Tutor Me (3 page)

Wednesday, 3:42pm. I was seething, standing in the sweltering school parking lot waiting for Callum to show up. The temperature was in the triple digits. We had agreed to meet up right after school, and school got out at 3:30, so where the hell was he? He’d been in class earlier. I felt like an idiot because at Tina’s urging I’d worn a cute spaghetti strap sundress to school today to look my best for this guy. What a fucking joke. Looking my best? Sweating here in the sun I’d be happy just to
smell
my best at this point.

I texted him.
Where are you? Waiting

Callum wrote back promptly.
There in 5

Seven minutes later, no sign of him.  I had better things to do than wait for this jerk. I was striding to my car when I caught sight of him sauntering across the lot towards me, in a Spoon t-shirt and his trademark jeans. He wasn’t alone. A wan girl with spiky white blond hair was clinging to his arm with both hands, her gait made awkward by her insistence on walking facing him. She had copious tattoos on her twiglike arms and a black mini skirt with small skulls on it. It was artfully ripped, revealing plenty of thin white thigh. With the odd sideways walking and the pale limbs she reminded me of one of those deep sea crabs scientists have discovered recently, all white and scuttling around thermal vents. Before me was an example of the skanky subset of the species. I was sweltering here because of
her
? The fact that Callum was pretty much ignoring her didn’t make me any less annoyed. By the time they were next to me I was so livid I could have bitten their heads off. I glared at Callum, my hands clenched into fists. Albino Crab Girl was eyeing me with open hostility.
Bring it on, sister
.

“You’re twenty. Minutes. Late.” I bit out through gritted teeth. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed but it’s a little warm out here.”

Callum opened his mouth to say something but Albino Crab Girl spoke first. “Wow does she ever have a stick up her ass.”

I bent sideways as if to inspect her butt. “Maybe I do, maybe I don’t, but with that skirt on I KNOW you don’t.”

Miss ABG made a snarling sound and stepped forward, but before she could respond, Callum hastily interjected, “I’m sorry you had to wait. I’m ready now.”

“Let’s go then.” I said in a clipped voice.

“Can’t I come to your lesson?” The girl was pouting at him, still hanging onto his arm for dear life.

I gave her an icy stare. “Run along now, sunshine. There’s a two-for-one special on piercings down the street.”

I heard a muffled chortle come from Callum.

“Bitch,” she said flatly. I ignored her.

“Later Noelle.” He was looking at me as he spoke to her. She let out a disappointed whine, shot me a scathing look which I gave right back to her, and flounced off.

“Call me?” she called out over her shoulder. Callum, with his eyes still on me, didn’t reply.

“Meet up with your girlfriend on your own time, in future, not mine,” I spat out once she was out of hearing.

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“Fuck buddy, whatever. Just don’t waste my time.”

He smirked, showing off his lip ring to nice effect.
Yeh, you caught that too? He didn’t deny that, did he?

“Why were you stuck out in the heat anyway? You could have waited in your car.”

“My car doesn’t have a/c.”

“What?” He looked astonished. But before I could explain, he said, “Oh yeh of course. That great old beetle. It wouldn’t, would it?” He looked around and spotted it a few cars away from where we were standing. “Manual transmission?”

“Yup.”

“That’s not the original paint on it, is it?”

“No but the new paint is true to the original color.”

“What year is it, a ’68?”

“A ’69. It was my great uncle’s car.” I was proud of that car, even if it was a bit chilly in winter and really hot in summer. And just like that I realized I had forgotten to be annoyed. Heck, I’d almost forgotten about the tutoring session. I pulled myself together.

“So are we going to do this lesson or what?” My words were all business but my anger had evaporated.

He seemed relieved. “Sure, where do you have in mind?”

“I was thinking Starbucks.”

Callum looked doubtful. “It’s going to be crowded.”

“I think it’ll be fine.” No way was he calling the shots on this.

He was about to say something but apparently chose not to press it, which was wise, given that I’d only just calmed down. He shrugged. “OK see you there.” He strode away abruptly toward his car, some sort of old time muscle car with racing stripes.

By the time I pulled out of the school parking lot, Callum was out of sight. As I drove I regretted my earlier temper. Why did this guy provoke me so much? I resolved to be pleasant and distant with him from now on.

When I walked into Starbucks, Callum was standing just inside the entrance, his arms crossed over his chest, looking exasperated. The place was teeming with students, moms with toddlers, and the occasional businessman in a suit. Between the crowd and the milk foamer, the noise level was high, there were no tables in sight, and glancing around I’d already seen three people I knew. The heat made sitting outside out of the question.

“This is not going to work,” Callum said so curtly that I wondered if he meant doing the lesson in Starbucks or this tutoring thing altogether.

Now it was my turn to apologize for wasting our time. “You’re right. I’m sorry, I should have thought it through. I’ve never done this before.”

“I thought you had a job as a tutor?”

“That was with little kids and I always just went to their house.”

“Let’s do that then. Follow my car.”

Without another word he swung around to go while I processed the change of plans. Callum glanced back.

“Did you want to get a drink before we go?” After his abruptness he was all of a sudden being thoughtful? This guy constantly threw me off guard.

“No I’m fine. Let’s go. The din in here is starting to get to me.”

He smiled smugly but refrained from saying “I told you so.”

Given Callum’s quick departure from school, I was worried I might lose him on the way to his house but he kept a mellow pace and stopped at the yellow lights so we didn’t get separated. Soon we were on a pleasant street a mile or so from my own. We pulled up in front of a ranch style house with a rundown front yard. The driveway was empty except for Callum’s car and as I stepped onto the sidewalk I felt a thrill at the thought of going into this empty house with this boy I barely knew. Then my brain kicked in and I was mad at myself for thinking that way about a guy I was supposed to tutor, who was kind of an asshole anyway.

As if he could read my mind, Callum, standing on the sidewalk waiting, said, “I should have asked you if you felt comfortable coming over here.”

“Not an issue.”
Nice and professional
.

He shrugged and then turned towards the front door. When he’d unlocked it he stepped back and gestured me in. “After you.”

Walking past him in the doorway I could feel the heat emanating from him and smell him, a mix of laundry detergent and guy’s soap and just
him
, and man did he smell good. His body was a magnet pulling me toward him. I steeled myself to give nothing of my physical reaction away.  I had to get it together around this guy! I focused on the room. It was a medium sized living room with painted cement floors and a comfortable rather worn mix of couches and a recliner. A large flat screen TV hung on one side of the room. It looked like a guy’s den.

“You live here with your dad?”

“Yeh, how did you know?” He looked at me, curious. We were standing in the middle of the living room.

“It doesn’t feel like a woman lives here.” I gestured toward the Wii consoles, the TV, the football on the couch.

He nodded. “Just me and my dad. And not even my dad that much these days as he’s practically shacked up with his girlfriend.” The bitterness was impossible to miss.

“Do you ever see your mom?”

“She died when I was eight.”
Holy cow, way to put your foot in it Jenny.

I was mulling that over and feeling sorry for him when he walked over and docked his iPhone, and suddenly the room was filled with the sound of Nine Inch Nails’
Hurt
.

He turned back to me. “How about we sit at the kitchen table?” He started to walk away. I stayed where I was.

“You’re not planning to leave that music on, are you?”

He turned around, nonchalant. “I sure am.”

“I certainly can’t concentrate with that playing, and we need to focus.”

“I concentrate better with music.”

“Almost every study has proven otherwise, but perhaps you’re an exception.”

“Oh I’m exceptional aright. And so is this song. You should listen to it.” His voice oozed condescension.

“I like the Johnny Cash cover better. You can go back to listening to Trent emote in an hour. Turn the music off, or I leave.”

I always thought that jaw dropping was just an expression but with great satisfaction I watched as Callum’s fell open at my words. Even if he canceled the lesson and kicked me out of his house it would be worth it to see that look of surprise. Because both my parents and Ben listened to rock, and they were all different ages, I had a pretty good musical playlist in my head, spanning many decades.

“Well this is unexpected.” Callum’s voice was laced with grudging admiration. He turned off the music. Victory!

But I played it cool, shrugging as I said, “Why? Covers are often better than the originals. Look at Alien Ant Farm’s cover of Smooth Criminal.”

He was grinning ear to ear. “You know about music.”

“Oh you wouldn’t believe how much we cheerleaders know about music.”

“Oh?” he cocked his head.

“Yep. Our knowledge is fucking encyclopedic. Now lead me to the kitchen.”

He was laughing hard. “This tutoring thing is going to be more fun than I thought.”

I followed him into the kitchen, which was painted bright yellow and looked as if it had all its original 1950s cabinets. There was a square formica table and four chairs in the center of the room. Callum scooped up that morning’s paper from the table and gestured to a chair while he tossed the paper in a recycling bin next to the sink. I sat down in one of the chairs.

“Can I get you some water or soda or something?” He surprised me again with his politeness.

“No I’m fine thanks, I have my water bottle with me. Let’s just get started.”

We were about to begin the lesson at the time I had counted on it ending. Not that anyone was expecting me home.

Callum got himself a Coke from the fridge and sat down next to me. The table was small and I felt the electricity again. I had pulled out my textbook from my book bag, which I’d placed next to my chair, and looked at him expectantly. Callum just had a notebook and pencil.

“Where’s your textbook?”

“Not sure.” he said as he cracked open his soda can. When I raised my eyebrows he shrugged. “I think it’s at school.”

“How do you plan to do your Calc homework if your book is MIA?”

“I’ll track it down. Right now I can just look off of yours,” and he scooted his chair around to my side so we were inches away from each other, his left arm resting on the table so close to mine that I could feel his body heat. I suppressed a gulp, and forced myself not to drool over the muscly forearm right next to me.
Just tutor him, Jenny
.

I put on my neutral tutor voice. “OK let’s start with Chapter 1, which Ferguson covered last week. The key concepts are…”

Callum paid attention and even jotted down some notes as I was talking. When we did the practice quiz at the end of the chapter he did fine. It was like teaching it from scratch as he clearly had learned nothing in class, but he was a quick study. We went over the first part of Chapter 2, up to the material from today’s lesson, and I was satisfied that Callum had grasped it. I began to feel more comfortable around him, thank goodness. There were a couple of times I thought I felt his gaze on me while I was looking at the textbook and we had to sit very close in order to share the book, but every time I looked up to meet his eyes he was looking away.

“Well I think you’re all caught up now,” I said, glancing at my watch. An hour had flown by. I needed to get home to start my own homework.

“Cool.” He was glancing at his phone, apparently already thinking about other stuff as I gathered my book bag.

“Well, see you in class tomorrow.” I said cheerily, annoyed to find that I felt reluctant to say goodbye.

“Maybe, if I decide to come.” His head was down and he was texting. And just like that, there was Mr. Arrogant again.

I walked toward the door to let myself out and Callum swiftly passed me and opened it. Arrogant or not, someone had certainly drilled manners into him.