Jocelynne woke up the next morning with a renewed vigor. It had been disappointing to realize the night before that her mom could no longer teach her anything about cheerleading, but overnight her dreams convinced her that this was an opportunity. Now Jocelynne was in charge of her own fate. Now she was going to be the one blazing a new trail. If she could cheerlead, then she could lead.
As she came down for breakfast Jocelynne gave Sarah the biggest hug that she could. "You're the best mom in the world," she gushed to a pleasantly bewildered woman in a simple house dress and cardigan. Several blocks away, Linda McMillan felt a shiver whose origin she could not place.
Zoe and Mikey followed down the stairs of the Gibson house with notably less fanfare, but Sarah was still practically floating from her daughter's praise and doted on all three children.
David had come home at 2am reeking of fish, and so was in the guest room and still fully asleep as the rest of his family got ready for the day.
The doorbell rang, and Sarah padded her way over to answer it. "Oh! Athena!," she said through a smile, "You changed your hair! It looks really good on you."
The goth was radiating in her changes from the previous night. Her ensemble was still all black, but it was also sexy. "Are Zoe and Jocelynne still here?"
Zoe poked her head out the kitchen door. "Can Jocelynne drive us to school today?"
"Does Jocelynne want to drive you to school today?"
"Sure." Jocelynne's reply was accompanied by the soft clattering of dishes into the sink, and after a moment she too was at the front door.
A lightning bolt. Jocelynne stopped in mid-step as her eyes fell on her sister's friend and a shiver went through her entire body. There was something different about Athena. Something familiar. She felt... she didn't know how she felt.
"Can we take the Prius?" Athena asked Sarah. "I think the truck is full of, like, cat poop or something."
"They're owl pellets, actually."
Athena laughed. Then Zoe laughed. Then Sarah laughed. And finally, Jocelynne was broken out of her state of shock and joined the laughter, her apprehension over Athena forgotten.
As the girls were ushered into the car, Athena and Zoe exchanged glances and the latter, uncharacteristically, sat in the back seat while Athena sat beside Jocelynne in front. Then once everyone was buckled in, Jocelynne backed out of the driveway to the sound of the radio playing TLC.
"Mom must have had it set to the Oldies station last time she was in here," Jocelynne mused.
"You think, if Left Eye was still alive, maybe she'd want a scrub now?" Athena directed the question at Jocelynne.
"What do you mean?"
"Like," Athena put a finger on her chin and tilted her head, "you know how houses are more expensive now so people are buying, like, smaller houses? Maybe someone who was a scrub in the 90's is like an affordable alternative today?"
"People aren't like houses, Athena," Jocelynne couldn't help but laugh at the idea. "A bad dude is just always going to be a bad dude. The song's just about having standards."
Athena had intended to play up the ditz persona, but throughout the drive she found it easier and easier to slip into what was supposed to be a caricature. She fed off of Jocelynne's attention, and maintained it from driveway to parking lot, to the increasing exclusion of the girl sitting in the back seat.
The sense of foreboding that Zoe had felt the previous night when she bumped into Jocelynne returned and grew until the girls left the car, and Zoe pulled Athena away from Jocelynne and towards their first class.
