I lose track of what Mr. Morrison is teaching because of the girl I share a table with.

English Literature is an elective, but taking it now means I don’t have to take the second semester of English senior year. I’ll be ready to get out of high school by then, I’m sure.  I can feel it. High school pretty much bites, and it’s only September.

We share small tables in Lit instead of individual desks. Mr. Morrison’s classroom is the best-smelling of any I’ve been in, and there’s a rumor he lights specialty fragrance candles when no one’s here even though there is no way open flame is allowed. Today it smells like pine.

His classroom is wallpapered with musical theatre posters like Les Misérables and Phantom of the Opera, and every Spring he takes groups of kids to London. I really don’t care about musicals, but I like Mr. Morrison and it would be cool to go to London to see all the castles. I don’t think my parents can afford to send me, but I plan on asking anyway just in case.

But this girl . . .

She and I say Hi to each other in the morning when we get here, and usually See ya! when class is over. Sometimes one of us will ask the other to borrow a pencil or sheet of paper. But that’s it.

I can tell she’s pretty; meaning, I recognize she is attractive. I can discern—by any conventional standard—most people would agree her body is structured in such a way as to elicit arousal, envy, or some mixture of the two; and that her facial features, her hair, and all her “vital stats” fall within the parameters of modern American beauty.

I’m talking here about a girl who, if she closed her text book, turned to me and said, “Listen, if you’re not busy at lunch, I would totally have sex with you in the library study room,” I would most likely reply, “Well, I mean, sure, okay.”

That is what I am supposed to say in such an unlikely event. And, who knows, maybe she’s got a winning personality, or works in a soup kitchen, or is secretly solving the cure for cancer. I’m not trying to objectify her. I don’t think. Am I? I probably am.

Which is another thing I’m supposed to do if you look at the magazines and Playboy channel when it pops on for second between changing channels.

I should be attracted to her.

I’m not.

Goddammit, I’m just not, and I don’t think I ever will be, and someone’s going to figure it out sooner or later.

Maybe if I put some effort into it? She has long curly hair that’s practically the color of a new penny. I think she’s older than me, too, like maybe a junior or even a senior. Also he’s very . . . developed.

There’s just nothing outstanding about her to me. She’s a paper doll, just one more in a long line of attractive lookalikes I’ve seen at this school.

But . . .

I don’t think that’s why I don’t like her the way I’m supposed to.

So every day, I keep her in the corner of my eye while Mr. Morrison goes on these rambling diatribes about Elizabeth Bennet and Helmholtz Watson and Daisy Buchanan.

I pretend to glance out the window when I’m really looking at her chest. But I do it really quick, so she doesn’t notice. I don’t want to be rude or crude. Sometimes she sits cross-legged on her orange molded plastic chair, and her legs, which always seem very tan, sneak into the folded edges of her Guess jean shorts. So I clandestinely look at her skin there and if she’s really not paying attention, I follow the line of her thigh into the denim and stare—for only a second or two—at the middle spot where the four seams of her shorts join.

And I think: C’mon, come on, man . . .

Nothing happens. No jolt of excitement, no . . . you know. Turn on.

Nothing until today, when she turns to me so quickly that I get startled and almost fall backward out of my chair.

“What?” she whispers as Mr. Morrison sallies forth, as he likes to say, about some Shakespearean character named Antonio.

“What?” I whisper back, while very, very quickly lifting my eyes to hers.

I can smell cinnamon on her breath as she whispers. “What did you say?”

“When?”

“Now.”

“Just now?”

“Yes.”

“I have no idea.”

She frowns. “It sounded like you said ‘come on.’”

I make myself frown right back, like she’s crazy. “Uh, no! No. Why would I say that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want to go out?”

“Mr. Anderson and Ms. Haight!” Mr. Morrison calls. “Perhaps you would like to enlighten us on the subject of metatheatre in Shakespeare’s immortal comedy, Twelfth Night?”

“No thanks,” I say.

“Nah, I’m good,” she says.

“Then zip it,” Mr. Morrison says, with a smile, because he is a pretty nice guy. “Now! Let us sally forth . . .”

We both nod. Mr. Morrison goes back to his lecture.

I write on the corner of one sheet in my notebook: Your name is Hate?

Smirking, she spells beneath my writing in block letters: Haight.

I give her a nod and thumbs up when Mr. Morrison’s back is to us.

She writes: Did you ask me out?

Crap. I did say that, I heard myself say it, I just don’t know why I said it. And she totally heard it.

Now I have to answer.

But she keeps writing before I can: Are you a freshman?

Yes, I write. You?

She writes two letters: J R

Then that’s it, she doesn’t write anything else. I have no idea what to say, but I am pretty sure she didn’t just suddenly forget that I blurted out asking her on a date.

Which . . . why did I even do that? Maybe as a distraction? She did catch me totally checking her out, even though that’s not technically what I was doing, not in any traditional way.

She taps the end of her eraser on the table while Mr. Morrison acts out a scene from Twelfth Night, complete with different voices and postures for each character. He’s terrible, and he knows it, so it’s actually kind of fun. Everybody laughs.

There are four minutes left of class when she suddenly scribbles on the paper. Just two more letters.

O K.

I’m honestly not sure what that means, so I spend the last four minutes squinting at the letters, then at her. This appears to amuse her.

The bell chimes, and everyone jumps up except us.

“Okay, what?” I say over the sound of thirty people slamming notebooks closed, zipping backpacks shut, and shuffling toward the door.

Smirking again, she says, “Tomorrow night. I’ll pick you up. Where do you live?”

It feels like my head slowly twists around like the little girl in The Exorcist.

“. . . What?”

Laughing, she—I am not making this up—pinches my cheek, like a grandma.

“You’re so cute! That’s why I’m doing it. Here. Write down your fucking address, freshman.”

Hands numb, I somehow manage to scrawl it out. She tears the paper from my notebook.

“Seven o’clock tomorrow. Dress nice. See ya!”

“Wait!” I call out as the classroom empties and she’s dashing toward the door. “Um . . .  what’s your name?”

“Jenn! Bye, Tommy!”

Then she’s gone, her laughter trailing behind her, and the next bunch of students wanders inside while I’m still standing here like an idiot at our table.

She knew my name? But I didn’t know hers?

Well, regardless. I guess I’ve got a date.

With a very attractive junior girl, no less.

Who apparently drives. So that’s cool.

. . . I just don’t care.

Is that a problem? Because it feels like a problem.

 

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~ Tom