Into My Heart

by Rosalie Ferdinand

  *****

  The Trouble With Hess's Law

  I wrote this message to Rafe:

  Meet me at 12:07 in the Math Hallway. Do not share this information with anyone.

  Anyone being Katrina Edwards. She seemed like the sort of girl who'd snoop around her boyfriend's locker. That was why I was prudent enough to write the note in Pig Pen, a tricky little code that was used during World War II. We learned all about Pig Pen in history class last year so I figured Rafe would be able to decipher it without any problem. He dealt with weed so surely he had to know codes and cryptograms to protect his buyers, right?

  I left Rafe's locker at ten after seven, secure in the knowledge that no one had seen me. I went back to my own locker and spent the next hour and a half working on a sheet of old Kinetics equations and graphing exponential functions to get me ready for class. It was a good way of stretching before another day of scholarly work-outs.

  We preformed a Titration in the Chemistry lab second period and since my group was done first, Mr. Barker let us leave early. I headed for the library so that I could do my lab write-up and hand it in by the end of the day. That way, when I got home I could finish off 'Applied Vector Analysis' without being distracted by Chem. homework.

  I was slowly trekking down the stairs to the second floor...I have a large phobia of stairs and falling down them...when something cold clamped around my wrist.

  "The end point of a titration is when the indicator changes colour!" I shrieked hysterically, clutching onto the banister for precious life.

  "Shit!" It was Rafe. He released my wrist at the speed of light. "What the hell's wrong with you?"

  People grabbing and scaring me in spooky old stairwells was what was wrong with me. "I have titrations on the brain," I gasped, nosily sucking in air.

  "What?"

  "Titrations are a method of reacting a solution of known concentration with one of unknown concentration." I plopped down on the stairs since my heart was still competing in the Toronto Marathon. I took solace in the familiar, unscary world of Chemistry. "I just did one using HCL, NAOH and Phenolphthalein as an indicator."

  "Uh huh." Rafe sat down next to me. He was wearing a camouflaged bandana and an olive green puffy vest over a long-sleeved black top. He looked like a buff street orphan ready for combat. I hoped he'd wear this kickass get-up when he got brutal with Conner, it was cool. "So what's the deal with you stuffing garbage in my locker?"

  That didn't register on my seismograph. "Pi r squared?"

  He blinked at me, his long lashes fluttering. It was like he used Revlon Fabulash every day. "Katrina saw you putting that 'I love Wayne Fung' paper in my locker yesterday. You want me to set him with you or something? I don't even know the guy but if I were you, I'd ditch the cheese-flavoured love notes."

  "I don't know who Wayne Fung is either," I answered indignantly. As though I was idiot girl enough to resort to such frivolities. "I found that paper in a Doritos bag the trash. Didn't you look on the back? I wrote my phone number and locker number there so you could find me."

  "The back was a big brown blob on a bunch of French Revolution notes."

  "Oh. Guess the eyeliner smudged." Liquid eyeliner you found on the ground was tricky like that. I adopted my best French 'guy-from-Just-Visiting' accent. "Sen tem to zee guillotine Thibault Malfete!"

  Rafe braced his elbows on his thighs, frowning. "Why didn't you just write on paper with a pen like every other normal person around here?"

  He certainly thought a lot of himself didn't he, the uncultured heathen. "Why would I waste a whole piece of paper on you?"

  Rafe had no answer to that. His ego was deflating beneath this massive blow, I could tell. "What about this weirdass shit then?" He yanked out the encrypted note I'd written and shoved it at me. "You think I care that you got a hundred and twenty on a history test in grade ten?"

  I made a grand production of turning the paper over. "You can't blame Maybelline this time. QED chump, QED."

  "What, you didn't wanna waste English on me either?" Rafe snapped. His fingers were twitching under his chin.

  "You're like Hydrogen Fluoride – very volatile," I mumbled, squashing myself against the banister to avoid being strangled. On the one hand Rafe's rage was excellent as it showed me how he'd wield it to smush up Conner but on the other hand I didn't want him to smush me up. I didn't like when people got mad at me. "But don't tell Katrina I said that. She thought I was being flirty with you yesterday and got pissed off. That's why I wrote the note in Pig Pen Code. We learned about it in history class last year, remember? I thought you'd know it 'cause you handle drugs."

  He stared at me with those deep, navy-blue eyes for a while. "I don't write in Pig Pen Code, Jane," he finally said, taking back the note and shoving it into his pocket. "No one does. How about you forget about Katrina and stick to English?"

  "Sometimes completing the square is unnecessary when you can just factor," I agreed, sighing. It wasn't nearly as fun, not writing in Pig Pen but if Rafe didn't know it then I may as well have been trying to floss with egg salad. At least I had Suril – we still used Pig Pen all the time. It came in handy when Suril wanted to gush over some guy's bum. "But you should know that I suffer deeply from an old binomial called Katrinaphobia. It's plagued me ever since the days of grade primary."

  Rafe looked amused. It was a very hot-to-trot look for him. "Katrinaphobia."

  "Yes, it's most true. She cut off my braid during nap time once and blamed it on the handicapped kid." I chewed on my scraggly hair as the memories came flooding back. "Everyone thought I was a boy after that – but also I did eat a lot of pink crayons."

  Rafe snorted. "Lemme guess – you still bear deep emotional wounds from Katrina's foul treachery."

  "Well, not so much. I was kinda glad she did it, to tell you the truth, 'cause I always wanted to be a boy." That was one good instance actually; I'd hated sitting there, flinching while Grandma brushed out my tangles and then braided the whole mess too tightly. "I'm still scared of her though."

  "Well now's the perfect time to face your fear." Rafe smiled at me and was so attractive that I just goggled at him. I wanted to smush my hot, two-pimpled cheek against his cute, freckled one and hug him tight. "I'm breaking up with Katrina."

  That penetrated through my fog of yearning. "Oh no way brother," I cried, straightening up. "I can't dump her for you, that's just too cruel a bobcat."

  Rafe cocked an eyebrow. "Did I ask you to?"

  "Oh." I went back to slouching. "Phew that was kilocalorie close."

  "Katrina's high-maintenance," Rafe told me, like I hadn't any idea of this fact. "If I dump her, she'll freak out and make a big scene and go all girlie on me. Then she'll wanna get back together 'cause she's already planning our wedding...who wants to deal with all that shit? I'm only eighteen for fuck sakes."

  "Tell her you have Gonorrhoea," I advised, licking my hair. "I hear girls don't like that."

  "Fuck that noise," Rafe snapped angrily. "I glove my love."

  I erupted in a sudden fit of laughter that left my eyes and nose streaming. "Yeah good one!" I choked out and thumped Rafe on the back. What a funny fellow. What a comedic cad. What a hilarious hooligan

  He watched me hooting for a few minutes and then shook his head, smiling slightly. "You're outta this world Jane." He leaned close to me, his legs pressing against mine as two girls came trooping down the stairs past us. He didn't smell like weed today.

  I scoured my dripping face with the strap of my schoolbag and caught my breath. "Man, the last time I laughed like that was when Suril forgot the molar mass of Strontium."

  Rafe's smile broadened. "And he calls himself an honours student."

  I glanced around. No one was coming up or down. "Don't tell anyone this but once I messed up a Hess's Law question," I whispered in great confidence.

  Rafe tilted his head. He blinked.

  "I know, I looked up the wrong Copper Sulphide value! How much of a dipshit do you have t
o be to mess up Hess's Law?" I sulked at the memory. "I was kicking myself for weeks. Suril wouldn't shut up about it either – he kept saying that I'd have to go to community college."

  "Well there's no need for that kind of dirty talk."

  "That's what I told him. I mean who thinks that..." I trailed off. Rafe's mouth was twitching above his steepled fingers. Hmmph log base A. This was the last time I'd ever share tragedies from my past with the likes of Rafe Moretti. I should've known that some lad-faced, drug-smoking hired thug wouldn't understand how important school really was. He probably didn't even know what Hess's Law was, the dim-witted, adorable lout.

  "Why don't you want my money?" I asked abruptly.

  "Because I don't need it." Rafe stretched and leaned back, his arm resting on the step behind us. "What I need is to raise my average. You're obviously a genius and I wanna graduate with honours for my Mom so I figure you can help me out."

  My opinion of Rafe rose, though mostly it was because he'd referred to me as a genius. "Maybe attending class once in a while would be a good way to jumpstart things."

  He poked my arm. "Hey this is legit, I'm on a free."

  Well if he wanted to call a canine a k-five then what business of it was mine? "So I just tutor you and you don't get fifty bucks?"

  He shrugged. "I might get you to do other stuff, depending on what comes up."

  My eyes widened. My chest seized up. "I will not deal...the dope...not even for the pursuit of Justice."

  "Christ Jane." Rafe gave me a disgusted look. "I'd never get you involved in anything like that. Anyway, this dealing shit's only temporary while Masher's on probation. He'll be back at school in a couple of weeks and then I'll be clean again."

  "Masher of the West Evington Mashers I presume? Why I say old bean, how droll." I tittered in a hoity-toity 'I-shop-at-Harrods' fashion and then stuck my face in Rafe's. "If it doesn't aggravate my Katrinaphobia then I'll do."

  He smacked his palm to my cheek and shoved my face away, sighing. I guessed he wasn't impartial to Shreddies breath. "Okay, so I might need some help getting Katrina to dump me. I was just trying to ease you into this because of your Katrinaphobia."

  "If by 'help' you mean that she'll never know I'm helping, then yes I'll gladly help."

  "She's already picked out a goddamn wedding dress! She wants to name our kids Severn and Astra!" Rafe took on a wild, desperate look that was not unlike the noble bison that once roamed the plains of Saskatchewan. "The least you can do is hear me out."

  Aucontrairemonami "The least I can do is nothing."

  His eyes narrowed. A couple of hefty librarians climbed by and Rafe pushed against me with more force than necessary.

  "Okay I'll give it a try."

  Smirking, he laid out his plan. "I told Katrina last night that you're tutoring me and she's fine with it. I'll study with you all week and then this weekend we can meet up at McGregor's party. It'd be the perfect place to get trashed and then get caught making out. Katrina'll blow her stack, dump me and then I can go and beat the shit out of McGregor for you. How about it?"

  I thought about the fifty dollars Mrs. Shah had offered me and the fifty I already had. "I'll give you a hundred bucks." Hell, even Grandma would even join the cause if I asked her too. "No, a hundred and fifty, I promise. I'll give you the money tomorrow. If I don't you can tell the Mayor on me."

  Rafe grinned. "How many guys are you planning on showing your bra to?"

  Guy from my French class! "No, a hundred and sixty dollars."

  The bell rang then, signifying the end of second period.

  "Meet me at my locker at lunch," Rafe said as we headed down to the second floor. "We'll talk more then."

  What was there to talk about, other than the Chinese Financial Market and cuts to Health Care? "I've never been to a party before, I've never had alcohol before and I've never kissed a boy before."

  "Well what works out pretty good because I've never kissed a weirdo brainiac before." Rafe pushed me up against a 'Smoking isn't Cool, Respect your School' poster and kissed me. "Two outta three Janie," he whispered against my stunned mouth, his tongue dipping out to trace my lower lip.

  And then he strutted off.

  Maybe he did like Shreddies breath afterall.

  "I saw that one." A tall, pretty brunette was standing on the stairs that led down to the first floor, watching me with pale eyes. "Katrina's gonna flip the fuck out."

  I wrenched out of my brainless torpor, did a dash and grabbed the girl's hand. "Don'ttelldon'ttelldon'ttelldon'ttelldon'ttelldon'ttelldon'ttelldon'ttelldon'ttelldon'ttelldon'ttell." I paused to gulp in air. I felt like I'd been snuffling linseed oil again. "Don'ttelldon'ttelldon'ttelldon'ttelldon'tell-"

  "What'll you give me?"

  "I'll show you my bra?"

  "...okay."

  xxx

  Katrina and Rafe were kissing when I arrived at Rafe's locker. A horrible thought eclipsed my post-Physics brain saturation. Rafe's mouth had touched my mouth and now his mouth was touching Katrina's mouth. Did that mean that Katrina and I had kissed via osmosis? I chewed on my wrist, revolted and terrified. When Grandma would ask me if I'd kissed a boy or a girl today, could I reply 'yes' to both? Was I now a woman of loose virtue? I was sure that McGill and UFT and Mount A still gave out scholarships to tartlets...didn't they? Had I shamed my Mom and Dad's memory? Had I gotten a one hundred on my latest English assignment? Not that I gave a castrated antelope about English but it was important for the continued maintenance of my ninety-nine point nine average.

  "I love you sweetie sugar cookie," Katrina cooed, rubbing her nose against Rafe's.

  Rafe mumbled something incoherently. He caught sight of me over Katrina's shiny auburn hair and abruptly let her go.

  My stomach ruffled loudly. I wanted a sugar cookie without the cookie so bad.

  "Hey Jane," Rafe said. "Ready to get studying?"

  "Let's get dinnering first." I patted my stomach in a 'there there my pretty' kind of gesture. "Doing Calculus on an empty stomach gives me the runs for some reason…that burnt sienna kind that makes shitty toilet water plop up on your arse. Mass times acceleration equals force, if you know what I mean."

  Rafe and Katrina exchanged revolted looks. I could tell that they knew what I was talking about – who wouldn't, except for poor people who had no toilets. Suril told me that in a lot of places in India they don't have toilets and you have to go in holes in the ground. He said that sometimes you can see eyes looking out of the holes and when you squat down, you can get bitten on the bum. I thought that was understandable – I'd want to bite someone too if they took a dump on my house.

  "She was always really weird," Katrina told Rafe as she reapplied some glimmery mocha lipshine that came out of a tube.

  "Only a fool would pickle gingersnaps when the crescent moon passes through the House of Capricorn," I replied sagely. This was an ancient Tibetan proverb and it meant that when one's character was maligned most foully, one was to turn the other cheek. I smacked my other cheek. "See how I mean? It's defence."

  "You can't pickle gingersnaps dummy," Katrina gingersnapped, sliding her arm around Rafe's waist and leaning close.

  I frowned as I took up teething my wrist again. "Maybe it was unagi?"

  Rafe laughed.

  "Jesus." Katrina did some gooey, noisy, kissy thing to Rafe, who got through the offence by groping her perky little butt. "I'll see you in Global huggy-wuggy honey bear."

  "Yeah," Rafe grunted, peeling her arms from his puffy vest.

  "You two have fun," Katrina trilled, her sassy straw wedges clomping as she flounced down the hall.

  I flopped down and opened up my schoolbag. "Let's eat now, don't say no."

  Rafe wiped Katrina's lipgoo transfer on his sleeve. "You're in the middle of the hallway."

  Sighing loudly, I did a backwards scuttle until I hit the wall. For a drug-dealer, Rafe sure was picky-pantaloons. People could walk around me couldn't they? I pulled out my lunch bag and p
eered inside.

  "You're growing on me," Rafe remarked as he sat down next to me. "You're like no one I've ever met before."

  I glanced at him suspiciously. "Is that supposed to be one of those 'pick-up lines' I keep hearing so much about?"

  Rafe laughed as he opened up a bottle of Dr. Pepper. "I don't need to pick you up Janie, I've already got you."

  What pomp and arrogance. I wasn't some kind of STD he could pick up from Katrina's Silk and Satin thongs. If Mrs. Shah was here, she'd have taken off her sandal and beaten Rafe like a stubborn hen. "What you did was a travesty of justice."

  "Yeah? And what did I do exactly?"

  "You kissed my mouth while being another girl's huggy-wuggy honey bear."

  "Now you can see why I wanna dump her." Rafe unwrapped a gigantic donair that stank to Medicine Hat. "She's way too clingy. What guy wants to be called fucking huggy-wuggy bear? The girl's on crack."

  "Maybe you shouldn't have sold it to her then," I pointed out as I opened up my yoghurt container.

  Rafe swallowed hastily and gave me an indignant look. "I didn't sell her fucking...what's that smelly shit?"

  "It's not caribou jizz." I rummaged around for my spoon. "Today's my S day. That's why I made soup for lunch."

  "What the fuck's in it?"

  "Squash, shallots, satsumas, soybeans and seaweed."

  "That's nasty." Rafe waved his hand around like his lunch shat tiger lilies. "What else do you have on this prestigious S-Day?"

  "7UP, spanikopita, sunflower seeds and a strawberry strudel." I slurped up some soup. It tasted like a pig hoof. I'd only been able to season it with salt, sage, and saffron. "This is what weirdo brainiacs do."

  He eyed my soup and wished me good luck. I popped open my 7UP to mask the soup taste but it didn't work. I'd used Japanese Nori paper, the seaweed used to make sushi, in my soup and it was some pungent-ass shite. Probably I should've done without but it had been sitting there from the last time Mr. Yakama came over to make sushi for Grandma and I didn't want to waste it. Grandma and Mr. Yakama were on the rocks at the moment – he said that his dead wife didn't approve of his relationship with Grandma and that's why she was haunting his vegetable crisper – so who knew when he'd ever come over again? I didn't like wasting food, even if it was stank and came from the sea.

  Rafe finished his gross, dripping donair in about thirty seconds and started up on a bag of ketchup chips and a box of Smarties. He was watching me eat like I was going through Anaphase. "So about McGregor's party this week-"

  "I've got a hundred and sixty dollars with your name on it," I interrupted around a mouthful of sunflower seeds. "Think of how many joints you can buy. It'll be like a concert. You know, a real rock one, not like the violin-piccolo kind."

  Rafe rolled his eyes. "I didn't kiss you for nothing Janie."

  "You must feel so desecrated." I unwrapped my spanikopita. "Hey could you tell I had Shreddies for breakfast when you did the deed?"

  "How could I – your mouth was all pinched up like a librarian's tit."

  I burst out laughing and choked, spraying food bits into my hand. "You're a hoot and a half bud!" I wiped chew-up spanikopita on my cords, sniggering and coughing.

  Rafe dug up a crumpled tissue from his schoolbag and handed to me. "See Katrina would never laugh like that – she'd be all pissed at me for saying 'tit'."

  "It's better than saying teat."

  "This is why I want your help this weekend and not some other chick's." Rafe took hold of my wrist and poured a bunch of Smarties into my palm. "You're a messed whack-job but you're kinda awesome too."

  A funny feeling rumpled my stomach. I thought it was because I'd never been called kinda awesome before but it might have been from the sketchy S soup. "You still cheated on your girlfriend." I ate the red Smarties first to prove that I wasn't a stooge susceptible to cheap marketing ploys.

  "No I didn't. As far as I'm concerned, we've already broken up. And anyway, you needed the practice."

  "It takes more than a negative charge to make a Polyatomic Ion...with the exception of Ammonia which has a positive charge of plus one."

  Rafe set down his Dr. Pepper, his eyes narrowing. It seemed he wasn't a fan of the Polyatomic Ions. After he tutored with me, I was sure he'd feel differently. "My charge for trashing McGregor is you getting Katrina to dump me."

  I moped as I played with my soup. Why couldn't I have been strong enough to beat up jocks on my own? "I guess I'll be sharing a hospital room with Conner after Katrina beats me up for fooling around with her wuggy honey sugar cookie. My Grandma'll be thrilled, she always wanted me to get a cast so that she could write dirty couplets on it."

  "Like I'd let anything happen to you Janie," Rafe scoffed, as though he was a match for the wrath of Katrina. "I'll act like a drunk asshole at the party and you can be all 'not-before-marriage' when I corner you. You kick up a big struggle while we're kissing and when Katrina sees that, she'll dump me and feel all sorry for you because I'm such a pig."

  What moon was this fellow orbiting? Did I look like a Juno winner thespian? "I don't know how to do that. It's weird and...not very metaphysical"

  "Are you saying that a scientific genius like yourself can't act like a normal teenage girl for a few hours?"

  "I am saying that, yes." I plugged my nose with one hand and finished off the last of the soup with the other. It clogged my sinuses and made my cheeks sink into my tongue. "So do you wanna study Chemistry now? That's my favourite subject tied with Math and Physics. I'll probably get goosebumps while we're working but don't worry, that always happens when I crack open a really invigorating textbook."

  "Do you or don't you want McGregor to pay for what he did to your best friend?"

  I stared down at my strawberry strudel miserably. My clever ploy of skirting the issue with talks of tutoring hadn't worked. I was a dud-pie fit to be beaten with a fifty Rupee pair of sandals like a Post Master from Surat. "But I have a hundred and sixty dollars."

  "We're working on my terms Janie," Rafe reminded me in a low, pissed off voice. His eyes glittered in a non Irish-urchin kind of way. He now looked capable of beating up three guys, that was for sure. "I don't want your fucking money."

  I picked sunflower seeds out of my teeth with my tongue. Even the rate of a forward reaction is equal to the rate of the reverse reaction in an equilibrium system. "Then I will shift in the endothermic direction."

  "Is that a yes or what?"

  I grunted and jammed half the strudel into my mouth to keep from pondering my flourishing Katrinaphobia and the now stemmings of Rafephobia.

  "I knew you'd come around." Rafe smirked and pinched my cheek so hard that I saw Ursula Minor.

  I didn't feel bad when I spewed strudel all over his cool puffy vest.