Wishing for Someday Soon (5 page)

I looked away embarrassed. Lucinda absolutely hated that people could tell her where she could and couldn’t smoke. Being one to buck the system at every opportunity available, she always tried to light up anywhere and everywhere.

“Oh, there’s no smoking in the building or on school property,” the woman said, all kindness disappearing from her voice as she looked at Lucinda reproachfully.

“Right, of course not,” Lucinda said sarcastically, dropping her cigarettes back into her bag.

I kept my eyes everywhere but on Lucinda and the woman who I knew was now probably judging us. This was nothing new to me.

The door behind us opened up letting in a gust of cold air. Relieved to finally have something to look at, I turned to see who had entered the room, and nearly groaned out loud when I saw it was the swoon-worthy-dimple boy, as I had come to think of him.
OMG, could this get any worse?
I couldn’t help thinking to myself.

Oblivious to my discomfort, he shot me the same dimpled smile from the night before as he walked around the granite countertop. “Hi, Mrs. Johnson, how are you doing this morning?” he said, grabbing a stack of papers off the counter in front of her. He sorted through them for a moment before distributing them in the appropriate cubbies.

“Great, Max, how about you?” she asked in a lighter tone.

“The same. School, work, school, slave labor, you know how it is,” he said, shooting her a smile.

“You tell your father to stop working you so hard, or I’ll have to stage some kind of grocery store boycott," she said, trying to sound stern.

“You know it won’t do any good, Mrs. Johnson. Anytime I even think about griping, I get to hear about how he had to walk through like ten feet of snow, ten miles each way to school every day,” Max said, laughing easily with her.

I knew I should look away, but there was something captivating about the way he laughed with such abandon. His laughter was so warm and contagious. I could feel the corners of my own mouth pulling up to smile in response. I looked down hastily so he wouldn’t get the wrong idea.

“Do you need me to do anything else before I head off for class?”

“Actually, would you mind walking these new students to their classes? Kevin here should be in Ms. Davis’s class and let’s see, oh, and Katelyn will be in Mr. Graves’s class with you. Well, that makes it easy,” she said, shooting a smile my way.

“Sure, no prob,” he said, turning to Kevin and me. “Ready?”

“Yeah,” Kevin said enthusiastically.

“Um, sure,” I answered, looking back at Lucinda who was busy filling out our registration papers. Part of me was anxious to flee in case she did anything else embarrassing, while another part of me wanted to stay so I could try to keep her in line and out of trouble.

Kevin and Max made the decision for me by heading out into the hallway beyond the front office.

“This way is the elementary section,” Max said, walking us down a wide hallway painted a warm sunshine yellow. Doorways lined the hall with floor to ceiling double glass walls that broke up the space in between the doorways, giving a bird’s eye view of the landscape beyond the building.

“The building is simple enough,” Max explained as we walked. The very last classroom down this hall is kindergarten and it opens up onto the playground. Next to that is the first grade class, then the second grade class, and so on. We get the other side of the building, and ours opens up to the basketball hoops and ski trails we use.”

“Ski trails?” I asked puzzled.

“Yeah. During November, December, and January they take us out cross-country skiing all the time for P.E.”

“Wow! Me too?” Kevin asked happily.

“Yep, you too, buddy. It’s kind of a school rule. You have to have a really good doctor’s note to get out of it.

“Why would you want to?” Kevin asked, clearly confused.

“Oh believe me, there’s plenty of times you don’t feel like going out and freezing you’re a... butt,” he said, quickly correcting himself.

“Oh you can say ass, I hear it all the time.”

“Kevin!” I said, shooting him a warning look.

“Oops, sorry, Katelyn,” he said, looking instantly remorseful. He knew speaking about our home life with others was taboo.

Max looked at us puzzled, but I ignored him.

“So, is this Kevin’s class?” I asked, pointing to the door we had stopped in front of.

“Huh? Oh, right. Yeah, this is Ms. Davis’s class,” he answered, pulling the door open so we could enter.

Kevin’s teacher, Ms. Davis, was busy writing on the dry erase board that lined the front of the classroom. She was barely five foot tall and I wouldn’t say she was chunky, she just looked more round than if she would have been a foot taller. She did have cute, short blonde hair that was cut in a flattering style that framed and enhanced her face. Her most striking attribute was her blue eyes which seemed to sparkle like the ocean would if the sun was hitting it.

She looked over as the three of us entered the room.

“Ms. Davis, this is Kevin and his sister Katelyn,” Max said, introducing us.

“It’s a pleasure to have you Kevin,” she said, bustling over to us as her hips knocked into the desks in the front row. “We’re going to have a fun and entertaining year together,” she said in a warm bubbling voice that instantly put Kevin at ease.

I smiled in relief, feeling comfortable that Kevin would be in good hands. Glancing around his room, I was almost envious that I couldn’t stay when I saw the inviting interactive centers that were spaced around the room, including a comfy book nook that sat in the far corner surrounded by books and comfortable throw pillows.

“Okay punk, I'll see you after school,” I said affectionately, giving Kevin a light tap on the arm before Max and I left the room.

“This school's something else,” I said to Max after a few awkward moments of silence.

“Yeah, I guess it's nice here, but aren’t all schools pretty much like this?” Max asked.

“Really?" I asked sarcastically. "Try not at all. Do you ever watch TV?”

“Sure, but if I believed everything I saw on TV there'd be vampires and werewolves running around everywhere,” he said, shooting me another one of his dimpled smiles.

“True,” I said grinning, forgetting that I was supposed to be keeping my distance from him. “But at least they’re not bad to look at,” I teased.

He threw his head back and laughed. “You got me there,” he said when he finally stopped laughing.

“So, how do you guys survive out here so far from any fast food places or movie theaters?”

“Well, there’s a McDonald’s about fifteen miles up the road, off the main highway. Movies, on the other hand, are another story. It has to be a real blockbuster for us to make the long drive to the city. Usually, we'll all hang out at my house or my buddy Clint’s. We both have big TVs so it’s all cool.”

“Hmmm,” I said a bit skeptically.

“Trust me, you can come hang with us sometime and see,” he said as he stopped in front of a door at the opposite end of the long hallway. “Ta-da, this is us,” he said, enthusiastically opening the door.

Max held the door wide open so I could step into the brightly, lit, room. All sound suddenly evaporated as every eye in the room pivoted toward us. I forced myself to keep from staring uncomfortably at the floor, trying not to look too embarrassingly flush as I felt everyone studying me like a lab rat. Being new was an old hat for me.

“Making your own hours, Maxwell?” the teacher asked good-naturedly, breaking the silence.

Max laughed, “Nah, not this time. Mrs. Johnson asked me if I would take Katelyn here and her brother to their classes,” Max said coolly, obviously sharing a good rapport with the teacher.

“Katelyn is it? Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Welcome to our crazy class,” he said, spreading his hands out to indicate the students who were sitting behind their desks throughout the room.

“Um, thanks,” I said, responding to his laid back demeanor. He reached out to shake my hand, and I couldn’t help returning his welcoming smile. He instantly eased my tension, which was a rarity for me on the first day of school. Perhaps it was the kind laugh lines in the corners of his eyes or the plentiful amount of grey hairs lining his head, beard and mustache, but something about him instantly engaged me.

“How about you share a desk with—" he paused as he scanned the room. "Rebecca, just until we can get you one of your own from the storage room. Rebecca, raise your hand so Katelyn can join you,” he said, pointing out a tall girl in the back of the room. “Clint, do me a favor and grab Katelyn my desk chair for now.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Graves,” a curly, blond haired kid answered, shooting a cocky grin my way as he passed.

None of this was new territory for me. The way we moved, Kevin and I usually attended at least three schools a year. I was used to being gawked at on my arrival, but I was beginning to realize this time would be way different since the school was so small.

“Here you go,” he said, setting my chair down next to the pretty girl the teacher had indicated.

“Hi, I’m Rebecca,” the girl next to me said, introducing herself.

“Katelyn,” I said, shooting her a shy smile.

“That’s Alicia and Shirley,” she said, pointing to the two girls who were sitting at the desk on each side of us.

“Hi,” I said, scoping them out. Their designer clothes and handbags clued me in that they obviously had money, and were probably part of the popular crowd here.

“Alright girls, introductions for the rest of the class will have to wait until later. We have a date with Ms. Higgins,” Mr. Graves said, mysteriously holding up a book I had never seen before.

Confused, I looked around to see if the rest of the class had their own copies, assuming the book he held was part of our course reading.

“Katelyn, I just started this book earlier this week, but you should be able to catch up with the storyline easily enough,” Mr. Graves said, sitting down on a tall stool at the front of the room.

Before I could begin to catalog my astonishment, he began to read from the book he held in his hand. Looking around, I saw all the students watching him with rapt attention. It had been years since I had seen a teacher read out loud to the class, and I was instantly captivated at the idea. Sitting back in my temporary seat, I let myself forget everything but the words that were being read aloud to us. His voice was rich and his pronunciation of the words made the pages come alive. I was soon wrapped up completely in the mystery of the story and silently encouraged him to read faster.

All too soon, he closed up the book and it was time for us to move on to our next subject. I was grossly disappointed to see him put the book aside, but as the day wore on, I realized that in every subject he taught, he exhibited the same engaging attitude that made you want to pay attention to everything he said.

The morning quickly passed as we moved through lessons in English and science. Thanks to the friendliness of Rebecca and her friends, I didn’t feel nearly as lost as I normally did on a first day of class. Before I knew it, it was lunch time.

“Don’t we go to the cafeteria?” I asked as Rebecca and her friends pushed their desks together.

“No, we don’t have a cafeteria,” Alicia, one of Rebecca’s friends said wishfully. “I wish we did though, it seems like it would be kinda fun. We could have, like, a salad bar with everything on it,” she bubbly continued.

“Trust me, you’re not missing out,” I said as they looked at me skeptically. “No seriously, they’re always crazy loud, overly crowded and depending what the cook is making, the smells don’t usually mix well with a bunch of kids all crammed into one space.”

 
Everyone around me busted out laughing, making me flush at the sudden attention I was getting.

“Seems like you’ve had plenty of experience,” Max said as he and the blond guy, Clint, and another tall guy, whose name I didn’t know pushed their desks up against the backside of ours, creating a rectangular shaped table.

“Oh yeah, you could say that,” I said lightly, not delving into just how much experience I did have with different cafeterias.

After that, the conversation around our makeshift table flowed light and easy as my new friends peppered me with questions about my last school. I kept my answers humor-filled and centered them on the last school I had attended in California. Once I mentioned it was in California, they were instantly star struck. I didn’t bother to point out that the state was huge and the section we lived in was far removed from where a star would ever visit, let alone live. Their questions ran the gamut between stars they hoped I had met, all the way down to the mild temperatures I had enjoyed while living there.