Valentine's Child (3 page)

Sophomore year. The lunchroom was a shrieking, humming machine of humanity where shouting was the only form of communication. Sherry sat on a plastic chair, munching an apple, wishing her breasts would grow. Sixteen and still gawky, she eyed her friends with faintly veiled envy, noticing their rounded curves and girlish giggles, wanting for all of the world to be one of the popular, cute girls instead of a slightly serious, boyishly-slim wannabe whom no one looked at or cared about.

Popularity was everything. With it, you were
somebody.
Without it, you were less than nothing. A negative number. Below zero.

She silently assessed her friends across the lunch table. Jennifer had breasts, so some of the guys checked her out and said hello. She was just too shy and awkward to do anything about it. Her eyes would bug out and she would stammer and generally make herself look like an idiot whenever any of them spoke to her. Julie was the opposite. Loud and almost obnoxious, her laugh was like a donkey braying and although she was loyal and guileless, she sometimes drove Sherry crazy.

But Jennifer and Julie had been her friends for years, all through elementary school and junior high. Good friends. Friends you could count on.

Sherry bit fiercely into her apple. The trouble was
she
wasn’t a good friend. All she wanted to be was part of the cool crowd. Jennifer and Julie’s conversation ebbed and rose like a tide, the subjects inconsequential. None of it interested Sherry anymore. Now that she was a sophomore their chatter seemed inane and boring. She wanted something more. Something
better.

As soon as the thought crossed her mind she squelched it, hating herself a little. What was wrong with her? Why was she so mean?

“Hurry up,” Jennifer mumbled around the last bites of a maple bar. “I’ve got to get to my locker before
he
shows up.”

Sherry groaned inwardly. “He” was J.J. Beckett, the cutest — and richest — guy in the sophomore class. But he knew it. Boy, did he know it. Sherry had seen the way he strutted down the hall, girls trailing after him like a bride’s train. It was enough to make an intelligent female puke.

To that end, she made retching noises. Jennifer’s eyes narrowed. She knew Sherry’s feelings about J.J. and did not approve.

But why shouldn’t she feel this way? From the first day of kindergarten, J.J. Beckett had been Mr. Perfect, too cool to notice the shy girl in the third row who hid the bruises on her arms from the teacher by wearing long sleeves, even on hot days. Day after day, from the classroom window, Sherry watched J.J.’s perfect mother pick him up from school and drive away in the Becketts’ sleek black BMW toward that house on the hill that everybody else talked about; that beautiful, fairytale house above the cove.

She knew the house; knew exactly which one it was because it was her dream house. She could imagine the parties and tea cakes and velvet that waited within those magic walls. But shy Sherry Sterling, whose clothes were a size too small and frayed along the cuffs and hems, wasn’t one of the chosen twenty-seven asked to J.J.’s kindergarten birthday party. Only the best and brightest had received the gilt-edged invitations. Snotty Caroline Newsmith brought hers to school and flipped it in front of Sherry’s nose.

“You aren’t invited, are you?” Caroline had taunted. Five years old and already well versed in the art of snobbery, Caroline was a have while Sherry was clearly a have-not.

Sherry hadn’t answered. She’d just looked down at her colored drawing of a sunny beach with a blue sky.

“He’s got his own beach, J.J. does. They’ve got a boat, too.” Caroline had leaned over Sherry’s shoulder, staring at the picture. “And a tree house. Our parents are friends. I’m going to marry him someday.”

Sherry’s continued silence caused Caroline to lose interest and she moved on to another loser who hadn’t made the J.J. Becket friends-of-choice club. Surreptitiously, Sherry crumpled her drawing in one fist and shoved it into the pocket of her sweater.

From the classroom window she had watched the Becketts’ BMW arrive to pick up J.J. that day, only this time nearly the entire class had tripped gaily toward the car, swarming it. J.J.’s mother stepped out and arranged the kids in rows on the sidewalk. Other mothers — the chosen drivers — came in their own cars, and after the kids piled inside, the vehicles serpentined away from the school, following the gleaming black leader, all on their way to paradise.

Sherry had gone home on the bus, only to walk in on her father swaying drunkenly in the living room, and her mother, half cowering, her cheek covered protectively with one palm. There had been other Beckett parties over the years. Sherry Sterling was never invited. Neither were Jennifer and Julie, social nobodies as unimportant as she was. The three friends found each other and bonded — a case of need and desperation none ever openly admitted to but all felt.

And now, it was such a visceral betrayal that Jennifer had a crush on J.J. Beckett that Sherry wanted to scream.

“How do you know he’s going to show up?” Julie demanded.

Jennifer lifted a dismissive shoulder. “He walks by my locker on his way to biology every day.”

Julie snorted. “Like he’d even notice you.”

“He says hi to me.” Jennifer stuck out her chin and her breasts lifted to attention, too. Sherry suddenly wondered if she stuffed her bra.

“Down, girl,” Sherry muttered. Julie stifled a giggle and Jennifer glared at her, wounded to the core.

“What’s the matter with you?” Jennifer looked about to cry. “You always say something mean about J.J.”

“What should I say?” Sherry demanded.

“He’s on the varsity football team. You could say he’s a great athlete,” Jennifer said.

Sherry slapped her palm to her forehead. “Yeah, that’s what I’m going to do.”

Jennifer was undeterred. “He’s got amazing eyes and he’s got a dimples right here.” She pressed her fingertips into her cheeks. “You can see them sometimes when he smiles.”

“He hardly ever smiles,” Sherry pointed out.

This appeared to be just another plus. “He’s serious. If he doesn’t get a football scholarship, he’ll get an academic one. He’s really smart.”

“And he’s got the coolest muscles,” Julie chimed in. Sherry narrowed her eyes at her. The Benedict Arnold. She was supposed to agree with
her.

“J.J. Beckett’s a stuck-up jerk,” Sherry said.

“Well, he’s nice to me,” Jennifer answered defensively.

“Let’s give him a medal.” Sherry scooped up her book bag and headed for the halls. She had to get away from them. From their silly desires and fantasies.

“I can’t wait to get out of Oceantides,” she murmured aloud, a litany she recited at least twice daily.

Twisting the combination on her locker, Sherry glanced over her shoulder and groaned. J.J. Beckett, the object of her wrath, was heading her way. He wore a blue-and-gold letterman’s jacket — varsity football his freshman and sophomore year, thank you very much — and was surrounded by adoring girls from all grades.

“Hey, J.J.,” one of them suddenly sang out. “What are you doing after the game tonight?”

“Sleeping,” he answered in that studied voice Sherry found particularly annoying. Didn’t the guy possess one ounce of spontaneity? Everything was so careful, so orchestrated.

“With anyone I know?” the girl responded on a laugh. “Or can I come over later and see how much sleep we get?”

Wild, braying laughter accompanied this come-on. The whole entourage whooped and snickered like a pack of witless hyenas.

“Brother,” Sherry muttered under her breath.

J.J. and friends stopped directly opposite Sherry, as if she were their one-and-only audience member and the show was meant for her alone.

“I feel like I could sleep for a year,” he answered, ignoring the sexual banter. “Me and my dad are going to Pullman tomorrow to see a Cougars game.”

“My dad and I,” Sherry corrected softly.

Her voice seemed to suddenly clang like chiming bells. Either that, or it was a trick of fate, but whatever the cause, her words fell into an unexpected lull and hung there, a red flag of challenge to Oceantides’ favorite son.

“What’s
your
problem?” one of the groupies demanded.

“The brainiac speaks,” another sniffed.

“What a bitch,” still another said on a half laugh of derision.

A pair of blue jeans over slim thighs topped by a tan-leather and blue-and-gold wool jacket moved into her line of vision. J.J. Beckett, his jacket unzipped to reveal a dark shirt, stood directly in front of her. His chest rose and fell several times, ten inches from her nose.

Her heart somersaulted painfully.

“My dad and I are going to Pullman tomorrow to the Cougars game,” he corrected himself. His low-timbred voice raised a rash of goose bumps along her arms.

Sherry found she couldn’t look up and meet his eyes. Her pulse raced along, light and fast, a traitor, too. Ignoring him, she pulled several unneeded books from her locker. But he just stood there, eyeing her hard, his breath deep and even, a faint scent of leather and musk reaching her nostrils. Glancing up, she saw those clear gray eyes she hadn’t forgotten since her terrible, elementary-school days, although she hadn’t looked at him this closely in years.

“Why do you try so hard to put me down?” he asked.

“What?” Sherry stared.

“It’s always that way with you. A quick jab.”

She was stunned. “Me?”

“I can’t walk by you without a remark.”

She was incensed. Of course it wasn’t true. J.J. Beckett didn’t even know she existed!

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she sputtered, slamming her locker. The entourage had moved back, waiting for him, the girls regarding her smugly as if they knew she was about to get slam-dunked by their hero.

“You’re mad at me all the time. Like I’ve done something to you. Did I? Something I don’t remember?”

“I don’t care what you do.” Sherry fumbled with her book bag. The stitching on one handle was dangerously close to ripping out altogether. She plucked at the thread, intending to tighten it, but it came undone as if by unseen hands, and the bag fell to the floor.

J.J. automatically reached forward to help, bending down at the same moment she did, his arm brushing hers. At the contact, Sherry jerked compulsively, nearly overbalancing, and just as automatically his hand grabbed for her arm, holding her steady.

The heat of his fingers nearly overpowered Sherry. That and the recognition of his innate strength. Frozen, she could do nothing but balance precariously on the balls of her feet. He held her steady, his face registering only normal concern.

“Sorry. You okay?”

“Fine,” she said shortly.

“Looks like that bag’s destroyed.” He smiled.

White teeth and sexy lips. The guy didn’t smile very often but when he did, it was a stellar show. Sherry suddenly snapped back to reality, hating him for being so perfect. “Well, it was on its last legs,” she muttered, pulling her arm free and snatching the bag by its other handle. She and J.J. rose in unison, each awkwardly trying to figure out how to get out of this strange little moment gracefully.

“I’ll try to work on my vocab,” he told her as a goodbye, heading toward his hovering group of admirers without another look back. Sherry hugged the lumpy book bag in her arms and turned down the opposite hallway, glad that Jennifer and Julie hadn’t been around to witness her downfall.

Throughout geometry class she revisited their conversation, her spirits sinking lower and lower as she realized how awful she’d been. Not just to him, but socially. What an idiot! She’d only succeeded in proving
she
was the loser, destined for nothingness.

Sherry finished sophomore year with a vague feeling of things left undone, and over the summer she distanced herself from Julie and Jennifer until neither girl called her anymore. By the time school started in the fall she was virtually friendless, but tensions ran so high at home — her parents living in a silent war of wills — that Sherry only felt relief.

Junior year, a miracle happened. Almost overnight, she metamorphosed from a skinny, unremarkable ugly duckling to the proverbial beautiful swan. Her legs lengthened and took on definition, her tiny freckles smoothed out, her skin grew so sleek and fine it was hard to believe she possessed pores. Her breasts grew to an acceptable size. Not nearly as huge as Jennifer’s but rounded and lush enough to provoke more than a few looks of male admiration. Her lips seemed to thicken into sensual, pink crescents, and her eyes gleamed like amethysts with only the faintest application of makeup. Lastly, her brown hair deepened into a rich mahogany. Shoulder-length, it swung like a shining curtain, thick and soft and inviting.

From the “Girl Most Easily Forgotten”, Sherry became “The Hottest Girl in School” Oceantide High’s newest sensation.

There was only one problem. Although she could see the physical changes, and could feel the heightened awareness in her classmates — especially the males — within herself, where it mattered most, she was still the old Sherry Sterling, the girl not good enough to be asked to J.J. Beckett’s birthday parties, the girl whose razor-sharp tongue was her only defense.

Then two things happened within a week of each other. The first was a golden opportunity. Early into her junior year, on the verge of her seventeenth birthday, while she sorted through her uneasy emotions, Ryan Delmato told her his dad was looking for someone to work at Bernie’s Pizza Parlor, the family business.

“My dad wants somebody who’ll be there everyday,” Ryan explained, his dark gaze serious, although Sherry watched it skate quickly over her face, down to her breasts, and back again. The old Sherry would have been embarrassed, but the new Sherry was faintly amused.

“Well, I don’t have any extracurricular activities,” Sherry told him. “And I’d really like a job.”

“That’s what somebody said.” Ryan nodded enthusiastically. “Go on down to Bernie’s after school. Tell my dad you talked to me. He’ll hire you. If it’s what you want.”

“Thank you,” Sherry said, meaning it. Bernie’s was a cool place to work. Everyone wanted a job there, but Bernie only hired a few teenagers each year — select ones who filled his own special requirements of poise, friendliness and efficiency. His system worked, for he invariably hired the best employees and therefore ran a successful establishment.