Lisa Jackson - Born To Die

“Isn’t there a health room?”

“That’s worse. It’s. . gross! I just wanted to come home. Geez. It’s not as if it’s against the law or anything.”

“Have you taken your temp?”

“No. And I’m not going to!”

“So what is it? Stomachache? Cramps? Sore throat?”

“All of the above, okay!” She burrowed deeper into her duvet, and the rest of the magazines slid to the floor. “Can’t you just leave me alone?”

“Not for a few more years. You’re kinda my job.”

“Seriously? That’s what I am? Geez, Mom, you’re so. .” The rest of the diatribe was thankfully muffled as Bianca flung an edge of the blanket over her head. One slim arm snaked from beneath the covers; her hand patted the bed, but before her fingers connected with her phone, Pescoli grabbed the cell.

“You won’t need this,” she said, pocketing the cell as she reached down to pick up the slick tabloids that had scattered onto the worn shag carpet.

The top magazine caught her attention with the headline SHELLY BONAVENTURE’S DEATH RULED SUICIDE. Beneath the bold letters was a picture of a pretty woman with a wide smile and eyes that glinted mischievously. Her skin was clear; her hair a tangled mass of auburn curls. As if she had the world by the damned tail.

Instead, Shelly Bonaventure, an actress Pescoli now remembered as having been on that vampire series Bianca had been hooked on a few years back, had become another statistic, yet one more senseless death in Hollywood.

Looked like things were bad all over.

Tucking the magazine under her arm, she walked out of the room and left her daughter sulking under her covers.

Jocelyn Wallis felt like crap as she eyed the dark sky through her window. It wasn’t snowing. . yet, but a storm had been predicted, and there were patches of ice and snow on the roads and parking lot of her apartment complex. The temperature was below freezing, and it was only expected to drop.

If she didn’t take her run now, she decided, peering through the blinds, she might not get a chance in the next couple of days.

And Thanksgiving was next week; she was certain to pig out at her aunt’s house, so she should exercise in anticipation of the feast.

Besides, it wasn’t going to stay light for long; already the streetlamps outside the apartment building that she called home were starting to glow.

As a schoolteacher, she didn’t have a lot of daylight in the dead of winter, so she was confined to the treadmill during the week and jogging outside on the weekend, when the weather allowed.

Maybe she should forget it. She’d just felt so crummy the past few days. Not quite the flu, but her energy was low, and she found herself kind of zonking out.

Finishing a cup of leftover coffee from her morning batch, she threw the last swallow down the sink, checked her watch, frowned, then gave herself a quick mental kick and nearly knocked over the cat’s water dish in the process. That cat, her pet, was a stray that had shown up four weeks ago and had been MIA for the past two days. Jocelyn had looked for her, worried, and had called the local shelters, to no avail. When she got back from her run, she’d find Kitty, come hell or high water. Maybe she’d even come up with a name for her.

Pushing thoughts of her missing cat aside, Jocelyn walked quickly to the second bedroom, which basically collected the overflow from the rest of the living area. Books and discarded clothes were piled on her ironing board, an old television set was propped on the dresser she’d had since she was ten, bags of clothes that no longer fit were piled in one corner, ready to be donated to the church thrift store, and even a few Christmas presents that she’d bought at a school bazaar had been labeled and tossed onto the twin bed she used for guests.

And who are those guests?

The truth was, ever since she’d moved back to Grizzly Falls two years earlier, after her second divorce, no one had stayed with her.

“Pathetic,” she told herself.

In one corner was her “office,” where her computer and printer were tucked on an old desk, and where she kept her personal files. The closet was filled with clothes she hoped to wear again, once she slimmed down, and paperwork for art, science, and math projects for the coming school year.

Quickly, before she changed her mind, or the storm broke and changed it for her, Jocelyn slipped out of her jeans and sweater and into jogging pants, shirt, and fleece jacket. She scraped her hair into a ponytail, snapped it into a rubber band, pulled on a baseball cap, and tucked her feet into her favorite pair of Nikes. She took another cursory glance around the apartment for her cell phone but didn’t see it; the damned thing had been missing since last night.

She hated to leave without it but didn’t have much of a choice. Not if she was going to get in the exercise she’d promised herself.

“Tough,” she muttered under her breath.

Then she was out the front door, where she took a few minutes to stretch on her small porch and push the earbuds of her iPod into her ears and select a playlist of dance songs.

Now or never!

She took off, the bottoms of her shoes slapping time to “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga, her arms pumping as she accelerated to a comfortable speed as the first flakes of snow began to fall.

At the entrance to the apartment complex, she turned south, starting along the same route she usually jogged. She could make her course either two miles or three, depending upon where she turned back. Today, she vowed to herself, she’d go the entire three-point-one miles. Maybe if she got her blood moving fast enough, she could shake the feeling that she might be coming down with the damned flu, which was making the rounds at Evergreen Elementary, where she worked.

She was getting into her rhythm, the music pounding in her ears, her breathing regular as she jogged through the puddles of slush and avoided the few cars and trucks that were moving along the roadway. A dark blue pickup trailed after her for a few blocks, not passing, and she glanced over at the driver as he finally pulled around her. They didn’t make eye contact; he was too busy fiddling with his CD player or phone or something that kept his attention away from the road.

Idiot, she thought as he finally passed her, taking a corner three blocks down, his taillights glowing red until they disappeared.

Adjusting the volume of her iPod, she concentrated on the course. She still felt low. Maybe it was the flu. It was certainly that time of year, and a grade school was a great breeding ground for all things contagious.

Or her malaise could be the result of overindulging in her favorite junk foods. She had been on a real bender this weekend and had devoured nachos, pizza, and two pints of ice cream, one of mint chocolate chip, and one of jingle-berry ribbon, in honor of the holidays.

Stupid.

She was thirty-five and had put on ten pounds in the past four years, ever since transferring to Evergreen Elementary, where the fourth graders she taught were difficult and the parents. . Well, she didn’t want to think about them. Talk about overbearing! Half of them acted like she didn’t know her job; the other 50 percent didn’t seem to care what their kid did in school. Their attitude was they didn’t want to be bothered.

Sometimes she wondered why she stuck with it.

Because you love the kids.

Because you feel like you’re making a difference.

Because you like the paycheck and benefits.

And because you really like having most of the summer and two weeks at Christmas off!

Then why did she have to keep reminding herself? she wondered as she passed a laurel hedge in serious need of trimming. She looked over her shoulder before crossing the street.