Over the Moon (3 page)

I found my way to the front office. The secretary was a large,
motherly woman with gray, frizzy hair. I bravely approached the
counter. I might as well get it over with. There was no escaping my
dire destiny now.

"You must be Dr. Dawson's daughter, Tina."

"Tiana," I corrected.

"Of course, my mistake. Here is your class schedule, dear. Thanks
for registering online. It saves so much time." She handed me a map
with all my classes highlighted and pointed me toward my first class,
American history, which was just down the hall.

"You're just going to love it here, sweetie." I sincerely hoped she
was right, but I knew that I was more than likely going to hate it. I
managed a feeble smile as I thanked her.

It really sucked big time to be the new girl in a small school like
this. There was no place to hide. Everyone in the hall was staring at
me with morbid curiosity. Had I suddenly grown a third eye? No,
that was just that stupid pimple in the middle of my forehead. Surely
I wasn't the only new student here, was I? I looked at the floor and
tried not to blush under their intense scrutiny. Of course, I failed
miserably, feeling the unwelcome warmth as blood rushed and colored my face with red, hot, unwanted embarrassment.

I entered Mr. Stanley's class and sat in the back, trying hard to
blend in. There was little chance of that happening here. A Hispanic
girl with flawless skin and a bright smile sat down in the desk next
to me.

"Hi, I'm Tiffany. You must be the doctor's daughter from
Chicago."

"That would be me. I'm Tiana." I smiled cautiously.

"How do you like the desert?" she asked.

"It's hot!" I didn't know what else to say. I hadn't formed a rocksolid opinion of this desert community yet. I wanted be fair and
objective. Ah, oh, now I was lying to myself. The truth was I didn't
want to share the fact that I hated it more with every breath of hot,
dry air I inhaled and risk offending her.

"Yes, it is, and you are going to need a lot of sunscreen. I've never
seen such beautiful porcelain skin." She laughed. At least she hadn't
called me an albino freak.

"I was thinking I'd like to trade for yours."

Mr. Stanley called the class to order and passed out a syllabus.
He droned on about how fascinating American history would be for
all of us. I wasn't buying it. I could tell a lot of my fellow students
must feel the same way. Were they all wishing they were someplace
else? Maybe we did have something in common after all. I glanced
around the room. There were several Native Americans, a handful
of Hispanics, five or six cowboys and cowgirls, and some skaters
and preppies. This class had only a couple of gangster wannabes,
and there seemed to be a serious shortage of goths. I guess vampires
don't like so much intense sunlight. Then I saw an exceptionally tall and strangely attractive boy enter. There was something different
about him, but I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was.

He sauntered into the classroom and took a seat also near the
back on the other side of the room. He was well over six feet tall
with wavy, golden blond hair and the bluest eyes I had ever seen.
They were the unusual color of Indian turquoise. His skin was a
deep, contrasting tan just like everyone else here except for me. He
had high cheekbones, a straight nose, a square jaw with a cleft in the
center. These features were striking but not really remarkable. Then
his eyes met mine. He smiled, showing me his deep dimples, and his
face was transformed from merely attractive to amazing. I returned
his smile and tried to look away as I felt the heat of the blood that
rushed to turn my face a bright shade of crimson. I was pleasantly
surprised to see someone with that much charisma in this tiny town
in the middle of the southwestern wilderness. What on earth was he
doing here? He didn't seem to belong any more than I did.

Tiffany saw our exchange and whispered, "That's Andrew Martin. He's kind of hot, but you can forget about him. Save yourself
some grief. He doesn't date."

"Why?" I couldn't possibly forget him. He had the most contagious and magnetic smile I had ever seen on a boy before.

"No one knows for sure. Rumors are that he got his heart broken
before he moved here."

I tried not to stare at him, but my eyes kept wandering back to
his face. Each time I looked at him, he looked back and smiled. A
few times, I caught him watching me. He didn't seem the least bit
embarrassed when I caught him staring. How could any girl break
his heart? I knew I needed to banish his face from my mind immediately. Boys like that brought girls like me only heartache. It was best
to mind my own business and avoid the inherent, unavoidable pain
that came from striving for the unattainable. I should treat him like
the figment of my imagination that he had to be and let him fade
away from my consciousness. That would be the smart thing to do.
I didn't always do the smart thing.

The rest of the morning crawled by slowly. Spanish class was
uneventful. Tiffany was in my geography class, along with a preppy
boy named Jordan. He had reddish brown hair and suggested we
should stick together as the only redheads in the junior class. His
eyes were a honey-colored brown, and he had freckled, tan skin. I
argued that he didn't qualify as a genuine redhead. He'd probably
never been sunburned in his life. He and Tiffany invited me to sit
with them at lunch. I accepted. Hooray, I wouldn't have to sit alone
at the outcast table! Things were looking up just a little bit.

"How different is Hurricane from Chicago?" Jordan asked.

"It's a whole other planet," I replied, shaking my head as I
frowned, thinking of how completely opposite things seemed here
from what I was accustomed to in my former school.

"I want to go to college in a big city, anywhere that's far away
from here," he asserted.

"I hear that!" I agreed. I was ready to leave now. Perhaps we
could run away together.

We got our trays of traditional school cafeteria food, complete
with mystery meat, and he led me to a table that was half full of
students. At least the food looked similar to what I was used to not
enjoying for lunch in my old school in Illinois. He introduced me. I
forgot their names almost immediately, except for a girl with feathery yellow hair that hung down to the middle of her back. Alexis
looked down her pretty, pixie nose at me. She had to be the designated "it" girl of Hurricane High. I knew instantly that she had to be
a cheerleader, class officer, or prom queen. Maybe she was all three.
How was that even close to fair?

"Why would you move here from Chicago?" she sneered, looking at me as if I must be indubitably insane. Uh oh. She was onto
me. It's difficult to hide insanity from beauty queens. They have this
innate ability to freeze out the crazies but not before they make us
feel stupid and unwelcome. Again, I felt some serious homesickness
coming on.

"I have no idea," I replied more negatively than I had meant to.
It must have been a reaction to the antagonism I heard in the tone of her voice. Maybe I was being hypersensitive. I didn't think so.
She obviously knew I didn't belong here. She must hate me already.
She looked at me with distain, as if I were a wad of gum stuck to
the bottom of her shoe. I instinctively knew we weren't going to be
friends.

"You really should go back to where you came from. Get out
while you still can," the beauty queen threatened as she narrowed her
baby blue eyes. Most of the others didn't hear her warning. It was
meant for me alone. I got her malicious message. What had I done
to make her want me gone? I was no threat to her. I got that she was
the ruling royalty of this kingdom and I was just a poor peon. I held
no aspirations of glory. I had no intention of climbing the social ladder to achieve notoriety and success in her empire. I wished I could
click my heals together and be immediately transported back home
to the suburbs of Chicago.

"Don't you like it here?" a nice-looking Native American boy
with a straight, black ponytail inquired. There was a mirrored column near our table, and he kept checking his reflection to make sure
every hair was in place. He had on a pair of jeans and a Westernstyle shirt that looked expensive. His silver-gray cowboy boots were
genuine snakeskin. What a poser! Had he taken a wrong turn on his
way to Hollywood Hills?

"I haven't adjusted to the heat yet." I shrugged. It was best not
to invoke the wrath of the locals if I could avoid it. There would be
plenty of time for them to find reasons to hate me without me ticking them all off today.

"When it cools down some, we'll have to take you to see the
petroglyphs," he offered, smiling warmly at me. Okay, now I felt a
little guilty for judging him harshly.

"That sounds interesting," I admitted, trying to sound more positive. I had always found Indian culture fascinating, but he seemed
kind of vain, and I didn't like the way he appeared to be intently
checking me out. Maybe that pimple had turned into a third eye
after all.

"Then it's a date!" He actually winked at me. He acted like I'd
just agreed to go to the prom or something. Oh no. This wasn't
good. Alarm bells were sounding in my head. I needed the cavalry
to rescue me from this much-too-friendly Indian.

"We'll all go, Skylar!" Jordan quickly countered, and the bells
stopped ringing.

"Relax, Jordan, I'm just practicing my flirting so I won't lose
my edge. I didn't mean anything by it. I'm already in a committed
relationship. Kyra Kovac is going to the dance with me. Eat your
heart out!"

"You're joking! Why would she go out with you? What happened to Bret?"

While they were still bickering, I saw Andrew Martin make his
way to an empty table. A girl followed him. She had long, shiny,
chestnut brown hair; deep-set, dark eyes with exceptionally long
eyelashes; and creamy olive skin. She looked like a South American
supermodel. Just seeing her made all my insecurities instantly pop
back into my consciousness. I should just look away and pretend I
hadn't seen them at all. My rebellious eyes wouldn't budge.

"Who is she?" I asked Tiffany.

"That's Andrew's twin sister, Hannah," she said.

"She doesn't look anything like him." I never would have
guessed they were related, let alone siblings and twins. How was
that possible? Were they adopted? Was one of the two switched at
birth without anyone realizing? There had to be some mistake. The
genetics just weren't right.

"Yeah, weird, huh?" she agreed.

I was puzzled but relieved that she was his sister. Why should
I care? I must be developing masochistic tendencies. Three other
attractive people sat by the twins: a petite, blond girl with big violet eyes and two boys who were obviously brothers. The older one
looked like a football player. The younger one was thinner and less
muscular. They both were more rugged looking with hair and eyes
the color of mahogany. I wasn't sure why, but I couldn't stop staring
at them all.

"Jillian is Andrew's adopted sister. Matthew and Luke Allen
live next door to the Martins. Their families are close friends. Mr.
Allen works for Martin Pharmaceuticals as a sales representative
or something. I think they're related somehow," Tiffany explained.
"They're nice enough, but they haven't mingled much with the rest
of us more ordinary people since Alexis threw herself at Andrew and
Skylar tried to move in on Jillian last year. Alexis stalked Andrew
with dogged determination, and I think Skylar scared poor Jillian
to death!"

"It wasn't my fault. Jillian is super strange. First she was all nice
and friendly. She invited me home to meet her family; then she went
completely cold. She started freaking out whenever I touched her,"
Skylar explained. "That whole family is just plain odd. They act all
nice as they push you out the door. It's like `we love you, but go away
now and don't come back.' Andrew actually said, `Skylar, you're an
okay guy, but Jillian isn't going to see you anymore. Sorry, mate.' I
asked why, and he just ignored me and walked away. It was like he
was her father laying down the law and I wasn't worthy of any kind
of explanation."

"They're too goody-goody nice, if you ask me," Jordan said.
"They're hard to talk to because they're all extra smart and way too
mature. They don't act like the rest of us."

He then leaned across the table into my personal space and
whispered, "We think they must be in the Witness Protection Program. They're only pretending to be teenagers."

"I think they're British," Skylar added. "They talk funny."

"No, their accent is definitely Australian," insisted a cherubicfaced girl with sandy-brown, curly hair. I thought her name was
Emily. She was dressed in Western-cut jeans and a lime green shirt
with fringe on it. Where were the fashion police? I could never pull
that Western look off. If I had dressed like that in Chicago, I would
have been ridiculed and laughed out of school. On her, I guess it
looked okay. No one had arrested her yet.

I knew I was tempting fate, but I couldn't pull my disobedient
eyes off Andrew. He had a certain entrancing charm that caught my gaze and wouldn't let go. I told myself to give it up. He was obviously beyond my reach and probably superficial and narcissistic.

Suddenly, he looked at me with those intense turquoise eyes.
There was that smile that belonged in a toothpaste commercial. I
tried to look away, but it was as if he had some kind of strange, supermagnetic hold on me. Our eyes were locked in a sort of cosmic connection. He seemed to be staring through me and into my soul. For
a moment it was as if we were the only two people on earth. I could
almost see a strong, binding, invisible chain that stretched across the
room and linked us together, soul to soul. His soul was warm, comforting, and somehow familiar. It reached out to me, enveloping me
with a curious sense of belonging. I heard a strong, masculine voice
with a compelling accent speaking softly to my inner self. "I've been
waiting for you, Tiana," it said. Oopsies, I was climbing through the
roof at warp speed on the crazy odometer.