“I’ve decided to practice being celibate,” he informs me shortly after my arrival.
Thankfully I know what celibate means and don’t need him to explain. I feel like a vacuum cleaner is sucking all the air out of my lungs because I’m not sure I am able to breathe. My eyes seem out of focus because everything’s suddenly blurry and I can’t feel the books or oboe case I’m carrying. Mugsy rubs up against my leg reminding me that I am, in fact, in possession of at least one of my senses. I gaze around the entry hall where I stand near the closed front door with my schoolbooks weighing heavily in my backpack. My oboe case is grasped in my right hand and bumps absently against my thigh.
“Have you finished As I Lay Dying?” I ask evenly. I loaned him the book a month ago.
“Yes. It’s in my room.”
My face is without expression, like one of the stroke patients at my great grandmother’s nursing home where I sang Broadway show tunes over the Christmas holiday. “I suppose you’d better let me take it so I can finish our AP English assignment.” He disappears down the hall toward the room where all our secrets are kept as I choke back fear and dread and . . . humiliation. Mugsy looks up at me. Her meow sounds like it has a question mark at the end of it. I look her in the eye and whisper, “I don’t know.”
Scott comes back and offers the thin paperback book to me. “It was good,” he says. He means the book but, as I look into his hazel eyes, it dawns on us both that his comment easily applies to the past nearly two years of Wednesdays as well. I indicate with my eyes that he can just place the book in the top of my backpack. I feel the pressure this act exerts on the backpack’s shoulder straps and wonder how I might survive without him.
“Good-bye, then,” I say as I turn to leave.
He opens the large antique Portuguese portal and, looking down at his feet as if he’s sorry, says in a horsy voice, “Good-bye, Laura.”
I feel a surge of emotion course through my psychological bloodstream.
Just before school starts up again, Julie Soros texts me to ask if I’ll go to the movies with her. Her hand-me-down Lumina has been replaced with a used Honda Civic, which she will drive in less than a week to Stetson University in DeLand, Florida, to start her freshman year of college. She is still ostensibly engaged to Jim Dempsey and is determined to find me a boyfriend for my senior year. Specifically . . . Jim’s younger brother, Alex.
I’ve known Alex since first grade. Julie’s efforts in the short week before she roars off to her new life go unrewarded at first. But, as it turns out, Alex and I are assigned to the same study hall—a euphemism since no one actually studies. The place is an immense atrium of a room with 30-foot ceilings and glass windows on three sides. Typically, there are at least 60 students assigned to any one study hall and everyone talks at once. The chatter is so loud in the room, we are hard-pressed to hear the bell when it rings at the beginning and end of the period.
Mr. James, our monitor, is one of the basketball coaches. His only requirement is that we sit in our assigned seats until attendance is taken. We can then move to where ever we like. There are 150 desks in the room where exams are given at the end of each term, so during study hall, pods of students can gather at various different venues within the large space. Some groups play cards, and there are two guys who play chess. We are freshman, sophomores, juniors, and seniors all mixed together. I know exactly two kids in study hall: Tom Bell and Alex Dempsey.
Mr. James takes attendance, and I move to sit with Tom and Alex. We start reminding one another of childhood stories. And we laugh. We laugh the kind of laugh that takes your breath away and makes your stomach hurt. The kind of laugh that you think you’ll never recover from because you think you’re never going to stop. The kind of laugh that every time you look at one another, even when you’ve tried to stop, you erupt in a new fit of laughter. It’s contagious, it’s exhausting, it’s addictive, and it’s wonderful. After third period study hall with Alex, I smile my way through the whole rest of the day.
Alex and I never actually date. That is, we never go to the movies, or out to dinner, or to the shore, or out for ice cream. I go over to his house once and he comes over to mine a couple times. We do a little smooching, but mostly we laugh our way through study hall each day. When I see him, I feel all happy about having someone to call a boyfriend. For the first time, I can talk to my girlfriends about a boy who actually openly likes me. But, it is short-lived.
Alex is at my house after school two months into the school year. We go down to the finished basement and sit together in Dad’s big white leather Lazy Boy whispering and kissing. It is here, while in his lap, that he tells me about Leslie.
Leslie’s family is from Boston. Their newly purchased summer home is on a small pond not far from The Old Mill and is much more than a cottage. The family plans to come on weekends long into the fall. They even have plans to throw a New Year’s Eve party to which Alex claims, “You could come.” The house can easily sleep ten and can accommodate many more if guests don’t mind sleeping bags or cots. The accompanying horse paddock is adjacent to the Dempsey’s. Alex explains that he met Leslie early in the summer and they quickly became close friends.
“Close friends?” I inquire.
Alex looks away and says meaningfully, “Yes. Close.” He further explains that when Leslie left at the end of the summer to go back to her private school, he thought it was the end of their summer romance. But, Leslie and her family have come for the weekend and he has found out that she still considers him her boyfriend. “I really don’t know what to do,” he confesses. I am stunned into silence as I digest what he is telling me. “I was wondering,” he continues, “if it would be alright with you . . .” He hesitates as he gathers his thoughts. “I was wondering if it would be alright with you if you could be my weekday girlfriend and Leslie can be my weekend girlfriend.”
I think Alex is gutsy, and I actually admire him for “going for it.” But, alas, I can’t agree. It is a matter of self-respect I suppose. It is one of those decisions based on worrying over what my friends will say if they find out. Quite honestly, had he never said a thing about Leslie, I may never have known. My weekends are pretty busy with commitments. My piano lessons are on Saturday mornings. I have to either mow the lawn, rake leaves, shovel snow, babysit my sister, or some combination of all these things, on Saturday afternoons. Sunday mornings are pretty much entirely taken up with church, and Sunday afternoons are for doing homework and practicing oboe and piano. Plus I want to spend time with my best friend Evy when she is home on weekends from boarding school. Neither Alex nor I have cars at our disposal, so unless I get on the bus, I can very easily imagine never having a conflict with one of Leslie’s weekend visits—especially since she only comes up to the summer house about once a month. “You’ll have to choose,” I calmly tell him.
He chooses her.
“So . . . you’re with Alex Dempsey now,” Scott says to me outside Mr. McDermott’s calculus classroom. The fire that ignites, from the chemical heat that is all but visible between us, makes my armpits suddenly sweaty.
I wrestle with my inner thoughts, swallow hard, and respond, “I’m not with Alex Dempsey.”
Scott looks off to the side and takes a deep breath that he slowly lets out before he sheepishly asks, “What are doing on Wednesday?”
I want to give him the finger just to prove to myself that I can, but instead I say, “I’ll see you around four.” We go our separate ways in the hall without anyone noticing we’ve even spoken.
