The Education of Hailey Kendrick - Eileen Cook [63]
“I’m pretty sure this part of the worm is the esophagus,” I said, pointing and trying to pull her attention back to what we were supposed to be doing.
Kelsie didn’t even look over into the tray. “You know the other issue I have to worry about? Facial hair. Italian women are very prone to those long black chin hairs.” She wiggled her fingers at the end of her chin as if to demonstrate how all the hair would look waving in the wind.
“I didn’t know that,” I said. If I thought I was going to have a beard, I wouldn’t tell anyone. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be impressed or repulsed.
“It’s true. You can tell I’m going to be hairy by looking at my eyebrows.” Kelsie pointed with a perfectly manicured finger to her face.
I inspected them, leaning in close to get a better look. “They look fine to me.”
“Well, of course they do. Do you think I would show up in public unless I’d been waxed? I’ve been plucking since I was ten. I remove enough hair per week to make wigs for at least two kids with cancer.”
“Wow.” I looked back at our worm corpse.
“I’m guessing you don’t have facial hair issues, huh? Nordic heritage?”
“Me? No. My family’s originally from Ireland.” I touched my eyebrows with one latex-covered finger.
“You’re lucky. You can’t beat good genes. No wonder Tristan likes you.”
I chopped our worm in two, shocked at what she said.
“Are we supposed to make two worms?” Kelsie asked, leaning in.
“Why would you say Tristan likes me?” My voice was high and a bit screechy. I whirled around to make sure he was still sitting across the room and hadn’t heard what she said. He looked up from his worm tray and smiled. I spun back in case he thought I was staring at him.
“What’s the matter? He’s cute. I wish someone like that liked me,” Kelsie said.
“He doesn’t like me.” I pushed the worm ends back together, hoping either the worm would spontaneously heal itself or our teacher wouldn’t notice what I’d done. “He’s just nice.”
“Are you blind?” Kelsie tapped me on the back of the hand. “You might know science, but I know boys. He’s been flirting with you.”
I casually scratched my back so I could turn enough to have Tristan in my view again. He was still glancing toward our table. I backed up quickly, and my lab chair fell over, making a loud clang on the tile floor. Our science teacher scowled. She wasn’t fond of clowning around in her lab.
“He’s staring at me,” I whispered out of the side of my mouth to Kelsie. “What do I do?”
Kelsie smiled. “You’re in luck. In addition to being plump, and the chin hair thing, Italians are naturals with love and romance. I can totally help you. Romeo and Juliet were Italian, you know.”
I thought about telling her that Romeo and Juliet were created by Shakespeare, who was British, but I decided I wanted her advice more than I wanted to make a point.
Her advice worked too. It wasn’t hard advice to follow. It consisted mostly of meeting his eyes instead of looking away, flipping my hair around like I was having some kind of seizure, and wearing lower-cut shirts. By the end of that week Tristan and I went from shameless flirting in the cafeteria, to talking after class, to kissing while hidden in the stacks of the library, to being a full-fledged established couple. In addition to gaining a boyfriend, I’d gained a best friend. Kelsie and I hadn’t been separated since that time.
Now I needed to know what to do, and the person I usually went to for advice was the one person I couldn’t ask.
I looked at my watch. It was an hour earlier in Chicago; it wasn’t that late. No one would consider it the middle of the night. Weren’t parents supposed to be the ones we went to when there was trouble? Adults were always telling us that we should go to them. I pulled my cell out of my bag and hit the number before I had time to overthink the situation. He picked up the phone before it finished ringing the first time.
“I thought we said we wouldn’t talk again until morning,” my dad purred into the phone.
“Dad?”
“Hailey?