(This is a remake of the first thing I ever wrote, so please tell me anything you can about pacing and clarity and all that grood stuff. Thanks so much!)
There are rare times when the mass attention of a throng of vastly different people is drawn to one object of interest. In these times the individual ceases to exist and the hoi polloi becomes one entity. It sees and thinks singularly with unconscious consent of the individuals lost to it. Later the individual may feel as if in that moment they had been absolutely their own, without any ties to the others who had joined them, but they’d be wrong. The truth is that one thought, one presence or one feeling was so powerful or striking that it had over come the whole of the population in near proximity to it.
This was one of those times. As the stranger walked across the courtyard of Little Hollow High, the throng of students mulling around before class was pulled into one mind, myself included.
She’s gorgeous, we thought. And that seemed to be the only thing we could think. She was tall and shapely, full of perfect lines and curves that seemed to flow from the world around her. Flaming red hair twisted down her back in silky tendrils, blown by the cool November wind as she walked to the main office. Though I couldn’t see her face I knew that it was breathtakingly perfect, maybe from the link I shared with those of my classmates that could see her face or maybe just plain female intuition.
We heard the twinkle of jiggle bells tied to the door she disappeared into but still didn’t move. We were unable to move, to comment, even to breathe it seemed. But then, the harsh scream of the warning bell sounded. It announced to us that she was gone, that we were aloud to live once more, and slowly the mind link melted away leaving us delayed and slow. I watched as the crowd began to shuffle into the building and head towards their classes. The boys, normally scolded about the sort of attention they had paid, didn’t bother to hide it or apologize, and their girlfriends didn’t really care.
I released a deep breath and looked over at Izzie. “What do you think?”
She cocked a thin black brow and smirked. “I think he’ll have her within the week.”
“Nope, two,” I said.
She turned her piercing grey eyes on me. “Twenty bucks?”
I nodded and we shook on it. We climb the stairs and entered the doors silently but Izzie stopped just before we separated and headed down different halls.
“And no convincing Roman to take it slow so that you’ll win either. Its cheating,” she said, pointing a slender finger at my face.
I adopted the best innocent expression I could and covered my heart with my hand. “What? Me, cheat? What a ridiculous notion, dear Isabella! And to think that Roman would actually agree to something like that! I’m surprised by you!”
She rolled her eyes. “You heard me.”
“Well, take all the fun out of it, why don’t you?”
She just squinted at me and turned to strut down the hall. I watched her go, amazed at how brave she was. She knew who she was and what she liked. There was doubt about it. If you didn’t catch that by her attitude and the way she carried herself, you’d see it in her odd purple hair, shaved on one side but flowing past her shoulders on the other, or in her Monroe piercing, or even the way she dressed. She looked like a delinquent supermodel. I had never in my life seen anyone pull off the things she could.
I glanced at the screen of my cell phone, checking the time and hurried off to Spanish class. My bum hit the seat assigned to me just as the tardy bell cackled. The empty seat in front of me caught my attention and I glanced at Carmen, setting beside me. Her dark hair hid her face from me as she jabbed the buttons of her sleek cell.
“Carmen.”
She didn’t move.
“Carmen,” I said, my voice a little loud but the class was buzzing and the Profe¢ hadn’t arrived yet. She still didn’t answer so I nudged her elbow, making her jump.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “When did you get here?” She didn’t wait for my answer before turning her black eyes back to her phone, but I could tell by the tilt of her face that she was actually paying at least half of her attention to me.
“Just now. Where’s Roman?”
Her face emerged from her hair for a moment to peer at Roman’s empty seat, then disappeared once more. “Oh, I’m not sure,” she said.
I sighed and pursed my lips. No matter how many texts Carmen sent or how many hours a day she spent on the phone, she never seemed to know anything.
Profe swept in a few minutes later. He was a short, round little man with a big mouth and even bigger sense of humor. He climbed up on his stool in front of the class and behind his podium and asked a random student if the morning announcement had run yet. I looked over to make sure Carmen knew that he had arrived and saw her lower the phone into her lap, Raise her face as if paying attention and continue to text. She was truly a master.
Trying to be discrete, but nowhere as deftly as Carmen, I pulled out my own phone. I knew that Profe wouldn’t start class until after the announcements ran and that even if he did notice me, he wouldn’t confiscate my phone. I brought up the message tab, chose Roman’s contact, quickly typed out a brief message and hit send.
Where are you?
Carmen was definitely my friend, but also just as definitely not one of my favorites. She was more of a secondary friend, the kind you’re always nice to but only really talk to them when there’s no one else. Unfortunately, she was a very poor secondary friend since she only spoke when spoken to and usually in quick, dull answers.
The phone vibrated violently in my hand and I quickly shushed it, glancing up to make sure Profe didn’t notice. Luckily he was tied up in a boisterous bout of storytelling with another student.
Miss me already? That’s a little sad, Lyric. I mean, its understandable, I am amazing, but its still sad.
I grinned as the warm voice of Ms. Bear began to crinkle over the intercom and fill the school. She told of the football game planned for the next night, the fundraiser for the band, and a score of other things I wasn’t particularly interested in.
Yeah, yeah, you’re all that. But I think everyone knows that its you who’s enthralled with me. BTW don’t pick up any girls until further discussion. I have a bet going on with Izzie.
I mashed the send button and stood with the rest of the class for the pledge of allegiance.
I wasn’t aware that my love life was such a trivial thing to you two hens! I’m hurt. Anyways, I’m running late. Be in before 2nd.
Ok, gtg. See you in art. I replied and dropped my phone into my book bag.
I spent the ninety minute class listening to Profe explain some simple concepts of the English language to a few students so that we could learn them in Spanish as well, and staring at Carmen’s fingers dance swiftly across her phone, never missing a beat. Was she even receiving anything or just sending out message after message?
The bell rang releasing us from class, but at the same time beckoning us to head to another. I did as it said, fighting through the crowd to slip into the art room. I loved this room. It was open and clean, with tables seating four instead of solitary desks. Some delicious smell was always wafting through the air, sometimes even escaping out into the hall to tease the students who didn’t have art and didn’t get to sample the art teacher’s brilliant treats. Mrs. Merry was not only the art teacher, but the Home Ec. teacher as well and one of the four ovens in her room was always cooking. And, barring special projects, she always shared with the students who happened to be in the room when her culinary masterpiece was finished. Every year, when scheduling season came around, there was an epic battle to the up coming grades to get Art during second period. I had been lucky enough to achieve such a feat. Actually, it had been Roman’s great achievement and his refusal to let me procrastinate that got me the class but I refused to give him any credit.
Today the room was still empty, but warm from the running stove and filled with the savory scent of garlic. Trying to think of what she might be cooking, I went to the closet to get my things. Just as I opened my tray I heard the door open, followed by firm steps and a familiarly melodic voice fill the room.
“So Mrs. Merry, what’s for lunch today?” he asked.
Was Mrs. Merry in the room? I hadn’t even noticed her. I shrugged and stepped out of the closet.
Roman was standing next to the warm oven, with his back to me and frosty hands spread out over the stove to the revive the feeling in them. Mrs. Merry was in the far corner staring at him with wide eyes.
“Roman! What are you doing here!” she almost yelled, her northern accent making the words sharp and quick to my Tennessean ears.
“Umm, getting an education?” he said. The sound of my stuff hitting the table caught his attention and he turned. A greeting smile mingled with his bewildered expression.
“Oh dear! Oh dear!” Mrs. Merry began to chant over and over as she darted around the kitchen, seeming to do a lot but actually doing nothing. I came to stand beside Roman as we both just stand watching her for a moment.
Finally I reached out and grabbed her arm, afraid of the red color in her face and the way she was breathing. “Mrs. Merry, what’s the matter?”
She ignored me and looked to Roman. “Can’t you smell it?”
“Smell what?”
“The tomatoes!”
We exchanged a confused glance and he asked, “What tomatoes?”
“They told me that you were absent!” she cried, putting a delicate hand over her thin lips in horror.
“The tomatoes told you he was absent?” I asked, stunned.
There, on the verge of calling for someone to take Mrs. Merry to the funny farm, was when Roman burst out laughing. He doubled over, laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe and just coughed. This, of course, frightened Mrs. Merry and she began to hop. Her little form bounced lightly for one in advanced age, and she looked almost like a child.
“Out,” she murmured to herself once then she began to repeat it to the both of us, her voice gaining strength with every pass until she was almost wailing. “Out! Out! Out!”
She started trying to push Roman from the room but she wasn’t strong enough even to effect his balance. I stood there, so bewildered that I couldn’t even react until Roman caught enough breathe to choke out a few horse words.
“No, no, Mrs. Merry!” he said, wiping a tear from his eye. “I’m alright! Its alright!”
She stopped yelling and slowed in her bouncing, but the pale eyes behind her thin circular glasses were still frantic.
“Roman?” I asked, still frozen and wondering if Mrs. Merry was going to survive this ordeal or if her tiny golden heart would give out on her.
“Mrs. Merry thinks her tomatoes are going to kill me,” he explained, though it wasn’t a very thorough explanation.
I felt my face scrunch. “What tomatoes?”
“The tomatoes in my spaghetti!” she cried, pointing to the silver pot on the stove.
Then I understood and I tried to pull out an expression as nonchalant as Roman’s but found it a little difficult.
“Mrs. Merry! My allergy isn’t that severe,” he said with a glowing grin.
Her face went blank as she tried to understand.
“The smell doesn’t bother me. That’s what you’re talking about, right?”
She nodded slowly.
“Tomatoes only bother me if I eat them, and even then it isn’t life-threatening unless I eat a lot,” he said in a gentle voice. He didn’t want to embarrass her but couldn’t see a way around it.
She finally understood and her face flamed up as red as the infamous tomato itself. Then she began to giggle as only an elder lady can. “Oh, I’m such an old loon! So you’ll be okay in here?”
Roman nodded. “As long as I don’t chug that whole pot over there.”
“Well, we mustn’t let that happen, then,” she said as she approached the pot and carefully removed the lid to stir the bubbling red brew. “Can’t believe I acted like that…just like my mother…” she mumbled, and continued in a similar fashion so we turned our backs on her, shaking our heads.
“You didn’t have to lie to her that way, you know,” I said to him as he took off his staple, a worn, black leather bomber jacket, and hung it on the back of his chair.
“I have no idea what you mean,” he replied, walking to the closet and returning with an armful of supplies.
“I was with you at Union Diner that time, remember?”
I certainly remembered. It was one of the most terrifying things I had ever experienced. It had been summer and the gang was all together, Roman, Izzie, Carmen, William, Leo, Liam, and I. We all ordered our various burgers with the preferred fixings. Of course, Roman’s was no tomato. We got the burgers and most of them were made wrong. A few of us traded out or just took off the topping we didn’t like but Roman had to send his back. He claimed that it wasn’t a big deal but I could see in his face that it was.
The burger came back sans the glaring red veggie and he chowed down. It was within a few moments that we knew something was wrong. He began to cough and message his throat, then he bent double grabbing his stomach. We frantically tried to get him to tell us what was wrong but he couldn’t. Later, he explained that his tongue and throat were swelling.
Leo and Liam had helped him into Izzie’s car, which was the fastest. I rode with her and the others followed behind. Luckily we were just around the bend from the hospital. The doctor told us that if we had been across town or had hesitated any, we could have lost him. All because the cooks in the union diner had given him the same burger saturated with tomato juice hidden by the other toppings.
“That was scary,” I said, watching the others in the class file in the door. He nodded and sat down across the table from me. “Will it really not bother you? The smell, I mean.”
“Really, as long as I don’t eat it. It might give me a headache, though. Just don’t say anything to the others. I’m sure they’ve probably forgotten about it.” He looked at me, his emerald eyes catching me in their iron hold as they sometimes did, demanding my surrender. I nodded and he changed the subject.
“What’s this I hear about a bet?” he asked easily as if the memory of almost losing his life to tomatoes was nothing worth lingering on.
I decided to humor him for once and let him get away with it. “There’s a new girl.”
“And?” he asked, pulling his latest art project from his sketchbook. It was a face, simple and almost plain in appearance and detail but with a certain life that gave it an unreal feel. My badly botched attempt looked pitiful beside his art, it always did and always would.
“Well, she’s gorgeous. Izzie thinks you’ll have her within the week but I disagree.”
He let his sideways grin slip in and claim his features. “And how long do you believe it will take?”
“Two weeks,” I answered simply.
“You have such little faith in my skills?”
I shook my head vehemently, my golden hair wrapping around the back of each of my arms in turn, then falling back into its rightful place. “No, you misunderstand! Its because of my faith in you!”
“How so?”
“I have faith in your discretion. I know that if you have her on your arm within a week it would be tacky. Make you look like a man-ho,” I said with a grin of my own, though it wasn’t as dashing as his.
“I see…,” He stopped and looked at me in a way that left tingles across my skin. His face was smooth and almost expressionless, except for the odd depth in his eyes and the miniscule purse of his lips. It was almost as if he trying to figure something out….to figure me out. It filled me with a strange warmth that was instantly quelled and soured when I realized that I wasn’t entitled to that warmth in any way.
“Lyric, you are truly a walking contradiction,” he said, shaking his head. His inky hair swept lightly over his shoulders.
“What do you mean?”
Now, a hint of amusement flashed in his eye and shattered the puzzlement he wore before. “You are so insightful, but so oblivious too…sometimes in the same moment.”
I paused. “I’m still not sure what that’s supposed to mean.”
He shook his head. “Forget it. Here come the others.”
I watched as Izzie and Liam filled in our table and as William and Leo sat at the table next to us, but my mind kept running Roman’s words over and over again. What did he mean by that? Sometimes he said the oddest things. Conversation started up and I forced myself to abandon trying to understand my best friend and live in the moment.
“You guys coming to the meet tonight?” Liam asked, his quiet voice barely audible in the now full classroom.
He was met with a chorus of positive answers from most of us, but Izzie threw herself on the table, arms outstretched, face hidden by the long side of her hair.
“Ugh, Sports!” she groaned. “I’m going to O.D on team spirit.”
“To O.D, I think you actually have to have some team spirit,” I said with a laugh. “That’s like overdosing because you saw Leo shooting up.”
Roman laughed. “Come on, Iz, the poor track team doesn’t have any cheerleaders. They need you!”
“It’ll give you an excuse to wear that tutu you bought,” I added, knowing well that she didn’t need any encouragement.
She sat up then. “Hmm…I’ll go if I can wear the tutu and no one makes me do a cheer.”
“Deal,” I said. “You’ll need that tutu if that new chick shows up.”
She poked out her pink tongue, but then smiled. “That’s a good point. I’ll have to really pull it out to stand out with her there.”
“Izzie, you would outshine that mousy little pheasant in even the most normal of clothes,” Liam said quietly, then he seemed to realize what he had said and blushed violently.
Izzie didn’t seem to notice, even when he refused to lift his chocolate eyes to her face as she spoke. “Li, that girl is anything but mousy.”
I had to agree, “She’s right. If flaming red hair and a body that centerfolds would die for makes you mousy, sign me up!”
Now Liam lifted his face and looked at us with confusion dancing clearly in his eyes. “The new girl isn’t a redhead; she’s brunette and really small.”
“You need to get your eyes checked, man! I saw her this morning and she is definitely a redhead. Tall as Roman with deadly curves!” Izzie exclaimed, leaning forward in the predatorily catlike way that sometimes shone through in her.
“Iz, she’s in my first block, I think I know what I’m talking about!” Liam pressed. He was so soft and gentle but at his core he was a rock that could not be moved easily once it settled into its place.
They bickered for a bit more until Leo leaned across to us, wearing his customary smug grin and said: “Hey, morons, didn’t you hear that there are two new students? Yeah, the brunette showed up on, like, Monday. The redhead just transferred in yesterday.”
“And just how do you know all this?” Izzie demanded.
He pursed his lips, cocked a brow and tilted his head so that his prominent jaw was even more so. “I have this kind of mind power, kind of like echolocation, that gives me the ability to know who and where all the females in close proximity to me are. Also, I know all their most precious thoughts and feelings so… you can stop pretending, Izzie. I know you want me.”
With speed that made me wonder if just maybe she was a cat, Izzie kicked the car out from under Leo and he went crashing to the floor. He was sprawled out for only a second before he had righted himself and was glaring at her.
Roman shook his head at them and gave me a look that coaxed a smile from my lips. He was putting on the show, letting everyone think he thought them foolish but secretly wishing he could kick the chair out from under someone, particularly Leo.
“He aids for Mrs. Bear during first block. He’s usually in there if someone comes to turn in their paperwork for transfer,” he said to Izzie as she began to mumble to herself.
Soon, she wasn’t even saying anything coherent and we had all gone off in our little worlds to ignore her.
I watched as Mrs. Merry scuttled around the room, switching the ovens to low and donning an “Art Shirt” as she called them. As she went past, she summoned Leo up from his seat and he followed her to the closet.
“Hey, what’s she cooking up today?” I heard William ask as Mrs. Merry pointed to something out of her reach and Leo stretched to grasp it.
“Spaghetti,” Roman answered before I could.
I looked over to see William nod and then go back to his book of poetry by Poe. Just as I realized that Will didn’t remember the hospital trip, I received a slight nudge from Izzie’s elbow beside me. I turned, catching a glimpse of Liam and Roman in a discussion, and she scrunched her brow at me as discreetly as she could. I just shook my head and shrugged. Don’t say anything, I tried to convey to her. She seemed to understand, but looked almost as nervous as I felt.
The smell of spaghetti sauce was growing stronger and more pronounced in the room as Leo and Mrs. Merry deposited boxes of pastel chalk on each of the tables. Spaghetti was one of my favorites but today, as I kept a close eye on Roman, it churned and soured in my stomach with the weight of worry.
Class started with Mrs. Merry reminding us not to stress about how well our art turned out but just to go with the flow. I tried to do as she suggested, letting my arm sweep across my paper, leaving broad, loose streaks of color, but my mind was elsewhere. The image of Roman that summer kept running through my mind; the bulging veins in his neck and red face, the grasping of claw-like fingers, and the complete terror resounding in his panicked eyes. What if it happened again? Maybe he was lying to Mrs. Merry about how severe his allergy was but would he risk that kind of thing just for his pride? Maybe he was telling the truth about the smell. What did I know? I was allergic to mulberries, and had only ever seen them once in my life.
I peeked a look at him. He was sketching away effortlessly like always, but there was something a little off. He was a bit pale, it seemed to me. Or was I imagining it, projecting my fears on him? Just before I decided that nothing was wrong and went back to my artwork, he stopped sketching, closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose between his eyes. It was only an instant then he was back to his good ole composed self. As he started to raise his face, I quickly looked away. I didn’t want him to see me worrying, but I could feel his eyes lingering on me and I had to look up once more. He flashed me a grin and a wink, then stood and went to Mrs. Merry’s side.
“Where’s he going?” Leo asked, leaning to our table across the aisle. He was looking straight at me, as if none of the others could answer such a question. When I glanced around, I saw that they were all waiting on me to answer.
“Did you hear him tell me, or something?” I asked a bit more harshly than I meant.
We watched as Roman bent to speak in Mrs. Merry’s ear. Her eyes grew to the size of quarters as she nodded frantically. Her mouth was moving a mile a minute and the shrillness of her voice faintly tickled my ears but I couldn’t hear what she was saying. Roman straightened, shook his head, listened to her a moment longer then sauntered from the room.
Leo settled back in his seat and Izzie and Liam went back to their meandering conversation, but my mind went with Roman. Was he okay? I assumed he had left because of the tomatoes but just how bad off was he?
Mrs. Merry seemed to appear at my side without having moved at all. She grasped my shoulder and whispered in my ear.
“Go make sure he’s alright,” she said quietly.
“Thanks!” I whispered back, then turned to Izzie. “Take care of my stuff, would ya?” Not waiting for an answer, I grabbed up my bag and hurried from the room.
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