My Blue Eyes (2 page)

     Three weeks had come and gone, and we still hadn't started our project.  The only thing we accomplished was exchanging phone numbers.  To no avail, I would try to strike up a conversation with Mary during seventh hour Science.  There was no point.  It was to the point of getting ridiculous.  We should have started the project on the first day of school.  
     My frustrations led to disgust. My thoughts of winning the top prize and a $5,000 scholarship was a moot point.  Did I fail to mention the top project got a prize?  I could have cared less about the scholarship, since I was already getting offered a full ride to which ever school I picked.  I wanted the top prize of having my picture placed on the wall of fame at school for generations and generations of students to see when they graced the halls of River City High. True, it sounds a little conceited and self-indulgent, but I wanted it.
     My mom must have noticed something was bothering me. One night, she decided to strike up a conversation with me. My conversations with my mom had been far and few the older I got.  What teenage boy likes to have a serious conversation with their parents anyway?  I did love my mom though.  Even though we didn't talk like we used to, I loved her all the same.  She was my rock.  She was everything I aspired to be in a person.  We didn't have to talk.  An approving nod of the head, or a smile, was all I needed to remember she was there for me when I needed her.  As I sit here writing this now, I regret not spending more time talking with her.
     "How's the senior project going honey?" she asked.
     "Like crap," I replied.  
     Somehow, she knew this was bothering me.  How moms inherently know things like this is beyond reasonable comprehension.
     "How so?" she asked.
     "Because, my stupid partner Mary Wizcowski is lazy, and won’t help me start it," I said with frustration.
     Mom replied in deep thought, "Mary Wizcowski, huh?  Is that Terri Wizcowski's daughter, who works at the gas station off Walnut Street?"
     I swear my mom knew every person in town, and probably three towns over.  She was big in the PTA when we were in grade school and made it a point to know as many people as possible.  I can't say I blamed her.  These were the only adult conversations she had when my brothers and sisters were younger.  Being a stay at home mom, she could only get out of the house when they were at school.  I could always picture in my head what her response must have been when she found out she was pregnant with me.  My brothers always said she passed out in disbelief, and this is why I have the birth mark on the back of my neck.  Either way, instead of joining a club or hanging with old friends, she decided to help out at our schools.  That's just the type of person she was.
     "I don't know a thing about her mom," I replied.  "The only thing I know about her is she moved away when we were in eighth grade, and now she has moved back. She has screwed up my whole senior year."
     "That's odd," mom said with a confused expression.  "Her mom's worked down at that gas station for the past ten years."
     "It doesn't matter," I sighed.  "My senior project is doomed."
     I could see a light go on in my mom's head.  This usually happened when she was trying to bail us kids out of a difficult situation.  What she said next left me exasperated.
     "Why don't you invite Mary over to the house Saturday evening for supper?"
     "Are you kidding me?" I said in disbelief.  "She's not my girlfriend, she's my partner for our senior project.  Besides, I hate this girl.  Why would I want to invite her over to my house?"
     Mom wasn't having any of this, and in fact she demanded, "You're inviting that girl over here and that's final.  This is too important of a project for the both of you.  Don't you want to graduate?"
     "She won’t come anyway," I replied.
     "Well, you better find a way to get her to come, or you won’t be doing anything this weekend," she said as she walked out of the room.
      At this moment, my mom went from being my most favorite person in the world, to my least favorite.  There were many problems with my mom's demand to invite Mary over for supper.
     1.  I couldn't stand to be around Mary.  
     2.  If any of my friends discovered she was at my house, I would never hear the end of it.  I had already taken quite the ribbing from them and did not want to hear anymore.
     3. Why did she want me to invite her over so badly?
     4.  I couldn't stand to be around Mary.  I know I already wrote this, but I want to get my point across.
     5.   It was Thursday night and we were off school on Friday.  My friends and I had plans to go to parties Friday and Saturday night.  One of my weekend nights would already be shot if Mary came over, but if she failed to come over, both nights would be shot. 
     6.   Lisa was going to be at the party both nights, and rumor had it, she was asking questions about my status.  I heard she was getting friendly with this college kid from the local university, so I needed more than one night to work on her.
     Nonetheless, I proceeded to pull Mary's phone number out of my wallet and placed the call.  
No answering machine,
 I thought, 
who doesn't have an answering machine?  It's the freaking nineties already!
  I dialed it one more time in case I got it wrong the first time.  The phone rang five times and then she picked up, and on the other line was one of the prettiest voices I have ever heard.
     "Hello," The voice said.
     Thinking it was someone other than Mary having heard her voice briefly in the library, I replied, "Is Mary there?"
     "This is her," she answered.
     I think I just threw up in my mouth. I actually thought this voice was pretty and it ended up being Mary. Gross!  
     "Mary, this is Darrel, your project partner," I said.  
     She knew who I was, but I added that just in case.
     "Hi Darrel," she replied.
     "Listen, my mother wants to know if you can come over for supper Saturday night," I said trying not to sound resentful.  "She knows we haven't had a chance to start on our project, and she is all over my ass about starting it.  Can you make it?"
     "That's a little strange," she said with a little sarcasm.  "I think I'm busy."
     "Come on Mary," I said forcibly.  "If you don't say yes, she will literally go down to where your mom works and make you come over. And if that doesn't work...Well you don't want to know what she will do."
     "Geez," she muttered.  "Fine, what time and where do you live?"
     I thought, 
did Mary really just give me a "geez"?  If anyone was saying geez, it should be me.
     "We usually eat around 5:30, but I would be here by 5:00," I said with relief in my voice.  "My address is 659 Cherry Lane.  See you then."
     "Good-bye Darrel," She said.
     There it was.  Mary was coming to my house.  Now the only thing I needed to do was make sure no one found out.  Thanks Mom.
Chapter 4

     My Friday had come and gone with no luck wooing Lisa.  The party was canceled because the kids' parents decided to wait until Saturday to go out of town.  My friends and I were left to entertain ourselves, which usually consisted of drinking beer on some obscure gravel road.
     I had a tight group of friends that usually consisted of five.  There was my best friend Matt, Mark Thompson, Scotty Werth, Travis Graves and Drew Little.  We've all been playing baseball together since we were little, so there wasn't too much we didn't know about each other.  I appreciated these times when it was just us five popping the top off a cold one.  We had the usual conversations teenage boys have.  However, once we started on the second case of beer, the conversations were a lot more intense.  The second case of beer always provided us with something new we didn't know about each other.
     Like the time Mark became the first to broach the subject of masturbation.  For years, I secretly kept my late night jerk off sessions to myself.  Hidden in the shame I was doing something terribly wrong, and fearing I was a sex addict.  I even started doing my laundry myself so my mom wouldn't discover my stiff socks strategically placed in my laundry basket.  I feared mom would pull out a crusty sock or two, or a fresh soiled piece of underwear from one of many wet dreams.  I was unaware parents with teenage boys wait for the day when we finally realize our penis is used for something besides peeing.  I admired Mark for crossing that fine line of too much information, and finally setting all of us free from the guilt each and every one of us felt for years.
     "I was jerking off to Carrie Williams the other day," Mark said as we started on the second case of beer.  Our jaws must have fallen so low we were tasting the nasty dust of the gravel road.
     He continued, "Come on guys!  You know you all jerk off too."
     "No, no, no, not us," we all proclaimed.
     "Whatever, I know you do.  Anyway, I imagined she was swimming in my backyard, and I came out and asked if I could join her," Mark stated in his unique story telling voice.
     She said, "Sure, but only if you take off your shorts!"
     "So of course I did, and she removed her bikini one piece at a time, and her huge tits popped out.  I took her into my arms and she wrapped her legs around me and we did it in the pool," Mark said with a satisfying smile on his face.  "I jerked it the same way to Lisa and Natalie too."
     It was amazing hearing this.  It was almost like all the guilt exited my body like a soul does a newly deceased body.  I then became the next to admit it.
     I confessed, "Okay, I admit, I do it too."
     "How many times a day do you jerk off a day," Mark asked with a beam of pride.
     I replied with a little apprehension, "Probably two or three times a day."
     "I do it around five times a day," Drew proudly admitted.
     "Once a day here," Travis claimed.
     "Three times a day," Matt unwillingly said while raising his hand.
     "I jerked off in school once," Scotty proclaimed, much to our amusement.
     The beer in all our mouths came spitting out like a water fountain "DUDE, THAT IS JUST WRONG!" we all screamed loudly while trying not to choke on the left over beer remaining in our mouths.  
     Needing to defend himself, Scotty replied, "I had to.  Jenny Baker was in my sixth hour history class, and she was wearing this tight ass shirt with her nipples hard as rocks.  They were sticking out like a couple of pencil erasers.  I kept getting a hard on and it wouldn't go away.  When I forced it to get soft again, I asked Mr. Kreeger if I could use the restroom.  What was I supposed to do?"
     "Wait until you get home you fucking pervert," Mark stated while putting his face into his hands and shaking it back and forth slowly.
     I loved these nights.  We didn't need a big party to have a good time.  This is where we bonded and helped each other with the difficult times while getting drunk and stupid.  It was a camaraderie we shared, strengthening our bond to overcome the obstacles of being a teenage boy growing up in the nineties.  I remember those days fondly, music blaring from the car and having to start it every twenty minutes to keep the battery charged.  How I long for the simple times that were my teenage years.
     When talk came of who was driving to the party tomorrow night, I had to reluctantly inform them I wasn't going.  They were all disappointed.  I told them my mom was forcing me to have a family night with her and my dad and there was no way out of it.  
     I wouldn't dare tell them Mary was coming over.  I was dreading it.  Dreading having to entertain Mary while my buddies were all getting stupid drunk and hitting on every girl they thought would put out.
Chapter 5

     Saturday evening had arrived, and soon Mary would be inside my house having dinner with me and my parents.  I kept pinching myself hoping against hope this was all a dream.  It wasn't.  At 5:02 PM, I heard the doorbell ring.  I was sitting on the couch watching college football with Dad when I heard Mom call out from the kitchen.
     "Darrel, will you please get the door?"
     I glanced at my dad with droopy eyes and shook my head.  Dad laughed silently with his lips closed as his chest raised and the sound of the air being released from his nose verified his amusement.  I stood up from my seated position and headed towards the door.  I opened the door slowly and there stood Mary.
     "Hi Mary," I said emotionless.  "Please, come inside."
     Mary obliged and entered my home.  She was in her usual attire, long denim dress with an oversized Mickey Mouse t-shirt and scuffed Mary Janes.  Her hair was curly again with her bangs brushed to the side displaying her abnormally large black glasses.  I was shocked to see Mary wearing a tiny splash of makeup.  She had a light tinge of green to her eyelids and a randomly placed amount of blush on her cheeks.  She smelled of Electric Youth perfume, lightly sprayed on to take away from her hideous attire.  
     Dad was sitting up in his Lazy Boy recliner and stood up as Mary and I entered the room.  I could tell he was enjoying this to its fullest, as he had the biggest shit eating smile on his face.  I gave him the death stare as I introduced Mary to him.
     "Dad, this is Mary.  Mary this is my dad Paul," I said with the excitement one would have if they were getting a tooth pulled without the use of Novocain.
     "Hello Mr. Watson," Mary said politely.
     "Please call me Paul, Mary," Dad replied with a mockingly exaggerating tone.  "All of Darrel's friends call me Paul, and I insist you do too.  It's a pleasure to meet you."
     "Well it's very nice to meet you too, Paul," Mary said while bearing a smile I had never seen before.
     We walked into the kitchen where my mom was preparing a massive feast for four people. Why she was going to all this trouble was embarrassing to say the least.  One would have thought we were having our Thanksgiving meal with all the food she prepared.  It did smell delightful.  She was preparing fried chicken, mashed potatoes, homemade macaroni, green beans and her world famous sweet potato casserole.  For dessert, she made an assortment of cookies she had baked all day and my dad's favorite blackberry cobbler. Mary was caught off guard by the assortment of food as her eyes opened up in a way I had also never seen before.
     Mary had the prettiest green eyes filled with the brightness of a newborn baby.  I had no idea she had those eyes.  How would I know?  The only time Mary ever looked up was to check the clock for the end of the school day.  I proceeded to introduce her to mom.
     "Mom, this is Mary. Mary this my mom, Ella."
     "It is so wonderful to meet you Mary, I've heard so much about you," mom cheerfully said while receiving a confusing look from me.
     "It's nice to meet you too Mrs. Watson.  You have a lovely home."