The Loverboy (2 page)

birthday and her mom had not picked up a shift at the dinner.
She had been home when they got back from school. Her mom had
baked a cake and they had had lasagna for dinner and not the
kind from a microwave meal as usual. It had been wonderful.
For her birthday she had gotten a new pair of sneakers. She
had asked for the latest pink and white Nikes, which were
seventy dollars at the mall. She had really hoped for these
since all of the cool kids at school wore them, but she knew it
would have been expensive for her mom. Instead her mom had
gotten her these shoes that looked almost exactly like the pair
that she had picked out. The brand had been Niles and the swoosh
was a little different to avoid a copyright infringement. She
had found them for ten dollars at a market that was notorious
for knock offs.
Kim had done her utmost best not to seem disappointed but
didn‟t think she had fooled her mom. Ally had been convinced she
liked them and when her mom had said that they were knock offs,
she had said that she would have never been able to tell if her
mom wouldn‟t have said so. Kim had noticed immediately and was
sure that her class mates would too. That would unleash a
barrage of torments. All in all it had been a good birthday.
Again no word from her dad but she had gotten used to that by
now and even though secretly hoping she hadn‟t expected it
anymore.
Today she wanted to be a teenager. She would go to the
mall. She knew she wouldn‟t be able to afford anything but still
wanted to be like all the other girls at school. Window shopping
would be fun too. She decided to wear her new sneakers and give
them a test run at the mall. She would look around and see if
she would notice any pointing fingers or people noticing the
knock offs. If they wouldn‟t maybe she would take a chance and
wear them to school. But they had to be tested first.
She stopped at Mrs. Simon and talked to Ally for a bit.
Gave her a kiss, said hi to Mrs. Simons and stopped at home to
get her new sneakers then she was off to the mall. It was a
thirty minute walk to the mall and she could have taken the bus,
but walking was free and after waiting for the bus it would have
only be 10 more minutes to walk then to take the bus. She
arrived at the mall at about four o‟clock.
The mall was busy as usual. She strolled around and checked
out the latest fashions in the store windows and the boys at the
food court. Both were out of reach for her she sighed to
herself. She stopped at a store with a particularly nice
display. In the centre of the display was a mannequin with a
pretty pink top and a beautiful pair of jeans. She dreamed of
herself arriving at school in that outfit. Surely it would
change things.
She snapped out of her dream when she noticed this
uncontrollable giggle from behind. She turned and saw Alexis,
Marcia, Megan and Natasha. They were on the cheerleading squad
at school and thus the in upper echelon of popularity, and they
were laughing at her. Megan quickly pointed out that the outfit
she was checking out would cost more than thirty outfits would
cost where she usually shopped. Then Alexis noticed her shoes
and pointed them out inquiring about her new “kicks”. Natasha
was quick to notice that they were knock offs and the barrage of
insults picked up a notch. After about 5 minutes of this Kim was
about to break into tears and run off. But that would make
things so much worse.
She wished she could sink into the ground and erase this
event from her and her assailant‟s memories. If this was bad she
thought, just wait tomorrow at school. She was already planning
for that. She would be sick tomorrow. Then it would be weekend
and by Monday it might be forgotten about and she might get out
without any more embarrassment. It was a long shot but it was
all she had.
Then all of a sudden she heard “There you are, where did
you go?” It was directed at her. She looked around and saw tall
handsome boy walked up to her. He was 5‟11” and was tanned. His
hair was black and well groomed. He looked 18 or 19 years old
and had the brightest smile she had ever seen. He was fit and
dressed very well. Who was this? What did he want? She was
stunned in surprise and by his appearance. The cheerleading
squad that had not been bringing cheer to her had the same
reaction. What could this hunk want from a loser like Kim Brown?
He walked up to her and kissed her on the cheek. Then he
said “I stopped at the store where you got the shoes and they
apologized about the mistake. It appears one of the warehouse
employees was stealing shoes and replacing them with knock offs
and then selling the real ones. They told me to bring them back
and you would get new ones. They are very embarrassed about it.”
Then he turned to the cheerleading squad that he had
skillfully ignored and asked “Are these your friends from
school?”
She was still trying to figure out what was going on and
after swallowing the lump in her throat, she managed a faint
“Yes, this is Alexia, Megan, Marcia and Natasha.”
Then she pointed at him and said “And this is……” trying to
introduce this guy even though she had no idea who he was.
“Jake” he interrupted her quickly and exactly at the right time.
“It‟s a pleasure” he said.
Then he quickly turned to Kim again and completely ignored
the four girls again. They were clearly not used to that kind of
treatment. They were always the center of attention because they
were beautiful, rich and popular. Now they were just stunned.
“Come on” he said, “I want to do a bit more shopping.”
He had a bit of an accent that she couldn‟t place. It
wasn‟t weird or annoying; it actually made him even more
attractive as if that were possible. She followed him in the
direction of the shoe store. Finally she was beginning to
process things. He had seen what was going on and he had rescued
her from her predicament. It would only be short lived though.
Tomorrow she needed to show up at school wearing those new shoes
or the cheerleading squad would see right through it. When they
were out of earshot of the girls she looked at him and said
“Thanks.”
He smiled at her the most wonderful smile she had ever
seen.
“Don‟t mention it, I couldn‟t let those bitches get away
with that” he said.
They walked into the shoe store and she said “I‟ll wait
here and sneak out when they are gone. I‟ll be ok now. Thanks.”
He looked at her and said, I don‟t think that will work,
you need to have those shoes tomorrow at school or they will
come down on you twice as hard.”
It was as if he had read her mind.
“What‟s your size?” he asked.
“Seven” she said.
He walked to the counter holding one of the shoes.
Two minutes later the clerk came out with a box with the
size seven shoes that her knock offs were supposed to resemble.
She tried them on and he asked “Do they fit?”
“Yes” she said but I can‟t afford these.
They were seventy dollars at the cheaper stores. At this
one they were eighty-five dollars. He looked at the price and
pulled a wad of cash out of his pocket. He pulled a one hundred
dollar bill from the wad and gave it to the clerk.
“This should cover the shoes and tax, keep the change and
burn the old shoes” he said.
The clerk nodded and he grabbed her by the arm and they
walked out the door.
“I can‟t accept this” she said, “I can‟t pay you back.”
“I don‟t want you too” he said and smiled.
When they walked out of the store she felt like she was
walking on air. Partly because of the shoes but mostly because
of this handsome stranger that was paying attention to her. She
noticed the four girls in the distance watching the store as
they walked out. They were checking up on her. They quickly
pretended that they weren‟t looking at her and she did the same.
He grabbed her hand and told her “We have to make it look good”
and winked at her.
Then he led her to the store front where she had been
assaulted by the cheerleader squad. They stopped in front of the
window and he pointed at the outfit and said “That would look
great on you.”
“I wish” she replied.
He looked at the price and dragged her into the store. Not
ten minutes later they walked out with 2 shopping bags. So this
is how it feels she thought. No wonder women on TV call it
therapy. Then they walked to the exit of the mall. When got
outside he gave her a card and circled his cell number.
“If you ever need me to scare off more bullies call me” he
said.
Then he gave her a kiss on the cheek and walked out to the
parking lot. In the parking lot he got into a beautiful Porsche
Boxter and sped off.
She stared ahead in disbelieve over the events of the last
thirty minutes. Then she looked at his card. Jake Juliano it
said and listed a cell number, a few pager numbers and an email
address. No physical address, company name or profession. Odd
she thought but it looked very elegant. Finally she noticed the
cheerleading squad standing at a distance. For a moment she was
afraid they would come and harass her again but when they saw
she noticed them they quickly walked back into the mall and
pretended they had just stepped out for a smoke.
With large steps and get head in the clouds she headed home
thinking of this her own mystery man, Jake Juliano.
Chapter 3:
She arrived at home and quickly hid the new outfit under
her bed. She wouldn‟t have been able to explain that to her mom.
The shoes were fine she thought. Her mom would not notice the
difference, which was not her interest. The kids at school were
obsessed with making sure they looked perfect and were able to
spot a fake a mile away. She felt relieved that she didn‟t have
to worry about that anymore now. After hiding the bags with
clothes she hurried to Mrs. Simons and picked Ally up. She
thanked Mrs. Simons and had told her she had missed the bus and
had to wait a half hour for the next one and apologized
profusely. Mrs. Simons hadn‟t minded.
When they got home it had been past six. She didn‟t like
taking advantage of Mrs. Simons but today she felt the reason
she was late had more than justified the being late even though
she didn‟t feel like she could talk about it to anyone. She
would tell Annie tomorrow. Annie was the only one she could
trust to understand. Ok, Annie wouldn‟t quite understand about
the problem with the shoes being knock offs or the need for
fashionable outfits.
Annie in fact might be the only one at school to get away
with dressing however she wanted where everyone else had to
adhere to the strict dress code or face ridicule. Kim had always
pondered why Annie could and she couldn‟t get away with it and
decided that it was because a combination of reasons. First of
all Annie chose to dress the way she did. If she wanted too she
would have a wardrobe of the latest fashions. All she would have
had to do was give her dad a call on his satellite phone as he
was probably off on some remote corner of the world on a
drilling island. He would just tell he were his credit cards
were and which one she could take. He would tell her not to
spend over a certain amount but that amount would just be
mentioned not to seem like a dad that just spoils his kids. The
amount would be far greater then Kim could ever imagine spending
on a shopping spree without flying to New York, Paris or Milan.
Second of all, Annie genuinely didn‟t care what people
thought. If people didn‟t like something about her then that was
fine. She picked her friends because she liked them. Not because
they fit a certain physical appearance. So picking on her
generally had no effect and thus was no fun for the bullies. In
the worst case scenario she might catch you off guard with one
of her witty comebacks and the bully would end up being
ridiculed. This low return on making fun of her combined with
the risk of it generally was not considered worth it and thus
she was left alone.
The cheerleaders called her odd or crazy behind her back
but she really didn‟t care what they thought. All this was why
Kim couldn‟t pull it off. First of all she didn‟t have a choice
about what she wore and second of all she did care what other
people thought. Most of the time she could do a pretty good job
on pretending that she didn‟t care but the especially vicious
girls could see right through that. Almost like a shark smelling
blood a mile away in an ocean.
She made microwave meals for her and Ally as her mom had
another shift at the diner and wouldn‟t be home until nine. Then
she helped her with her homework and did her own while Ally
watches another iCarly episode from a DVD set she had gotten 2
years ago. Ally had seen it at least fifty times but she liked
it and since they couldn‟t afford cable it was her way of
pretending that they could afford cable.
It was hard to get her homework done. Helping Ally was easy
since she had to talk to Ally about it and couldn‟t drift off
but when she was working on her own it was just her and her
thoughts and her thoughts had no plans to stick to the tasks on
hand. She kept trying to think about her Geometry assignments
but all she could think of in relation to algebra was the lines
and shapes of Jake‟s face. When she tried to focus on Social
Studies all she could do was compare the colors in the graph
that displayed the religion percentages in a certain African
country to the color of his eyes.
At eight thirty she gave up and put Ally to bed. Then she
lay down on the couch and zapped through the channels. She
paused on the news as it was the most interesting of all the
channels and after a few minutes she dozed off. She dreamed
about Jake. It was the best night sleep she had had in a long
time. In her dreams he had taken her away from her drab life in
the apartment and they were living together in a beautiful
house. For fun they would cruise around in his convertible and
go to the beach.
No way would they be living in Milwaukee. They would be in
California or the Florida Keys, anywhere but Milwaukee. If she
heard the word “bubbler” instead of water fountain one more time
she would scream. She woke up at six am. Her mom had her hand on