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              Carissa could not hear what David said.  “So you do not need me anymore! Is that it, David?”  Carissa, not trying to hide her curiosity, looked straight at the window in the door. She could see Mrs. Shelton, face red.  Mrs. Shelton’s glasses were sliding down her face.  Mrs. Shelton glanced into the class and caught Carissa looking at her.  She motioned Carissa back to her assignment.  “You need to remember who feeds and clothes you.  Is that little harlot going to do that for you, David?”

             
Bitch
, Carissa thought. 

              Mrs. Shelton’s scolding continued and after a few more minutes she opened the classroom door.  “Carissa, step out here.”  Carissa’s heart sank into a deep, hard rhythm.  Carissa’s hands and feet tingled.  The last student to step outside has never stepped back in, well, was sent to another English class. 

              “Yes, ma’am,” Carissa said hoping formality would provide a little saving grace.  Carissa knees knocked as she stepped from behind the desk and into the isle.  Each step felt as if a thirty pound weight were tied to her feet.  The class watched her walk to her impending doom.   

              An hour seemed to pass before she reached the door.  She stepped over the threshold. The door clicked behind her.  In one even motion, Mrs. Shelton turned with her index finger extended, “So, do you make it a habit to eves drop on other people’s conversations?”

              “No, ma’am.”

              “Then what was the attraction to this conversation?”

              Carissa said nothing.  She attempted to make her face drip with shame but fear was the result.  Carissa was scared. 

              “Disciplining my son is none of your concern.  Do you understand?”

              “Yes, ma’am.”  Mrs. Shelton motioned Carissa back into the class.  Carissa was the first student she knew of allowed back in.  Relief washed her as she sat down, eyes drifting through the text. 

              The tone of Mrs. Shelton’s voice, with her son, made Carissa think David was not the timid boy that she had met on the bus.  There must be something more to him.  He did not fight her so why was she so hard on him? 

              A few moments later, the bell rang.  Carissa gathered her books as the student herds spill back into the halls.  She looked at the front of the class and observed Mrs. Shelton for a moment.  Maybe she felt sorry for the bitter woman, or she was planning an attack.  Whatever it was, she did not think on it long.  She walked cautious from the class and gently closed the door.

4

              Carissa walked down the hall confident the encounter with Mrs. Shelton went well. 
The day can only get better,
she thought as she maneuvered the maze once again.  “Carissa!” Mr. Gilbert said.  Mr. Gilbert was her math teacher.  He was a man completely devoted to his craft.  He loved to teach and committed himself to the no child left behind philosophy.  He believed everyone was worth saving.  Mr. Gilbert was single now, his wife had left him six months before.  She claimed that it was because he spent too much time at school but rumors spread when she remarried three months later.  Everyone has a few teachers that were truly great but Andy Gilbert was on hundreds of student’s list.

              “Yes, sir,” Carissa said not sure if the day was going back to the shittier side of life.

              “You called me, sir,” Mr. Gilbert said as he pretended to fix an invisible bow tie.  “I need you to come to my class before you go to lunch.”

              “What for?” Carissa said curiously.

              “We’ll talk in a minute,” Mr. Gilbert said as a boy pressed his way down the hall, “Stop running!” The boy did not stop.

              “Ok.”

              “I’ll see ya.  Mr. Peters, the cafeteria will still be there in minute.  Quit running.” 

              Carissa resumed her push through the Millard Johnston High School halls.  She broke free of the river of people into an almost vacant hallway.  The corridor was relatively silent except for the fading chatter of students and the sound of her footsteps.  She felt uncomfortable with the silence.  Silence meant he was coming.

              She placed her books in her locker as April came walking up.  “Hey,” Carissa said.

              “What’s up?  You wanna go catch a buzz?” April shuffled in place holding a small rolled paper.

              “No, I have to go see Mr. Gilbert before I go to lunch.”

              “Sucks to be you.  Come to the parking lot afterwards.”

              “Cool.”

              “Hurry,” April said as she walked down hall.

              Mr. Gilbert’s class was an atypical math lair.  A couple of math joke posters on the wall, Pi lining the coving, and a grid graph embossed on the white board.  Carissa had no clue why she was here.  She had never caused a problem in class.  In fact, she hardly asked a question.  Carissa was just a student in the crowd.   

“Mr. Gilbert.”

              “Carissa, come and have a seat.”

              “Yes, sir,” she said mading her way to his desk.

              “Now, don’t call me that.  I think my father is in here.”  He laughed at his joke.  He was not funny.  He was a caring teacher but humor was something he had not quite grasped and at forty-five years old the chances were slim he ever would.  However, Carissa did feel more comfortable.

              “So what did you want to see me for, Mr. Gilbert?”

              “Call me, Andy.  There’s no one else here.”  If Carissa had heard this from another teacher, she would have thought they were making a pass at her, but not Mr. Gilbert.  He had always prided himself with making the students feel as at ease as possible.  He believed if they were worried about formality, it would hinder the learning process.  He would have had them call him Andy during class, but in his first year teaching, he had been reprimanded for not “demanding the respect of the students”.  On a one on one basis, he felt it was appropriate. 

              “Ok,” he said as he shuffled through a large stack of papers.  He pulled out several, slid on a pair of reading glasses, and then opened his grade book.  “Now, Carissa, I’m concerned with your grades.  If you look at the first few,” He said as he pushed the grade book closer to her, “they are all in the mid eighties.  Very respectable grades.  But on the last four they have steadily declined.”  He handed her the assignments he had pulled from the stack.  “Now, these are the last four tests that you’ve taken.  The first is an eighty-two, then seventy-nine, and the other two are low seventies.  I went through the ones that you missed. All the work is correct but where you’re going wrong is adding and subtracting.  Simple stuff you shouldn’t be missing.  So, what I’ve I done is set you up with a tutor.  I talked to Mr. Freeman and on the days that you have study hall, you’re going to come in here.”

              Carissa shuffled through the tests pressing her lips tight.
What the fuck am I doing?

Mr. Gilbert put his hand on her shoulder.  “Don’t be hard on yourself.  No one gets this stuff without practice.  It’s hard.  But some people need more practice than others.  Some people excel at the hard stuff but make minor mistakes that cost them the answer. You are in this category. I think you will be doing fine in about a month.  Right now I need you to focus on the details, every number and symbol. Ok.”

              “I’ll be here.” 

              “Ok.  Now, go to lunch.”

              Carissa stood as she laid the papers on his desk.  “Andy?”

              “Yes, ma’am.”

              “Thank you.”

              “No, problem.  Go to lunch before you starve.”

              The light cast bright on Rob, Scott, and April.  They were hiding out behind the church across from the school.  The aroma of six month old, dry brick weed filled the air.  Scott sucked heavily then passed the joint to April who pinched the end tight before putting it to her lips. 

              “So, what does Carissa think about me?” Rob said.             

“She thinks you’re cool, man,” April said trying not exhale.

              “No, does she want him,” Scott explained with a delicate laugh.  Rob punched Scott’s arm.  The pop was loud, echoing off the church wall.  “Dick,” Scott said rubbing what was sure to be a bruise.

              “You’re an ass, Rob” April said.  He laughed. “She hasn’t said anything, but she hadn’t dated anyone since junior high.”  Actually, Carissa’s last boyfriend had been in fifth grade.  She had dated Scott, of all people, for about a week.  They never even held hands before she cut off the relationship.
              “I was thinking about -“ 

              “What’s up,” Carissa called from behind stopping Rob midsentence.  They all jumped.  Rob cupped the joint in an vain attempt to hide it.  Not knowing what else to do, he opened wide.  Just as his cupped hand reached peanut toss distance, he realized it was Carissa.  Trying to cover for his “I do not want to go to jail” overreaction, he put the joint back up to his lips and puffed. 

              “Bitch, no double hits,” Scott said.  The rules for a group with little access to illegal drugs are strict.  Double hits were definitely not allowed.  Babysitting is another big no, no.  Too much wasted product.

              “Hey, girl,” April said squinting her sensitive and bloodshot eyes.

              “Fuck Carissa, you scared the shit out of me,” Scott said.  “Now, I’m going to be paranoid all day. Thanks!”  He was a firm believer that he could control his high, but in actuality, he was the jumpiest one of all.  He dumped a half ounce of grass on the football field once.  He had seen a cop drive by and then he saw a stray dog running through the stadium parking.  He thought the cops had released the hounds on him.  As his class ran sprints, he dumped the pot on the field.  Most would ask why he had it with in gym.  Well, he thought they searched lockers while students were in P.E.  Despite all his paranoia, he was also cheap which could over power his suspicion from time to time.  A few nights later he had went back to the field to try to recover as much as he could.  However, the sod had been trimmed so Scott gathered mostly lawn shavings and hoped it would do the trick.  Through a cloud of burnt Bermuda, he realized it did not. 

              Rob gave April a look.  As if she had telepathy, April winked, “I’m going to the store.  I got the munchies.  Come on, Scott,” April said.  Scott began to protest.  April grabbed his arm pulling him hard enough to knock him off balance. 

              “Get me a Dr. Pepper,” Carissa said.

              “Will do,” April replied.  Carissa could see Scott’s remonstration as he and April rounded the building. 

              “You want a hit,” Rob said giving the joint to Carissa.  She motioned it away.  “So, how did things go with Gilbert?” Rob took another pull.

              “I’m having trouble with the quadratic formula bullshit.”  Which was a lie.  She was just embarrassed that the problem was simple arithmetic so she named the first complex sounding formula she could think of.  Rob did not put it together that they had learned the formula in eighth grade.

              “Yeah, I was fucking up last year and he got me a tutor.  Anyway, what are you doing this weekend?”

              “I don’t know yet.  April said there might be a party.”

              “That sounds fun.  Maybe we could go see a movie before?”

              “Maybe,” Carissa said. 

Excitement filled Rob’s chest.  He was about to burst.  He waited all these years and finally his blind ambition paid off.  She was going to go on a date with him.  What seemed so terrifying now seemed minor. 
I need to pick the right movie.  Nothing to romantic because it is a first date, but I can’t pick anything with too much action because I want to at least give her a kiss later.  If we see a scary movie, I might get to put my arm around her.  But, she loves scary movies! 

“Who’s all going?”  Those three words were like a bullet.  Then for an instant he wondered how a sentence that did not contain a word that was longer than five letters can crash his mood so quickly.  But it did. 

              “I was thinking you and me,” he took a breath, “and April and Scott.”  He looked at his shoes.              “

I’ll have to ask my dad,” Carissa said, not knowing she had just crushed a friend who was trying in his own, hindered way to be more.  He knew she had no idea what she had done but it did not hurt any less.  He knew that Rob and Carissa would not be anymore, at least not now. 

              Embarrassed, he had put himself on the line.  He had thrown himself to the girl he had dreamed about for so long.  He had learned to play the guitar when he was thirteen in hopes that one day he could play it for her.  He had written poems and songs and stories about his true love with her in mind.  He was a romantic of the worst kind, a quixotic embarrassment.

              Rob knew Carissa.  They had sat many times in the dark night just talking.  Carissa would tell her dad she was spending the night at April’s house and April would tell her parents the antithetic.  The two would end up at a party with Rob and Scott.  Carissa never liked big crowds so when the parties would be too much, Rob would take her outside.  They would forget about the get-together and just let themselves melt in the moment.  They never kissed, but he felt they connected.  Beyond that, there were the many phone calls he had gotten in the middle of the night.  She would not tell him what was wrong, but he would sit with her on the other end of the line.  Just the sound of her breathing was enough.  He was young but he loved her in a way raging hormones cannot produce.  He loved her.

“No, forget I asked,” He knew this moment was not right.

              They walked in silence back to school.  He tried to think of something to say but there was no use.  He had nothing to say.  He could only think of running from here.  He wanted to go home and hull up in his room.  He was hurt.  Even though he knew she did not understand what he wanted, he was angry.  He realized he had plenty to say but held it in.

              Carissa looked toward the store spotting Scott and April on their way back.  Scott had a large cup, Carissa was sure it was filled with soda.  April sported a bag of Doritos and orange hands.  Rob and Carissa waded through traffic as if they were playing human Frogger.  “Use the cross walk!” an old man in a truck yelled as he drove past.  The four came together just as Carissa and Rob stepped to the school sidewalk.

              “Let me have a drink,” Rob said.

              “You got cotton mouth?” Scott said.  He held the cup out but snatched it back as Rob reached for it.

              “Give me a drink,” Rob said he lunged for the cup.  Scott pulled back and the cup slipped his grasp.

              Scott spread is arms, “What the fuck, man?” 

              Rob looked at the ground then to Carissa and back to Scott.  “You should have given me a fucking drink,” Rob said as he stepped toward Scott, jaw clenched.

              Carissa reached into her pocket and pulled out the only two dollars she had.  “Here!” Then thrust the bills to Rob. “Go get another one.”

              “No, thanks,” Rob said as he walked away.

              Carissa recognized the look on Rob’s face.  She had seen it before.  A guy at a party would not leave her alone.  She told the guy she was not interested and left it that.  Later, Carissa and Rob were playing their predictable routine of sitting alone and talking about whatever when the ass came back, sat down, and put his arm around her. She pushed at his hand as Rob told the guy to leave her alone.  “O.K. O.K,” he said raising his hands and walking backward but not too much later he came back.