Sophomores and Other Oxymorons (26 page)

Just like that, she'd asked me. Or suggested. Or something. Good enough, for now. Part of me realized I'd just slipped off the hook. But all of me realized I had a date with Lee for the dance.

“Well?” Lee asked.

“Sure. But no cops or babies.”

“What about baby cops?”

“That's fine. I think we can outrun them,” I said.

Zenger Zinger for May 19

Last week's answer:
“I lost my favorite board game,” John Peter said cluelessly.

This week's puzzle:
“They took away the knight's title,” John Peter said
_________
.

B
obby dropped us off at the school. That was my crafty way of avoiding parental involvement.

“You sure you don't need a ride home?” he asked.

“Nope. I've got that covered.” I'd arranged for Wesley to pick us up after the dance.

“This feels a lot different from last year,” Lee said.

“Back then, we were fresh,” I said. “Now, we're smart and stupid.” I looked at the familiar trappings of a school dance. Nothing within the gymnasium had changed. The snack table, the couples and the clusters of single kids, the decorations—it could have been any year at any school in any town in America. But we'd changed.

We danced several fast dances. Lee didn't seem to mind that I was at about the same skill level as Sean. Except that I didn't frequently fall down. They played a slow song. I held out my hands. She held out hers. We stepped toward each other and danced.

“I like this,” I said. Her body felt as if it belonged within my embrace.

“You're supposed to.” Her own embrace tightened. “I like it, too.”

As we danced, I couldn't help thinking about the year I'd wasted. How many slow dances had I missed because I hadn't found the courage to ask her out? How much easier would this school year have been if I hadn't walked through the doors of Zenger High with an overabundance of arrogance?

The dance ended.

“What are you thinking about?” Lee asked as we stepped apart.

“I was pretty much a nonstop bungler this year,” I said.

“True. But you provided a lot of entertainment for the rest of us.”

“Then it was worth it, I guess.” I spotted Jeremy, standing by himself. He was staring across the gym at a group of girls seated on chairs along one wall.

I consulted with Lee as we walked over to Jeremy, then pointed at a girl in a knee-length skirt, whose expression seemed to show she'd accepted the sad truth that spectating would probably be the highlight of her evening.

“Ask her,” I told him. “The one with the ponytail.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. She wants to dance,” Lee said.

“What if she says no?” Jeremy asked.

“Ninjas will leap from the walls, slice you open, and hang you from the ceiling by your intestines, causing unimaginable pain and unbearable regret,” I said. “But it's worth the risk.”

“If you say so.”

Lee and I watched Jeremy cross the gym.

“This is more exciting than football,” she said.

“That's because the risk of injury is greater,” I said.

“He's doing it!” Lee said.

“Score!” I shouted.

“No, Scott,” Lee said. “Don't take the metaphor there.”

“Sorry.”

We danced some more. We talked. We mingled with friends and classmates. We'd become a couple.

“That was definitely a lot more low-key and uneventful than last year,” I said as we headed out to meet Wesley.

“Are you disappointed?” Lee asked.

“Not at all.”

She took my arm. “Low key is nice sometimes.”

“It is,” I said. “But so are surprises.”

“What do you mean?”

“You'll see.”

I smiled as I pictured her reaction when she discovered Wesley's new job.

“You think of all my needs,” she said a moment later, as he pulled up to the curb in an ice-cream truck.

“I try.”

May 22

Good things happened, Sean. I'm not sure I want to recount the magic of the dance here. Maybe I'll write a poem. Or carve a mountaintop.

Memorial Day weekend followed the dance. Once again, I went with my family to Lee's place for a cookout of epic proportions. And portions.

“Lee's changing,” Mr. Fowler said when I walked over to him at his Vulcanlike place of power. He pointed toward the house with a massive two-tined fork.

“I doubt it,” I said.

He almost smiled at the joke.

“How's the toad case going?” I asked him.

“It's over,” he said.

That surprised me. I'd gotten the impression it would drag on for months. I wondered how the trial went. I couldn't read anything from his expression. “Did you win?”

“No.”

“Sorry you lost,” I said.

“I didn't lose,” he said.

Okay, now I was wondering whether I had no understanding whatsoever of our legal system. “What do you mean?”

“The owner got an offer to sell the company to an overseas
competitor in Malaysia that is working on a less ecological but more profitable battery. They bought all the patents so they could bury the technology. The plant's already been closed.”

“What about the employees?” I asked.

“I doubt they'll want to transfer overseas, even if they were offered jobs.”

“So, pretty much the only ones who made out okay are the owner and the toad.”

“That's one way to put it,” he said. “The owner would have preferred not to sell. But the penalty if he lost the case would have ruined him. I made out well, too. Although I would have preferred to win the case.”

“How primal,” Lee said as she walked up next to me. “Men and fire.” She wore her compromise clothing, devoid of dark images, but the sculpin was fastened to the collar of her shirt.

“Hi.” I put my arm around her shoulders. It was a casual move I'd rehearsed in my mind a thousand times. It took a major gut check on my part to actually go through with it, but I wanted to let Mr. Fowler know some things
had
changed
.

“Hi,” Lee said, reciprocating my show of affection with a non-mandatory but highly supportive arm across my back.

I stared at Mr. Fowler. He stared back and hefted the deadly fork. After a moment, he said, “Be careful.” It wasn't exactly a congratulatory expression, but at least he hadn't tossed out any reminders of the threat of destruction.

“I will.”

Lee and I walked across the lawn, toward a bench.

“He likes you,” she said. “Usually he stabs boys who touch me.”

I pushed away the flickers of jealousy her words had evoked, and reminded myself that she was kidding. “How many dozens of stabbings have there been?”

“Dozens? Hardly. At last count, it was hundreds,” she said. “Half the backyard is reserved for shallow graves.”

“All well-deserved,” I said.

I glanced over my shoulder. Mr. Fowler had turned his attention back to the grill. That was good. He'd accepted things. Not that he would stop challenging me and testing me. But Lee deserved a boyfriend who could face those challenges and tests. Later, when we sat down to eat, Mrs. Fowler smiled at me.

Just as the dance felt different, so did the cookout. I hadn't realized how heavily the weight of wanting to ask Lee out had pressed on me all through last summer and the school year. I guess I hadn't been so much a basket case as an
ask-it!
case
.

That evening, after the guests had left, we found ourselves once again on the front steps, just like way back on Labor Day. Well, not exactly like then.

I started telling Lee my regrets about the school year. “I should have worked harder. I should have paid more attention in class. I totally wrecked my English grade. I slacked off all over the place. Even in history, I skated through a lot of the
assignments once I saw Ms. Burke liked anything I wrote. I failed miserably on the newspaper. I blew off stage crew. I didn't run for office. I failed to write a novel, and I failed to write a bad opening. And when I actually carried through with a plan and did something, it was my horribly bad idea for a satire. I screwed up from top to bottom.”

“Scott,” Lee said, putting a hand on my shoulder, “I never thought I'd say this to anyone . . .”

“Yes.” I held my breath and wondered what her words would be.

“You think too much,” Lee said.

“What?”

“You're smart. Very smart. And creative. But not everything needs to be analyzed and thought through. Not everything has to be viewed as a major thread in the plotline of a gigantic novel called
The Life of Scott Hudson
. Sometimes, you just have to act. You have to live in the moment. You just have to
be.
”

As I tried to think up a response, Lee put her hand behind my head, pulled me forward, and kissed me. It was a long kiss. A wonderful kiss. To describe it at any greater length, or in any greater detail, would be to kiss and tell. And that's against my code.

“That was a nice surprise,” I said.

“For both of us,” Lee said. “I think I liked that.”

“We'd better make sure.” It was my turn to initiate a kiss.

Later, lazing in the afterglow of tender moments, I laughed as a thought hit me.

“What?” Lee asked. She stroked my cheek. That, too, felt perfect.

“I just realized something,” I said.

“Go on,” she said.

“It's a good one, but the first part isn't totally accurate. Still, I like the sound of it, though I'm not sure how it would be classified, rhetorically.”

Her hand slid from my cheek to my lips, sealing my mouth. “Shut up and say it,” Lee said. She removed the hand, freeing me to speak.

“The Labor Day cookout was laborious, but the Memorial Day cookout was memorable,” I said.

Lee snuggled closer to me and let out a fake sigh. “Cute and smart,” she said. “What more could a girl want?”

Or a guy.

We kissed again before I headed home.

May 25

The magic grows, Sean. Kissing someone you're crazy about is an amazing feeling. Not that I have anything to compare it to. I really haven't kissed a girl before. Not like this.

Tuesday on the bus, Jeremy said, “Thank you for giving me the courage to ask Gina out.”

“You gave yourself that,” I said. “I just gave you a prod. Did you ask her for her phone number?”

“Nope. I wasn't that brave. It's hard to ask girls for personal stuff.” He shook his head. Then he grinned. “But she asked me for mine.”

I gave him a high five.

Back at school, I guess kids picked up pretty quickly that Lee and I were together in a new way.

“Cute couple,” Edith said at lunch.

“About time,” Kyle said in the locker room.

Ms. Denton gave us an amused smile and suggested we didn't have to sit
quite
that close together in class.

Mrs. Gilroy looked directly at us as she read the class “Unending Love” by Rabindranath Tagore. I was glad she hadn't gone with Poe's “Annabel Lee.”

People at home noticed, too. They were happy for me. And for us.

• • •

May blended into June. Lee and I spent a lot of time together, though I made an effort not to allow too blissful an expression to linger on my face when we were within sight of her dad. And she made it clear that she still needed time to herself. I guess I did, too, though not as much as her. I suppose when you're an only child, you get used to solitude. Either way, I cherished the moments we spent together, even though they seemed to have influenced me to use words like
cherished
far too often.

C
ome over?”

“Sure. But only for the snacks. You aren't very good company.”

As we got off the bus after school, I noticed Kyle staring at Julia. “I can't believe we all hung out together in kindergarten,” I said.

“Remember the time she started crying?” Kyle asked.

It came back to me in fragments.

“Wow, I'd totally forgotten about that.” We'd been at the easels, painting. I was absorbed in whatever I was creating. Then I heard whimpering. The teacher went over to comfort Julia. “I had no idea what was going on when it happened.”

“You always were pretty clueless,” Kyle said.

“I still am.” I'd noticed a puddle on the linoleum at her feet. But it wasn't until a year or two later, thinking back, that I'd realized she'd had an accident.

“Think she remembers?” Kyle asked.

“I'm pretty sure that's the sort of thing you don't forget.”

“This is weird,” Kyle said. “I don't think I want to talk about kindergarten bladder-control problems.”

“Yeah. Let's never mention it again.” I held out my fist. He gave it a bump. We walked the next block in silence.

“She sure is hot now,” Kyle said.

“For sure . . .”

“I don't think she's dating anyone.”

“Not as far as I know.”

Kyle sighed. “What a shame.”

“She and Kelly are still good friends,” I said.

“That could be a problem,” Kyle said. “Maybe I'll just pull a Hudson and settle for stalking her.”

“I never stalked Julia. I worshipped her from afar.”

“Same thing.”

“Nope.”

“Yup.”

“No way.”

“Way.”

By then, we'd gotten to my place, so we let the debate die a natural death, smothered by oatmeal raisin cookies and milk.

• • •

There was an article in the local paper about how the school board was hopelessly deadlocked on any issue involving money. And a lot of other issues, as well. There was going to be a special election this summer, to fill the empty position. Whoever won
the seat would be the tiebreaker. I hoped it would be someone who cared about education, and didn't have an ultra-conservative agenda to push. Maybe more people would vote this time.

June 1

It's the last month of school, Sean. And not even a full month. I'll be pretty busy studying for finals this week, and taking them next week. That's sort of an ominous word. Finals. Especially since tests seem to be endless. Both in school and in life.

At lunch, Richard and Edith were talking about some television program.

“I already had it previously recorded,” Richard said.

Finally. I'd been listening to him for weeks, waiting for my chance.

“Second-year sophomore!” I shouted, punching him hard on the shoulder.

“Ouch! What the heck was that about?”

“
Previously recorded
is redundant,” I said.

“Yeah. So what?”

“When someone says something redundant, you get to hit him on the shoulder and say
second-year sophomore
.”

“When did that become a thing?” he asked.

“About thirty seconds ago.”

Who said only teachers could make arbitrary rules?

Zenger Zinger for June 2

Last week's answer:
“They took away the knight's title,” John Peter said uncertainly.

This week's puzzle:
“I'm puzzled why there are two separate places to moor your boat,” John Peter said
_________
.

Final exams started on Monday, and lasted through mid-August. Actually, they were only three days long, but they sapped the life out of all involved, both test-takers and test-givers. I studied hard. I was in good shape for most of my classes. The only downside was English. Even if I nailed the final, and bumped up my grade for this marking period, the best I could hope for as a grade-point average would be about a seventy-eight. That's a C+. No colleges that were strong in liberal arts would take me seriously when I applied. Whether I wanted to be a reporter, a writer, or a lawyer—an idea I'd started toying with more seriously recently—it would help to get into a good college. I could have lived with a bad final grade in bio, had I not ended up on Ms. Denton's good side, but the English disaster would be hard to recover from, unless I really aced everything during my junior and senior years. And who knew what sort of teacher I'd get next time?

Zenger Zinger for June 9

Last week's answer:
“I'm puzzled why there are two separate places to moor your boat,” John Peter said paradoxically.

This week's puzzle:
“I need an ocean to slake my thirst,” John Peter said
_________
.

June 14

It's the last week of school, Sean. You had a much better year than I did. You're learning to stand on your own. Maybe you can teach me to take baby steps.

The last edition of the paper for the year carried a full-page feature story by Jeremy and me about the budget scam. So I finally had something in the
Zenger Gazette
, even if I shared the credit. Jeremy and I also got a lot of praise for uncovering the crime. Next year, the money budgeted for those clubs that no longer existed could be allocated to things like art and music. Principal Hedges had assured me that the newspaper would be put back in the main budget, so it would never be at the mercy of the voters again. I guess, if I'd only achieved one thing this year, that was a pretty good thing for it to be.

Lee took a copy of my article to the school library and asked Ms. Paige to laminate it for me. From what I've seen, librarians love their laminators, and are overjoyed at any opportunity to use one.

Zenger Zinger for June 16

Last week's answer:
“I need an ocean to slake my thirst,” John Peter said sequentially.

Today's puzzle:
“I have an innate talent for rebuttal,” John Peter said
_________
.

June 16

Tomorrow is the penultimate day of school, Sean. I have nothing special to tell you tonight, but you know I never miss a chance to use that word.

“I've been thinking,” I told Kyle when we were waiting for the bus on Wednesday morning.

“You need to stop doing that,” Kyle said.

“I'll think about it.” I paused to savor the joke, and then I told him, “You should ask Julia out.”

He glanced in the direction she'd be coming from, as if she might overhear us from three blocks away. “Why?”

“Because you're afraid to,” I said.

“I'm not afraid of anything.”

“That's mostly true. You're probably the bravest guy I know, next to Wesley. But
everyone
is a little afraid of asking Julia out. Right?”

“Yeah. Except for you. You weren't a little afraid. You were terrified.”

“Thanks for the reminder,” I said. “But the point is, the fear of asking her out is universal.”

“That's no surprise. She's pretty much out of reach.”

“But if everyone thinks she's out of reach, who's asking her out?”

Kyle digested that for a moment. “Nobody . . .”

“Exactly! So, yeah, it's scary to climb Olympus and present your petition to a goddess, but it's not a crowded climb. There's no competition when you get to the summit.”

“So I should ask her out.”

“You should ask her out.” The suggestion rolled off my tongue, as if this were the simplest thing in the world. I was so much better at giving advice than taking it.

“She's
really
smart.”

“You don't seem to be intimidated around anyone else who might be sort of smart.”

“I said
smart
, not
nerdy.
”

“Either way, give it some thought.”

“Maybe I will.”

“Good. And I'm not a nerd. I'm an enthusiast.”

• • •

Since there wouldn't be another issue of the paper until September, the last meeting of the year was a staff party. Mom had armed me with these killer caramel-fudge cupcakes. Jeremy's folks had supplied a large assortment of tiny fruit pies.

Some of the staff felt it was cruel to make everyone wait until next year for the answer to the final Zenger Zinger.
But I didn't want to print the answer right under the puzzle, especially since I thought it was one of the best I'd come up with. I was pretty sure someone would figure it out and spread the word around. And that word was “counterintuitively.”

Sarah gave us all parting hugs. I noticed that hugs from others feel different when you have a girlfriend. This was just one of many ways my life had changed.

After the festivities broke up, Mr. Franka said, “Congratulations, Scott.”

“What for?” I sifted the possibilities through my mind. Nothing stood out as a clear winner. He'd already given Jeremy and me sufficient praise for the article.

“Your English grade. I checked it out when I was entering the grades for my students. You got a 93.75.”

I'd hoped for something like that. Though, given my experiences this year, I knew better than to make assumptions about grades. “I worked really hard this marking period. And parked my ego a bit more, which seems to be the key to getting along with Mrs. Gilroy.”

“I'm not talking about this marking period.” He pulled up a file on his tablet. “You got a ninety-eight for the fourth marking period. But you averaged 93.75.”

“No way.”

“Way,” he said, grinning, I imagine, at the pleasure of slipping into the typical debate/discourse style of my peers. He held out the tablet. “See for yourself.”

The lines he pointed to displayed my English grade for each marking period, along with my final grade.

“That can't be right,” I said.

“It can't not be right,” he said.

“I have to talk to her.” I headed for the door, then turned back. “Thanks for . . . everything.”

“My pleasure.”

“Do you teach juniors?”

“No. They're too serious.”

“Seriously?”

“Get out of here.”

Mrs. Gilroy wasn't in her room. I'd have to wait until tomorrow to ask her about the grade.