I used to talk for hours with Sam on the phone, usually on a cordless phone in a secluded part of the downstairs of my house as the phone’s range was very poor. I was okay with it as it was better than being tethered to a wall phone with a short leash or to a fifty-yard cord that tripped anyone up who walked into the kitchen.
Nothing was off-topic and we freely spoke out feelings about things that we would never take about in front of each other, most likely we were trying to fight back “those feelings”—at least I was. I admit it, I wanted to move things ahead but, as one could gathered I had absolutely no idea what that really meant and could never think how to say it, how to show it or how to admit how I felt. I mean, I could have shown up at her house with roses which James would either laugh at, scowl or say something along the lines of “hey, you brought your own funeral bouquet.”
I had thought about doing that.
I had the rather dim idea of asking her to be with me forever but one day that mindset faded away. I felt like I would bring her down from her dream: How she wanted to be a teacher and there was a time that the two of us were to lead a children’s Sunday school class and as much as we planned everything out the best we could over the phone and for a few moments on the day before I felt something was wrong—something within myself, like a heavy fog had enveloped around me and I no longer felt happy with anything.
Sam didn’t know what to think and I didn’t know how to tell her that for a split-second each day, I felt like ending my life. She tried to lift my spirits, she even planned a birthday party for me and it was a surprise-including red and green M&M’s in a large bowl—thankfully, my parents had no idea what that meant. But the die had been cast and the fracture grew, going to opposite schools really strained us; or I should say it strained me. I just about begged my parents to let me transfer schools to Medical Lake, which was actually closer to our house and they could just drop me off at the nearest bus stop but that was a hopeless endeavor as they would have given me “the look” if I had said it was because I wanted to be near her.
On that following Sunday, five days after my birthday—five days after I received the pendant that I still wore around my neck a year later—I received a cold shoulder, no spoken words and a note, folded multiple times that spelled out, in not so sad terms, the bitter end.

I woke up at six o’clock on Friday morning without my alarm clock going off.
In fact, it was set to go off at six forty-five, which usually gave me twenty minutes to get ready before the bus arrived or fifty on the days Jason came by.
He arrived thirty minutes early to find me sitting on the porch swing with my backpack and everything; ready to go. He was in a dress.
“You’re scaring me, Strad, you know that?”
“Right back at you,” I replied as I opened the passenger side door.
“How long were you on the phone with her?”
“I wasn’t. I haven’t asked for her number yet.”
Jason looked back as he swung that car into reverse.
“I so want to be there when Jeannie hears your voice.”
“I think she wouldn’t care as much as you want me to fear she does.”
“She could sic Paul on you.”
The car lurched forward and then rolled quietly down the hill to the main road.
“How long has he been going to Reardan?”
“About a month.”
Seeing there were no other cars or buses, Jason once again floored the accelerator down the gravel road.
“Why have I not seen this guy until this week?”
“You’re not in my PE class. The guy can bench press over one-twenty.”
“Can he quote Edgar Allen Poe?”
“I heard he was a quarterback at Davenport.”
“Does he know how to sing a solo in front of a gym-load of people?”
“I’m pretty sure in a grudge match, you would lose.”
“Not planning on testing that,” I replied as I wondered how I got on the guy’s bad side when all I tired to do stop a fight from happening. It’s not like I insulted his honor or anything. Was this the Reardan version of “The Karate Kid”? If so, would Coach Smith be my Mr Miyagi?
“I have nothing to talk about or to do with Paul. He’s Jeannie problem.”
“If she catches you talking with Becky?”
“I don’t think that will be a problem. Jeannie is level-headed about things.”
“You’ve never seen her pissed-off, have you?”
I had to shake my head for I never knew her to get mad.
Upset?
Yes.
Annoyed?
Yeah, maybe so.
“It’s not a pretty site,” Jason replied. “I mean she doesn’t fight. She doesn’t do the girly fight thing and pulls at someone’s hair. That would be cool to see though, right?”
“What does she do, Jason?”
“She looks at you with these eyes, like she’s either calling Jesus or Satan to come and smite you down like Beatrice. She didn’t even say a word and that was it.”
And with that, all the terrible outcomes of my situation flashed through my mind like a Jolt-cola infused kid with a flip-book. I even thought of alien armadas and metamorphic cockroaches just to feel more ill-at-ease.

“You have to admit. two girls ripping at their hair and clothes. Yowsa! You’re the school president, Strad: make it happen.”
“Says the guy wearing a dress. Did you buy that off the rack or have it custom made?”
“It was Leslie’s.”
Jason’s sister, Leslie, had graduated the year before.
“Was?”
“When I asked her if I could look at a few of the clothes she left behind for spirit week, she said I had to burn it after today.”
“Good to see you getting in touch with your feminine side, I guess.”
“Chicks dig a guy with a sense of humor. I mean, Jim Carrey, look at him.”
“Jim also went all the way—are you wearing a bra?”
“I brought a couple of oranges too.”

We arrived at the high school to what look like try-outs for Priscilla, Queen of the Desert or an Erma Bombeck look alike contest. I saw a few girls with greasepaint or glued on mustaches and beards. The guys who were participating went pretty much all out like Jason did. I had to wonder if they were going to be dressed like that all day or had brought something to change into later.
“Didn’t want to show your spirt today?” Jeannie asked as I walked into the building. She had on jeans, some shirt that had a band name on it, along with a long flannel. If it wasn’t Opposite Day I would just thought she decided to go grunge for the day.
“I couldn’t find anything that fits.”
“Unlike Jason?”
“He’s had this planned well in advance.”
“Yes, I have,” Jason replied with a slight curtesy.
“You do that too well,” Jeanie replied to him as she looked at me.

I assumed that she came to see me because Rebekah talked to her and now she was going to to give me the patent-pending Jeannie Bettencourt Death Star stare. I didn’t dare gulp or show any sign of weakness. I never played poker but I was going to try and blued my way through everything.
“I have several years of having to model things in the past.”
“That’s a bit too much of information,” I replied.
“You were there, Strad, you remember,” he said with a wink and then ran down the hall.
“We should count him four times for participation.”
I nodded.
“I have a favor to ask you.”
“Like what?”
“I need you to help me with Nick and Paul. To kind of smooth things over.”
“I mean, I don’t their ready to rip each other’s heads off.” I replied as Jeannie looked over her shoulder and then leaned in to whisper.
“Paul is afraid of Nick.”
“Why?”
“He just said that Nick threatened him.”
I wanted to sigh heavily, wave my hands and say “let’s get them on Jerry Springer or on Oprah Winfrey” but instead, I just breathed in deeply and replied “Nick is afraid of Paul too.”
“Why?”
“Paul said a few things about Nick and the two started this back and forth that became what happened yesterday.”
“He didn’t tell me anything about that.”
“I’m just saying what I know and saw.”
“Thanks,” Jeannie replied as she turned away.
I was pretty sure at that moment that even though I had taken the high road, I would eventually going to be dragging my heels through the mud.

First period went well, considering we had a chapter test…on a chapter that I had not yet read. If my parents ever knew the true reason behind some of my poor study habits they would have to either lobotomize me and/or place me in a sensory deprivation chamber and force feed information into what was left of my brain because for the rest of that week I could not care about Dante’s rings of Hell as I was still going through my own personal one. At least it was the final day of spirit week and I could then get out of the proverbial public eye. Also, without Nick and Paul being there, I felt like I could see a little bit of skies of blue and clouds of white—faint rainbows and people shaking hands instead of wringing them in agony or at me in clenched fists.

The Judging of class participation in Opposite Sex day lasted all of second period. The available members of the student council counted the massive amount of students who were participating. Again, a lot of the girls looked more like they were honoring Soundgarden than looking like a boy, with the exception of a few who decided to go the Arnold Schwarzenegger look with the sweatsuit stuffed with something to give a look of muscles and another wore a football uniform—I had to wonder how she secured the use of the gear and whose number it was.
Jason took it for all he could by sashaying into the gym and speaking with an ancient that I think he stole from an episode of “In Living Color” but I couldn’t be sure. Everyone clapped for him, sure there were a few that didn’t look a him and a few that waved their hands in a dismissive way but for the most part, everyone was laughing with him. I wanted someone to laugh along with me on the adventure I was trying to start but I was a fairy that even Rebekah would be afraid of what we were doing. It was going to be something that everyone would have an opinion on. Some saying it was bad, good, immoral, ageist—whatever.

I was going to try and confirm everything during third period, even if the day before kind of put everything out in the open, I wanted to let her know everything, the good and the bad and hopefully she wouldn’t take a few steps away and then run.

However, on that day, on that day of all days, Mrs. Jantz didn’t have anything for me to copy. In fact, she instead had me taking inventory of the kitchen units—I was to see that everything was the same between the six stations. A part of me felt great: a change of pace instead of inhaling essence of toner I could breathe in food particles that were left on silverware as the seventh period students of the day before hastily cleaned their silverware and slammed them back into the drawers. That, and I wouldn’t be able to go and see Rebekah. I had to wonder if she would try multiple times to get out of class, maybe skip Mrs. J’s all together and covertly move through the hallways, occasionally knocking on the teacher’s longe door with a particular knock that I would hear as something unique, like our own secret code that we would both know of, without ever talking about it.

But I wasn’t there and had no way to tell her why.

Maybe she wasn’t at school that day but asking Jeannie was out of the question. “Maybe there’s time during lunch,” I thought as I stared at piece of dried noodle, probably from a beef stroganoff, on a fork. Someone’s Home Ed grade needed to be knocked down a bit.
I gathered my books for third period at the start of break.
“Hey, Strad.” Jason walked up to me, still in full regalia.
“Did you bring a change of clothes?”
“Yeah, but, I decided to keep it going, at least until lunch; ,maybe unnerve a few people in the process. I’ve also gained respect for women who have to wear bras. They hurt like hell.”
I only nodded.
“Anyway, did you get to stalk, I mean, talk to your potential girlfriend?”
“No, I couldn’t get up to the other building. No copies to make today.”
“So, the only way you’re going to be able to see her is if Mrs. Jantz needs you to make photocopies or if you skip a class or two?”
“Seems like it, but it’s not necessary to see her every waking moment.”
“Mmhh-hmm, remind me again on how you felt about Sam?” Jason asked as he reached into his dress and pulled out an orange,
“And look where that got me. You said I was whipped.”
“You do know what phrase means, right?” He stuck his fingernail into the orange and peeled it back.
“A slave to what she says or does?”
“Not really,” Jason replied as continued to peel the orange. I closed the locker door so he wouldn’t drop the peels in it. “Do you want to know now or later?”
“Later, Much later.”
“Gotcha.”
We walked down the hall and I put a little more distance between myself and Jason.
“If Nick was here, he would have put up some decent competition for me.”
“Uh-huh,” I replied as I tried to get that mental image out of my brain.
“Do you realize that women have respect for men who know what they go through?”
“Like make-up and dresses?”
“Yeah, I mean they go so far to impress us and we don’t even notice.”
“Maybe they just want to look the best for themselves?”
“No, it’s for the attention. If she wears a swimsuit made of seashells and dental floss, she does it because she wants people to notice her. But, only a certain kind of someone.”
“Okay.”
“And that’s the glass-half-empty thing about it. And we want to look so badly. Do you want an orange?”
“No,” I replied as I wanted to vomit at that moment.
“Remember that swimsuit Sam wore?”
“Trying not to, thank you.”

Sam never wore a two-piece suit and I didn’t care if she did or didn’t. She looked great to me in anything. I never compared her to anyone and when she asked me if such and such girl looked attractive I wouldn’t answer the question but instead affirm to her. There was a time when she demanded that I tell her if the girl on the front cover of a cassette tape I had looked pretty. It was a tape by a band called “Area Code”. I can barely remember a song by them after all this time, but yes, I do remember the front cover: four young-adults; two male, two female. The girl in question was blond with a blue shirt and jeans shorts. She was like, right in the middle of the shot, so it was impossible to not notice her—our the others on the cover, but Sam seemed to pay attention to her. I guess it was as reversal on how I felt about Jordan Knight and the rest of NKOTB. There have been nights that I wished we had talked about that.

Anyway, I walked halfway down the hall with Jason before he said “see you” and walked down with a group of girls who were laughing with him, I guess, talking about how they would all have to get a limousine one day and flash the world.
I admit, that did get my attention, only because I wondered about the legality of it and how could they even ask Jason to participate.

Sam never wore a two-piece suit and I didn’t care if she did or didn’t. She looked great to me in anything. I never compared her to anyone and when she asked me if such and such girl looked attractive I wouldn’t answer the question but instead affirm to her. There was a time when she demanded that I tell her if the girl on the front cover of a cassette tape I had looked pretty. It was a tape nay a band called “Area Code”, I can barely remember how they sounded like after all this time, but yes, I do remember the front cover: four young adults; two male, two female. The girl in question was blond with a blue shirt and jeans shorts. She was like, right in the middle of the shot, so it was impossible to not notice her—our the others on the cover, but Sam seemed to pay attention to her. I guess it was as reversal on how I felt about Jordan Knight and the rest of NKOTB. There have been nights that I wished we had talked about that.

Anyway, I walked halfway down the hall with Jason before he said “see you” and walked down with a group of girls who were laughing with him, I guess, talking about how they would all have to get a limousine one day and flash the world.
I admit, that did get my attention, only because I wondered about the legality of it and how could they even ask Jason to participate.
The devil on my shoulder piped up and I had to think for a moment on why I never tried to just go out and be like I was expected to: to be the jerk but still get the girl. To be so arrogant that they still swoon, to never call but noble in demand.
I knew the reason why, because it was all a lie. A wondrous, fantastical and maybe for a brief moment something I would have loved to be a part of, but it wasn’t true expect in books.
Darn you, Laura Esquivel!