This choice: Use Jessica or Eva Garner • Go Back...Chapter #40A Day in the Life You'd Be Shortly Vacating by: Seuzz   You don't have anything to say to Joshua Call—or to a minion that looks like him—so after returning his nod with one of your own, you turn back to Connor. Out of the corner of your eye you see Call watching you, but then he only shuts his car door and swaggers off toward the school.
"Fuck me," mutters Connor. "So that's your minion."
"Pretty sweet, huh?" You can't help angling your shoulders proudly. Connor returns a sour smile.
"So I'm trying to help you set up a meeting where we can make a replacement," he says, and the word "replacement" gives you a bit of a chill, since he's replaced Caleb at the moment. "Who should I be talking to?"
"Eva or Jessica," you reply. You almost blurt out the names, and the way they come spilling out feels like a relief: there's no agony over picking an alter ego. "You'll see Eva second period."
"Will I?"
"Won't you?" You blink at Connor's question. "Doesn't Caleb have her second period?"
His gaze goes distant. "Uh, yeah," he says slowly. "AP Calculus, right?"
"I'm not the one pretending to be Caleb," you remind him.
"Yeah, Calculus," he says with more confidence. "And right now we've got Walberg."
"Don't sound so cheerful when you say it," you retort. "Caleb would never sound like—" You put on a brassy grin and pipe in a falsetto. "We've got Walberg!"
Connor stares at you thoughtfully for a moment. Then, slowly, he flips you off. Caleb would have been a lot quicker, but it's not totally out of character for him to emphasize the gesture this way.
* * * * *
It seemingly says something about your school social life that you can return to Westside with no memory of the previous day and sink right back into it without missing a beat. Will it be that easy for Eva or Jessica or whoever you replace? When you step into her body, her social circle, her life, will you find a thing immensely more vibrant and interesting and exciting than your own? You find yourself wondering what your life looks like when someone is paying attention to it; and if you're not particularly alert to the academics in each class, you do study each one intently.
First period is Sociology II with Mr. Walberg, a class that is tied for last place in your affections with every other class you have to suffer through. The teacher, with his gruff, bluff manner would be amusing—he has a very dry and sarcastic sense of humor—if he didn't aim his humor so much at students like you. The class itself is dominated by the AP clique: Geoff Mansfield, Martin Gardinhire, Brooke Galloway, Amanda Ferguson, and Kelsey Blankenship, all of them very smug and conscientious and paying keen attention to the teacher and everything he says. But there's a mix of other students in there too. Laurent Delacroix, the captain of the wrestling team, sits in front of Kelsey; in the back sits Jonas Martin, one of the thugs from the basketball team; and off to the side with one of the worse cases of stylish bed-heads in the school is Dean Stratton, slumbering with his face against the wall and snapping to wakefulness every fifteen minutes when Mr. Walberg barks at him. There are others in the room, of course, but these are the ones you know
And all of them look like they lead a more interesting life than you: Studying and prepping for college; hustling with a sports team; or recovering from late-night, weeknight party scenes when they're not attending them.
Second period is Film as Literature, a class you signed up for thinking it would be a fun blow-off; to your dismay it's pretty hard-core, with stiff lectures, weekly short papers, and movies that you're supposed to watch on your own time, not in class. Keith Tilley—your other close friend, but who has been pushed to the margins over the past few weeks since you got mixed up with that grimoire—is in here too, and you greet each other in friendly silence after shuffling into the room. If Walberg's class is dominated by the AP students, then this one is dominated by the creative clique: Tim Gerard, Andy Tackett, Kevin Winkler, Karl Hennepin, etc. These are the guys in sloppy clothes who write poetry and short stories, actually discuss the class material outside of school, and corner the teacher, Mr. Hawks, with questions and comments of their own. That doesn't mean—as you already know—that they are fanatical about attending, and today you notice that Hennepin and Winkler are absent. For that reason—and because the class attracted a lot of slackers like yourself looking for an easy A—the room is more often than not half empty because of people skipping.
So Sociology II is a useless chore; this one is just useless, as you're not learning anything, not enjoying anything, and not even socializing with the students who are in it.
The same can be said about third period—Career Planning—and worse could be said about it. You put it on your schedule as a desperate attempt to get your dad off your case about post-graduate plans, and justly are you now being punished for the maneuver. It's mostly filled with juniors and sophomores, but there are a few seniors; and glancing around you'd say that the older the students are in the class, the less impressive they are. The sophomores at least look well-scrubbed and slightly frightened of the future and their place in it; the juniors look resentful of it; the seniors look like they don't give a rat's ass. The most typical attendee is Kyle Kent, who slouches in the back with hair hanging over his eyes and a mouth hanging open in a drugged-up stupor. At least he's attending; most of the seniors—yourself excluded—seem to show up only once a week, if even that. That's lucky, since most of the seniors—like Nicholas Horner and Jeff Spencer are the sort of trench-dwellers who hang out with Joshua Call.
Speaking of whom: You briefly catch sight of him peeking into the classroom; but you don't catch each other's eye, and when he sees that his friends are not in attendance today he disappears back into the hall.
Three periods down, not one of which you'd regret swapping for someone else's schedule, when you go into fourth, where you hook up with fake-Caleb again. This is English IV, with Ms. Gladstone, and it would be better than the others if it weren't for the teacher, who seems to resent that she's been tasked with teaching the likes of you. It's got a pretty cool mix of students, though, and isn't dominated by AP prigs or pretentious twats. Laurent is in here, for instance, and if he doesn't have time for a guy like you, he'll give you a quick grin when he does deign to notice you. Erik Carstairs, one of the dope-smoking—and hence unthreatening—football players, is in here too.
But it's the girls that make it an awesome class, for this is the class that the athletic girls attend. There's Kristy Suffolk of the basketball squad; Catherine Muskov of the track team; and—most heart-stoppingly desirable of all—Andrea Varnsworth of the swim team.
But as awesome as they make it, the presence of these girls in their tight t-shirts and revealing shorts is also a rebuke to your unhappy love life. None of them, except Bethany Lewis, also of the swim team, ever speak to you and you haven't the nerve to speak to them. What's the point of being in their presence if you're not to get anything from it?
* * * * *
"You set anything up with Eva?" you ask Connor after the bell has rung, signaling the start of your lunch break. "Do we need to ditch Tilley?"
"I need you to talk to her," he grumbles back. "I can't get her to speak to me."
"What, you need me to talk her into talking to you so you can talk me into her skin?"
"It's all your fault from the other night, jumping her and everyone else while Caleb was sitting at her table. Oh, and I don't care if we eat with Keith. In fact, I'll keep him distracted while you go talk to Eva. We'll eat with Carson and James, I wanna hang out with them anyway."
"You've really been missing Westside, haven't you?"
You mean the question sarcastically, but from the expression on his face, you can tell he has been. But you do as he asked, and go off in search of one of the Garner sisters.
There are two lunch periods built into the school schedule: Fourth Lunch (during fourth period) which half the school will have, and Fifth Lunch (during fifth period) which you've got. You don't know which lunch Eva or Jessica might have, but you go looking for them.
You start in the cafeteria, dodging through the line that snakes around the walls of the thunderously loud cavern and then circling through the dining spaces. You don't see either of the Garner girls, and you don't see any faces of people you'd like to meet with. So you check outside.
And there's Jessica, sitting in the quad between the gym, theater, and library.
And—Shit!—she's talking to Lisa.
It would be damned awkward joining them, and scarcely less awkward going up to briefly talk to Jessica without talking to your ex.
To the girl who you'd like to think was your ex but who herself says was never your pre-ex.
As you ponder the scene some movement catches your eye: Lin Pol and Yumi Saito, coming out of main building.
Last year, at least, they were friends with Kelsey. Are they still her friends? Could you use one of them to get close to your target?  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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