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Dreams by Starlight
Chapter
1
Grateful
for the minimal shield that her wire-rimmed copper
and gold glasses afforded, Camille Wright sat in the
counselor's office digging her fingernails into her
palms and praying that things could get no worse.
"I
have to be honest, Camille," Gerald Marsh said
as he shook his gray and silver-streaked head. "I
am looking at this, and I'm saying to myself, 'Okay,
she's got the grades, but I want somebody with something
other than just academic abilities." He held
up her transcript. "I see nothing here that leads
me to believe you would do well with anything other
than books."
Camille
let the long, limp strands of her dead-weed-colored
blonde hair fall into her face as her shoulders shrank
over her chest. "I thought that was a good thing."
"It
is, but so are other things-like speaking and sports
and music," Mr. Marsh said. "I'm just saying
if you'd take a class that's not purely academic,
it'd sure help your chances of getting into Princeton."
She didn't
say anything-she couldn't. Her stomach was wound around
the air in her lungs so tightly that even breathing
was asking too much of her system at the moment.
"I
was thinking you could choose between debate and drama,"
Mr. Marsh said, holding the class schedule across
the desk so she could see it.
"How
about Journalism?" Camille asked, her voice squeaking
on the word.
Mr. Marsh
shook his head. "You're not hearing me. You need
something where you have to get up in front of people."
"Band,"
she said quietly as her hand pushed back her hair
and then let it fall back exactly where it had been.
"The
marching band has already been on the field working
for three weeks, and the symphonic band is your only
other option." His narrowed eyes surveyed her.
"But if I'm not mistaken you don't even play
an instrument."
"I
could play the tambourine or something. That can't
be too hard."
Slowly
he looked down at the transcript on his desk and then
back up at her. "Drama or debate?"
It sounded
like a death sentence. She didn't want to do either.
She wanted to take another math class or computers,
anything other than the two classes staring at her
from that class schedule.
Her gaze
finally dropped back to her fingernails. "Drama."
"Good."
Mr. Marsh wrote the course choice on her schedule.
"Now, about your SAT scores."
* * *
"Hey,
it's J.P. and Ariana, back from summer vacation,"
Seth Taylor said, ambling up to his locker with his
black and gold backpack slung over his shoulder.
"It's the S man," Jaylon Patrick Quinn said,
raising his hand, which Seth immediately hit in greeting.
"Senior year. Can you believe we finally made
it?"
"Are
you kidding me? I was born for senior year."
Seth's arm stuck out from under his off-white with
red plaid lines button down shirt as he opened his
locker and shoved his belongings into it. "How
about you, Ari? You excited about this new adventure?"
Putting
a long, slender hand to her mouth, Ariana Vandivere
yawned as if she had never been so bored.
Jaylon
laughed. He laid one arm across her shoulders and
shifted his books to his other hip. "So what
do you have first thing?"
"Chemistry,"
Seth said as an annoyed smirk crossed his freckled
features. "You?"
He hadn't
even been yet, and Jaylon was already tired of it.
"English."
"English?"
Seth raised his red-blonde eyebrows. "Yikes."
Jaylon
shrugged. "You have English sometime, too. Don't
you?"
"I
wouldn't know. I haven't looked that far down my schedule
yet."
Jaylon
shook his head, causing his feathery brown locks to
fall across his eye. Retrieving his hand from her
shoulders, he swooped it back as the tall, leggy brunette
by his side yawned again.
Seth laughed.
"You know, Ari, if I didn't know better, I'd
think you didn't get enough sleep last night."
He slammed his locker just as the bell sounded above
them.
With a
kick, Jaylon pushed away from the lockers. "Let
the agony begin."
"Maybe I could go to the nurse's station and
tell them I'm sick," Camille said, actually feeling
more sick than well at the moment.
"For
the whole year?" Lexie Everson, Camille's best
friend, asked with a shake of her head. "I don't
think that'll work."
Camille's
slender shoulders sank even lower until they almost
touched the table. "There has to be some way
out of this. I mean, drama? Ugh."
After a
slow survey of her friend, Lexie shook her head and
laughed.
Camille
narrowed her eyes in frustration at her friend. "What?"
"You
act like you're being sent to the gas chamber."
"I
am," Camille said pitifully as the table pulled
her head all the way down.
"It
could be worse." Lexie's cocoa-colored hand brought
another bite to her mouth, and she ate that bite while
Camille's mind searched through its files trying to
find anything that could conceivably be worse. "Marsh
could've signed you up for debate."
Camille
lifted her head only inches from the table. "Ha.
Ha."
Lexie's
almond gaze stared back at her friend playfully and
then caught on movement by the cafeteria doors. Her
shoulders did that slow seductive relaxation at the
sight. "Besides any class where you can look
at Jaylon Quinn all period is okay in my books."
Camille
glanced over her shoulder at the strong face, framed
by the wispy, brown hair that seemed disheveled and
perfect at the same time, and she shook her head.
Still watching him cross the cafeteria, a flicker
of hope slipped through her. "The only good thing
is, with Ariana around, I don't have a prayer of getting
anything more than a line or two."
"True,"
Lexie said, and then she looked at her friend and
shrugged. "So don't worry about it. They'll probably
put you on make-up detail or something."
Her mind
said she should be offended by the comment, but still
Camille's heart hoped that the universe would be so
kind. "From your mouth to God's ears."
Coming
May 25, 2005
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