“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “So what do you want me to talk about then if I can’t talk about the sexual politics of America’s youth? The weather?”
“Are you going to go to Mia’s party on Saturday? She’s having it out in the big barn on their property. It sounds like she invited the whole grade. Asha said the last time Mia had a party her parents actually hired a guy to do a real fireworks show. We should definitely go.”
He didn’t respond. It sounded like he was rubbing his phone against his sweater. There were all these muffled bumping sounds.
“Mason, what the hell? Are you trying to pretend you’re jacking off or some shit? Quit.”
Nothing.
“Mason, seriously.”
“Mason? Mason, are you there?”
Suddenly, Mrs. Leary’s voice was on the line. “Mason can’t talk now.” Click. Something in his mom’s voice made me not call back.
The next day he wasn’t in school. Lucia told us that her parents had talked to his parents and it turned out that he’d had a seizure. He was fine, just tired and worn out.
It was awful. I couldn’t believe I was so insensitive that I’d accused him of masturbating while he was having a seizure. Had he heard me? Had his mom heard me? I really hoped not. But when I’d called that afternoon because I wanted to, no, more than that, Ineededto see him, his mom just said he couldn’t have visitors that day. Not a good sign.
I must have been dozing through the memory, because now I reenter the world to hear everyone streaming out of the auditorium into the hallway. Rehearsal is over. Not surprisingly, adults in performing arts education aren’t exactly EMTs, because they just let me take a nap after I hit my head. I guess we’re assuming I don’t have a concussion. My mother would throw a fit if she knew. But it appears the only damage done is a little drool on my shirt.
Speaking of my mom, I need to catch my ride. I return to the auditorium, carefully sidestepping that pole like it’s white hot, and grab my jacket. I pull it on and am flipping my hair out of the collar when my fingers brush against a pair of hands coming to rest on my shoulders.
“How’s our patient?” Richard says in my ear.
Wow. Unbelievably, he seems unfazed by my humiliation in the doorway. I try to summon whatever mysterious allure I have left after becoming a human hammer and then taking a nap with my mouth open.
“I might need some tending to,” I say. “Maybe even a sponge bath.” Yikes. I have a bad habit of going overboard when the flirting has a time clock like this.
He turns me toward him and holds me at arm’s length, lips pursed, assessing me. “Yes, you’re definitely dirty.” Then he grins, and my breath catches.
Amanda appears, looking windblown from outside. “R-dubya, you want a ride or not?” She spins her key chain on the end of her finger.
“Yes, please, Miss Mandy.” He salutes and starts jogging in her direction.
She has a car now? And she’s driving him home? And they have nicknames for each other? This is entirely too much information to discover at once. I think for the millionth time how my sixteenth birthday can’t come fast enough and how the second I have my license I’m going to get a key chain that I can start spinning on the end of my finger.
But no matter how hard I want it, all my car dreams are still weeks away and I’ve got to do something about this situation right now. I’ve got to log some hours with Richard, solidify our relationship before it’s too late and he has kids and a dog and a picket fence with—barf—Mandy.
“Richard?” I blurt. “Want to come by my house Thursday? Help me with the blocking I missed tonight?”
He stops on a dime, turns, and bows. “It would be my pleasure.” And they’re gone.
I can’t believe it. The moment I have been daydreaming about to the detriment of my class participation grades is actually going to happen. An opportunity to be completely alone with Richard. For, like,hours. We’ll move past the flimsy flirty stuff and talk for real, and we’ll find out how overlapping our hopes and dreams are, how we understand each other on a level of the soul. And then I’ll fall into his arms, and it won’t be forced at all, it will be totally natural because it’s meant to be.God, deep breaths. Don’t get ahead of yourself, Hattie. What are the chances this giant bump on my head will be gone by Thursday?
I plop my tray onto the lunch table in my usual spot between Asha and Lucia. Asha eyes my lunch choices and I know what’s coming next. I smack her hand away before it can get to my plate.
“Hey!” She rubs her hand and pouts. “But you have an extra!” she says, pointing to a glistening pair of garlic breadsticks.
“Correction,” I say. “I have two breadsticks. No extra. These are both essential to my well-being.” I take one in each hand and start alternating bites to rub it in. Ever since Ruth the lunch lady’s son took my dad’s course at community college, she’s been giving me little bonuses at lunch. One of the few perks of living in a small town where everyone knows everyone.
“Look, I was attempting to save you from an inevitable carb coma, but you do you, my double-fisting friend.” She flips her hair. “And as the natural-born lady that I am, I won’t even comment on the phallic spectacle that is happening right now.”
“Mmmmmm, phallus,” I say. I caress a breadstick.
“You are disgusting,” Asha says, delighted. Then she knits her brow as she looks at me more closely. “Disgustingandinjured. Hatts, what the hell happened to your head?”
I touch my forehead where the still-prominent bump is. “Ugh, it is a story simultaneously embarrassing and boring,and I will give you the rest of this breadstick if you don’t make me tell it.”
