Black Tuesday (14 page)

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Authors: Susan Colebank

BOOK: Black Tuesday
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“Hey,” she said, turning to Tom. But then she stopped. Lori had her arms reaching out to grab Tom around the shoulders.
“Gotcha!”
A white-hot poker seemed to jam through Jayne's heart and stomach. Before she could catch a breath, someone called her name.
Loudly.
Angrily.
Jayne looked around to see bright orange toenails in turquoise slides. Tilting her head back, she saw her mother's angry face.
In a stage whisper, her mother spat out, “Get out of that pool right this minute, young lady.”
Even with all her senses still reeling from Darian, Tom, and Lori, she knew her mom wasn't mad about her being in the pool with her clothes on.
The day of reckoning had come.
20
JAYNE BARELY HAD TIME to wrap a beach towel around her torso before Gen Thompkins took her elbow. She hissed low enough so only Jayne could hear her words. “C's? You got C's? Not that the B's were any better, but C's? What were you thinking?”
Jayne had known this day was coming. She just wished it wasn't today, in front of Darian and Lori and a crowd. She kept her head down. Not wanting to see pity or, in Lori's case, glee.
Her mom led her through the backyard and through the double doors off the patio. Into her dad's study.
Out of everyone's earshot.
Once the door closed behind them, Jayne said calmly, “I just couldn't think straight last quarter, you know?”
“No, I don't know. What I
do
know is—”
Her dad came in through the French doors, an open oxford shirt over his swimsuit.
“What I
do
know,” her mom continued, ignoring him, “is you're going to work so hard to make this up you're going to be wondering what a good night's sleep feels like.”
“What's this about, Gen?” Her dad came over to stand next to Jayne. “Angie Challen said I should come in here.”
Angie Challen. What a twit.
Jayne closed her eyes briefly, trying to forget about all the emotions already coursing through her.
She had a battle to prepare for.
“Your daughter here earned a 2.3 GPA last quarter.” Gen crossed her arms, her head shaking from side to side as if she couldn't believe what she'd just said.
“I was wondering why we'd gotten Ellie's report card and not yours.” He put an arm around Jayne's shoulders. “How're you holding up, kid?”
“Oh, suck it up, Sean.” Gen crossed her arms, her gold bangles clanking together. “Jayne needs some tough love, not your touchy-feely crap.”
Sean looked straight at his wife, keeping his arm around Jayne's shoulders. “Grades aren't love, Gen.”
“I know grades aren't love, but caring about her future is.” She pointed at Jayne. “How's she going to get into a good school with a 2.3?”
“That was only one quarter. Jaynie already had over a 4.0. Angie says she still has over a 4.0. So what if it's not a 4.25?”
“So what?” Gen sneered. “If she wanted to go to a state school”—she said the words like they were dirty and distasteful—“a 4.0 would get her in, no problem.”
Sean squeezed Jayne tighter. “What's so wrong with a state school, Gen?”
Gen gestured around with her outspread hands. “Look around. We could've been living in New York, me at a cable station, you at Columbia, if we'd gotten an Ivy League education.”
“I think we have a pretty damn good life.” He squeezed Jayne closer to him. “And we're not hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, either.”
Jayne's mom looked like she was about to launch herself at her husband of seventeen years and claw his eyes out. Jayne let herself sink deeper into her dad's side.
Gen took a deep breath and leaned forward, her hands on her hips. She seemed to be scrutinizing her toenail polish. “We have guests right now, so we'll be picking this conversation up later, young lady. Figure out how to get those grades up.” She looked at Jayne. “Maybe you can retake the quarter.”
Jayne didn't say anything.
After she'd gotten her report card, she'd looked up the student handbook online. Only D's or worse could be retaken.
Her mom avoided eye contact as she breezed through the French doors, the fringe of her sarong whipping angrily behind her.
If hate and loathing had a smell, Gen Thompkins would've been equal parts rotten egg and skunk.
“How're you holding up, Jaynie?”
She pulled away from her dad and pushed the heels of her hands into her eyes. She shrugged. Did it matter how she was doing?
Her dad pulled her hands away from her face and kissed her forehead. “Now don't go gouging your eyes out. Your mom will cool down and get her senses back. Why don't you get back out to the party?”
He turned her around to face the doors. “Looks like your friend out there's lonely.”
“Tom?” She took a deep breath and adjusted the straps of her tank top. Tom would know how to calm her down.
He'd seen enough of Gen's tantrums to become an expert at picking up the pieces.
“No, that other young man. The one who likes picking you up.”
Oh yeah.
That
young man.
 
Instead of going back to the pool, Jayne went out the door that led to the downstairs bathroom. She had to check to see if her face showed anything.
Like the fact that she'd just been chewed out by a woman who skinned puppy dogs to make fur coats.
As Jayne stepped into the hallway, she collided into a wide, tan chest.
“You okay?”
She looked up to see the brown eyes that were beginning to get imprinted on her mind.
“Yeah. Just some family drama.” She tried to crack a smile, but it was still too soon after the fight. “Sorry about that.”
“Hey, I understand.” She felt Darian's hand go underneath her chin. Gentle pressure forced her to meet his eyes again. “But you're okay?”
She felt her pulse thrumming in her throat. He really was too good-looking. And nice.
Too good to be true
, a tiny voice singsonged in the back of her head.
“I'm okay. Thank you.”
“So formal.” He moved his head closer to hers, until his breath was brushing her lips. “Let's see what we can do to fix that.”
In the next instant, his lips covered hers and a hand moved to the small of her back. She gave in to the warmth of his mouth, tentatively.
Then she felt it.
His tongue touching her lips.
Did he want her to open her mouth? Her head was swimming with the fact that she was kissing a hottie. Here. In her house.
This was only the third male mouth on hers in her entire life. And one didn't even count (well, it could, but that would be utterly disgusting considering it was her dad's when he used to kiss her good night when she was little).
The only problem she had in her life right now was whether or not she was supposed to let Darian's tongue in her mouth. That, and her brain didn't seem to want to shut off long enough for her to just enjoy the damn kiss!
“Well, lookie here.”
Jayne pulled away so fast from Darian that her elbow bumped a picture on the wall, unhooking it from its nail. Reflexively, she turned around and caught it between the wall and her body.
Tom stood in the hallway, wearing that pissy look she'd seen at the pool.
Beside him was Lori.
Lori, who should've been wearing green greasepaint to warn people about her toxic personality.
The one who'd been sending her those e-mails. And those text messages.
“Excuse me.” Those two words dripped with saccharin. Lori pushed her way between Jayne and Darian. “I need to use the little girls' room.”
As Lori headed down the hallway, she threw back, “I'm surprised at you, Jayne.”
Lori was looking for a fight. Usually, Jayne wouldn't have given her one. She wasn't that kind of girl.
But tonight, she'd been blindsided by an enemy, thrown into the pool, given pissy looks by her best friend, yelled at by her mother, kissed by a hottie, and now ordered around by this witch.
She'd had enough. “That I actually enjoy the male persuasion, unlike you?”
For a brief moment, Lori looked surprised. Before Jayne could feel good about getting the upper hand, though, the witch regained her composure. “Oh, I enjoy the males. I enjoy them a lot.”
Lori's smile was creepy. Like Jack Nicholson's in that
Shining
movie. Right before he went on a killing spree.
“I'm just surprised that you're able to kiss anyone at all after killing Jenna's sister and all.”
 
If Lori was eaten by a pack of coyotes, would anyone even miss her? If Lori was lost in the Andes with five other people and someone had to be killed for the others to eat, how would they murder Lori?
After Lori's parting words, Jayne had gone up to her room. Attempted to calm down. Attempted to stop wanting to rip Lori's face off.
“Hey.” Darian's voice came from behind her. She turned, her eyes not meeting his.
“Jayne, I knew already.”
“You knew what?”
“I knew about the girl. And the accident.”
She finally looked at him. His eyes were warm and sympathetic. Like Tom's had been. The only difference was that she didn't want to punch Darian in the face for cavorting with an enemy.
“You knew?”
“Yeah.” He pushed away from the doorway and ran a hand through his hair. It was a little less spiky today. The chlorine had a way of doing that. “Maria told me.”
A flash of . . . anger? shock? . . . popped through Jayne. “I thought that was confidential.”
“I was in her office one day and she sort of let it slip about what had happened. She didn't mean to tell me anything.” He put a hand over his heart. “Honest. Don't be mad at her.”
For the second time that day, she felt betrayed. First Tom, now Maria.
But this betrayal didn't cut quite as deep as Tom's had.
Small consolation, though.
“What I'm trying to say, though, is that what that girl said out there didn't mean anything.” He was close. Close enough to put his hand on Jayne's cheek. “And that I like you a lot.”
She thought maybe her heart was going to drop into her stomach. That hand felt good. It felt like it was grounding her in this topsy-turvy world of disappointed mothers, useless dads, turncoat best friends, and loose-lipped counselors.
And for the second time that day, Jayne Lee Thompkins kissed a boy.
This time, she opened her mouth.
21
THE MUZAK IN THIS PLACE was driving Jayne nuts. She picked up another
National Geographic
, flipping through it but not really looking at it. Instead, she looked at her watch for the hundredth time.
Larry the Fairy was running late.
She stopped on a page that showed the flattest, starkest cliff she'd seen in her life. The caption read “Inishmore Island, Aran Islands, Ireland.”
That lonely, stark place looked like it would've been a one hundred percent improvement over this land of seventies furniture, gray carpet, and tropical rain forest.
This office sort of reminded her of Val's office. Except the plants here were real and very shiny.
A door opened around the corner. “Jayne? You ready?”
Larry came out, his hair going in every which direction, his big bug eyes popping out of his head. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, khakis, and flip-flops.
Larry sure didn't know how to dress for his clients. Or in general.
“Yeah.” She put the magazine under her arm and walked past him. After the weekend she'd had, she didn't give a crud about putting up appearances. She wore a pair of sweats with a hole at the knee and a black Metallica shirt that had been her dad's back in college.
Her mom had tried to make her change her clothes, but she'd failed. Anyway, Gen had already gotten her way once today. And that was Jayne's quota.
She was here to see Larry the Fairy, wasn't she? To help straighten her out, as her mom put it. “Jayne, I don't know what's gotten into you, but you need to get back on track. School starts in a month and I need to see A's from you.”
Her mom didn't insist on driving her here, though. It was like she'd made a pact with her dad to keep some distance from her. Jayne could tell her mom wanted to say stuff to her, though. She had that pinched look she got when something was bothering her.
Larry clicked a pen, a noise that made Jayne stop with her Gen thoughts. The hum of the humidifier was the only other noise in the room.
“How was your week?”
“Fine.”
He nodded and just sat there. The faithful humidifier hummed its song over in the corner, and Jayne let her mind wander.
Okay, Jayne. You better think of something before you tell him something out of sheer boredom.
That's when she came up with Shakespeare soliloquies she'd had to memorize back in Freshman Lit.
What'll it be today? Um . . . Polonius, maybe.
Brevity is the soul of wit . . .
Wait, no, there was something else before that. What was it?
“It looks like you're in the middle of some deep thoughts there, Jayne.” Larry was watering one of his many plants.
“Yeah.” She looked at her fingernails, bitten down to the quick. “I was just thinking about what color I was going to paint my nails. I've got it narrowed down to Berrylicious and Berry Frost.”
Larry made a sound in the back of his throat as he drizzled water over the plant. “Sounds like you have plans tonight.”

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