2: The Invitation
Sunday 6th September 1998
Jack stared up at the windows of the house, and wondered if Lisa was at home. Not that it mattered, of course, since he wouldn't be allowed to see her anyway. Lisa's parents disapproved of him – no, her father disapproved of him. Her mother hated him.
It might have had something to do with what happened in July, when he'd visited Lisa's house for the first time. He'd been showing off some skateboard tricks for Lisa in the Hartleys' front yard, and then he'd lost his balance and fallen into a flowerbed, completely ruining the pretty yellow tulips. That was when Lisa's mother, a keen gardener, had arrived on the scene.
Lisa had defended him, of course – after all, she was his best friend – but her mother had still screamed at him for a full fifteen minutes and threatened to call the police if he ever came to their house again. These days, he didn't dare to go any further than the gate. He couldn't afford to get into any more trouble.
Jack belonged to one of Raccoon City's numerous teenage skating gangs, which immediately made him a criminal in the eyes of Lisa's parents, even though the Street Rats had never been involved in the gang wars or even so much as a minor scuffle with rivals.
Unfortunately for Jack and his friends, the police shared the Hartleys' deeply-held conviction that all of the city's young skaters were vandals and thugs who were a menace to society, and Jack had already been arrested twice since his arrival in the city, simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
One more time, his aunt had warned him, and he was going to military school. And that meant no more Lisa, ever again.
The thought of Lisa made him smile. Until he met her, he'd never really had any friends, and he'd taken an instant dislike to the other kids in Raccoon City High. They were all so shallow and insincere, and they looked down on anyone who wasn't like them. But Lisa was different. She was the only one in the class who'd talk to him, spend time with him, or sit by him in the canteen. She was the only one who cared.
After a while, he'd made friends with some of the other kids in his neighbourhood, and when they found out that he could skate, he'd been accepted into the Street Rats. But although Jack enjoyed the company of his skater friends from downtown, he still preferred being with Lisa.
One day, Jack had turned down a visit to the local skate park with the Street Rats because he'd already promised to go to the movies with Lisa. One of his friends had joked, "What, she your girlfriend or something?", and later that day, when he was sitting next to Lisa in the movie theatre, Jack realised how nice it would be to call Lisa his girlfriend.
That was when he realised that he was in love with her. She was so sweet and gentle, so kind, so pretty with her long brown hair and dark, intense eyes. All he thought about was her, and how happy she made him feel.
And yet the mere suggestion of Lisa caused him unimaginable pain. Although he loved her more than life itself, Jack knew that Lisa could never be his girlfriend. She was an uptown girl – beautiful, rich and respectable. And what was he?
Lisa's mother was right, he told himself. He was nothing. Nothing but white trash; a stupid, useless, inarticulate piece of criminal garbage who wasn't fit to breathe the same air as Lisa. He drank, he swore, he lived above a crummy downtown record store with an aunt whose profession was the oldest in the world – hell, he couldn't even speak English properly. Lisa deserved better than him.
Anger suddenly welled up inside him. Why was he so poor? Why did everyone from uptown hate him so much? Why did he have to live with his aunt, one of the so-called "ladies of the night"? Why couldn't he just fit in for once in his life?
Jack vented his feelings on a nearby pebble, which skittered away down the sidewalk and out of sight. It ain't fair, he thought bitterly. Why do things gotta be this way?
It was then that Jack noticed the curtains twitch. He stiffened in terror, then turned and ran away as fast as he could. If that was Lisa's mother, and she'd seen him, then he was in big trouble. She'd threatened to call the police before, and something in her voice told Jack that she really meant it. If she caught him and called the cops, he'd be arrested, his aunt would find out, and she'd send him to military school or something, and he'd never see Lisa ever again.
Oh God, he prayed, please dunt let that be Lisa's mama. I wanna see Lisa 'gain, I love her, oh God I love her so much… please, dunt let it be Señora Hartley, she gonna call losverdes an' I get busted, an' then Aunt Rosa gonna send me away, an' if I no can see Lisa 'gain I gonna die, I no can live without her, I love her, I love her …
"Jack?" said someone behind him.
Jack stopped dead, and turned round; his terror melted away into relief as he saw Lisa standing in the middle of the road, looking prettier than ever.
"What is it, Jack?" she said. "I saw you through the curtains. You're lucky my mom didn't see you. Today is her day off, and she really means it about calling the cops. So, what brings you here?"
At first, Jack didn't know what to say - he didn't have a reason for visiting Lisa. He'd just wanted to see her again. But then he remembered something, and an idea brought a smile to his face.
"I just came to ask if you be busy tonight," he said. "If you ain't busy, you wanna go to a party? My amigo Marco got a big brother, Antonio, an' it be his birthday today, so he be havin' a party over at his place tonight. Of course, if you dunt wanna go," he said quickly, "that ain't a problem."
Jack expected her to say no; it took him completely by surprise when Lisa smiled and nodded enthusiastically.
"Sure, I'll go," said Lisa. "I love parties. What time?"
"Eight. Meet you here, yeah? I dunt want you goin' downtown on you own so late. It be gettin' dark early these days, an' there be a lot of crazies round here lately. I worry 'bout you," said Jack.
"You're sweet sometimes," said Lisa, smiling. "You know that, don't you?"
She kissed him on the cheek.
"See you tonight, Jack," she called as she left.
"Yeah, see you," Jack said vaguely. He raised a hand to his cheek, and touched the spot where she'd kissed him. A smile crept across his face.
"I love you," he whispered to her retreating back. The words made him dizzy, breathless and blissfully happy, but they were tainted with an all too familiar feeling of despair.
"I never gonna be able to say it to her face," he said to himself. "But what the hell, it no like I ever gonna have a chance. An' she prob'ly dunt want me anyway. Why would she ever want a guy like me?"
Half lost in dreams, Jack watched until she was out of sight, then muttered, "The hell with it," and went home.
----------
"Who was that?" Lisa's mother demanded to know, as Lisa shut the door.
"A friend of mine," said Lisa.
"I hope it wasn't that boy from downtown," said her mother sharply. "You know I don't like you hanging around with him, Lisa. He's no good."
Lisa felt a sudden surge of annoyance, as she always did when faced with her mother's undisguised contempt for "that downtown boy".
"No, it wasn't Jack," she lied. She didn't like lying, but on the other hand it was better than being grounded when her mother found out who she'd really been talking to. "It was my friend Sarah. She was asking me if I wanted to go to a party at Luanne's house. Can I, Mom?"
"I guess so," said her mother warily. "What time?"
"About eight. It should be over by eleven or twelve."
"Hmm. Well, I suppose that's okay. But I want you back here by twelve, right?"
"Sure, Mom," said Lisa, and she went upstairs, still inwardly seething with rage. Why did her mother hate Jack so much? It wasn't his fault that his aunt was a prostitute, or that he was poor and a little scruffy because he couldn't afford new clothes. Her mother always claimed that she didn't like Jack because of what he'd done to the prize-winning tulips in the front yard, but Lisa suspected that the real reason was nothing more than snobbery.
The bedroom door closed behind her. Lisa sat down at her dressing table, and glared at her reflection in the mirror.
"Mom's being so stupid," she said to the world in general as she picked up a hairbrush and started brushing her hair. "Jack's not a bad kid. He's a nice guy, and he's my friend. Why does she hate him?"
Her reflection shrugged, echoing the movements of the original. Lisa scowled, and was about to turn away when she noticed something hidden behind the mirror, a corner just showing.
Intrigued, she tilted the mirror and discovered a Polaroid photograph. Her face softened as she saw that the people in the photo were Jack and herself. Lisa suddenly remembered that she'd hidden the photograph there a few days ago, in case her mother found it and raised hell (she didn't even like a picture of Jack in the house, let alone the real thing), and she must have forgotten about it.
It had been taken quite recently, in front of Raccoon City High School. She and Jack were sitting on the steps, enjoying the sunshine. She was wearing a pretty summer dress and resting her head on Jack's shoulder; Jack was wearing a T-shirt, a tattered Hawaiian shirt and cargo shorts, and he had his arm around her. Just visible around his neck was a chain with a gold ring strung on it – his dead mother's wedding ring. He'd shown it to her once; it was plain gold, not particularly beautiful or valuable, but then that wasn't the reason why Jack kept it close to him.
"It be all I got left of Mama," he'd told her. "Most people say, you prob'ly dunt remember you mama, she die when you be little, but I remember Mama all right, an' I miss her. But if I wear this round my neck all the time, I remember her, an' it be like she still with me, y'know? Wherever I go, Mama go with me; I can, like, feel her standin' next to me sometimes. Yeah, I know it be real stupid. You thinkin' I be loco, right?"
"No, Jack," she'd replied. "I don't think you're crazy at all."
Not for the first time, Lisa wondered how Jack's mother had died. He'd never told her, and she'd never asked, since the mere mention of his mother was enough to bring tears to his eyes. Lisa couldn't stand seeing anyone cry, least of all her best friend.
So, what to wear tonight? She wouldn't dress up too much, of course - she didn't want to draw too much attention to herself by wearing fancy clothes and proper jewellery. It didn't pay to advertise wealth in downtown. On the other hand she wanted to look nice for Jack. This wasn't unusual; she liked to look nice. What was unexpected was that she found herself wanting to impress him as well.
"Why?" Lisa asked herself. "Jack doesn't try and impress me - "
She stopped mid-sentence. But he did, didn't he? Jack was always trying to scrape together money for new clothes, or at least enough quarters to use down at the laundrette so he could wash his old ones. He cut his own hair so it vaguely resembled the haircuts of the other guys in the tenth grade, and he tried so hard to improve his English when she was around. And whenever she touched him, even if she just brushed past him in class on her way to the blackboard, he'd tremble a little, as if he suddenly felt cold, and then he'd just look up at her and smile. She always felt like smiling back, too.
Did he have a crush on her? Her friends certainly seemed to think so. They called him "the downtown puppy" and made jokes about how he was always following her around with an adoring gaze and his jaw on the floor. Yes, he probably did. The question was, was the feeling mutual? Oh, he was good-looking, no doubt about that, and he could be quite sweet at times, but had she fallen for him?
No. She hadn't. That was fortunate, since her parents loathed him. Having a crush on Jack would have made things very difficult indeed.
Lisa spent another few seconds looking at the picture. Then she tucked it carefully back into the mirror frame and started to do her makeup, humming to herself.