by Dana Burkey
He seemed to think about it for a second, clearly still not super excited about sitting in a coffee shop where anyone might find out what was going on. But eventually he agreed.
“Time to go start reading,” I reminded him again, then turned and finished the walk home.
6
Despite wanting to read a new book I had picked up from the school library, I spent Friday night once again working on how to best explain Act One and Two of Macbeth to Blake. I took my notes from earlier in the week and made sure to simplify them even more. In the end, I stayed up later than I wanted, but also felt like I had figured out a way to help the material really sink in.
After the late night on Friday, I was extra tired Saturday morning. I overslept my alarm a bit, then showered before quickly getting dressed. Pulling on jeans and a blue hoodie, I glanced at my phone and saw I was running out of time to make it to the coffee shop. Not wanting to be late, I ignored my contacts and instead slipped on my glasses and then ran a brush through my hair without putting it into its usual braid. Then, after throwing on my winter coat and boots, I began the walk through the falling snow. Thankfully, it was pretty much just flurries falling, and before long I was walking inside to find a seat.
“Over here!”
Glancing towards the sound, I was surprised to see Blake already sitting in a booth in the corner of the room. There were books and papers all over the table as well as two steaming cups of coffee. I sat down and could instantly smell the coconut flavor wafting from the mug closest to me.
“Sorry I’m late,” I said before taking a long drink of the coffee. The heat from the drink steamed up my glasses, but I didn’t care as long as I had caffeine in my body.
“Need a napkin?” Blake asked with a laugh.
“Thanks.” I wiped off my glasses then took the time to also take off my coat before unloading my copy of Macbeth from my bag. “Did you read the chapters?”
“Yeah,” Blake said slowly. I gave him a concerned look but he continued talking. “I read it all twice and tried to write down what I think was going on, but it’s confusing. Didn’t Shakespeare ruin the story by having those witches give away the whole plot?”
I was surprised he had actually put some time into studying like I told him to, but was happy as well. Wanting to see just how much he picked up, I asked him what he meant. I knew he likely needed help understanding things, but it would help me to see how much he was able to figure out on his own when he was trying.
“Well, they show up and tell Macbeth everything that’s going to happen,” he explained. “After that everyone knows the king is going to get killed and everything. It makes the whole play boring. Right? It would be like if in a horror movie they tell us who the killer is at the beginning.”
“Did they say how the king was going to die?” I challenged him, already impressed with how much real thought he had put into what he read.
“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “But they said Macbeth was going to be king.”
“True,” I agreed. “They never said how or when the King would die though. If you think about it, all they did was explain that if and when Duncan passes, Macbeth would take over. The witches just more or less told him he was going to be next in line.”
“Yeah, and that’s a total spoiler.” Blake paused to take a drink of his coffee. “Why keep reading after they explain it all?”
Thankful for the time I spent looking up hockey information, I was ready with a question in reply to what Blake had just asked.
“Who’s the captain of the hockey team?”
“Uh, Marcus D’Angelo.”
“And how could someone new get to be captain?”
“I don’t know,” Blake said, then seemed to stop and think about it. “I guess next season someone new is chosen when the captain graduates. Or if it’s the JV captain they could get replaced if they move up to varsity.”
“Has anyone ever been removed as captain mid-season?”
“Only Stephen Brewster,” he explained. “He was a varsity captain a few years ago, but got in a fight with the coaches after missing a few practices. After that they had one of the other seniors take over as captain instead since Steven was being a bad role model or whatever. My brother was on the team so he told me all about it.”
“Perfect,” I nodded, then launched into the example I was instantly thankful I had prepared. “So let’s just pretend that when Stephen was captain you were told by someone that you were next in line for the job. They didn’t say when or how, just that you were going to be captain. What would you do?”
“I would wait for him to graduate,” he replied.
“Are you only saying that because you’re a sophomore right now?” He thought about it a little then nodded. “So what would you do in that situation if you were a junior or even a senior?”
“I’d still wait it out for the year until he was gone or got demoted or whatever.”
“That’s good,” I smiled. “But Macbeth, although in a similar situation, just didn’t want to wait.”
“Like the witches said.” Blake’s statement sounded more like a question, giving me hope my explanation was finally sinking in.
“Like I said, they never specify when or how he would rule,” I reminded him. “They only told Macbeth that he was next in line. All he had to do was wait.”
“He couldn’t wait though,” Blake said slowly. “Or maybe he could. But not his wife. She wanted to be in power right away. Right?”
“Exactly,” I grinned. “She wanted to be the queen, and instead of waiting she took matters into her own hands.”
“So all the witches did was make Macbeth start thinking about the fact he could be king, and then he got to decide if he was going to do anything about it.” Blake paused to write down some notes on a stray piece of paper. “Wait. Would they still have killed the king if the witches didn’t tell him he was next in line?”
“Now you’re understanding things,” I said, not answering his question at all.
He frowned for a minute, then seemed to brighten up. It was like the idea that he was really understanding Shakespeare was finally dawning on him. I found myself smiling along with Blake, glad to see he was really trying and working hard and understanding what he was reading.
"Okay, I think we need brain food," Blake announced then, standing up and walking to the counter near the front of the coffee shop. I thought about protesting for a minute, but then my stomach grumbled in agreement with his idea.
Although I initially assumed that Blake would return with something small, he came back to the table with a whole tray of snacks. There were cinnamon rolls dripping with icing, bagels covered in cream cheese, and even a few slices of a ham and cheese quiche. Blake tried to give me half of the massive quantity of food, but I was content to enjoy the cinnamon roll and a refill on coffee. Thankfully his morning of hockey left him extra hungry and he easily finished off the rest of the food on his own as we continued talking through Acts One and Two.
"Do you always wear glasses?" Blake asked me after we had read and talked through Duncan's death scene.
"What?" His question caught me completely off guard.
"Your glasses," he began again. "Do you always wear them? I just don't think I've seen you wear them at school ever."
"Oh, yeah. I mean, no. I don't usually wear them."
"They look nice," he said simply. Then just like that he went back into talking about how crazy Lady Macbeth was. The moment was odd, but over the next hour of studying he seemed to find more and more ways to interrupt me to talk about things other than the play.
"You've really never seen a hockey game?" he asked in shock. His mouth was filled with a massive bite of bagel thanks to our latest snack break in studying.
"Never," I nodded. "Well, maybe on TV once. But I was also probably reading while the game was on or something."
"We need to fix that," Blake said simply.
"We do?" I repeated, not believing
him at all.
"Of course we do," he grinned. "I have a game Monday night if you want to come."
The invitation was a little confusing, especially since I barely knew Blake. The idea of sitting and cheering him on was strange to say the least.
"I have a report due in history Tuesday, so I shouldn't," I said quickly, remembering my paper just in time.
"Okay," he said with a little bit of a frown. "Do you want to study Tuesday though?"
"Yeah, that should be okay," I agreed.
We went back to studying then, but my mind refused to move past the invitation. Why would Blake want me to go to his game? Was it just his way of being nice or did he want me to see something he was better at than reading Shakespeare? Whatever the reason, I was glad I could use the paper as a reason to skip going. It wasn't that I didn't want to be his friend or anything like that. I just wasn't sure how I felt about being around him without Macbeth to focus on. And seeing him dedicate more time to studying made me feel like my crush from middle school wasn't completely behind me after all.
7
"What happened to you?" I asked Blake as he walked up to me Tuesday after school. I was at my locker grabbing books to take home when he approached me, complete with a black eye. Somehow, I missed seeing it when he walked into class just before the bell rang, so the sight was shocking to say the least.
"Hockey," he shrugged. "It was worth it."
"How could a black eye be worth it?" Lilly asked. She was also at my locker, although she wasn't planning on joining Blake and I for our Macbeth study session.
"I scored two goals at the game last night and now Coach wants me to play on varsity for part of the game on Saturday," he explained, smiling bigger than I had ever seen him smile before.
"That's awesome," I told him, and genuinely meant it.
"Does that mean you might actually come watch my game?" he asked, causing Lilly to giggle beside me. I shot her a glare before I answered.
"Maybe," I said simply. "We should start walking though. We need to get you ready for the quiz tomorrow."
After sending another glare towards my best friend, Lilly parted ways with us to begin her walk home. Once she was gone, Blake and I began the short walk to the coffee shop, talking about Macbeth as we went. Mr. Dennen had given us the news that we had a quiz on Act One and Two to look forward to on Wednesday. Although we had given both acts a read through and had also talked about the action quite a bit, I still wanted to make sure I went over everything with Blake a few more times. After all, the quiz was my first real shot at showing everyone that I was a good tutor, and not just a waste of Blake's time and coffee money.
"I don't really feel like I need to go over this stuff anymore," Blake said only a few minutes into our study time. "For the first time in basically forever I'm not nervous about this quiz."
"Are you sure?" I asked him, taking a sip of my coffee. "What if you just feel confident because you're some varsity hot shot now?"
"That might be part of it," he laughed. "Honestly though, I'm really ready for this quiz. I kind of just want to keep going so I can figure out what's going on with crazy Lady Macbeth. She’s getting more insane every page!"
“How far ahead have you read now?”
“Well after the game last night I stayed up and read Act Three and then started Act Four,” he explained. “But then I fell asleep reading. I think that’s the first time that’s ever happened and it wasn’t because the book was boring.”
I stared at Blake in shock, waiting for him to say he was kidding or just messing with me. But the comment never came. Instead he took a sip of his coffee then opened a notebook where he had been taking notes on the play as he was reading. This was not what I had been expecting when I walked into the coffee shop that afternoon.
“I didn’t know you were going to read that much,” I finally said. “I didn’t really have time to come up with ways for you to understand what’s going on.”
“Then we can just read over it again,” he offered. “Or maybe for once we can just hang out.”
“Just hang out?” I echoed, sure I had heard him wrong.
“You know, just talk,” he tried again. “Other than Macbeth we don’t really talk about anything. I mean, I don’t even know what made you like Shakespeare so much.”
“Oh,” I said, not sure what to say.
“Listen,” Blake began again once I was silent for a little longer. “I’m okay with going over the material again. But I feel like knowing about William Shakespeare helped me understand his work a little more. So I figured if we get to know each other more then we can work together even better.”
“I guess that makes sense,” I slowly agreed. “What do you want to know?”
“Shakespeare,” he said simply. “Why do you like that guy so much?”
With a bit of a nervous laugh I told Blake about visiting my dad in New York for spring break a few years prior. During the trip, we attended a theater festival. It featured a lot of different shows and scenes, but it was a performance of Shakespeare's A Midsummer's Night Dream that captivated me more than anything else. I sat through the show twice before reluctantly leaving. Then, I sat through it again the next day before I went in search of anything else Shakespeare there was to watch. I also got to enjoy scenes from both Romeo and Juliet and Othello before the three-day festival was over. It all helped to seal the deal, leaving me obsessed with anything Shakespeare had written. Since then, I had worked on reading more of his plays, and was just a few away from having read them all. Next on my list, as I explained to Blake, was Hamlet.
I spent most of the time telling the story looking at my coffee cup, playing with the handle and running my fingers along the rim. Something about sharing the story with Blake made me feel a little self-conscious. It was like every word I told him helped to illuminate the massive “nerd” sign that was already hanging over my head. When my story was over and I looked up at Blake sitting across from me, I was surprised to see the smile on his face.
“What?” I asked, squirming a little under his gaze.
“It’s just really cool to understand why you like all of this so much,” he said, holding up his copy of Macbeth for emphasis. “I’ve never seen a play in person, but hearing how much you love it makes me want to watch something live.”
I could feel my cheeks warming up, and quickly took a sip of my coffee to hopefully distract from them. Blake was suddenly making me both excited and nervous all at once. Talking to him about Macbeth was one thing. But just sitting and hanging out with him made me see the great guy that was under the muscles and hockey shirts. In fact, I knew if Lilly was there with me she would be nudging me and making comments left and right. Knowing the longer I talked the more anxious I would be, I decided to turn the question on Blake.
“So what got you interested in playing hockey?”
“You’re kidding, right?” he laughed. “Have you met my brothers? Jackson was already a Little League hockey star by the time I was born, and Robbie wore his goalie gloves the way most people wear mittens in the winter. Thanks to the two of them I was on the ice rink before I could even stand up and walk on my own.”
“Yeah, I remember Robbie’s gloves in elementary school,” I said with a nod. “Didn’t he get in a fight and then wasn’t allowed to bring them to school anymore?”
“It was more than once,” Blake confirmed. “And he’s still just as big of a hothead. He usually can’t get through a game without a few minutes in the penalty box.”
“That’s like a timeout, right?” I asked, my hockey research and knowledge a bit rudimentary.
“Yes.” The reply had a bit of an annoyed undertone. So I instantly knew what was next. “You really need to come to my game this Saturday.”
“I would be so confused the whole time,” I replied, hoping it would make him drop the issue.
“What if I got you a tutor?” When I didn’t have an immediate answer, he continued. “Greg Sumner's girlfriend Emily is a
t all the games but usually sits alone. She goes to Westerville and drives in to see Greg and then they spend all day hanging out together before she heads back home. I’m sure she would be more than willing to teach you the game and keep you company and all that.”
“You mean you’re not going to be my tutor?” I asked, trying to distract him from the topic of the game.
“I’ll be out there making all the hockey you learn about look good,” he assured me. “Oh, and you would totally get along with Emily. She’s on the speech team so she might actually be as smart as you.”
I wanted to give Blake another reason why I couldn’t go to the game, or at the very least assure him that meeting Emily and watching the game with her would be weird. But, instead, I was distracted at his compliment. People had called me smart before. A lot of people. But the way Blake looked at me when he said it made me feel like it was the best compliment I had ever received. And also, the best one he had ever given. Sitting there in the booth together, I could instantly feel my resolve wavering.
“I’ll think about it,” I said, trying hard to fight against the smile growing on my face.
“Okay, okay,” he said, the look on his face matching my own grin. “So, should we read over the first two acts for the quiz just in case?”
“Good idea.” I was happy for the change in subject, to say the least.
8
The rest of the evening passed quickly as we went over the First and Second Act of Macbeth. Blake continued to prove that he not only knew the play well, but that he was also enjoying it for the most part. I wasn’t sure if it was the fact that I had related the play to hockey that made Blake finally take interest in it, but either way, it was nice to actually have a conversation with him about Shakespeare without stopping and explaining things time and time again. It made me a little sad when we finally left the coffee shop for the evening.