I stared down at the girl for a while, scrutinizing her reaction. Well, scrutinizing whatever reaction there was to scrutinize. At first, she was real still, not much movement, just kind of….shocked, I guess.
Her eyes traveled up to mine, and for a while we had a bit of staring contest, eye-to-eye. My bright green eyes (so similar to my sister’s) were one of those outstanding features that just stood out on my face. I’d gotten a good deal of compliments about them, if I do say so myself, and I carried them proudly. She
seemed to spare a passing glance for my chest, though if she thought anything about it, I wouldn’t have known. In fact, besides the silence, she didn’t really seem unnerved, nor really confident, and I had to assume she was only glorifying her eyes in the presence that was me. She gave me a shy smile, and the corner of my lips upturned.
Then came the words. Her voice was shy and quiet, and I found myself straining to hear her name. I figured I should have anticipated this much. From whatever I remembered of the girl, she’d always been quiet. Not much of a talker, and not one to speak up for herself.
I was still in the process of comprehending her name when she said,
"I could draw you, if you want."It was a prompt, almost premeditated thought, that made her intentions seem illusive and almost out of place.
Nah, I’m just joking. Actually, the offer seemed pretty innocent to me. I’d already had prior knowledge on her artistic ability, and in contrast to her bulged out, almost regretful looking eyes (which implied that she may have been having a few misgivings about asking me), I thought it was a totally cool idea.
Taken aback by her own words, she offered up her name again, as if trying to erase her previous comments from my memory.
“Sam. I’m Sam.”“Oh,” I replied coolly, “Okay. Cool. So, Sam, maybe we could hang out some time and you could do that drawing of me? Usually, I’m down by the beach, but it gets kind of cold there, so if you have another place in mind…?”
I threw her a dazzling smile; one that I could only hope would be persuasive enough to get me a much desired drawing. Maybe, something of me in the water, or around the dolphins that claimed their home by the beach where I lived.
“And, we could hang out together. Like really hang out, not just for the drawing,” I attached to my offer tactically, waiting for her response.
Oh god. Oh god, oh god, oh god.
There he was, in all his glorifying six feet of awkwardly sewn together limbs, and old, saggy, stained skin. The glazed look in his eyes was one of those ‘fear factor’ elements that gave this morbid man his tedious and strict reputation, and students were quick to duck out of his way before he grumbled morose lectures at them about “pants being too low” or “too short”.
He was my Pre-Cal Teacher. And he was heading this way.
I spared a glance at Matthew before realizing:
He didn’t effing care! “I’m going to hide!” I hissed in his ear, to which he briefly nodded concentrating on his conversation with the home schooled artsy girl.
Not that he’d even
remembered that she’d dropped out to be home schooled. That’s right lady killer. You just stand there and wait for a teacher to catch your sorry ass. Not that Matthew would care, but whatever.
Forgetting about my carefree, happy-go-lucky, unicorn brother, I did one of those “think fast” moments, where I practically ripped my sweater off my body, leaving me bare in my printed Victoria Secret bikini, and draped it over the top of my head like an overgrown hood.
I saw one cute guy throw me “the look”, but I didn’t have time to respond to his antics, and so I simply blew him over, acting as though I hadn’t seen him. There would be time to reprimand my brash, pass-up-the-hottie decision later. Right now, my only thoughts were to hide from old, mean, and saggy over there.
Scoping out the area, my eyes landed on the most unorthodox escape route/hiding place ever.
I would make a bee-line for the fountain.
Without a second thought, I put those gymnastic legs of mine to work, shooting out to the fountain, just in time for Mr. Doom-and-Gloom to past me straight.
The thing was, I would have totally celebrated my success at evading my teacher. Only problem was that I was heading straight on for the fountain at an almost uncontrollable speed.
Giving myself a good leap, I ended up splashing in the fountain (still standing upright, might I add; gymnastics is a useful thing), and spraying water all over the shirt of some blonde (ha ha, not that I wasn’t some blonde myself) girl with a cup of Starbucks coffee clutched tightly in her hands.
“Jeez,” I said, blinking slowly, and grazing my eyes over her soaking wet shirt, and now rip-able looking cup of coffee.
Think fast Max. What would someone, and by someone I mean myself, do in this situation. Oh, I know.
Peeling my sweater, which had remarkably remained unscathed by the water (once again, thank you gymnastics), off of the top of my head, I offered it up to her, trying to throw in the innocent looking Bambi type eyes that didn’t match with my scantily clad body, but usually worked with the guys. Maybe she’d have pity on me and for my sake, accept the Bambi eyes and forgive the sloppy mess that I’d caused her.
“Sorry, sorry,” I drawled on, thinking up a million excuses, “Take my sweater. You can keep it. It’s brand new, I think a Hollister? Mom bought it just yesterday? It smells pretty perfume-y. Yeah, I think it’s a Hollister,” I fumbled around with the sweater as I blabbered on, checking the label to confirm the brand. I was pretty sure my mother had only picked it up yesterday, so it hadn’t gotten much wear and tear. In fact, upon closer inspection, there was a hidden tag stuck somewhere in the sleeve, and I quickly tore it off, crumpling it, and doing a basketball shot to the nearest garbage can. Score one for Max. Score zero for park patrol.
“Anyway, you can have it. I don’t really need it.” Who was I kidding? I was going to be walking around almost buck naked through the park. I was probably going to end up in Juvi for illegal exposure of too much skin in a public non-beach place. Oh well. I looked at the girl, waiting for her answer, and firmly holding out the sweater to her.
"That'll be four dollars and thirty cents. If you're willing to wait a minute or two, there will be a freshly baked batch of cookies fresh out of the oven quite soon. Of course, if you're in the rush, there are still some cookies from the last batch."Surprise, surprise. I raised my eyebrows, glancing over what would have been the obvious, old, and probably now stiff, remainders of the previous batch, festering underneath the counter glass. If it had been Melissa (the female cashier working next my present cashier) she would have batted her eyelashes at me and
tried to flirt it up a bit, but not give a damn about whether I wanted them fresh or straight from the display shelf.
I pursed my lips for a moment, wondering what Mish would’ve liked.
Fresh, definitely.
I dug out my wallet, grabbing a five dollar bill, and handing it over, “Don’t bother with change,” I muttered, stuffing the wallet back into my pocket.
Flashing a smile at the guy, and moving aside so he could tend to the next customer, I said, “I think I’ll have to take you up on those freshly baked cookies. Besides, I
think I have time to wait…Oh, by the way, what’s your name?”
I knew very well Melissa’s name. She’d totally flaunted it out for me the first time we’d met till she learned that I had a wife. But, if you’ll notice, I’ve been referring to this guy as the cashier for the most part. And maybe, I felt a teensy bit bad, that, weather the guy noticed it or not, I’d avoided him on my many Starbucks mornings.