“Barrett and Green.”
Jeff Barrett and Mitch Green both jumped up, moved toward each other and high-fived when they met at the middle of the room. This made sense. They were in the computer club together.
“Roberts and Winfield.”
Melina froze. Her partner was Alex. It was what she wanted, of course, but then she began to panic. She remembered that lab partners end up spending a considerable amount of time together. At each other’s houses. Was she ready for that level of exposure?
“Okay, where do you want to sit?” Alex said toward Melina.
Melina almost didn’t get the joke. “Well… I guess we could sit at this table.”
The rest of the class was a blur. Mr. Clary said some stuff about magnetism. People were called on to answer questions. Mercifully, Melina was not one of them. All she could think about was her new lab partner. Where they would meet. What she would wear. Nagging at the back of her mind was the idea that she was unsure whether he had any feelings for her. She ran each of their recent conversations back through her head looking for the nuance that said he was interested in her too as Jean had said. She came up empty. The truth was that she didn’t know. This gave her a pang of sadness. Like she had just found out some distressing news.
The class bell rang, and Melina found herself to be staring at an empty notebook. She had not taken any notes. She stood up and put her notebook back into her backpack.
“What class do you have next?” Alex said as he stood up.
“I have my history class with Miss Lender,” Melina said. “Over in the D wing.”
“I’m going that way, do you mind if I walk with you?” Alex asked.
“Not at all,” Melina said, managing to get the sentence out without that weird high-pitched, overexcited voice.
Melina put her backpack on her shoulder and headed with Alex toward the door. As Alex passed by Mr. Clary’s desk Alex pointed at him, and the two of them smiled at each other.
When Melina and Alex were in the hallway, she stopped walking, and stood in front of Alex. “What was that about?” she asked.
Alex shrugged his mouth and gave her a sheepish look. “I have a confession to make. Your being assigned to be my lab partner was not exactly random.”
“What?” Melina said.
“Since we had just finished the unit on kinetic energy, I knew that we were going to start a new unit today. Before class, out in the hall, I asked Mr. Clary if he would assign you to be my partner. I told him that I wasn’t able to keep up with the class. And that you were so smart that it would be like having a tutor.”
“Is that the reason that you wanted to be my partner, so I can help you?” Melina said, with a tone of mock indignation.
Alex stopped walking. He fidgeted with his backpack and looked down at the ground. “Actually… no. There is another reason.”
He paused. Melina did not know what to say, so she waited for him to continue.
Finally, he raised his head and looked right at her. “I like being around you.”
This was surreal. Melina’s legs buckled a bit, but she caught herself in time, so he did not notice. His words rattled around in her head like an echo. I like being around you. What did it mean? Other than the obvious. Could it be that Alex had been agonizing whether she had an interest in him? But, he didn’t say I like you. That would have been definitive. No, he said I like being around you. That is something close friends say to each other. On the other hand, maybe he had taken the first tenuous step in the process of negotiations that two people go through when there is interest in each other. One of the two people has to go first. To come out and say what is hoped they both feel. Either way, she realized that this was hard for Alex to say. She had to respond.
“I like being around you, too,” Melina said, as smooth as she could muster.
They both smiled awkwardly at each other, unsure what to say now. After a moment, Alex bent over and looked sideways at Melina’s arm.
Melina looked down at her arm too. “What is it?”
“I’m trying to look at the ugly watch, so I can find out what time it is. Can’t be late for your next class.”
“About that watch,” Melina started. “I told you that it was one of my mom’s watches. But this watch in particular has some meaning to me. It is the watch that she was wearing the night of her accident.”
Alex looked horrified. “Oh, Melina, I am so sorry. Jean told me about your mom. And I have been making jokes about your watch.”
Melina put her hand on Alex’s shoulder. “No, don’t worry. It is truly ugly. I am only telling you this so that you understand my feelings about my mom’s situation. Everyone around me thinks that she is not going to wake up. I don’t know why, but I believe deep in my heart that she is going to get better. Carrying around something of hers reminds me of that.”
“I can totally understand,” Alex said. “I had something similar happen to me. A couple of years ago, my dad was on a business trip and his plane went down right smack in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.”
“Went down?” Melina asked. “You mean it crashed?”
“Yeah,” Alex said. “Over water and nowhere close to any land. The night that we got the call he was missing, I wandered around the house in a daze until I found myself in my parents’ bedroom. On the dresser, there were some coins where my dad’s keys and wallet sat when he was home. He always has some change in his pocket, but he was going out of the country, so he must have felt that he did not need them. I scooped the coins up and put them in my pocket. The jingling noise that they made in my pocket helped make me feel better. Like I had a part of my dad with me.”
“Obviously, it turned out okay,” Melina said. “So what happened?”
“They were fortunate that it was daytime, and there were clear skies, so the pilot was able to set the plane down gently on the water, and my dad and the other people on board were able to get out of the plane and get into a raft. But for the three days that it took to find him, I carried those coins that I found on his bedroom dresser in my pocket.”
“Do you still have the coins?” Melina asked.
“I don’t carry them with me anymore,” Alex said. “But I have them in a special box at home. Two quarters, a dime and two nickels.”
Jean was right. He did understand.
Melina held out her arm, unclasped the watch from her wrist, and held it in her hand before her. “I’m going to have to give the watch back at some point. I just have to make sure that my dad doesn’t find out that I have it. He would go ballistic.”
That thought caused her to lose her grip on the watch, and it dropped toward the floor. In an instant, Melina thrust a hand downward and snatched the watch from the air before it reached her knees.
Alex stared at Melina with wide eyes. “Wow. I have never seen a hand move so fast in my life.”
“Must be all those years of martial arts training,” Melina answered sheepishly.
“Do you take classes at the company studio?” Alex asked.
“Yes,” Melina said. “Well… I used to, but I stopped. Long story. ”
“Taekwondo or karate?” Alex asked.
“I studied krav maga,” she said.
Alex looked puzzled. “But krav maga classes are for…” And then he caught himself.
“For what?” Melina asked.
“Um… for people who are … um majorly into martial arts. I just didn’t picture you liking krav maga that much.”
“It was my after-school life for years,” Melina said. She wanted to say more about it, but she stopped. “This is my class. I had better be getting inside before the bell rings.
“Okay,” Alex said.
Neither Melina nor Alex knew what to say at this point. They had covered a lot of ground. There would have to be consultations with friends before either of them would know the meaning of this conversation, and know how to proceed. Finally, Alex said, “I had better get going too. I’ll see you in English class.”
Melina watched from the doorway of her classroom as Alex slowly backed away, and then walked down the hall. When he disappeared around a corner, she smiled and drifted into her class.
………………………….
“Melina! Over here.”
Jean was calling to Melina from a table in the lunchroom. She was sitting with two of their friends, Lindsey and Denise. Jean did not have friends so it would be more correct to say that Jean was sitting with two of Melina’s friends. They were a few of the sort of friends that you have at school but do not see outside of school. Melina knew Lindsey from middle school. She was pretty but not particularly smart. Denise had been in Melina’s advanced classes since elementary school. All of their eyes were on Melina as she sat down at the table.
“What are you guys looking at?” Melina asked.
“Well?” Jean said as if Melina had asked a stupid question.
Melina looked confused. Then it dawned on her. “Are you wondering about Alex?”
“Jean told us all about your new crush,” Denise said, excited.
“Yeah,” Lindsey said, laughing. “We heard the whole story. The embarrassing episode in language arts class yesterday, the meeting with Alex after class, the embarrassment at the meeting with Alex after class, and finally the meeting with Alex today in physics class.”
“And we are dying to find out how it ends,” Denise said.
“Okay,” Melina started as the three friends’ heads leaned in to hear. “First, he doesn’t think that I am crazy or weird. He totally understands my situation with my mom and he even told me a similar story about his dad. Then, we had a nice chat about homework and other non-school stuff when he was walking me to my history class.”
“He walked you to your next class?” Denise shrieked.
Melina smiled. “Yes he did. All the way over to the D wing.”
“Did Alex walk you specifically to your class, or was he just walking with you to your class as he continued on to his own class?” Jean asked as if she were an attorney cross-examining a witness.
Melina thought for a moment. “I guess I would have to say that he may have been walking with me to my class as he did continue down the same hallway past my class.”
“Doesn’t sound like we have anything interesting here, folks,” Jean said, “Just a couple of geeks walkin’ and talkin’ about science stuff.”
“I guess that’s true,” Melina said. “Just a couple of lab partners talkin’ about their magnetics lab project.”
“Lab partners?” Denise said. “What luck. Mr. Clary’s random lab partner assignment always pairs me with the weird guys.”
Melina leaned in with a sly look. “If only the assignment were random. Alex went to Mr. Clary before class and asked him if he could be my lab partner.”
“Oooooooooh,” Denise and Lindsey cooed.
“Wait a minute,” Jean interrupted. “You are the smartest one in that class. What if he just needed some help and wanted to be paired with the smart girl.”
“Yeah,” Melina said. “That’s what I thought too. Until he told me that the reason that he asked to be my lab partner, was that he liked being around me. I told him that I liked being around him too.”
“Ooooooooooh,” again from Denise and Lindsey.
Jean leaned back from the table. “Looks like our Melina has herself a boyfriend.”
“With the kissing privileges that come with it,” Lindsey followed.
“Wait, what?” Melina asked. “Boyfriend? Kissing? You people are way out in front with all this talk. All we have agreed on is that we like each other’s company. Something may come of it, but we are not at that point yet.”
“You do know about the kissing, though,” Lindsey asked in a sly voice. “In case it comes up.”
Melina leaned back from the table herself. “As painful as it is to admit, all those years spent studying martial arts after school didn’t leave much time for boys. I know nothing about kissing beyond what I see in movies.”
“Would you like a short tutorial?” Lindsey asked. Again with the sly voice.
Melina still looked embarrassed about her admission of her lack of kissing knowledge, so Jean spoke up. “Come on, she said it has not reached that point with Alex yet.”
“I’d kinda like to hear this tutorial,” Denise said quietly. “You know. For future reference.”
Lindsey looked around the table. There being no further protest, she started. “Beyond the basics of ensuring that you smell delightful and have fresh breath, the first thing that you need to do is to make sure that you won’t be interrupted. The last thing you need is some little brother barging in on you when you are in mid-kiss. A friend of mine bit her boyfriend’s lip when her brother snuck up on them.”
“Next,” she continued. “Head position. When you kiss, one of you needs to tilt your head to one side, and the other one has to tilt their head the other way. Otherwise, you would hit noses. I’ve done this. It is not pretty.”
Denise interrupted. “How do you know which way to tilt your head? It could go either way.”
“Good question,” Lindsey replied. “The girl always tilts her head first and the boy responds by tilting his head in the opposite direction. Most couples have a favorite direction, so after a while you just know which side.”
By this time, all three of Lindsey’s students were leaning forward and following her every word.
“Okay, on to the mouth,” Lindsey said. “You must have your mouth open the proper amount. As his mouth approaches yours, your mouth should be slightly open. If you open it too wide, you’ll look like some scary person that wants to eat him. Open too little and it is like kissing your grandma. Once your lips have met, you can open your mouth a little more to adjust your lips to each other.”
As Lindsey talked, the three girls tried opening their mouths and adjusting them.
Jean looked over at a boy at the next table that was watching them. “What are you looking at? Nothing to see here.”
“Is that it?” Denise asked. “You just sit there with your lips locked?”
“No, you don’t just sit there sucking on each other’s lips,” Lindsey said. “At this point either you or him will gently open and close your mouths in rhythm while still keeping your lips sealed together.”
“Is that it?” Jean said.
“That is all there is to know about how to do the kiss,” Lindsey said. “But there are a few more things to know. Number one is saliva control. Remember, we are talking about two mouths here, so there is twice the saliva combined into one space. Nobody wants to have drool running down their cheeks while they are kissing. There are several ways to prevent this. First, right before you know you are about to start a kiss, swallow any and all saliva that you can from your mouth to get a fresh start.”
Lindsey paused as she could see them swallowing hard trying to empty their mouths of spit.
“Then, if at any time during the kiss you feel that there is a little too much saliva, remember these four words. Pull. Close. Swallow. Continue. You need to get rid of that built up saliva, so you first pull your lips away, close your mouth, swallow the excess drool, and continue where you left off by moving your lips back into place. Properly done, it should take just over a second.”
Lindsey leaned in close and spoke softer. The other girls leaned in too.
“The next thing is called the French Kiss,” Lindsey said. “It involves the-”
Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding.
Just then, the end of lunch bell rang, and students in the lunchroom started to get up to leave.
“It involves the what?” Denise said, excited.
Lindsey smiled and stood up to leave. “To be continued at lunch tomorrow.”
Chapter 4
After spending a couple of hours at his desk brushing up on the particular dialect of Russian spoken in Malazistan, Evan left his office and headed back down to the basement of the building to visit the one of the agency wor
kout facilities. Since missions often involved extreme physical demands, agents were encouraged to spend as much time as they wanted at the gym keeping in shape.
As he entered the workout area, Evan could see that there was only one other person in the gym. Over at the free weights was Karl Becker. Karl was an agent in the same group as Evan and had started at the agency a few years before him. Although he was a little older than Evan was, Karl had not been on any missions in quite a while. He had not officially retired, but he would still come in to the agency to use the gym and complain to anyone that would listen. Most often about how things were not as they used to be. Evan steered clear of him.
When Karl saw Evan, he dropped the free weights that he was holding. They fell to the floor with a loud crash.
“Hello, Evan,” Karl said. He made sure that he said Evan’s name with an inflection like it was painful to say.
“Nice to see you, Karl,” Evan responded with appropriate sarcasm.
Karl selected a different set of weights from the rack and continued to lift. “I hear that you are going to try that hang glider stunt again. Always trying to show off.”
Evan scoffed. “I wouldn’t exactly classify it as a stunt. I just suggested that a hang glider would be an excellent way to get in close to that base and get out again. I never suggested who would do it. If you would like to take my place, the mission briefing is at three o’ clock.”
Karl dropped his weights again, walked over to Evan, and stood right in front of him. “This mission is an example of the crap that would not be happening if I were in charge of the agents.”
“You? In charge of the agents?” Evan said as he laughed out loud. “What makes you think that you ever would be put in charge of this place?”
“It’s no secret that Arthur is nearing retirement age,” Karl said. “It’s time that they put an experienced agent in charge. Not one of those tools guys and certainly not someone from outside the agency.”
Evan thought for a moment. He had not heard that Arthur was retiring, but it made sense as he had seemed rather aloof in the last few months.
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