“Your name, Astrid, it fits you,” he said in a hushed tone.
My eyes narrowed as I tilted my head towards him. “What do you mean?” I whispered.
He smiled a cruel and sexy smile. “Never mind.”
I took my pen and continued to dictate Mrs. Gooch’s lecture furiously, wondering what the hell he meant. Was it a compliment or was he making fun of me? The hummingbird that fluttered in my chest made my hands feel shaky as I wrote in my notebook.
Mrs. Gooch finished her lecture and was demonstrating how to block a scene with a couple of overly eager volunteers. I grabbed my calculus book and decided to get my homework done before I went over to Lilah’s this afternoon. I was breezing right through the problems when Will leaned over to me again, watching me complete the equations with ease.
“You’re pretty good at math, huh?” he inquired, leaning closer. “I’m getting a D in calc—Hey, I have an idea. Maybe you could tutor me after school,” he said as he took his hand and ran it through his perfectly disheveled hair.
“Um, I have to work after school,” I retorted quickly, covering my work with my hand. I could hardly stand to be around him with hordes of people. If left alone with him I felt like my heart would explode, or I would rip his clothes off. I didn’t trust myself around him—I wasn’t going to trust myself around him.
“Where do you work?” he asked.
“I, I babysit. For my neighbor for a couple of hours each afternoon,” I stuttered.
“Oh, so you could babysit and tutor me. That’s perfect. I’ll be over around four.”
I stopped cold.
“No, that’s not a good idea. Lucy doesn’t like visitors when I’m working.”
“Oh, don’t be a baby. I’ll see you at four.” He stood up and walked towards the door as the bell signified the end of the class period.
I sat there stunned, wondering what had just happened. Maybe I was right when I said earlier to Chase that he liked me in the “can I copy your homework” kind of way. All I knew was that I had to look forward to an afternoon of heart palpitations from Will, strained conversations with Audrey, and Lilah waiting for me. Could this day get any better? The sarcasm permeated my thoughts.
I pulled into the driveway, and barreled through the back door. I had twenty minutes before I had to be at Lilah’s, and forty minutes before total destruction—Will’s arrival.
I quickly headed to the bathroom, brushed my teeth and took my hair out of its loose ponytail. Oh great, hump hair! I tried frantically to brush the speed bump out of my hair caused by the elastic band. No use. I took the tousled mangled mess of hair and pulled it back on top of my head. I spritzed it with a little water to defrizz it, and put on some lip gloss to finish the effect, which was not impressive, to say the least.
Audrey wasn`t home yet, so at least I didn’t have to contend with that this afternoon. That was a problem for a different time, later, much later. Last night’s altercation with Audrey seemed to be shrouded in a fog of weariness coupled with erratic thoughts about Will.
I couldn’t concentrate. My thoughts raced between Audrey, Lilah, and Will. He had no idea Lilah was a fourteen-year-old girl with little in the way of physical or brainpower. I assumed he would be as uncomfortable as I was in the beginning, as I still was at times.
I grabbed my shabby guitar and bounded out the door to Lilah’s. I had memorized a few preschool songs that I promised I would play for her today. I was seriously thinking about postponing my version of the Wiggles concert. It would be too embarrassing to have Will witness me singing “The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round.” I convinced myself I couldn’t sing and do calculus at the same time. With that thought, I doubled back to retrieve my calculus book.
I had completed all of my homework and was sure Will just wanted to take ten minutes or so to copy the work. We didn’t have the same class together, but we did have the same teacher, so the work assignments were probably the same. My thoughts were heavy, and I wondered why exactly he had made such a sly effort to come to Audrey’s house. What did he want? Did he like me or did he just want my homework? I caught a glimpse of my raggedy hairdo, my torn jeans and white t-shirt, and came to the conclusion it was for the homework. That realization still hadn’t tamed the urge to attack him every time I saw him. I should just get it over with, I thought, try something and let him reject me. There were only a couple of months left of school anyway. I thought that I could probably soldier through any discomfort if there was any. I figured that I could continue to avoid him as I had been the last couple of weeks; only this time there would be a little mortification to go with the dodging. As I bargained with myself, I realized that if I reduced my desire to a purely physical need, that I didn’t find him intellectually or artistically stimulating at all that all, these ridiculous and distracting feelings would dissipate. That turned out to be a big fat lie.
The van pulled into the driveway a few minutes late today. I cringed. Sherri brought Lilah into the house where I had already prepared her snack. Five cookies and a juice box. Lilah sat there eating her cookies contently. I had to hold the juice box up for her so she could sip through the straw. I looked over at the clock. Four-fifteen. He was late, or maybe I had lucked out and he wasn’t going to show up. As the minutes clicked by on the clock, I became more and more aware of each tick of the minute hand.
Lilah finished her snack and began to point to signal to me that she wanted to go outside. It was a nice day today, and I thought that some outdoor activity would make the afternoon go a little faster. Feeling confident that Will was going to be a no show, I swept up my guitar and placed it outside. I returned to get Lilah to her wheelchair, and took her carefully down the ramp. The sun was blazing today; there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, which was unusual. Even though the sun was fiery, there was still a cool breeze that swept through the air, making the hair on my arms stand on end.
I thoughtfully placed Lilah with her back to the prevailing wind and locked her chair in position. I then took a seat on the picnic table and began to strum a few chords on the old guitar. Lilah squealed with delight, moving her head from side to side. She kicked her legs in an arrhythmic fashion trying to move with the melody.
I started to sing one of the songs I’d committed to memory. It was to the tune of the chicken dance song.
“I’m an acorn, small and round
Lying on the cold, cold ground
Everyone walks over me
That is why I’m cracked you see”
Lilah had a broad smile on her face as she moved her extremities to the music. I continued starting to giggle as I sang clicking my tongue on the word “nut.”
“I'm a nut!
I'm a nut!
I’m a nut!”
I began to realize how silly I looked and sounded. The tears started streaming down my face when I graduated from a chortle to a full on guffaw. I thoroughly basked in the moment, watching Lilah, the sun streaming across her flaxen hair and her smile joyous. She began to mimic the clicking of my tongue.
We were both still clicking our tongues away singing, “I’m a nut,” when I looked over and caught a glimpse of someone walking along the side of the house.
There stood Will. I immediately felt a round of panic fire off inside my chest like an assault rifle. How long had he been standing there? How much had he heard? Was he trying to devise an escape?
I stopped looking like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. Will moved toward me in what seemed like three long gazelle-like strides. My mind raced. I tried to put together my random thoughts into some kind of coherent order.
“Hey nut,” he said with a gleeful smile.
He then made his way over to Lilah.
“And what’s your name—”
“Her name is Lilah,” I interjected.
“Well, it’s very nice to meet you Lilah,” he said with a compassionate smile.
He turned back to me and took a seat next to me on the bench.
“Don’t stop on my account,” he said, taking his sure hands and tapping them along my back.
I felt an electric shock radiate up my spine.
“No, that’s okay. We were done anyway.” I jerked up and laid down my guitar, moving toward Lilah. “I have my calc homework inside if you want it.”
“Yeah, sure. Why don’t you bring it outside since it’s a nice day.”
I nodded my head in affirmation as I trudged up the steps. Clearly, his reaction to Lilah seemed to be non-existent, but maybe he was just a good actor. Maybe he was completely mortified and was just being nice, all the while trying to figure a way out. I thought that I would give him an option. I would offer him my homework to copy, and allow him to take it home. I was satisfied that would give him an opportunity to escape and save face.
I grabbed the folded white notebook paper from the inside of my math book and slogged back down the steps outside.
I stopped just inside the door and peeked out the through the clear glass. There he sat leafing through his calculus book. I slowly moved back away from the door in order to be a bit more concealed in my voyeuristic attempts. Lilah was sitting watching his every movement; she was just as enthralled with him as I was. I wondered if he would ignore her. I wouldn’t blame him if he had. I mean, it could be construed as an uncomfortable situation. I continued to watch from behind the door. Was I hoping to catch him being a jerk? That would definitely help me to dismiss him as a jerk, albeit a good-looking jerk. He continued leafing through the massive math book as he looked over at Lilah. He looked at her with curiosity and not fear, as I had in the beginning.
I realized my absence would not go unnoticed for much longer. So I put an end to my self-destructive curiosity, and headed out the door.
I took two steps and then tripped once again over my own foot, and barreled toward the bench. Will shot up with both arms out, waiting to catch me. I lunged forward, and caught myself on the edge of the picnic table. I could feel the wood splinter into my skin. I drew back my hands to see the wood jabbed into various positions, and blood leaking out from underneath. Will grabbed my hands turning my palms up. He gently looked at me with only a slight look of anguish.
“Here, come on. We need to rinse this off and get some tweezers.”
“But I—”
“I’ll get Lilah, you head inside to start rinsing the dirt and blood off.” He seemed to be reading my mind.
I ran inside reeling from the sting of the splinters and turned on the faucet. I placed my hand under the water, and then jerked it back once the cold water met my broken skin. I tried again, wincing as I took both hands and placed them under the icy water. I could hear Lilah making her entrance. I felt like such an idiot. This poor guy is stuck cleaning up blood and wheeling an invalid into the house. Well, I guess I didn’t need to worry about rejection—seems that making an ass out of yourself does the trick just fine.
As I watched the water spill over my bloody palms, I could see that there were a few splinters lodged beneath my skin.
“Where are the tweezers?” Will asked, rushed.
“Um, I don’t know. Try the bathroom medicine cabinet—”
“What do you mean you don’t know?” he interrupted.
“Hey, this isn’t my house. I live next door,” I yelled back at him, feeling a little annoyed because of my stinging palms.
“Found em,” he announced as he rounded the corner into the kitchen.
I had already shut off the water and was inspecting my hands when he came into the kitchen with a pair of coal-black tweezers. He took my palms to check the status of the injury.
“Whew, you are a klutz, aren’t ya?”
He turned his back to me threading my arm so that it was braced between his rib cage and his forearm, my palm resting on top of his.
“Okay, just be still—”
“No, no, no. Let me do it, I can get to it better—”
“Shh, stop moving!” he ordered.
“Ow, that hurts. Hurry up,” I whimpered.
“Look, all done. You’ll need some Band-Aids.”
I wrenched my hand away from his side and blew on the afflicted areas. “Thanks doc.”
I rummaged through the bathroom cabinets to find some bandages under the sink. Sponge Bob—classy, I mused. I slapped two of the cartoon bandages on each palm. I didn’t think it was possible to look any more ridiculous than when I had tripped and landed on the table, or when I almost stole a guitar, but here I was with cartoon character Band-Aids covering both hands. Nice, real nice. I grimaced.
I could hear Lilah getting anxious in the living room. I moved Lilah’s wheelchair so she was closer to the television set. I found one of her favorite tapes, “Veggie Tales,” and put it in for her to watch.
Will was sitting on the couch, his elbows resting on his knees, the rest of his body lurched slightly forward, his eyes looking up from underneath his bronze hair.
“Oh my god, my homework!” I shouted as I ran out the door. I remembered that when I’d gone to catch myself on the picnic table outside that I’d involuntarily thrown the paper up in the air.
“Wait,” he pronounced holding up my paper in front of him.
“Whew, thanks,” I said almost gleefully as I walked over to him on the couch. “We have about an hour to work on your math homework if you want to, or if you want, you can just copy my homework. That’ll be faster, if, if, you want to, that is.”
“Well, I need help. I don’t really—do you understand integral identities?”
Will didn’t possess his usual casual cool and confident smile, as he ran his hands through his messed hair until it nearly stood on end. He looked at my paper and said, “How do you know how to do this?”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him this was the third time I’ve studied this particular unit between my last three schools. I truly didn’t understand it the first time around either, but once I’d taken the class a couple of times it became easier to figure out the solutions. It was quickly becoming like second nature to me.
“Well, it’s pretty easy if you don’t think about the functions, but more think about what the functions apply to.” He looked dazed while I continued. “Think about a swimming pool. If it is rectangular, then from its length, width, and depth I could determine the volume of water it can be filled with, the area of its surface, you know to cover it, and the length of its edge, ya know to rope it.” I stopped again to witness his glazed over eyes, and then continued. “But if it is oval with a rounded bottom, all of these quantities call for integrals. For example, what is the area under the function f, in the interval from 0 to 1?”
There was no reply from Will except for a quiet exasperated sigh. I went on, “And call this yet unknown area the integral of f. The notation for this integral will be—” I jotted down the function, as I watched his eyes slowly roll in the back of his head. I stopped and took my paper and said, “Just copy it for today.” He smiled and took the paper from my Sponge Bobbed hands.
I’d mustered enough confidence from my awesome display of math powers to ask Will his reason for coming over, however the words still stumbled awkwardly from my lips. “Did you really come here for math help?
There was a long silence. I fixed my eyes on Lilah. She was watching “Powerpuff Girls” now. I slowly edged my head to the side to get a glimpse of him. His eyes met mine and he finally gave me an answer. “I guess I’m too far gone for any help at this point.” He paused for a moment. “I think you’re...interesting.”
His faced locked on mine. There was a moment of total silence. I had no idea what to say. Nobody had ever thought of me as interesting. Messed up, yes, interesting, no. He traced my palm along the outer edge of the bandages. “Do your hands hurt?”
“A little,” I whispered.
He moved from his hands from my palms, and slowly moved up my arm, tickling my skin ever so lightly. I felt a shiver diffuse throughout my entire body. He took his skillful fingers and moved a strand o
f curled hair away from my face. He moved in closer as I sat there quivering over every inch of my body partially from fear—partially from desire. He cracked his dangerously seductive smile, and said as his lips moved in closer to my lips, “I didn’t really need help with math.”
“You need it,” I whispered as he moved ever closer to me.
I could feel his hands move around to the back of my neck, and I was overwhelmed by his fresh yet manly scent. Our lips were millimeters apart, and I could feel my breath becoming heavier and heavier. My heart was pounding—then suddenly, I heard the back door swing open. It was Lucy. I pulled my head back with such force that I heard my neck crack as I whipped my head around. Will pulled his math book onto his lap instinctively as I tried to recover.
“I’m home guys,” Lucy bellowed as she tossed her portfolio on the kitchen table. I wondered if she would notice my flushed cheeks, and I was sure she could hear the loud thuds that were shrieking from my chest.
She blew into the living room like a tornado, and then stopped suddenly when she saw Will. I wasn’t sure of her reaction. I speculated it would be one of anger because there was a boy over. She stopped and smiled, and eyed the room, as well as the both of us. Everything was in place. No clothes were on inside out, and Lilah was happy. I think the math book helped to convince her everything was innocent, although what the math book was covering was not so innocent.
“Hello, I’m Lucy. And you are—” She turned her hand sideways and extended it to meet Will’s offered hand.
“Hi, I’m Will. Um, Astrid was just helping me with my calculus homework. She didn’t invite me over, I just kinda showed up. I hope that’s okay, um, ma’am.” Will lied like an amateur, but I gave him credit for trying.
Lucy must have believed him wholeheartedly because she showed no signs of animosity toward either of us.
I gathered my things and left through the front door. Will followed on my heels. What just happened? Would it happen again? Did I want it to happen? All questions I didn’t have answers to at the moment. I stopped in front of Audrey’s door and turned to face Will. I could see Audrey’s truck nestled in the back of the driveway, blocking my car. I couldn’t escape the conversation that was most certainly going to take place. I couldn’t concentrate on Audrey. My neurons were firing rapidly all regarding Will. I couldn’t even remember the fight that had happened just a mere fourteen hours ago with Audrey. Why was I mad? What had happened last night? Was it a dream? I turned to Will with absolutely no idea what words would come next. He must have seen the panic on my face because he simply said as he brushed the wayward curls away from my face, “Thanks for the homework. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The Idyllic Chaos of My So-Called Life Page 10