My Life Undecided (5 page)

a screwup.”

He seems to find humor in that as he leans back on his hands. “I highly doubt that. Seriously, why do I know that name?”

“Wel ,” I begin tentatively. “It’s either because you just saw my best friend reject me in front of the entire school a few minutes ago or you saw

me being pul ed out of an abandoned mine shaft by twenty rescue workers on national TV thirteen years ago. Take your pick.”

Hunter nods and I watch the familiar realization dance across his face. “Oh, right! Baby Brooklyn! I saw that Dateline special they did on you

a few years ago. ‘Baby Brooklyn, Ten Years After the Rescue.’”

I sigh. “Right. That.”

“That was quite a story.”

I take another fake drag off my cigarette. “Yeah.”

He seems to sense my unwil ingness to take this particular walk down memory lane and wipes the grass from his hands and pushes himself

to his feet. “Wel , it looks like you could use some alone time. So I’l leave you be for a while. It was nice to meet you.”

I shield my eyes from the sun and squint up at him. With the bright midday sun creating a halo effect around his head, he almost looks like

some kind of angel. A very hot angel. “Uh…nice to meet you, too,” I manage.

Without another word, he gives me a quick salute and slips through the back entrance of the school. The space around me fal s silent, and

without the distraction of my cute new Southern friend, I instantly remember why I came out here to begin with. My eyes tear up again and I slowly

start to slip back into that dark, wal owing place.

I try another drag on the cigarette, coughing significantly less, and just when I think I real y am alone this time, I hear another voice come from

behind me. This one, however, isn’t smooth and sexy with a hint of a twang. In fact, it’s more like a frightening, vicious roar. And I quickly realize that

my nightmare of a day isn’t over yet.

“What do you think you’re doing?!”

Measuring Down

“Detention?”
my mom bel ows as soon as I get into the car later that afternoon. I guess this answers the question of whether or not she’s speaking

to me again. “You got detention on top of everything else that’s happened?”

I stay quiet, knowing silence is probably my safest bet at this point. Especial y when anything I say can and wil be used against me.

“For smoking!” she seethes in a disgusted tone. “My fifteen-year-old daughter! A degenerate and a smoker!”

I break my vow of silence to come to my own rescue. “I’m not a smoker. I swear to God it was my first time and I didn’t even like it.”

My mom grunts. “First time smoking. First time throwing a party. First time burning a house down. Wow, Brooks, you’re on a real rol here.

What is going on with you?”

I wish I knew. I real y wish I did. Because maybe then I could fix it. It’s not like I enjoy being in al this trouble. It’s not like I get some kind of

demented kick out of being caught by men in uniform. It wasn’t exactly a thril to have to deal with Martin the security guard again or stay an extra

three hours after school today, staring at the back of some guy’s shaved head. Trust me. I’m not looking forward to going back to that for the next

five days.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do with you, Brooklyn,” my mom continues ranting. “I’m going to have a long talk with your father tonight.

We’re going to have to figure out what the heck we’re supposed to do about al this. You have got some serious judgment issues, and honestly, I

don’t know where it comes from. Your sister has always been so…”

And there she goes. Talking about the ever perfect, ever wise, ever bril iant Isabel e Pierce. I immediately tune her out, focusing my mind on

better things, like my brief but dreamy five minutes with Hunter Wal ace Hamilton I I this afternoon, and those heart-stopping blue eyes of his, until my

mom’s voice is just a distant drone. It’s not like I need to listen. I already know what she’s saying. Why can’t you be more like Izzie? If she can

manage to graduate at the top of her class, serve as captain of the girls’ tennis team, and get into Harvard al at the same time, it shouldn’t be that

hard for you.

But what my parents don’t understand is that, actual y, it’s harder.

I read this article once that said that younger siblings statistical y perform worse in school (and in life) than firstborns. Because firstborn

children start out with a clean slate. A benchmark-free existence. Whatever they do—whether it’s achieve excel ence or barely manage to scrape by

—is the measuring stick against which the other siblings are compared. And when you have a measuring stick like Izzie, you might as wel just

throw in the towel and get used to mediocrity. Which is exactly what I’ve learned how to do. Because real y, what’s the point of trying when,

according to the scientists, I’m destined to come up short anyway?

My mom’s diatribe lasts the entire car ride home. Thankful y, once we get there, she tel s me she’s too angry to speak to me anymore, and I

slink into my room and close the door. I swear she’s this close to disowning me. I wonder if that’s even possible. Can you legal y disown your own

children? I would ask Google but the moment my dad gets home and my parents have finished their little private chat in the kitchen, my computer is

confiscated and moved into the den and my Internet privileges are indefinitely revoked. Along with my phone privileges, my TV privileges, my

leaving-the-house privileges, and my basic right-to-having-a-life privileges.

I’m pretty much grounded until I’m forty. And I say “until I’m forty” instead of “for life” because I assume by the time I reach forty my parents wil

final y be old and senile enough to forget why they grounded me in the first place.

The house is like a prison. No cel phone. No text messaging. No instant messaging. No Facebook. No Twitter. No television. No movies.

No dates. And instead of driving me, like they usual y do, my parents are making me take the bus to school every day.

So I guess Bob was right. There are worse punishments than community service.

And here I thought I wasn’t going to have to serve jail time.

Then, as if that isn’t bad enough, to top it al off my parents decide that once the contractor starts rebuilding the fire-damaged model home,

I’m going to work at the construction site twice a week. Some kind of punishment-fits-the-crime idea that they’re both especial y proud of. So as

soon as the inspectors give my mom the go-ahead, I’l be doing hard-ass, clothes-ripping, nail-hammering, large-object-lifting manual labor…for

free. Which I’m pretty sure is il egal but what am I supposed to do? Sue them?

Things get progressively worse as the week goes on. School is basical y a living nightmare. I’ve become invisible overnight. Insignificant. From

royalty to nothing. People barely even notice me in the hal way, let alone recognize me. They bump into me like I’m not even there. Like they didn’t

even see me standing right in front of them. Because as it turns out, without Shayne standing next to me, I’m nobody. Al this time, I thought I was

important. I thought I was somebody at this school, when real y I only existed as an extension of her. An appendage. Like an arm or a leg or a strand

of hair. Not as my own person. In the context of Shayne, I was a goddess. In the context of just myself, I am blank space.

I guess the one positive thing about being cast out of Shayne’s high-heeled posse is that I actual y get to sleep in during the week. No more

waking up at the crack of dawn to beautify myself to Shayne’s ridiculously high standards. I mean, why should I continue to care about what I wear or

if my lips are glossed or if my eye shadow complements my skin tone when I’m no longer the center of any attention? When no one gives a crap

about me anymore? In fact, just to show my rebel ion, I actively choose to wear my hair in a ponytail and don my most comfy (and therefore least

trendy) pair of jeans every single day this week. And you know what? It feels freaking awesome.

My classes are particularly boring now that Shayne has conveniently transferred herself out of the three we had together. In English, Mrs.

Levy asks us to choose between reading The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway and The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, and

honestly, they both sound like total downers. Especial y since Shayne and I used to pick our assigned reading together and then download

synopses off the Internet. Now it looks like I’l be cheating alone.

I’ve been trying to keep a low profile at school. Which is probably why I haven’t been able to spot Hunter Wal ace Hamilton I I again, much to

my disappointment. Because don’t think for a second that I haven’t looked. I have. Pretty much every time I skulk down the hal way. Chances are, he

spends most of his time in the senior hal with the rest of the cool people (e.g., not me). And you’re real y not al owed in the senior hal way without a

pass. Not a real, physical pass, like a hal pass or something, but a metaphorical pass. Like a boyfriend who’s a senior or a recognized kinship with

someone who’s been granted lifetime, unlimited access. Someone like Shayne Kingsley.

And I think we’ve already established what happened to that particular “kinship.”

On the plus side, my homework load has lightened significantly. Because when you live in Shayne’s World, there are actual y two different

kinds of homework. The kind you do for school and the kind you do for her. Or rather, for her continued acceptance. Because not only do you have

to look dazzling at al times, you also have to be up-to-date on every reality show, celebrity blog, fashion magazine, album release, movie opening,

awards show, and anything else Shayne deems “important.” It’s a very time-consuming endeavor.

DishnDiss.com is the bible, the ultimate source for every gossip-worthy tidbit released to the public (and a few things that weren’t meant for

public knowledge). Shayne reads it religiously. She lives by it. And therefore, if you want to be in her inner circle, so must you.

But now, there’s no reason to keep up-to-date on these things. Shayne doesn’t even speak to me anymore, let alone quiz me on my

retention skil s. So I haven’t visited the blog once since Sunday night. Not that I have much access to the Internet these days. Mostly just during my

daily hibernations in the library during lunch.

I’ve staked out a permanent hiding place there so I don’t have to sit by myself in the cafeteria. The problem is there’s no food al owed in the

library, so by the time sixth period rol s around, my stomach is starting to growl and my blood sugar is dangerously low. And when you tack on the

extra bonus that I now have to go to detention every day after school this week, I’m basical y famished by the time I get home.

Not to mention the total humiliation of having to actual y sit in that detention room.

So by the time the week draws to a close and my mom picks me up after school on Friday evening, believe it or not, I’m actual y looking

forward to the first day of my court-ordered community service tomorrow. Because I figure anything has got to be better than this.

Servicing the Community

I was wrong.

When I step foot in the lobby of Centennial Nursing Home on Saturday morning and witness firsthand where I’m going to be spending two

hundred precious hours of my life, seven words flash through my mind: They have got to be kidding me.

Lawyer Bob assured me this was the “primo” community service gig. A walk in the park. Al I had to do was play some bingo, maybe a few

games of checkers, and it would be over before I knew it.

But he didn’t mention anything about the smel .

This place absolutely reeks of old people. And that’s probably because they’re everywhere. Hunched over in wheelchairs blocking off entire

hal ways, sitting on the couch in the lobby mumbling to themselves, inching their way down the corridors with walkers at two feet an hour. And to be

honest, it’s kind of freaking me out. I mean, it’s not like I’ve never been around old people before. I do have grandparents. It’s just that I’ve never

been around this many of them at one time. And a lot of these people look like they’re on their last leg…literal y. That guy sitting in the corner who

looks like he hasn’t moved in weeks is missing his leg from the knee down. I wonder if he lost it in some freak boating accident or maybe a shark

attack.

I take a deep, long breath—al right, let’s get this over with— and start to weave my way through the obstacle course of parked wheelchairs

and walkers standing between me and the front desk. Then, out of nowhere, a crusty, chapped hand reaches out and grabs my arm. I let out a