Tilt - Alan Cumyn [8]
“Monday morning!” Jason Biggs said. “You gotta go, man. I’ve seen your jump shot. You never miss.”
Then he looked to where Stan was looking.
“Not Janine Igwash,” he said.
“What?”
“Everyone knows she’s tilted.”
Mr. Stillwater stopped talking and looked directly at the two of them.
“What does everyone know, Stanley?” he said.
Stan’s ears were burning. They always gave him away. Biggs looked innocent as grass.
“What does everyone know?” Mr. Stillwater repeated. All eyes were on Stan.
“Nothing,” Stan muttered.
“Everyone knows nothing?” Mr. Stillwater said.
Stan stayed silent. He sneaked a glance at Janine Igwash. Her face was pale, pale white, but her neck was red. Her hair was so wild he wanted to get lost in it.
What did Biggs mean by tilted?
“Stand up.” Mr. Stillwater’s eyes never left Stan. Maybe this wasn’t going to pass after all. Stan rose uneasily. “What does everyone know?” Stillwater pressed.
“That I’m an idiot,” Stan said. Janine laughed. She was the only one.
“Are you?” A little less heft in Stillwater’s voice. The moment seemed suddenly open to comic possibilities.
“I’m talking with my idiot friend when I should be listening,” Stan said. Some giggles now. “That makes me an idiot, too. I’m sorry, Mr. Stillwater.”
Stillwater nodded slightly, his eyes narrowed.
“And sometimes I drop the phone when someone wonderful is on the other end,” Stan continued. He looked directly at Janine, whose eyes were dark now — how did that happen? Black jewels. “And I fail to apologize because of just how awkward everything is at this age.” Gales of laughter. Jason Biggs’ desk nearly tipped over, Stan was leaning so hard against it. But Janine kept looking.
“That’s enough. Sit down, Stanley!”
Stan sat down. Janine kept looking. He would not look away first. His heart was hammering. He was breathing like he was carrying a load of bricks up a tree for some reason.
Just because it had to be done.
Trumpets were blowing in the back of his head. He wanted to be at the dance right now.
To hell with varsity.
But biology wasn’t over. Stan was in his seat. Janine Igwash was still across the room.
He had to wait while Mr. Stillwater filled the board with the definitions of the ciliary muscle, the optic chiasm, the lens, the iris, the fiber radiations.
Stan poked Jason Biggs on the shoulder.
“What do you mean she’s tilted?” he whispered.
Stan borrowed some colored pencils from the twins. Pink for muscle. Yellow for ligaments. Blue for the iris, gray for the lens.
“She’s a gwog,” Biggs whispered harshly. Stan wasn’t sure he had heard properly.
“A what?”
Janine’s neck was white now, her face red.
“Tilted,” Jason Biggs said again. “She’s a tilted gwog.”
Mr. Stillwater stood beside both their desks, looking with too much interest at their diagrams.
“Mr. Dart,” he muttered eventually. “Did you never learn to color inside the lines?”
—
“So you’re an idiot?” she said an eternity later, when they were outside biology.
“Total.”
She smiled. God. How had he ever stood up in class like that?
“The dance is at eight o’clock. My parents are driving. You’re going to have to meet them. They’re, like, organizing the whole thing. Unless you have your license?” Her voice held a hopeful note.
Stan had his learner’s permit. That was all. Why didn’t he have his license yet? He’d been sixteen for almost three months. Every couple of weeks his mother took him out in the back lot and ground her teeth while he wrestled with the gearshift. He had a lot of trouble balancing between the clutch and the gas. He’d be a snap with an automatic, but they didn’t own an automatic. Why didn’t they own an automatic? They owned a rusting old stick shift because they were poor, poor because of the divorce.
Because of the weirdness of his family he didn’t have his license yet, and so he was embarrassed in front of Janine Igwash.
“I don’t have mine, either,” she said. “But we have to go early because of my parents. Why don’t you