Part 3 (2/2)
Jonathan watched her, feeling humiliated. ”Sarah, I wasn't looking at your cleavage ... um ... I wasn't really, I ... ”
”Jon, just let it go,” said Candi, using a short, clipped tone. She looked over at Sarah with narrowed eyes, obviously not appreciating anyone calling her brother a little creep. She had always claimed he was a gentleman and so unlike all the boys at school in that way.
Jonathan didn't know what to say, so he just sat there, wondering what had just happened. He had been staring at Sarah, that part was true. But he wasn't thinking anything bad at the time, nor did he even really notice her cleavage. At least, not at that particular moment. He had noticed it earlier, but then again, so had the rest of the world.
He wondered why girls wore their s.h.i.+rts unb.u.t.toned like that and then got mad when someone looked. It didn't add up for him, and since he didn't know enough about girls like Sarah, it was a puzzle that was going to stay with him until he figured it out. Jonathan liked solving riddles. Maybe later on the cruise he could ask Sarah why she did it. Since his sister didn't wear s.h.i.+rts like that, he wasn't sure Candi would know the answer.
Kevin watched everything playing out at the table, smiling to himself. This cruise is going to be awesome.
His dad was busy trying to gather intel without anyone figuring out what he was doing.
Jonathan was completely clueless about women and was therefore going to annoy the ever-loving s.h.i.+t out of his sister whenever he was around.
Sarah was just waiting for a chance to lash out at anyone, and Jonathan was the perfect target since he would never know when it was coming.
And last, but certainly not least, Candi the little mouse who was afraid of her own shadow shows that maybe she has a little bit of backbone in her, at least when it comes to defending her brother.
Yep, this cruise is definitely not going to be boring.
Appetizers and dinner pa.s.sed without further incident. The table was quiet except for discussions about the cruise schedule and amenities. After a dessert of ice cream sundaes, they all went up to their rooms, agreeing to meet for breakfast at seven the next morning.
CHAPTER TWO.
All Aboard!
Candi was one of the first ones down for breakfast the next day, preceded only by Jonathan. They were followed shortly by their parents, Frank, Kevin, and Candi. The group waited a few minutes outside the restaurant, eventually deciding to go in and start breakfast without Sarah and Angela.
”If we wait for them, we'll be late to the cruise, and I don't want to miss it or be the last in line,” said Frank.
”Yeah,” agreed Kevin, ”they're never ready on time they gotta pack on the makeup before they let their adoring public see them.”
”That's enough, Kevin,” said Frank without anger.
Candi and her mom shared a secret look. Neither of them was big on makeup, and they both had hair that was nearly impossible to tame, so they didn't even try most of the time; they just washed it, conditioned it, and let the curls do what they wanted.
Everyone ate breakfast from the buffet. They were joined in the last ten minutes by Sarah and her mother, both of whom had only a piece of dry wheat toast and coffee.
Candi looked down guiltily at the remnants of her scrambled eggs, bacon, and pancake breakfast. She had no control over her eating habits; she saw something that looked good and she ate it. Luckily she was young and had good metabolism. She knew she wasn't going to win any swimsuit model awards, but she wasn't fat either. She looked over at Sarah and sighed.
Sarah was fully capable of winning a swimsuit model award. Life was so unfair sometimes. Candi thought if she were as beautiful as Sarah, she wouldn't spend so much of her time being so rude, like Sarah did. Candi didn't know her very well, but so far she wasn't impressed with what she'd seen. She decided to give Sarah the benefit of the doubt, though. Maybe she was nervous about the cruise. Candi had seen Sarah at school being cheerful and laughing with her friends, so she knew Sarah could be a happy person, at least sometimes. Maybe when they got together on the cruise without their parents around, they could start to build some sort of friends.h.i.+p.
Looking down at her plate again, she realized this might mean eating less at breakfast time. If that's what I have to do, then so be it. Goodbye pancakes and goodbye bacon. She pushed the uneaten portions of her breakfast away, even though she really wanted to eat them.
She looked up and caught Kevin watching her with amus.e.m.e.nt. He looked over at his sister, who was sitting there with her sungla.s.ses already on, looking bored over a piece of dry toast. Then he looked back at Candi again, sitting in front of a plate she wished wasn't there. She was embarra.s.sed to think he was noticing that she'd laid waste to the buffet.
He smiled and nodded his head, frowning as if impressed at how much she'd eaten. Then he looked over at Jonathan's plate.
Jonathan looked up with his mouth full of food to see Kevin staring at him.
”Whaffs wong?” He swallowed with some effort and then tried again. ”What's wrong? Did I do something?” He looked from Kevin to his sister and then back to Kevin again.
”No, dude, nothing. I was just looking at how much you're eating. I know guys on the football team who can't eat that much for breakfast.” He wasn't being rude he sounded fascinated.
Candi wanted to die. Here was her brother, the skinniest kid in their grade at school, eating his normal gigantic breakfast, oblivious to the fact that everything they did on this vacation was potential ammunition to be used against them later at school.
”Oh, he normally doesn't eat this much,” explained Candi, ”He's just excited about the buffet.”
Her brother looked at her, confused. ”That's not true. I eat pancakes and bacon and eggs almost every morning. Sometimes I have a waffle instead of the pancakes, or sausage instead of the bacon, but the fat and calorie count is virtually equivalent.”
”Seriously?” asked Kevin. ”How do you stay so skinny?”
”Oh, I run and do other stuff.”
”What do you mean, you run? Like track?”
”No, I'm not on the track team. I just run around the neighborhood. Sometimes I just have a lot of energy, especially when I'm studying and I'm trying to work out a calculation or a piece of code or something; I get a little antsy, so I go running and come up with the answer while I do it. Then I can calm down and finish my work.”
”Interesting,” was all Kevin said in response. He seemed to be mulling over the answer in his head.
Candi couldn't tell whether Kevin thought this response was normal or completely crazy, which is what she thought. Her brother was telling the truth, though. He had lots of energy. When it wasn't spent coming up with answers to complex mathematical equations, it was spent burning up the pavement. He probably ran thirty miles a week ... more during finals.
Sarah looked up from her coffee and toast to join in the conversation. ”So, you eat a million calories, run, and do math while you burn every calorie you ate?”
”Yep, I guess so,” answered Jonathan, a wary look on his face.
”Does it help? The running I mean?”
”Well ... yeah ... it helps me. It clears my mind so I can just let it do the work for me. I kind of just stop thinking at all, and my mind works behind the scenes and comes up with the answers I'm looking for.”
Kevin joined in. ”I've heard about that kind of thing you know, letting your subconscious come up with answers to questions. Like you have to stop thinking about a problem so the solution will just come to you from your subconscious.”
Candi knew the look on her brother's face and wished she could stop the train of thought that she knew he was forming in his head but there was no stopping one of her brother's freight trains of useless facts.
”Did you know that 'subconscious' is the layperson's word for what Dr. Sigmund Freud called the 'unconscious mind'? He said it's a place where socially unacceptable ideas, wishes or desires, traumatic memories, and painful emotions are put out of the mind through psychological repression.”
Oblivious to the blank stares that greeted him from around the table, he took a quick breath and continued, ”Unconscious thoughts are not directly accessible, but are supposed to be capable of being 'tapped' and 'interpreted' by special methods and techniques such as meditation, random a.s.sociation, dream a.n.a.lysis, or things like running, like I do.”
He finished by clasping his hands together, waiting to hear the comments he was expecting to come from his rapt audience. This topic was obviously fascinating to him; Candi knew he could talk about it for hours.
No one said a word. Jonathan raised his eyebrows, still waiting for someone to comment. He looked over at his sister.
She was stared at him, wanting to kill him.
<script>