by William Bell
“Which?”
“Existential.”
“You’re quicker than most.”
“I try. What does it mean?”
Her reply was drowned out by the bell announcing the end of the lunch period. She shrugged her shoulders and said, “What do you have next?”
“Dramatic arts,” I answered.
“I’ve got”—she fished a timetable from her shirt pocket and looked it over—“biology.”
“Well, I guess I’ll see you around,” I said, getting up.
“Right,” she replied doubtfully, assuming I was brushing her off, it sounded like.
“See you in English tomorrow.”
She smiled. “I’m still trying to work out how Hamlet ended up in a modern drama course.”
“So is Hamlet.”
CHAPTER THREE
NOBODY KNEW FOR SURE how Instant Grady had come by his nickname. Instant was closed-mouthed about the topic. Some thought he’d earned his handle because he could come up quickly with an answer to almost any question a teacher—or student, for that matter—tossed his way. He had a sort of photographic memory, and a big, overheated brain to keep it in. “Hey, Instant,” someone would call out across the library, “I need a synonym for ‘really, really overdecorated.’” “Blatantly ornate,” he’d reply. “What’s the square root of 15,625?” “One hundred and twenty-five, you moron.” If he didn’t know the kid or didn’t like him, he’d either say “Look it up yourself” or give him a wrong answer.
We had been pals in grade school, then lost touch when he went to York in grade nine, but we hooked up again soon after I transferred. I was an okay student; he was brilliant, sort of. Although he could replay word for word anything he read, he claimed he didn’t always understand what he was repeating. The way he explained it was that he didn’t necessarily see the connections between things. I pretended I knew exactly what he meant. I got pretty good marks almost all the time. He failed tests all semester then knocked over the final exam and scraped through. He easily reached the solution to an equation, but often he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—tell you how he arrived at it, and he was hopeless at teaching it to someone else. He was in the music program—jazz tenor sax—and got straight A’s. Wasn’t music all about connections?
As far as I was concerned, he was just lazy. In most classes you could get by with memory work—you didn’t have to see how things fit together. He could have spewed out all the things he remembered and aced a quiz, but he couldn’t be bothered. In some subjects he’d ask me for advice about how to write a test. It was just a game. He was just fooling around, and I went along with him for the laughs.
The day after Vanni O’Riada strolled into our lives, he and I took our lunches outside to enjoy the early-autumn sunshine. We sat near one of the big maple trees that shaded the grounds of the school near the river. He wolfed down some nachos coated with processed yellow goo pretending to be cheese, leaving crumbs down the front of his shirt, then popped open a plastic tub of instant chocolate pudding that closely resembled a petroleum derivative. I was looking over his history test. He got five marks out of eighty. He had asked me to help him with his answers. McGillivray always made the kids who failed write out perfect answers.
Instant stretched his lanky frame on the grass, ankles crossed, hands linked behind his head, face to the clear blue sky. “Tell me what to write so I can get an A next time,” he begged insincerely.
Chewing a nourishing Mom-prepared sandwich, I read aloud, “Question 1: ‘State and discuss the reasons for the Allies’ invasion of the Normandy beaches in 1944. Twenty-five marks.’”
“Right. I remember that one. I thought my answer was brilliant.”
“You wrote, ‘Hitler had it coming.’”
I paused. Instant lifted his head and offered me an innocent look. “Well, he did.”
“If McGillivray had given you five marks per word, you still wouldn’t have gotten perfect.”
McGillivray taught a half-credit course called Major Conflicts of the Modern World. She saw everything in terms of wars and constitutions.
“Well, Hitler was a tyrant. One of the worst,” Instant said to the sky.
“That’s a value judgment, not an answer,” I said. “Your single sentence hardly qualifies as a discussion.”
“What’s to discuss? Hitler ordered a German soldier to dress up in a Polish uniform and attack a German post office or something. Then he claimed Poland had invaded Germany. He blitzed and looted most of Europe. The Holocaust was his handiwork. He got what he deserved.”
I decided to let that one go for a while. “Question 2 reads, ‘Discuss the reasons for the Second Gulf War. Twenty marks.’ You wrote, ‘Oil.’ This must be a new record, Instant, even for you. A one-word answer. Let’s see, at five marks per letter—”
“I’m still five marks short of a perfect score.”
“Correct.”
“But you have to admit I’m right.”
“Of course you’re right. Getting high marks isn’t about being right. It’s about barfing up enough facts so McGillivray can make twenty ticks in the margin beside your answer with her red pen.”
“She just doesn’t like my handwriting.”
I scoffed.
“How many ticks did you get?” he demanded.
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Okay, thirty.”
“Maybe I should have written ‘Oil’ twenty times. Do you think that would have satisfied her?”
I laughed and tossed his pathetic test at him. Just then I spied Vanni strolling along the path by the river, her head down as if she was deep in thought. She was wearing a denim dress over a black T-shirt, and leather clogs. Very retro. I waved when she looked up. She returned the greeting and headed our way.
“Here comes Vanni,” I told Instant.
He sat up, cross-legged, his thin upper body curved like a comma. “The one who put Locheed in his place?”
“Yup. The very person.”
“The one with the colossal—”
“She’s a little sensitive about it,” I warned as Vanni drew closer, her shoes brushing the grass.
“Sensitive about what?” she asked. She stood with her tote bag on one shoulder, her wavy hair an unruly halo around her oval face. “As if I didn’t know.”
“Er, nothing,” I replied.
“Your nose,” Instant contradicted.
Vanni pinned him with a withering stare.
I tried to smooth things over. “Vanni, this is my friend Instant.”
She directed her stabbing glance toward me. “Instant friend, is it?”
“No, his—”
“Jake and I go back a long way,” Instant cut in, totally unaware of Vanni’s wrath. “It was a pleasure watching you run Locheed around in circles yesterday.”
“Is he always like that?” Vanni asked, letting Instant off the hook.
“You mean rude, arrogant, condescending, pompous and overbearing?”
Vanni grinned. “You forgot ‘imperious.’”
“I wasn’t making fun of your nose,” Instant said, looking up at Vanni with an innocent expression on his face.
I groaned inwardly. What an idiot. He’d gotten away with his first blunder. Now he’d blown it for sure.
Vanni gave him a forced smile.
Instant plunged toward disaster. “I merely remarked to Jake that it was big.”
The smile slipped off Vanni’s face. Fire sparked in her eyes.
“As big as a snowplow?”
“No, I—”
“Big enough to take shelter under it during a thunderstorm?”
“I didn’t—”
“I’ve heard all the jokes, Mr. Instant Whatever-your-name is.”
“It’s Gra—”
“And a few you’ve never thought of.” Hands on her hips, Vanni gave him a slow, deliberate visual examination from on high. She took a step closer, forcing Instant to look almost straight up at h
er.
“You’re a bit of a string bean, aren’t you?” she pointed out calmly, as if discussing tomorrow’s weather report. “A trifle on the lean side. A bag of bones. You’ll forgive the mixed metaphor.”
Instant looked my way.
“It’s true,” I said, enjoying his discomfort.
“You look like one of those noodle-shaped fellas in the weight-training advertisements,” Vanni continued. “You’d be the ‘Before’ picture, of course.”
Instant tried to defend himself. “I only said—”
“Is that your Adam’s apple there, or did you swallow a tennis ball? And those ears: I suppose they flap in a high wind. Must make it hard to hear.”
Instant tilted his head to the side and smiled innocently. “Pardon?”
Vanni laughed and nodded. “Good one,” she conceded, and she sat down on the grass, folding her legs beneath her and tucking her skirt under them.
“Are we even now?” Instant asked.
“We’re even.”
“Truce?”
“Why not?”
I didn’t know Vanni well enough to decide whether she realized she had won something rare: Instant Grady’s respect. He admired people—guys or girls, he didn’t care—who stood up for themselves. But for a brainy person he could be dumb sometimes.
I listened as Instant and Vanni chatted—mostly about music. Instant mentioned that music was his major and he played sax. Vanni told him about her dad’s band. After a while I looked at my watch.
“Twenty minutes ’til the end of lunch period. Just enough time for a coffee.”
Vanni agreed immediately.
“No, thanks,” Instant said. “I’ve got math after lunch. Coffee would keep me awake.”
CHAPTER FOUR
PARTIALLY ORGANIZED MAYHEM is a good phrase to describe our dramatic arts class, with Mr. Panofsky (“Call me Saul”) darting back and forth, his slender hands fluttering in a futile effort to bring some sort of order to the chaos. “Creativity is messy,” he was fond of saying, but sometimes we went way beyond messy.
On the Monday morning some people would call fateful, we were supposed to be preparing our little dramas for performance. Two weeks before, Panofsky had divided the class into groups of three. Our assignment was to write and present a two-hander (two of us acting, one directing) within the time period, and today was our last rehearsal day. I was in a group of four because the class hadn’t divided neatly by three.
“Jake,” Saul called just after I had dumped my backpack in the corner of the dais, “I have a job for you.”
I walked across the room to his desk, which he almost never used.
“We have a new student,” he said. “I want you to do the interview.”
“But—”
“No buts. It’s your turn. You’re kind of a fifth wheel in your group anyway.”
“How can I be fifth wheel in a group of four people?”
“Even you could find a way. The student should be along any time now. Once he checks in with me, I’ll give you a shout.”
Panofsky’s method of helping us get to know one another at the beginning of the course had been to pair us up and have us interview each other, then present our partners to the class. Some kids did it like a radio or TV face-to-face, some like a police interrogation—anything to lighten the mood. So I would interview this new guy and present him to the group.
But it wasn’t a him. About halfway through the period, I heard Panofsky’s bass tones calling my name over the gabble of voices. I approached his desk and saw, sitting at a desk near the door, a girl.
And what a girl.
“Jake,” Panofsky said, “meet the newest member of our class. I’ve explained the role you’ll play in introducing her. Let me know when you’re ready.”
He left us alone. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Her thick, shoulder-length strawberry blonde hair contrasted with a tight charcoal V-neck sweater, emphasis on the V. I sat down opposite her and gulped. She adjusted her position, causing her sweater front to jiggle. A gold cross hung from a fine chain around her neck, and the vertical stem of the cross pointed invitingly, like a beckoning finger, to the dark space between her breasts.
“Hi, I’m Alba,” she said with a dazzling smile. “And stop staring at my boobs.”
“I wasn’t!” I croaked.
“Yes, you were.”
“I—”
“What colour are my eyes?” she demanded.
Flustered, searching for the words to get me out from under her completely accurate accusation, I focused on her face to prove that her chest was the furthest thing from my mind. Her oval face was perfectly proportioned, with creamy, unblemished skin and a generous, full-lipped mouth. She was stunning.
And her large eyes, set beneath fine, fair brows, were closed.
“Well?” she insisted.
“Er …”
“Yes?”
With blonde hair and skin like a model in a TV commercial, I reasoned, she would not have brown eyes.
“Blue.”
“Gotcha!” she said, with what I thought was undeserved triumph, then opened her eyes.
I was right. Her eyes weren’t brown.
They were grey.
“But I wasn’t looking at … I was fascinated by your gold cross,” I lied for the second time.
Her not-blue eyes rolled in disbelief. She smirked.
“No, really,” I blundered on, too far from shore now to risk swimming back. “My mom has one just like it—well, not exactly the same, but close. I bought it for her on her birthday.”
Alba’s eyes softened. “Hmm. I almost believe you.”
Resolutely keeping my eyes on her lovely face I replied, “Well, good. I’d hate to think—”
“So Mr. Panofsky said something about an interview.”
“Oh yeah.” I clicked my ballpoint pen and opened my notebook to the list of questions we’d been given on the first day of the semester. “I’m supposed to ask you these questions, then introduce you to the class.”
“I get the picture. But to be fair you should tell me something about yourself too.”
“Well, I—”
“Tell you what. Let’s interview each other, one question at a time. It will take longer, but who cares?”
Not me. Anything to prolong a conversation with this angel. She was beautiful. And sexy. And the opposite of the wilting-geranium syndrome you usually see when a new kid joins a class partway through the semester. She had moxie.
“Okay,” I began, finding my feet after my rocky start. “Name, in full.”
“Alba Magdalena Benedetti.”
“What a beautiful name. Italian, right?”
“You’re supposed to write it down. Don’t forget the silent g in Magdalena.”
“Got it.”
“Your turn.”
“Jake Blanchard. Sounds pretty dull compared to yours.”
“‘What’s in a name?’”
“‘That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’”
Alba’s fine fair brows lifted slightly. “Not bad,” she said.
I didn’t tell her it was the only line from Romeo and Juliet that had for some reason lodged in my drafty memory box after we’d studied the play—which I hated—the year before.
“Address?” I asked, pretending to consult my list.
Alba smirked again. “Nice try.”
“Phone number?”
“No chance, Mr. Jake Blanchard. I hear the school is putting on R and J this year,” she said, changing the subject.
“That’s right. Not the whole thing, though. A few scenes.”
“I’m going to try out for the part of Juliet.”
You’d get it without an audition if I was the director, I thought. “Great,” I replied lamely. “I’m doing the set.”
“Really?”
“I’m the school’s official set designer and builder. Next, your post-graduation plans,” I said, my pen poised l
ike Locheed taking attendance.
“Theatre studies at university. Acting courses. You?”
“I want to take screenplay writing.”
“Really?” she said again. “What’s your favourite movie?”
“Casablanca.”
“That’s an oldie,” she said, surprised again. “Black and white. And it’s romantic. Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.” She smiled warmly. She mimicked Bogey’s voice—not very well: “Play it again, Sham.”
“He didn’t say that,” I corrected. “He said, ‘You played it for her, and you can play it for me.’”
“Hey, you’re pretty good.”
No, I’m not, I thought. Bogey would know what to say now. He’d do that thing with the corners of his mouth, then light a cigarette with a wooden match. He’d come up with a snappy line or two and have this gorgeous creature staring into his eyes, lost in admiration. He wouldn’t feel like he was walking through a minefield, terrified of tripping over his own dialogue and making a fool of himself.
“‘Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine!’” I heard him say in my mind’s ear. Then I realized I had said the words out loud.
“You’re not going to quote the whole movie at me, are you?”
“Sorry. Er, there are more questions,” I said, feeling myself blush.
We traded answers to the mostly humdrum questions on the list. I got the feeling she had lost interest in the conversation. Her eyes roamed the classroom. Panofsky had given me three Meaningful Looks already, trying to hurry us up.
“Last one,” I said. “The quality you most admire in the opposite sex.”
Alba didn’t answer right away this time. She glanced into a corner of the room. She seemed to consider her reply. “All right. A poetic soul.”
“Seriously?” I replied, searching her face for signs of mockery.
“I could never love a man who couldn’t express his heart poetically,” she said, shifting her gaze to me. “He’d have to be very articulate and sensitive, and talk to me in beautiful language.”
And not start a conversation by staring at your chest, I thought.
“Which, by the way, leaves out most guys I’ve met.”