TENTH GRADE ANGST

by Bruce Ingram

  Of course, like always, Mary knows everything about everybody and said the girl’s name is Amber. She’s a transfer student from India, and her dad just got a job as a doctor at the hospital and her mom will be a professor at the community college. Great, another smart, pretty girl in honors’ classes where there aren’t enough guys to go around anyway.

  Chapter Seven: Marcus

  It’s been hard practicing with the guys the last couple of weeks and knowing that I can’t play in the game Friday night. Coach Dell put me on the scout team during scrimmages so I could run routes that the Springfield receivers do. It’s no fun running simulated plays of the team we’re facing, meanwhile watching Caleb and Joshua and the rest of the guys prepare for the game. It was almost a relief for school to start, so I could think about that and get my mind off not being able to play the next two Friday nights.

  The first day back, Dad surprised me and asked if I wanted to drive to school so I could get some of my driving hours in, then he could take over and go on to his office. Dad bought a new BMW over the summer, and, yeah, I want to drive that car around. He’s started to ease up on me a little bit because I think he can tell that I’m sorry about the cheating thing from last spring and am trying to do better this year.

  While we were driving through our neighborhood, all of a sudden Dad said, “Slow down, let’s practice your parallel parking.” He pointed to two cars parked out on the street and there were like three spaces between them, so there was plenty of room for me to do all that backing and twisting of the steering wheel to get the car in next to the curb. I thought the whole parking thing was going to be easy, I’d just pull up to the front car and start backing up, then cut the wheel so that the car would slide into the space. But as I was starting to back up, Dad suddenly yelled out that I was about to hit the car, and I said, “You’re crazy,” and he yelled out, “Stop the car, right now, and get out.”

  He was so mad I decided not to say anything else, and when we got out, I saw that the left side of our back bumper was only a few inches away from a neighbor’s car and our new BMW was about to hit it. If I had kept on going, I would have hit it for sure. I apologized to Dad, and he calmed down. He said we could go practice parallel parking on Sunday morning when the streets were quiet. This driving thing’s going to be a little harder than I thought.

  I got to Ms. Hawk’s first period English 10 Honors class early and turned in my paper on Black Boy four days before it was due. I could tell Ms. Hawk was impressed that I was already done with the paper, and she thanked me for getting it in early, so she wouldn’t “have so many to grade at once.” Then she told me something that both made me feel good and bad about myself. “Marcus,” she said, “you know, you have a lot more ability than you showed me last year. Give me more effort this year and read the material, and I’ll bet you find that you even like to read.”

  If everything we read was as good as Black Boy, she’s probably right, and I told her so. The paper I did for her on that book was the first one I’ve ever written without getting tips on what to write about from online. I then went to look for a seat in the circle of desks that she’d already arranged and decided to sit next to Ms. Hawk, so I would pay more attention to what was going on and not be distracted by Caleb. To my surprise, a little while later Kylee came in and sat down beside me and smiled and started chatting. We found out that we had both read Black Boy, and she had liked it as much as I did. I’m going to take it slow with her or any girl I’m interested in this year. It’s going to be a while before we can get to the “talking” stage, I would guess, let alone start dating. I hope she will give me another chance.

  After the introduction to the class thing that most all teachers give, we started reading a short story, “The Bass, the River, and Sheila Mant.” Ms. Hawk had me read second, and I was embarrassed because I had trouble pronouncing some of the words (epitome and suave) or didn’t know their meaning (incarnation). I was even more embarrassed when Luke and Mia, one or the other, either gave the correct pronunciations or the definitions to all those words—words that they seemed to know just like that. My first thought was that, “Oh great, a poor white boy and a poor Mexican girl are showing me up now.” But then, I started to think that maybe I had been a jerk to lower class kids in the past and maybe that’s something else that I needed to change about myself. Those two are always hanging out together; is there something going on between them? I’ve really never paid any attention to either of them. I’ll say one thing about Mia, she’s hot.

  Next, I went to World History II, and I started to immediately worry that the teacher, Mr. Wayne, had been told about my cheating last year and would have it in for me before school even started. But if he did know, he didn’t let on when he went around the room to make a seating chart and briefly talk to each of us and get to know us a little bit.

  The rest of the day was pretty much the same in every class on the first day: long lists of rules, mostly with the word don’t in them, followed by seating charts, a syllabus, and a lecture, in other words… borrrrrring.

  Chapter Eight: Mia

  Mama said I could wear a little makeup this year, so I put on some mascara, and I was so hoping that Luke would notice when I sat down next to him in Ms. Hawk’s class. He said I looked great this morning, and I know I must have beamed, and I sat down and squeezed his hand. I think he did notice! We were talking about our picnic date on Saturday, and he was still being mysterious about where we were going to go; when I kept hearing this rumbling sound, and then I finally realized it was coming from his stomach.

  I asked him if he had eaten breakfast and found out that all he had eaten was an energy bar because there was hardly any food in the house, but “plenty of booze” was what he said. I know he’s told me that his mom is sick, but I have a feeling it’s worse than what he’s let on…or maybe he doesn’t know how sick she is. Right then, I decided to make him an egg and cheese sandwich tomorrow morning and bring it to him first period. He can’t do well in school if all he eats for breakfast and lunch are two energy bars total. And we have jobs to do every day after school this week, which just makes things worse for him. If I told him I was going to bring him some food, he would tell me not to, so I’m not going to tell him.

  I’ve got a busy week with studying and work. I’ve got to deliver eggs Monday and Thursday after school, yard and garden maintenance work on Tuesday and Wednesday at houses where Luke is mowing, and babysitting Friday and Saturday nights. Saturday morning, I have to clean out the henhouse and then help Mama clean our house. She knows I need to be done by 8:30, so I can prepare the arroz con pollo and get myself ready for our—my first ever—first date.

  I’m not at all nervous about going out with Luke. At lunch Monday, Elly and Mary said they were really nervous about their first date, but Paige said she really wasn’t because she and Allen were friends before they went out for the first time, and they’ve been a couple ever since. I think that’s how things should be, that you should be friends with a guy before you go out with him. That way, you won’t make the mistake of going out with someone who’s absolutely no good for you.

  I want my first date with Luke to be special, and I know it will be. I know we will have lots to talk about because we always do. There’s one thing that I really want and that is for him to kiss me. All summer when we were working together, we were always so dirty and sweaty all the time that it just wouldn’t have felt right if we had kissed then. But now it would feel right.

  What happens, though, if we’ve been together all day, and it’s almost time for our date to be over and Luke hasn’t kissed me? Should I show him in some kind of way that I want to be kissed? But Mama always says not to be too forward with boys, so I can’t act like that toward Luke. I think maybe the best thing is just to act around him like I always do, and let things play out naturally.

  I’ve been thinking about how to wear my hair Saturday. Luke often compliments me on my long, dark hair, and I always wore it in a po
nytail when we were working, so I want to wear it loose and natural Saturday. But we have to ride our bikes somewhere, and it’s probably going to be hot…maybe I should put my hair in a ponytail while we are riding to wherever we are going, then let it loose?

  Another big topic at lunch Monday was Amber, the new girl. Mary was teasing Elly pretty hard about making a fool of herself with Caleb, and him getting up to leave when Amber came in while Elly was still trying to talk to him, and from the look on Elly’s face, she was upset about the whole thing. Paige asked me what I thought about all that, and I said I hadn’t been paying attention because Luke and I were going over our jobs for the week. High school kids make too big a deal about all this social interaction stuff; most students most of the time aren’t paying attention to this stuff that one of us thinks is so important.

  Then Mary said I should be worried about Amber, too, and I said, “I don’t see why.” And she replied that Amber was really smart and could be my competition for valedictorian. I’m not going to spend my time worrying about something like that, either, and I told Mary that. If I study and do the best I can, and I will, things will turn out okay, and I told her that, too. The most important thing is to earn scholarships for college because I know my parents haven’t been able to save a lot of money just for me, especially with my two younger sisters going to need help for their education, too, one day.

  It was about then that I realized I had spent too much of the day thinking about things other than school, so I decided to put the date, and jobs, and Elly’s problems out of my head and concentrate on my classes.

  In fifth period, I took lots of notes about the body’s organs and tissues because I’m going to need to know all that information for when I’m in medical school. In French II sixth period, we got 20 new vocabulary words, but I already basically knew what about 15 of them meant from similar words in English and Spanish. Last in Yearbook, Luke, Elly, and I made our plans for the spreads we have to finish this nine weeks in order to meet our deadline. Then it was time for me to go home and deliver eggs.

  The Weekend

  Chapter Nine: Luke

  Saturday, I was so hungry when I got up, and there still wasn’t much in the refrigerator. I looked in the freezer and way back at the back were some frozen walnuts under the macaroni and cheese package and an almost empty package of peas behind the ice cube tray, so for my entree I dined on peas with walnuts—sure to become an instant breakfast classic. I can’t stand macaroni and cheese; we’ve had it for years for too many dinners and I’m not going to have that crap for breakfast, too.

  I had to mow two lawns, ours and a neighbor’s, before leaving our house at 9:30 and riding my bike to meet Mia for our date. I mowed ours first, so that Dad wouldn’t yell at me for not having it done when he got up, and so he would also see that I was busy and not tell me to do some kind of car chore. I was hoping that that he would leave for some car lot to look for bargains while I was mowing, and, luckily, that was what happened, which was a big break for me. I sure as heck couldn’t have told him that I had a date with a Hispanic girl as the reason I couldn’t help with something.

  When I got back from mowing the neighbor’s lawn, nobody was around, and I checked the refrigerator again with the hope that Mom had gone and come back from the grocery store, but the fridge looked as barren as usual. I saw that the door to Mom and Dad’s bedroom was still shut, so I thought maybe Mom was still in there, so I knocked to see if she was all right. She didn’t answer, so I opened the door to peek inside, and she was still asleep. And then I walked in to say I was leaving to go somewhere, and I looked at Mom and she was bald and there was this brown wig on her bed stand. Then it hit me, Mom’s got cancer… no, no, no, oh no. That explains why she’s in bed all the time, she must be getting chemotherapy. And that explains why Dad is angrier than usual and has started back drinking so much. What if Mom dies? What would life with just Dad and me be like? I’m scared of him now, he would be an absolute terror if Mom were gone. He might take his loneliness out on me. Then I felt guilty about thinking of myself first when I had just found out that my mother has cancer. What should I do, what should I say to her… that I love her and want her to get better? But she didn’t want me to know. Was she worried that I would worry about her? I didn’t know what to do or say to her. Should I ask Mia for advice, should I tell her about Mom?

  I tell Mia everything, and she’s always so willing to talk about things… to help me out. I wish I could help her like she helps me. I backed out of Mom’s room, and went to the kitchen to get a baggy and put sugar in it for the wild blackberries that Mia and I were going to pick for dessert and got on my bike and left.

  When I met Mia, she had this big smile on her face, but then she looked at me as if she were reading my expression, and said, “What’s the matter, what’s wrong, tell me.” I got worried that she thought I didn’t want to be with her, and, really, Mia is the best thing in my life. So I told her everything was fine, which wasn’t the truth… that I had been rushed all morning, which was the truth. I decided to hide Mom’s cancer from Mia, so she wouldn’t worry about me, and how I was coping. I gave a forced smile and said to follow me and about 30 minutes later we were at one of the access roads to the national forest.

  After we had hidden our bikes in some undergrowth, she walked over to me and said, “Luke, we’re not taking another step until you tell me what’s bothering you.”

  I said nothing and I started to cry. It was humiliating. Here I was on my first date ever and I’m crying in front of a girl that I really care about. I had been thinking about and looking forward to this day for months, and I was so worried about losing Mom; then Dad and I would be alone in that house and how awful that would be—I just had a rush of emotions that burst out. I finally got my crying under control, and I told Mia the whole story, and the entire time we were sitting on a rock and had our arms around each other. When I finished, she said, “I’ll help you get through this,” and, I said, “I really appreciate that,” and I know that she will be there for me.

  Then suddenly she said, “I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you talk to your mom and tell her that you know that she hasn’t been feeling well lately. You don’t have to tell her you know about the cancer. And tell her that to take some of the pressure off her and Dad and taking care of you, what would she think about your going to live with your granddaddy on weekends until she is feeling better.”

  Mia said that on weekends, I would get three meals a day with Granddaddy, be away from Dad, and I could arrange with the school secretary to ride to Granddaddy’s house on a different bus on Friday evenings and Monday mornings. It would be a win-win for everybody.

  Mia also went on to say that she knew I wasn’t getting enough to eat, that was why she had brought—and was going to continue to bring no matter what I said—something to eat before school every day. And again, she emphasized, I was not to tell her not to do that. I’ve felt guilty about her bringing me those egg dishes this week, but it’s also felt good to have something to eat. Mia is so smart, and I told her I really liked everything she had said and was going to talk to Mom about it.

  And then there was this pause, and I looked at her and she looked at me, and I kissed her for the first time, and she gave me the biggest smile.

  Chapter Ten: Elly

  Mary’s and my double date with Paul and Richard was a total disaster. Having to go watch a sport that I know nothing about and care nothing about was bad enough, but we had to get there at 6:30 to get ready for the 7:00 start and then after the game was over around 9:30, we had to wait until after 10:00 for the guys to meet us. So it was almost four hours of waiting around, so I could watch Paul and Richard stuff pizza in their faces for thirty minutes. I didn’t really want anything to eat but Paul insisted that I have a couple slices from his pizza, which meant that I had two dinners that night, and that’s exactly what a girl who is 24 pounds overweight needs to be doing.

  Meanwhile, Paul had to explain that “
we” had lost the game because the referee had flagged him twice for holding, which was “so unfair” and the “the refs sucked.” Who was Paul holding or what was he holding. I thought the quarterback held the ball most of the time, was Paul holding Caleb? If so, why would he be doing that? Football is so stupid. That was followed by a drive to a cul-de-sac near my house so that Paul and I could make out in the front seat and Richard and Mary “went walking.” There’s nothing like kissing someone with fresh pepperoni breath and four-day-old stubble to make a girl feel good about herself… meh.

  The evening was made perfect when Paul announced that we—the four of us—were going to play video games at his house Saturday night and watch some college football games on TV—that he and Richard were going to pick Mary and me up at 6:00 after they had picked up some pizzas. Isn’t he going to even ask me if that’s what I would like to go do? Apparently, I have no say about where we are going to go or what we are going to do. So Saturday night will be Round II of pepperoni flavored kisses, but this time with five-day stubble. And don’t forget that all this romance will be paired with watching, now wait for it…college football! Yippee!

  When I got home, I texted Mary to see if she wanted to talk, and she called me almost immediately. I told her that I was thinking about breaking up with Paul, that there was no future in this relationship, and I dreaded, yes dreaded, the thought of spending hours and hours at his house watching him and Richard eat and watch TV and yelling at the screen. Mary told me that I shouldn’t break up with Paul because, then, I might not have a date for homecoming. Which I thought was a really stupid reason for continuing to date someone.

  Mary has been one of my best friends for a long time, since grade school, but her comment was just ridiculous. And maybe I should stop relying on her so much for advice. There’s nothing wrong with accepting a date with some guy just because you’re bored and want to get out of the house. I mean, I could understand, me, or one of my friends, saying yes to a guy just to get out and do something and see what the guy was like. But to continue to go out with someone when there’s no future in the relationship… I think that’s wrong.