Prama

Chapter One 9:47 a.m. 10 hours and 13 minutes until promWhenever an adult asked her what she wanted to be, Molly Walker always answered "forensic pathologist." This was a total lie -- she got ill at the thought of dissecting a frog, much less a person. But it sounded cool and usually made them stop asking annoying questions.Molly's actual interest in forensic pathology was limited to her obsessive devotion to crime-scene television shows. Each one started with some gorgeous hooker or hot millionaire lying facedown in an expensive bathroom. The thing she loved about the shows was that the bodies were always being examined by a brainy member of the coroner's staff who both the hooker and millionaire would have totally ignored if they had all gone to the same school. In these shows, good things happened to smart people and bad things happened to beautiful people.In other words, it was the exact opposite of high school.Molly also loved the women on these shows. They were smart and sexy and didn't take shit from anybody. In her heart of hearts, she wished she could radiate the same kind of cool-girl persona.Just the thought of it made her laugh.She was wrapping up a week that was anything but cool. It started with her boyfriend dumping her, continued with her bombing major tests in both English and trig, and was culminating in a freak heat wave that made it so humid she could literally feel her hair curling as she waited for a traffic light to change. (Typically, curly hair wasn't on the same level as heartbreak and bad grades, but since it was prom day, her hair had heightened importance.)The heat wave had arrived just in time to ruin her prom picture.Now, in some dusty frame on a shelf in the den, she'd have frizzy unkempt hair for the rest of eternity. (If only she wore her old retainer and cat's-eye glasses, she could have completed the ensemble.)She checked the rearview mirror and gasped at the tangled mess on top of her head. It was worse than she thought. It didn't help that the car's air conditioner was broken. Riding around town with the windows down only made it worse.The long-dead air conditioner was just one of many things wrong with Molly's car, an ancient Volvo now on its third generation in the Walker family. It had been neon blue when her grandmother first picked it out at the dealership. Now, nineteen years later, it was the color of an old pair of jeans. Except for the passenger-side door, which was the color of a brand-new pumpkin. (Orange was the only color available at the junkyard after a particularly poor attempt at parallel parking.)The floorboard was held together with duct tape and had a hole in it the size of a quarter. This meant Molly's left shoe got wet whenever it rained. She had no delusions about its life expectancy. As a rule, she never put in more than six dollars of gas at any one time because she didn't want to waste a full tank when it took its inevitable trip to the Volvo graveyard.Despite all of this -- or perhaps because of it -- Mollylovedthe car. Every great memory she had of high school was somehow connected to it. It had carried her and her friends to countless football games, provided privacy for endless talks, and was the scene of more than a few romantic highlights.The car was such an essential part of Molly's life that even the most junior forensic tech on one of her shows could create a complete profile of her just by looking at clues from the vehicle.The trunk housed her collected letters -- in it you could find crumpled up homework, term papers, and even some random love notes dating back to sophomore year. They painted a picture of a girl who made good if not stellar grades and who could pen a righteous love letter, but not always muster up the courage to send it.The glove compartment was filled with mix CDs she'd made during various stages of her musical maturation.Ponti, Jamie is the author of 'Prama', published 2008 under ISBN 9781416961000 and ISBN 1416961003.