The Ordinary Life of Emily P. Bates (4 page)

I tried to send her the message with my eyes, but I think she may have thought I was trying to tell her that her mascara was running because she began frantically wiping under her eyes.

Shannon lagged behind after class, rummaging through her bag for her schedule. I waited with her because it gave Ethan plenty of time to disappear into the general crowd in the hallway. He flashed me another huge grin on his way out. I think I may have smiled back, but it’s possible that I scowled at him instead.

“Did I get the mascara off?” Shannon asked.

“What?” I asked, and then grinned when I realized what she meant. “Yeah, you got it.”

“Welcome to Literature everyone. My name is Ms. Anne Walsh.” The pretty English teacher had only been teaching for a couple of years, but this was the first time that I had ever had one of her classes. Her room didn’t have the usual thirty or so desks in it. Instead, there were eight or nine four-person tables, almost like a recycled biology room. When I walked in and spotted Finn near the back at a table with only one empty seat left, I rushed over to sit opposite him . He didn’t even look up from his book.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.” I recognized the other two boys sitting at the table as Jeff Sweeney, a stocky, nervous sort of boy, and Tom Noll, who was very tall and lanky and very, very shy. The both of them were in my Chemistry class as well, though I hadn’t sat anywhere near them that morning. To be frank, I don’t think I’d said more than four words to either of them since the third grade. They were kind of nerdy.

Finn’s choice of table mates didn’t surprise me, though. If he sat at the reject table where no one ever bothered to talk, then he’d have just that much more time to read.

“You’re all practically adults now,” Ms. Walsh continued, “and you’ve already been through ten or so first days, so I won’t bore you with the redundant. Let’s leave it at if you’re fair and respectful, then I’ll return the favor. Now lets–Mr. O’Malley?” She paused. Jeff and Tom both hunkered down in their seats as if they didn’t want to be noticed associating with anyone who drew the attention of the teacher.

“Yes, Ms. Walsh?” Finn said.

“Would you please do me the honor of paying attention in class?” Her eyes fell to the book that was now lying inconspicuously in his lap. “Not a good first impression, I’d say.”

“Sorry.” The book disappeared. Finn folded his hands on top of his desk and winked at me. I tried not to smile.

“Thank you. Now, I’d like to start the class with a little exercise. How many of you enjoy poetry?” A few hands fluttered half-heartedly into the air.

“Great. Everyone take out a piece of paper. We’re going to
write
some poetry. There’s nothing like hands on learning to start a school year out right.” A collective groan filled the air as we all pulled out pens and notebooks. “Don’t worry. This is fun and relatively painless. I promise. Everyone pick a partner and we’ll do some flash poetry.” She moved around to the front of the room.

“All right, everyone, write down what you think would make a great title for a poem. An
original
title. Write it down, then when I give the go-ahead, pass it to your partner.”

I looked down at my blank paper. Never before had a simple piece of lined paper ever looked so intimidating. Glancing upward, I saw Finn scribble a few words on his paper, then look up at me expectantly. Even Jeff and Tom had written something down. The whiteness of my page was making me nervous. Butterflies-in-my-stomach kind of nervous.

“Okay, now pass your papers. Use your partner’s title to write a brief poem. Just write the first thing that pops into your head. It doesn’t even have to be very good. You have thirty seconds. Go.”

Finn was handing me his paper. In a fluster, I scribbled the word “Butterflies” on my page and traded with Finn. I stared at his title and frowned.

Running Naked

What did that mean? Running naked? As in streaking? I glanced back up at Finn. His head was low over his paper so I couldn’t see what he was writing.

“All right,” Ms. Walsh said. “Let’s see what you’ve got. Any volunteers?”

Then a thought popped in my head and I started scribbling with a mischievous grin.

“What’s so funny?” Finn asked when I finished my four hasty lines.

“Nothing,” I said, but he’d already snatched back my paper.

He laughed suddenly, making me, Tom, and Jeff jump, and then kept laughing–quite loudly. He showed Tom the paper, and incredibly, Tom laughed, too. So did Jeff when Finn showed him, though it was more of a strangled snort than a laugh. My face was turning red.

“It’s not that funny,” I hissed at Finn, trying to snatch my paper back from him.

“What’s not that funny?” Ms. Walsh had come to investigate the disturbance. Finn handed her my poem without hesitation. She read, and then smirked. She was trying not to laugh, too.

“Did you write this, Finnegan?”

He shook his head, still laughing, and pointed at me. What color does one’s face turn after red? Is it purple? If it is, then my face was purple at that point.

“Okay everyone, I think we’ll start with Emily Bates’ poem entitled
Running Naked
.” She turned to me, holding out my poem for me to take back. “Would you like to share your poem with the class?”

“Do I have a choice?”

Finn kicked my shin under the table.

I glared at him and took my poem from Ms. Walsh.

Running Naked

That cool breeze upon my bare

Is really quite refreshing.

And though I don’t mind that they stare,

I wish they would stop laughing.

For about three seconds, the silence was deafening. I looked up, waiting for someone to react like Finn, Tom, and Jeff had, and then it hit. Someone across the room let out a loud “Whoa!” and then the entire room erupted into laughter. It had taken them a couple of seconds to get the reference, but once they did, there was no stopping the hysterics. Even Ms. Walsh was chuckling out loud now. Finn was laughing again, and he reached across the table to punch me in the arm.

“You’re such a smart ass!” he said in an undertone. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

I shrugged, grinning despite myself.

“All right!” Ms. Walsh said as the giggling died down. “All right. So we’ve had quite the first example. Would anyone else like to share theirs?”

I hunkered down in my seat after that. The rest of the class passed without incident, which I think Tom and Jeff were very glad of.

“I heard about the uproar you caused in class today,” Shannon said as we all walked back toward the parking lot that afternoon. Ethan was describing the finer points of a new shoot-em-up game that had just come out for the X-Box to Finn, and Margo was trailing along with Shannon and me.

“The poem wasn’t really that funny,” I said.

“That’s not what Finn says,” Margo said, flipping her short, curly, blond hair out of her face.

“Finn’s generous.”

Margo said nothing, but Shannon didn’t miss a beat.

“Now
you’re
being generous, Em. Hey, you should come by my place tonight after supper.”

“Why?” I asked, stopping at my car to wrench the door open.

“Me and Margo are gonna work on our calculus tonight. You should come.”

“Yeah, sure,” I said, a little distracted. Ethan was watching me as he pulled open the door of his truck. He waved casually. I smiled, staring a little.

“Emily!”

“What?” I whipped my head around and causing my own ponytail to smack me in the face. Shannon and Margo were both smirking and Finn was watching me warily. I risked a glance back at Ethan as he started his truck. He was grinning to himself as he pulled out of the parking lot.

“I asked if you’d drop me off at work,” Finn repeated himself.

“Oh. Right, yeah.”

Shannon shook her head in a self-righteous sort of way. She turned and started walking home across the school’s huge front lawn with Margo. A sudden pang of annoyance swept through my gut, temporarily dislodging the heavy weight that my mother’s pregnancy had settled there. Since when did Shannon invite Margo over to her house?

“Emily Prudence Bates!” Finn said loudly.

I rounded on Finn. “Shout that a little louder, why don’t you?”

“Emily
Prudence!
” he shouted louder.

“Don’t make me leave you here in the parking lot!” I threatened, but before the words were even out of my mouth, he had opened the passenger door and had gotten in.

“Dang!” I exhaled and climbed into the driver’s seat.

“What’s with you today?” Finn asked, shoving his backpack into the floorboard.

“Nothing’s with me.”

“You’re distracted.”

I stared after Shannon and Margo as they disappeared around the corner. “What?”

He sighed. “Nothing. Drive.”

Oscar lurched into gear and I backed out of the spot. “So, did Shannon ever tell you about her plans for you and Margo?” I asked

He shrugged. “Yeah, she said something about getting me a girlfriend.”

“What do you think?”

“About getting a girlfriend?” he asked with mock innocence. “I wouldn’t say no.”

“No, about Margo.”

“Eh,” he said. “I never really thought about her like that.”

“Do you think you could?”

“Why do you care so much?”

“I dunno. Shannon says Margo’s had a thing for you for a while.” I looked over at him. “She’s a nice girl, you know.”

“Oh, I know. I’ve known her just as long as you two have.” He looked out the window. “You shouldn’t play games with her, though.”

“Who says anyone’s playing games?” I asked. “Margo wants to hook up with you, and Shannon wants to help her do it.”

“And where do you stand on the issue?” He sounded bored. Maybe there really wasn’t any point in trying to get him to notice her.

I shrugged and pulled up to the curb in front of the old library. “I just think that Margo deserves a chance, that’s all. I think it’s worth trying to get you to notice her.”

He stared at me, unconvinced.

“Look, we’re not asking you to pretend to like her or take her out as a favor or anything,” I said all in a rush. “We just think you should give her a shot, that’s all.”

“Whatever,” he said and hauled himself out of the car. 

That night I called Shannon and told her that Mom said I couldn’t come over that night because she was so sick and needed me home. It was a lie, but I didn’t feel like doing calculus with an audience. I regretted this later that night as I stared at the text in utter bewilderment. After about half an hour of getting absolutely nowhere, I finally gave up. I had chewed through two different pencils and erased through three pieces of paper, but had finished not one single problem.

The next day at lunch, I pulled out the assignment again to make one last-ditch attempt at having something to turn in. Shannon was across the room talking with a group of girls from her Civics Class, but she dashed over to our table when she saw me coming.

“Why didn’t you do that last night?” Shannon stopped short when she noticed the Calculus book in my arms and the nervous sweat that had broken out on my forehead.

“I couldn’t figure it out.”

“We got through most of it,” Margo said. “We could have helped you.”

“Not a great way to start off a new year,” Ethan said, sliding his lunch tray out of his way and replacing it with my calculus book. “This stuff isn’t bad. Here, I’ll show you.”

I hesitated, still unused to having such pretty guys in such close proximity to me. There was one chair between us, but he pushed that chair away from the table and waited for me to occupy it.

“Well?”

I glanced over at Finn, who was pretending to read the book that he held in front of his face (the biography of Elvis Presley today) but was actually watching me over the top of it.

“Fine,” Ethan said, scooting closer to me instead of waiting for me to close the gap. “Here, look. This is just a review of algebra basics. Solve the equation for X. Just set Y equal to zero, then work it out from there.” I looked down at the page as he carefully wrote out each step in full detail. Suddenly I couldn’t see how I’d not understood in the first place.

“See? X equals 12?”

“Yeah, I see,” I said. Glancing back up at Finn, I saw his eyes had moved from my face to stare at Ethan instead. He looked oddly confused.

He wasn’t the only one.

“What about this one?” I asked, pointing to number two. “Same thing, right?” I took the pencil from Ethan, careful not to touch his hand when I did so.

By the time lunch was over, I had finished the last problem on my assignment, but neither Ethan nor I had remembered to eat. I suffered through most of Calculus with a grumbling stomach, which, of course, Ethan noticed.