I walked across the little blacktop courtyard in the middle of the math wing and headed towards the parking lot. A gate near the gym emptied out into the massive parking lot. I joined the flood of humanity eking through a break in the chain link fence. I didn’t see anyone I knew—just a few school faces. People I’d been familiar with for years, but never actually spoken to. I’m sure they felt the same way about me.
My mom’s car, an electric green Honda hatchback I affectionately referred to as the Goblin mobile, wasn’t parked far away. I walked up to the passenger side and rapped my fist on the window. I couldn’t see her face from my angle, but she waved a hand at me. She knew the drill.
I set my backpack on the roof and leaned against the door. My hands slid into the pockets of my jeans. The cold was wonderful, but the wind still froze my hands into icicles. I wondered what it must be like to live in a place that snowed—I loved the cold, but if a California winter made me chill, I imagine I’m too big of a wuss to live anywhere else.
“Hey, Luce!”
I snapped my head around. Morgan appeared from the human exhaust valve that was the gym gate—I still had trouble swallowing the clump of hatred that popped up whenever I first saw her. I think I’m cute—not to blow my own horn. I have exotic-looking eyes, a good face, and an average body. But I’m arguably pretty, and certainly not what anyone would call hot.
Morgan was gorgeous. Long blonde hair, of course, fell in perfect waves around her chiseled face. Wide green eyes didn’t beat mine for more interesting, but definitely seemed to bring in the boys better. High cheek-bones, pouty lips.
Body like a twenty-three-year-old Hollywood actress playing a sixteen-year-old high school student, and the clothes to accentuate it. Tall.
I wanted to put my fist through her face sometimes. It didn’t help that as she appeared from the gate, she had a guy on each side of her laughing at something that probably wasn’t funny. Uck. They both had that puppy-dog look on their face.
They peeled off of her as she approached my mom’s car—no one wanted to be seen near the Goblin mobile. Morgan smiled and tossed her messenger-bag on top of the car’s roof. Even her backpack was cooler than mine.
“How’s it going?” Voice like honey. Why did I hang out with her? Was I masochist or something?
“Oh, you know, post-mathematic stress disorder,” I said.
“I hear they have a clinic for that,” Morgan said, and leaned against the car next to me.
“Disneyland?”
“Isn’t Knott’s cooler now?”
I shrugged, “Haven’t taken a poll in a while. Isn’t Knott’s just filled with freshmen boys trying to make out with junior high girls?”
“Point,” Morgan said, playing with her bottom lip, staring out into the rapidly filling parking lot. “I don’t think I can do Disneyland for a while.”
My heart sank. Getting high on twelve pounds of sugar and riding Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride was my favorite therapeutic outing. What could possibly keep her home? I thought of her deaf cousin Lance who visited sometimes, but usually he loved Disneyland just as much as we did.
“Why not?”
“Grounded.”
“Why? Since when?”
Morgan shrugged. “My mom found out about my detention yesterday. She grounded me via text message.”
“That’s just impersonal.”
Morgan had a detention for being late for the fourth time to Chemistry—she’d played off the detention to her mom by saying that she was staying after school to tutor a friend. Apparently the great parental phone chain had let Morgan down—it was a rookie mistake. She should have asked me to stay after school, too, thus corroborating her story. Morgan wasn’t stupid, despite what her appearance might suggest—but when it came to trouble, she was far too naïve. I think she thought, even subconsciously, that her looks would get her out of trouble. Granted, they usually did, but not where her parents were concerned.
When it came to mischief, she was the Watson to my Holmes.
“Describe this grounding to me. No going out tonight or no going out this week?”
“The second one.”
“What?” I nearly shouted. Morgan’s eyes went wide. “Sorry. I just mean, for one detention?”
Morgan sighed. “Mom is trying to crack down. She gave me the ole ‘if your father were here’ routine.”
Ouch. I didn’t like to think about Morgan’s dad—I couldn’t even imagine what it was like to have my dad run out to get groceries. In Alabama. Forever.
“That’s low,” I said.
“Yeah, whatever, I just want to get home,” Morgan said, grabbing her bag and reaching for the door. “Just don’t say anything to anyone.”
I nodded and grabbed my bag. I slid into the passenger side as Morgan got into the back. We closed the doors at the same time.
Mom sat behind the wheel, grooving along to a Beatles song. “Help,” I think. I didn’t share my mom’s love of the oldies—I liked them, but I think it was a nostalgia thing from my childhood. Mom and Dad used to blast oldies songs while they ate dinner, or cleaned, or...well, anything that didn’t require sound, really.
Mom had her Mom hair up into a tiny ponytail. She had the same nearly-black, straight as an arrow hair that I did, but she tended to keep it in a short bob. Her ponytail did little to hold up her hair—most of it still fell into her face. She was cute, and had only a little weight on me. Our major difference in appearance was relegated to height, mostly—I was a good four inches taller than her. From my super-tall dad, I imagine.
“Hey, Mom,” I said. “How’s it going?”
Mom turned the Beatles down, reluctantly, and shrugged. She put the car in reverse and glanced over her shoulder as she backed up.
“Oh, you know. I didn’t get off my shift until about an hour ago.”
“Wow,” Morgan said. “You look great for pulling a twelve hour shift without sleep.”
My mom smiled, “From you, that means almost nothing, dear. Thanks, though.”
Morgan blushed. She knew how pretty she was, but had somehow managed to avoid a good chunk of the arrogance usually implied by that. I imagine it’s because her transformation was recent—in junior high she’d been tall and skinny and unmistakably mannish. The un-clever nickname MorMAN had been stapled to her at that age. No one called her that anymore that I knew. Most of the bullies were too busy hitting on her now.
“What about you gals?” Mom asked.
“Okay,” Morgan began. “We vegged during volleyball. Coach Lark had cramps or something.”
Volleyball may have been part of her appeal, I thought. Boys loved a hot girl in tiny shorts. I rolled my eyes and leaned back in my chair. I would have slipped my ear buds on and drifted away to MP3 land, but my mom hated them and was just as likely to slap them out of my ears than ask me to take them off.
“Are you team captain yet, Morgan?” Mom asked.
“I’m only a sophomore, Mrs. D.,” Morgan laughed.
“Right, right,” Mom said. “I always forget that you’re the same age as my Lucy. You look so grown up.”
I longed for ear buds. Or a sharp hammer-blow to the temple.
“What about you, Luce?” Mom asked. “Your day?”
“Okay,” I said. “Do you mind if Wanda comes over later?”
Mom shrugged. Wanda was so vanilla-plain and unobjectionable that my requests to hang out with her were rarely denied, if even questioned. It was a fact I had yet to take advantage of, but something I’d long ago filed away for future use. I offered information anyway—it built good credit for the times I didn’t.