Lessons in Love (Flirt) (5 page)

“Real men wear makeup,” Gabi informed me.

At that moment Ms. Blumenkranz clapped her hands. The art teacher was almost as old as my great-aunt Ellen, though much taller and slimmer. She always wore long, flowy dresses and tons of chunky jewelry, and her close-cropped hair was dyed a vibrant shade of green.

“Pipe down, young
artistes
,” she said, putting a fancy French flourish on the last word. “It’s time to discuss today’s creation. I’d like you to explore the ways we can use the simplest of materials to create something deeply meaningful on a personal level.” She walked over to a box sitting on her desk and pulled something out. “This is a box of toothpicks.”

“Oh, lordy,” Gwen said under her breath.

Ms. Blumenkranz didn’t hear her. “I want you each to create a self-portrait,” she went on. “It can take any form you like—the more creative the better. The only rule is that you can use nothing but toothpicks, glue, and paint.” She dug out more boxes of toothpicks. “Let’s begin!”

A few kids gave playful whoops. Gabi stuck her fingers in her mouth and let out a loud wolf whistle. Ms. Blumenkranz just chuckled and started passing out toothpick boxes.

“Okay, this is a new one for me,” Logan whispered, leaning so close I could feel his breath on my cheek. “Is she serious? I’ve never made toothpick art before. At least not since kindergarten.”

“Y-yeah.” I was embarrassed to note that my voice trembled at having him so close. Luckily, he sat back as Ms. Blumenkranz approached our table.

“Ah, you must be the new boy. Mr. Morse, isn’t it?” She beamed at Logan. “Welcome, welcome! I hope you’re embracing your new reality here at our fair school.”

“Sure, yeah.” Logan sounded confused but polite. “Bailey has been helping me settle in, so that helps.”

I had? That was news to me. As far as I knew, all I’d done was walk him to this class. Oh, and make a complete idiot out of myself in front of him. Multiple times.

“Wonderful.” The teacher patted me on the shoulder. I tried not to wince as her enormous rings slammed into me. “Carry on! I look forward to seeing your creation, Mr. Morse—it will help me get to know you better.” She raised a finger and winked. “And perhaps it will help you get to know yourself better too.”

She dropped several boxes of toothpicks on our table, then moved on. “She’s . . . interesting,” Logan murmured.

“Yeah.” I busied myself with carefully opening the lid of my toothpick box, then picking a few of the tiny sticks of wood out and setting them neatly in front of me. Maybe that would distract me from the memory of his breath on my face. . . .

Across the way, Gabi had already dumped her toothpicks into a messy pile in front of her. “But seriously, Logan,” she said, picking up right where she and Gwen had left off before. “Can you sing at all? We’re casting
Camelot
next week—sign-up sheet’s on the bulletin board. You’ve got the perfect look for Lancelot.”

Gwen snorted. “Are you kidding? James would slit the throat of anyone who tried to wrestle that part away from him.”

Logan gave an exaggerated shudder and grabbed his own neck. “In that case, no thanks, ladies,” he said. “Besides, I’m practically tone-deaf.”

“Too bad.” Gabi shrugged and turned to Gwen. “Guess we’re stuck with James.”

Gwen held up a toothpick and studied it thoughtfully. “Yeah. Which means we’ll need a really short girl to play Guenevere.”

“I can play short.” Gabi hunched down in her chair. “Although I’m not sure even
I
can act well enough to pretend I’m in love with James. . . .”

With that, they were off and running on their usual theater gossip. Normally I enjoyed listening—it was fun to peek into what was going on outside my little circle of friends. Gabi and Gwen were obviously just as passionate about the theater as I was about science, and I could respect that.

But today, all I could focus on was Logan. He was fiddling with his toothpicks, rolling several between his fingers.

“Any ideas?” I picked up a couple of toothpicks myself and stared at them. “Maybe I could turn these into molecular structure or something. That could be like a self-portrait. Sort of.”

“You’re really into science, huh?” Logan asked.

I shot him a nervous look. “Yeah. How did you know that?” It came out a little more accusatory than I’d intended.

Luckily, he didn’t seem to notice. “Your friend said you want to go to MIT, and you seemed excited when you heard my parents are both scientists.” He smiled. “And you just said you wanted to make a molecular thingy as your self-portrait.”

Oh. Right. At least now I knew he hadn’t been totally blinded by Simone’s beauty while I was talking yesterday.

“Okay, yeah, I admit it, that’s me—total science geek,” I said, trying to turn the whole thing into a joke. That was usually how I handled the topic when it came up with people I didn’t know very well. “My parents say they have no idea where it came from. Apparently, my dad barely passed chemistry when he was in high school, and Mom only ever paid attention to learning enough science to mix dough properly.”

Logan laughed. “Pass me the glue?”

“Sure.” I grabbed a bottle of Elmer’s out of the supply box. As he took it, his fingers brushed mine, but I tried not to notice that. Even though my whole hand started to tingle.

Or maybe that was all in my mind. I couldn’t think of a single physiological reason that a light touch between two people with no obvious skin maladies would cause that sort of reaction.

“Anyway,” I said a little too loudly, “tell me about
your
parents. You said they met at MIT?”

“Yeah. Apparently, Mom was doing some kind of experiment for her organic chemistry lab, and Dad bumbled past and broke her test tube or something. After he apologized, he offered to help her rerun the lab—then he took her out to some lecture on superconductors. And the rest was history.” He grinned. “Just your typical whirlwind romance, right?”

I stared into space, picturing it. A quiet laboratory late at night. An accomplished young coed encountering a devastatingly intelligent and adorable young nerd-hunk. Wasn’t that almost exactly the kind of romantic moment I’d pictured happening to me someday? The way I might meet my future Dr. Right—a guy more likely to suggest a date to a science lecture than a basketball game? It sounded perfect—well, minus the broken test tube, anyway.

Suddenly realizing that Logan was still looking at me, I snapped back to reality. How long had I spaced out for? I felt a hot blush creeping up over my cheeks.

“Um, sure, romantic,” I muttered, ducking my head and focusing intently on my toothpicks. I was hardly aware of what I was doing as I rapidly started squirting glue here and there, sticking things together without a plan.

He stayed silent for a moment. Across the table I could hear Gwen and Gabi arguing over whether the movie version of
Camelot
was better or worse than the miniseries. Finally I peeked over and saw that Logan was focused on his project too. I caught his eyes shooting sideways toward me for a second, but he didn’t turn his head.

Oops. See, this was why I didn’t usually try to get involved in this boy-girl stuff. Up until now, Logan had actually been pretty easy to talk to, almost like a normal nonguy person. Now, just like that, the air between us had gone all awkward. But why? What had I said?

Before I could figure it out, Ms. Blumenkranz swooped down on our table again. “How goes it, young
artistes
?” she asked. “Are you creating magic?”

“Definitely.” Gwen gestured at her project like a used-car salesman. “
Voilà!
Self-portrait in black.”

The teacher peered at Gwen’s creation, a jumble of toothpicks with black paint splashed over it. “Fascinating,” she said. “Very dark, almost seething with meaning. I can see your spirit in it, Gwen. Good work.”

“Mine’s not ready yet.” Gabi covered up her own pile of toothpicks. “Look at the others first, okay?”

“Of course. Mr. Morse? Have you prepared a suitable introduction for us into your innermost thoughts and feelings?” The teacher smiled at him.

“I guess so.” Logan pushed his toothpick art forward. “Here it is.”

“Oh, my!” The teacher sounded impressed.

As much attention as I’d been paying—and trying
not
to pay—to Logan himself, I’d barely glanced at his project. Now I saw that he’d somehow fashioned his toothpicks into the shape of a running figure. It sprang out of a simple square toothpick base, balanced on one foot, the other leg reaching forward and both arms pumping.

“Wow, cool.” Gwen stood and leaned across the table for a better look. “That actually looks like you!” She shrugged. “Or, you know, at least like a person.”

“I call it
Constant Motion
.” Logan carefully adjusted the figure’s left arm. “That’s kind of how my life has always been. You know—because my family moves around a lot.”

“Fabulous!” Ms. Blumenkranz clapped her hands, making her bracelets jingle. “I’m so happy to discover that we have yet another creative genius in our midst! Well done, young man.” She turned to me with a smile. “Now, Miss Myers—what do you have for us today?”

I gulped, glancing down at my project. I’d been so distracted by Logan that instead of making a molecule, I’d glued my toothpicks together into a cube. That’s right. A plain, slightly rickety cube. Super creative, right?

“Hmm.” The teacher stroked her chin. “Interesting. Please explain your process, my dear?”

“Uh . . .” I shot a helpless look at Gabi and Gwen. They stared back at me, looking curious (Gabi) and amused (Gwen).

Logan interrupted. “I think I can guess what she was thinking. Bailey created this square—”

“Cube,” I corrected before I could stop myself.

“This
cube
. . .” He glanced at me, then back at the teacher. “Um, clearly this cube represents the way she sees the world. She’s a scientist, you know, and science is all about explaining the world, right? Getting it all to make sense and be logical and stuff. Exploring all the angles.” He shrugged. “Angles—like the angles in this cube! Get it?”

“Ah!” Ms. Blumenkranz laughed. “I should have seen it myself. It’s creative, yet completely rational—much like Bailey herself. All right, Miss Myers, well done.”

Once the teacher had moved on and Gabi and Gwen had returned to arguing about their casting decisions or whatever, I shot Logan a grateful look. “Thanks,” I told him. “I’m not sure I could’ve talked my way out of that one.”

“You’re welcome.” He grinned, watching as Ms. Blumenkranz exclaimed over a project at another table. “Is she always that—um, you know—enthusiastic?”

“Definitely. So, are you sorry you signed up for art as your elective?” I joked.

“No way—this is cool. At my school in Switzerland, all we did all year in art class was paint the same bowl of fruit. And in California, the teacher was a total bore—he just lectured at us most of the time and hardly let us do anything.”

“Wow, you must really like art. It sounds like you’ve taken it at, like, every school on the planet.”

“Just about.” He fiddled with his toothpick figure’s arms. “Art’s just about the only class where I never find out I’m way behind when I start a new school. That’s the reason I started signing up for it whenever possible—and I guess somewhere along the way I started to like it.”

“I never thought of that,” I admitted. “It would be terrible to start a new school and find out I’m half a year behind in biology or something.”

“Speaking of biology, what’s the teacher like?” He glanced at me. “Mr. Bo or something, right?”

“Mr. Ba,” I corrected. “I guess that’s a pretty common last name in Senegal, which is where his family emigrated from when he was a kid. He’s amazing—super brilliant and a really great teacher. He’s working his way through his PhD in evolutionary biology at the university while teaching here full-time.”

“Sounds like someone my mom would love.” Logan smiled. “Speaking of Mom, she talked me into signing up for the accelerated sophomore bio class, and—”

“You mean fourth period?” I interrupted. “That’s the class I’m in!”

Too late, I realized I sounded kind of giddy. Like Taylor whenever she found out her favorite jeans were on sale at the mall. Or Ling whenever she walked into Eats and discovered my great-aunt had just taken a pan of chocolate donuts out of the oven. Or, more recently, Simone when she’d noticed me noticing Logan that first time.

“Really? Awesome!” Logan grinned. “What do you have third period?”

“Gym,” I said, trying really hard not to picture him in gym shorts.

“Let me see . . .” Logan pulled out his schedule and consulted it. “No luck, I’ve got English. What about fifth?”

We went on to compare the rest of our schedules. It turned out that aside from art and bio, the only other class we had in common was a three-days-per-week last-period study hall. I couldn’t help feeling disappointed.

“Too bad,” Logan said as he tucked his schedule away again. Was it my imagination, or did he actually sound disappointed too? “Maybe I should try to transfer into a few more of your classes.” He slid his eyes toward me. “Like I said, it’s nice having a friendly face around sometimes.”

He reached over to grab the glue, knocking over the bottle in the process. It toppled right onto my toothpick cube, smashing it into a pile of tiny kindling.

“Oh, no! I’m sorry.” His face went red, and he reached over as if he was going to try to fix the cube, though it was obviously a lost cause.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said quickly. “Ms. Blumenkranz already judged it, remember? Besides, if she comes back, I can just tell her that this represents my feelings about the shallowness of modern life.”

He laughed, sounding relieved. “Good one.”

As he bent to retrieve part of my smashed project that had fallen on the floor, Gabi leaned across the table. “Really hitting it off with the new guy, huh?” she whispered. “Listen, if you get a chance, bat your eyelashes at him and try to convince him to try out for the musical, okay?”

I was so startled that I didn’t answer. A moment later Logan was back. “Got it,” he said. “Now your angst sculpture is complete.”