Finally, the bell rang. I walked with dread toward Mrs. Breaux for the second time. Melissa, a defiant look on her face, joined me.
“Ladies, what do you have to say for yourselves?” Mrs. Breaux asked. Her mouth turned down at the corners like an angry Muppet. It would have been funny if she weren’t so terrifying.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have been reading a note in class.”
It wasn’t very riot grrrl–esque to care this much about detention, but my palms were sweating.
“I’m sorry, too,” Melissa said. She didn’t look remorseful, but at least she sounded polite.
Mrs. Breaux scanned the note, her reading glasses slipping down her nose. She held the paper up, using it as a pointer to accuse us of wrongdoing.
“Yo, Athena—Now, isn’t that a nice way to talk to your best friend?—Is the point of physics to make us question our existence or to want to end it?—My, I’m glad you shared that with me!—I saw the Cute Boy smile at you! Maybe he likes you—Oh, how touching, young love—What are you doing this afternoon? Want to come over and help me dye my hair? I want it blue (you’re so right about dyeing it that color!) for tomorrow when I go out with Jason. I already have the Manic Panic.”
Mrs. Breaux eyed Melissa critically. “As if you need any more ways to violate the school’s dress code, my dear,” she remarked drily, then continued reading. “Jason and I are going to see whoever’s playing at the Varsity. I hope he has a fake ID—Thank you, Miss Lemoine, for letting me know you are breaking the law! I doubt your father will like hearing about this—Do you think he does? You’re right. He is a bit scholarly. But he’s funny, and cute...and a good kisser—Oh, how I needed to know that, Miss Lemoine—Gotta go, best wishes for living through this dull class—Thank you for that kind assessment—Peace out, Melissa.”
Mrs. Breaux folded the note sharply in two and glared bullishly over her reading glasses.
“This note is absolutely inappropriate, Miss Lemoine,” she said. “Though I’m not surprised it came from you, considering your summer activities. Like many people at this school, I am surprised that you’re still here this fall, considering our pro-life policy.”
She paused to give Melissa a long, withering stare. Melissa’s face remained expressionless, but I could tell from her clenched fists that she wanted to talk back. I shook my head at her slightly, hoping Mrs. Breaux wouldn’t notice.
“Miss Lemoine, I will see you tomorrow morning for detention.”
Melissa nodded, because there was nothing else to do. Mrs. Breaux had skipped over the reasonable option of after-school detention, which Melissa could avoid telling her parents about by making up an excuse about staying late at school, and gone straight to the nuclear option of Saturday-morning detention. She would have to tell her parents.
Then Mrs. Breaux turned to me. I shrank back, certain she was going to give me the same punishment as Melissa. “As for you, Miss Graves, I’m giving you a warning.” Relief shuddered through me, followed by a wave of angry annoyance when Mrs. Breaux added, “And I suggest you stop associating with Miss Lemoine, unless you also want to spend more time with me.”
Melissa and I rushed out into the deserted hall together. I gulped in the air of freedom, even though it was technically the same air as in the classroom.
“God, she’s awful,” a voice behind us said.
I turned to see who’d spoken to us. Kyle, the Cute Boy, leaned casually against the lockers, like he’d been waiting.
“What are you doing here?” Melissa asked. “I hope you weren’t eavesdropping.”
She sounded pissed. Guilt crept into my brain. After all, I’d escaped unpunished, but she would be hanging out with Mrs. Breaux tomorrow morning.
“No, I left my books for the next class in there.” He smiled at me, but I had a hard time smiling back. Recovering from Mrs. Breaux’s threats would take time, even if most of them weren’t directed at me. “I didn’t know if she’d let me in after lunch.”
“Want to eat with us?” The words popped out of my mouth unexpectedly, and I lost my ability to speak for the next few seconds, surprised that I’d managed to say something to the Cute Boy. It hadn’t been a very long sentence, but it was clearly spoken and made sense.
Kyle’s smile widened. “Sure. I’ll meet you in the cafeteria after I get my books.”
His answer surprised me even more. All thoughts of Mrs. Breaux disappeared from my mind as I nodded at him and walked to the cafeteria with Melissa.
6
In the cafeteria, I sat across from Kyle, and Melissa sat next to me. As I looked at Kyle, my stomach flipped and a deathly silence descended on our table.
I was in shock. I’d asked the Cute Boy—Kyle—to eat lunch with us. I reminded myself that it was just lunch. It wasn’t a date or anything. He was new at our school, new enough that asking him to eat lunch with us wasn’t crossing cliques or an affront to some girlfriend, at least as far as I knew. I had no idea what he did after school, though. He could have half a dozen girlfriends.
I tried not to think about that. Instead, I racked my brain frantically for something to talk about. Since the first day I’d latched onto his backpack, I’d been thinking of all the things I wanted to talk about with him. Now that we were sitting together in the cafeteria, though, they’d all disappeared from my brain. It was like going into a record store, knowing that I wanted a specific band’s latest CD, but all memory of what I was looking for vanished as soon as I crossed the threshold into the store.
Instead, my mind buzzed with a thousand boring small-talk topics that would make me sound like the therapist my dad made me and Helen see after he divorced Mom—So, what’s your family like? What does your father do?—or like a complete freak—So, it doesn’t seem like you’ve joined any clubs or sports, as far as I know. What do you do when you’re not at school?
So I can stalk you.
“Did y’all see that Ross Perot might reenter the presidential race? That guy’s got some straaange ideas,” Melissa said, in her version of “How about that local sports team?”
I had to think fast, or else Melissa would dominate the conversation with a political diatribe. There was nothing less romance inducing than your friend going on a rant about the lasting legacy of trickle-down Reaganomics or what she planned to spray-paint on the fake abortion clinic near LSU, which lured pregnant girls in with false pretenses of help but didn’t actually offer any medical services. I had to say something.
“Do we have to talk about him?” I asked. I shifted uncomfortably in my chair, which scraped fartingly against the floor. Great. Now I sounded awkward and flatulent.