The Moment Keeper (15 page)

“He’s gone.”

Lexie refills her glass with more Diet Pepsi and adds a lemon slice.

“But I just saw him yesterday in Art,” Olivia says.

“I doubt you’ll see him again. He supposedly was doing one of his students.”

“Oh! My! Gawd! Which one?”

“Don’t know. But I heard she turned him in when he stopped paying her.”

Olivia’s eyes bugged out. “He was paying her for sex?”

“And bojos, or so I’ve heard.”

“Bojos?”

“Blow jobs, dummy. You do know what they are?”

Olivia nods.

“Did you ever do that?” Lexie asks.

“What?”

“A bojo.”

Olivia coughs and spits out the water she just sipped all over her strapless fuchsia dress.

Lexie reaches for the box of tissues sitting on the console on her right. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to make you cough.”

“I’ve only ever kissed a boy,” Olivia says. “It’s not like I wouldn’t want to do more, well, maybe not a bojo, but there’s no guy I’ve ever been that interested in. What about you?”

“I’ve definitely made out with a few guys. Not the whole way, but pretty close.”

“Weren’t you scared?”

“A little. But I’d been reading my mom’s steamy romance novels like forever. I knew kind of where to touch and kiss. Never got to third base though.”

I know what Olivia’s thinking and her innocence warms me. I was a lot like her when I was her age. Not too bright in the making-out department – mostly from a lack of experience. But I didn’t have a Lexie to educate me.

She finally gets up enough courage to ask. “What exactly are the bases anyway?”

“You seriously don’t know?”

Olivia shakes her head. “Sort of, but…”

“It’s OK. I didn’t know until someone explained it to me. She was older, too. Here’s the deal. First base is French kissing. Second base is above the waist, like letting the guy feel up under your shirt. Third is below the waist. Like letting the guy finger you or giving bojos. The last base is home, which is going all the way.”

Olivia takes a deep breath. “Got it. And you got to second base?”

“Yeah. Lots of times. Never to third. There was this girl at my old school, though, who cut out the crotch in her underwear so her boyfriend could finger her in class or at lunch. They were always on third base.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. She bragged about it all the time. Funny thing happened though. She was wearing a pair of her homemade crotchless panties and forgot to put spankies on under her cheerleading skirt.”

“Uh-oh,” Olivia says.

“Yeah. Uh-oh. She did a flip and flashed everyone and it’s all anyone talked about for weeks. They called her Cat after that.”

“Cat?”

“P-u-s-…”

Olivia wrinkles her nose. “I get it. I get it.”

“She’s the same girl who had an oral-sex party in eighth grade and invited four couples. Well, one guy had two girls because one guy had to leave early.”

“Two girls at once?”

“Apparently.”

“So they all came to her house for oral sex?”

“Yeah. She lived with her dad, who was never home. They gathered in her bedroom, which someone told me was really small, and made out at the same time.”

“In front of each other!”

“Guess the lights were out.”

“Still. That’s disgusting.”

One thing I love about being Olivia’s moment keeper is the normal teenage moments I get to experience through her. I never had these kinds of conversations with a girlfriend and while it’s kind of scary to know she’s thinking about all of this stuff, it also seems so natural and normal. Young girls are supposed to have these types of conversations. It’s part of growing up. I think I was the abnormal one. In fact, Tracey had convinced the entire school I was the abnormal one.

After my comment in the locker room, she turned up the dial a couple notches. And this time, she got a guy involved.

For days, I felt his dark eyes on me as I walked to my locker. His locker was across from mine and he’d stand there and watch me. He was definitely hot, too hot to be looking at me, I thought. But the more he watched me, the more I began to think that maybe, just maybe, he thought I was pretty. He even started to smile.

Finally, I got up enough nerve to say something to him. I closed my locker and walked over as he was closing his locker. “Where’s your class?”

He nodded. “Down the hall.”

“Want to walk together?”

A Grinch-like smirk erupted on his face. “If I wanted to ask an ugly bitch like you to walk to class, I would have asked you.”

I was horrified. I couldn’t move. And then I heard Tracey. As I stood there trembling, trying to hold back the searing tears that pooled in my eyes, Tracey kissed Dark Eyes on the cheek and handed him a fifty-dollar bill. “Well done, Romeo.” Then she looked at me. “Seriously, Sarah. Do you really think anyone would actually be interested in the Goodwill Poster Child?”

And she laughed and so did everyone else.

I couldn’t believe it. I had made a complete ass out of myself. All that time I thought he was interested in me and he wasn’t. He was just pretending to be to make a quick fifty from Tracey. She paid him just to toy with me and lure me into his web so she could sink her fangs into me. I didn’t realize Tracey and her minions had been watching, waiting. Guess she knew, or hoped, that I would eventually work up enough nerve to approach Dark Eyes. She might not have known what I would say or what he would say, but she was paying him enough to hit as hard as he could when he had the chance. And stupid I gave him just that.

The limo driver pulls up to the school and a crowd of teens in suits and gowns of varying styles and colors gathers to gawk. Olivia and Lexie step out of the stretch and there are whistles from the crowd. The girls look stunning – Olivia in her strapless fuchsia dress and Lexie in the black silk number she fell in love with during a model shoot for a teen magazine earlier in the year. She told Olivia she bought the dress hoping she’d have a chance to wear it.

Olivia and Lexie find a table with some other girls who came as a group.

“Mind if we join you?” Olivia asks.

“You want to sit here? With us?” says a short, chunky girl with thick glasses and short red hair.

“Of course. Why wouldn’t we?” Olivia says.

Lexie agrees. “You’re nice. Right? You don’t bite or anything.”

The chunky girl smiles. “I’m Delaney and this is Molly and Jackie. We’re in ninth grade.”

“I’m Olivia.”

“I know who you are,” Delaney says. “I’ve see you dance before and you’re amazing.”

“Thanks,” Olivia says. “And this is my friend Lexie.”

“You look so familiar,” Molly says. “But I don’t think we’ve ever met. Oh. I know. I know. You look like a model in one of my magazines. Doesn’t she, girls?”

Delaney and Jackie turn toward Lexie and shrug their shoulders.

“I totally see it,” Molly says. “I’m going to have to dig that magazine out and show you.”

“That’s OK,” Lexie says. “I’ve heard of people having doubles. Guess the model’s mine.”

Emma and her date walk off the dance floor and Emma sees Olivia sitting at the table. She walks over. “Nice dress, Lib.”

“Thanks. Yours, too. You look good in yellow.”

“Are you going to dance?” Emma asks.

“Maybe later.”

“I keep telling her to get out on the dance floor but she keeps dragging her feet,” Lexie says.

“Well, see ya later,” Emma says and walks away.

“I hate those cheerleaders,” Delaney says. “They make fun of me. One time there was a picture of Miss Piggy on my locker and I know one of them put it there.”

“That’s awful,” Lexie says. “Just ignore them. Might even try smiling at them. Make them think you know something they don’t. It’ll bug the shit out of them.”

Delaney laughs. “I like you, Lexie. You’re prettier than any of them and you don’t act like a jerk. You, too, Olivia.”

“That’s because Lib and I aren’t out to impress people. If you like us, great. If you don’t, your loss.”

Olivia agrees. “People who try to be someone special never are.”

I wish I would have had a Lexie or Olivia in my life. I wish Rachel hadn’t moved. Maybe it would have made a difference. If I would have had someone, besides Grandma, who made me feel like I mattered, who actually loved me. But when you live your whole life being treated like dirt – people walk on you and spit on you and kick you – it’s hard to see yourself as anything else. Hell, I wasn’t even good soil. I was the severely compacted kind that nothing could ever grow in.

I remember my science fair experiment in elementary school. I planted seeds in three
different types of soil to determine which soil was best. The day I was to present my project to the class, I had to take it on the bus with me because Grandma couldn’t drive me to school. I was so careful. I didn’t want anyone bumping into it or messing it up. Unfortunately, when I got off the bus, Tracey and her minions were nearby.

“What’s that?” asked Tracey, cracking bubbles in her mouth.

“It’s her science fair project,” a Tracey clone said.

Tracey pushed the girl into me. I lost my balance and struggled to keep from falling.

Tracey and her friends laughed and walked away. I managed to get my science experiment to the classroom without any more trouble. The best part? I got an “A”, and that was something that even Tracey, who seemed to wield more power than anyone I knew, couldn’t take away from me.

I watch as Olivia, Lexie and the girls at their table head to the dance floor. It’s crowded but they find a sliver of space toward the back.

Olivia and Lexie pick up the beat and their bodies contort and move in ways that amaze me. Delaney, Molly and Jackie aren’t moving too much. They notice that people are stopping to watch Olivia. Lexie is still dancing, but it’s Olivia who’s taking over the dance floor.

“Loosen up,” Olivia tells Delaney, Molly and Jackie. “Feel the beat. Close your eyes if you want to. Just let your body respond to the music.”

“You da shizzle,” says Lexie, trying to copy some of Olivia’s moves.

More and more people stop to watch Olivia and pretty soon Lexie and the girls stop to watch, too. Olivia is oblivious to what’s happening around her. She’s completely in the zone and it isn’t until the music stops and people clap that she realizes they have been watching her.

“You’re amazing,” Delaney says. “I wish I could dance like that.”

“Thanks,” Olivia says. “And you can if you want to. I could teach you.”

“You’d really do that for me?” Delaney asks.

“Sure. For all of you. We can meet once a week or something. How about you, Lex?”

“I’m totally in. It’ll be fun.”

“I always wanted to teach dance and have my own studio,” Olivia says. “This will give me a chance to see if I like the teaching part.”

The girls are inseparable the rest of the night. And when the limo driver comes to pick up Olivia and Lexie, the three others get into the car, too, calling their parents ahead of time to make sure it’s OK.

Chapter 25

Olivia stands in the hallway talking to Delaney when a girl taps her on the shoulder.

“Special delivery.”

“For me?”

“Yep.”

The girl hands Olivia several white carnations, a couple pink and several red. The student council sold carnations for Valentine’s Day and student representatives are delivering them.

“Wow. You got a lot of admirers,” Delaney says.

Olivia holds the bundle up to her nose and sniffs. “Want some?”

Delaney shakes her head. “I’m not going to take your flowers, Lib.”

“You’re not taking them; I’m giving them to you.”

“Same thing.”

“Is not. Well, at least take a red one. It’ll keep the piranhas guessing.”

Olivia hands Delaney a red carnation and Delaney’s slight smile slides into a showing-teeth grin.

I got a red carnation once. It was a long time ago. I think I was in ninth grade, too. Like Olivia’s school, the carnations were sold as a Valentine’s Day fundraiser. Never did find out who sent me the flower, but I remember that when Tracey saw me in the hallway with it she snickered.

“Someone actually sent you a red carnation?” she said.

She emphasized “you”. As in I can’t believe anyone in their right mind would ever send you a red carnation because you’re so obviously worthless and ugly and you so don’t matter.

But someone did and I kept that carnation forever. I pressed it and put it in the black Bible embossed with my name in gold that Grandma had given me for confirmation. I can still picture the red carnation, tucked into the Bible at first Corinthians, chapter thirteen, verse thirteen. “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

The day I got the flower, I kept looking around to see if there was a nod, some sort of sign or recognition from the guy who sent it. But there was nothing. So I spent time picturing him in my mind, conjuring up an image that fit the knight in shining armor I hoped one day would whisk me away to his castle.

He was tall and strong with black hair. And piercing dark eyes that cradled me in a sweet stillness and made me feel as if I was the most important person in the world. An easy smile that exuded warmth and made my body tingle with desire. Muscular arms that wrapped around me and kept me safe, always safe from the cruel Traceys of the world.

That was my dream. My forever dream. I guess some dreams, no matter how much we want
them and pray for them, aren’t meant to be.

Olivia gives all her carnations away. She feels so good giving one to Delaney that she decides to give them to others who are flowerless. She figures they would enjoy them more than she does. So she walks down the hall, handing flowers to girls and guys until they’re gone.

As she heads to class she runs into some cheerleaders in a huddle near the doors to the gym. Their arms are overflowing with carnations, most of them red. They turn to look at Olivia.

“I would have thought you’d have at least one carnation,” Most Popular Girl in the Ninth Grade says.

Olivia shrugs her shoulders. “Sorry to disappoint you.”