Read an Excerpt
Like Yesterday
By Kristi Farley
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2011 Kristi Farley
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4634-2162-5
Chapter One
"Wake up Rhode Island. It's 6:15 on this beautiful Friday morning. Spring is here, the weather is warming up, and so should you. You're listening to the one and only 92.3 PRO F.M."
Aaliah Carye rolled over and hit her alarm clock radio dreading to even open her eyes. "Only three more months, only three more months," she told herself as she stretched from her finger tips to her toes while untangling herself from her covers. She yawned and wiped her eyes before she stood up and stumbled to the bathroom in a daze and got attacked by her younger brother, Cadence, in the middle of another yawn. He jumped on her and made her fall to the floor.
"Die devil queen of the cootie sisters." Cadence shouted as he pointed a plastic knife to Aaliahs throat.
"Queen of the cootie sisters? Well, you're on top of me so I guess that means you caught my sister cooties." Aaliah said while tickling him off of her.
"I never thought of that!" Cadence yelled as he struggled out of Aaliahs grip.
"What's going on up there?" Their mother, Joyce, yelled up the stairs at her two children. "Nothing" They yelled in sync as Cadence ran to his room and Aaliah scrambled to the bathroom.
As she took her shower, she started to think about the day she had ahead of her. High school was not always so bad. It was mostly boring and tiring with the teachers babbling on about stuff that she probably knew more about then they did. If it wasn't for her mother, who always said that high school is the best years of your life and you need to experience it to appreciate it later, and her friends she would have started home schooling her freshman year and would have already graduated by now. Of course, saying friends implies that she has a lot of them. In reality she only has one friend, Mya, who has begged her everyday since they walked into Providence High not to be home schooled. She never knew why she listened to her. High school to Aaliah was just something she did before work or home.
She wasn't into all of the after school activities or sports like everyone else was at her school, and because of that she was one of the weird kids that had no school spirit. No school sprit at North Providence High School was considered a sin, and you should repent and join in with the rest of the screaming and yelling crowd in the cold at football games. For most of the people at her school, football games were the closest thing they have to a religious experience.
After her shower, she brushed her teeth and blow dried her long brown hair straight then put it in a pony tail on top of her head. She put on her yellow top and blue jeans. She glanced at her reflection for a minute. Noticing her buttercup necklace was turned backward, she turned it over. Spring was here and she loved it because the buttercups would bloom. They were her favorite flowers, and spring was her favorite time of year. She looked closely at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were green like summer tree leaves, her nose was bigger then she wanted it, and she had no top lip what so ever. She tried lip liner to make it bigger but ended up looking like a clown. She turned from side to side to see her waist and hips, which were too big in her eyes. After a sigh, she took her hair back down and slung her head back and forth to get it to lay down, and she hurried down stair to grab some breakfast.
"Aaliah would you mind picking up Cadence on your way to work, and I will pick him up after court?" Joyce said while buttering some very well done toast. Joyce was a very attractive woman with long brown hair, a little longer then Aaliahs. She was a free lance lawyer, but she wanted to get with a firm eventually. She said the firms are where the money is but the law isn't. Aaliah loved her mother for everything that she had been through for them. She was raising them by herself with no help from their dad who left them a long time ago.
"Mom don't you remember what happened last time Cadence came to work with me." Aaliah said. The day was very vivid in her mind. Cadence went around to all the tables and loosened all of the tops on the salt and pepper shakers. When people poured it on their food, all of it would come out, which almost got Aaliah fired.
"Please dear," her mother pleaded, "I promise it will only be a few minutes." But when Joyce looked up, Aaliah was already out the door.
Aaliah jumped in her car, which was a nice Toyota Corolla in black with black interior that would make it unbearable if Aaliah lived somewhere where the temperature got higher than eighty; it was always cold in Rhode Island. She drove to her school, North Providence High. The school was only a few miles outside of Providence, Rhode Island, but you would have never known it. It was such a small place with a quaint general store and a school.
The general store is where Aaliah worked. The store was called Joe's Café and was owned and operated by Joseph Alexander Martin III. It had been in this town for fifty years, and was the hottest teen hang out. The only way Aaliah would ever get invited there is by work only. She wasn't very popular because she didn't really talk to many people and studied a lot. She spent most of her free time in her room writing, reading, and listening to music. Most people would call her a book worm. She always had a book at her nose, and she preferred to read about teenage drama rather then live it.
She only had one true friend, Mya, and has never ever had a boyfriend, which didn't bother her as much as it bothered Mya. Mya was all about teenage drama, but Aaliah spent most of her time in the library studying and reading. She liked it just fine, but Mya thought it was a waste of time, until she needed Aaliah to help her cram for a test. But, being in a school with three hundred students in your senior class, it was pretty easy not to get noticed.
As she pulled into the parking lot of her school, she glanced at her clock, it was 8:05 and she was late once again. She got out of her car and ran to her first period class. As she opened the door, she knew she was in trouble. Her math teacher, Mr. Can, looked at her with a glare. "Miss Carye do you know what time it is?" Mr. Can tapped his foot while holding up her attendance card.
"Sorry Mr. Can my mother and I got into it, and my brother ..."
"That's okay Miss Carye. Spare me the details" Alaiah rolled her eyes as she went to her seat pulling out her homework.
Mr. Can was a very large and very gay man. His class room was full of rainbows and gay pride stickers. On his desk was a picture of him and his partner, Charlie. The frame had pink boa feathers all around it, and they both were wearing pink Sunday hats. His wardrobe told you that he was not a straight man as well. Today he was wearing a blood red button up shirt with purple pants and blood red sandals. It was not out of the ordinary that he would show up to class in pink overalls. There was a rumor that was going around a few years ago that he was a drag queen on the weekends. The rumor turned out to be true, and now Mr. Can comes into class some Monday mornings still wearing eye liner.
Aaliah really liked him, and sometimes after school she would come and help him grade papers and he would let her see his pictures from the weekend before. He was a prettier woman than he was a handsome man.
Class with Mr. Can always dragged. Aaliah already knew the math he was trying to teach, so she spent most of her time doodling stars all over the edges of her homework. She knew that she could teach the class better than he, but she just sat there doodling her stars and day dreaming about a song that she had heard while she was in the shower this morning. Finally the bell rang and she was free.
"Aaliah wait up," Mya yelled as Aaliah started to close her locker. "Hey Mya, What's up?" Aaliah said as she was switching books from her locker.
"Not much, just came to tell you about the hot new guy that I have in my first class, Garrett Blake. He is a treat for the eyes. Have you seen him yet?" Mya said, with enthusiasm. Mya Manson was one of the prettiest girls in school. She was taller then Aaliah with shoulder length black hair, big eyes that where light brown like hot cocoa, lips that would make Angelina envious, and legs that looked good in anything she wore, especially skinny jeans with heels, and she was going to the top modeling school in the state of New York. Aaliah could hardly believe they were best friends.
"No, I haven't seen him yet." Aaliah and Mya walked toward Aaliah's next class.
"Watch for him, believe me you will not be sorry, I'll see you after school okay." Mya said as she went into the class across the hall from Aaliah, which was literature. They were going over Lord Byron's works today. Aaliah loved the poet and had the four poems memorized that they were going over in class. After that, she had lunch, which made Aaliah happy because she usually sat by herself and read or listened to music. Mya ate with her on the days that she didn't have dance practice that took place at her lunch time, but on the rare days that Mya was there with her Aaliah just listened to Mya ramble about the dates she had been on, what was happening on her favorite T.V. show, or about their favorite bands. Today was a peaceful lunch, just Aaliah and Jane, Jane Eyre that is. Even though she had read it a million times, when Aaliah was out of new books to read she always went back to Jane Eyre.
At the end of fourth period was when Aaliah was the happiest. When the bell rang, she was able to go to her favorite class of the day: the library. She was the library aide; the library was her home away from home. She saw Mya waiting for her at the entrance of the library. Aaliah could tell by the look on Mya's face that she was not going to like what she was going to ask. Aaliah was going to be polite anyway, even if she was going to turn Mya down.
"Aaliah has anyone asked you to Spring Fling yet." Mya was all about school dances and this was the monster of school dances.
"No Mya, I already told you I'm not going to that stupid dance." Aaliah said with a frustrated look, this was only the thousandth time Mya had asked her that this week alone.
"Aaliah, you have to go, and I have you a date. Mark has a friend, Kevin, that said he would go with you." Mark has been Mya's boyfriend for two years; he is a freshman at Providence College. He graduated from North Providence High last year.
"Oh great, a mercy date. I will feel like a dork." Aaliah protested. There was no way she was going, even if Mya begged, especially with a guy she had never met before. Aaliah was a little shy and she could see herself sitting at a table trying her hardest not to look like she wasn't having a good time, which was something that would happen because Aaliah couldn't dance.
"Please Aaliah if you don't go with him then come with me and Mark." Mya said.
"No, then I will feel like a third wheel." Aaliah really didn't care if she went to the stupid dance or not, but it meant so much to Mya that she get as much of the high school experience as possible.
"At least consider it." Mya grabbed Aaliah by the arm and pleaded. She looked at Aaliah with her puppy dog brown eyes and a pout that would make any guy in the school give her anything she asked for. Aaliah just sighed.
"Okay, I'll consider it, but it is not a yes." Aaliah said as she turned her head so she couldn't see Mya's pout.
"Okay good, see you tonight." Mya said as she clapped her hands together and walked the other way to her P.E. class.
Aaliah shook her head. Now she was going to have to come up with some illness or that she broke a bone to get out of this. She would have to look in a medical journal to see if there was a disease for being antisocial because she thought that she had it, and Mya wouldn't know what it was anyway. She was sure Mya would just come to her house and drag her to the dance even if Aaliah was wearing her night grown.
She walked into the library, the smell of the books made her feel at home. Mrs. Rogers, the librarian, was hard at work when Aaliah walked in. "Hey, Aaliah how are you? Ready to work? Put all the books on these shelves in this box and log all of these on this sheet. Have fun and let me know if you need anything." Mrs. Rogers said in her high pitched fast talking voice. Mrs. Rogers was a small woman in her early sixties, she looked like she was Mr. Rogers's wife with the way she dressed, wait she is Mr. Rogers's wife. Aaliah thought to herself and laughed. She was very to herself; loved to read and was always busy with something. Aaliah would not even see her again until 3:00. Aaliah sighed and got to work. She stacked, sleeved, and taped books until she thought her fingers where going to bleed.
Finally 3:00 came. As Aaliah packed up her stuff and was ready to leave, Mrs. Rogers started talking to her. "Aaliah, I won't be here tomorrow so you are going to have to help the substitute. Ask Mr. Can if you could come in here first period." She said quickly.
"Okay. Mrs. Rogers I will." Aaliah said as she was walking backwards out the door. Thinking that there was no way Mr. Can would let her out of class. As she turned around she was hit in the side and thrown to the ground. Her books had spilled out of her bag she sat up on her elbows and looked to see if who ever she ran into was okay.
It was a guy she had never seen before, a guy that she couldn't take her eyes off of, and a guy that was trying to get his legs out from under hers.
"I'm so sorry, I didn't see you, I was talking to my friends and I was walking backwards. Are you ... alright?" The guy had just looked at her and was trying to stand when he caught her eyes. He had the prettiest eyes Aaliah had ever seen. They were a hazel color that had blue green and brown mixed in away that Aaliah had never seen before. It took her a second to notice that she was staring like an idiot and not talking, she shook her head in embarrassment.
"It's ok, I'm sorry. I wasn't paying attention either." Aaliah gathered her books, and the guy bent down and helped her. They both stood up and Aaliah dusted of her blue jeans. She was about to introduce herself but a voice came on the intercom and interrupted her.
"Garrett Blake, come to the office please."
"That's me, I'm sorry um..."
"Aaliah, Aaliah Carye." Aaliah said as she extended her hand to his. Oh my god. Am I really shaking his hand? What an idiot. She thought to herself.
"Aaliah, I'll remember that. See you later." He took her hand, shook it, and ran toward the office.
"By the way" he yelled half way down the hall. "I'm Garrett Blake." He smiled and ran toward the office again. Aaliah could do nothing but stare. She had to remember to rate him very high to Mya. She was still embarrassed that she had meet him on the floor and not just walking the hall looking like she was a million dollars or something. Then she bit her lip. She never felt like a million dollars, maybe fifty cents. Then she realized it was 3:30 and she was late for work. She sighed and ran to her car.
Aaliah pulled up to Joe's at 4:08. She was supposed to be there at 4:00, and she knew Joe was going to yell because it was the second time she was late this week. Aaliah always ran late, it was like she was living five minutes off from everyone else. When she went in, Joe was standing there wiping off the counter when he looked up and saw Aaliah. He pointed to his watch and kept wiping. Aaliah sighed and grabbed her apron, which was bright lime green so the whole world could see that she was the dork that waited on them.
She hated Fridays because she had what the North Providence High School senior class called, "the table". This table had been set aside for high school seniors since the place opened. But most of the time only the popular stuck-up people sat at this particular table. She hated this table because she had to wait on the kids that probably didn't even realize she was a senior at the same school they go to.
"So Miss Aaliah, what is the excuse this time?" Joe said while crossing his arms. He had a thick New Jersey ascent, which he picked up from college. He looked just like a man you would run away in fear from in an alley, but deep down he was a teddy bear. He was tall and lean but the way he could look at someone when they started getting rowdy in his café was terrifying.
"Joe, I'm sorry. Mrs. Rogers made me stay a little late, and I ran into someone," Aaliah said with a witty smile, remembering her little episode. The smile didn't do much for Joe, who thought that she was mocking him.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Like Yesterday by Kristi Farley Copyright © 2011 by Kristi Farley. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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