The Bookworm Next Door: The Expanded and Revised Edition (4 page)

              There were a few things wrong about transferring to a new school a month after everybody else had started.  Even more so when it was your Sophomore Year and everybody around you had already formed their groups. 

              Wesley Pitts looked at the cafeteria around him.  Not only was he facing an uphill battle of transferring in, he also had to deal with his parents’ divorce and his father deciding to move back to his hometown in order to take care of his ailing mother. 

              He had, thankfully, gotten all of his classes.  He doubted he could tolerate having to take Home Economics because he couldn’t get into Geometry this semester. 

              However the current task in front of him had nothing to do with class assignments.  Scanning the cafeteria, he saw an indifferent looking classmate – possibly from first period Biology – sitting next to a cheerleader who appeared incapable of keeping her hands off of him. 

              It’s Friday.  Must be a game day, he thought, looking at all of the jerseys and cheerleading uniforms around him. 

              He could see who the Golden Boy was just by the way a nearby table was hanging onto a football player’s every word.  He understood the pressure he saw reflected in the guy’s eyes.  He’d have to find out who he was and befriend him later.  It wouldn’t be so bad knowing somebody else who was faced with familial pressures. 

              One table was clearly the ‘misfit’ table and he knew that they would be his kind of people.  A girl was reading a copy of an Austen novel – he couldn’t see which one – beside a girl who was quietly writing things down in a notebook with a textbook in front of her.  Another girl with glasses was busy scanning the cafeteria looking for something.  He’d bet money that she was either a gossip or wanted on the school newspaper.  On the other side of the girl with the glasses was a dark haired tomboy with a gym bag sitting in a seat with her book bag.  He’d put money on her being a runner; she didn’t seem like somebody who would play volleyball. 

              Deciding to get to know the eclectic table better, he slid into a seat uninvited. 

              “Hello,” he held his hand out to the tomboy.  “I’m Wesley Pitts, Army Brat.” 

              The tomboy looked up at him, “Army,” she sneered. 

              “Don’t mind Jennifer,” the reader sighed, barely looking away from her book –
Mansfield Park
.  “Her brother received a medical discharge this summer and she’s worried about him.” 

              ‘Jennifer’ was still glaring at the newcomer as if he had played a part in her brother’s accident.  “He lost part of his leg.  Now he’s going to have to learn how to walk with a prosthetic and find something new for him to do for a living.  He’s only twenty-four years old.” 

              “Oh,” the girl with the glasses whispered to the girl studying next to her, “as least she won’t be cussing with the new guy at the table.” 

              “If my language is a problem then you should just find another table,” the girl, Jennifer, hissed.  She pointed to another table where somebody had his textbooks spread everywhere.  “I’m sure Taylor wouldn’t mind your company.”

              The quiet looking girl cleared her throat.  “I’m Grace Chandler.  The Austen fanatic next to me is Delilah Davis.”  Pointing to the tomboy, she continued with the introductions.  “Jennifer Matheson; she’s battling for valedictorian with Taylor Rodgers, and Kyle Goldman.”  Each new name was directed by a subtle point, but she gave him in the name of the football player he wanted to befriend.  “You have to excuse Jennifer’s intensity and tongue.”

              “It won’t be anything I haven’t already heard.”  Wesley looked at the rest of the table and noticed the expression on the glasses girl’s face. 

              “Not you too,” she groaned. 

              “Penny!” the Grace, sitting next to ‘Penny’, exclaimed.  “This is Penny Dryer.  Penny is a reporter on the newspaper, but she’s also very…” the girl paused while thinking carefully about her next words, “…sensitive.”

              Jennifer snorted.  “Sensitive, right.  Penny is a prude.” 

              Tugging her closed collar tight against her throat, “I am not a prude,” she protested.  Penny didn’t recognize that she even looked the part with her floor length denim skirt and polo shirt that had all of the buttons closed.  “I’m cautious.”

              “You hate it whenever I cuss,” Jennifer countered, secretly enjoying each time Penny flinched.

              Before she could randomly start releasing cuss words, Wesley leaned closer and put a hand over her mouth, “You just might be my dream girl, Jenny.”

              She scanned him from head to foot, taking in his leather jacket and tanned skin that told her he must have some Italian in his genes.  “Don’t call me Jenny,” was all that she said before getting up and leaving the table with her lunch tray. 

              Smiling, he watched her leave.  Jennifer would be back, he decided.  Her bags were still at the table.

September meant many things.  It meant that Jennifer was spending most of her time on the Cross-Country bus or running laps around the school with the other Cross-Country runners.  It was a good thing that she was away more afternoons and able to run off her frustrations surrounding Wesley the New Guy of Two Weeks. 

              On September 21
st
it meant David Carver’s birthday. 

Delilah glared at the back of her neighbor's head as he slid into the driver’s seat of his brand new Mustang convertible in fire engine red. David looked animated as his “new” friends gathered around him.

He was obviously proud of his new car, having used half of his inheritance from his father’s death to put an extremely good down payment on the car.  He knew he’d have to work to pay off the car for a few more years, but it wasn’t the beat up truck that Will was expecting or the car Aimee was going to get from her sister when Amanda finally went away to college. 

              It was moments like this when Delilah wished that her sisters hadn’t been friends with David’s older brothers. 

"Why don't you go join them," Delilah's older sister, Charlotte, suggested. She was eighteen and a senior at Sharpton High.  Even she could tell that her baby sister was struggling with the day to day societal expectations in high school, sophomore year not-withstanding. 

"We aren't friends anymore. We haven't been for over a year. He's managed to get himself in with the popular group and I'm considered the class bookworm, if I'm even considered at all. David sold me out and makes fun of me with his friends."

Charlotte looked at her sister, “That’s not what I heard.  I heard that David did something unthinkable to protect you and Grace.”

That isn’t possible
, Delilah thought, looking fragile as she gripped one of the Jane Austen novels in her hands. The spine to
Pride and Prejudice
would be ruined if she stood in that window for a minute longer.

Charlotte nodded her head slowly. "I don't see why you aren’t popular. I'm just as much of a bookworm as you are and I'm in that same crowd; different grade but same crowd."

"That's because you don't wear your hair in a ponytail every day," Delilah groaned, repeating her sister's past words.  Honestly, she didn’t have any idea about what to do with her long, frizzy hair and a pony tail was always a safe bet. 

"Okay, for starters let go of the Austen. Her works are too treasured in this household for you to ruin a book. Thank you," she smiled as Delilah set the book on a table. "Secondly, you have the same genes as Samantha and I do; we were late bloomers too. By your Senior Year you will be drop dead gorgeous and the boys will beat down the door to get you to date them. Besides you have something Sam and I don't have: Mom's green eyes."

"Don't mention Mom, please."

"She does exist you know."

"Not to me. When she left Daddy she left us too."

Delilah looked back out the window, shutting down any and all conversation about their mother.  A year later and she still refused to talk about the divorce with anybody.  The court appointed counseling sessions had been skipped and Mr. Davis found it easier to let his daughter keep things bottled up inside than to force her to talk.  He assumed that she’d talk about things when she was ready. 

              He also wasn’t aware just how many changes Delilah had faced in a short period of time. 

              Aimee Kirkland could be found fuming in Kelly Johnson’s room.  Despite her sister’s best advice, she’d been unable to hold onto David Carver.  The one year anniversary of their break-up was quickly approaching and she’d yet figured out how to get him back. 

              David had stuck around, as according to their deal, but he’d been careful to point out that it didn’t mean that they had to stay a couple.  It just meant that he didn’t publically end their relationship in the cafeteria that fateful day. 

              Everything she’d tried had failed.  She’d skipped softball practice so many times that spring to watch him during baseball practice that she was kicked off of the team.

              Kelly, torn between the team and her best friend, quit the team in protest.  Days later, her older brother, Brady, found her softball bat and glove in the trash can.  Thinking nothing of it, he let it pass.  He couldn’t help guide all of her decisions.

              Brady had his own issues his Junior Year.  He couldn’t connect his girlfriends’ missing assignments to Kelly or Aimee.  He knew it was happening.  He knew that one of his – now- exes would do something to make Kelly mad or upset and then the next week vital assignments would begin to go missing from the girl’s locker.  Over and over again.  He didn’t know how many times he’d helped somebody scramble around in an attempt to recreate the missing assignment.

              He wanted to say something to them both while they were plotting and planning in Kelly’s bedroom, but he really liked his current girlfriend and didn’t want his interference to result in retaliation against her. 

              It was a fine line he straddled.  Protect his little sister, somebody he’d always protected, or protect a girlfriend that might not make it six weeks.  Family or girls.  It wasn’t a difficult choice; he had to live with Kelly for a few more years. 

              Listening from outside the door, “What if we start a rumor about David’s new girlfriend,” Kelly suggested. 

              “I don’t care what we do.  I just have to get him back.”  Aimee thought about her sister’s threats if Aimee didn’t get the popular boy back in line.  “I can’t keep asking him for homework help.  Eventually he’s going to see right through me.” 

              He heard the bed spring squeak as somebody moved to get comfortable.  He could hear his sister’s voice, “Maybe we need to talk to Amanda.”

              “No!” Clearing her throat, Aimee repeated, “No.  I have to do this on my own.”  More bed springs squeaking.  “I have to do this on my own.  I’ll lose my hold over the JV cheerleaders otherwise.” 

              Thankfully neither Johnson sibling heard Aimee’s unspoken thoughts. 
Maybe it’s time I start being a mean girl like Amanda.

              She felt the shadow looming over her as she expertly picked the lock that David’s latest girlfriend used to secure her locker.  It had taken days but Aimee had found out two of the numbers for that lock.  A third would have made it easier.

              “Sixteen,” she mumbled, spinning the combination carefully.  “Twenty-five.”  Again with the spinning.  On the last turn she moved the dial slowly, listening for the tell-tale click, or lack of, that she’d found what hopefully was the last number. 

              The shadow spoke, “I thought better of you.”

              “It works for Kelly’s brother.”

              Amanda scoffed, “But you aren’t after Brady.”

              Amanda paced back and forth in her little sister’s bedroom.  Worry and anger were her companions while she waited. 

              Finally, “I don’t think you understand the necessity of staying on David’s good side.  People genuinely like the Carvers and David’s popularity is because of his brothers.  People like him and all you are doing is pissing him off by going after his girlfriends.”

              Throwing her backpack on her bed, Aimee turned to face her sister, “David and I have a deal.  I leave his mousy neighbor and her friends alone and he helps me keep my grades up.  I need my grades to stay on the squad.  The squad you wanted me on.”

              Huffing, “You don’t get it, do you?  The Kirkland name is already on thin ice because of Mom.  If people find out…”

              “Find out what?”

              Amanda blinked. 

              From the doorway their mother’s voice sounded.  “That I’m not married to your father.  That he’s married to somebody in Memphis and has a whole other, legal, family.”

              Aimee abruptly dropped onto her bed next to where Amanda was standing, “What?”

              “You heard me.”

              Her whole world felt shaken up.  Up was down and down was sideways.  The occasional appearances of her father finally made sense. 

              But it wasn’t over.  “He isn’t even your father, Aimee.”

              At that Amanda sank down on the bed.  That was news even she wasn’t expecting. 

              In barely a whisper, Aimee asked, “Then who is my father?”

              Denise Kirkland gave her daughter a name that shocked them both.