Jane started the class essay once again, but crumpled it as soon as she read it to herself. Now she was getting frustrated. She threw the paper ball across the room, missing the garbage can once again. This prompt is stupid! Who on earth wants to write about, much less read about, "What Happens as a Teenager" and all that? How retarded! She thought to herself. And why can't I ever write anything worth reading?!!
Jane wanted what she wrote to be different this time. All of her main characters usually turned out to be nearly an exact image of herself. This time she wanted originality. She decided to just take a break. After all, she did have a party to get ready for.
She got up from her desk and flopped herself onto her bed, hugging her pillow tight against herself. She just lied there for a few minutes, daydreaming about what the party would be like. In movies, parties were always huge with lots of people, loud music, and dancing. Sometimes in those movies, much to Jane's dislike, there were also drugs and alcohol, but she knew this party wouldn't be anything like that, not with Chris throwing it.
Now excited and anxious, Jane jumped up and rushed across her bedroom to her closet, quickly peering inside. She glanced at the clock and realized that the party was in less than six hours. It's a good thing it's Saturday and I can just do my homework tomorrow, she said quietly to herself. She looked inside her closet again and decided she definitely needed something else to wear. She rushed to the phone, but right as she grabbed it, it rang so unexpectedly that she answered it on the third ring and it was, of course, Charlotte, her best friend, who coincidentally had the same problem.
Charlotte had just woken up and was freaking out because of the time. "What am I going to do?!! I haven't even taken a shower yet or eaten or anything. I hardly have any time at all!" she screamed excitedly at Jane over the phone.
"Calm down! Relax!" she tried to reason. "We've got hours. And besides, Chris is already your boyfriend. You have no need to worry over impressing him or anything."
"What? Whatever! I have just as much to do as you do!" she said.
"Alright, so why are you wasting time talking to me about it?"
"Uh. I dunno. Maybe it's cuz you're my best friend?" she replied sarcastically.
Jane thought for a moment, and then said, "Okay, then I'll come and pick you up in an hour and we'll go to the mall. That ought to give you enough time to get ready."
"Alright. I'll see you then, then."
"Okay. See ya!" Jane said before hanging up the phone. Then she went downstairs to join her father for lunch. Her father looked unbelievably sad, sitting at the table and staring thoughtlessly at the eggs on his plate. Jane suddenly remembered what day it was. It was February 13th, the day of her mom's and dad's wedding anniversary, and also the day before Valentine's day.
It was then that she knew he was thinking about her mom, whom she had known only for a few years. She'd died in a shooting. She was a cop in the narcotics unit for the LAPD, and had just been given a search warrant, knowing that there was a gang hiding drugs in one gang members' basement. She was on the verge of finding out who the dealer was, and about to make one of the biggest drug busts known in LA. But as she approached the house, in one of the worst parts of the city, she and her partner were shot out the window of the house, both instantaneously killed, as the local news had reported it. Jane made herself a peanut-butter and honey sandwich, wondering how long her father had been sitting there, since it was past one o'clock in the afternoon, and his breakfast was still sitting on his plate, cold and untouched. She sat down next to him with her sandwich.
Turning to him, she spoke softly, "Are you alright, Daddy?"
He made a sudden and rapid movement as if he had just become aware of her presence. He saw the concerned look in her eyes and that hard, stern face of his softened, as if by magic. "Yes, I'm fine sweetie. Just thinking for a minute."
"About Mom?"
"Yes. Oh, how much of her I see in you. And I was thinking about how fast you're growing up. I can't believe you're graduating in just a year and a few months!" He stood up and went to the refrigerator to get a can of Pepsi.
"I'm going to go out for I while," he said. "We need groceries, and I ought to stop in at the office and get started on a new case."
"What's it about this time?"
"Oh, you know, just a car accident. Boring stuff."
"How fun. Don't work too hard."
"Well, it may be boring, but then again, I guess it's why they pay us lawyers so much, huh?" he said, smiling a little.
"You? Lawyer?" she snickered while her dad playfully smacked her across the head, though she dodged him to miss it.
"Hey! Save the sarcasm for your calculus teacher!" he sarcastically replied, laughing with his daughter.
"What time will you be home?"
"I don't know. Whenever I get hungry and want to leave?" he said, seeing Jane's smile. "Do you want me to bring home some food for you? I'll probably stop at Wendy's or somewhere."
"Don't you remember? I was going to go to that party that Chris is throwing for Craig. It's his birthday, and it's supposed to be a surprise, but knowing Craig, he's got to have figured it out by now," she told him. "And I just talked to Charlotte, and we were going to go shopping for a couple hours, first, too. Is that alright?"
"Okay, but don't spend to much money or buy anything that's too revealing. And don't do anything stupid at that party," he reminded his daughter for the zillionth time, smiling and laughing again.
"Oh, you mean I can't take your credit card and buy myself a new wardrobe and shoe collection, and top it off by getting drunk and pregnant?" she teased.
"Yeah, yeah. Very funny. I'll see you later. And don't forget to be back by one."
"Alright, Dad," she said, half-choked as she hugged him.
He smiled back at her one last time before she left. She engraved that moment in her memory so she could always remember the way his eyes crinkled up when he smiled and the way his laugh was so full-hearted and deep. She loved to see that smile on his face, and knew she wouldn't live a day without seeing it at some point.
She went back to the table and sat down, frowning slightly as she realized she'd chosen the one chair in the house that squeaked. She decided she was too lazy to do anything about it, so she went back to her sandwich, only to get up again, despite her unwillingness, to get something to drink. Looking through the fridge, she couldn't decide between milk, orange juice, iced tea, or strawberry soda. She settled on orange juice and poured herself a glass as she mindlessly fantasized about Craig, the boy she'd had a crush on for more than a year and a half.
He's so cute! She thought to herself. Craig, at seventeen, was very muscular and tall, plus remarkably bronze skin for that time of the year (any person who wasn't in some kind of a trance when they saw him would know that his tan was fake). He was the quarterback on the football team, and was every high school girl's dream boyfriend. He had a perfect body, perfect hair, perfect grade point average (a barely passing 2.6), and perfect teeth. Although Jane wasn't part of the upper class high school society, otherwise know as The Preps, and she had a lot of competition for a chance to catch his eye, she thought she stood a fair chance because of the way she saw past the obvious when she looked at him.
When she looked at him, she saw the shy, quiet side of him that he was keeping inside, fearing the judgement that would come from his peers. When she gazed into his eyes, she found his gentle and caring soul, needing the light of another like his own in which to bask. He was really sensitive and sweet and deep underneath everything, and only Jane could see that in him.
Abruptly, she looked down, startled from accidentally spilling some orange juice on herself. She glimpsed toward the microwave at the clock. She only had half an hour left until she had to be at Charlotte's house, so she went back to her sandwich and grabbed it before racing back upstairs, shoving the whole thing in her mouth as she went. She changed her shirt to a pink one with a hippopotamus on the front of it, since she stained her other shirt, and she put on her gray sweatpants and sneakers.
After pulling her strawberry-blonde hair back into a ponytail, she stuck her head under the faucet and turned the knob, letting the cold water drip into her mouth and wash down all the gooey peanut-butter. She quickly brushed her teeth and searched for a minute to find her car keys, which were in a shoe under a pile of dirty clothes, and grabbed her sweatshirt.
Downstairs, she finished her orange juice and picked up her purse on her way out the door. Outside, her yellow Jeep Wrangler was waiting for her. She got in and took off for Charlotte's house. On the way, she stopped at Starbucks to get a couple of mocha lattes, one for Charlotte and one for herself. Then, her favorite song, "What's This Life For", by Creed, came on the radio so she turned it up really loud and belted out the tune as she sang with it.
At Charlotte's house, she just sat in the driveway and honked the horn. Charlotte came running out, still brushing her wet hair and eating a donut she was holding in her other hand. She hopped in the car and they sped off toward the mall.
They entered at JC Penny's, where they looked around for a few minutes, but didn't find much. They left and started looking in the smaller designer shops. Jane finally found something she liked, after searching for about forty-five minutes. It was a light-purple and pink plaid skirt with a light pink top that had a cute little white collar. She tried it on and showed it to Charlotte, but they decided it was too innocent.
"I thought you wanted to get Craig to notice you tonight," remarked Charlotte.
"Yeah, but, well, I don't know. I don't want to look slutty or anything. I just want to get a chance to really talk to him. And I want him to be interested in me." Jane wasn't about to do something stupid. She'd read enough books and magazine articles to know that everyday, people were making poor decisions that ended up ruining their lives.
"Oh, Jane. You're too soft!" said Charlotte. "Loosen up and live a little! It's just one night, and you need to have fun for once, rather than worrying about you're future. We all know you're going to go to college, and you're going to get a great job, and have a great life. But you're still in high school! You'd better enjoy it while it lasts."
"Well, I guess you're right. But I don't know. Suppose I tried livin' it up like you, and things ended up getting way out of control and I couldn't do anything to stop it. I just like being on the safe side, that's all."
"Relax! It's just a party, and since it's Chris that's throwing it, it's a sure thing that nothing bad can happen!" Charlotte said in a very reassuring voice.
"Sometimes some of the people at our school can be unbelievably wild, but even though those people will be there, the good guys will be, too. Chris and Craig are best friends, but since their personalities are so different, all of Chris's friends, the shier ones, will be there as well as all the jocks and preps that Craig has connections to. We'll have a blast!"
"You know what?" Jane sounded a little more enthusiastic, "You're right! This is going to be awesome!"
"Come on, let's go to a different, less sophisticated store. We need some funk!" Charlotte said.
The two of them left and cruised around the mall for a while. They couldn't find much that they liked, so they decided to try the mall on the other side of town. There, Charlotte just about went mad when she found all the things that were perfectly of her taste. In one store in particular, Funky Monkey, she found all kinds of cool stuff. Jane showed Charlotte her selection, but Charlotte dismissed it and handed her a totally different pile of clothes.
In the dressing room, they ended up trying on dozens of different outfits, and Charlotte decided to buy a slick-looking, blue miniskirt and a sleeveless zebra-striped top. She also got some blue, lacey little shoes to go with it. The blue matched her blue eyes perfectly and it made her red hair look eccentric.
However, Jane was still a little weary about the whole party-girl idea. Charlotte didn't mind one bit, though, because she decided to have Jane model the clothes she'd picked out for her, and then she'd give Jane her opinion to help her decide. After another hour, they both left the mall with several shopping bags in their hands, and they went back to Charlotte's house so they could get ready for the party.
In Charlotte's room, Jane sat at Charlotte's vanity, awaiting whatever was to come. Charlotte wanted to give Jane a makeover, and she had resentfully agreed. The curling iron was on, and all of Charlotte's makeup was out. While Charlotte combed Jane's hair, she asked Charlotte, "So how are things going between you and Chris?"
Charlotte replied, "You know - everything's fine. We have a lot of fun together."
"What's it like? Having a boyfriend, someone you can always rely on to love you?"
"What are you saying?" Charlotte questioned.
Jane was quiet for a minute before speaking. "Well, I just want someone to love me like that. That's all," she said. "Is it as good as everyone says?"
"Well, yeah, it's good! It's great! When Chris and I hooked up, I never felt lonely anymore. It's like I always, always had someone to talk to and share my deepest, darkest secrets, you know? And I always had someone to just have fun with. I love it because he's so romantic. He surprises me and charms me, even when I feel like I've already been pampered too much by him. It's the best feeling in the world."
"I wish Craig was my boyfriend. It's just that every time I get near him, it's like I choke. I get dizzy and feel like I'm going to fall down, and I can't imagine having the kind of closeness you have with Chris."
"Oh, and you don't think it was like that for me at first?" Charlotte laughed as she began to curl Jane's reddish golden hair. "I used to be scared to talk to Chris, but when I found out he liked me, too, it's as if by magic, we were just able to talk about anything and really connect."
They were both silent for a few minutes, and Charlotte continued styling Jane's hair. When she finished with that, she hopped in the shower and left Jane to do her make up. Jane finished right as Charlotte got out and started drying her hair to let her beautiful red curls drop down her back. She came out of the bathroom, and looked at Jane.
"Oh, no," she said, shaking her head a little bit. "Come here, and bring that mascara and lipstick." Charlotte painted over Jane's naturally beautiful face, and covered the normally blonde eyelashes with several coats of mascara, and lots of eyeliner, too. Blush was brushed lightly over her cheeks, and red lipstick shined on her lips. Finally, Charlotte said, "Alright, now look in the mirror!"
"Oh my God!" she screamed. "What did you do to me?!! You can't even tell I have freckles anymore!"
"Yeah, but it looks great! You'll really impress Craig." Charlotte assured her.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. I'm absolutely positive!" she said. "Now let's get dressed. We've only got forty-five minutes left, and it takes a while to get there."
They both put on their new outfits and were getting their shoes out, when all of a sudden, the phone rang. "Hello?"
"Charlotte? It's Chris. Look, there's been a change of plans for the party. I got my uncle Joe to help me throw it, and it's gonna be BIG! We're moving it to my uncle Johnny's house, since he's out of town with my aunt. We've got huge speakers and a live band is coming! This'll be awesome!"
"Wow! You really went all out for this, didn't you?" said Charlotte excitedly. "So now what are you going to do about distracting Craig? He still has no idea, doesn't he?"
"Well, he knew about it to begin with and he still thinks that I'm throwing it at my house, so I'm going to take him there, first. We'll hang out for a bit, first. He's at football practice right now and I'm on my way to pick him up. What time is it? Um. I'll page you at 8:30 - that ought to give me enough time to get him back to my house. I'll be in the bathroom when I page you, so when you call back, Craig will answer the phone. I need you to tell him that there was some accident or something so he'll believe it and I'll take him to the party and you guys have to be there and be ready to yell `surprise' when we get there, okay? Did you get all that?" Chris sounded nervous and anxious.
"You're going to page at 8:30, then? Alright, so I'll make sure I'm somewhere quiet around that time so I can hear it. Your plan sounds good! What time will people start arriving?"
"Well, I'm not sure exactly, but probably in a half hour or so. Can you make it down there in time?"
"Yeah, Jane and I are about ready to take off, and your uncle's house isn't too far away from here. It's still 1237 Ridgepark View, right?
"Yeah," he said. "I sure hope this goes right!"
"Don't worry. Everything will be just perfect. I promise!" Charlotte said.
"Well I've got to go. I see Craig coming towards my car. I'll page you at 8:30 and don't forget!"
"Alright, hugs and kisses!"
"Love you and talk to ya later!"
When she'd hung up, Charlotte turned around to find Jane standing there, fully dressed and looking gorgeous (in her eyes). Her hair was absolutely flawless, pulled back in an up-do with a few braids, and curls hanging down from the bun. The tight, red dress and red heels flattered her, but also made her look just the way she didn't really want to look. Jane didn't know quite what to think. The makeup, the clothes. What next?
"Wow!" Charlotte said, not able to find another word to express her thoughts. Jane looked just like a model, or an actress you might find at some club in Hollywood. "Very impressive and sexy!" Charlotte encouraged Jane.
Charlotte finished getting ready, and on the way to Chris's uncle's house, she explained everything that was going on since Chris changed his plans. They got there right in time to greet the first guests, and after about 20 people had showed up, and more people continued to show up, Jane realized she was wrong about this party. It was going to be big and there were going to be lots of people. Maybe I'll have enough guts to talk to Craig, tonight, she thought. Then she thought how stupid it was for her to be scared, since she was sixteen and practically all grown up.
The moment came when Chris paged Charlotte, and she called and told Craig that Jane had fallen down the stairs and probably broken something. That she couldn't move at all and the pain was too unbearable. She told him that she'd called the ambulance and they were on the way, but she was scared and needed Chris to be there. Tell him it's an emergency, she said, and that we're at his uncle Johnny's house.
Ten minutes later, the whole house was quiet. The music was off, the lights were low and everyone was hidden. Chris entered first, running in as if Jane and his girlfriend were really in trouble, and Craig was not a foot behind him.
"SURPRISE!!!!!" everyone shouted. Craig jumped out of his wits at the shock, and didn't calm down for several minutes. He was bombarded with `Happy Birthday's while the music was cranked back up. People started dancing and having a great time. After a while, the doorbell rang, and Jane answered it, only to be shoved aside by some greasy-looking man with a stained, blue jumpsuit on, rolling in a keg of beer. Jane got back on her feet and grabbed Chris, who was standing somewhat nearby, and asked him if he had ordered a keg of beer. He said no and Jane asked who did, but before Chris even had a chance to answer, a group of the jocks came through and lifted him up on their shoulders and carried him away, as a congratulations on throwing such a great party. Jane was left all alone, since Charlotte had followed Chris.
Jane sat down on one of the stairs by the entrance. She was glad to finally be left alone. She wasn't in the mood to party, and she didn't have a good feeling about anything going on around her. Why had she listened to Charlotte? Because she always listened to Charlotte, she supposed.
"Hey," Jane heard a voice, but figured it wasn't being directed at her, so she didn't even look up. Then she saw him. Craig had come over to talk to her. He sat down beside her, handed her a cup of something to drink, and asked what was wrong.
"Oh, I'm just tired. That's all."
"Well, if it makes you feel any better, when I heard you were hurt, I worried about you a great deal and came with Chris as soon as I could. I'm glad you're alright."
Jane smiled at him, and even underneath all the makeup she was wearing, he could see her blush. "Happy Birthday," she managed to get out.
"Thanks," Craig stood up. "Hey, do you want to go somewhere quiet to just talk and get away from the crowd?"
"Where?"
"Well, I know it's not much, but I was thinking of Chris's baby cousin's room. There's pink ponies on the walls and the crib takes up a lot of room, but there's a couch, and it's the quietest room in the house."
"Well, I guess it's alright. I don't really like being around the crowd."
She followed him upstairs and into the bedroom, where he closed the door to block out the loud music, and they sat on the small blue couch. Jane took a sip of the drink after smelling it. "What is this?" she asked. "I know it's not beer."
"Well it's just a little combination I can make with some apple juice, Sprite, and a few other special ingredients. Do you like it?"
"Yeah, it's pretty good," she said, being totally honest. "I've never tasted anything like it."
The two of them started talking, and after just a few minutes, Jane had relaxed enough to really connect with him. He told her that he'd liked her for a while, but was kind of afraid of rejection since she always seemed too sophisticated. She told him she'd had a crush on him for about a year and a half, and everything went from there. They just talked for hours. And the whole night seemed like a dream. (continue to Page Two)