Reckoning Read Free

my eyes open. My mom gazes down at me, her dark blond hair held in place with a plastic hair clip. “It’s after seven. Aren’t you meeting Rachel before school?”
    My brain suddenly switches to On and I sit up, glancing at the clock: 7:08. And I’m supposed to meet my best friend Rachel at 7:30. And I haven’t even showered.
    “Crap!” I leap out of bed, rubbing the kink from my neck and shoulders.
    Mom presses a mug of hot coffee heavily laced with cream into my hands, and I take a hurried sip, scalding my tongue as I race to the bathroom.
    Emerging from the steam-filled stall less than three minutes later, I quickly apply some mascara, a few strokes of blush, then wave the blow dryer over my hair just long enough to dry my roots and bangs.
    I glance at myself in the mirror. I look pale and tired, my hair hanging in long, wet strands past my shoulders. Wet, it looks more brown than red. “Another five-star day for Katriona Matheson,” I mumble, then reach for toothbrush and toothpaste. Clamping the brush between my teeth, I hurriedly don bra and underwear then grab jeans and a black t-shirt from my closet. I finish dressing, rinse my mouth, slip my feet into a pair of black Converse, then grab my book bag and race for the door.
    “See you tonight, Mom,” I call over my shoulder.
    __________
     
    “ No way !” I exclaim, standing in the student parking lot, still breathless from the twelve blocks I have just run from my house to school. My mouth hangs open like some kind of arcade attraction – get the ball in the clown’s mouth, earn ten points. A fly whizzes past my head, and I snap my mouth closed. My eyes shift between Rachel, her face split into an enormous told-you-so grin, and the shiny, new yellow Volkswagen Beetle she is proudly standing next to. She’d told me yesterday that she had a surprise for me. But this was the last thing I had expected.
    To be honest, I’m not sure what I’m more astounded by at the moment – the fact that she actually has a car, or the sight of her long, dark hair hanging in two braids down the front of her layered pink and white t-shirt, partially covering the peace signs emblazoned on the front. Rachel and I made a pact when we were eleven that braids were absolutely, positively no longer an option. Yet here she is, proudly displaying them to the world beneath her multi-colored knit hat. With her short denim skirt, black leggings and black Uggs, multiple bracelets and choker necklaces, I can’t decide if she’s a remarkable trendsetter or a fashion question mark. Either way, standing next to her in my t-shirt and jeans, I feel remarkably underdressed.
    Deciding the car is the more urgent matter at the moment, I ask, “You really got your own car?”
    Rachel nods, jumping up and down and clapping her hands with excitement. “I so told you I’d get one for my birthday.”
    “Your birthday ! Rach, that was months ago. I hardly think getting it now qualifies as a birthday present.” I lean over to peer inside. Rachel turned seventeen last November and since the beginning of the school year she has kept up a near-daily litany on how she is absolutely positive she is getting a car – first for her birthday; then when that didn’t happen, for Christmas; then as the holidays faded into the distance and the new year came and went, for the straight A’s on her report card. But as the end of our junior year at Crestview High drew relentlessly closer and a car had yet to make an appearance, I’d spent the last month pleading with her to just give it up, already. Rachel, however, refused to accept defeat, convinced her parents were just holding out on her, opting for the element of surprise. If that were true, they had certainly succeeded - at least on my part.
    “So why now?” I ask, still in the throes of disbelief. “Or were they just sick of listening to you?” If she had kept on about it to her parents as much as she had to me, I think I would have given in,