The Tragedy of Loving Jamie Clarke (13 page)

-18-

              Marlo wasn’t going to fall in love because she knew no one could love her back. She was destined to fight alien-like creatures who sought to destroy the earth and everyone on it, and this meant that anyone she cared about would be at risk.
Besides, who would love a girl that disappears every time they put their brace on?
She was determined to live in solitude but the moment Marlo met Clarke all of her plans changed. 

I had the book planned out in my head. I knew how it would start, where it would climax and how it would end. I knew that Marlo would come face-to-face with The Metals, her enemies, and would come close to death before defeating them. I knew that she would struggle with the powers her brace gave her and even knew that she would lose all of her friends because of it but what I didn’t know is that there would be a Clarke. I thought giving someone like Marlo a love interest wouldn’t be believable because of the way she looked but I also thought having a love interest of my own wasn’t believable either. I keep expecting to wake up and realize that my entire relationship with Jamie has been one long dream.

“April Rose Marks,” my mother calls from downstairs. “Turn that computer off and get your butt to school!”

I have been writing since 5 o’clock a.m. when my muse decided that I no longer needed to sleep. She’s a fickle creature and always pops up at the most inopportune times. Last week she paid me a visit right in the middle of a pop quiz and rather than writing about the Periodic Table I was jotting down notes about Marlo’s subway adventure. Still, when she’s gone I long for the random visits she gives me. I could probably write all day if going to school were optional.

I begrudgingly power off the computer and throw my red hoodie over my head and race downstairs where mom is impatiently waiting for me. 

“You know mom, there is a saying among authors...never disrupt a writer at work or you might be a murder victim in their next novel.”

“I guess I’ll have to take my chances,” mom replies as she shoves me out the door. “Happy Valentine’s Day, April!”

              The Flower Committee is already handing out the first batch of Valentine’s as I make my way through the hallway. Principal Weist, after a lot of begging from Liza, implemented the Valentine’s Flower Committee where students could send roses to their boyfriends, girlfriends, crushes, etc. throughout the day.

Amber and I used to despise Valentine’s Day and rather than partaking in the festivities we would rent slasher movies and do a gory movie marathon. “This day should be banned from life,” Amber had said one year after a fierce breakup with one of her boyfriends. I never had a boyfriend for Valentine’s Day (Charlie and I started dating after it had passed), so I didn’t mind joining Amber’s bitter parade. “Seriously! Hallmark needs to find a new way to make their money,” I replied. Of course, once Amber found a new boyfriend she changed her tune and now it’s my turn.

“Hey Ape,” April says as she skips towards me hugging a bouquet of flowers.

“I see Alex got started early,” I reply flicking a dead pedal off one of the roses. “Did he send those to your house?”

“He dropped them off this morning,” Amber replies, sniffing the flower like she’s trying to inhale its scent.

Alex visits Amber almost every morning before school. He doesn’t seem as concerned with getting to class on time as he is with spending as much time with Amber as he can. I used to envy their relationship but now, secretly, I sort of hope they envy me and Jamie’s.

“Happy Valentine’s Day ladies!” Liza says as she struts over to us holding a stack of cardboard hearts. The Valentines. I wonder how many are in there for me from Jamie. “Don’t tell anyone but I snuck a peek at the cards and would you believe it, there are fifteen for me. Looks like I am going to get a workout carrying all those flowers around.”

Amber rolls her eyes.  Liza said the same thing last year when she “snuck a peek” at the cards to tally up how many were for her, the only difference was that last year she was dating Daniel Leigh. I am sure that next year it will be someone new giving her Valentines bragging rights.

“April, do you want me to see how many are for you? I am sure there is at least one in there from your secret admirer.” Liza air quotes and nods towards Amber.

She has always had it out for Amber, who she sees as competition but she’s always ignored me until Jamie and I got together. Last month when Jamie and I were making out by his locker in- between classes, Liza threw Jeremy against the parallel wall and basically turned his lips into a lollipop and kept looking in our direction to see if we were paying attention. She’s pissed because Jamie is hot and chose me, someone Liza considers to be at the very bottom of the popularity totem pole.

“I am sure you’re getting a ton of Valentines from Jamie,” Amber says to me as if Liza isn’t standing in front of us.” Liza is probably not telling you because she’s embarrassed that you’re getting more flowers than she is.”

“Excuse me?” Liza says as she sashays her hips and crosses her arms.

“Oh, Liza I am sorry I didn’t see you there,” Amber retorts.

Amber laughs wildly throwing her head back and grabs my arm and pulls me away. “Let’s go we’re going to be late for class.”

              The tomato formerly known as Mrs. Honor is not someone I would have pegged as being
this
into Valentine’s Day. I almost don’t recognize the classroom. It looks as though cupid gave birth in here. The chalkboard is covered with red chalk and big lettering that reads, HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY! LET LOVE SHINE! Paper hearts climb the walls and hang from the ceiling.

I slide into my desk and am greeted with a box of candy hearts. I look around the room and realize that all of the desks have them. “When did she have time to do all of this?” I say to Debra Milton who shrugs and takes the seat in front of me. It’s the first and only thing I’ve ever said to her.

When Amber and I went on our “we hate Valentine’s Day” binge the only thing we allowed ourselves to do that was love related was to eat those candy hearts. I always ended up getting the ones that said, “HUG ME!” or “BE MINE!”

I tear open the box and pour a few onto my desk. “I LOVE U!” and “KISS ME!” that’s new. I really don’t know why Amber and I loved these things so much, I might as well be chewing on chalk.

“Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!” Mrs. Honor sings as the last of the stragglers take their seats. Where is Jamie? “I hope everyone gets a Valentine today but if you don’t there’s no need to feel rejected. “She adds. “Yeah tell that to the loser who walks out of school today flowerless,” Emily Duke teases. Everyone chuckles.

Emily will get a few Valentine’s from Steven McCarthy. Last year he sent her nine, one in every class.

Mrs. Honor rolls her eyes and starts scribbling hearts on the chalkboard next to the quote, “It doesn’t matter who you are or what you look like, so long as somebody loves you,” - Roald Dahl,
The Witches.
[1]

Jamie’s face pops into my head. I can’t believe how lucky I am to have him. There’s no one else in the world who would be able to see me for who I am and not just for what I look like.

“Damnit, Jamie where are you?” I whisper to myself.

The Valentines are delivered either in the beginning of the period or near the end, which means I have only a few more minutes until I found out how many, if any, flowers Jamie ordered for me or I have almost an hour.  Is that why he isn’t here? Did he not order anything for me? Everyone knows we’re together but if he doesn’t send me any Valentine’s rumors will start to spread that Jamie finally got tired of dating the “Robo-Alien.”

“Since today is a day dedicated to love I am going to be doing something a little different than the lesson I originally planned “Mrs. Honor says pulling out a box from beneath her desk. “Last night I scoured the Internet in search of a book about romance and I’ve found something you’re really going to enjoy.” Donald Knight, Nicholas Austin and Baron Klein, of the Perkins Harbor High Wrestling team, groan. “Enough of that boys or it’s a five page essay on The Notebook for you!”

The boys quickly shut up as Mrs. Honor begins to pass out copies of
He’s Just Not That into You
paperbacks. Snickers and confused whispers move around the class. “How is that about romance?” Emily Duke asks Meredith Hass, who rolls her finger around a loose strand of hair. “Yo! It’s the book I wrote to all my stalkers in the freshman class!” Jackson Lincoln whispers to his friend and slaps him five.

I stare at Jamie’s empty chair next to me. I thought I’d be on cloud nine today. I thought we’d be walking through the hallways hand-in-hand, with me carrying the bouquet of roses that Jamie got for me. This does not feel like Valentine’s Day.

“Miss Marks,” Mrs. Honor says, placing a copy of the book on my desk. “Did you hear what the assignment was?” Of course, I didn’t. I was too busy zoning out on Jamie’s empty desk to realize that Mrs. Honor had even gotten to my aisle. I shake my head, no. She touches my shoulder comfortingly. “It’s just another day in the month.” I want to say, “Yeah, tell that to my broken heart,” but instead I just smile.

Knock, knock, knock.
“Valentine’s Delivery!” Liza sings as she and two trembling freshmen girls stalk into the room carrying five bouquets of flowers in each hand. All the girls, including me, scoot up in their chairs.

Liza and the nervous girls make their way through the aisles. Handing out flowers.

“Three bouquets for you Emily.” Emily takes her flowers and waves them around while bouncing in her chair. “And Donald here’s two flowers...and even Mary Highland, well I do believe I have one for you too!”  (Mary was voted least-likely to get a boyfriend by Liza and her lackeys.). The girls split up from Liza and make their way down the end and center aisles and Liza struts down mine. She stops in front of me and smiles as she pulls out the last three roses.

“April, these are for…” Liza says, as she holds out the roses. The spinning cycle in my stomach stops and my heart settles down. Jamie came through. I can finally breathe again. “Debra Milton. Where does she sit?”

              I can hear my heart shattering as Liza’s lips start to slide up toward her ears.  I feel like a pathetic reminder of what a loser looks like.

“What’s that?” Emily shouts.

She’s staring at the door, her eyes slanted and her mouth cocked to the side. Liza, still grinning maliciously at me, looks up and her jaw drops. The boys burst into tears of laughter and Mrs. Honor, who has frozen at the chalkboard, blinks rapidly at the door.

“Oh my God!” I blurt out. Cupid is standing in the doorway and he is dressed like Jamie!

“Sorry I’m late but I accidentally shot the wrong person in the butt with one of my arrows and well, let’s just say what they’re about to do is illegal in almost all of the 50 states,” cupid Jamie says as he adjusts the cloth drooping down on his hips, the only thing that he is wearing!

“Mr. Clarke!” Mrs. Honor shouts. “Go home and put some clothes on!”

“Please, call me Cupid,” Jamie says, as he gives me a quick wink. “I am here to deliver these flowers to that beautiful angel sitting in the back.”

Everyone is looking at me but the only person I can see is Jamie. He looks like the baby from the
Roger Rabbit
cartoons and still he’s is the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen. He struts towards me, and plies every few steps. He looks ridiculous but wonderful. My stomach is back on its spin cycle and sweat drips down my back as Jamie reaches my desk.

“Mr. Clarke!” Mrs. Honor shouts as she slams her hand on her desk.

“Jamie, what are you doing?” I whisper to him.

“Giving my girl the Valentine’s Day she deserves,” Jamie replies as he hands me the flowers.

“You could have just sent me a Valentine,” I say, as I blush from ear to ear.

“Yes, I could have but this is so much better, don’t you think?”

“You’re crazy, Jamie Clarke.”

“And you’re beautiful, April Marks,” Jamie replies as he heads towards the classroom door.

“Mr. Clarke! “ Ms. Honor is furious. “Get out of my classroom before I have you suspended from this school!”

As Jamie exits the classroom the boys are roaring with laughter, the girls are as red as their flowers, Liza is speechless and me, I feel like her Royal Highness of Valentine’s Day!

-19-

It’s Easter vacation and despite Principal Weist suspending Jamie for three days for the whole Cupid incident, things have been relatively quiet around here; well except for the fact that Jamie has been planning something special for the six month anniversary of our first date but the bastard won’t tell me what it is. I have tried to pry the plan
out of him
but the boy just won’t budge. “Have patience,” is all he says when I ask for a hint and when I hit him with the, “please I’ll love you forever” gambit it doesn’t work because he already knows I will.

I have no clue what to wear! Do I wear my typical blue jeans, a blouse with some sort of pattern on it and flats? Or is this a heels kind of a place? I look at the heap of clothing that I have thrown into the reject pile on my bed. My parents have agreed to let me leave the brace off for the night. “But the minute you get home that brace goes on,” says mom as she relents. Even brace-free I can’t find anything acceptable to wear.
              “Crud!” I shout as I launch another reject onto the growing pile.

“April, you okay in there?”

“I’m fine mom,”

“April, are you nervous about tonight?” mom asks, poking her head into the room.

“I said I’m fine mom,” I reply impatiently. “Please just go back downstairs.”

But instead she waltzes in like I gave her an invitation to. Why do mothers have to do that? It’s like they have their own way of hearing things and usually it isn’t the way you
actually
said it. My mother is the queen of selective hearing. Last year on the first day of school, even though I have my own car, she asked me if I wanted a ride. “Mom! that is so uncool,” I had explained. However, since my mother has that selective hearing problem she insisted on driving me. “I’ll just drop you off. No one will even know I am there,” she promised. But in true motherly fashion, when we got to school she pulled up in front of the building where everyone saw me getting out of my
Mommy’s
car.  What’s worse is they saw her give me a kiss and a pat on the head as she said, “Good luck on your first day.” So humiliating!

“Are you nervous about tonight?” mom asks as she searches through the rejection pile as if I hadn’t already done that a dozen times.

“No and please come in,” I say flatly as I continue to unload the contents of the middle drawer of my dresser.

“You’ve been with Jamie for six months now, right?” I nod. “Then there’s nothing to worry about because if he hasn’t gone running for the hills by now he’s sticking around, no matter how crappy your clothing selection might be.”

Mom always knows how to provoke me. Like right now a normal mother would talk me down from my irrational conclusion that I have nothing to wear by reassuring me that Jamie loves me for me, not my clothing. But not my mother no, she thinks teasing me and making sarcastic comments is the way to go. I really wish Amber wasn’t away right now visiting her grandmother in Toronto. Her parents have the worst timing ever. Why does she have to be out of state when I am having a crisis and the only person giving me any “comfort” is my crazy mother?

“Thanks for the sound advice mom. It’s nice to know I can always count on you to make me feel better,” I retort sarcastically.

Mom sits on the bed and places her
hand on
the clothing pile. Her lips and eyebrows flatten and as her shoulders roll I know that her “serious voice” is on its way, which is really just a deeper version of her normal British accented voice.

Mom moved from England to the States when she met and fell in love with my father, who was doing a semester abroad. That kind of devotion astounds me. Picking up your entire life for someone else, I mean that’s true love. What
would I do
if Jamie asked me to pick up everything and follow him to another country? I couldn’t imagine being without him so why not right? Mom did it when she was my age and I’ve never seen two people happier and more in love (aside from me and Jamie of course) than my parents are. Besides isn’t the statement, “
Love conquers all
?”

“Honey, these are just material items they’re not what makes you, you. Jamie didn’t fall in love with your clothing or your hair or those beautiful eyes of yours, he fell in love with
you
. If Jamie is the kind of person your father and I think he is, and the kind of person you’ve said he is, then you could walk out of here in sweats and he’d think you were the most beautiful girl in the world,” mom says with a smile. Finally! There’s the normal mother I always knew she could be!

She’s right. I know she’s right but I’ve never had a six-month anniversary celebration before. When Charlie and I reached our six-month mark neither of us acknowledged it. I didn’t because I was already thinking of ways to break up with him and he didn’t because he was thinking of all the ways to tell me he was in love with me. So this is a really big deal.

“I know, mom but he didn’t even tell me what type of place we’re going to. What if we’re going to some incredibly upscale, hoity-toity place and I end up wearing jeans and this blouse.” I pick up a black blouse with a bright red rose embroidered in the center of it, “and everyone laughs at me or we get kicked out?”

“Then you’ll go somewhere else where you can fit in with the rest of the riffraff.”

“Mom!” I whine and throw myself in the middle of the rejection mountain. I clamp my hands over my mouth and scream.

“Yes, let it out and once you’re done overreacting we’ll look through this pile together and find you something perfect to wear.”

I hate to admit it and I doubt I ever will again but mom is right; I am overreacting and if Jamie knew how stressed out his surprise was making me he would feel horrible and the entire night would be ruined. I calm down and we begin searching through the pile.

“How about this?” mom says holding up a lemon colored sweater. 

“You’re joking, right?” I reply and she tosses the reject over her shoulder.

We’ve successfully moved half of the pile onto the floor behind us and I’m once again losing hope. “This is useless,” I wine.

“Wait a minute, I think we have a winner!” mom sings as she holds out a red blouse and grey slacks with matching charcoal jacket. Yes!

“Okay next problem. Hair up or down?” I ask as I hold my hair up and then let it fall as option number two.

“Down,” Mom says grabbing something off the top of my dresser. “But put this in to give it a little something extra.”

She hands me the blue butterfly hairclip that Grandma Maggie gave me when I was seven. It was mom’s birthday and we were getting ready to go out to dinner. I was complaining about my hair and how flat it always looked. “I look like Cousin It!” I screamed, stomping my feet around the house. Grandma Maggie marched me into her bedroom and pulled the clip off her dresser and pulled two sections of my hair together and shoved the clip in. “There now you look like your beautiful self,” she had said as the clip snapped in place. I looked in the mirror and fell in love with the hair clip and the way I looked with it. “Cousin It is no more!” I had shouted while I danced around the room.

When we went home I conveniently forgot to give the clip back to Grandma Maggie and now it’s become a memorial piece.  My parents refer to it as our new family heirloom.

“There, perfect,” my mother says as she admires her work in the mirror.

Her work being me of course. Sometimes I wonder: is my mother more pleased with herself for creating me or with the person I have become? I suppose either way it’s a good thing. I stare at my reflection. I know what Jamie says about me, that I’m “beautiful,” and “breathtaking,” but I don’t see it. Mom must see it too because she is smiling so wide I can see her gums. She cups my shoulders and lowers her face so it is next to mine. We have the same dark eyes and the same chocolate hair, though hers has a tint of silver. She has a lot more wrinkles than I do. Well, actually I don’t have any at all, but a few more nights of anxiety and I am sure that is bound to change.

“Mom, how did you know dad was
the one
?” I ask as I try to wiggle away from the mirror. I am tired of looking at myself.

“What do you mean, sweetheart?” mom asks.

“How did you know that dad was the one? You know the big kahuna, the one who completes you and all.” I reply and grab my bedazzled clutch purse off the dresser.

“Well, as your mother I’m supposed to lie to you and tell you that there isn’t just one thing that made me realize that he was the one but…I will tell you the exact moment I knew your father was it, the big kahuna,” mom says as she flops down on my bed. “We had been dating for a little less than a year and I had stayed over one night after a Bon Jovi concert.”

Picturing my parents rocking out to Bon Jovi is just weird. Mom in ripped jeans, a band t-shirt and multi-colored hair and dad with a Mohawk, multiple piercings and ‘guy-liner,’ come on its too good not to make fun of.

“Bon Jovi? Nice,” I tease and throw up my index and pinky finger to make devil horns.

“Well, excuse me. Not all of us enjoy watching a bunch of men bouncing around stage in-synchronization and singing cheesy love songs, April,” Mom laughs. “Now, do you want to hear the story or not?” I nod for her to continue. “Your father and I spent the night together…no not like that so you can relax that disgusted face of yours. When I woke up the next morning your father was still sleeping. I watched him sleep and it was the most peaceful I’d ever felt, lying there watching him sleep. That’s the moment I realized that the idea of waking up next to him every day for the rest of my life was something I definitely wanted. In fact, the idea of not being with him for the rest of life was not a life I wanted to even consider,” mom says. She is smiling so contently she has to be reliving that moment with dad in her mind.

She is waiting for a reaction from me but this isn’t the story I was expecting. I assumed she would tell me some epic story about how their eyes met and her heart fluttered and she knew that her life was complete. But instead I got a story about how she creepily watched my father sleep and then mentally married him.

“Oh,” I reply trying to mask my disappointment. “Okay.”

“Why do you ask?”

There is no way I am going to tell her. If she knew what Jamie and I discussed on Christmas Eve she’d flip out and say things like, “Are you crazy? You’re too young to get married!” or worse, “Are you pregnant?” which according to my father is the only reason “Young people get married these days.” I tell my mother a lot but I think this I’ll keep to myself for a little while longer.

“No reason. I was just curious,” I lie hoping she won’t notice.

“Okay, well whenever you decide
to tell me the truth
I’m around.”

Ding dong!
Jamie is right on time as always. I never get any extra time. Would a little tardiness kill him?