Footloose (4 page)

The hood of Chuck's car was still warm beneath Ariel's back as Chuck kissed her. His hands explored under her shirt, rubbing her soft belly in a circular motion. Each circle grew wider in a poor attempt at a smooth move. She gently pushed the hand away. “Why we gotta go so fast?”

“You looking for some choirboy to put a promise ring on your finger?” Chuck's tone was playful, but something about the way he said it still bothered her. “You're not gonna get that with me, preacher's girl.”

Ariel had been defined by her daddy's job since she was born. It only got worse when boys started noticing her. Anytime anyone used her daddy to describe her, it felt like an insult, whether it was or not. “I get that from everybody else. I'm not going to take it from you.”

Chuck's face darkened. “So what do you want? Want to go steady? I could ask your daddy if we could go courtin'.”

Ariel kind of liked the idea of bringing a race car driver a few years older than her to the house. She might have to use it someday when she got really mad at her parents. Chuck read her thoughts in her expression. “I doubt he knows about you and me, right?”

She didn't respond. Chuck already knew the answer. He clearly didn't care, either, because he started nuzzling on her neck instead of making more of a point out of it. “I thought it was real simple with you and me,” he said. “I'm your man and you're my rebel child.”

Ariel pulled away from him. “I'm not a child.”

He refused to let it go. “Yeah? Prove it.”

Ariel weakened under his stare. She should have gotten up and out of there. That would be the thing to do. Be strong. Always leave them wanting more.

But then what? Rusty had already left. Could she hitch a ride with one of the stragglers hanging around the track? That could be more dangerous than staying with Chuck.

Besides, part of her wanted this. It wasn't ideal, on top of a car in the back of a trailer. But it was more than she would have if she left. Then she'd be alone.

Her fingers found their way to the buttons of her top, popping them one by one as if her hands acted on their own.

But Ariel was in control. In total and complete control. Her stare met Chuck's. “Shut the door.”

Chapter 6

Ren let out a frustrated groan.
Sometimes you just have to force things
. He wrapped his hands around the metal and gave a tug. Then another. Then a hard yank. The VW's door finally swung open with a moaning wail.

Success. He could now let passengers into the car without making them climb across the seat. He just needed to find some passengers.

Ren never expected to make a bunch of friends on his first full day in a new town. He hadn't even been to school yet. But something about the people he'd met so far confirmed every fear Ren had when he first stepped onto the bus that brought him to Bomont. He didn't want to be here.

He thought about getting emancipated before his mom died. He'd already been on his own most of the time. But where would he live? Some of his mom's debts had gone with her, but not all of them. He'd have had to start out with nothing. There was still a year of high school to deal with, so it wasn't like he could get a full-time job.

This had been his only choice, really. His mom made him see that before she passed. It wasn't that he didn't love his family, but he didn't really know them. Not well enough to be comfortable living in their home. Even the girls, who were great, were almost total strangers. That's why he'd spent most of the first two days in the garage working on the car. Conveniently, it needed a lot of work.

The VW didn't look like much, but it was his freedom in a town that had already punished him for listening to his music too loud. That was weird, but Ren tried not to let it bother him too much. The place would get better. It had to. If Ariel was any indication of what the rest of the town might have in store for him, then maybe there was a glimmer of hope.

Ren went into the house to say good night to his aunt and uncle, then returned to his room to clean up and get ready for sleep. He picked up the picture by his bed. It was one of his favorite photos of his mom, taken when her life was full of promise, before her illness took a sudden, dark turn.

He never remembered the bad times. The sick times. At least, he tried not to. This was the mom he imagined when he saw her. Full of life.

He put the picture back on the nightstand and got into bed, imagining her smiling face was looking down on him right now. Not that he really thought she was. He'd spent more time than most people his age wondering what happened after death, whether or not there was some great beyond. The jury was still out. He'd probably never come to a decision.

Light shined in on him after several hours of tossing and turning on the strange bed. A half hour later, he decided it was time to get up and face the day. And the town of Bomont.

Sarah and Amy were already halfway through their breakfast when Ren got to the table. They were dressed in the uniforms that were apparently mandatory in the elementary school. Lulu had made a point of letting Ren know the night before that he didn't have to worry about that at his school. Honestly, he hadn't even thought about it before she said anything. It wasn't like he was going to some private school.

“Morning, girls. What's on the menu?”

“Waffles!” Amy cheered.

“But I can make you whatever you want, Ren,” Lulu quickly added from the kitchen. “I can make you an omelette, or eggs on toast—”

“Waffles would be great. Thanks!” Even when his mom had been at her healthiest, she was usually out the door to one of her two jobs before Ren got up. Waffles for breakfast on a school day was unheard of. To be able to choose something else if he wanted was almost unthinkable. Lulu probably just wanted to make him feel welcome. They couldn't possibly have breakfasts like this every day of the week.

Ren grabbed a seat beside Amy as Wes entered the kitchen. His littlest one was at full attention when she saw him. “Daddy, did you lift the toilet seat when you tinkled?”

“Yes, I did, Amy,” Wes replied with a smile. “Thank you for asking.”

“Did you put it down when you were done?” Sarah chimed in immediately.

Wes smiled like a man who's just been caught. “I will next time, darlin'. Daddy's late for work.” He took a look at Ren. And then a second look at him. Ren wasn't sure what was wrong.

“You got jury duty?” Wes asked. Ren didn't know what his uncle was getting at, until he added, “What's with the tie?”

At that moment, all the females in the room chimed in, as if they were just waiting for a reason to bring it up.

“I like it,” Sarah said.

“He looks handsome,” Amy added.

Lulu put the plate of waffles in front of him. “I think he looks dashing. Ren, you can dress however you want.”

Ren wasn't sure what they were talking about. He was just in regular school clothes: dark pants and a light green short-sleeve shirt. Okay, the tie might be a little out there for Bomont, but he'd worn it plenty of times at his old school. Ties weren't the norm in Boston public schools, either, but it wasn't nearly as odd as some of the things his friends used to wear.

“I had a skinny black tie just like that back in the day,” Wes added. “Had piano keys running down the side.”

“Those were his mullet days,” Lulu added, as if it needed explanation.

Wes grabbed his wife around the waist, giving her a playful hug. “Those were my sexy days, baby. You should know, Miss Crimping Iron.” Lulu gave him a light swat on the nose before he turned his attention back to his nephew. “Look, I'm just thinking about first impressions. That's all.”

Ren wasn't sure what world he was in that a tie made for a bad first impression. He didn't look forward to finding out. He just swallowed his Yankee sarcasm and dug into his waffles.

Breakfast tasted even better than it looked, and it looked pretty good. Probably nobody in this town ever burned a meal or undercooked their eggs. They'd lose their membership in the Rotary Club or something. Not that Ren had a clue what a Rotary Club was, but he'd heard of them on old TV shows set in small towns like this.

•  •  •  •  •

This morning, Rusty kept Ariel waiting, instead of the other way around. It was payback for yesterday, when Ariel had slipped into her friend's house in the middle of the night. She and Chuck had their fun together and then went out for dinner. His version of wining and dining was beer and wings, but Ariel wasn't picky. The food wasn't half as good as her momma's traditional Sunday-night meatloaf, but the crazy bar he took her to beat the gloomy silence around the dining room table any day.

Chuck complained about having to drive her all the way back to Rusty's, revving his engine to let the entire block know he was there even though it was long after curfew. That was something she had to worry about, since she wasn't eighteen yet. Chuck didn't have that problem; he'd passed eighteen a few years ago. It was another one of the benefits of being with Chuck. Guys her age worried about junk like curfew and school nights way more than Ariel ever did.

Rusty's room was on the first floor, so getting in and out through the window was a lot easier than it would have been at Ariel's house. Rusty's mom didn't even know they had an overnight guest until she passed Ariel in the kitchen as she left for work.

“We're gonna be late for school,” Ariel called through the closed bathroom door. Rusty had been in the shower an awfully long time. “Aren't you the one who usually cares about those things?”

“I got plenty of time,” Rusty shouted back over the running water. “You're the one who's gonna get detention if you pick up another tardy slip.”

Ariel leaned back against the door. Rusty was right. She was one note away from detention. Usually, she didn't mind staying after school—she got a lot of homework done that way. But the last time she was stuck in school she missed out on riding into Atlanta with Chuck. The only way to make sure that didn't happen again was by doing what she knew she had to do.

“Okay,” Ariel said. “I'm
sorry
. I'm
sorry
I made a scene at the track. I'm
sorry
I caused you to worry. And I'm really,
really
sorry I tripped and fell on you when I climbed in the window last night.”

The water stopped running. “That didn't sound very genuine.”

“It sounds better when there isn't a door between us,” Ariel said. She softened her tone. “But I really am sorry. And we really are late for school.”

The door opened behind Ariel, nearly dropping her to the floor. When she turned, she was surprised to see that Rusty was already dressed, with her bag slung over her shoulder and a scowl on her face. “Fine,” she said. “But we should really get going.”

Ariel was torn between laughing and growling at her as they left for school. Rusty would let her get away with murder, but there always came a point where she made sure Ariel knew how lucky she was to have such an easygoing friend.

They arrived at school with plenty of time to get one of the good parking spots.

“Rah,” Ariel cheered with sarcastic enthusiasm as they passed under the “Go Panthers” banner. It was their daily ritual, a fun way to take a swipe at school spirit. As if they cared about the football team.

Rusty was silent. Guess the apology wasn't quite fully accepted yet.

“Are you gonna pout all day?” Ariel asked. “I already said I was sorry.”

Rusty finally relented, allowing the first smile of the day. It rarely took this long to get the girl to smile after they had a dustup, so it was especially nice to see. “It's Monday,” Rusty said. “Everybody gets a do-over.”

Ariel wasn't so sure she'd earned another do-over, but for the moment she was glad they could put it behind them. She would have said as much, but a strange sound drew her attention, along with the stares of everyone else in the student parking lot.

An old VW Bug rolled into the lot, with the stereo pumping a song Ariel didn't recognize. She'd never seen the car before either, but the person behind the wheel was somewhat familiar. It was the guy she'd met yesterday after church: Ren McCormack. She heard through the grapevine that he'd already gotten a ticket for a noise disturbance. Guess it didn't faze him much. Not enough to stop him from doing it again, anyway. Looked like Ariel wasn't the only one who could make an entrance.

Chapter 7

Maybe he should have disconnected his iPod from the tornado siren.

Ren expected a few turned heads when he pulled up to school, being the new kid and all. But the way every single student in the parking lot gaped at him like he just came down from the mother ship was a bit more attention than he had anticipated. Nobody stared that way when he drove up to his old school with the radio blaring; usually they just tuned to the station he was listening to and sang along. Yet another reminder he was a long way from home.

He went to public school in Boston. Not in the richest part of town, but the kids lucky enough to have cars there usually had models from this millennium. The Bomont High parking lot was filled with cars that had been around longer than their drivers. It almost went without saying that everyone who owned a car probably knew how to fix it; they'd have to if they wanted to keep it on the road. Ren was one of the few kids back home who had those skills.

Ren pushed open the driver's-side door and stepped out, giving everyone a better view of him. He tried to play it cool, but the stares were unnerving as he walked to the entrance.

In the sea of faces, the first one that stood out was the one he met the day before. Ariel seemed determined not to notice him, but her friend clearly wasn't in on the plan.

“That's a nice tie,” the friend said as he passed. “I mean it. Don't let anyone tell you different.”

Again with the tie …

Ren couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or if she really meant it. She seemed friendly enough, bright and cheery, while Ariel continued to be cool and aloof. Ren stammered out a “Thanks,” hoping he wasn't being grateful for an insult. He tried to remember the girl's name, but he couldn't. Ariel had said it yesterday when she needed someone to back up her lie.
Dusty, maybe?

“Rusty,” she said, providing her name with a warm smile that seemed genuine enough.

He nodded and looked to her friend. He definitely remembered her name, but didn't want to look like he did. “Ariel, right?”

“Very good.” She casually turned away from him and walked away. Rusty was quick to follow.

Nice
, Ren thought. Just enough disinterest to keep him interested. She might not know much about lying to adults, but she sure had practice messing with guys' minds. He was going to have to figure out some way to force her to really notice him one of these days. That kind of project could make this town a bit less boring.

The high school wasn't any more interesting than the rest of Bomont. It was a standard-issue redbrick building that looked exactly as Ren imagined it would.

Everyone stared at him inside the building, too. Some guys made fun of the tie. Girls whispered and giggled. He was prepared for the gossip, but this was ridiculous. He hadn't even done anything worth talking about yet. Didn't these people have more interesting things going on in their lives?

Probably not.

Ren passed a large window looking into the principal's office. Roger, the man he had met after church yesterday, was inside, trying to look casual as he kept an eye on every single student who passed. The name on the door was “Dunbar.”

Ren pretended not to notice Principal Dunbar waving as he passed the window. The last thing he needed was for everyone to think they were old friends.

Since he just saw the principal, Ren figured the main office was nearby. He had to pick up his class schedule and locker assignment, fill out all the proper paperwork, and other stuff. Preferably before the first bell rang.

A display case on the wall distracted him. A funeral wreath hung behind the Plexiglas along with a framed photo of five students. They were clearly close friends by the way they hung all over one another as they posed for the picture. The smiles on their faces were full of playfulness, like they all knew some secret joke the person looking at the photo wasn't in on. The three guys wore football uniforms. The girls were dressed casually. One of them wore bright pink high-tops. A small plaque beneath the wreath read, “You will not be missing from our lives.”

That was it. No names. No explanation of what happened to them, why they were missing from anyone's lives. It made sense, though. Anything that ended in the deaths of five teens in a town this size wasn't something that needed to be explained. Everyone must've known the story; only outsiders would need to be clued in.

Ren pushed the dark message from his mind and turned down the hall, walking right into a big, beefy guy who was all arms and gangly body. “Hey, why don't you watch where you're goin'?” He had the thickest southern accent Ren had ever heard.

“I'm sorry.” Ren's brain was still a bit rattled from the collision. “I just didn't—”

“It's like driving,” the guy said, cutting him off. “Keep to the right side of the hallway.”

Okay, now Ren's brain was functioning again. He wasn't going to let some rube in a camouflage shirt and trucker hat think he was the one who didn't know how to walk. “You're kinda hard to see with all that camo. Aren't you supposed to wear one of those orange vests so hunters don't shoot you?”

“I wouldn't be caught dead wearing orange,” he said. “I ain't no Tennessee Vols fan. I'm a Georgia Bulldog, head to toe.” It was like he was speaking a different language, and not just because of the accent. “Where you from?” he asked. “You talk funny.”

Ren let out a snort of laughter. Something about a pot and a kettle came to mind. “
I
talk funny? You should hear you from my end.”

Uncle Wes probably would have warned him to dial back the sarcasm.
Don't want to make for a bad first impression
. But Ren wasn't really worried about impressing this young man. “Boston,” he said, answering the guy's question. “Massachusetts. It's in the United States.”

“Yeah, I read that somewhere.” The big guy's hand shot out. For a brief moment Ren though he was about to get a punch for his troubles, but the smile that came with the extended hand said otherwise. “I'm Willard.”

Ren shook Willard's hand and introduced himself. “Ren McCormack.”

“Anybody give you grief about that tie yet?” Willard asked.

Only everyone.
But Willard didn't need to know that. “Well, the day just started,” Ren said.

Things looked up for a bit after that. Willard directed Ren to the main office, then went along with him to make sure he made it there safely. The guy had a bit of a puppy-dog quality, and spent the rest of the morning following Ren around school. Since they had pretty much the same schedule, it made sense. The school wasn't big enough to get lost in, but Willard saved him from making a few wrong turns between classes.

By the time they got to gym class, Ren had a good idea on the layout of the place. He quickly changed in the locker room and headed outside with the rest of the class. They were doing track and field, but it wasn't an organized activity in any way that Ren could see.

Halfway through the period, it was Ren's turn to step up to the starting line at the track. Willard was beside him. The gym teacher, Coach Guerntz, barked out orders as they took their starting positions. “Keep that head down. Keep it down! All the way! Good. Next group, on your mark, and … Go!”

Ren took off, leaving Willard and the others in the dust. It was just a short sprint, but it felt good to get his blood pumping again. He didn't need the coach to tell him how fast he was. The eyes that followed him down the track finally had something interesting to watch. He easily won the sprint and a few smiles of approval from a group of nearby girls. Too bad Ariel wasn't among them.

He'd seen her a few times that morning. They had a couple classes together. Each time they passed, she was either deep in conversation with Rusty or off in her own world. The way she barely noticed him made Ren wonder if he completely imagined that awkward moment they shared at church. Maybe it didn't mean anything at all. Maybe it was just … awkward.

Ren lined up with bunch of other guys at the water hose that served as the makeshift fountain. He waited his turn as the coach shouted out needless orders on the proper way to take a cold drink when exercising. This had to be his thing, a way to exert control by explaining how the students should do everything.

The kid finishing up at the hose handed it to Willard. “You look a little flushed, Willard.”

“My cheeks are naturally ruddy,” he said between panting breaths. The sprint had taken a bit out of him. He looked much paler now, especially when compared to the darker skin of the guy handing him the water hose. “Ren, this is Woody, our team captain. But you don't gotta salute him.”

Ren held out a hand. “Good to meet you.”

Woody joined up with them as they made their way through the different stations the gym coach had set for the students. The class wasn't much more than random exercises while Coach bellowed about nothing at all. It did leave plenty of time for talking, so Ren didn't mind. Especially since the talk was mostly about him.

“You keep running that fast, Coach Guerntz is gonna be on you to sign up for football,” Woody said. They stood at the row of metal pull-up bars sticking out of the ground. Willard was halfway through a set.

Ren had been afraid of something like that happening when he decided not to hold back in gym class. He fielded offers to join other sports teams all the time back at his old school, as if the coaches back there didn't realize he was already involved in a sport. “That's not really my thing.”

Willard dropped down from the pull-up bar. “Not much else to do in this town as far as sports or extracurricular is concerned.”

Ren took his place at the bar and ran through a series of fast pull-ups. He knew he should slow down, not show off. But he hadn't had a real workout in weeks. It felt good to get the muscles moving again.

“Shit-howdy,” Willard said.

Ren skipped a beat in his pull-ups and nearly slipped off the bar. “Shit-howdy” was a new one to him. He didn't even want to know how Willard came up with it.

“You say you're not into sports?” Woody asked.

Ren held himself up on the bar, with his arms straight. “I didn't say that. I'm just not into football.”

Willard seemed confused. In his world, there probably wasn't any sport other than football. “Then what are you—”

Ren cut him off by lifting his legs and throwing himself into a loop that took him up and over the metal bar, giving them a quick glimpse of his high bar routine. He stopped to hang in midair, enjoying the gasps of surprise from Willard and Woody.

“I was on the gymnastics team at my school,” Ren explained. “Won the regionals. Got a couple trophies. No big whoop.”

Three guys over at the next pull-up station were watching him, too. They didn't seem the least bit impressed. “If you want, they got a balance beam for the cheerleaders to practice on,” one of them said.

Another added his two cents. “Yeah. They could give you a baton and you can twirl all day long.”

Ren hopped down from the bar. He'd heard plenty of that kind of thing since he started gymnastics. Nothing new. He had loads of experience handling it himself, but Willard was already moving toward the guys threateningly. This was not going to go well for Willard.

The third guy stepped in before things went too far. “Now, now, Willard. You don't want to get suspended again. Your momma might have to take a switch to you.”

The trio walked away while Willard remained in place, stewing.

Ren whispered to Woody. “What'd he get suspended for?”

“Fightin'.”

Willard turned back to them with a hint of a smile that indicated he wasn't embarrassed by the suspension. “I've been known to open a can.” Willard didn't look like he'd be much in a fight, but Ren knew plenty of guys much smaller than Willard who were good in a scrape.

The near-fight went completely unnoticed by the coach, who was busy telling a group of students about the proper way to do cool-down exercises. He eventually gave up and dismissed everyone back to the locker room to change.

Lunch was next. Ren got into the serving line with Willard. He was glad to avoid the awkward maneuver of figuring out where to sit on the first day. They went outside to the courtyard as Willard went on about his favorite subject: football.

“Last year, the varsity team made it all the way to regionals. They bused us down for that one. The excitement never stops.” Willard held up his thumbs in mock enthusiasm, once he put down his tray.

Ren sat across from him. “You ever been overseas?”

“I been to Alabama. That count?”

“Not really,” Ren replied. Although down here it probably did. “Two years ago, I went to Russia with my gymnastics team. Kind of this sister-city thing with Moscow.”

“I don't know if I'd dig that,” Willard said. “Seems like it'd be boring.”

Ren smiled. Time for some fun. “Do you know anything about Russian girls?”

“I hear they range from scary to drop-dead beautiful.”

“Well, I can vouch for the latter.” Ren saw that he had Willard's full attention. “Two girls from the Russian gymnastics team snuck me out of my dorm in the middle of the night. And they were smokin'.”

“What were they smokin'?” Willard looked confused. “Oh, you mean like ‘smokin' hot'? Please continue.”

“We go to this club and the music is pounding. They must have had like three smoke machines going, 'cause you couldn't see a thing. We were all over each other, drenched in sweat. It was great. We danced all night.”

Willard leaned forward in his seat. “And then what? What happened after that?”

Ren shrugged and gave him a little smirk. That was pretty much the whole story, but Willard didn't need to know that. The big guy didn't seem at all content with that response. “Down here in the South we don't start stories like that and not finish.”