April’s a freak!” And if that wouldn’t already send him running I am sure that my parents and their “we’re cool people,” act would. He’d walk in and my dad would quiz him on the latest baseball trivia, a hobby dad has taken up recently, and who knows if Jamie is even into baseball. Then, mom, of course, would break out the old family photo albums and show Jamie all of my most embarrassing pictures including the one of me from my fifth birthday where I decided it would be best celebrated completely naked. It would be the nail that seals my fate and I would forever be known as the girl who stripped when she was five.
The Tragedy of Loving Jamie Clarke Page 3
