FF (March 2013) Eliza Lentzski - Second Chances

High school can be Hell. Especially when you grow up in a small town where everyone knows your business and you can't avoid the gossip about your past. That's why, as soon as she graduated, Reagan Murphy moved to New York City to start again. Now in her junior year at NYU and with her childhood positioned in the rearview mirror, the future looks limitless. But when she unexpectedly runs into the one person responsible for the misery of her high school years, will she keep running or will she stick around long enough for a second chance? Allison Hoge, statuesque and beautiful, made sure she remained at the top of the social pyramid even if it meant stepping on a few heads to get there. But even she had her own secrets to evade after graduation. College can change a person - it can be a new start - an opportunity for reinvention. So when she unexpectedly runs into the one person for whom she made high school especially miserable, will history repeat itself or has she changed enough to be given a second chance?

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Sample

CHAPTER ONE

Reagan Murphy looked up at the Broadway stage before returning her gaze to the notebook in which she’d been frantically scribbling for the past hour. She hated this assignment, hated that her professor was making her pick apart one of her all-time favorite Broadway musicals, and hated that yet another Saturday night of her Junior year was passing her by. If she had to spend the evening this way, she wanted the freedom to sit and soak in the ambiance of the historic theater and move her lips along with the familiar songs – not write notes for an assignment she felt was blasphemous.

Taking her attention away from the action on stage, she looked around at the faces of the theater patrons seated in her section. One of her greatest pleasures in attending theatrical performances, particularly those with which she was familiar, was looking at other people’s faces and watching their reaction to poignant scenes and songs. Under the blanket of theater darkness she could anonymously observe the myriad of emotions playing across different people’s faces. She loved catching the most unexpected reactions from otherwise stereotypical-looking people. The embarrassment or keen interest in a heavy love scene. The tears and anguish of a heartbreak and star-crossed lovers. The joy and laughter in a well-timed comedic scene.

Tonight, almost everyone in her surrounding section was older than her. One of the perks of going to her school was the discounted and sometimes free tickets to Broadway and Off-Broadway productions that she normally wouldn’t be able to afford as a jobless college student. Her eyebrows furrowed together when she noticed a cluster of girls about her age a few rows back just off to her right. She wondered how they could have afforded the same orchestra pit seats. She inspected their faces more closely. Maybe they went to school with her and had taken advantage of the reduced-priced tickets. She scanned the row of unfamiliar faces until her gaze stopped on one. A young woman – a blonde with high, chiseled cheekbones. She almost looked like…

The girl, as if sensing Reagan’s stare, flicked her eyes away from the stage and made eye contact with her. Reagan immediately looked away and retrained her eyes on the center stage and pretended to be watching the show.

There was no way that could be her. It would be an impossible coincidence.


After another painful minute, Reagan once again hazarded a glance in the direction of the far too familiar-looking girl. The woman in question was still staring at her. Reagan sucked in a sharp breath when she lifted an eyebrow at her.

“No. No. No. This can’t be happening. She can’t be happening. She can’t be here,” Reagan mentally panicked. Her chest constricted “It’s dark,” she tried to reason with herself. “It’s just a girl that looks similar. A trick of light.”

She looked again. The other woman was still looking in her direction. When their eyes met again, Reagan could just make out how one corner of the woman’s mouth curled up into a peculiar smile.

She tore her eyes away again and forced herself to pay attention to what was happening on stage. But as much as she wanted to, she just couldn’t concentrate. She gripped tightly to her armrests. Her palms were sweating. She needed to escape, but she couldn’t. It would be terribly rude to get up in the middle of a performance. Plus, she needed to pay attention. This was homework. This was for a grade.

“Focus, Reagan,” she chastised herself. She slumped down in her chair and forced herself to keep her eyes turned toward the stage, counting down the minutes until the final curtain call.


When the house lights finally turned on, flooding the theater, Reagan leapt from her seat. She wasn’t going to take any chances in case the girl she had seen was in fact who she feared it was. She hastily grabbed her winter jacket from where she’d draped it over the back of her chair and made her way toward the nearest aisle exit. She was forced to stop, however, when she reached a family of four slowly gathering their personal items. She spun on her heels to exit in the other direction, but spotted an elderly couple in her direct path unhurriedly standing and stretching out ancient limbs.

She cursed under her breath. She was stuck.

“Don’t think you get to run away without saying hi to me, Murphy.”

Oh no.

Reagan slowly turned in the direction of the frighteningly familiar voice. There, standing in the aisle nearest her, was the last person she ever expected to see again. She found herself speechless. It wasn’t a feeling to which she was accustomed.

“Should I be offended?” The blonde woman’s lips twisted into a familiar smirk. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

Reagan blinked hard a few times and shook her head, hoping the movement would rattle her brain back into commission. “N-no,” she uncharacteristically stuttered. “I’m just surprised to see you here is all.”

A perfectly manicured eyebrow lifted on an unlined forehead. “I’m not allowed to enjoy one of the top Broadway shows of the season?” the other woman mused.

“Of course you are. I just thought you were in Rhode Island. At Brown,” Reagan stated, still clearly confused as to why Allison Hoge, the girl who had personally made her high school years a living hell, was standing in front of her. In New York City.

Allison nodded. “I am. I’m just here for the weekend with some friends,” she observed with a casual shrug. She glanced behind her shoulder at a group of similarly aged girls who appeared to be waiting for her.

Reagan glanced in the direction of the group. Three young women, each in tailored wool jackets and designer scarves, impatiently shouldered their nearly matching, oversized designer purses. They looked exactly like the type of people with whom the Ivy-League-College Allison Hoge would be friends, she mentally observed.

“Well it was, uh, nice to see you,” Reagan nodded. She clutched her notebook to her chest, feeling oddly like the high school version of herself under Allison’s intense gaze. “I hope you enjoy your weekend. New York’s a great city.”

Allison’s hazel eyes narrowed perceptibly. “Are you giving me the brush off, Murphy?”

“No, I just didn’t want to keep you from your friends any longer,” Reagan hastily explained.

Allison regarded the shorter woman for a moment. She seemed to be struggling with something before making up her mind. “I’m heading back to my campus in the morning,” she said. “We should get brunch before I have to catch my train.”

“Why?” Reagan reflexively fired back without really thinking.

“Is it so hard to believe that maybe I’m curious to know how you’ve been doing?” Allison rolled her eyes.

“Honestly, yes. It is.” Reagan stood a little taller, emboldened by her words.

“Just have brunch with me,” Allison sighed. She absentmindedly raked her fingers through her corn-silk hair. She had been meaning to cut it, but there never seemed to be any time. “We could meet at Pershing Square at 11am. You know where that is?”

Reagan nodded. “It’s across from Grand Central Station.”

“Right,” Allison confirmed. She glanced once more at her impatient friends when she heard one them clearing her throat to get her attention. The girl, a tall redhead with long, wavy locks and an upturned nose, tapped at her wristwatch. “I’ve got to go,” she said hastily. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Without waiting for a response from Reagan, she spun on her heels and started to follow her friends out of the now-nearly empty theater.


Reagan stood, dumbfounded, her brain unable or unwilling to process what had just happened. She couldn’t help but feel like she’d been blindsided. She hadn’t seen Allison Hoge since graduation, over three years ago. But they hadn’t been friends in high school, so that wasn’t so surprising. What did surprise her was not only Allison’s unexpected appearance, but also the fact that she wanted to have brunch the following morning.

It had to be a trick, she reasoned to herself. It had to be a trap. And she really needed a drink.

“Hey, Murphy!”

Reagan jerked to attention when she heard the familiar voice calling to her. She saw Allison standing near the rear exit. The house lights illuminated her beautiful features. “Yes?” she called back.

Allison’s lips twisted into a wry grin. “Don’t stand me up tomorrow.”

Reagan tried to smile back, but it felt more like a grimace. She waved weakly and then dropped her arm, immediately feeling ridiculous. She half expected a bucket of pig’s blood to spill over her or a shower of rotten eggs to cascade from the balcony seats above; instead, she watched Allison disappear out of sight, leaving her physically unscathed.

Mentally, however, was another story altogether. Reagan took a few more moments to gather her thoughts, and then she finally pulled on her jacket to prepare for the New York winter night.


+++++


Reagan unlocked her dorm room door and was instantly greeted by the sound of her roommate’s loud music. Ashley, a music performance major, looked up from her laptop and smiled when she saw Reagan enter their shared space. She turned down the volume on her laptop’s speakers.

“How was the play?”

Reagan shrugged out of her jacket and hung it on a set of hooks near the door. “It was good,” she acknowledged, pulling off her scarf. “It would have been even better if I had gone for fun though and not as an assignment for my script writing course.”

Although an art and graphic design major, she’d originally signed up for the course thinking it would be an easy A. She loved to write and she loved movies and plays. The class, however, was turning out to be more work than some of her major field classes.

“Guess you’ll just have to go see it again when the semester is over,” Ashley suggested. “I’ll go with,” she volunteered. “I’ve been wanting to see that show since the semester started.”

Reagan sat at her desk and opened her laptop. “Definitely,” she agreed. “Let’s get tickets for after Finals Week. We can celebrate the end of another successful semester.”

Ashley grinned. “Awesome. I’ll get some tickets right now.” Her fingers flew across the keys of her computer. “What are you up to the rest of the night? Want to find a party?”

Reagan made a disgruntled noise. “I’ve got to finish this assignment while the thoughts are still fresh in my head.”

“Aw, can’t that wait until tomorrow?” Ashley pouted, looking up from her computer screen. “It’s the weekend!”

Reagan opened a word document. “I know, I know,” she sighed. She closed her eyes and pinched at the bridge of her nose. “But I might have plans in the morning,” she grumbled reluctantly.

“Might?”

“Yeah, might. Maybe. I don’t know. I probably shouldn’t even go,” Reagan worried out loud.

Ashley chuckled at her roommate’s dramatics. Although she was the performance major, Reagan had a particular talent for turning her real life into a Broadway show. “Are you going to tell me what’s up or are you going to insist on being vague and make me pull it out of you?”

“Tonight at the play I ran into someone I knew from high school.”

“From Michigan? Wow,” Ashley remarked. “Small world, huh?”

Reagan nodded, momentarily thoughtful. “And she wants to meet up for brunch in the morning.”

Ashley’s eyebrows scrunched together in confusion. “But you don’t know if you’re going to go? Why not?” she pressed. “You love food.”

Reagan stuck her tongue out at her roommate. “You’re lucky I have a healthy relationship with my body,” she quipped.

“Whatever, Skinny,” Ashley breezed. “Now tell me, why are you on the fence about meeting up with an old friend?”

“Because we weren’t exactly friends in school. In fact,” Reagan said, sucking in a deep breath, “we kind of hated each other.”

“Oooh,” Ashley cooed. She sat up straighter in bed, suddenly more interested. “Even better. Did she get fat?” she asked excitedly. “I love it when they get fat.”

Reagan laughed. “God, no. She looked as perfect as ever.”

“Well it’s not like you let yourself go after high school, right?” Ashley pragmatically noted.

Reagan shook her head.

“And you’re successful in a highly competitive arts program, living in the capital of awesomeness, right?” her roommate added.

Reagan chuckled. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“So? Why wouldn’t you want to go? Show Miss Thang how awesome you are,” Ashley crowed. “I bet it pales in comparison to whatever she’s been up to lately. You can make her insides rot with jealousy.”

“She goes to an Ivy League school.”

Ashley’s face drooped. “Oh. Well. You’re still pretty great.”

Reagan laughed and threw a balled up piece of paper at her friend. “Remind me why I volunteered to be your roommate?”

Ashley easily deflected the tossed projectile. Reagan was a lot of things, but naturally athletic wasn’t on that list. “Oh, don’t kid yourself, Prez. You know I’m fabulous.”

Reagan rolled her eyes at the nickname. As soon as the two had met their freshman year, Ashley had insisted calling her ‘President,’ and now shortened the nickname even more so. The name always drew odd looks from people who didn’t know them. “Uh huh,” Reagan said drolly. “I’ll keep reminding myself that tomorrow morning when I’m sitting across the table from my arch-nemesis.”

“So does that mean you’re going?” Ashley clapped excitedly. She bounced on the bed a little.

“Maybe I should send you along instead,” Reagan snorted. “You seem more excited than me.”

Ashley hopped off her bed. “You should be excited, too,” she exclaimed. “How many times does the universe give us second chances and do-overs?”

“You think that’s what this is?”

Ashley stood in front of Reagan’s open closet and tapped her fingers against her lips in thought. “Maybe,” she murmured. “But at the very least it’s your opportunity to outshine her.”

Reagan stood up to stand next to her roommate. “What are you looking at?”

Ashley reached into the closet and pulled out a top. She held it in front of Reagan’s torso. “Your clothes. What’s this girl’s name?”

Reagan eyeballed her roommate suspiciously.

Ashley let out an exasperated sigh. “Come on, Prez. I’m not going to Facebook stalk her.”

“Allison,” Reagan finally answered. “Allison Hoge.”

Ashley reached back into the closet and pulled out a few more tops. “Well, then,” she declared dramatically, “let’s find you the perfect outfit. Watch out, Allison Hoge, because here comes Reagan Murphy.”