Rouge (11 page)

No way,
she thought, her heart pounding and her
hands burning hotter than hell.
Not again.

With her mind still reeling, Hunter
milled through her morning classes as though reality had become a waking dream.
She minded her own business and tried not to listen to everyone talk eagerly
about the fire in the corridor. A couple of the guys she usually hung with
approached her during classes, but her attention was miles away. So far, in
fact, that she entered the physics lab for her third lesson and walked straight
into a small woman holding an armful of papers and a glass of water. Both went
crashing to the floor, as did the teacher she’d bumped into.

“Oh I’m so sorry!” Hunter
bent to help gather the soppy papers. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

The woman looked young,
winged glasses hanging from her neck on glittering string, her gray skirt
splashed with water and a small cut on her leg from the glass. Her brown curls
were dripping and stuck to her thin cheeks. She tried smiling at Hunter, who
suddenly realized she’d never seen this teacher before.

“It’s fine,” she said.
“Those papers were just our entire lesson, so I guess we’re screwed.”

Hunter smiled apologetically.

“Could you find me a broom?”

Hunter crept over the glass
to the storage cupboard as students came filing into the classroom. They
grimaced at the broken glass, but otherwise ignored it. Hunter cursed them all
for being so inconsiderate.

In a matter of minutes,
Hunter was sitting at a desk alone.

The teacher introduced
herself as Miss Jennifer Smart, a substitute for Mr. Brown who taught the
seniors. She explained - whilst straining to keep a serious expression - that
Mr. Brown had a bad case of Chlamydia and wouldn’t be returning for the rest of
the year. A bunch of the class snickered behind their hands, whispering, and
Miss Smart turned to the whiteboard to begin the lesson, or to hide her own
smiles.

Hunter immediately liked
Miss Smart. Unlike most of their teachers – Mr. Brown in particular - she
seemed realistic, and a lot closer to their generation than the old crotch who
last taught them. Hunter loved physics, but Mr. Brown didn’t do it justice.

What Hunter liked most about
Miss Smart was her passion. Because she looked young, inexperienced and maybe
even too pretty to be a science teacher, people immediately made the impression
that she couldn’t handle such a diverse and complicated topic. Hunter was often
given that impression as well, but her background of scientific heritage was to
thank for her good grades and ability to impress most of the teachers. To Miss
Smart, she could easily relate.

By the end of the double
lesson, Hunter could honestly say she was sad to leave class.

Lunch couldn’t have been
drearier. Hunter sat alone, as usual, searching the cafeteria for Eli to
distract herself from the stares. She used to wonder why people
still
talked
about her, and a few months ago she discovered why: It seemed that whenever
some jock or straight-A student with a clean record was caught with their pants
down, Hunter’s name automatically replaced theirs. She now had the reputation
of a common whore. It still made her blood boil, but eventually she stopped
caring. It was only high school.
These immature idiots will get the shock of
their lives out in the real world when they will finally have to start taking
responsibility for their own mistakes.

Eli was nowhere to be seen
in the cafeteria, and her mind travelled back to the fire that morning. She
decided she didn’t want to tell Joshua, fearing his hermit tendencies would
increase until he became permanently absent and she ended up completely alone.
With the way he reacted to the last explosion, she really needed to keep her
cool around him.

That was when it occurred to
Hunter: On both occasions, she’d been mad. Not just mad, but livid. Had she
caused it?
No, that’s impossible,
she told herself while she chewed on
her salad leaves.
Both of those fires couldn’t have been me, I wasn’t even
touching
the stove or Benny’s bag. How can I set things on fire without even a match in
sight?

But no matter how many times
she repeated that thought in her mind, trying to force herself to believe it,
she was constantly reminded of the warm, enthralling feeling that erupted like
a volcano inside her just before each fire. She found her mind straying
to
possibility after possibility until, when the final bell
rung, she hardly noticed who was standing at her locker with a small smile on
his face.

“Hey Hunter,” said Eli,
moving aside so she could put away her books.

She looked up at him and
stared, the mental picture of Benny shoving him into the lockers back in her
muddled mind.

“Oh. Eli. Hi.”

“Are you okay?” he asked,
peering at her. “I didn’t see you at lunch today.”

“You were in the cafeteria?
I didn’t see you either.”

“Well.” He stopped and
fiddled with the hem of his jacket. “I took one look at Benny and Link and
those guys and sort of... moved outside...”

She couldn’t help but laugh
at the way he trailed off in embarrassment. He looked up through his glazing
spectacles and seemed to want to explain something.

“Why’d they call you
Mozart?” she asked as they moved through the corridor towards the front
grounds.

“It’s a nickname I’ve had
for a while,” he shrugged. “I kind of play the violin.”

Hunter’s eyebrows raised.
“Really? That’s impressive, and hardly something to be teased about. Not many
people play the violin.”

“Thanks,” he replied.

“You’re welcome,” she
grinned.

They waited by the side of
the road in the bitter air in silence. Hunter glanced up and saw Eli looking
down at her. Something warm stirred inside her chest. She’d had crushes before,
but being the girl who usually had guys either following along behind her or
running from her hurriedly, Hunter had never been in love. She was beginning to
like Eli, and something about that scared her.

A horn beeped close by, and
the two of them jumped. Joshua’s car parked aside the curb and Eli became
suddenly uncomfortable. Hunter turned back to him and picked up his hand.

“Here’s my number.” She
scribbled on his palm in blue pen. “Call me later, okay?”

“Uh – yeah,” he stammered.
“I will.”

Hunter squeezed his hand and
ran to the car. As she slid into the comfortable leather seats beside a stoic
Joshua, she watched Eli disappear behind her again, just as he had the other
night. Only this time, she knew she’d see him again soon.

“How was school?” asked
Joshua and Hunter turned to him, her eyes wide.

“You’re talking to me now?”

Joshua’s jaw was set hard as
he stepped on the accelerator, but she could see guilt in his eyes as clearly
as if it were flashing in neon lights.

“Listen Hunter,” he began
quickly, “I’m sorry about the way I’ve been acting. There’s no excuse for it.”

“Are you kidding me?” Hunter
shouted, making Joshua flinch. “You’ve been ignoring me for the past week with
no excuse whatsoever and suddenly you’re
sorry?
Do you really think you
can apologize and everything is okay again?”

“I don’t know what to say,”
he replied softly. “I was just... preoccupied. You know how I get.”

“You’ve never been
that
preoccupied.
Honestly Joshua, I don’t get you sometimes.”

He nodded. “That’s
understandable. Scientists are weird blokes.”

“No
shit.
”

Presuming all was forgiven,
Joshua perked up in his seat. “Will you come grocery shopping with me?”

She sighed, determined to
remain mad with him. “I have homework.”

“Well too bad, I’m on my
way.”

Hunter scoffed and changed
the radio station. “Fine, but we’re going to Chelsea.”

Joshua exhaled loudly in
frustration. Hunter smiled, knowing how much he hated the busyness of the
markets.

“Alright.” He eyed her as
she turned up the heat. “But we’re getting
slushies
.”

Hunter refused to answer.

“So. Joshua.” Hunter picked up a bag of
Twinkies from the shelf and threw them in the trolley. “Where
have
you
been this past week?”

He tried to move ahead of
her. “I don’t have the energy for this Hunter.”

“What do you mean? It’s a
simple question. Are you studying something?” She peered at him with one
eyebrow raised. “Are you sleeping with someone?”

Joshua’s whole face
reddened. “
Wh
- Hunter! No I am not
sleeping
with
someone! Would you just-”

“It’s okay if you are,” she
lied. “I mean, it’s probably good for you. I can’t even remember the last time
you went on an actual date.”

“Speak for yourself,” he
grumbled.

“Hey, I’m not the
forty-year-old virgin here.”

Joshua’s whole body became
stiff as he threw a can of beans in the trolley. “I’m still thirty.”

“Joshua, you’re
forty-three.”

“Give me a break,” he
grumbled.

“I just want to know what
happened last week, with the stove. I have a feeling you do.”

Joshua turned around and
looked at her with his crystal-clear eyes. A thousand different emotions
flickered in the endless blue. Now was one of those times when Hunter wished
she had superpowers and could read his thoughts. He was hiding something, and
it was killing him to keep it from her.

For the smallest second,
Hunter actually believed he would tell her the truth. His lip twitched and his
eyes almost burst with excitement. But then the same lie he’d told her exactly
a week ago after the fire fell out of his mouth and Hunter found herself
thinking, with a mountain of disappointment, that the truth just wasn’t
something Joshua conformed to.

“I have no idea what
happened.” He picked up two different brands of pasta and examined them
closely. “What will we have for dinner?”

“I still have some sweet and
sour pork from work. It just needs heating up.”

“No thank you, I feel like
something
other
than Asian food tonight. What about a lasagna?”

“Okay. Go grab a frozen one
since our stove is still dead. I’ll get some munchies.”

Hunter and Joshua split
ways, and after gathering an armful of chocolate and candy, she zigzagged back
through the aisles. She found Joshua standing in the seasonal section with the
‘after Christmas’ sales. A whole shelf of decorations were left on special. As
Hunter came closer and threw her food in the trolley, Joshua turned to her,
holding a small snow globe in his hand and grinning.

One other thing Joshua liked
very much – that never ceased to surprise her – was snow globes. There were
thirty of them in their apartment. They were the only Christmas decorations he
would allow, aside from her stocking that hung in front of the fire.

“Joshua, what are you doing?”
Her eyebrows were raised as she slowly approached him.

His eyes widened, alight
like a child, as he shook the globe and watched the fake snowflakes dance
inside it.

“I don’t have this one in my
collection,” he said in an almost robotic tone. “I have to have it. It has the
North Pole sign in it.”

“You have like a billion of
them.” She began pushing the trolley towards the counter, turning around to see
if he had followed.

He hadn’t. “
Urgh
, Joshua!”

Abandoning the trolley, she
raced back to the out-of-season isle where Joshua had started pulling out all
the snow globes, shaking them all, making sure each one was glittering with
falling snow. She knew that everyone in the store was staring at him as though
he were mental. Hunter saw it as OCD. He sometimes did it at home, particularly
when work stressed him out.

“Come
on,
” she urged
and placed the snow globe on the conveyor belt where she began piling things
behind it. The checkout chick with frizzy red hair chewed her gum and gave
Joshua a look that said he shouldn’t be allowed out in public. Hunter wanted to
slap her, but then she looked at Joshua and wondered if maybe she should slap
him
instead
.

She snatched Joshua’s wallet
from his hand. He continued to stare at the snow globe in his hand as the last
flakes floated to the bottom. Then he shook it again
.

Note to self: never go
food shopping with Joshua. Ever again.

That night, after Joshua baked the
frozen lasagna and Hunter spent almost two hours typing up an essay due Friday,
one of Joshua’s colleagues from the university – who was also a part-time
kitchen hardware installer – arrived to fix the stove and spend some quality
time with Joshua. Hunter laughed loudly when he dropped the six-pack of beers
on the kitchen counter and turned away before Joshua could scowl at her.