When Lightning Strikes (6 page)

Crazy dreams. I'd been having some crazy dreams, that was all. I got up and took another shower, since the red mark was still there, and I couldn't wear the scoop neck. I decided to go for clean hair instead. Who knew? Maybe Rob Wilkins would offer me another ride, and when we were at a stop sign or something, he'd turn his head and smell me.

It could happen.

It wasn't until I'was eating breakfast that I realized who Sean Patrick O'Hanahan and Olivia Marie D'Amato were. They were the kids on the back of the milk carton. You know, the missing ones. Only they weren't missing. Not anymore. Because I knew where they were.

"You don't think you're actually wearing those jeans to school, do you, Jessica?"

My mom was way disenchanted with my ensemble, which I had put together very carefully, with Rob Wilkins in mind.

"Yeah, really," Mike said. "What do you think this is? The eighties?"

"Like," I said, "you know anything about fashion, science boy. Where's your pocket protector, anyway?"

"You cannot," my mother said, "wear those jeans to school, Jessica. You'll shame the family."

"There's nothing wrong with my jeans," I said. 1-800-WHERE-R-YOU. That was the number you were supposed to call if you knew where Sean Patrick O'Hanahan or Olivia Marie D'Amato were. I'm not kidding. 1-800-WHERE-R-YOU. Cute. Very cute.

"The knees have given out," my mother went on. "There's a hole starting at the crotch. You can't wear those jeans. They're falling apart."

That was the point, see. I couldn't expose my chest area, so I'd decided to go for my knees. I have pretty nice knees. So, when I was riding behind Rob Wilkins on his motorcycle, he'd look down and see these totally sexy knees sticking out of my jeans. I'd shaved my legs and everything. I was way ready.

The one thing I hadn't figured out was how I was going to get a ride home if he didn't ask. Call Ruth, I guess. But Ruth was going to be mad at me if I asked her not to come in the first place. She was bound to be all, "Why? Who's taking you home? Not that Grit, I hope."

Being best friends with someone like Ruth is hard sometimes.

"Go upstairs and change, young lady," my mom said.

"No way." My mouth was filled with cereal.

"What do you mean, no way? You cannot go to school dressed like that."

"Watch me," I said.

My dad came in then. My mom went, "Joe, look what she's wearing."

"What?" I said. "They're just jeans."

My dad looked at my jeans. Then he looked at my mom. "They're just jeans, Toni," he said.

My mom's name is Antonia. Everyone calls her Toni.

"They're slut jeans," my mother said. "She's dressing in slut jeans. It's because she reads that slut magazine." That's what my mom calls
Cosmo
. It sort of
is
a slut magazine, but still.

"She doesn't look like a slut," my dad said. "She just looks like what she is." We all looked at him questioningly, wondering what I was. Then he went, "Well, you know. A tomboy."

Fortunately, at that moment, Ruth honked outside.

"Okay," I said, getting up. "I gotta go."

"Not in those jeans, you're not," my mom said.

I grabbed my flute and my backpack. "Bye," I said, and left by the back door.

I ran all the way around to the front of the house to meet Ruth, who was waiting in the street in her Cabriolet. It was a nice morning, so she had the top down.

"Nice jeans," she said sarcastically, as I climbed into the passenger seat.

"Just drive," I said.

"Really," she said, shifting. "You don't look like Jennifer Reals, or anything. Hey, are you a welder by day and a stripper by night, by any chance?"

"Yes," I said. "But I'm saving all my money to pay for ballet school."

We were almost to school when Ruth asked, suddenly, "Hey, what's with you? You haven't been this quiet since Douglas tried to … you know."

I shook myself. I hadn't been aware of vegging, but that's exactly what I'd done. The thing was, I couldn't get this picture of Sean Patrick O'Hanahan out of my head. He was older in my dream than in the picture on the milk carton. Maybe he was one of those kids who'd been kidnapped so long ago, he didn't remember his real family.

Then again, maybe it had just been a dream.

"Huh," I said. "I don't know. I was just thinking, is all."

"That's a first," Ruth said. She pulled into the student parking lot. "Hey, do you want to walk home again tonight? I'll have Skip drop me off again at four, when you get out of detention. You know, I weighed myself this morning, and I already lost a pound."

I think she probably lost the pound from not eating any dinner the night before, being way too busy staring dreamily at Mike to consume anything. But all I said was, "Sure, I guess. Except …"

"Except what?"

"Well, you know how I feel about motorcycles."

Ruth looked heavenward. "Not Rob Wilkins again."

"Yes, Rob Wilkins again. I can't help it, Ruth. He's got that really big—"

"I don't want to hear it," Ruth said, holding up her hand.

"—Indian," I finished. "What did you think I was going to say?"

"I don't know." Ruth pushed a button, and the roof started going up. "Some of those Grits wear pretty tight jeans."

"Gross," I said, as if this had never occurred to me. "Really, Ruth."

She undid her seatbelt primly. "Well, it's not like I'm blind or anything."

"Look," I said. "If he offers me a ride, I'm taking it."

"It's your life," Ruth said. "But don't expect me to sit by the phone waiting for you to call if he doesn't ask."

"If he doesn't ask," I said, "I'll just call my mom."

"Fine," Ruth said. She sounded mad.

"What?"

"Nothing," she said.

"No, not nothing. What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong." Ruth got out of the car. "God, you're such a weirdo."

Ruth is always calling me a weirdo, so I didn't take offense. I don't think she even means anything by it anymore. Anything much, anyway.

I got out of the car, too. It was a beautiful day, the sky a robin's-egg blue overhead, the temperature hovering around sixty, and it was only eight in the morning. The afternoon would probably be roasting. Not the kind of day to spend indoors. The perfect kind of day for a ride in a convertible … or, even better, on the back of a bike.

Which reminded me. Paoli was only about twenty miles from where I was standing. It was the next town over, actually. I couldn't help wondering how Ruth—or Rob Wilkins—would feel about taking a little trip over there after detention. You know, just to check it out. I wouldn't tell either of them about my dream or anything. But I was pretty sure I knew exactly where that little brick house was … even though I was equally sure I'd never been there before.

Which was the main reason, actually, that I wanted to check it out. I mean, who goes around having dreams about kids on the back of milk cartons? Not that my ordinary dreams are all that exciting. Just the usual ones, about showing up to school naked, or sucking face with Brendan Eraser.

"
Hello?
"

I blinked. Ruth was standing in front of me, waving a hand in my face.

"God," she said, putting her hand down. "What is the matter with you? Are you sure you're all right?"

"Fine," I said automatically.

And the funny thing was, I really thought I was fine.

Then.

C H A P T E R
6

D
etention at Ernie Pyle High is traditionally run by the staff member with the least seniority. This year, it was Miss Clemmings, the new art teacher. Now, I don't mean to be sexist, but they had to be kidding. Miss Clemmings is barely as tall
as
me, and can't weigh more than I do, like a hundred pounds or so.

And yet, unlike me, Miss Clemmings is hardly an expert kickboxer—or even a mediocre one. But there she was, supposed to keep these giant football players from fighting with one another. I mean, it was ridiculous. Coach Albright I could see. Coach Albright would be able to establish some control. But all Miss Clemmings could do was threaten to report these guys when they acted up. And all that happened when they got reported was that they got longer detentions. Miss Clemmings had to keep them from fighting that much longer. It was kind of retarded.

So I wasn't super-surprised when Miss Clemmings, at the start of detention at the end of the day, called me up to the front of the auditorium and said, in her wispy little-girl voice, "Jessica, I need to talk to you."

I couldn't imagine what Miss Clemmings wanted. Oh, all right, I'll admit it: a part of me thought she was going to let me off for the rest of the semester, on account of my good behavior. Because I really am a little angel … during detention, anyway. That was more than could be said for any of my fellow detainees.

Which was, in a way, what she wanted to talk to me about.

"It's the Ws," she whispered.

I looked at her uncomprehendingly. "The Ws, Miss Clemmings?"

She went, "Yes, in the back row?" And then she pointed at the auditorium seats.

It was only then that I caught on. Of course. The
W
s. We're seated alphabetically for detention, and the guys in the last row—the
W
s—have a tendency to get a little rambunctious. They'd been restless during rehearsals for
West Side Story
, rowdy during
Romeo and Juliet
, and downright rude during
Our Town
. Now the drama club was putting on
Endgame
, and Miss Clemmings was afraid a riot might break out.

"I hate to ask this of you, Jessica," she said, looking at me with her big blue eyes, "but you are the only girl here, and I've often found that placing a strong female influence in amongst a predominantly testosterone-driven group has a tendency to diffuse some of the—"

"Okay," I said, real fast.

Miss Clemmings looked surprised. Then she looked relieved. "Really? Really, Jessica? You wouldn't mind?"

Was she kidding? "No," I said. "I wouldn't mind. Not at all."

"Oh," she said, placing a hand to her heart. "Oh, I'm so glad. If you could, then, just sit between Robert Wilkins and the Wendell boy—"

I couldn't believe it. Some days, you know, you wake up, and okay, maybe you had some wacked-out dreams, but then, suddenly, things just start going your way. Just like that.

I went back to my seat in the
M
s, picked up my backpack and my flute, and shoved my way down the
W
row until I'd gotten to the seat between Rob and Hank. There were a lot of catcalls while I did this—enough so that the drama coach turned around and shushed us—and a few of the guys wouldn't pick up their stupid feet and let me by. I got them back, however, by kicking them really hard in the shins. That got them moving, all right.

We have to sit one seat apart from one another, so that necessitated everyone from Rob Wilkins down moving one seat over. Only Rob didn't seem to mind. He picked up his leather jacket—he had nothing else, no books, no bag, nothing, except a paperback spy novel he kept in the back pocket of his jeans—and sat down again, his blue eyes on me as I arranged my stuff under my seat.

"Welcome to hell," he said to me when I straightened up.

I flashed him my best smile. The guy on the other side of him saw it, and grabbed his crotch. Rob noticed, looked at him, and said, "You're dead, Wylie."

"Shhh," Miss Clemmings hissed, clapping her hands at us. "If I hear another word back there, you're all getting an extra week."

We shut up. I took out my geometry book and started doing the homework we'd been assigned for the weekend. I tried not to notice that Rob wasn't doing anything. He was just sitting there, watching the play rehearsal. The guy to my left, Hank Wendell, was making one of those paper footballs. He was using spit instead of tape to hold the paper together.

None of the guys in the
W
s seemed particularly impressed—or cowed—by my presence.

Then suddenly Rob leaned over and grabbed my notebook and pen out of my hands. He looked at my homework, nodded, and turned the page. Then he wrote something down, and passed the notebook and the pen back to me. I looked at what he had written. It was:

So did you get caught in the rain yesterday?

I looked down at Miss Clemmings. I'm not sure whether or not you're allowed to pass notes in detention. I'd never heard of anybody trying it before.

But Miss Clemmings wasn't even paying attention. She was watching Claire Lippman perform this really boring monologue from inside a big Rubbermaid trash can.

I wrote,
Yes
, and passed the notebook back to him.

Not exactly scintillating, or anything. But what else was I supposed to say?

He wrote something down and passed the notebook back. He'd written:
Told you so. Why don't you ditch the fat girl and come for a ride with me after this?

Jesus Christ. He was asking me out. Sort of.

And he was also dissing my best friend.

Are you mentally impaired or something?
I wrote.
That fat girl happens to be my best friend
.

He seemed to like that. He wrote for a long time. When I got the notebook back, this is what he'd put down:
Jesus, sorry. I had no idea you were so sensitive. Let me rephrase. Why don't you tell your gravitationally challenged friend to take a hike, and come for a ride with me after this?

I wrote:
It's Friday night, you loser. What do you think, I don't already have plans? I happen to have a boyfriend, you know
.

I thought the boyfriend part might be stretching it a little, but he seemed to eat it up. He wrote:
Yeah? Well, I bet your boyfriend isn't rebuilding a '64 Harley in his barn
.

A '64 Harley? My fingers were trembling so hard I could barely write.
My boyfriend doesn't have a barn. His dad
—as long as I was making up a boyfriend, I figured I'd give him an impressive lineage—
is a lawyer
.

Rob wrote:
So? Dump him. Come for a ride
.

It was right then that Hank Wendell leaned over and went, "Wylie. Wylie?"