Oh, sweet Jesus. She was named after an author and nicknamed after a literary character. Could she be any more perfect? “Why not Boo?” I asked, knowing it would annoy her. For some reason, I liked annoying Scout. Maybe it was because she always blushed when I did.
I was waiting for her undoubtedly snarky reply when I was distracted by the over-powering smell of perfume. A girl folded herself into the seat next to me, her smile a million miles wide. “Hi, you must be new here,” she said. “I’m Ashley.”
Ashley was very pretty in that very normal high school girl way. Her eyes were big and surrounded by long, make-up encased lashes; her flawless skin had a healthy end-of-summer glow; her hair was perfectly dyed and styled to look like something out of a magazine or country music video; and her boobs were... well, noticeable. Very noticeable. Like I could almost see nipple noticeable.
“Well, Ashley, it’s nice to meet you,” I said, trying desperately hard to not stare at the boobs that seemed to be getting closer and closer to me with every breath she took. “I’m Alex Cole.”
I glanced up to share a knowing look with Scout - because despite her not knowing me yet, I knew her well enough to know she would find Ashley’s growing breasts as disturbing as I did - but she had already turned back around. I was disappointed, and a little annoyed with Ashley for letting Scout get away from me, but I tried to be polite as Ashley quizzed me on my past. It was one of the tricks I learned long ago. If you’re sullen and don’t give out many details about your parents or where you went to school last, people become intrigued. And intrigued people get nosey. I couldn’t let people get nosey, so I made every effort to seem like a guy who would tell you anything. When you’re that guy, people take whatever you say as fact and leave the rest alone. I’ve tried to explain this concept to Liam, but he prefers intimidating people to actually talking to them. For the most part, it was a process that worked exceedingly well for him.
For a class about a dead guy obsessed with poetry, the next hour flew by. The teacher was one of those energetic artsy types who spoke in exclamation points and wild hand gestures. Her outfit was so ridiculous it was cool, and she was young and pretty enough to make you forget she was a teacher. If I could have concentrated on her for more than thirty seconds at a time, I probably would’ve found more virtues to name, but my attention was very much elsewhere.
Having Scout sitting in front of me instead of behind me was a fresh new torture. I got to watch her for an entire hour. I matched every memory I had of her with the real girl, surprised to find the dreams hadn’t exaggerated anything. Her hair really was that silvery white color that seemed to glow, and her skin reminded me of a set of white satin sheets my mother had when I was little. She chewed on the inside of her lip like it was gum. Every once in awhile her teeth would freeze, and then she would turn her head just slightly to the right and peek over her shoulder. At me.
Two points to Team Cole.
Less than ten minutes before Shakespeare was over, the phone in my pocket vibrated. Thirty seconds later, it vibrated again. Liam waited an entire minute and a half before texting me a third time.
I’ve attended a grand total of six schools in my high school career, but Lake County High had the most oppressive cell phone policy of all of them. The first time you were caught with one in a classroom it was taken away and given back to your parent or guardian at the end of the week. The second time? The school kept it until the end of the year. I’m sure a lot of kids risked it knowing their folks would buy them a new one. Some kids probably got caught on purpose just so they would have an excuse to get whatever the newest shiny gadget Steve Jobs’s team had wheeled out. I, however, didn’t have parents and couldn’t afford a new phone. If this one got taken away I was screwed, and Liam knew it.
I waited until the teacher began doing a dramatic dance interpretation of a sonnet or something before I pulled my phone out of my pocket. Hiding it between my leg and the chair, I clicked on the text messages.
“What is the situation?”
“Tell me you’re not being stupid.”
“Why aren’t you answering me?”
For a complete know-it-all, Liam could be exceptionally stupid.
“In class,” I sent back, praying the teacher didn’t look my way as I fumbled with the keys.
Liam’s response was almost immediate. “Check in the moment you get out,” came through at almost the same second the bomb alert/dismissal bell sounded. Calling my brother every name that didn’t insult my mother, I grabbed my phone and headed towards the hallway, which was a cell phone safe zone.
“Checking in.”
“And…?”
“And Scout is beautiful, smart, and beautiful. I’m going to make her fall in love with me.”
“Oh good. It’s the Alex Cole Comedy Hour.”
“You’ll be my best man at the wedding, right?”
“Gotta work. Stay. Away. From. The. Hagans.”
Each word got its own period. Guess that was to help with my comprehension since he didn’t think I heard him the first million times.
I tucked my phone in my pocket and followed the horde towards the center of the building where various unappetizing food smells jelled into one giant nauseating stench.
The absolute worst part about the first day at a new school is lunch. You don’t know how the lines work or what foods might cause you to spend the rest of the day getting intimate with the restroom. Sometimes you strike up a conversation with someone in line and therefore have a place to sit, but that’s almost worse than the times you have to find a place of your own. Too many times those line chatterers are the exact kind of person you don’t want to spend the only non-educational thirty minutes of your day with. Luckily, Lake County was the type of school where the students had all known each other since Kindergarten. Social circles were formed and then set in cement sometime around fifth grade, and it was almost impossible to nudge your way into one of the pre-established groups. No one so much as looked my direction as I waited patiently in line for a soybean burger and cold fries, which meant I had to deal with the normal new kid humiliation of standing in the middle of the cafeteria with my tray in hand, searching for a place to sit.
“Oh thank God!” A soft, feminine arm looped around mine. “I was beginning to think there was no hope for this lunch period,” Ashley said. “But now, look! Voila! Worst lunch period has officially become the best lunch period ever.” I didn’t really have anything to say to that, but it was okay. Ashley didn’t need a conversation partner so much as an audience. “Look, there is a booth free over in the corner. Let’s snag it up before one of these squirmy little freshmen try to take it.”