The flight was…eventful, to say the least. I was seated right next to some lady from the South who wore way too much perfume and way too much make-up and kept telling me that I was 'such a doll,' and, 'such a pretty young thing.'
I swear, I was about ready to punch her out when we got to Neptune, where I collected my luggage from the baggage collection and realised that I had left one very important detail out in my grand plan.
The fact that I had failed to inform my Grandfather to expect a permanent houseguest. Yikes!
I guiltily brought my cell phone out of my messenger bag that hung off of my left shoulder and dialed his cell.
'Lila! How's my girl, huh?' he asked.
'Hey Pop, I 'm good thanks. Hey, I was wondering if I could ask you a really big favour… could you come and pick me up from the airport?'
Keith Mars arrived fifteen minutes later, looking extremely surprised, but happy as he swooped down and bear hugged me, taking my humungous suitcase from my hand.
'So, kid, what's the story?' he asked, as he put a arm across my shoulder and pulled me closer to his side.
I tucked a stray brown hair (that had obviously evaded my ponytail) behind my ear.
'I…needed a break. I just want to live in Neptune for a while…if that's okay?'
He sighed, 'You had a fight with your mom, didn't you?'
It was my turn to sigh. 'Yes.'
'And you are always welcome to stay with me, always.' He kissed the top of my head. 'It's good to see you finally in Neptune.'
Oh, yeah. I've never been here before. My mother avoids it at all costs, but I've always wanted to see my Pop in his natural environment. He usually comes to visit us in Boston.
I was settled into my mom's old room by bedtime. And pop informed me that if this was going to be a long-term thing, that I was to be enrolled at Neptune High on Monday.
I was ready to become a pirate. Argh!
So I am standing out the front of Neptune High School, watching kids my age as they get out of their convertibles and other really cool, expensive cars.
I grip my bag nervously- it's a habit, and start walking towards the entrance.
I had managed to collect my new timetable and locker number from the vice principal's office before the first bell rang, but I'm still late for first period – which just happens to be English.
According to my timetable, English is being held in room 31. Wherever that is. So, I am getting even more scared and a little bit anxious as my watch continues to tick, and I'm the only person still in the hall.
Okay, maybe I should keep walk in this direction, I think to myself, as I start to turn a corner.
'Oof!' I felt the wind being knocked out of me, and I realised that I was on the ground and that my elbow hurt badly from hitting the floor. I hadn't seen what had hit me, because the whole thing had been so sudden.
A tanned boy with brown hair stepped a few paces back, holding his wrist tenderly for a second before he realised that he had actually run into a person, who was still on the ground.
'I am so sorry,' he said, as he leaned over and outstretched his hand to help me up with.
I ignored it. And helped myself up.
'It's okay,' I said.
'I'm running really late for English,' he said quickly. 'I wasn't looking where I was…'
'Wait, do you have English with Mrs Brauer?'
His left eyebrow quirked up. 'Yeah, why?'
'I'm new.'
'That explains everything,' he said, as he gripped his books and started to walk, waiting as to make sure that I was still with him. 'I'm Alex,' he said with a grin.
'Lila.'
He was the first person that I met at Neptune High School. The second person that I was introduced to was a girl named Taylor. I was in PE, my favourite lesson, and we were dividing into pairs for badminton.
She had walked up next to me and said, 'Hi, I'm Taylor. Partner?'
'Sure,' I replied. 'I'm Lila.'
'Did you know that Lila means purple in German?' she asked, flashing me a grin.
'Actually I was aware.' I said truthfully.
'So, are you ready to kick these bimbo's butts?' she asked. This comment made me laugh, because, surely enough, the girls on the other side of the net, whilst looking pretty, also looked as if they had pieces of fluff between their ears instead of brains.
I nodded eagerly, and was surprised when I saw that Taylor could play. In just about every school I had been to, I had been one of the few, if not the only girl who actually had some sporting talent, or who actually wanted to participate in PE.
But Taylor seemed cool; she was an African-American girl (my mother had always taught me to use the proper terminology) who had long, braided hair and wore fluorescent pink nail polish that clashed magnificently against her dark skin.
When our pair ended up winning the round-robin tournament, she had come over to me and said, 'You should come and find me at lunch,' with a grin.
I smiled back at her.
The next lesson that I had was Newspaper. Back at St Mary's I had been involved with 'Yearbook' class, but I hadn't enjoyed it. They had made me write boring articles about prom and homecoming and the cheerleading team winning the state championship.
All I really wanted to do was take photos, and I told that to the teacher, while a tall, pretty, blonde girl stood next to her, looking me up and down.
'Why don't you talk to Cassie, perhaps she can give you something to do?' the teacher suggested, as she motioned towards the blonde girl who had been standing next to her. This must be Cassie. The teacher walked back to her desk and the girl named Cassie walked away.
I followed her shyly, and she was obviously surprised that I had when she sat down next to her friends and acted like she had just noticed me. 'Oh. What are you doing here?'
'The teacher said…'
'Oh… right,' she said as she remembered. 'Well, I don't have anything for you to do, so maybe you should go and see if Andreas needs any help,' she said, saying his name with disgust, as she pointed towards a scary looking, big guy who was slumped over a chair and looking intently over at us.
Her redheaded friend giggled, along with the girl with the pixie face on her left.
I looked back at Cassie. 'Actually, I'd rather not.'
Cassie rolled her eyes. 'Right. Well, I guess that you can help him then,' she motioned towards a boy who looked as if he'd fallen asleep at his desk. 'Jack is cute, butI've never heard him say a word. Even when I'm way friendly to him, he never says anything, just walks away. He's totally spaced out.'
'I think he's just shy,' said the redhead.
'You would, Stacey, you've never come to the conclusion that maybe, a guy just isn't interested in you,' said the girl with the pixie face meanly.
I took a breath. 'Well, thanks, guys,' I said sarcastically as I walked slowly away from Cassie and her crusade of bimbos' bitch fight waiting to happen and towards mysterious, sleepy boy.
I pulled up a chair, and I saw him open his left eye through a crack in his arms.
'Jack?' I asked shyly. 'I'm-'
He lifted his head from the table and interrupted me, 'Lila Mars, I know. And call me JD.'
I was confused; either Cassie had been lying to me, or I had actually cracked this guy. When I looked back at Cassie and her friends, I saw that each of them had identical looks of shock on their faces, and I smiled to myself smugly.
'How do you know my name?' I asked.
'I'm observant,' he replied. I gave him a quizzical look before he grinned and explained, 'I saw you in the office, getting your timetable this morning.'
'Oh, right,' I said.
'So, you want to head down to the bleachers, so we can pretend to be doing an interview with the lacrosse team?'
'Pretend?' I asked quickly.
He must have noticed the look of question on my face. 'Don't worry, I'm not going to pass my hip flask around so we can get wasted, or try and sexually assault you, or bring out my bong,' he chuckled, before leaning in closer to me and saying quietly, 'Newspaper is a waste of a lesson. Nothing remotely exciting ever happens here. The only articles that are printed are those written by the 09ers,' he threw a look in Cassie's direction disgustedly.
'09ers?'
'You must be new! 09ers are people who live in the 90909 zip code. Spoilt, rich kids basically. Kids like Cassie and her herd of bimbo's and boy toy's over there.'
'Not a fan?' I asked.
He chuckled. 'You got that right.'
'They said that you have never said a word to them.'
JD downright laughed at this. A low, rumble that made me smile. 'That's because I don't want to waste my time,' he said.
'And how did you know that I wasn't an 09er when I got here?' I asked out of curiosity.
'Well, apart from the fact that you're not really wearing the 09er fashion standards…'
'Oh, my bad, it seems like I forgot my Gucci dress this morning,' I said sarcastically. He grinned.
'Apart from that, I saw Cassie and the others giving you the infamous 09er snob off.'
I nodded my head slowly. 'Right.'
He looked out of the corner of his eye for a moment before noticing that I was watching him. 'Do you know him?' He asked, as he nodded his head slightly towards that scary Andreas guy.
'No. Why?'
'Nothing. Just he keeps looking over here, which is weird… maybe he's decided that he's going to bash me because my dad arrested him again…'
I looked over at the scary biker dude. And I was quite disturbed when he flashed me a grin of those white teeth (well they looked particularly white against his brown skin) and winked at me.
'I think we should go down to the bleachers,' if only to avoid that guy's scary gaze.
JD smiled at me and gathered his things together and when we exited the classroom, I could still feel scary biker dude's eyes following us.
'So what's the deal with him? You said that he's been arrested?'
'On several occasions,' said JD, opening the double doors that led out to the quad. 'Nothing major of course, just petty crimes. Apparently he takes after his dad, but that's just what I've heard.'
'My, my, you have quite the mouth for gossip, JD,' I teased. He grinned at me.
'I just pick up things,' he said modestly.
We made small talk all the way to the bleachers; he had asked me about Boston, and I had asked him about the school. He seemed nice enough, and like Cassie said, cute too, maybe not as cute as that guy Alex in the hall. Alex was hot, and if his cocky smirk had alerted me to anything, he knew it too.
'You should come and sit with me at lunch,' he said, as we sat down on the bleachers.
I squirmed uncomfortably. 'Actually, I was going to sit at somebody else's table… how about tomorrow?'
He shrugged. 'Sure, but I have to say, I'm a little heartbroken that you declined my offer of sitting at my lunch table,' he said sarcastically with a pout. 'Who's your friend?'
'I'm not sure if I have any friends yet, but I'm working on it,' I said. 'Her name's Taylor, she's in my PE class.'
He nodded his head in understanding. 'Ahhh, yes, I know the one.'
'You don't like her?' I asked, judging by his tone, he obviously didn't.
'I don't know her. Up until recently, she was one of them, then I think she had a falling out with Cassie or something,' he scratched the back of his head. 'They used to be best friends.'
'Really? I would never have picked that! She seemed cool,' I said.
'I guess. She sits with a whole bunch of the PCHers. I think she's dating Andreas' brother.'
'What's a PCHer?' I asked whilst opening my bottle of water and taking a sip.
'It's the name of the bike club, The Pacific Coast Highway Motorcycle Club. The scary guy from Newspaper, Andreas is their 'leader," he used air quotes as he explained it bitterly. 'The members of the PCH bike club are called PCHers.'
'Taylor is dating scary big guy's brother?' I asked astonished.
'I think so. But he's nowhere near as scary as Andreas. I mean, they're twins but Jonas hardly ever gets in trouble. He's a little different from the mould.'
When we heard the overhead bell ring, we were both a little surprised at how quick that period had gone.
'Well,' he said as a smile crept across his lips, 'nice meeting you. I guess I'll see you tomorrow at lunch, if I don't see you before.'
'I guess it's a plan,' I said as I walked down the stairs.
When lunchtime came, I was a little nervous to go over and sit with Taylor and the PCHers, who looked much more scary and threatening in a group, like they were in now, than alone.
I spotted the PCH table immediately. It's members looked quite menacing, but I couldn't spot Taylor anywhere.
I almost jumped when someone grabbed my arm and started to lead me towards the center of the quad. When I noticed that it was Taylor, I relaxed a little.
'Hey Lila,' she said.
'Hey Taylor. Look, are you sure about…'
She must have read my mind. 'Trust me, they're not as bad as they look.'
I noticed Andreas staring at me as we slided into the cool yellow seat, some of the other bikers making room for us. I could only hear snippets of their previous conversation, but I could hear them say something about "River Styx," and "going down," before Andreas said, 'Guys!' shutting them all up.
'Who's your friend?' he asked, raising his eyebrows at me as he addressed Taylor.
'This is Lila. She's new.'
'I figured,' he said.
'Hey, chica,' said another boy as he approached the table and took a seat next to Taylor, putting a tray down in front of her and another in front of himself.
'Jonas, this is Lila, she's cool,' Taylor said as she smiled at him.
'Lila, this is my boy Jonas, and that's Des, Pablo, Rusty and Andreas.'
Andreas gave me a rough salute as he was introduced to me. I just smiled weakly.
'So Lila, are you coming to Rusty's this weekend? He's having a few people around,' asked Jonas interestedly.
'Um…'
'Actually, I heard that Cassie's throwing a kegger on the beach. I was going to show Lila how to shake things up…'
'And I'm not sure if your girl is…ready to come to Rusty's this weekend,' said Andreas to Taylor.
I wasn't sure what he meant, but I would seriously rather go to an 09er kegger than do something with a bunch of these guys.
I smiled weakly at Taylor, who smiled back and whispered, 'don't worry, I won't make you do anything with the guys if you don't want to.'
'So, little miss 'it thing' is throwing a kegger, hey?' asked Pablo. Taylor nodded whilst taking a sip from her soda.
'That's what I heard,' said Taylor.
'We might drop in there later, after we've finished our…business,' Pablo said, as he cracked his knuckles.
'Meaning?' I whispered as quietly as I could to Taylor.
She sighed and replied to the group, rolling her eyes, 'meaning that they plan to crash the party.' Some of the guys started to laugh at this.
'Oh.'
The rest of lunch continued on in the same fashion, and when the bell rang, Taylor said decidedly in the commotion, 'So, Cassie's party this weekend, we're crashing.'
I smiled at her and nodded my head. Maybe I should have sat with JD today. I wasn't quite sure what Taylor and the PCHers idea of 'crashing' was, but I was sure that it wasn't going to end well.
She grinned and walked away saying a goodbye in the rush. I found that the rest of the PCHers had already headed off, so I bent down to grab my bag from the isolated bench when I noticed some words etched into the table.
Veronica and Wallace forever!
My mouth visibly dropped, and I abandoned my bag and took a seat back down, studying the words.
If this Veronica was indeed my mother, then this was my first clue regarding my paternity. Who was Wallace? Were he and my mother an item? And even if they weren't, maybe he would know something about my real father.
I had my first clue, but where do I go from here? I had to find out if the Veronica was my mom, and if she had indeed known a Wallace in high school.
I had to find someone that knew her
To be continued….
A/N Thanks so much for reading! Everyone's reviews from the first chapter were so positive, so thanks for reviewing, and please drop me a line regarding this chapter!
Okay, so here's the thing, I know that this chapter doesn't have much of a storyline regarding Lila's father (apart from the last few lines) but I had to introduce some of the main characters into the story.
Brownie points for anyone who correctly guesses who the next generation of Neptune High Schoolers belong to (who are their parents?) and MAJOR brownie points for anyone who can correctly guess who Lila's real father is (I know it's still early days and there's not much to work with.)
Cheers once again for reading, and reviews just make me write faster, and smile more.
Peace out.
