Wrecked (2 page)

Sarah heard Barry yelling after her.  She started her car and threw it into gear, grinding them in her hurry.  

“Sarah,
wait!”

She stopped the car in the street at the end of his driveway.  Barry reached her window with his pants still not zipped or buttoned, gasping for breath.  “Sarah, just stop, I can explain … ”

She struggled with the ring on her left hand.  “Explain it to
this
, asshole!”  She launched the puny promise ring he had given her last month at him, watching it hit his chest and bounce off to the ground.  “And you can tell Gretchen the first person I’m going to go talk to right now is my
brother!”

She slammed her foot down on the accelerator, tearing off towards home.  Tears were streaming down her face as she alternated between sobbing and feeling like she was going to throw up.  Her whole high school life was passing before her eyes; she couldn’t stop thinking of all the time she had wasted on worshipping that jerk – thinking he was so amazing and sweet and
honest
.  He sure had her fooled.  The more she thought about it, the madder she got.  

She pulled up to the stoplight a few streets over from her house, waiting for it to change to green.  Her face was hot from all the crying and tears, so she rolled down her window to catch a cool February breeze.  As the window lowered, she heard the sound of a small engine coming near.  She looked in her side mirror, seeing what looked like a large bug coming up next to her car.  She squinted her eyes to focus better, and realized it wasn’t a bug – it was none other than Jonathan Buckley, king of the nerd herd.  She would recognize that stupid lime green scooter and helmet with orange flames anywhere.

Jonathan was riding his Vespa and wearing his really safe, really big flame-painted helmet.  He pulled up next to Sarah and looked over at her.  After a second, he lifted his gloved hand to push up the visor of said helmet.

For a moment he just stared at Sarah with his big, blue eyes and impossibly long eyelashes.  He swallowed a few times – she could see his Adam’s apple moving up and down with the effort.  He was nervously squeezing the handle of his scooter.  Tentatively, he asked, “Hey Sarah.  Uh … what’s up?  Are you okay?”

“Of course I’m okay, don’t I
look
okay?!” she screeched back.  All she could think was that it was a really shitty day when the king of the nerds, wearing corduroys and velour, asks you if
you’re
okay. 
Holy crap, my life sucks.

“Wh … well, yeah, you look fine.  I mean you look great.  I mean, you look sad too, and you look great.”  He was clearly flustered, trying to think of the right thing to say.

“Well, I’m not sad, I’m very
happy
, so thank you very
much
for pointing out that I look like crap!”  

The light turned green, and without saying another word, Sarah raced off, leaving Jonathan behind. 

***

“I didn’t say you look like crap,” Jonathan said to the cloud of exhaust she left behind.  He sighed as he revved up the engine of his Vespa, dropping his visor back down, and slowly pulling out into the intersection.  

Well this cruise is going to be interesting
, Jonathan thought as he tooled along towards home.  He wasn’t an expert on girls by any means, but he knew that when they got moody, anything could happen.  Living in his house with his mother and sister had given him a certain understanding of the female species.  Like, for example, the fact that they were totally unpredictable – so he’d stopped trying to figure out what they were going to do or how they were going to react a long time ago. 

He pulled into the driveway of his parents’ modest two-story house and got off his scooter.  He pushed it into the garage, shutting it off at the same time.  He took the grocery bag out of the little lockbox on the back and went into the house through the side door, hitting the garage door button as he went in.  

“Mom!  I’m back!” he yelled from the mudroom.  He took his shoes off and lined them up neatly next to the others.

A voice responded from upstairs, “Hi, sweetie!  Bring the stuff up to my room, would you please?”

He ran through the kitchen and up the stairs, taking two at a time, managing to trip halfway up, knocking a framed family photo off the wall.  Luckily, he caught it before it hit the stairs and broke.  “Yessss … cat-like reflexes, once again,” he murmured to no one in particular.  

“What, sweetie?” 

Jonathan sauntered into her room with the bag of things he had bought dangling from his finger.  “Oh, nothing.  Just practicing some ninja moves out in the hallway.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” she replied absentmindedly, pushing a few more items into the corner of her already full suitcase.  She stopped and looked up to see her son standing in the doorway, staring at her suitcase with a serious, calculating look on his face.  

She moved over closer to where he was standing and took the bag from his finger, putting her other hand on his shoulder, snapping him out of his trance.  She was smiling, looking him right in the eye.  

“Thank you so much for getting this for me, Jonathan.  You know how easily we burn.”  She went back to the bed to resume her packing, a small smile playing on her lips.  

Jonathan took a step forward to stand next to the bed, looking down at her open suitcase.  “Hey Mom, you know, if you want I can re-pack that bag for you so you can fit more stuff in it while also remaining under the fifty-pound weight limit required by the airlines at check-in.”

She smiled, knowingly.  “No, that’s not necessary.  I’ve got it handled.”  She started digging through the grocery bag.  “Oooh, boy … wow, you got a few kinds here.  Oh, and one of them has SPF 50 … I didn’t even know they made it that high.”

Jonathan grasped his hands behind his back and began rocking up on his heels and then his toes, back and forth with a regular rhythm.  “Well, you know SPF is really an imperfect measure of potential skin damage because invisible damage and skin aging are also caused by ultraviolet type-A light, you know … ‘UVA’ … which is on a wavelength of 320 to 400 nanometers, by the way, and does not cause redness or pain; conventional sunscreen blocks very little UVA radiation.  These broad spectrum sunscreens that I bought are designed to protect against both UVB
and
UVA light.”  He smiled, very satisfied with his product choices. 

Jonathan’s mom patted his shoulder absently as she looked at the sunscreen label.  “That’s nice sweetie.”  Her touch seemed designed to neither encourage nor discourage his factoids.  If she acted more interested, which she sometimes did when he gave her the science behind his choices, he would elaborate; but he wasn’t getting that signal right now.  

Jonathan continued, “I bought some for Candi and me too.  I’m going to go give it to her unless you need me to do anything else for you.  Like … re-pack that bag maybe?”  

“No, no, that’s okay.  You go ahead and see your sister.  I’m going to finish up here.  Do
you
need any help with packing your things?”

“Nope, I’m all done.”  He smiled, proud of his organizational skills.  He didn’t want to hurt his mother’s feelings, but it was obvious she had no idea how to pack a bag, so she would be the last person he’d ask for help.  Her stuff was all wadded up with space around the edges.  If she removed the air around her fluffy clothes and filled the spaces with smaller items and shoes, she’d have a much more efficiently packed bag, but it was useless trying to explain it to her because she would just brush it off.  Jonathan was fully aware that not everyone shared his desire to be as efficient as possible, and he was okay with it.

“Good.  Okay, be downstairs and ready to go at four o’clock. That’s when the shuttle is supposed to be here.”

Jonathan leaned in to give his mom a quick kiss on the cheek.  “Love ya, Mom.”

“Love you too, sweetie,” she responded.

Jonathan took some sunscreen bottles his mother had put on the bed and left to go see his sister.  He found her sitting on her bed, neatly folding a shirt to put into her suitcase.  He noticed she had already taken care of the problem of small spaces around the clothes by shoving socks and sandals around the edges.  He nodded in appreciation.

“Here,” he handed her the sunscreen he’d bought for her, thinking it might work as a good space stuffer too.

“What’s this for?” Candi asked, holding it in her palm, scanning the label.  

Jonathan sat down on the edge of her bed, leaning back on his hands, staring at the posters of rock bands she had on her pink walls.  “It’s sunscreen, silly.  I bought the broad-spectrum sunscreen that is designed to protect against both UVB and UVA.  Did you know that … ”

“Yeah, okay, I don’t need to know the details.”  She held up her hand in mock surrender. 

“But, I was going to tell you that … ”

“Okay, yeah – that’s great.  You got me the best kind because you researched it and you know that this particular sunscreen will keep me from ever getting cancer
or
a tan.  I get it.  Thanks.”  She sighed as she threw it into her suitcase.

“What’s wrong?  You don’t want the sunscreen?”  Jonathan was confused.  Usually she liked hearing his factoids.

She sighed aloud.  “It’s nothing.  I’m just not super excited about this cruise is all.”

Jonathan sat bolt upright, turning to sit sideways on her bed.  “But why?  It’s gonna be fun!  The ocean, pools … ,” he started gesturing with his hands in his excitement, “ … I mean they have like five pools on this ship – and all-night eating and dancing and drinks with umbrellas in ‘em.  What’s not to like?”  It sounded like heaven to him.

Candi shook her head in exasperation, her expression tinged with sadness.  “Well, first of all, we have to go with Kevin and Sarah Peterson.  What am I supposed to do about that?”  She threw her hands up in frustration.

“Do?  What do you mean,
do?
  You don’t have to do anything.  Just go and have fun.” 

Candi’s voice rose in frustration.  “How can I have fun if
they’re
there?”

“I’m sorry, Candi, I’m lost.  How exactly do they stop you from having fun?”

“Jonathan, I love you but you are completely clueless.”  

“Well, explain this mystery to the clueless idiot then.”

“Listen.  I hate to break this to you, but they judge you.  They judge
us
, Jonathan.  You never notice, but I do.  I can’t stand being around someone who’s looking at me, thinking I don’t measure up.”  She put her head down and stared at her hands in her lap, obviously sad just thinking about it.

Jonathan leaned over and awkwardly patted her on the shoulder.  “Hey, hey, don’t be sad about that.  I think you’re just being paranoid.  We just don’t know them very well, they’re probably really nice.  We just need to give them a chance; you’ll see.  Once we’re on the cruise and all this high school stuff is left behind us, they’ll wanna hang out.  I mean, who wouldn’t want to hang with us?  We’re fun!”  He put on his best smile and bounced up and down a little bit, trying to warm his sister up to the idea of relaxing.

She laughed at his goofiness, reaching over to push him off her bed.  She laughed harder as he lost his balance and fell off the bed sideways, his legs flying up in the air.  

“Whatever.  You go off and live in your dream world.  I have to live in the real world where people like Kevin and Sarah Peterson hate kids like us just because we’re not as cool as they are.” 

He flipped himself over and jumped to his feet, taking a fighting stance like he’d seen Jet Li do once in a movie.  

“God, you are such a dork.  Dorky and funny.  Now leave.  I have to finish packing.”

Jonathan transitioned back into his normal non-martial arts posture using loud, deep-breathing theatrics and lowering arm movements.   “Wise move on your part – surrender before I have to seriously mess you up with one of my ninja moves.”  He stopped short as if he had just remembered something.  He held up his hand and started ticking off items on his fingers.  “Oh, I meant to tell you … don’t forget to pack your magnifying glass, compass, rain poncho, and Swiss army knife.”

“What?” Candi responded, completely unruffled at both being granted a pardon from one of her brother’s famous ninja moves and from his nonsensical switch of topics.  “Are you serious?  Are you packing all that stuff?”

“Of course I am.”

“Um, okay, then maybe you can explain why to this dummy here because I have no idea why I’d need a magnifying glass, compass and whatever else you just said, on a cruise.  This isn’t summer camp.”

“Duh, in case the ship sinks, silly.  If you wash up on a deserted island, you’re gonna wish you had all those things, so pack ‘em.”  Jonathan nodded his head in a confident way and continued, “Did you know that on this particular cruise, we’re going to pass by no less than forty-two documented but uninhabited islands?  And that there have been reports of pirates and … ”

“Okaaayyyy, that’s enough of that.  Thanks, Jonathan, but it’s time for you to go bye-bye now.”  She stood up, taking him by the shoulders and spinning him around so he was facing the door.  She pushed him out of her room and into the hallway.

“No, you really should listen to this stuff, it’s very interesting, I’m also bringing my pocket telescope and my pocket knife and … ”

***

The rest of his sentence was cut off as Candi shut her door and turned up the volume on her stereo.

That kid is totally in the weeds
, she thought to herself.  He was older than she was by only nine months, but sometimes it seemed as though he was a lot younger.  She sighed.  There was no hope for him – he was going to be a nerd for life.

She, on the other hand, had high hopes for her social life; and going on a cruise with the very popular and very beautiful Sarah Peterson could make or break Candi’s next and last year in high school.  If she could just get Sarah to like her, it could completely change her senior year.  

She looked at herself in the full-length mirror and not for the first time lamented the baby fat that didn’t seem to want to leave her belly or her cheeks.  This cruise was not going to help – she couldn’t imagine avoiding the buffets completely.  She was a sucker for pecan pie and strawberry daiquiris.  Her parents sometimes let her drink them without alcohol when they went out to dinner. 
Maybe I’ll get to try a real daiquiri on this cruise.