“Uh, I mean, yeah. I probably could use some practice.”
Chris walked over to her and look down into her eyes. “You got someone you’re practicing for, too?”
“Yep.” Her voice wavered.
“Okay, so do what Jess did and put one hand on my chest, one on my cheek …”
That was Jess’s cue to leave them alone. “Don’t forget to show her steps two through, like, ten. I got to go get ready for my audition.”
She slipped out of the office just as Chris’s hand grabbed a fistful of Miranda’s butt.
She’d leave them to it. Miranda’s birthday was still three months away, but she supposed this counted as a birthday present.
Jess had only just gotten out her lunch spread and grabbed her script from her bag when she was startled by the sound of a tray being set down onto the table. She looked up to see Greg sitting across from her.
“Oh. Hi.” She felt lightheaded having him this close. Her nerves began to get the best of her. Was she really going to make out with him? Maybe someday, but now that he was right here, it seemed like less of an immediate likelihood. Maybe she could convince him to help her practice making out, and then it would evolve into actually making out like it almost had with Chris.
“Where are your friends?” he asked.
“Making out in Coach Rex’s office.”
Clearly that was not the response he was expecting. He opened his mouth, presumably to change the subject, but paused, snapped it shut again then asked, “Really?”
Jess nodded and shrugged. “Yeah.”
“Cool, I guess. Do you mind if I sit here?”
“Isn’t that going to piss off Sandra?” She didn’t mean to sound as bitter as she did.
“Probably. But it doesn’t matter. I can sit with whomever I want.”
“But she’s your girlfriend. I mean, she is still your girlfriend, right?” Maybe this was the miracle she was looking for.
“Yeah.”
Damn.
“We’ve just been fighting all day.”
“About what?”
Greg shook his head to show it was nothing big. “She’s upset that I gave you a ride home yesterday.”
“Why? Nothing happened.”
He leaned forward and smacked the table. “That’s what I told her! But she wouldn’t listen.”
“You want me to talk to her?”
Greg smiled sheepishly. “Would you?”
She sighed. “Yeah. Stay here, though.”
Jess got up and walked over to where Sandra sat with Emma, Drew, and a few others that Jess knew but had never actually spoken with. She couldn’t believe what she was about to do. This was the right thing to do, though, wasn’t it? It certainly wasn’t in her own best interest, but it was in Greg’s, so that meant she was being selfless, at least.
Why did being selfless leave her with such a dark pit in her stomach?
Sandra gave her a what-do-you-want look right off the bat, and she considered the merits of aggravating the situation between Greg and his girlfriend even further. It wouldn’t have been difficult to stoke the fire. Just one little insinuation that something had happened in the El Camino the night before, and things would likely blow up instantly.
But she couldn’t. It wasn’t right, but mostly she knew it would end up coming back to haunt her eventually when the truth came out. “Hey, listen. Here’s what happened. I bombed at the debate tryouts yesterday and I felt like crap, so Greg offered to give me a ride home. Nothing happened, so you shouldn’t be mad at him. You should just be glad that you have a really nice boyfriend.”
For a moment, Sandra looked genuinely appreciative. But then she flipped her dark brown hair and said, “Please. I wasn’t worried about him wanting anything from you. I was mad because he was late picking me up from my house so we could go mess around.”
“Ah. Okay.” Jess turned on her heels and walked stiffly back to her table, immediately regretting her decision to do the right thing.
Greg looked up at her expectantly.
“All better,” she grumbled.
“Thank you, Jess. I owe you.” He stood up with his tray to head back to his usual table but paused. “I’m sorry I had to drag you into it.”
“I forgive you,” she said out of spite.
A little whimper escaped his lips, and he squinted at her suspiciously, a half smile creeping onto his face. He waggled his finger at her. “Well played.” And then he walked back to his table, leaving her to finish her lunch alone.
Miranda caught up with Jess in the hallway after school. She still looked a bit stunned, which made sense.
She wasn’t the only one who seemed a bit shell-shocked by it, though. Chris had hardly looked at Jess in art that afternoon, and he’d kept his head down and busied himself in their 3D drawing project, even as his teammate Quentin Jones tried to talk football with him—a topic Chris was usually more than happy to indulge in, even if it meant his art classwork went unfinished.
“So, how was it?” she asked Miranda, trying to cheer herself up vicariously.
“I don’t know,” she said dreamily. “It was good. Like, really good. His hands were places … my hands were places. And then I had to put a stop to it because the bell rang, and he just said, ‘Cool, see ya later.’ Does that mean he wasn’t into it? I don’t get it.”
“This is Chris we’re talking about. I promise you he doesn’t get it either.”
“Did he mention anything about it in art?”
“No.”
Miranda bit her lip. “What should I do?”
“Just keep tutoring him and see what happens, I guess. He doesn’t have a girlfriend, right? Just go for it if you want to and don’t go for it if you don’t, I guess.”
Miranda frowned slightly. “Yeah. I mean, he’s still a doofus. And then there’s, um, this other—”
This sounded like a long story, one she didn’t have time for just then. “Hey. Pause on that for now? I really got to go. The audition.”
“Oh yeah!” Miranda’s face lit up again. “I can’t wait to hear all about it! See you tonight?”
Jess paused and cocked her head slightly to the side, trying to recall what plans they had that night.
“The last pre-season football game,” Miranda reminded.
“Oh right! That.” It was social suicide to miss the last pre-season game—even Jess knew that. “Yeah, I’ll see you then.”
For once, she felt prepared for the after-school activity as she headed toward the theater. Maybe she wouldn’t make a complete idiot of herself in front of Greg. Maybe it was finally time for Jessica to have some redemption.
Right. And maybe Greg would suddenly realize how terrible Sandra Sucksalot was and break up with her for Jess.
Well, it could be fun anyway. She did always like Shakespeare. And even if she blew it big time, it was Friday, so if it was absolutely necessary, she could skip the last pre-season football game and head straight home and hope it blew over before Monday. Miranda would understand.
Greg seemed in good spirits as he took the stage with her to jump in where the audition script began. Mr. Fairbanks had decided that Isabella and the Duke’s chemistry was paramount to the success of the show, so he would audition people for those two roles together. As he’d announced that to the students right before the auditions, Greg had turned toward Jess where she sat on his left and initiated their pairing with a slick head nod. Jess nodded back, and it was settled.
So when it was time for Jess and Greg to act out the scene, Mr. Fairbanks read all the parts besides Isabella and the Duke, and thanks to Greg’s advice, Jess had practiced enough to go off book more than not. Once she finished her last plea to the Duke and their short audition was finished, she took three deep breaths to try to calm her racing heart and slightly shaking hands and she felt like finally, finally she hadn’t failed at something this week.
Mr. Fairbanks smiled and applauded. “Well done, you two! Well done!”
&nbs
p; Jess looked over to Greg and he was grinning back at her. She felt like she’d just sprinted a mile. Mr. Fairbanks sent them off with quiet reassuring words that heavily implied that he’d already decided to cast them, but it couldn’t be official until after the weekend.
When they exited the auditorium, Jess wasn’t sure where the day could go from there. She knew better than to hope for more; small victories were still victories, and greediness tended to land her in a heaping pile of humiliation. Even still, she felt completely pumped up.
“Hey,” Greg said, “great job.”
“Yeah?”
He nodded.
“You too,” she said.
Unlike the evening before, there was still activity in the hallways at this hour as students milled around killing time before the game.
Greg glanced at a senior boy and junior girl who were making out against a locker before turning his focus back to Jess. “You going to the game tonight?”
“The football game?” If anyone else had asked her, she wouldn’t have doubted what game was being referenced, but Greg didn’t strike her as a football fan.
“Of course the football game.”
“Oh right. I forgot Sandra is a cheerleader.”
“Psh.” Greg waved that off. “The cheer squad doesn’t start until the regular season. And I don’t care much for cheering anyway. But yeah, Sandra will be there. And so will Drew and Emma and everyone else.”
“Yeah, I told Miranda I would head over there later.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah … But it doesn’t start till eight, so we have a little time. Hey. You hungry?”
Was he asking her to get food with him? Outside of the cafeteria?
Play it cool! Don’t screw this up! “Um, yeah, I guess so.”
“You want to go get some celebration tacos with me?”
She cocked her head to the side. “You think Sandra will be okay with that?”
He blew a raspberry. “I can’t keep running around worrying about what will and won’t be okay with her.” He nodded toward the front door. “Let’s go. You know you want tacos.” He grinned.
“Heck yeah, I want tacos. Who doesn’t want tacos?”
They headed out to the parking lot, where other students were loitering, presumably up to no good. Jessica’s limited experience with being up to no good, though, kept her from having a more specific guess as to their actual activities. But it didn’t matter because, for the most part, none of them paid Jessica and Greg any mind, which played in her favor.
They got their tacos to go and drove back to the school, where Greg parked the El Camino at the back of the lot.
“Before you dig in, I want to ask you something,” he said over the radio playing low in the background.
Oh God. This didn’t sound good. Whenever anyone prefaced asking a question with saying that they needed to ask her a question, it was usually something she didn’t want to be asked. She was too nervous to look him in the eyes. “Yeah?”
“Don’t judge me.”
“I won’t.” But the worst-case scenario had already found its way into her brain. Oh no, it’s going to be something about Sandra’s blow job. No, God, no. What did I do to deserve this?
“I have some weed …”
“Ha!” Relief swept through her at the mention of marijuana and not penis.
“What?”
“Oh nothing. Nothing. Go on.”
“Um, okay.” But he sounded more unsure now. “I’m all hopped up from that audition, and I thought it would be nice to smoke a joint to help take the edge off this week. Do you want to partake, or … ?”
She shrugged. “Sure.”
His eyebrows pinched together suspiciously. “Sure?”
“Yeah. Sure. What don’t you get?”
“I guess I just didn’t expect God’s daughter to be down to smoke.”
“Why not?”
“Because … I don’t know. It seems wrong. Have you smoked before?”
“No, but it’s just a plant. I mean, obviously there are plants that you wouldn’t want to smoke. Can you die from weed?”
“Uh, I don’t think so.”
She shrugged. “Then yeah, let’s do it.”
She’d never heard God mention anything about weed, and since it hadn’t explicitly made His “Thou Shalt Not” list, she figured, why not?
If you don’t want me to get high with Greg, give me a sign.
Nothing. Good. She considered her ass officially covered. If He got mad later on, she’d simply call Him out for being an absent Father.
Finally, Greg seemed convinced. “Huh. Okay. Cool. Let’s get high.”
He pulled out a lighter and a joint from the glove box in front of her. “Just for the record,” he said, “I don’t do this a lot. I just keep one on hand for opportunities like this.”
“What do you mean?”
He lit the end and took a drag from it, held it for a moment before exhaling. “I mean perfect days. Can’t you feel it?” He handed her the joint, which she had zero idea how to use. “Today just feels perfect.”
“Even though you were fighting with Sandra?”
“Let’s not talk about her.”
That was all fine and dandy, but now all she had to focus on was smoking, which was one big mystery to her. The stared down at the little roll of paper pinched between her fingers, one end smoldering gently.
“Just inhale and hold it in your lungs for a little then exhale,” instructed Greg.
She followed his directions, sucking in the smoke, holding it in her lungs for as long as she could before relaxing, letting it slip from her mouth in small wisps until the coughing set in. How much did she need to smoke before she felt something?
The answer to that was not much, but she didn’t realize that until ten minutes later, once she’d tried quite a bit.
“God damn, these tacos are amazing.” She stuffed almost an entire crispy taco into her mouth. Greg looked at her and began laughing, and when she met his eyes, she started laughing too and gagged on a strip of shredded lettuce, which only caused her to laugh more. She couldn’t remember being so happy with someone else, so carefree. Not even with Miranda.
She stuffed the remaining taco mush into her cheek so she could speak. “Being high is awesome.”
“Right?” Greg shoved the last bite into his mouth. “I’ve only done it a handful of times, and each time I just feel so … good, even though I know I have to go back to feeling like shit later on. Hey! You know what my favorite thing to do is when I’m high?”
Jess shook her head. “What?”
“Stars.”
“You do stars?” Jess wasn’t sure which of them snorted first as they erupted into more giggling.
“I mean, I like looking at the stars. It makes you think.”
“About what?”
“Well, for those of us who don’t believe we talk to God all the time,”—she was tempted to correct him on the “all the time” thing, but didn’t—“it can help with the big questions.” He crumpled up the taco wrapper. “Here. I’ll show you.” The cab light came on as he opened his door and jumped out of the truck.
By the time she’d shoved the last bite into her mouth and shoved her trash back into the to-go bag, he was already waiting for her in the bed of the truck on a blanket that he’d grabbed from behind the driver’s seat. It was just past dusk, and while the sky wasn’t quite dark, the brightest stars were already visible in the navy blue creeping in from the east. As she climbed in with him, he laid down on his back and patted the bed next to him. “Here. Lie down.”
Lying down sounded really nice at that moment. Her body felt tingly. It reminded her only slightly of the feeling she experienced when she walked into White Light Church. That had made her hair stand up on her arms when it first set in; it was an alert sort of tingle. This, though … this was like sinking into a bubbly hot tub. “Alert” was among the last words she would use to describe it.
Why had
n’t she tried pot before? This was awesome.
She looked up at the night sky as Greg gestured as the expanse. “Look at how bright the stars are.”
“Do you know the name of any of them?” She sure didn’t. Something about knowing God existed made her less prone to stargazing or caring any small bit about what was out there. With His commentary and her basic sixth-grade science knowledge of how they were formed, stars had stopped holding her interest a while ago. God created them, they were a hyper-complicated blend of physics and chemistry that required trillions of failed, explosive attempts before He decided some sort of grand unifying theory was in order, and then suddenly everything stopped blowing up instantaneously and He was able to move on to some of the planetary detail work. End of story.
“Yeah. See those three right in a line?” Greg pointed toward them, but his pointing wasn’t much of a help. She did eventually spot them, though. “That’s Orion’s Belt. They’re easy to find, and then from there you can connect the rest of his body. See, those two are the shoulders, and then those two are the ends of his … I don’t know what it’s called. Like a skirt?”
“Kilt?” she suggested, and for some reason they both found that tremendously funny.
Giggling felt so good. It was almost like she was a normal teenager. Just like everyone else. And as rough as the week had been, getting a taste of normalcy was better than anything she could’ve hoped for. And weed. Weed was awesome.
Greg turned his head to look at her. “I never would have thought …”
She calmed herself and stared back at him, her hands folded on her stomach. “Thought what?”
“I don’t know. That you would be lying down with me in the back of Janice, high as a kite, relaxing, enjoying the stars.”
“Why didn’t you think that?”
“I guess I thought you had more important things to do, or at least you thought you did. I never figured I’d actually get a bit of your time outside of class.”
“I don’t understand why you thought that, but okay.”
“It’s nice. Sandra never wants to just relax. I think Courtney has convinced her that pot is evil or something. I could never do this with her.”
And It Was Good (Jessica Christ Book 2) Page 6
