“Too cool to ride the cheese now, huh?”
“Too cool to still call it the cheese,” Tabby replies, smiling, suddenly interested in her book bag hanging over the back of her chair.
I slide into my seat at the lab table right behind her a few minutes before the bell for third period. Science is the only class we have together this year. Not coincidentally, it’s the class I’m earliest to.
“So who was that who picked you up this morning?” I ask, knowing full well who it was.
“Lily Branson’s older brother. Liam. He’s a senior. Do you know Lily?” she asks quickly.
“I think I know who she is. She’s a sophomore, right?” I reply, again knowing full well who Lily Branson is. During eighth-period study hall in the library the first week of school, I paged through last year’s yearbook, and I started making a mental list of the top-five hottest girls by grade level. Lily Branson landed the #1 ranking on my list.
“I guess everyone knows who the Bransons are. Aren’t you on the basketball team with Liam?” Tabby continues before I can note how much older Liam is, that we’ve never played together before this year. “Lily’s my math partner. People say she’s all stuck-up, but she’s actually really nice. I think people just say stuff because she’s pretty, you know?”
“Oh yeah, I know. She seems really nice,” I say, feeling like a complete ass. I’d made that comment—and worse—more than once, about Lily Branson and any number of other attractive girls. Probably every girl on my top-five lists. Because, you know, if a hot girl doesn’t want to mate with you, she’s obviously stuck-up.
“She asked if I’d want a ride to school, and I said sure. Thought I’d mix it up after a decade of riding the bus next to you.” She gives me a wicked smile as she pulls her notebook from her book bag.
In the old days, I would have given her the boogie gun after a zing like that and laughed it off. But now? Well, okay, I still give her the boogie gun—thumb in nostril, forefinger extended, other hand cranking like an old-school-gangster tommy gun—but I can barely breathe, hiding the sting behind my barrage of imaginary boogies.
At the bell, Mrs. Shepler collects her notes from behind her lab table to start class. (Joy!) Tabby turns around one last time and whispers, “Don’t worry, Matt. Her brother’s got football, so you’ll still get to see this lovely face on the bus after school.” She looks forward again.
I swear, there are times when I’m convinced Tabby has some kind of secret connection to my brain, like she’s bugged the lines of my inner monologue. Very disconcerting.
“Okay, welcome back, folks,” Mrs. Shepler says, papers in hand. “We’ve got a busy week ahead of us, so let’s get started.”
It’s Note-Taking Monday, which, despite her claims of busyness, means we copy directly from her PowerPoint slides as she reads through them, lecturing for an extra ten minutes on each slide, so that we never actually finish the notes on Note-Taking Monday. Painful. While Mrs. Shepler digs through piles of papers on her lab desk to find her new PowerPoint clicker, I pull out my notebook and flip it open, glancing at week one’s notes on…note taking. Awesome.
Okay, so to be totally honest, Note-Taking Monday isn’t so bad. Since note taking in the Sheplervian sense really consists of copying word for word directly from a PowerPoint slide, I don’t have to do any actual thinking. I don’t have to pay attention to her lecture to know what’s important to write down. I don’t have to do any of that forced-interaction bullshit teachers use to try to keep us engaged—now turn to your partner and try to summarize the concept we’ve just discussed. I hate that. I have enough awkward conversations on my own, thank you.
So while Mrs. Shepler spends all of Monday—and usually Tuesday—talking through her slides, my mind is free to wander for forty-five minutes. Much of that time I end up staring at Tabby while she writes in her notebook or whispers to the girl next to her at her lab table (Rebecca Gaskins, of all people), noting everything from how Tabby holds her pencil—the same way she used to hold her crayons, hunched over our coloring books as kids, oddly similar to a kung fu grip—to how she taps the eraser on her notebook when she’s not writing, to how she brushes the same strand of red hair behind her ear every few seconds, just to have it fall in front of her face again.
And once, almost every class, usually when my brain has taken a much-needed Tabby break and has moved on to the lunch menu or chauvinistic rankings or working through game scenarios for basketball, Tabby does this thing where she stretches both arms above her head, then leans back over her chair. And every single time, when she gets to the point where her hands are right over my lab table, she pretends like she’s trying to grab my notebook or my pencil. We both know it’s coming, and when she finds I’ve already got my things secured, she tilts her head back and gives me this goofy, upside-down smile.
And my brain is fucked.
Seriously, how can you see a person nearly every day of your life and never think a thing of it, then all of a sudden, one day, it’s different? You see that goofy grin a thousand times and just laugh, but goofy grin number 1,001 nearly stops your heart?
I know. Rein it in, M-Dub.
When the bell rings, we’re only on the third slide of notes (out of eleven). Mrs. Shepler sighs and shakes her head at the clock. “We’ll have to finish these notes tomorrow,” she says, not really to anyone in particular, as we shove our notebooks into our bags and head out the door.
“So you’re still riding the bus home in the afternoons?” I ask Tabby once we’re in the hallway, trying my best to sound casual.
“Aww, Matty, did you miss me this morning?” she replies, bumping into me with her hip—which, at barely five foot, catches me mid-thigh.
“Actually,” I say, “a lot of girls were asking about the empty seat next to me. Prime real estate, it seems.”
Tabby laughs. “And did you tell them that Miss Edna doesn’t let sixth graders sit in the back?”
“Touché.”
“Don’t worry, Matt, I’ll be there this afternoon to help fend off the ravening hordes.”
“Very kind of you, Tabby. Thank you.”
I know Tabby has geometry next—because, I just know these things—and when we turn down the math hallway, I see a group of students clustered outside her room. Lily Branson with some other über-popular sophomores talking to her brother, leaning against a locker. Lily smiles and waves as we approach, the whole group of them turning to smile, including Liam Branson. I can feel Tabby beaming next to me, and I know our ridiculous conversation is over.
Obviously not a single one of them is smiling at me. In fact, while I’m probably the tallest person in the hallway, a head floating above a sea of bodies, it’s like they don’t even notice that I’m there, practically arm in arm with Tabby.
Now, a competent social being would smile right back at all of them—maybe give a little nod to Liam. Stand there and pretend to be part of their conversation for a minute before touching Tabby on the arm and saying, “I gotta get to class, I’ll see you later,” which really says, “Sorry to interrupt, kids. I’d love to stay and chat, but this guy’s got shit to do.” Give Branson another little nod—maybe even give his sister a wink—and head off down the hall.
But I am not a competent social being.
Instead, while they’re having their cool-kid smile-fest with Tabby, I stare straight ahead, down the hallway, and check the watch that I’m not wearing. I’m pretending that I don’t notice them, you see. Even as they start talking to the girl I’m clearly walking with.
Nope, I am fully focused on what awaits me at the end of this hallway (absolutely nothing, maybe a pee stop before English) even as Lily Branson says, “Are you gonna make it to our Halloween party this weekend? Liam promised to wear a costume!”
I can’t focus on Tabby’s response, I’m trying so hard—and apparently succeeding—to remain invisible, but I notice Liam smile sheepishly at Tabby. “I gotta get to class; I’ll see you later,” he says, before heading off in the other direction.
Awesome.