“Can you believe Mrs. Smith gave us that much work to do for her dumb English class?” Annie stomped down the hall taking her frustration out on the floor. “Doesn’t she know that we’ve got six other classes to deal with besides hers?”
“I hear ya.” Sarah walked to her locker. She spun the small wheel three times. “Now, I’ve got yet another term paper to write before summer.”
Tanya threw her locker door open a few spaces down. “This is totally cutting into my social life.”
Sarah shoved the books and handouts into her backpack, and hustled to catch up to her cohorts who were already turning the corner toward the band room. “Hey, wait up!”
The sounds of an old Glenn Miller standard echoed from out of the band room and reverberated off the painted cinder block walls.
“Sounds like the pep band will be stickin’ around a little longer,” Annie said as she bounded down a small flight of stairs.
“Isn’t your guy a drummer?” Tanya nudged up against Sarah’s arm.
“He’s not my guy,” Sarah said. “Well, not technically.”
Tanya turned and stopped her in front of the band room’s doorway. “Why don’t you go in and hang out for a while?”
“And stand around lookin’ like a doofus for an hour?”
“No.” Annie edged closer to her other side. “Boys like it when their girlfriends are into whatever it is they do.”
“Yeah,” Tanya said. “You’ve gotta support each other.”
“How will I get home?”
Tanya shifted her weight back on one leg. “We’ll go wait for you in the car.”
“For an hour?” A sudden vice clamped down on Sarah’s stomach.
“Fine,” Annie huffed. “We’ll hang out in study hall and do our homework for a bit and then go to her car.” Her head of red cocked to one side. “Happy?”
Sarah white-knuckled her binder burying her face behind its cover.
“You’re out of excuses, Daniels,” Annie said. She pointed her index finger into the out-of-tune woodwinds.
“Fine,” Sarah conceded. “I’ll go.”
“Good,” Tanya headed off down the corridor toward study hall. “Come to my car when it’s over.”
Sarah had sat on an old folding chair for the entire hour watching Collin’s every move behind the dark blue drum set. His fluid motion and finesse behind that mass of skin and steel elevated him to a higher level of appreciation in her mind.
“That’s a wrap for today,” the director said. “Don’t forget to be here tomorrow night no later than six to get set up for the game. Got it?”
The pep band let out a collective, “Yes, Mr. Kowalski”, as they put away their things.
Sarah slid back into her coat and heaved her backpack over her shoulder. Collin packed up the last of his things and strode over to meet her.
“You didn’t have to sit here the whole time.”
“I know.” She shook a few stray stubborn hairs out of her face. “I wanted to.”
He smiled from under his long bangs. “Really?”
She walked beside him as he went back out into the lower hall. “What did you want to ask me earlier?”
Collin’s forehead wrinkled and then relaxed. “Oh, that.” His eyes went to the floor in front of them. “Well, I was wondering if you would like to maybe hang out sometime.”
A huge grin devoured her face. Yes!
“You mean, like on a date?”
“Well,” he took her hand in his, “yeah, I guess so.”
“I’d like that, Collin.” She tightened her grip on his soft hand. “Where do you wanna go?”
“The mall?” he suggested.
Sarah groaned. “I can’t do that.” She teetered into his shoulder. “How about you come over to my place for a bit?”
“Okay.”
“Thank you,” she said as he opened the door. “Come by around seven?”
Collin stopped on the sidewalk after a few paces. “Sounds great.” He motioned to the lower gravel lot. “I’m parked way over there.”
“Oh.” Sarah hung on to his curled fingers for dear life. “See you later?”
He looked her in the eye and smiled. “Absolutely.”
She pecked him on the side of the cheek. “Great. See you then.”
Sarah trotted off toward the sputtering Festiva in the closer of the two student lots. Annie climbed out of the passenger seat as she approached the street-legal lawn mower.
“How’d it go?” Annie pushed the bucket seat forward so she could climb into the back.
“All right, I guess.”
“Looked better than all right from here, girl.” Tanya twirled a lock of hair around her finger.
Sarah’s blood flushed her face red as she plopped into the seat and shut the door.
“Details, details,” Annie said from the back.
Tanya navigated her car out onto the main road. “Yeah, spill it.”
“We’ve got a date.”
The other two let loose an ohhh.
“Where are you going? What are you gonna wear?” Tanya’s maw had turned into a gossip machine gun.
“He’s coming to my place later tonight.”
“What?” Annie’s tone bordered on hysterics. “On your first date?” She slapped Sarah’s shoulder. “You dog.”
“It’s not like that, Anne.”
Tanya winked into the rearview. “You gonna let him get to second base?”
“No! God, Tanya. I’m not a human mattress.”
Annie leaned back into her seat. “So, you’re just gonna work on homework, right?”
“Pffft, no.” Sarah dismissed that nuisance with a swat of her hand. “We’ll maybe watch a movie or something.”
Tanya pulled the car over in front of Sarah’s building. “Uh huh.”
“You’d better call me later,” Annie said as Sarah bounced out of the low seat.
Sarah smirked at her through the rear window and flipped her fingers at Tanya. “Bye. Thanks for waiting.”
“Anytime,” Tanya said. “After you’re done gabbing with her, you’d better call me.”
Sarah opened the door to the building and spun on her heel. “All right. I’ll call you guys later. Now, if you don’t mind---I have an important evening to plan.”
“Fine, go!” Tanya shooed her from behind the wheel.
Annie leaned over to her window, jiggled her hand next to her ear, and mouthed the words, call me.
Sarah bounded up the stairs and flew through her apartment, twirling on her feet. “He’s coming here, he’s coming here,” she sang, flinging her coat onto the floor next to her Mary Janes.
She spun over to the table where a handwritten note lay next to the wicker basket of wooden fruit.
‘There’s some leftovers in the fridge. Help yourself. I’ll be home around the same time tomorrow.
Love,
Mom’
Sarah picked up the torn corner her mom had used from a sales flier and tossed it into the wastebasket on her way to the refrigerator.
“Uh, great.” She set the glass container on the counter in front of the block of knives. “Meatloaf.”
Sarah took a clean fork and cut off a thick slice of one of their staple meals in the Daniels household. While the slab of beef sizzled in the microwave, she buttered up a slice of store-brand bread and poured herself a glass of grape juice from a can, or as she referred to it, welfare champagne.
She grabbed her platter from the oven and settled in at the table behind the warm glow of the local evening news. Dinner wore on with little excitement from the tiny news station: a mudslide on one of the back roads, yet another tractor trailer lying sideways in the turn at mile marker 109 on I-79, and the county Board of Education still can’t agree on how to make up the snow days.
“It’s almost predictable.” She took her dirty dishes over to the sink.
Having slid her dishes into the washer, Sarah trotted into her bedroom to commence the primping for her big evening. Three outfits and two hairstyles later, a light knocking echoed through her empty abode.
“Just a minute!” She fluffed the big red curls on both sides of her face and scurried out of the bathroom.
Sarah flipped to deadbolt and pried the door open.
“Hi, Sarah.” Collin held up a nervous hand, then returned it to a pocket in his jeans.
“Hey.” She stepped to one side and held the door ajar. “Come on in and make yourself at home.”
He shuffled past her in a cloud of an unfamiliar odor.
Is he wearing cologne? He’s never smelled like that.
Collin slid his Steelers coat off his shoulders and held it out wearing an inquisitive expression. “Where do you want me to put this?”
“Oh,” she said nervously, “right.” Sarah snatched it from his hand and tossed it on top of her coat on the floor. “Just any old place will do.”
Collin kicked his shoes off and walked over to where the carpet and linoleum flooring converged. “So, what do you feel like doing?”
She hustled into her kitchen and pulled two fresh glasses out of the cabinet. “I dunno. We could watch some TV or something.” She extended an empty cup toward him. “Would you like something to drink?”
“Sure.” He rubbed the top of one sock with the other.
“Water, soda, or welf---” she caught herself, “grape juice?” That could have been embarrassing.
“Juice is good. Thanks.” He strode over to the fridge admiring a particular magnet. “You go there, too?” He pointed to the one shaped like a weenie and embossed with T&L in big red letters.
“Sure.” She poured their drinks. “It’s right down the street from... Damn it!”
“Don’t think I’ve ever been there.”
She chuckled at his banter. “No. I was supposed to drop off another batch of cookies to Josie tonight. Crap.”
Collin shrugged and wandered over to the stovetop. “Sounds like a date.” He picked up the nearby pot.
“I didn’t bring you here to slave over my stove.”
He flipped the light on under the oven’s hood. “Eh, it beats whatever’s on the boob tube. What are we makin’?”
Sarah leaned into the counter and crossed her arms. “Are you serious?”
“Afraid so.” He smiled and leaned against the stove. “I have to warn you, though. I can’t make anything past a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”
She gathered her ingredients from the tall pantry adjacent to the fridge and placed them on the counter next to the stove. “Turn the front burner on to medium-high.”
Collin’s face twitched like she had spoken to him in Chinese.
“The knob all the way to the left back there.” She pointed to the row on the back of the stove. She waited until his fingers found it. “Right. Now, turn it to the number seven.” A miniscule red eye popped to life beside the knob. “Great. Stand to one side while I get it started, and then I’ll show you what you can do.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She checked him out of the way with her hip. “Enough backsass, you.” The butter fell into the pot with a plop followed quickly by a small hill of sugar and a splash of milk.
“Don’t you need to measure this stuff?”
“No.” She grabbed the sleeve of his sweatshirt. “Now, come over here and I’ll show what to do next.”
Sarah felt the warm puffs of his breath fan the curls next to her ear. “Just take the spoon.” She covered his hand with her own. “Stir the whole thing continuously until it comes to a boil.” Their hands wound circles around the perimeter of the pot.
I love being close to you. The allure of his big blue eyes melted the world around them. Collin closed the gap between them, and Sarah’s pursed lips followed. Reality ceased to exist. His eyes closed as his head tilted to one side. She instinctively leaned the other way. This is it!
HISSSS…
A big bubble of half-molten butter and sugar burst onto the stovetop.
“Crap.” She rested her hands on his chest. “I’ll get that cleaned up. You stay focused on the stirring---of the pot, not me.”
“Aye, aye, cap’n.”
Once the pot’s contents reached their boiling point, Sarah added the remaining ingredients into her secret recipe. “Keep stirring,” she prodded. “I’ll set out some paper for them to cool on for a while.”
“Then, what?”
“Then, we take them down to Josie at T&L.”
Sarah took the finished pot of chocolate no-bake cookies from him and dropped a small amount in even rows on the wax paper.
“How much do you sell them for?” Collin licked his chops.
“A couple of bucks each.” She dropped the last cookie onto the paper and grabbed another spoon out of the drawer.
“How often do you have to make them?” He scraped the side of the pot.
Sarah’s shoulders popped up. “Maybe twice a week, sometimes three.”
His eyes scanned the cookies on the counter. Sarah could hear the mathematical gears churning beneath his well-groomed hair. “So, that’s about a hundred bucks a week.”
“Something like that, yeah.”
Collin leaned down next to the fresh batch on the countertop. “Are they worth it?”
She jabbed her spoon into the pot. “You tell me.”
He salvaged another spoonful of the mixture and inhaled it. Sarah watched as he swished the cookie around in his mouth.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute.” He held up a finger.
Sarah took the pot from him and dropped it in one of the sink’s basins.
“Hold on,” he said through his bite. “I think I need another taste to be sure.”
“Whatever.” She popped a brow at him while she drizzled the dish with soap. “Well?”
“Worst things I’ve ever forced down.”
“Uh!”
“I’m kidding.” He rubbed the small of her back and sucked on his spoon. “They’re fantastic. You should open up your own bakery or something like that.”
Giving the pot a final rinse, Sarah laughed off his commentary. “That’ll be the day.”
He set his spoon in the washer. “No, seriously. You should. You’re great at this sort of thing.”
“They’re just no-bake cookies.” Sarah sat the clean pot back on the stovetop. “Anyone can whip them up.”
“Maybe,” he said, “but not like you can.” Collin turned around and leaned into the counter. “What now?”
She turned and leaned next to him. “We prep them for delivery.” Sarah handed the roll of wax paper to him and produced a small stack of paper plates from the cabinets. “Cut up a few small squares of that and we’ll stack them on these plates.”
The couple made quick work of the cookies and hoofed them down the street to an anxious manager behind the long counter.
“Well, well.” Josie tossed her dish towel onto its white surface. “Look what the cat dragged in.”
“Evenin’, Josie.”
“Hey, kiddo.” The weathered waitress tossed her mushroom hairdo in Collin’s direction. “Who’s that?”
“This is Collin.” She lowered her head sheepishly. “He goes to my school.”
“Ah.” Josie’s tone transformed into instant understanding.
Sarah set the plates on the counter. “He helped me make this batch.”
Josie hovered over the plates. “Should I charge half price, then?”
The gals shared a snicker at Collin’s expense. “I tried to warn her.” He pulled up a barstool.
“Well,” Josie said, straightening up, “if you helped our Sarah with her bakin’ then you can’t be all that bad.” She came back from the register with a small pile of money. “Just mind your P’s and Q’s with her, ya hear?”
Collin nodded.
“If you go breakin’ her heart,” Josie shook a fist, “I’ll put knots on your noggin’.”
“Josie!” The warm rush of embarrassment returned to Sarah’s cheeks.
Josie licked a thumb and counted out Sarah’s share of the last week’s profits. “You’re like a daughter to me. I’ll leave it at that.”
With a nod of her puffy hair, Josie sat the stack of money down on the counter. “There you are, Ms. Daniels. One hunnert an’ twelve smackaroos.”
Sarah pocketed the cash and headed back out the door. “Thanks, Josie. See you in a few days?”
The old hotdog jockey bobbed her head. “You betcha!”
She took Collin by a chilly hand as they made their way back up Main.
“What do you do with all of your money?”
She picked up a rock in her free hand and lobbed it into Hacker’s creek from the bridge. “I just save it up for a rainy day.”
They strode in quiet contemplation until at last they came to her door.
“It’s been really fun, Sarah.” He took her by both hands.
She smirked rocking on her heels.
“No, I mean it.” Collin stepped closer. “I had a great time and learned a lot.”
No pots to boil over. She looked deep into his eyes. “Me, too.”
He bent in with his head tilted to one side. Sarah grabbed a handful of the coat fabric at the small of his back and dove in for the kill. Heaven! The warmth of his touch and the taste of his breath both jarred her body with a thousand prickles. She made small circles around his mouth with her tongue. The pads of his hands ran gentle strokes down into the back pockets of her jeans. He grabbed her butt in both hands and pulled her closer. Her breathing sped up as blood raced to other regions of her being. One of his palms caressed the curve of her rump while her own tapped his playfully.
“That feels like a good place to stop for tonight,” she said, breaking the intimate bond.
“Who – whuh?”
“And, I’ve got some work to do before my mom gets back in from work later.”
His hands slid down her arms until they clasped her hands. “Call you tomorrow?”
You’d better.” Sarah unlocked the door.
She watched her man through the front windows until his car dipped over the hill and out of sight. A real boyfriend! She collapsed into the couch cushions, her spirit soaring. And not like Johnny Turner in the eighth grade.
“My first real boyfriend!” She snatched up the phone from the coffee table and dialed without even thinking. “I’ve gotta call Annie.”