Overcoming Fear (Growing Pains #2)(15)

Kate turned to Ray. “It was the first project, where we met Krista—“

“We already knew each other,” Krista interjected.

Kate looked at her for a beat, waited for her to close her trap, and looked back at Ray. “As I was saying, it was the first project where we properly met Krista. We all knew she was a goodie-goodie who knew all the answers, but we had never come face-to-face with her overachieving complex.”

“Serious complex,” Jasmine helped.

“Not serious complex,” Krista defended.

“Serious,” Kate said gravely to Ray.

“I’ve worked with her. I agree,” Ray said, just as soberly.

“Oh good, let’s all turn on Krista just because she wants to do a good job.” Krista threw her hands up in the air.

“Anyway,” Kate said, “we got put into groups, all met up and discussed what needed to be done. Everything was fine—“

“What’d I miss?” Sean was walking up to the table with his liquid grace and confident bearing.

“Kate and Jasmine were just explaining their hardest project,” Ray said amicably. “Apparently, it was the first time they worked with Krista.”

Sean shined his brilliant green eyes on Krista. With a smile, he sat down next to her, making Jasmine scoot down the bench to give his big body room.

“Not true,” Krista said in a pout.

“Anyway,” Kate continued, “we met, outlined the parts each would do, and left the first meeting with names and numbers of everyone else in the group. The group leader was yours truly—“

“Only because you were the loudest,” Jasmine said dryly.

“—and I was assigned to make sure everyone did their parts, everything looked good, then we’d all turn it in. Well, the second meeting, when we checked progress and compared what we had, all hell broke loose.”

“Hell!” Jasmine exclaimed, leaning forward.

“Not hell!” Krista said, laughing.

“Hell,” Kate affirmed. “Everyone showed what they had, which was a couple pages of outline. Except for one…”

Everyone looked at Krista, who turned red.

“We’d had a week!” Krista said in defiance.

“We had a week, yes,” Jasmine nodded. “At the end of the term!”

“Right,” Krista put her arms on the table in anticipation for a fight. “The project was in place of finals. It was a week of studying.”

“Ray,” Jasmine said, breaking it down. “I don’t know if you remember college. And you are probably thinking we are seriously inexperienced because we are citing a college example. But imagine, if you will, a math major, with a fine point put on Statistics. Imagine the end of the term, when four math-based classes are ending, and finals are right around the corner. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you the pressure a student is under.

“Now, here you have a project instead of a final. A project, Ray. Sure, it’s time-consuming, but you have the internet at your disposal. If you are an idiot, you just have to put more effort into finding the material and putting it together. Kate and I—and all but one of the aforementioned team—weren’t idiots. We had three weeks, and no final. Happy days.

“Well, after that first week we had a good start. We had other projects, other finals, a million things going on—we were ecstatic with our group of smart people. The professor put the highest grade earners together. It would have been paradise…”

“Except we got stuck with the highest grade earner,” Kate chimed in.

Everyone looked at Krista again.

“I am about to go sit with Mable,” Krista said as she slumped against the table.

“I don’t advise it,” Sean muttered. Ray nodded.

“Well, at that second meeting,” Kate took over, “we all gave our materials, which for the most part, was a concise outline.”

“For the most part,” Jasmine accentuated.

“Yes, one of us…” Kate looked at Krista, “had the whole damn project done. It was in a binder, on nice paper, and even had a table of contents.”

“Ah yes, the itemized table of contents,” Ray said, nodding. “Her specialty.”

“How else would you find what you’re looking for?” Krista asked reasonably.

“That second meeting was a debate. Krista against the whole team. Krista’s argument, largely, was that we were slackers.”

“Well?” Krista said.

“We spent two weeks with her constantly on our asses—“

“Constantly!” Jasmine said.

“—trying to get material barely published. All because the instructor said the only A he would give was for original work. I lost my democratic leadership to a dictator.”

“You were unfit,” Krista said, looking at her nails.

“The professor tried to get our work published. Published!” Jasmine said.

“It was a f**king final!” Kate added disgustedly.

“We did get published, though,” Krista said defensively. “It was an obscure paper, but I still think that’s pretty good for sophomores.”

“You’ve been published?” Sean asked incredulously.

“As a sophomore in college?” Ray added.