Wildflower Page 8

  The oncoming car swerved onto the shoulder of the road to avoid the hurtling Mercedes. The Mercedes flew past and returned to its own lane.

  “See what that slow movin’ sucka almost caused?” Cory yelled bitterly.

  Chelsea had her cell phone in her purse. She thought of calling the police, but then there would be a police chase, like when the cops were chasing B.J. Brady—and he crashed in flames. “Please let us out,” Chelsea cried. “Please let Keisha, Athena, and me out.”

  “Here?” Cory laughed. They were in the middle of a woodland area. There were no houses nearby.

  “Just let us out!” Chelsea pleaded.

  Ahead, there was a small store bearing a large sign, “Beer, Wine, Spirits.” Cory slowed down and eased the Mercedes into the parking lot in front of the store. “You girls sit tight,” he ordered them. “Me and Brandon gonna get some refreshments. You chicks want some sodas?”

  “Nothing,” Chelsea told him.

  “Okay,” Cory said. “Soon’s we come out, we’ll take you back to the school. Ain’t even gonna charge you for this fun ride, chicks.”

  Chelsea’s heart was madly pounding. She thought she might have a heart attack before she was killed in a car accident.

  When the boys disappeared into the store, Chelsea looked at Keisha. They both looked at Athena. They had come close to something terrible happening. But they had survived. Chelsea pushed the door open. Keisha tumbled out after her, then Athena. They hit the ground running. They didn’t know what Cory and Brandon would do when they found them gone. Both boys were high. They might try to find them and force them back into the Mercedes. So the girls kept running until they reached a thick stand of trees.

  “I can see them coming out of the store,” Chelsea reported. “They’re looking around for us.”

  Cory and Brandon were drinking from bottles they just bought. Now they would be drunk as well as drugged. The boys looked around a bit more. Then they got into the Mercedes and roared off. Chelsea pulled out her cell phone and called the highway patrol. She told them there was a silver Mercedes out on the country road heading east and gave a description of the car and the guys in it.

  “I can’t believe we got in that car with those freakin’ stoned guys,” Keisha exclaimed.

  “I didn’t think Brandon’s brother would drive like that,” Athena added. “It was crazy!”

  Chelsea looked at her watch. “I shoulda been home an hour ago. My bike is still at school. My folks must be going crazy by now.”

  “Mine too,” Keisha moaned. “Mom’s gonna kill me.”

  Chelsea got on her cell phone. The last thing in the world she wanted to do was call her parents and tell them what happened. But she had no choice. She was almost as afraid of Pop’s reaction as she was of getting pulverized in the Mercedes.

  “Mom?” Chelsea said when she heard her mother’s voice. Mom sounded frantic.

  “Chelsea! Oh thank God! Are you okay, baby?” Mom cried. She sounded like she had been crying.

  “I’m okay, Mom,” Chelsea assured her. “I’m fine. Athena and Keisha are with me, and they’re okay too. We’re out here in the country by a little store.”

  Chelsea heard her father’s voice in the background. “Gimme the phone, Monie.” When he came on, he sounded gruff. “Chelsea?”

  “I’m here, Pop,” Chelsea replied. She had no feeling in her legs. She felt like she would collapse at any moment into a pile of quivering gelatin.

  “Are you guys in a safe place?” Pop asked.

  “Yeah, we’re by this store and the . . . the guys who were driving us in the car . . . they’re, uh, gone,” Chelsea told him.

  “Inessa called us the minute you guys got in the Mercedes,” Pop said. “We called Keisha’s parents but we couldn’t get a hold of Athena’s idiot parents. Look, tell me exactly where you are.”

  Chelsea and the other two girls walked up to the store and told Pop the address that was printed on the outside of the building. “It’s 391 Smoky Lane Highway,” Chelsea told him.

  “My Lord,” Pop gasped. “You’re thirty miles from school. Okay, listen to me. Go in the store and stay there. Don’t leave the place. Tell the people there what happened and wait where it’s safe. We’re on our way.”

  “An old man and his wife run the store,” Chelsea said to her dad. “I see them in there. It looks like a man and his wife.”

  “Okay,” Pop replied. “We called the cops right away when Inessa called us. The cops have been looking for you. So now I’m gonna tell them you’re okay. So, like I said, we’re on our way.”

  The three girls went into the store and bought candy bars and sodas.

  “My parents are gonna come down on me like a ton of bricks,” Keisha groaned. “Your pop called them, Chelsea, and they know what we did. I bet my parents take away my TV, my computer, and who knows what else.”

  Athena shrugged. “It won’t be that bad for me. My mom is so busy teaching high school that she hasn’t got time to bug me. And Dad’s even worse. He works day and night. You know, when that thing happened in the alley, they didn’t punish me or anything. They were real nice about it. They just hugged me.” Athena smiled a little. Then she said, “Now that it’s all over, you guys, it was kinda exciting, wasn’t it? I mean, I’ve never been in a car going that fast—and a Mercedes! It was almost kinda unreal. I think Cory was doing one ten or something.”

  Chelsea glared at Athena. Chelsea almost screamed at her. “It wasn’t exciting. It was horrible. I was sick the whole time. What if we’d smashed up? We could be spending the rest of our lives lying in a bed with nurses feeding us and changing our diapers. I’m only fourteen years old! I got a lot of stuff I wanna do. I got a life ahead of me. I don’t wanna throw it all away for a stupid ride in some dopehead’s Mercedes. I hate myself for going along with you guys. Inessa was right. I shoulda stuck with her.”

  “Oh,” Athena laughed, “you can’t be an old fraidy cat or life is dull.”

  Keisha frowned and said, “Chelsea is right. What we did was stupid. It was worse than stupid.”

  “I totally hate Brandon Yates,” Chelsea added. “If I ever see him again, I’m gonna spit in his dirty face. And, Athena, you’re a big fool if you have anything to do with him anymore. He knew what he and his brother would do, and he lured us into the car.”

  “Aw, Brandon’s not a bad guy,” Athena objected.

  “He’s scum. He’s lowdown scum,” Chelsea asserted. “And stop lying to yourself, girl. He gave you that liquor. When you passed out in the alley, he ran. He left you laying there where the rats might have chewed on your face. That’s the kind of person he is.”

  Athena said nothing. She looked off into the distance, sadly. “Brandon said he loved me,” she confided. “Nobody else says that to me . . . not even my parents.”

  The girls settled down to wait for Chelsea’s dad to pick them up.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “There’s my pop,” Chelsea said after a long wait, a tremor in her voice. She turned numb.

  Pop was driving Jaris’s Honda Civic. There wouldn’t be room enough for the three girls in Pop’s pickup, and Jaris’s mom wasn’t home from work when Pop got the call. Jaris was sitting beside Pop.

  Chelsea was deeply ashamed even to face her father. The Civic pulled into the parking lot of the store, and Chelsea’s dad and brother got out. Pop was on his cell phone to Mom. “Yeah, babe, I see them right now. They’re coming out of the store, the three of them. They look fine. . . . Yeah. Take it easy. No need to cry now, babe. Everything’s okay. Listen, you call Keisha’s parents, okay? Tell ’em I’m bringing her. Tell ’em she’s on her way home. And try to get Athena’s idiot parents. Tell the fools if they don’t answer, we’re dropping the kid off at child protective.”

  Pop and Jaris came walking toward the three girls. Pop’s stare settled on Athena first. “What makes me think this little caper was your idea?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Everybody in the car,” Pop commande
d them. “We got an hour’s drive ahead of us. We ain’t goin’ to be drivin’ no hundred miles an hour like the creep was.”

  The three girls got into the backseat and put on their seat belts. They were crowded. As Pop pulled out, he reported., “It was all over the radio, a silver Mercedes goin’ on the freeway over a hundred miles an hour, scattering traffic like chickens. The cops were on it, but the dopehead left the freeway before the cops spotted him. Inessa called us right after you three fools got in the Mercedes and took off from school. That’s a good girl there. She described the car and said Brandon Yates’s zonked-out brother was driving. Can you imagine what me and your mom were going through, little girl? And Keisha, your folks too?”

  “I’m sorry Pop,” Chelsea apologized. “I really am.”

  Pop ignored her. “Your mom, Chelsea, she’s been tearing her hair out. You gave her a lot of grief.”

  Jaris glanced into the backseat and met Chelsea’s gaze. He didn’t say anything, but Chelsea knew what was going through his mind. Once he rescued Chelsea from a drug party Brandon Yates had lured her into. In stern terms he had warned her to stay away from Yates. And now she did this. She got into a car driven by Yates’s brother, and she could have been killed. Jaris looked disappointed and angry, but he said nothing.

  After a long, silent drive, Pop pulled up in the driveway where Keisha’s parents lived. They were both outside, rushing to claim their daughter. As Keisha got out of the car, her mother embraced her sobbing, saying over and over, “Oh baby, my baby!”

  Keisha’s father said grimly, “Girl you have done it now.” Then the father turned to Lorenzo Spain and grasped his hand. “Thanks, brother, for bringing our girl home. We just about died of fright.”

  “I hear you,” Pop told him. “I got one too. I know what you’re going through. It’s like having a wild animal in the house. Never know what they’re gonna do next.”

  The second stop was at the Edson house, where Trudy Edson had just arrived home to find all the messages on her answering machine. She rushed out and cried, “What is going on?”

  Pop stepped out of the Civic. “Lady, your daughter here and two other kids went joyriding with a dopehead. Coulda been killed. You and your husband, you better cut back on your busy lives, you hear what I’m saying? You got a loose cannon here.”

  “Athena!” her mother gasped.

  “Oh Mom,” Athena protested, “it wasn’t that bad.”

  Finally, Pop, Jaris, and Chelsea headed home.

  “I’m really sorry,” Chelsea said again. “This guy said we’d just go for a spin around the school in this Mercedes. Keisha thought it’d be fun just to ride in one for a few minutes. We had no idea . . . ”

  “Yeah, it was fun all right,” Pop agreed. “And there was more exciting stuff ahead. You almost got to ride in a hearse. You know what a hearse is, little girl? That’s where they put dead people. When you hit something at a hundred miles an hour, you’re either dead or you wish you were dead.”

  They pulled into the Spain driveway and Mom came rushing out. As soon as Chelsea got out of the car, Mom hugged her. “Oh baby, I was so scared. I thought I’d never see you alive again. I never want to go through anything like that again!”

  Pop reached Chelsea and he hugged her too. “I sweat blood, little girl,” he told her. “When Inessa said you sped off in a creepy car with two dopeheads, I didn’t want to live no more. I couldn’t deal with burying you, kid.”

  Pop then pushed off Chelsea to arm’s length. He looked into her eyes and said in a harsh voice, “Girl, you are grounded. You are so grounded you gonna forget what freedom is. No more riding your bike or walkin’ to school.” Chelsea began to cry a little. Pop continued. “Me or your mom or Jaris gonna pick you up from school and take you there. You ain’t visiting at no friend’s house. You ain’t hanging out anywhere. If you wanna see somebody, they’re coming to this house and visiting you. You turned wild, girl, and we ain’t taking no more chances. Y’hear what I’m saying?”

  Chelsea ran into the house and flung herself on the bed in her room. She grasped the biggest teddy bear she had and hugged it tightly. She cried in loud sobs. She wasn’t crying because she thought her punishment was unjust. She was crying because her parents didn’t trust her anymore. She was crying because she was losing so much freedom she had gained since becoming a teenager. She was crying because she knew she had failed them all—and herself.

  This time Mom didn’t argue with Pop about his discipline. The police called to tell them that Cory Yates had been arrested for driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Brandon was also taken down to juvenile hall with a high level of drugs and alcohol in his system as well. “Good!” Pop said with satisfaction. “Those bum parents are letting their kids run wild. When the cops do a little digging, they’ll probably find out the brother is a drug dealer up in LA. How else does a guy his age afford a Mercedes?”

  “And Chelsea got in that car,” Mom sighed. “Lorenzo, how does that happen?”

  Pop took a deep breath and spoke. “You tell me, babe. We’ve done our best. We love the kids with all our heart. Chelsea knows that. But then there’s the temptation to take a risk and she goes for it. The immature friends help make the bad decision. But now it’s gonna be different. We’re gonna watch that little wildflower until she’s got enough sense to handle herself better.”

  Jaris went into his sister’s room about an hour later. She had stopped crying and she was leaning on her teddy bear. She looked about ten years old.

  “Chili pepper, how you doing?” Jaris asked.

  Chelsea shrugged. “I blew it,,” she groaned, “Jaris. I blew everything. I swore to you that I’d never be with Brandon again after what happened at that party. Then I climb in his brother’s car and . . . what was I thinking?”

  “Yeah,” Jaris said.

  “Jaris, you’re so perfect,” Chelsea told him. “How come you’re so perfect?”

  “I’m not,” Jaris protested. “I’ve screwed up too, chili pepper. I’ve done stupid things. They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and this’ll make you stronger. It didn’t kill you, but it came close. But at least you had the smarts to get out of the car first chance you got and not ride back with those creeps.”.

  “Oh Jaris,” Chelsea sighed, “I bet it was going through Mom and Pop’s mind that maybe Grandma Jessie is right, that I should be sent to some old boarding school. Maybe I’d be better off locked away in Santa Barbara.”

  Jaris shook his head. “No, chili pepper, that’s a no-brainer. They love you too much for that.”

  “I love them too, Jaris,” Chelsea said. “And I love you too. You know, during that horrible ride, Cory Yates almost hit another car head-on when he was passing a slow moving car. And I had this horrible vision. I was in a casket at the Holiness Awakening Church, and Mom and Pop and you were standing around my casket crying. And I felt so bad I’d done that to you guys.”

  “You made it, sis,” Jaris assured her, kissing the top of his sister’s head. “You made it, chili pepper.”

  The next day, the word was out at Tubman High. Inessa Weaver’s sister, Cassie, was a junior at Tubman. Jaris didn’t know Cassie Weaver well. But she was telling everyone what those three foolish girls at Anderson Middle School did. Cassie was regaling her friends and bystanders about how her smart little sister not only refused to go along in the Mercedes, but also alerted everyone about what happened.

  “Inessa is nobody’s fool,” Cassie bragged. “But those other girls, what airheads! They pile in this car with a druggie at the wheel.”

  Among those listening to the story were Marko Lane and his girlfriend, Jasmine. They listened to Cassie telling all the details, and then they walked on to Mr. Pippin’s English class. Along the way they ran into Jaris.

  “Hey Jaris,” Marko called, “I hear your little sister’s running with drug addicts and going for wild rides in a big Mercedes, a shiny silver Mercedes.”

  “She ma
de one stupid mistake,” Jaris snapped. “She got in the car with two friends and they’re all sorry.”

  “Yeah?” Marko retorted. “I’m hearing on the grapevine that your whole family is fallin’ apart, man.” Marko looked gleeful. Jaris Spain had been an annoyance to Marko for a long time. Marko had wanted to date Sereeta, but she chose Jaris instead. Jaris made better grades than Marko, and he was better liked all around school. And Marko resented that Jaris’s friends were on the track team with Marko and that they often outshone him. Often in class, Jaris made Marko look like a fool. Now it pleased Marko to think there was trouble in that perfect Spain family.

  “You’re crazy,” Jaris said. “My family is fine.”

  “I’m thinking you got money problems,” Marko guessed, fishing for more information. “My mom’s cousin works at the bank. And your old man was in there the other day talking about a loan. You guys goin’ under or something? Too many credit cards?”

  “Know what, Marko?” Jaris snapped. “It’s none of your business.”

  Jasmine laughed. “That means it’s true, dude,” Marko laughed. Marko felt like he had hit a sore spot. “You goin’ down, dude.”

  Jaris had not shared the fact that his father wanted to buy Jackson’s garage with anybody but his closest friends. He certainly wouldn’t share his family’s affairs with Marko. Friends like Sami Archer, Trevor Jenkins, Alonee Lennox, and, of course, Sereeta knew. “Think what you want,” Jaris blew him off.

  “And your sister,” Jasmine chimed in, “pretty soon she gonna be like that Bethany Walsh who hung with B.J. She’s only fourteen and already she’s hanging with dopers.”

  “But I gotta say this,” Marko added, with an evil smirk on his face, “Chelsea is hot. That girl is hot. I seen her in your front yard the other day with her tiny straps and her short-shorts. And I thought this is one hot little chick.”