Chapter One:
'I Know a Girl, A Girl Called Party, Party Girl' (Sam)

“Samanthah Jameson!”

I rolled over in bed and glared blearily at my mom. She stood in the doorway of my room, hands on her hips, looking irritated and impatient. Pushing the remnants of a dream into the back of my mind, I yawned and pulled off the covers. “I’m up!”

She snorted and leaned against the doorframe. “I won’t believe that until I see you downstairs and heading out the door. Now get going. You’ll be late.” Reaching for the handle, she slammed the door shut. I could hear her padding downstairs in those floppy Goofy slippers that she loves, stopping once on the landing to inspect the plants. I swear, she was in love with those plants. Not that I minded. It was one of the things that made Mom Mom.

The final chords of James Taylor’s ‘Fire and Rain’ faded out as my alarm (which had gone off half an hour ago) turned itself off. I sighed and slumped back down on my bed. Whoever invented mornings should die. Better yet, mornings themselves should die. Then I could sleep.

I seriously contemplated rolling over and going back to sleep; it was tempting, but I needed to keep this job. Last summer, I had blown all my money on my little beat up Toyota, and now I was broke. True, working at the local grocery store wasn’t really that appealing, but it was only for a couple of hours in the mornings and it paid well. But to work meant I had to actually show up. Which meant I had to be there at 8:30 in the morning. Did I mention I’m not a morning person?

I don’t think I did. I’m not a morning person.

Thankfully, Mom was making coffee. I could smell it wafting up the stairs, which helped me summon up the willpower to get up off my bed and stumble into the bathroom to shower. Then I pulled on a navy t-shirt and a semi-formal pair of pants and headed downstairs.

The kitchen was empty, as Mom had gone down into the basement to look for God-knows-what among the hundreds of boxes kept in storage down there. The coffee wasn’t ready, so I made myself two pieces of toast and perched on a stool next to the island. Dad had it put in a few years ago when Mom had complained about not having enough stove space.

The window above the sink was open, letting the summer morning air drift in. In a couple of hours, it would be too hot to have windows open, because the AC would be on, but at 7:45 it was still cool from the night. A hummingbird twitted in front of the window, and I watched it for awhile before it zipped off to another plant. Yawning again, I finished my toast and poured myself a cup of coffee.

Mom came back upstairs. “Honey, that shirt’s too casual for work.” She began transporting dishes from the sink to the dishwasher, her short brown hair glinting in the sun. I sighed.

“It’s a job at a supermarket, Mom.”

She turned to look at me. “So? It’s a job.”

I stood up and put away the butter and stuck the knife into the dishwasher. “I’m not changing. Bye, Mom.” I leaned over the open dishwasher to kiss her on the cheek. Then I picked up my bag from a chair at the table, pulled out my keys, and left through the front door.

“Have fun!” Mom called. I waved a hand in the direction of the house, even though I knew she couldn’t see me. Climbing into my truck, I couldn’t help but stare a little at the house next door. The Harrises had moved out a couple of weeks ago, and the moving trucks had begun to arrive yesterday for the new family. A couple of moving-guys were struggling to transport a very expensive-looking entertainment system through the front door, and I felt a little envious. Obviously these new people were rather richer than we were.

I shook my head a little and jabbed the radio on. The truck was old, so it didn’t have a CD player; just a radio and a cassette player. In terms of performance, it was in almost-mint condition; but the cloth seats were ripped, there were cigarette burns in the ceiling (these never stopped amazing me- how someone managed to get them there was beyond me), and the plastic in the dashboard was hanging off at one end. But I loved it, and I wouldn’t trade it for any of those new fancy cars. Not if you paid me a million dollars and gave me the car for free.

Well, maybe I would.

Anyway, I backed out of the driveway and headed off to work. Like I said, the morning was still cool, but I rolled down the windows anyway. It was just that sort of morning. Pulling into the Turnville Supermarket (Buy More, Pay Less!) parking lot, I parked next to the shopping cart drop-off, where Ahna Parson was pushing them into a long line of shopping carts. I grinned at her through the open window. “Morning, Ahna!”

She scowled at me and shoved the last cart into line with relish. She hated pushing shopping carts. Then she leaned against the bed of my truck, retying her hair. “Morning, Sam. How’s it going?”

“Okay. But I’ve decided that there’s nothing better than a bed when you have to get out of it.” I turned off the radio and opened the car door.

She nodded. “Too true, too true. I nearly broke my alarm clock this morning.”

“What’d you do to it?”

“Threw it across the room.” She punched the air triumphantly. “But I showed that damned thing!”

I laughed. “You’ll just have to get a new one if you break it.”

“Sensible Sam, as always. Hey, you coming to the party tonight?” Ahna loved parties, and was frequently late to work because she had stayed up late the night before. Despite this, she was a general favorite of Management. I wondered how she did it.

It was my turn to scowl. “You know I hate parties.” I paused, ducking through the open window to grab my cell. “Whose is it?”

“Tim Johnson. You should come. I heard Eric’s going…” This last part was said almost indifferently, but I knew better. Eric Smith and I had been going strong from freshman to until the end of junior year, when he broke up with me because ‘he wanted to fly solo for awhile’. Ahna knew that I was still infatuated.

“When is it?”

She grinned. “Seven. So you’re coming?”

I sighed. “Fine. Should I stop by your house first?” I helped her push the carts back towards the building. She nodded, launching into chatter. I have to say I zoned out a bit. I was thinking.

Was I still infatuated with Eric? Sure, he was nice, and fun to be around- but there wasn’t much substance to him. True, he took me nice places when we dated, and he made me happy. But he didn’t really have anything he was passionate about, nothing he was particularly interested in. I couldn’t help wondering, even when we were dating, when he was going to show some enthusiasm for anything. I was still kind of waiting.

----;----

When I showed up at Ahna’s house that evening, she took one look at me and pulled me up the stairs to her room. “You can’t possibly convince me that you were planning on wearing that.” She told me, a little condescendingly, as she dove into her closet. I looked down at myself, at the plain white polo and the not-very-flattering jeans.

“Yeah, I was, actually.”

She reemerged holding what looked like a lacy pink handkerchief. Thrusting it at me, she placed her hands on her low-slung jeaned hips. “Put it on.”

“No.” Tell you the truth, I was a little afraid of it. “It’s scary.”

“Put it on.”

I scowled at her. “No.”

The doorbell rang. Ahna scampered out of the room, and I took the opportunity to stuff the pink… thing under her bed. Then I followed her out onto the landing.

“Ahna, darling, you never told me Sam was coming,” purred the new arrival. It was Pamela Sinder, wearing a rather skimpy and very tight black tank top with the word LOVER plastered across the chest, and a jean miniskirt. As usual, she had managed to look almost proper in an outfit that any other girl would have looked like a slut in. With a squeak, I ran into Ahna’s room and shut the door.

Pam meant bad news.

She knew exactly what looked good on everyone, and I knew she’d managed to make me look good in something I probably wouldn’t want to be wearing. Most likely a short skirt and a shirt that I’d be ashamed to have my grandmother see me in. It would just be easier to hide out in Ahna’s room for the night.

I scanned the room. I could probably survive on the stale candy that I knew was hidden in a drawer, and there was a half-drunk water bottle tossed on the floor. If I had to, I could live in here for a day.

…Half a day.

Maybe.

There was a knock on the other side of the door. “Sam, open the door.” Ahna sounded impatient. “C’mon, Sam!”

I braced myself. “Only if I get to choose what I wear.”

I could hear them discussing. Then Pam spoke up. “Sam, darling, I won’t make you wear anything too skimpy…”

“No miniskirts, tight shirts…?”

“None.”

I sighed. “Fine.”

That might have been a mistake. Twenty minutes later, I found myself being pulled out the door in a pair of skin-tight jeans (thankfully they weren’t too low-slung) and a black ‘vintage’ Beatles t-shirt. At least it covered my stomach. Pam had originally wanted me to wear a The Who t-shirt, but I had objected, simply because I had never heard a The Who song in my life and really didn’t want to feel like a poser.

They had also done my makeup, and my hair. Against my ‘no-makeup’ policy, Ahna had dragged me into the bathroom and applied what felt like two inches of junk all over my face, while Pam straightener’ed my hair until I was afraid it would fry.

Can you guess that I lived simply? I wore t-shirts and jeans, and no makeup. Sadly, when those two got into ‘dress-up mode’, there was no stopping them. So I ended up stuffed into the back seat of Pam’s little blue buggy next to a big box of junk while Pam and Ahna chatted in the front. Yay. Staring out the window, I leaned against the inside of the car and wished I had thought to bring my car instead. Then I could drive myself home early.

No such luck. The Johnson’s house was too far away to walk home, either. All I could hope for was that Pam didn’t drink too much tonight.

When we got there, Pam immediately disappeared into the crowd of people. Ahna and I loitered by the food table for a bit, waiting for her boyfriend. When Tom finally arrived, the three of us wandered around the living room, them talking and me just trailing behind.

“Sam, c’mere,” Ahna said, pulling me into a group of people. Tom was talking to Eric and some guy I didn’t recognize. When we arrived, Eric turned to me with a smile. He was taller than me, with shoulder-length brown hair that I was always telling him to cut when we were dating, and brown eyes.

“Hey, Sam. How’s it going?”

I didn’t smile back. “Fine. Who’s your friend?”

Eric stared at me for a moment. “No need to be so cold, babe.” He paused, “Tyson, this is Sam Jameson. Sam, Tyson Whitaker.”

I stared up at Tyson. He was hot. There was no other way to say it. It wasn’t the kind of ‘superficial’ hot that so many girls I knew were obsessed with; he was just good-looking. Very good-looking. His dark hair was kinda long- not long like Eric’s, more close to his head but wavy and loose- and the part in the front fell across his eyes a little. But those eyes- true, they were heartthrob eyes, but there was something in them, an arrogance I wasn’t sure I liked.

“Hi.” I stuck out my hand for him to shake. “You new here? I don’t think I’ve seen you before.”

He took a swig from his Pepsi. “Yeah. Just moved in. Eric’s been showing me around.” He tossed his head a little, a thinly disguised look of disgust covering his face. So I was right. He was a jerk. And I wasn’t one to judge people before I really got to know them, so that must have meant something.

I smiled a closed-mouth smile. “Well, hope you enjoy life in Turnville.”

“It’s a lot lower-class here than in the city, isn’t it?” He asked me, with the same veiled disgust. I stared at him in shock. Had he really said that?

I bit back something bitchy and shrugged. “Maybe. Listen, talk to you later, okay? I want to go get something to drink.” Without waiting for an answer, I left him, shaking my head. Great. A rich city kid. Just what Turnville needs.

I didn’t really want anything to drink, so I headed out back. The backyard was a relief from the confines of the packed house, and thankfully there weren’t that many people milling about. I sat down on a swing on the swing set and swung a little, kicking my feet at the ground down dirt beneath it. The day was cooling down, and the sun had set a few hours ago. Staring upward, I watched the stars. Because we didn’t live near any cities, we got a lot more stars here than where we used to live, and I never got tired of staring at them.

“Sam?”

I brought my gaze back down to see Eric making his way towards me, holding two cans of Coke. I watched him approach, twirling around on the swing.

He gestured at the swing next to me. “Can I sit down?”

I nodded mutely, unsure what to say. I had been rude before, and I knew it, but I didn’t really know why. He sat down on the swing and offered me a Coke, which I accepted.

“Listen,” I began, but he cut me off.

“No. Sam, I wanted to talk to you about Tyson.” He wasn’t looking at me, but watching people go in and out of the house. “He’s new here, and I think he’s just trying to fit in.”

Obviously he had seen how Tyson was acting. “He’s a jerk. That’s not fitting in, that’s insulting.”

He shrugged. “I think that’s just the way he is.”

“He can’t be very entertaining to be around, huh?”

Eric shrugged again. “He’s not that bad once you get to know him. He’s a cool kid.”

I found that very difficult to believe, but I give it up. “How do you know him?”

He turned to look at me and took a sip of his coke. “He’s working at the library with me.” Eric had worked at the Turnville Public Library since he was a freshman, mostly because he knew the librarians and because it was easy. But he was also an avid reader, despite the way he acted. He and I had actually met in the library, when I was doing a report for English a few years back.

“Are you serious? He acted like he was insanely rich. Rich kids don’t need jobs, do they?” I couldn’t believe that the Jerk actually had a job. “When did he move here?”

“Actually, his family hasn’t really moved in all the way yet.” Eric was looking at me quietly. “Apparently his dad just died, so they had to downsize and move. I think that’s why he’s got a job.”

Funny. I didn’t feel remotely sorry.

Well, just a little. But I’d feel sorrier if Tyson wasn’t so hard to feel sorry for. I craned my neck up again to stare at the stars. “That’s too bad.”

“Yeah. He doesn’t talk about it much, I guess. I only found out because his sister’s a Chatty Cathy and she picked him up at the Library the other day.” He sighed and stood up. “Well, I think I’ll go back inside.”

I stood up too. “Listen, Eric. Are we friends?”

He turned to me, and regarding me for a moment. The light from the house spilled across his face, and for a moment I thought I saw a bit of anger cross his face. Then it was gone- maybe I had just imagined it? - And he grinned. “Yeah, sure, Sam. Friends.”

And then he turned and went back into the house.

----;----

Disclaimer: The title belongs to the U2 song, 'Trash, Trampoline, and the Party Girl'.

Warning: Any reproduction or rewriting of this work will be legally persecuted.