Gift Card
"And why would I invite you? You're not even supposed to go to this school, James. You just got in on what, a scholarship?"
Tiffany's friends laughed at that, and loudly. It seemed as if they were almost hyenas, vying for Tiffany's respect by laughing the loudest.
James Sherman still felt a little hurt at that. And what was wrong with his scholarship to Acadia Conservatory?
It was no secret that every member of Tiffany's dumb crew of Yes-women had got in because they had a lot of money, rich families and someone on the board had known one of their relatives.
And all HE'D done was ask if he could go to her stupid birthday party up in the stupid family mansion whilst Mummy and Daddy were away in fucking Malaga on a fucking cruise ship drinking fucking prosecco and eating fucking amuse-bouche.
James felt the grip on his mug of hot tea tightening. He barely felt the scalding water as it spilled over, running down his hand.
He could see it all too clearly, and it angered him more than he liked. Even the term "amuse-bouche" brought to his mind some horrible forty-six year old multimillionaire who was somehow amused by a gluten-free cracker layered with hand-reared cucumber slices and a nib of Fairtrade cheese from a specifically blind Nepalese goat.
Why were cocktail sausages from ALDI not good enough for these cunts?
The crying from the other room brought him back to his senses and James got up from his bed, placed the tea on his bedside table and went to attend to his little brother.
Nathan was only four months old. James was fifteen. Their mother and father worked, essentially, from the break of dawn until the next break of dawn and so caregiving and semi-parental duties usually fell to James.
As he walked into his baby brother's room, he smelled the air and assumed the worst. He lifted up Nathan who kicked his little legs in the air, squealing loudly. His kicking legs seemed to waft the smell across the room.
"Yup." said James.
Nathan tilted his head as he continued to cry and mewl.
"Don't you worry, lil buddy. We're gonna get you all cleaned up."
After he'd changed Nathan, refilled his bottle with warm (Not hot, James.) milk. He patted him down with talcum (But not too much, James. Don't waste the pack.) powder. He soothed him and (Not too tightly, James.) swaddled him in his cotton blanket.
After that he went back to his room, picked up his secondhand copy of a Jane Austen novel and read until he fell asleep. But his dreams were uneasy, filled with irritation.In his dreams, he kept hearing Tiffany, again and again, telling him he wasn't invited after he made the throwaway comment of "Oh, can I come?" and the burning feeling as he felt so incensed that he was the minority because he had the grades and not the money.
He tossed and turned, but the feeling couldn't be shaken off and remained with him until morning.
He woke up and bumped his head on the bottom of the stairs. He rubbed the bruise slowly forming on his head. Such was life when you slept in the cupboard under the stairs with a Hogwarts letter four years overdue.
He'd put the pair of scuffed black jeans and skull t-shirt he'd hung off of a dusty beam above his head and pushed open the cupboard, almost causing his Dad to trip over.
He stumbled, but managed to retain his footing with a piece of hastily-jammed toast in his mouth, a thermos of coffee under his armpit, car keys (To a car that would no doubt fail the next M.O.T it took.) tucked in his fingertips and a brief case in each hand.
"Mrd Gornin!" David Sherman said with his mouth full of toast, beaming.
His mother scurried after, planting a big kiss on her son's forehead. James smiled, it wasn't quite like Harry Potter. No evil aunt and uncle, after all.
James stretched, his joints popping. He brushed the sleep dust from his eyes eyes and pawed at his greasy black hair and beard fluff, trying to make himself look somewhat presentable.
It never worked.
He grabbed the skateboard balanced precariously on the kitchen worktop and set off for school. His parents were just pulling out of the drive and James jogged over, dropped his board and grabbed onto the back windscreen wiper.
His parents didn't like him doing it so much, but they never outright yelled at him for it, so he guessed that it was okay.
The car pootled out of the driveway, the exhaust spitting and banging. Just outside of the dirt road that worked as a driveway, the car picked up speed and James let go, letting the generated speed propel him down the next road.
Acadia Conservatory lay at the bottom of a steep hill lined with palms and James sped down. Because he'd timed it just right, he never once put his foot on the ground from the door of his house to the car park of his school.
And there was something oddly satisfying about just using your skateboard as a dolly.
James smiled as he picked up speed, swerving around two cars just pulling out of two intersections and beeping madly at him. He didn't care. The sun was high, there were no clouds. Today was going to be a good day.
He tore into the carpark and tucked his skateboard under his arm just as Jez was climbing out of his mother's car.
"Hey dude." said Jez, raising a hand to his mother as she pulled away in her Jaguar XK5. "You do McReedy's biology paper last night?"
James ruffled through his rucksack and pulled it out. "Sure did, man. Answers seventeen through to twenty were pretty tough, but I'm pretty sure you nailed it."
Jez took out a ten dollar note from his pocket and palmed it to him. "You're the best, man. No, like, seriously. I mean that."
"Yeah, whatever man. Just make sure to go over your damn answers so you don't flunk the midterm."
"As if I wouldn't!" Jez replied, laughing.
On their way into the school, Tiffany and two of her cronies bumped past them.
"Nice shirt, James. What did it cost you? Two dollars?"
"One." James replied, feeling the colour rising in his cheeks.
"Seriously man?" said Jez. He shook his head, unbelieving.
Tiffany was practically crowing. "See James? That's why Jez is coming to my party and that's why you're not. He has taste, you don't."
"Wait, what are you talking about Tiff?" said Jez. "That's a vintage 2004 Jackass t-shirt. The fact he picked that up for a dollar is pretty neato as far as I'm concerned."
Tiffany face seemed to crack. "That's what I.... meant. That's what I meant, Jez. He's too stylish. Far too cool and very... up himself."
Jez leaned against the school railing, cool as the breeze. "Not entirely sure what you mean, Tiff. James has always been pretty humble. How much did your t-shirt cost you?"
Tiffany looked at her friends.
They'd stopped laughing.
"Maybe you're right, Jez." Tiffany said, curtly. "James, feel free to come to my party. Girls, let's go."
When the doors swung shut. James howled with laughter. "That was amazing, dude!"
"Ah, it's nothing. Tiff's had a crush on me since we were twelve. So what are you wearing to Tiff's party?"
James stopped laughing.
"Na, man. I can't go. I'm not like them."
"Sure you can! I'll lend you some clothes, you can turn up at seven and it'll all be great!
The two boys went in, as the door hydraulically shut with a low squeak behind them.
Later that night, Jez called round for James with a bag of clothes.
His parents invited him in for dinner and he dropped the bag of clothes on the landing.
Dinner wasn't much. Just four frozen microwaveable dinners that the family had stacked up inside the fridge. David and Amanda bought in bulk from the local wholesaler to save money. It was particularly tight that month, meaning that the electricity, gas and the hot water would periodically shut off and occasionally there was a man at the front door and the family had to pretend they weren't home.
"Thankfully if the meter's dead," David Sherman said. "The light switches will do the job for us!'
He chuckled and chewed a forkful of hot carrots. "Ain't that right, James?"
"Sure is, pa." James replied, a hint of sadness flickering from behind his smile.
By the time the plates had been washed up and Jez was sitting on the rattan three piece suite consisting of two footstools and a sofa that looked as if it had been cut in half by a powertool roughly two decades ago, Jez had already decided that he was going to 'casually forget' the bag of clothes he'd bought over for James.
It wasn't the horrible and dank peeling ceilings or the smell of dry rot from half the walls or even the fact that James and his parents lived in the equivalent of a shed in the sticks next to some of the other students at Acadia. They just seemed so content with what they had, it seemed almost bizarre.
Did they not know they were poor or something? Jez couldn't get his head around it.
Jez and James sat in the small cupboard that functioned as a bedroom, barely squeezing in. James went through the bag, his eyes widening with each piece of clothing he pulled out.
"These are all designer dude, I can't wear these."
"Sure you can!"
"Oh man, you're just the best."
He proudly placed the clothes across his bedspread, grinning stupidly. He only had two other shirts in his entire wardrobe, and only a single pair of trousers.
Jez left, but only got halfway down the drive when James chased after him with the bag containing the rest of the clothes. "You forgot the rest of the clothes, ya dummy!"
Jez just smiled, taking the bag with a nod and continuing down the dirt trail back towards his home.
The stars twinkled in the night sky as he walked, following the path of streetlamps that lit the road home with a lonely yellow glow.
Before he reached the lane back towards his suburban home, he stopped outside of a dimly lit 7/11. He had an idea.
"He's what?"
"Honestly. The whole poor act, his parents are actually billionaires."
Tiffany looked at him, narrowing her eyes underneath the hot midday sun.
"I don't believe you." she replied. "Why on earth would his parents dress him that way if he was the son of two billionaires, Jez? Why would he live in that hovel up on Easton Road?"
Jez thought quickly.
Unable to pull together something, he simply resorted to the most bullshit idea he could think of, convinced that she'd never buy it and that the games were over before they had even begun.
"They're trying to teach him humility."
Tiffany's usually tense and scowling face softened. So did her voice.
"Oh my god. Of course. Like, Gandhi and all that."
"Of course." Jez replied, nodded his head like a wise and elderly sage and trying not to crack up laughing. "Gandhi and all that."
Tiffany giggled and twirled a lock of her hair. Every time she was around Jez, her brain seem to turn to putty.
"He was the guy with glasses from India who had a problem with how much salt there was in Asia, right? Or was that Martin Luther King?"
"I'm confident you know exactly who you're on about." Jez replied, the sides of his lips unmoving despite an internal breakdown. "Oh, and James got you this."
He pulled out a small manilla envelope from his jacket pocket and shook out a small plastic square.
It was a gift card. A gift card, specifically, for one of the fanciest and boutique stores in the midwest. Keeping a straight face, Jez turned over the manilla envelope to show what had been written on the other side.
In a spiralling cursive font were three words.
"One Thousand Dollars"
Tiffany squealed. It was a horrible sound, and I don't wish to tell you just how horrible it sounded, how high it was and what animal it could have been compared to.
Jez winced as Tiffany took the gift card, gushing and continuing her shrill squeal.
He decided to wrap it up. "So I was wondering if you'd hook him up with one of your friends?"
Tiffany looked at Jez, trying not to bite her lip. She always felt like doing that when she looked at him, for some reason. She agreed, coquettishly, and Jez left.
The Barker Household was one of the most well to do in the entire county, and as Jez and James walked up the gravel pathway lit by flood beacons large enough to signal helicopters, James was having second thoughts.
"I don't know, man. I just think that maybe I should go home. This was fun and all but Tiffany only invited me cuz' you pressured her. I think we both know that."
"Can't back out now, James."
James looked back and found that the words of his friends were indeed true. The giant obsidian gate was swinging shut on it's electronic hinges. In the booth next to it, a bored security guard tried to figure out a particularly fiendish Sudoku and chewed at his biro.
Tiffany opened the front door, dressed in a brown one-piece playsuit complete with a giant gold belt easily the width of an infant child. She threw her arms around both boys, pulling them both off of the porch and into the house.
"Oh my gosh, you guys! I'm so glad you came!" she yelled over the thumping bass from the several speakers dotted around the house. "James, oh my gosh, we have so much catching up to do!"
"Sure." he replied. As James was led away, it was finally too much for Jez. He burst out laughing, holding his sides which almost seemed to be splitting in two. One or two of the tanned partygoers looked at him, but he didn't mind. The rest of the people scattered around the house hadn't noticed, for the music was particularly loud.
"My name's Cynthia." said Cynthia. "I've always wanted to say hi to you, but to be honest I've always felt a little shy about it." James smiled and shook her hand. This was nonsense of course, Cynthia had been the one with the dimples and smattering of back zits who laughed any time Tiffany had made fun of him. Her third in command, most likely.
James almost felt slightly insulted that they assumed he hadn't noticed her.
"So what does your dad do, James?"
"Oh, he repairs tyres."
Cynthia gave a very long and hollow laugh that her friends joined in with. She punched his shoulder affectionately and James rocked like freestanding punching bag. "You're such a kidder, James! You're so funny!"
"Okay."
The three of them laughed at that. It had been annoying the first time.
Her two friends suddenly busied themselves in false conversation, their eyes flicking back over to James and Cynthia periodically.
"So James," Cynthia said. "I'd like to go to the garden with you." She twirled a finger through her hair in a way that sometimes look sexy in films but actually looks as if you're just trying to dislodge a small beetle when you attempt it in real life.
"Oh, it's fine. To be honest I've only just got here and it's cold out. I mean, I've just hung my jacket-
"I'll go and get it for you!" Cynthia replied, beaming.
Cynthia and James walked around the acres of parkland that the Barkers owned. James wondered how their cruise was coming along as one of the windows of the upstairs guest bedroom smashed open and a naked teenager wearing a viking helmet fell out and into a mulberry bush that Mrs Barker had spent all year carefully pruning.
He didn't feel that angry at the wealth of Mrs and Mr Barker anymore. It almost seemed like an unfair price to pay for the kids they had to deal with.
"James, we've known each other a long time."
"We've only just starting talking ten minutes ago."
Cynthia nodded, her face solemn. "Yes. But I've always felt something deeper. Haven't you?"
She reached out an arm and stroked it down his chest. "I've always felt close to you, James. And I know you do too."
James considered, not wanting to lead her on. He didn't particularly think he had much in common with her and that whilst she looked very pretty it probably wouldn't amount to much. He realised, midway through considering this, that he was in the middle of snogging her.
Cynthia pulled away, her face bright and shining. "We should get back to the house, Jamesey. Or else people are going to wonder where we've gone."
The two walked on through the cold night air, back to the mansion that was slowly being destroyed by hormonal teenagers.
Two days later, Tiffany was picking out some very nice clothes from a local clothing boutique known as "The Atelier".
She'd received a gift card from some kid at school she'd always considered a bum.
"But it turns out he's a billionaire." she said to Cynthia. "It's funny how people can surprise you, you know? I didn't mean to be judgemental, you know?"
Cynthia nodded, listening to the wise words of her leader. "Yeah, it's something you have to work on."
"Oh my gosh, yes. I'm always learning and, you know, nobody's perfect."
She picked up a pair of odd lacy trousers that looked entirely impractical and added it to her treasure hoard of expensive clothes that she planned on buying.
"By the way, did you see that homeless guy outside?"
"Oh my gosh, yes."
"Isn't it sad that it still happens and that he has to be here, near this shop and near people like us? The government should just get all the homeless people and put them somewhere else where we don't have to see them."
Cynthia agreed that that was a great idea, before mentioning stoically that it wasn't their fault that they depressed everyone else and that they couldn't help being homeless.
Tiffany said that Cynthia was right and recommended that she join the debate team at school but only if it didn't clash with her cheerleading.
Tiffany tried to pay for the one thousand dollars worth of clothes, but the gift card was rejected.
There was only one cent on it.