Dirty Little Secrets - C. J. Omololu [3]
Mr. Manillo held up his hand. “People, please.” He looked right through me. “This semester, we are studying the great masters of the seventeenth century and comparing the different forms of poetry. I’m afraid Mr. Silverstein is not on the syllabus.”
The laughing started to subside as he called on Josh. “Mr. Lee, do you have a better example of a popular poetry form?”
I was glad Josh was sitting in front of me so that I couldn’t see the look of disgust that was probably on his face. At least he hadn’t turned around to laugh directly at me. He cleared his throat and began to recite his poem in a clear, deep voice.
My pulse was pounding in my ears so loudly that at first I didn’t listen, but then I began to hear people giggling all around the room and I started to pay attention. By the time he was done with “Jimmy Jet and His TV Set,” I had the smallest but deepest grin on my face.
Mr. Manillo just stood in the front of the class with his arms crossed over his chest. “Is that meant to be amusing?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Manillo, but Shel Silverstein rocks.”
I didn’t know why he’d done it, but he managed to get everyone to laugh with him and come off even cooler. He probably just felt bad for the new girl who didn’t have a clue. If it were a movie, we’d have gotten together after class and discussed how much we had in common besides Shel Silverstein, and been bonded together from that very moment. Since this was only my real life, I just murmured “thanks” as I raced out of the room to change classes at the end of the period.
Josh was not just smart and gorgeous and apparently a Shel Silverstein fan, but he played guitar in a band called The Missing Peace and even wrote some of their songs. He’d also been one-half of the Cara-and-Josh super-couple since freshman year. At least until she got drunk and made out with someone else at that Halloween party a few months ago.
So now Josh was single and smiling at me, and I was standing right in front of him like a complete idiot with absolutely nothing to say. We stood in an uncomfortable silence, staring at the snack bar menu board, as Kaylie inched imperceptibly closer to Steve so she could put her hand on his arm for emphasis as she spoke. She made it look so easy.
“Maybe we should leave them alone,” Josh joked, nodding at Steve and Kaylie, whose heads were now bent deep in conversation.
“Yeah,” I said, mentally beating myself up for such a lame answer. I turned phrases over in my head, trying to come up with something casual and clever. So what’s your favorite Shel Silverstein poem these days? Right. He’d never remember something that happened so long ago. Where’s the band playing next? Too groupie slut. Did you know our children would be gorgeous?
I felt a hard tap on my shoulder. “Excuse me?” a girl’s voice demanded.
I turned to see Justine Hildebrandt, Cara’s best friend, standing with her hands on her hips. “The end of the line is back there, in case you didn’t know.”
“Oh, we weren’t—,” I started to say, but Justine cut me off, indignation flashing in her eyes. She glanced at Josh with a lot more anger than the situation called for, but continued to talk to me. All of a sudden, I had a pretty good idea what her secret was.
“Right. We saw you two cut in front of us,” she said. “Don’t think we didn’t.” A group of JV cheerleaders stood with her, nodding their heads in unison. At least Cara Lassen and her perfect highlights were nowhere in sight.
“No, really,” I managed. “Kaylie just wanted to say hi.” I reached out to grab Kaylie’s arm, but she was so blissed out talking to Steve she didn’t even notice we were about to be ambushed by the entire Gompers High School cheerleading squad.
“Ease up, Justine,” Josh said to her. “I’ve been saving Lucy’s place.” He smiled at me. “What took you so long?”
“Um,” I squeaked, startled by the fact that he’d actually said my name out loud.
Josh reached over and put his arm around my shoulders, and it was everything I could do not to gasp. Nobody had touched me for such a long time that just a little bit of contact