Over the Moon (2 page)

All this mind-boggling immensity almost made my problems
seem insignificant-almost, but not quite. Maybe it wouldn't be so
terrible living in this dismally dull and small, desert community where
my father had spent his happy, carefree childhood. No, it was going
to be positively awful, and I knew it. It might be better to be a visitor from outer space. I didn't know anyone in this whole, tiny, resort
town on the wrong side of the Rocky Mountains. I might just as well
have moved to Siberia, Outer Mongolia, or even Boise, Idaho. Heck,
I could be living somewhere over the moon, like maybe Mars. It was
equally foreign to me, and I was sure I was destined to be a miserable
outcast from the Midwest with no friends and nothing to do but read
about people who had meaningful lives in places they liked living.
Was there even a library in this town? I didn't think so.

I must admit it was actually more beautiful here than the memories I had of a family vacation that brought me to this place five years
ago. The contrast between the bright, burnt orange, sandstone cliffs
and the dark seas of black volcanic rock was spectacular. I had never
thought the desert contained such diversity. Of course, I had never
cared. I still didn't care that the spectral, multicolored rock formations grew skyward out of the rugged terrain with an ancient dignity,
like statues against the sparse vegetation. I had noticed the saguaro
cacti and Joshua trees mingled with the blue-green sagebrush and
scraggly creosote and the pink, rocky gorges and purple plateaus. So
what? I wanted rolling green hills, cool breezes, and Great Lakes.
I wanted mega shopping malls and top-of-the-line rock concerts.
Instead I got relentless heat and dry air that was hazardous to my
skin. This made intensive care lotion a valuable necessity. This was
a place I might like to visit occasionally, but I most definitely didn't
want to live here. "Please," I begged the universe, "let me die in my
sleep tonight!"

Slim, my black and white, tuxedo cat, jumped into my lap, startling me back to reality. He stared at me with his enormous soulful
yellow eyes and plopped himself on my chest with his whisker-lined,
pink nose inches from mine. He began to purr and rub his furry face
against my chin.

"Hey, buddy." I stroked his fuzzy body, and clumps of fur came
off in my hand.

"Ick! This heat has you shedding like crazy." I attempted to
shake it off my fingers. Talk about static cling. Even at ten o'clock
at night the atmosphere was frightfully warm and dry. I could make
sparks flare up from the friction I caused by just petting his fur.

When Dad had announced that he was joining a medical practice in Hurricane, Utah, I was shocked speechless, which is unusual
for me. I nearly always have something to say. He added that he felt
we were supposed to move here for some unknown, important purpose because everything had fallen into place too easily. My brother,
Mark, called this the trump card that my parents played when they
wanted us to blame God, destiny, or karma for one of their stupid, arbitrary decisions. I blamed all of them. It certainly wasn't my
fault I'd been dropped in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do
but wilt in this horrible heat and suffer the incredible injustice of
being plucked from my comfort zone and plopped in a place I didn't
belong.

I had opened my mouth to protest, and that little voice in my
head told me it was pointless to argue. But I wanted to argue. I'm
really very good at arguing. You might say I have a special talent for
pointing out the fallacies in the erroneous ideas of others. I didn't
want to change high schools. My friends were in Chicago, I had been
accepted on the debate team for the next year, and I was going to be
a page editor and columnist for the Northridge High News and Views.
How often would I get the opportunity to be a genuine member of
the paparazzi? Hurricane High probably didn't even have a newspaper. Nothing was happening here. Here's a newsflash: this is entirely
unfair! I know, I know. Life is not fair. It never was and never will be,
and the sooner you learn that, the better off you will be. I'd had that
lecture more than a gazillion times. So why didn't I feel better off?
How could living here ever make me feel better? Please, just stop the
planet and let me get off before tomorrow comes.

I hesitated. That voice was hard to ignore. Once, I hadn't listened when it told me to wear flats to the Christmas dance. I wore the stylish emerald green stilettos that matched my dress perfectly.
I fell down the stairs, broke my arm, and never even made it to the
dance. Another time, the voice told me not to go to Jace Pratt's
birthday party. That party got out of control and ended with the
police making several arrests for underage drinking, fighting, and
drug use. I was pleased I'd listened that time. It hadn't been wrong
yet. This could be the first time it failed me.

"Well, tomorrow is the big day, Slim. We should go in and pretend we can sleep. If I leave you out here, the coyotes might have you
for their midnight snack." I carried the mass of shedding fur into the
house. Perhaps if I slept outside the coyotes would eat me and my
problems would be solved. No, there were probably creepy, crawly
insects, lizards, and snakes that came out at night to torment those
unsuspecting lunatics who dared to sleep out in the desert. I feared
them more than the coyotes.

"Ha, ha! You have to go to school tomorrow, and I don't," Mark
called to me from the black leather couch where he had sprawled his
six-foot-six-inch body. He was watching some sci-fi thriller about
giant lizards from outer space. I swear, all science fiction writers have
to be dorks! I think they are required by law to pass a dork test before
they are even allowed to write science fiction.

"How can you watch that stuff? It's completely unrealistic," I
asked as I set Slim on the floor and picked the tufts of black and
white fur that stuck to my clothes.

"What? You don't believe in gigantic extraterrestrial lizards? You
might encounter worse things in the halls of Hurricane High." He
laughed. "Who knows what dangers are lurking there? I'm glad I
have two more weeks of freedom. Too bad it's so hot. We should
invest in a pool."

"I think we should have invested in gallons of sunscreen," I
countered. With my pale skin, I would be a prime candidate for
skin cancer if I weren't careful. I was a melanoma just waiting to
happen. He was of the same genetic makeup, only he didn't burn as
easily, proving yet again that life is not fair. He inherited my father's
warmer skin tone, and his hair and eyes were a rich caramel brown. I would have gladly traded coloring with him, especially now that I
lived in the blistering heat of this sun-warped city.

My talented brother had a basketball scholarship to the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, which was located 120 miles south
of here, so he didn't particularly care that our family had moved.
He'd be off on his own, living in a dorm on campus in the city that
never sleeps and he'd only have to spend the occasional weekend
in this sleepy, desolate, desert place. He'd been the one who always
watched out for me. This year, I would have to go to a new school all
by myself with no big-brother protection. He was always the popular athlete that everyone looked up to. I feared that I was accepted
only because he demanded respect for his less attractive little sister.
I hadn't dated very much, and I suspected the few dates I went on
were orchestrated by my handsome older brother.

I dragged myself up the stairs to my room with fear and apprehension about what was coming tomorrow. I had a nagging suspicion that it would actually be far worse than giant alien lizards. My
life was about to take a sharp turn in a new direction. I didn't know
if that direction would lead me to success or failure, to happiness or
misery. It would be okay if it were somewhere in between. I wasn't
expecting miracles. Who was I kidding? I was expecting misery and
disappointment and failure and boredom, along with indescribable
pain and suffering. I fully accepted the possibility that I would be
ignored or, even worse, I might be noticed and harassed because I
didn't belong here.

I stared at my reflection in the full-length mirror on the bathroom door as I brushed my teeth vigorously. I tried to evaluate my
physical appearance objectively. I had thick, red hair that was almost
the color of shiny copper pennies. It was straight and fell just past
my shoulders. Its color made it impossible for me to hide out in a
crowd of people unless they were extremely tall and somewhat large.
My skin was very pale and did not have the ability to achieve any
kind of tan. (Once, I tried that spray-on tan in a can, and it left me
orange and streaked; I looked like a sickly tiger for a week.) I was
thin with a few curves in the right places. My eyes were green, not as dark as emeralds, more like the color of new grass. I didn't think
I was ugly. My parents always said I was beautiful. What did they
know? All parents think their children are beautiful, don't they? I
think the worse you look, the more they tell you this to compensate
for giving you defective genes. I wasn't sure how I appeared to my
contemporaries. I'd never really had much feedback. I was just Tiana
Dawson, Mark Dawson's little sister. No one at Hurricane High
knew Mark, so now I was just Tiana Dawson, the doctor's daughter
from Chicago. Objectively, I was feeling very insecure and nervous
about my complete lack of the ability to blend into my new, hostile
environment. I was going to be a freak, a redheaded, albino freak at
that. Oh no. Was that a zit I saw popping up in the middle of my
forehead? Crap! It must be from all the heat and stress of moving.

I'd always thought I was kind of independent. I wasn't sure about
that anymore. I really missed Lisa and Carly. They said they would
miss me, but they had each other. They didn't need me. I was alone
here, completely and utterly alone.

After I had adequately stressed over everything that could possibly go wrong within the walls of my new high school, I finally
drifted off to sleep. As I was doing the drifting, I thought maybe
I could try my hardest to die in my sleep and avoid the whole new
school experience. How far was this town from the mysterious Area
51? Aliens could still abduct me before tomorrow. Maybe I could
have a heart attack or a brain aneurysm. I tried hard to hold onto
those pleasant thoughts, but they slipped away as I found myself
falling into a black hole of heavy slumber. Instead I dreamed I was in
a long, dark tunnel. I could see two distinct lights at its end. Someone was calling my name. I didn't recognize the voice, but it was
oddly enticing. I hoped it was someone who could rescue me from
this fate worse than death. I had almost reached the lights when my
alarm went off. Darn, I was still alive, and I was still hating it here
in Hurricane, Utah!

Who starts school in the middle of August? Especially since it was
i o5 degrees in the shade-if you could find any shade. I yearned
for the cool, windy city I had left behind. I was still having difficulty understanding why Dad wanted to move to this resort town
near the Utah-Arizona border. He said it was a healthy change from
Chicago. Healthy? What did he know about healthy? Sure, he was a
doctor, but he was raised by hippies in the dark ages when high tech
was having a phone that wasn't attached to the wall and unhealthy
was sitting too close to your thirteen-inch, black-and-white TV. I
knew it was anything but healthy for me to live here. My light skin
limited my ability to endure all this direct sunlight. I didn't belong
here in this scorching heat. I felt totally out of place with all these brown-skinned teenagers. I knew some of them were Paiutes who
came from the Shivwitz Indian Reservation, some were children
of Hispanic migrant workers, and some were children of ranchers.
There was a diverse population of other students, and even they had
tans to die for. It just wasn't fair. I might as well be screaming "new
girl" at the top of my lungs or wearing a neon sign flashing the words
"Not from here!"

I parked my i99g, white Honda Civic in the school parking
lot. You might think a doctor's daughter would get to drive a newer,
nicer car, but I didn't mind. It wasn't pretty, but it had air conditioning that worked. What else really mattered when the temperature
stayed above a hundred degrees for four or more months of the year?
Most of the cars were similarly older makes and models. The parking lot was filled with nondescript, white, tan, or silver, ordinary cars.
I was glad. I didn't want my car to stand out like I was undoubtedly
going to.

With serious trepidation, I walked around to the front door of
Hurricane High, home of the Tigers. Who named this town Hurricane in the middle of an and desert? They pronounced it Hurricun,
and they corrected you if you said it wrong. Anyone who was new
would say it wrong. It was like some kind of new person trap. Then
they would look at you like you were the crazy one.