Get a Life
Laura Peyton Roberts
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 Laura Peyton Roberts
Read the entire Clearwater Crossing series:
#1 Get a Life
#2 Reality Check
#3 Heart & Soul
#4 Promises, Promises
#5 Just Friends
#6 Keep the Faith
#7 New Beginnings
#8 One Real Thing
#9 Skin Deep
#10 No Doubt
#11 More Than This
#12 Hope Happens
#13 Dream On
#14 Love Hurts
#15 What Goes Around
#16 Tried & True
#17 Just Say Yes
#18 Prime Time
#19 Now & Always
#20 Don’t Look Back
In the way of righteousness there is life; along that path is immortality.
Proverbs 12:28
From the desk of Principal Kelly
(Teachers: Please read in homeroom.)
Welcome back, students!
We’re all looking forward to a great school year, and I hope that each of you will take advantage of this fresh new start to branch out and get involved in the many activities here at CCHS.
In particular, I want you all to think about participating in a special event this weekend.
Many of you know Kurt Englbehrt. Not only is Kurt an outstanding student, he’s also a linebacker on our very own Wildcats football team. Some of you may have heard that Kurt was diagnosed with leukemia last June and has been undergoing treatment all summer. I’m happy to say he’s back at CCHS and the prognosis is good, but fighting leukemia is a long, expensive process, and the Englbehrt family has the medical bills to prove it.
It gives me great pride to announce that Kurt’s teammates, with the assistance of the cheerleaders, spent many hours this summer planning a carnival to take place on our football field this Saturday. It’s going to be a first-class event, with all the proceeds going to Kurt and his family. I urge everyone to attend, along with their families and friends. And for those of you who want to get more involved, there will be a volunteers meeting in the cafeteria on Wednesday at 3 P.M.
I know it’s the first day of school and we all have a lot on our minds, but stop and take a few minutes today to think about Kurt, and about how you can help make this year at Clearwater Crossing High School the best year ever.
Go, Wildcats!
Chapter 1
“Go, Wildcats,” Mrs. Wilson concluded, dropping the principal’s announcement onto her desk.
Jenna Conrad watched the paper flutter down to the scratched Formica surface with an identical flutter in her heart. Here she was, starting her very first class as a junior, and the year ahead already seemed loaded with promise. She and her best friend, Peter Altmann, had arrived at school early to say hello to people they hadn’t seen much over the summer, and the whole campus was buzzing with first-day energy. Everyone was running around greeting old friends and comparing notes on their vacations, and even the kids Jenna had seen every week at church looked different that morning in their first-day outfits.
To top things off, it was Spirit Day. There was a long-standing tradition at CCHS that on the first day of school all the members of the sports teams wore their jerseys, and the cheerleaders modeled the year’s new uniforms. There was so much green and gold on campus that the school felt like a theme park.
“I hope you’ll all go to the carnival,” Mrs. Wilson told her students, opening a brand-new roll book. “It’s certainly a worthy cause.”
Jenna heard the teacher’s words at half volume, as an undercurrent to the other thoughts racing through her head. Of course she’d go to the carnival and, knowing her family, her parents and sisters would probably go too. But at that moment she was far more interested in the fact that Miguel del Rios, the guy she’d had a crush on for the last two years, was sitting in the row right next to her.
“. . . Carver,” Mrs. Wilson droned. “Conrad . . .”
“Here!” Jenna answered.
“del Rios . . .”
“Here.” His voice was deep for a high school guy. Jenna risked a furtive peek at his profile, taking in the cool white smile, summer-tanned cheeks, and wavy dark hair that barely brushed his collar. Miguel’s eyes were dark, too—a clear deep brown the color of Coke over ice.
Jenna vividly remembered the first time she’d ever seen him. Her freshman gym class had been swimming lackluster laps in the indoor pool, and the teacher had just dismissed them. Everyone climbed out onto the deck and ran for the locker room, but Jenna lagged behind, unable to wait another second before peeling off the swimming cap that was cutting an angry pink trench in her forehead. She’d stayed to squeeze the water out of her long hair, and that was when she’d spotted Miguel coming out with the rest of the water polo team, dressed to swim in a green Speedo and white water polo cap.
There was something about his face that had caught her attention immediately. Even in the middle of that rowdy, wise-cracking group, Miguel had stood apart from the other guys, as if he were holding himself in somehow. She’d stood watching, mesmerized, while he’d pushed his way to poolside with his friends, and by the time his long, arcing entry dive cut the surface of the water, Jenna had made up her mind. Somehow, someday, she wanted to know Miguel del Rios.
Following up on that decision had turned out to be harder than Jenna had imagined. For one thing, Miguel’s reserve made her shy about approaching him. For another, that same reserve gave him an air of mystery that drove even the most popular girls at school crazy. Jenna would never follow him to his classes or wait for him in the parking lot the way some of them did, but she had developed a secret habit of looking for him in the crowd whenever there was an assembly or a football game.
“Hey, Jenna!” Cyn Girard whispered urgently from the row on Jenna’s left. “Can I borrow a pencil?”
Jenna jumped, startled. The roll call had come to an end. “Sure,” she whispered back, picking up her backpack and riffling through the detritus at the bottom. Jenna had known Cyn forever, and the girl’s modus operandi never varied—coming to class prepared was simply not her style.
“Here.” Jenna handed over a freshly sharpened pencil, knowing she’d never see it again.
“You’re a lifesaver!” Cyn whispered gratefully. “How do you remember this stuff?”
“I think most people would agree that pencils are pretty basic equipment,” Jenna teased. “Especially on the first day of school.” She didn’t mind, though. She always kept a few extras in her pack in case someone needed one.
“All right, everybody,” said Mrs. Wilson, raising her voice above the growing chatter. “I’m going to ask Hugh and John to pass out those textbooks, and then we’ll get right to work.” There was a unanimous groan as the teacher pointed toward several stacks of heavy, dog-eared geometry books on a table at the front of the room.
Mrs. Wilson smiled good-humoredly. “You’ve all had too much fun this summer—that’s the problem. Well, don’t worry. I’m back on the job now.” The groan echoed around the room again, this time accompanied by reluctant smiles as Hugh and John got up to pass out books.
“Do you know Kurt Englbehrt?” Cyn asked Jenna in the noisy interval that followed.
“I know who he is, but I don’t really know him. Do you?”
“Yeah, a little. The guy’s a total babe. At least he used to be—he didn’t look so great the last time I saw him.” A shadow crossed Cyn’s face and she unconsciously tucked her auburn hair behind both ears.
“What’s wrong with him?” Jenna asked curiously. “I mean, what exactly is leukemia?”
“Cancer,” Cyn answered, a shudder in her voice. “It gets in your bone marrow somehow.”
“Oh, Cyn!” Jenna felt a shiver run all the way down both arms. It seemed inconceivable that someone so young—one of her own classmates—could get cancer. “Is he very sick? I thought Principal Kelly’s announcement said Kurt was here at school.”
Cyn nodded. “He is, but he’s been in and out of the hospital all summer for chemotherapy and radiation. I saw him and his girlfriend, Dana, at the mall last week and I thought he looked scary, but they both think he’s better. They’re hoping he’s close to remission.”
“Remission?”
“In remission, the cancer disappears. Sometimes it comes back later, and then they have to try more treatment. But sometimes it just goes away.”
“And they think that will happen to Kurt? Thank God!”
“Yeah. Whatever.” Cyn smiled skeptically. “But I think his doctors had more to do with it.”
“Here you go, ladies,” a sarcastic male voice interrupted. “Enjoy.” Geometry books fell onto Jenna’s and Cyn’s desk with twin thuds as John passed up their aisle.
“Gee, thanks,” said Cyn, making a face.
Jenna turned around in her chair and flipped idly through her textbook, not really seeing the endless pages of geometry problems or the scribbled notes penciled in the margins. Her mind was still on Kurt.
How awful to be so sick! she thought. She tried to imagine herself or one of her sisters with a serious disease, but she couldn’t. It seemed impossible, unreal. Nothing that bad has ever happened to my family, she realized, surprised now that she’d never thought about it before. We’ve always been pretty happy. Of course, having four sisters still living at home isn’t exactly a picnic. . . . But to have one of her sisters get as sick as Kurt Englbehrt was, was too horrible to even think about.
Jenna’s thoughts returned to the carnival. She would definitely go, she decided, and she’d pray for Kurt every night. Not only that, but if she talked to her mom about it, Mrs. Conrad might ask Reverend Thompson to take up a special collection for the Englbehrt family. Having a plan made Jenna feel better, and with a feeling of renewed optimism she turned her text to the page number Mrs. Wilson was writing on the blackboard.
“Psst, Miguel! What page are we on?” Jenna heard Chelsea Stephens whisper from the seat directly behind his. Jenna glanced over to see the pretty girl leaning forward on her desk, trying to get his attention. “I can barely see the board from way back here,” she added, playing for sympathy.
Miguel turned around in his chair. “Page fourteen,” he said quietly. “Maybe you should move to a seat closer to the front.”
His voice gave away nothing, but Jenna thought she saw a flicker of amusement in his eyes—just enough to convince her he knew that Chelsea was faking her sudden blindness.
Chelsea squirmed uncomfortably. “Oh, uh, that’s okay. I can read it if I squint.”
“You ought to get your eyes checked,” Miguel persisted. “Maybe you need glasses.”
The mere mention of glasses made Chelsea look so horrified that Jenna had to stifle a giggle.
“No! I mean, I’m sure I don’t. I’ll, uh, get used to seeing from back here. It’ll be fine.”
Miguel raised one heavy eyebrow, then turned his attention back to the teacher. Jenna, meanwhile, struggled not to burst out laughing. If the first half hour indicated anything, it was that her junior year was going to be incredible. She could barely wait to see Peter at lunchtime and find out if he was as excited as she was.
Not that she was going to tell him about Miguel. She’d never even told Peter she had a crush on anyone, let alone mentioned the incredible, inexplicable effect Miguel had on her. Peter Altmann might have been her best friend since sixth grade, but he was still a guy. He wouldn’t understand.
“Melanie! Melanie Andrews! Marry me or I’ll kill myself!”
Melanie slowed her steps and glanced toward the group of rowdy basketball players on the lawn in front of the high school. Senior Ricky Black immediately fell to his knees on the steaming emerald grass, hamming it up while his teammates egged him on.
“I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I’ll die, I tell you.” He made this declaration in the most pitiful voice imaginable, his hands clasped and stretched out in front of him.
“We can only hope,” Melanie said, rolling her green eyes. Ricky was known as the team clown, but this latest effort seemed more like an incredibly bad audition for the school drama club.
“Ooh! That’s cold!” John Killian exclaimed, smacking his buddy hard between the shoulder blades. Ricky clutched convulsively at his heart and fell face-forward on the grass in the most fake, yet protracted, death scene that Melanie had ever witnessed.
“Bye-bye, Ricky,” she said, when his body finally stopped twitching. “Nice knowing ya.” Ricky’s friends responded with jeers and laughter as Melanie tossed her head and resumed her saunter across campus.
“Can you believe those guys?” she asked her fellow cheerleaders, acutely aware of the way her short pleated skirt switched at the tops of her tan legs and her sun-streaked blond hair bounced behind her in a ponytail tied with a broad green ribbon. “They never give it a rest.”
Lou Anne Simmons managed to walk, shrug, and touch up her mascara all at the same time. “Forget about them. Can you believe that horrible Mrs. Gregor? What kind of sadist assigns homework on the first day of school?”
“You have homework?” Angela Maldonado asked, appalled. “None of my teachers made us do anything.”
“Of course not!” Lou Anne exclaimed. “No one does anything on the first day of school. It’s practically a law or something.”
“Someone should have told Mrs. Gregor.” The weight of the heavy history text in Melanie’s tote bag was making the canvas handles cut creases in her hand. Normally she would have worn a backpack, but not today—not on her very first chance to wear her brand-new cheerleader’s uniform.
“Isn’t Gregor about a hundred years old?” Vanessa Winters, the senior squad captain, asked in a bored tone of voice. “Maybe they told her and she already forgot.”
Lou Anne laughed loudly, sucking up. “Probably.”
Melanie had actually kind of liked cranky, independent Mrs. Gregor, but she had to admit that she wasn’t any more thrilled about reading the history chapters than Lou Anne was.
“Hey, Melanie! Wait up!” a male voice boomed suddenly. Melanie and her friends turned to see Jesse Jones, CCHS’s new football stud extraordinaire, hurrying toward them, a couple of teammates in tow.
“Ooh, Melanie,” Angela teased. “I think someone likes you.”
Melanie smiled noncommittally and shrugged. “So many men . . . ,” she said with a sigh.
“Don’t pay him any attention,” Vanessa advised in a low, guarded voice. “The guy’s a total flirt.”
Melanie didn’t reply as the four of them waited for Jesse to catch up. Jesse Jones was a very good-looking guy—tall and lean with light brown hair and intense blue eyes under low, straight brows. He’d transferred to Clearwater Crossing from a school in California the semester before, but Melanie had met him during the summer, when the football team and the cheerleaders had held meeting after meeting to plan the upcoming carnival. And Vanessa was right—he was a flirt. Still, Melanie wasn’t exactly inexperienced in that area herself. She could handle him.
“Hey, Melanie,” Jesse said, his voice full of studied nonchalance as he reached her group. “What are you doing?”
Melanie regarded him coolly. “Walking.”
Jesse’s buddies snickered and Jesse flinched. “Obviously,” he said, a little less confidently. “I meant, what are you doing this afternoon?”
“That depends on what you have in mind,” she told him, letting the invitation dangle.
Vanessa’s pained groan was drowned out by the hoots and laughter of Jesse’s two companions.
“Way to go, man!” yelped Gary Baldwin, slapping Jesse on the back. The other guy, a kid whose name Melanie could never remember, tried to high-five Jesse from his other side.
“Will you two knock it off?” Jesse snapped. “What do you say we drive around a little?” he asked, turning to Melanie. “Maybe head out to the lake?”
Lou Anne giggled and Jesse shot her a lethal look. The lake was the designated makeout spot—Melanie had to give the guy points for trying.
“You driving that pretty red BMW today?” she asked.
“You bet.” Jesse puffed out his chest.
“Then you can drive me home. But after that I’m busy.”
With a quick wave good-bye to her friends, Melanie struck off across the lawn in the direction of the student parking lot, Jesse on her heels. The grass beneath her Nikes was thick and springy, and it was late enough in the year that the humidity had backed off. The long Missouri summer was giving way to fall, turning the sky over the Ozarks a hazy, purplish blue.
“Here it is,” Jesse announced as they reached his car. “I washed it yesterday.” The pristine BMW sparkled in the afternoon sunlight, and Jesse hurried to open its passenger door for Melanie. She climbed in cautiously, testing the temperature of the black leather against the backs of her bare thighs before settling down into the seat.
“Are you sure you don’t want to cruise the lake on the way home?” Jesse asked as he buckled his seat belt. The expression on his face was smug, confident.
“In your dreams,” Melanie returned sweetly.
Jesse winced, then laughed, then started the engine. It was only a game, and they both knew it.
If I said “Yeah, let’s go,” he’d probably have an accident, Melanie thought, smiling to herself as they pulled out onto the roadway.
Melanie was used to guys making passes. She was only fifteen, but the boys had started lining up in kindergarten. It was frequently annoying—for instance, when some lovestruck loser took to following her around and calling her house at all hours—but at other times it was pretty convenient. Today, for example, a little low-key flirting was getting her a ride straight to her doorstep instead of a long, sweaty trip on that hot, smelly bus.
“So, are you looking forward to school this year?” Jesse asked.
“I guess. You?”
“Are you kidding? I’m on varsity now. Besides, I think we’re going to regionals this year.”
Melanie nodded and tried to look interested. Now that she was a cheerleader, she had to at least pretend to care about sports. “If we beat Red River,” she said dutifully.
“Oh, we’ll beat ’em,” Jesse predicted confidently. “You heard it here first.”
They drove in silence after that, Melanie relaxing gradually into the hot leather seat. The warm air pouring through her open window flowed over her bare arms and ruffled the stray strands of hair around her face, and Melanie breathed in deeply, taking in the mixed odors of livestock and dying leaves.
“Turn here,” she said after awhile. “My house is down at the end.”
Jesse steered the BMW around the corner and along the short private road. The Andrewses’ place sat regally at the dead end, towering above the surrounding oaks, sycamores, and dogwoods like a glass-and-concrete castle.
“What a wild house,” Jesse said as he pulled up the driveway. “It looks like something you’d see in California instead of way out here in Misery.”
Melanie chose to ignore the insult to her native state. “My mother helped the architect design it. It’s all custom,” she explained, letting herself out of the car.
“Hey!” Jesse called quickly, before she could shut the door. “Why don’t I come in for awhile? You can give me the grand tour.”
“Maybe some other time. I have things to do now.”
“Do them later,” Jesse suggested.
Melanie shook her head, an easy smile on her lips. “Thanks for the ride. I’ll see you in school tomorrow.”
Eventually Jesse drove off, and Melanie let herself inside. The immense, two-story entry hall was cool and silent. Melanie stooped to the gray marble floor, collected the mail scattered under the mail slot, and shuffled through it listlessly: bill, bill, junk mail, another bill, something that might be a check. Putting the envelopes on the antique hall table for her father, she climbed the curving open staircase to her room.
Her mother had always said that the staircase was the showpiece of the house, but Melanie barely noticed the curving expanse of raw concrete wall on her right or the dramatic drop to the formal living room on her left as she trotted up the smooth marble stairs. Reaching her enormous bedroom suite, she dropped her heavy tote bag gratefully, crossed to her walk-in closet, and threw its double doors open wide.
If the staircase was the showpiece of the house, then the closet was the showpiece of Melanie’s room. It was big enough to park two cars in, for one thing, and completely fitted out with specially designed rods, shelves, drawers, and shoe compartments. Melanie stepped inside, kicked off her shoes, and removed the sleeveless white top of her cheerleader’s outfit.
“Go, Wildcats,” she murmured with a smile, running a hand over the bold, green-and-gold CCHS sewn to its fabric and remembering the day in April that she’d tried out for cheerleading. She was the only freshman ever to have made the cut—most didn’t even try—and the gym had erupted into utter pandemonium when her name had been announced. She had already been one of the most popular, most talked-about girls at school. Becoming a sophomore cheerleader had lifted her to the status of legend.
Melanie removed a padded satin hanger from one of the rods and hung up her top, then slipped out of the green-and-gold pleated skirt and put that on a hanger as well. The skirt slid into place next to the matching sweater—the one she’d wear when cold weather came—and the uniform sank back into line with the rest of Melanie’s expensive, extensive wardrobe.
But Melanie stayed stuck on the spot where she stood, her eyes roaming her closet without really seeing. It was always like this when she was alone. Her mind would start to wander, to turn backward. . . .
Spinning around, Melanie hurried out of the closet, still in her underwear. Her room was immaculate, she noticed distractedly—the cleaning woman, Mrs. Murphy, must have come. All Melanie’s books were perfectly aligned on their shelves and her childhood doll collection was dusted and primped. The watercolor landscape she’d painted under her mother’s patient tutelage lay brilliant behind its bright glass, and the vertical blinds hanging at her wide picture windows had been opened to their limits, exposing the front two acres of the Andrewses’ property.
Melanie’s eyes dropped slowly from the familiar rolling land with its dense green stands of hardwood trees to the thick white carpet beneath her stockinged feet. It was spotless, like freshly vacuumed snow. She stood there a long time, mesmerized. There was always a moment like this—a quiet, frozen moment just before she let herself remember.
She stood there motionless as her mind nudged, then prodded, then tore into the scarred old wound inside it. The familiar pain welled up like nausea, building a lump in her throat. Melanie welcomed the pain, leaned into it. With closed eyes she let the past wash over her until her knees gave out and she collapsed facedown on her pale pink bedspread.
Then at last came the sobs, in great, racking gasps.
Chapter 2
“Jenna!” Sarah bellowed. “It’s for you!” The announcement was punctuated by the sound of the front door slamming.
“Who is it?” Jenna called back. “I’m up to my elbows in soap suds here.” She abandoned the half-washed dinner dishes and reached for a towel, but she’d barely begun drying her hands when her youngest sister, 10-year-old Sarah, appeared in the kitchen, followed by Jenna’s friend Peter.
“Gee, don’t get all dolled up for me,” Peter teased as Jenna wiped drifts of bubbles off her forearms. Jenna grinned and flicked the last hunk of suds at him with a practiced forefinger.
“Hey!” He ducked, but too slowly, and Jenna’s aim was perfect. The quivering glob landed in Peter’s dark blond hair. He wiped at it, making a face as bubbles squished into his scalp.
“She shoots, she scores!” Jenna crowed, laughing.
“You’re dangerous,” Peter grumbled.
“You started it.”
“I’m not finishing those dishes for you, Jenna,” Jenna’s sister Maggie warned from the other side of the sink. Her freckled face crumpled with annoyance. “It’s my night to dry, and that’s all I’m doing.”
“No one’s asking you to do any extra work, Maggie,” Jenna said, rolling her eyes for Peter’s benefit. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Jenna and Maggie shared a room, so there was always more tension between them than between Jenna and her other four sisters. Of course Mary Beth was away at her second year of college now, so there was no tension there. Jenna wished that her next oldest sister, Caitlin, would get off her duff and move out too so that Jenna could have her own room. It wasn’t fair for Caitlin to keep hanging around taking up space now that she’d graduated from high school. If she wasn’t going to go to college, the least she could do was get a job and find an apartment somewhere.
“Don’t act so smart, Jenna,” said Maggie, glancing self-consciously at Peter. “I have a lot to do to get ready for school tomorrow, that’s all.”
“Like what? Writing ‘Mrs. Scott Jenner’ all over the rest of your notebooks?”
Maggie blushed so furiously that Jenna belatedly wished she’d kept that particular discovery to herself. That was the problem with sharing a room—a person ended up knowing way too much about her roommate. Enough to be deadly, in fact.
“So, Maggie,” Peter broke in hurriedly. “How do you like eighth grade so far? How does it feel to be in the grade all the other kids look up to?”
Maggie shot Jenna one last evil look, then smiled shyly at Peter. “It’s okay. It’s better than being in seventh.”
“I heard that!” seventh-grader Allison yelled from the dining room, where she was polishing the enormous wooden dining table. “Seventh-graders rule!”
“No, fifth!” Sarah declared, skipping madly around the kitchen. “Fifth-graders rule!”
“Let’s go out to the porch,” Jenna told Peter, heading for the back door. “We aren’t going to get any peace in here.”
“Jenna! I’m not—” Maggie began irately.
“I’ll finish the dishes later, all right? I’ll even dry them for you. Come on, Peter,” she added. “Let’s get out of here.”
The back door banged shut behind them, blocking out most of the noise from inside, as Jenna and Peter stepped out into the cool evening air. “What a zoo!” Jenna sighed, savoring the comparative quiet on the porch.
Peter smiled. “You know I like your sisters.”
“I like them too. Preferably from a distance.” She laughed as she said it, though, and they both knew she was kidding. The Conrad family was as tight as the lid on a five-year-old jar of molasses.
Jenna walked to the edge of the porch and dropped cross-legged into a large, old-fashioned porch swing, motioning for Peter to sit beside her. “So what are you doing here, anyway? I didn’t expect to see you again until tomorrow.”
Peter’s tall, skinny frame folded up like a lawn chair as he lowered himself into the swing. “Everything was so crazy at lunch today—I meant to ask you something, but I forgot.”
Jenna nodded expectantly.
“You know that carnival they’re having at school for Kurt Englbehrt this weekend? I’m going to volunteer to help, and I was wondering if you’d want to volunteer with me.”
“Aren’t you meeting with the Junior Explorers this Saturday?” Junior Explorers was a club Peter and a college-aged friend, Chris Hobart, had started for underprivileged children. The group met at the local park every Saturday to play games, learn arts and crafts, and just generally have some fun. During the summer they went on field trips and to summer camp. Jenna helped out off and on, whenever Peter needed her, but Peter had barely missed a Saturday for the last two years.
“I called Chris and asked him to cover for me. I don’t know Kurt that well, but I’ve had him in a couple of classes. He’s a nice guy, Jenna.”
“Yeah, I want to help out too. I’m glad you reminded me, in fact, because I meant to ask my mom if Reverend Thompson would take up a special collection at church this Sunday.”