(C) 2010 by rmsl

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrival system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written 
permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.

A Stage For Leigh

Kym couldn’t apologize enough as Cory drove her home. She felt so bad. But it wasn’t her fault. Cory had forgotten.

His car slid into her driveway and almost onto the snow covered grass before Kym got out. She jumped out of the car just waving, not wanting to cause Cory any further delay. His tires skidded backwards as he tried to pull away but he managed to maneuver the wheel at the right angle. He sped towards Leigh’s house.

How could he forget Leigh? All her practicing, all her time. Wasted. He was a jerk. No argument there. Not to mention all she had done for him. What an idiot he was! She helped him dive into his writing, to understand the cryptic words of the Bard of Avon. She even helped him get better at baseball. And Jason. He had a real friend there. And it was because of Leigh. Jason tried to tell him about Leigh and she tried to show him how he really felt. Leigh knew he had fallen for her even before he did. Dammit! even Kym knew. How could he have been so stupid?

He hoped she got to the audition somehow on her own. Please, don’t be home. Don’t be home. Please, have gone to the audition. Don’t be home.

As his car slid into Leigh’s driveway, an overwhelming feeling of guilt swept over him. She’s never going to forgive him for this one. It will be their third and final fight. Strike three. And he’s out.

There were no lights on inside the house. He felt a little relieved. He still needed to knock on the door before he raced to the school. She wouldn’t be home. Somehow she had managed to get to the school in time, taken the bus maybe, and she would be mad at him for a little while for making her go out in public in her costume but then at least she had gotten to audition. She would get the part and be the best Juliet Cranwood High had ever seen. Other aspiring Juliets would watch the tape of her performance in the alumni room in awe for years and years to come.

But that little daydream was shattered when she answered the door.

She had on her off-white Juliet gown tied at the waist with a dark pink ribbon. Her hair was disheveled and the clip that she used to make it fan out in the back was out of place and tangled in the few braids still intact. Her wide brown eyes were red and puffy. Cory knew she had been crying.

He couldn’t say anything to her at first. They just stood and stared at each other. It was the worst moment of his life. He would never feel more like a jerk than he did now for the rest of his life.

“Leigh…I’m…so…sorry.” His words came from the deepest parts of his heart and he didn’t realize he began to cry. The tears rolled down his cheeks burning his skin and froze.

“Say something. Please…”

Her head violently shook and she waved her hand out in front of her. “Don’t.”

“But Leigh, I…I can explain…”

“Don’t say anything, Cory.”

“But you worked so hard…and I ruined it. I’m so sorry, Leigh.”

She looked like she was going to say something but she stayed quite.

“Why didn’t you take the bus? I know you didn’t want—”

She raised her hand and for a second her face gained life. But then her head fell to her chest and Cory could hear slight sniffling sounds that told him she was going to cry again. When her head came up, she wiped her eyes and stepped closer to him. “It’s not the play.”

“It’s not? What happened then?” For a second Cory felt relief showering all over his body. But then just as quickly he feared the worst. Did her heart tumor come back? Was it malignant this time? “It’s not…it’s not your…heart is it?”

She let out an odd giggle shaking her head side to side. “No. It’s not my heart.”

Cory was really frightened now. If it wasn’t the fact she missed her audition or that a new tumor was growing in her heart, what was it that was making her so upset?

“My dad called from his hotel.”

“He’s okay, right?” Leigh couldn’t lose her dad and her mom. It wouldn’t be fair.

“His boss…his boss offered him his old position back.” She was full-blown crying now. “We’re moving back in two weeks.”

 

After Leigh told him she was moving she shut the door. She mumbled something to him about him not caring anyway and something about Kym but he couldn’t make it out through her crying and the door slamming in his face.

Cory thought the hurt and guilt about forgetting to pick her up for the play was bad, but now he felt lost. He was going to lose his best friend.

When he got back to his house, he couldn’t remember driving there. He couldn’t remember who made the turns, who pushed the gas pedal, or who hit the brake when it needed to be used. Just when he realized what it was he was lacking his whole life, why he always felt he came in second in everything he tried, why he was never really happy, she was leaving. It wasn’t fair.

He went to his room and cried. He cried like he never did before. His yearning for Kym had made him cry many times before, sometimes long into the night, but this time he felt more alone than ever. His chest felt like someone applied a vise to his heart and his stomach acted like it was trying to eat itself. How could he live with himself now?

Not only did he let her down in the biggest way possible by not picking her up for the audition, she was also moving away from him. She would never forgive him and now he didn’t have any time to make it up to her or to show her how he felt about her. Leigh was the best thing that had ever happened to him and now she would only remember him as a guy she once knew who hurt her more than clinically imaginable. More than her heart condition could ever hurt her.

Before he fell asleep from exhaustion, he thought about Kym. This was how Kym must have felt when she realized he loved Leigh and that she might lose him. Cory didn’t blame her one bit for how she acted the last couple of months.

The blame was only his.

 

Leigh didn’t come to school the following Monday. Cory didn’t even try to call her. He wouldn’t have wanted to talk to himself if the situation was reversed. Kym saw how upset he was and tried to cheer him up. Even Joey treated him like a friend in English class. But nothing they said would stop Leigh from moving. Or hating him.

“Dude, why don’t you go and talk to Mr. Jurgenson. Maybe he’ll let her tryout still.”

Suddenly, Cory had life again. Why didn’t he think of that? But Mr. Jurgenson was so strange. And he had his shed-u-als to keep. He wouldn’t change his mind now.

“Joey that won’t work.” Kym looked at Cory empathetically. “She’s still moving in two weeks. She won’t even be here when the play opens.”

Cory heart sank again. “You’re right. It wouldn’t matter anyhow.”

Joey violently shook his head. “Dude, it doesn’t matter if she won’t be here. Am I the only romantic here? At least she would know if all that stuff you guys did in that room mattered.”

“I don’t know, Joey. It sounds sort of pointless now,” Cory said.

“It will show her that you tried something. Maybe she won’t be mad at you then. That’s something at least.”

At the end of English class, Mr. Maragelloto pulled him aside and asked him what happened to Leigh because he was sure she was going to audition for the part of Juliet. Cory explained the whole situation to him. He told him about all the work they did in the alumni room he let them use, how they practiced, and how he forgot her. He guessed Cory could try talking to Mr. Jurgenson to see if he would give her a private audition but even Mr. Maragelloto thought it was a long shot. Why have her audition if she was moving? Cory could tell Mr. Maragelloto felt bad about Leigh not having a chance to be Juliet but he also could tell that he felt bad for him. Leigh was a very special person and Cory obviously cared a lot about her.

By fourth period Cory convinced himself that Joey was right. If he got Mr. Jurgenson to agree to it, Leigh would at least get to be Juliet for a brief time. She would probably be so good that Mr. Jurgenson would call Mr. Reynolds and persuade him to stay at least until after play season. And maybe she would try to start to forgive him. It was his only hope.

He went to Mr. Jurgenson’s office directly after school. The office was next to the English Department but it looked like a custodian’s closet than a faculty member’s office. Cory knew instantly Mr. Jurgenson wasn’t in a good mood when he entered the room. Even while he was explaining his situation, Cory could tell his plea was going to be ineffective. Mr. Jurgenson laughed him out of his office saying, “No time, my boy, no time.”

The rest of the week Cory sulked through the halls and in his classes. Kym, Joey, and Jason did everything they could think of. Cory even saw Kym talking to Leigh one time in the hall but nothing seemed to come from it. She was never going to speak to him again.

Despite Cory’s brooding, the rest of the school building was buzzing with excitement. The girls’ varsity basketball team won the state title over the weekend and the school celebrated it with announcing a victory dance and a senior rally on Friday.

Baseball practice wasn’t going well either. He couldn’t concentrate and keep his mind on the drills. He would have given up baseball for good if he knew Leigh would just forgive him. Truly forgive him. She didn’t have to talk to him again or come to Leigh’s Stage again; he just needed to know she would be all right.

When all the seniors gathered in the gym for the girls’ basketball victory rally, Cory didn’t feel up to it at all. He tried to close his eyes and take himself somewhere else. He tried to imagine he was back at Leigh’s Stage, watching her perform. Her beautiful brown eyes sparkling with Juliet’s love for Romeo and her smile carved into her face as if Michelangelo did it himself. Unknowingly, his eyes watered. There was only a week left before Leigh moved and he couldn’t think of anything that would mend his broken heart and the hurt he caused her.

The gym was decorated with banners and signs congratulating the girls’ team. Streamers ran the length of the gym and helium-filled balloons lined the ceiling. The noise was deafening. There was a single microphone stand in the center of the gym and students from the set crew were positioning spotlights on the floor from the stage and the balcony.

Leigh was the lone student working the lights in the balcony. He couldn’t take his eyes off her as she moved along the ledge.

The lights dimmed and Leigh shined her light directly on the microphone stand. The students on the stage sent multi-colored lights dancing around everywhere and the mob of seniors hooted and hollered with excitement.

But no one came to the microphone stand. Cory glanced over to where the girls’ team waited in the small foyer that led to the outside of the school. They were all jumping and bouncing around and pointing into the bleachers where their friends sat. But the head coach was nowhere to be seen.

Most of the senior class teachers were present. Mr. Maragelloto was leaning against the front wall of the gym, standing next to the principal. They looked confused as well. Another faculty member ran over to the principal and said something into his ear. The principal walked to the center of the gym, asked for quiet, and explained that the head coach would be here shortly and to please be patient. The rally would begin shortly.

Mr. Jurgenson instructed his students to shut off the spotlights and the multi-colored lights and the main gym lights came back on for the time being. The student body didn’t care. They weren’t in class.

Cory stared at the microphone stand. He couldn’t believe what he was thinking about doing. It wasn’t something violent or inappropriate but it would definitely lead to a suspension of some sort. And the days of suspension would land right around outside baseball tryouts. But he didn’t care. He had to tell Leigh how he felt about her. He couldn’t let her leave without at least knowing that he loved her.

At first, his legs wouldn’t move. His feet felt like cement blocks. He managed to stand. No one paid any attention to him as he made his way down the bleachers and on to the gym floor. The noise was so loud that Cory couldn’t hear himself think. But he wasn’t thinking right now. He was feeling.

He walked to the center of the gym floor and took the microphone from its stand. Still no one noticed him. He spoke into it. “Leigh.” He said it so softly that he didn’t even hear it through the gym’s sound system.

Cory said her name again. This time some of the students took notice and started pointing him out to other students. The gym slowly quieted down.

“Leigh!”

Now everyone in the gym stopped cold. The principal was about to make her way over to him but Mr. Maragelloto stopped her. Cory didn’t know what he said to her but she never tried to come back out. Kym was smiling and Joey even looked as if he envied Cory’s bravery.

The last time he called her name she looked down at him. She had no expression on her face. She didn’t look embarrassed or worried. She just stared at him.

Cory walked closer to her. As he started to say the words they mixed together in the microphone and sounded muffled. He regrouped himself and started over.

“But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun! Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief, that thou her maid art far more fair then she…”

The whole gym was silent. Leigh stared at him and did not take her eyes off of him. But she didn’t move.

Cory saw her chest begin to heave up and down and her hand fall softly at her side.

“O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny they father and refuse they name. Or, if thou will not, be but sworn my love, and I’ll no longer be a Capulet.”

The lights in the gym dimmed again and a spotlight lit Leigh up completely. She was Juliet now. And Cory never saw anything so beautiful. A second spotlight caught him and both lights moved with each of the actors. Even though Cory was a horrible Romeo, it didn’t phase Leigh. She was giving her best performance.

“…yet I know the sound. Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague?”

“Neither, fair saint, if either thee dislike.”

They finished the entire balcony scene and nobody stopped them. Kym was crying and smiling at the same time. Joey yelled, “That was awesome, dude.”

Cory ran to the steps of the balcony and handed Mr. Maragelloto the microphone. “I know I’m in trouble. But I gotta go to her.”

Mr. Maragelloto just smiled. “I know you used somebody else’s words, but you finally showed real feeling in your work.”

Cory smiled and ran up the stairs. Leigh was looking over the balcony searching for him. She couldn’t see below her but she kept trying to find him. It startled her when he came up next to her.

“Dost thou love me?” she asked.

Cory took her in his arms. He couldn’t believe it was actually happening.

“You do know that some people believe there are no kissing scenes in the play.”

Cory laughed. “I’m a writer, aren’t I? I’ll just have to rewrite it a bit then, huh?”

They kissed. Cory’s whole body tingled. He never wanted to remove his lips from hers. He would have let her swallow him whole if he could have gone on feeling the way he felt at that moment. Leigh was his Juliet and he was her Romeo.

The entire student body roared when they kissed. Kym couldn’t hold back her excitement and started screaming, but Cory couldn’t hear what she was saying.

Leigh pulled away from Cory and stared into his eyes. “You know…you’re a much better kisser than you are a Romeo.”

 

Cory was suspended for three days. The principal explained to him that she couldn’t have students running around the school doing whatever they wanted. Cory understood. He didn’t care. His parents did though. His brother made fun of him for what he did too. But nothing could bring Cory down from his cloud; except for moving day.

He spent as much time with Leigh as he could during the last week she was there. He ate dinner over her house every night. They didn’t do much, mainly talking and reading, but it was the best week of Cory’s life.

When Cory pulled onto Leigh’s street on Saturday and saw the moving van, his heart sank. She was really leaving. Her dad’s company hired a moving crew and even paid for the rental of the truck.

Her dad was directing the guys carrying the grand piano when Cory walked up to the house. “Leigh Ann’s in the back.”

The winter days had subsided for a time and the warmer air almost made it feel like spring had arrived. Leigh was sitting on the swing on the patio. She had a gray sweatshirt on and a blue baseball cap.

“Cory, I don’t wanna go.”

“I know, but whatta you gonna do? I’m just glad you stole my journal that day.”

She kissed him.

“Sorry you didn’t make the team. I feel sort of responsible.”

“Don’t. I’m hanging up my cleats anyway. It’s time for me to move on from that one.”

She sighed and snuggled close to him. “You know, there’s a good college up in New York. It has a good writing program too.”

Cory laughed. Even though that day was the saddest day of his life, Leigh could still make him feel good. It felt wonderful that she wanted him to be close to her.

“What kind of teaching program does it have?”

“Teaching? Really?”

“Yeah. I kinda enjoy it. That sophomore first baseman thinks I’m pretty good at it.”

They sat silently on the swing, holding on to each other as tightly as they could. He didn’t know what Leigh was thinking at that moment but all he could think about was the fact that he didn’t have to worry about what color the walls were going to be at college.

 

 

(C) 2010 by rmsl

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrival system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.

An Absent Romeo

Cory waited for the phone to ring Saturday. It didn’t. He waited Sunday as well. But any time the phone did ring, it was for his brother or it was a family friend wanting to talk to his mom. Kym didn’t call.

He could’ve called her. But he figured since she kissed him, he should let her initiate the conversation that would move their relationship out of friendship and into a realm of constant bliss when she was ready. The call never came.

Cory wasted the weekend away trying to write about that kiss. But he couldn’t. His mind kept spinning and his movements felt dream-like both days. He lay on his bed with the baseball flying in the air and landing in his hand thinking of metaphors and poetic connections. He would throw the ball up again and it would float above him, but no words could do justice to how he felt…or how the kiss felt. His mind was blank. And this was strange for him.

Even when Cory wasn’t writing or struggling to put his thoughts into words, his mind still would race uncontrollably about things in his life: baseball, Kym, lately thoughts of college, school. And because of the last seven or so months with Leigh visions of Leigh’s Stage and Shakespeare would control his daily life like a movie on repeat.

Leigh’s dad had been doing much better as of late and his trips out of town for business increased. Leigh was happy that he wasn’t letting his emotions get the best of him and was starting to enjoy life again. He even began to play the piano a little every night. And by now, Cory felt completely comfortable being around the two of them and how they acted towards each other. They probably had the best parent-child relationship he had ever seen.

And the kiss. The weird feeling he thought was shock that he experienced after Kym kissed him didn’t go away like he first assumed it would. But it wasn’t as aggressive as it had been on the night of the dance. Cory buried it in the back of his mind and didn’t think about it; or he refused to. His life was turning out like he had always wanted it and nothing was going to take it away from him.

He went to Leigh’s Stage first thing Monday morning. Now that he was practicing with the other twenty-five varsity baseball hopefuls, he didn’t need to workout in the mornings. He must have been late because when he walked up to the door he heard talking and giggling. Jason and Leigh were already inside the alumni room and they were in the middle of one of the scenes from her play. Cory figured she just wrote it recently. He had never read it or seen it acted out before.

When he entered the room neither one of them acknowledged him. They went on performing a silly scene about the “gung ho” soldier talking to her son about being potty trained. At first, not being noticed irritated him a little but soon he was absorbed in their acting. Jason wasn’t bad. He was way better than Cory and Leigh seemed to respond to him better.

“Oh…hi, Cory.” Leigh didn’t look at him.

Jason turned around on Leigh’s greeting and he smiled widely like usual when he first saw Cory every morning. “Tell me about the dance. Leigh said she had a blast.”

“Well, it…” Cory started.

Leigh cut him off. “Hey, Jason and I talked about it and he’s willing to go over my lines for the play more. Seeing that auditions are only about ten days away.” Her voice was steady and business-like.

Cory had thought about telling Jason about Kym’s kiss but he wasn’t going to do it in front of Leigh. He wanted to talk to her about it alone. She got super serious whenever he talked to her about Kym and he didn’t want to ruin the fun they were already having. So when Leigh changed the subject from the dance to her audition, he went with it. “Sure. But I don’t think you need to practice anymore. No one will be better than you.”

“I can’t take that chance. I need to be the best.” Leigh walked over to get her copy of Romeo and Juliet. She saw Cory pull out his copy of the play from his book bag and she took a deep breath. She grabbed her copy and spun around hurriedly. “And eh…we also talked about…eh…Jason reading with me. Is that okay? He seems to know the tone of the words better.”

The request caught him off guard for a second. “Oh…okay. Whatever you think will help you more.” Cory went to hand his copy of the play to Jason.

“I got my own. Leigh gave it to me this morning,” Jason said.

Cory watched as they practiced the balcony scene. He did this scene with Leigh so many times he could recite Romeo’s lines without even looking at his copy. His lips moved as Jason read his lines becoming the young Montague.

Leigh’s performance flowed and he found himself staring at her while she moved around on the couch doubling as a balcony. He followed her wide brown eyes as they changed from the surprise of seeing Romeo under her window to the worry of being caught by Juliet’s nurse to the sheer infatuation with the young boy she just met at the party her father threw with the intentions of introducing her to the world. Her lips quivered and puckered and her chest heaved in and out with confusion. How could she fall in love with a Montague? Cory gaped in amazement as the world the young girl lived in for fourteen years shattered and was replaced by the vision of true love…with a Montague. For a second Cory felt like he was spying on the two teenagers behind a bush at the Capulet’s castle. No matter how many times he heard and saw Leigh becoming Juliet it never bored him. He could watch her all day.

Soon it was like Cory wasn’t even the room. Jason would stop during one of his lines and ask Leigh how he should say the line or if he was using the right voice inflection. They laughed and discussed each movement of their characters as if Cory was invisible. He felt a little uncomfortable.

When the first morning bell rang, Jason and Leigh walked out of Leigh’s Stage still talking over their acting and interpretations of the play. Cory silently followed them up to the main hall. He walked to his locker with visions of Leigh standing in the moonlight upon her balcony with her Romeo longing for her affections just below.

He was lost in his thoughts about Leigh’s Juliet when he spotted Kym at her locker. When she shut her locker and turned to walk to homeroom, books in hand, she noticed Cory. She looked like she would walk right by him, but he spoke to her.

“Hey you. What’s up?” He couldn’t think of anything else to say.

She seemed startled but then stopped. “Weekends are too short, right?”

Cory nodded. “What’d you do all weekend?”

“Nothing. The weather sucked didn’t it?”

Cory acknowledged the weather was still wet and cold even for the ending weeks of February.

He walked her to homeroom and then went to his locker. No mention of the kiss or of their relationship. Cory was confused.

He chose to sit next to her in English. Jason and Leigh were talking away when he entered the room and he felt like he would be interrupting her preparations for the play. Jason was a much better Romeo than he ever was.

As he sat down behind her, for a moment he wished he had sat with Jason and Leigh. She didn’t turn around right away and her shoulders were hunched over as if she was trying to keep as much of her body away from Cory as possible.

When she finally did turn around, it was like the boring morning small talk conversation never happened. They were back in the gym at the end of the dance in each other’s arms.

“So…you wanna get together this Friday night?” she asked.

“Yeah. What do you wanna do? Take a walk or watch a movie? Or go to a movie?”

“I don’t care. Anything that’ll get me out of my house. My dad’s been in rare form lately.” She looked down at her feet and then put her hand on Cory’s. “Why didn’t you call me?”

Cory didn’t have an answer. He didn’t want to tell her that he felt she should have called him. She did kiss him. “I don’t know…I guess I thought you’d talk to me about it when you were ready.”

Kym stared at him blankly. “Hey, did you get The Heart of Darkness? Was Kurtz a bad guy?”

 

The rest of the week was sort of a blur to Cory. With Jason and Leigh practicing and Kym’s moods changing more than he changed his socks, the days mixed together like a whirlwind of confusion.

Some days Kym would talk to him like they were going out. She even kissed him on the cheek a few times in the halls and once on the lips when he dropped her off at her house after school. But they never really discussed the first kiss or what was going on between them. It coiled his stomach, even making him angry at times, but then she would lean into him when they walked down the hall and he would smell her hair and put his arm around her shoulders and all his frustration would be forgotten. Maybe this was the way boyfriends and girlfriends acted?

Their date, if that’s what it was called, was short and tedious. They went to play mini-golf at an indoor fun park and barely made it through one game. Kym wanted to leave and when Cory asked her to go get a shake or some ice cream she told him she was tired and wanted to go home. When he dropped her off, no kiss on the cheek; not even a hug. He promised himself he would talk to her about it at school on Monday.

Kym was absent on Monday. He tried to call her after school but her brother Jimmy said she wasn’t home. He didn’t even ask to take a message.

Along with not being able to talk to Kym about their relationship giving him headaches, Leigh’s Stage was becoming annoying as well. Jason and Leigh talked on and on about their lines and hardly included Cory. He even started to resent inviting Jason to join them at all. It was like he was replacing him.

Kym was absent on Tuesday as well. And when she came back they didn’t get a chance to talk on Wednesday and Thursday either. Mr. Maragelloto assigned the groups for their next paper on The Heart of Darkness and Kym wasn’t in his group. And she wasn’t in any of his other classes. He looked for her after school in the gym both days but Kym was nowhere to be seen.

On Friday morning in the alumni room, Cory and Leigh had their second fight.

She decided to take a break from practicing her lines. She feared if she didn’t she would forget them all on Saturday at the audition. So they decided to read Othello together. Jason was late and Cory was relieved.

“You know, this is nice. Just the two of us again.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? You don’t like Jason coming to The Stage anymore?”

He couldn’t tell her how he felt. He knew she wouldn’t like it and he couldn’t take away a better partner for her to practice with, just when actual play practice would begin the following Monday. But he couldn’t hide it. The irritation dripped from his words. “No, not all. I just like being able to join in now and then.”

She threw up her hand in his face. “Whatever. You don’t like him coming anymore, that’s obvious. What are you jealous?”

“Jealous? Nope. I just get tired of watching all the time.” He was angry with her for accusing him of something he couldn’t be feeling. Who doesn’t know how to read people, huh? “I just liked it better the way it was before. That’s all.”

“That’s really nice, Cory. Jason would never think of not including you.”

“Well, then maybe I should go and leave you two alone. You’d probably like that better, huh?”

“Cory, why are you acting like this?”

“Who’s acting like what?” Jason walked in and sat right next to them at an opposite table.

Cory and Leigh just looked at each other. Neither one of them spoke. Finally, Leigh told Jason they were going to read Othello today so she could take a break and rest up for the next day’s audition.

“What’s it about?” Jason asked, oblivious to the spat between his two best friends.

“A man who feels out of place but finds love and gets a promotion in the army he fights for. He ends up treating his first in command like someone he met on the street because of Iago, a deceitful officer who only thinks about himself.” She glared at Cory. “He also ends up treating his wife Desdemona, the woman he loves, unfairly. But I don’t want to give it away. All because he can’t see what is going on around him…” She paused. “Cory why don’t you read Othello’s part?”

“Yeah, and why doesn’t Jason read Iago?”

Leigh scowled at Cory as Jason flipped through the pages of his literature anthology in search of the play.

They read the whole play in an hour and a half. Shakespeare had a calming affect on the two of them. Half way through it, all three of them were discussing it like three scholars at Sunday brunch. Leigh smiled at Cory again and he forgot about his annoyance with Jason. He did make a nice addition to their group. Besides, he had really helped Leigh become a better Juliet.

Leigh left first. Cory pushed in the chairs and collected the papers they wrote on. Jason stayed with Cory this time. “I’m thinking about tryin’ out for Romeo. What’d you think?”

Instantly, Cory’s face reddened and his heart beat rapidly. He wanted to tell him the idea was stupid because Mr. Jurgenson would probably pick a senior no matter what. Was there a kissing scene in the play? The idea of Jason kissing Leigh didn’t make him laugh. It triggered an almost uncontrollable desire to punch Jason.

But he collected himself and didn’t let Jason see his irritation. He wouldn’t have been able to explain it to him if he did. “You’re really good. But I think Mr. Jurgenson always picks a senior. But why not try? Leigh would probably love it if you got the part.”

Cory grabbed his book bag.

“Probably. But I bet there’s someone else she’d rather have.”

As they walked into homeroom Jason turned to him and asked, “Haven’t you thought about auditioning?”

“Auditioning? For what?”

“Romeo.”

Cory started to laugh. The laugh wasn’t a quiet chuckle. It came from deep inside his stomach. “I would never do something like that to Leigh. What if I actually got the part?”

They were in their groups again in English class that Friday. So Cory couldn’t talk to Kym again. He tried one time in the hallway after fifth period, but Gwen came up to her crying or something. Cory didn’t pay much attention to her.

Cory honestly thought for the first time in his life to just let Kym go. It seemed like work to try to be a part of her life in more than a friendship capacity. He sulked the rest of the day.

Leigh had set crew that day to prepare the stage for Saturday’s audition. It was the final audition for the parts of Romeo and Juliet and Mr. Jurgenson wanted everything to be in place so it would run smoothly. He moved around on the stage like a newly formed butterfly.

Cory heard him telling everybody that the audition would start promptly at two o’clock and end exactly at three forty-five. He needed to have his tea at four. No exceptions. “So don’t be late,” he warned.

Leigh and Cory laughed about him while he sat with her for a few minutes on the stage. “I wonder if he goes through withdrawals if he doesn’t get his tea and crumpets exactly everyday at four?”

Leigh put her finger over her mouth shushing him. “I don’t need him mad at me. I gotta get back. But remember, pick me up at one-thirty. I wanna be early.”

Her dad left on another business trip and wouldn’t be home until Sunday afternoon. He was really starting to gain his confidence back and his boss was giving him some of his old responsibilities again.

Cory made one more quiet remark about how Mr. Jurgenson must keep his “shed-u-als.” Leigh shushed him again and went back to pull the fake balcony into place on the right of the stage. Since Cory couldn’t find Kym anywhere in the gym he went home.

 

Cory’s dad made him get up early on Saturdays. He had chores to do and needed to shovel the driveway so his mom could pull the car out and go shopping. His brother, who was seven years older than him, didn’t have to do chores anymore. So Cory’s list was long.

His brother started pestering him as soon as he got up around eleven o’clock. You missed a spot there. You missed a spot here. Make sure you get the corners. Use the hose, not the vacuum for the tight spots.

When Cory finally had enough, their arguing almost led to throwing a few punches. But Cory’s mom intervened and his brother left him alone to watch some television. By the time he finished all his chores, little patches of sweat appeared on his shirt. And he stunk.

It was twelve thirty and he needed to pick Leigh up in an hour. He hopped in the shower, shaved, and got dressed. He had some time to spare so he decided to try and write before he left.

His doorbell rang.

He didn’t think anything of it. It was probably his neighbor bringing over some warm bread he just baked or a new trinket he made with his new wood carving kit.

He never expected it to be Kym.

His brother yelled down to him. Cory didn’t hear him the first time so when his brother called again he hollered, “Cory, get up here. Your little girlfriend is here.”

Why did Leigh come here? He was supposed to pick her up.

When he walked upstairs and saw Kym standing in the kitchen his stomach fell to his feet like he was on the steepest roller coaster in the world. She looked beautiful. The crisp air from outside made her nose red and her cheeks flush. She must have walked. Even the multi-colored gloves she wore were cute. The blue tassel from her winter hat hung next to her mouth and her coat was zipped all the way up to her chin.

“What’s up?”

“Wow, Core, she’s hot,” his brother said. ‘How much you payin’ her?”

Cory disregarded his brother’s comment and told Kym to follow him downstairs to his room. At first their conversation was their usual small talk. When she spotted a picture of her from when she was in the ninth grade she picked it up.

“I can’t believe I used to wear my hair like that.” Kym half giggled half cringed.

“That’s my favorite picture of you.”

“It would be, wouldn’t it?”

Kym warmed to him. They started talking about the things in Cory’s room. His pictures of Babe Ruth and why his favorite number was three led to what the poem called Footprints that he had about six copies of hanging on the walls was about. Before he knew it, he had told her every story behind every piece of sentimentality in his room. Things were going so well that he even showed her a few of the poems he wrote for her. They sat on his bed and he watched her read every one.

“You know, Cory, I always knew you wrote that poem for me in eighth grade.”

Her words didn’t register right away and he kept on talking about the poem he was showing her. Then he stopped and put down the poem. “What’d you say?”

“I’m sorry I never told you. I guess I was embarrassed that I didn’t tell you when it happened. But I always believed it was you. I can still say it. Word for word.”

Kym turned to him and recited the poem. Cory couldn’t believe it. All those years and she always knew. She told him how back in eighth grade she felt if she told him she didn’t like him that way he would stop being her friend. And she couldn’t have risked it. She needed him too much, even back then.

Cory didn’t even flinch. For some reason it didn’t bother him she never confessed.

She continued to say how she had tried many times to make herself fall for him, to show him the feelings he deserved from her but she never could. He found himself saying things like “It’s okay,” or “I understand.” But did he? Why wasn’t he mad? Hurt?

“It just seemed so unfair. You’ve always been there for me…but I just couldn’t…you know…”

“Kym, it’s all in the past. I’m over it.”

Suddenly, her face whitened and she seemed to have trouble looking him in the eye.

“Cory, please don’t stop me. I promised myself I would do this. I don’t want to hurt you anymore than I have already. And you deserve it.”

“Deserve what?” Cory felt no apprehension, no nervousness. He was as calm as he had ever been when around her.

She faced him and her smile was back but it didn’t last long. “Not a word, okay?” She giggled timidly. “These last few months I think I’ve been confused. No, I know I’ve been confused. My dad’s really messed me up hasn’t he? While I was going out with Joey something started to bother me. I know what it is now. But before I didn’t. I should never have kissed you and led you on like that when I didn’t even know what I was feeling.” She stood. “I got jealous of her and I thought what I felt was feelings for you but…the truth is…I think I love Joey.”

“You should get him back then. I know he loves you.”

What? Cory couldn’t believe what he was saying! He didn’t remember forming the words in his head and he definitely didn’t think he said them. Why would he tell her to get Joey back? And why wasn’t he mad at her for treating him like she has for so long? He was her friend. And she was his. He understood that now. They would share a bond like no other for the rest of their lives, but Cory knew at that moment that it was a bond of friendship and nothing more.

What Cory said startled Kym as well. She sat back down on his bed. “Really?” Her face sparkled for the first time in a long time. Her eyes lightened and it seemed to Cory that Kym looked the happiest she had ever looked in her life.

Cory left his bed and got his latest journal. He opened it and pulled out the original of the first poem he had ever written her. The edges were frayed and the paper was a pale yellow. He handed it to her. “I want you to have this. It will always be the truth. No matter what your dad says about you.”

She threw her arms around him and squeezed. She whispered into his ear. “You truly are my best friend.” She sat back and wiped her eyes. “I know now how stupid I was. Can you ever forgive me? I was scared when I saw you falling for Leigh that I would lose you. I can tell how much you care for her.”

Cory’s head jerked towards his clock so fast that he thought he might have broken his neck.

It was three-ten.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(C) 2010 by rmsl

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrival system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.

Breaking The Silence

For the next two days Cory couldn’t concentrate on baseball tryouts.

Kym broke up with Joey and he could just feel it had something to do with him. What should he do? It would feel too weird to go up to Kym and ask her out. What if she laughed in his face? “Cory, I’m sorry, but we’re just good friends. I thought you understood.” He needed something to happen, something to put them together.

On Valentine’s Day, the student council was co-sponsoring a dance for the seniors. However, the school couldn’t call it a Valentine’s dance so they just labeled it the Spring Formal. It was the biggest dance of the year. There were over three hundred and sixty-five students in his graduating class and the cost of prom was astronomical. Since auditions for the smaller parts of Romeo and Juliet began the day after the dance, Mr. Jurgenson considered it the start of play season and announced his pride and joy by co-sponsoring the Spring Formal with the student council. Tickets usually only cost fifteen dollars for a single and twenty-five dollars for a couple. Prom was usually over a hundred and fifty dollars for a couple. So most of the seniors usually treated the Spring Formal as their prom. Even though Mr. Jurgenson had strange rituals and talked funny, it was nice to have someone who won the lottery working at the school.

But Cory would never ask Kym to go to the dance. He knew if he had asked her to one of the handful of homecoming dances and others sponsored by student council over the years, she would’ve said yes. But he felt it would’ve been because of their friendship. He wanted her to go with someone she wanted to go with; not to sit through an entire dance out of loyalty. Besides, if he had asked her they would’ve only went as friends.

So he had to wait for something to happen. He just couldn’t figure out what it would be.

The morning of the beginning of inside tryouts, Cory skipped his workout so he could be fresh for after school. He knew he would easily make it past the first stage of tryouts. Every drill was done in the gym due to the weather. They would run the balcony, field grounders, hit badmintons birdies in the foyer, run sprints, do soft-hand drills, and other drills for glove work. Mr. Hunt would cut down the list of players competing for a roster spot after inside tryouts by half. Cory was confident he would breeze through.

“After inside tryouts we’ll practice in the gym everyday,” Cory said to Leigh as they sat on the couches of Leigh’s Stage. “We won’t get outside until March, but then tryouts will only last a couple of days. It could be earlier if we get a few dry days. Games start a few weeks later.”

Leigh encouraged Cory as usual. Even though Cory always worked hard in baseball, trying to make the team each year on his own, having Leigh share his excitement gave him even more confidence.

As Cory shut the door to the alumni room Leigh said, “So I’ll get to rub it in first that I got Juliet. Hey, that reminds me. My dad’s going out of town that weekend. Can you take me? I don’t wanna ride three different buses dressed as a fifteenth century princess.”

“Are you kidding me? I molded you! I wanna be there when my first acting student gets the nod.”

She put her head down and her straight hair covered her face. She peaked out from under it and she was smiling. Her expression made Cory feel warm all over.

The gym wasn’t crowded after school. Mr. Hunt closed the inside tryouts to observers. But nobody would’ve come anyway. Except probably Leigh. Baseball just wasn’t popular at his school. Luckily, since she was part of set crew she watched from the stage as she painted a tree for the play.

About seventy players tried out. There were only ten returning varsity players so only eight or nine of them would get on the roster. The few sophomores that didn’t make it would either be sent to junior varsity or told to hang up their cleats. The same went for the juniors. But if a senior didn’t make the team, they couldn’t go back down to junior varsity. It meant the end of their baseball career. Cory was ready.

He blew by everyone when they ran the balcony. The route consisted of running around the entire length of the gym, up the stairs on one side of the balcony, across the balcony, and down the other side of stairs to the gym again. He lapped some of the others three or four times. He loved the challenge. He noticed Mr. Hunt watching him. About the thirtieth time Cory passed him sitting on a bleacher, the head coach screamed out, “Whoaa! C. U. looking slim. Better watch out!”

Cory knew it was his year.

He did okay during the sprints but he definitely wasn’t anywhere near the fastest from a dead stop. It didn’t matter though. He played first and wouldn’t be on the team to steal bases. He was there to hit.

He botched a few grounders but he kept the ball in front of him and still fired a pill to the player catching for the assistant coach, Mr. Silva. By the time they did the soft-hand drills, his shirt was drenched. But he kept going. Side to side, scoop the ball with your hands, and toss it back. Cory knew he didn’t have the strongest glove, but the extra work with Leigh had improved his mobility and range. As he walked to the foyer for his turn at hitting the badminton birdies, he felt like a major leaguer.

The birdies really moved. They bobbed and weaved in the air and only had the quarter-sized eye to swing at. But the drill really helped with making contact. Cory was last in line and watched as the other players struggled connecting with the small plastic ball in the center of the plastic wings.

One sophomore scuffled a little more than the others. Cory couldn’t help himself. “Listen, don’t look at the birdie as a whole. Erase the wings. Watch the eye dance in the air. Don’t swing this time just put your bat out where you see the eye land.”

Sure enough the sophomore’s next birdie nailed the meat part of the bat. He turned and smiled at Cory. He did it a few more times. “Now do everything the same but swing this time.” The birdies flew everywhere in the tiny foyer. The sophomore made contact every time he swung and he was pelting the doors leading to the outside of the school.

When it was Cory’s turn, he saw the sophomore take a drink from his water bottle and pick up his glove. It was a first baseman’s mitt. He’s just a sophomore. Nothing to worry about.

In a way Cory was right. He hit every single birdie threw at him and in whatever direction Mr. Hunt asked. Left field, right field, down the middle; Cory couldn’t miss.

When the equipment was finally picked up and stored for the next day, Leigh jumped down to congratulate Cory. “You stole the show. You were amazing.”

Cory was so tired he could barely smile. But seeing Leigh with green and brown paint on her face with a dot of black on her nose was too good to pass up. She threw a tiny paintbrush at him but missed.

 

Cory wasn’t surprised when he saw the list outside the athletic department door of the players who made the inside cut. He was fourth down from the top. CORY SUTTON. The list only had twenty-five players’ names.

The last couple of days he felt like he was living in a dream. He made first cuts and Kym called him the night before to ask him to come over on Friday and watch a movie. She had her jaw-breaking surgery the day of tryouts and was feeling better now.

On Friday night, he went to the movie rental place at the top of his street. As he walked down the sidewalk towards Kym house, he wondered what Leigh was doing that night. He hadn’t hung out with her much lately because of baseball. He pictured her sitting at her piano and playing for her dad after a nice meal. Or maybe she had a date? He laughed out loud at the idea of Leigh sitting in a restaurant wearing army fatigues and eye black. Her latest character was a “gung-ho” soldier on leave. She answered everyone now with “negative, sir” or “negative, ma’am” and said things like “meet me at seven hundred hours at headquarters.” Leigh was definitely a character herself.

When Kym answered the door, every other thought in Cory’s head vanished. Her face was swollen to the size of a basketball and was purplish-yellow in some places around the cheeks. She had a metal brace of some kind inside her mouth and she looked like she lost ten pounds. Her tan skin was lighter than usual but it still looked soft and warm. She smiled at him the best she could.

They didn’t talk much. It still hurt her a little to try and she could only take two pain pills a day. And those had to be crushed up in orange juice or some other drink and taken slowly through a straw, as he learned when she did the ritual before starting the movie.

In the middle of the movie, a girl showed up to pick up Johny. He was acting super nice to both Kym and Cory while the girl stood in the kitchen.

“And that’s Cory, my sister’s best friend.”

Cory felt a confusing shiver go down his back. He liked the fact that Johny considered Cory Kym’s best friend, but he didn’t want to be just good friends anymore. Why couldn’t he tell her?

The movie ended too quickly. But Cory didn’t leave. Kym’s mother made him a sandwich. Kym ate a bowl of melted ice cream and they just sat on the couch and talked. The pain pill Kym slurped up when Cory got there seemed to be kicking in because her words were less muffled and she became extremely giggly. She looked so beautiful when she smiled, even with a purplish-yellow face the size of a small watermelon.

“Hey, do you want to see my dress for the dance? It’s blue,” Kym said between slurps and swallows. “Mom, where’s the magazine?”

The dress she chose would fit her perfectly. It had no straps, leaving her shoulders bare, with a long slit from the bottom of the dress to a little below where her waist would be. Whoever she chose to go with her would be a lucky man.

They talked about the dance for a little while longer. They also talked about the baseball team and how she would come and watch him play. Cory felt bad when he made her laugh because it hurt her, but she never complained.

“I’m glad you came over tonight. I was going crazy not seeing anyone.”

“You could’ve called Gwen or Michelle. They would’ve came too.” For a second, Cory thought she wanted to kiss him. Not with the metal death trap in her mouth. Don’t be silly.

“No way. Nobody’s seeing me like this. You’re the only one I trust with this memory.”

It wasn’t until eleven thirty that he left. Kym felt bad she couldn’t drive him home. They even argued over it for a little bit. But it wasn’t heated.

As he walked to the door, Kym’s mother stopped him in the hallway. “It’s just her way, Cory. Don’t give up on her, though. She has a strange way of showing things sometimes, but she does care about you very much.”

Cory practically floated home.

 

The dance was only a day away and he still didn’t have a date. He didn’t care though. Kym came back to school a few days earlier and was asked immediately by Eric Shields. No luck there. And she said yes. Maybe she wasn’t starting to think of him more than a friend. But he was still going to the dance. He had to see Kym in that blue dress.

He never even thought of asking Leigh.

Friday morning of the dance, Cory sat next to Kym in English class. The swelling in her cheeks had almost completely gone down. If Cory didn’t know she had the surgery, he would’ve never noticed her slightly plumper cheeks that morning.

“You comin’ tonight?”

He nodded his head.

“Good. You gonna ask me to dance…huh?”

“Won’t Eric Shields get mad?”

“I don’t care. I’m dancing with my Cory at the Spring Formal.”

“Of course I will.”

Kym turned around glowing.

But by third period, Cory changed his mind. He caught Kym in the halls during transition.

“I was thinking about our dance. I’ll only dance with you if you ask me.”

Kym shut her locker and faced him. Her blue eyes fluttered and she put her hand on her hip. “Not a chance. I want you to ask me. It’s only proper.”

For once, Cory didn’t melt. He held his ground. Even though by dance time, and seeing her in that blue dress, he would probably break down. “Naaa…I think I want to be asked. I wanna feel chased for once.”

Her eyebrows went inward and she looked at him with a confused expression for a second. Then she said, “Well,” as she stepped close to him. Cory thought she was going to kiss him right then and there in the hallway. She put her hand on his chest. “These feet won’t be dancing with you without an invitation. I promise you that. A dance is a girl thing.”

Cory coyly smiled and shook his head. He loved when they flirted. It felt more right to him than two plus two is four.

“Walk me to class?” she asked.

 

Cory sat at a round table in the gym. It had a pink paper tablecloth with a bouquet of carnations in the center. The bouquet had a plush red heart tied on to it as well. He wore a red shirt, black slacks, black shoes, and a red and black checkered tie. The checkers were slanted so they didn’t make his tie look like a picnic table cloth.

The lights were dim and in a way the gym looked like a different place other than where they practiced baseball. The d. j. played some good music and the other tables were sporadically filled with students having a good time. Nobody was on the dance floor. But Kym wasn’t there yet. She would probably be the first and last person on the dance floor.

At that moment, Cory missed Jason. He would’ve sat next to him at least keeping him company. But he couldn’t come to the Spring Formal. Jason was only a junior.

He attentively watched the door. He wanted to spot Kym walking in. Even though she never agreed to ask him for a dance, he somehow felt that she would. It would be their moment. It was all he needed to happen. It made him feel good that he had held strong during the rest of the day since they first discussed who would ask who. But each time he refused.

As his eyes—glued to the entrance to the gym—waited for Kym, Leigh walked in. Cory choked on the coke he was drinking.

Leigh had on a long, red dress that ended at the middle of her calves with thin straps on her shoulders. Her heels matched her dress and made her look goddess-like tall. Her hair was down, but it was pinned above her right ear with an off-white wired clip. She wore make-up as well, but just the right amount. The red dress made her skin appear rosy and full of life.

He couldn’t believe it. Leigh looked like a real girl. Like a real woman. No characters or costumes. She was playing herself tonight and she looked gorgeous. Even if she didn’t get the part in the play, Cory thought she was the best-looking Juliet Mr. Jurgenson would ever find.

She saw him sitting at the table, but as she tried to make her way to him a bunch of guys stopped her to talk. Now they like her. When she’s not wearing a poodle skirt or army fatigues. She gave him a “help me” glance and he went over to her and offered his arm.

“Why, thank you, kind gentleman. I would love a refreshment.”

All the guys looked confused because Cory walked up to her silently. Defeated, the boys scattered back to their dates or any other girl they guessed had come alone.

Leigh and Cory sat at a table. To onlookers they must have looked like they came together because Cory’s red and black outfit matched her dress perfectly. A huge number of students started arriving and soon the gym/dance hall was buzzing with conversation, laughing, and music.

Leigh and Cory talked most of the time and danced to a few fast songs. Leigh was a pretty good dancer. It surprised Cory because of the way she had played baseball in the basement. Her body moved like a snake but Cory’s bounced and jerked its way through the “bus driver” and the “lawnmower.” They didn’t stop laughing.

A few times Cory imitated a few of the other dancers. Leigh laughed at him but she also hit him in the shoulder and told him to stop. However, during the “Cupid Shuffle” Leigh caught sight of girl who looked like she was overdosing on her Ritalin. The girl’s legs and arms were moving so fast that when Leigh tried to imitate her moves she couldn’t keep up and almost stumbled. Cory caught her.

He did glance up to find Kym dancing a few times. She looked gorgeous in her dress. Her hair slid across her tan shoulders and her blue dress made her appear like a beautiful summer day sky. Their eyes never met but Cory could feel her watching him sometimes.

With fifteen minutes left in the dance Cory went to get a coke from the refreshment table. He stood and watched Kym laughing and smiling, dancing with Gwen and Michelle. He knew she came with Eric Shields but he hardly saw them together. Joey brought a sophomore girl but he remained at a table most of the night. Cory sort of felt sorry for Joey at that moment. Kym was bewitching and Joey had fallen for her spells just as hard as he had. Maybe harder.

Cory never took his eyes off of Kym for those last few minutes of the dance. When the d. j. announced the last slow song of the night, Cory watched as Kym slowly looked around her. She spun coyly in all directions and then just stood still, waiting. But Cory didn’t go up to her. She didn’t wait long, though. Eric Shields showed himself and took her in his arms. Even when she was dancing with him, Kym scanned the floor.

About three-fourths of the song went by and then Leigh came over and grabbed Cory’s hand. “Everybody should dance the last song,” she said.

The song ended quickly. The lights in the gym brightened a little so people could find their belongings, but the atmosphere wasn’t changed a bit. Romance and loneliness lingered everywhere, battling in the air like two Roman gods on Mt. Olympus creating a thickness that surrounded Cory’s heart and his head.

Cory knew Kym brought a light coat that she hung on the racks. He waited for her to walk over. When she saw him she went straight to him.

She slapped his chest with her hand. “You didn’t ask me.” Her voice was broken and Cory could tell she was upset.

He put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her blue eyes. “It’s okay. I danced with you in here all night.” He put his right hand over his heart.

Kym turned away but she returned her gaze quickly. Her eyes were watering and she licked her lips. Before Cory knew it they were kissing. Kissing right there in front of everybody. It wasn’t a long kiss. Only about ten seconds but it served its purpose.

‘We’ll talk later, okay?” And she was gone.

Cory didn’t move for three minutes or so. The kiss felt great, what he had been waiting for since the fifth grade, but something seemed out of place. He shook it off, guessing that was what being in-shock felt like. He knew the kiss was meant to be.

But what Cory didn’t know was that Leigh had followed him to the table of coats. She heard and saw the whole interaction between him and Kym. And she ran off crying, breaking a heel.

So when he went back into the gym area to ask her if she needed a ride home, she had already left.  

 

(C) 2010 by rmsl

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrival system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.

To Be Broken Or Torn

Cory called Leigh on Friday and on Saturday but there was no answer. On Sunday he decided to drive over her house and surprise her. Plus, he was getting a little worried. What was it that she hadn’t told him yet?

When he pulled into her driveway he could tell no one was home. The windows were dark and the purplish drapes on the picture window were down and closed. And the driveway wasn’t shoveled. A chill went down Cory’s back. Did Leigh move?

He thought about it all Sunday night. He tried to write but he couldn’t help thinking about what Leigh didn’t want to tell him. And when he called her there was no answer. He dismissed her moving because he figured she wouldn’t leave without telling him. He forced himself to not think the worst. She must have gone on a trip with her dad. But what happened on Monday?

Sleep didn’t come easy that night but he finally fell asleep. School started again the next day and he guessed he would see Leigh tomorrow.

 

Cory couldn’t help himself from thinking the worst now. She hadn’t been at Leigh’s Stage and wasn’t in English class. After school he went to the gym and asked the set crew if they knew anything. Someone said she was absent. Cory was really worried now.

When Kym came over to ask for a ride home he didn’t hear her right away. She looked unsettled as well. On the way out to his car, she told him that in a month or so her orthodontist was going to break her jaw and realign it to fix her slight overbite. Cory never noticed an overbite.

“Yeah, he says if I don’t get it done now, my jaw will give me problems with my teeth as I get older. I’ll be out of school for two weeks.”

Cory took in the information like he was a computer. He heard it, processed it, and didn’t show any emotion at all. She looked so scared. But he couldn’t feel sorry for her, because for some reason he feared Leigh was going through something much worse at the moment.

Before Kym got out of his car she said, “Don’t look so worried, Cory. I’ll be all right.”

Cory wasn’t thinking about Kym’s jaw but her voice broke his trance. Did Leigh get sick like her mom did? He recuperated from his horrible train of thought and looked into her eyes. They looked bluer than usual and for a few minutes he forgot about Leigh entirely.

“I won’t see you for two weeks, huh?”

She rapidly shook her head. “No way. I’ll be all swollen and ugly.”

Cory smiled soothingly. “Ah, come on. You know I wouldn’t care if you shaved your head and—”

“…painted purple stars on it. I know. But…” she paused and looked out the window of her door. “We’ll see, okay?”

As soon as she got inside her house, Cory drove away in the direction of Leigh’s house. There was a car in the driveway. Cory sighed. At least they hadn’t moved.

He felt weird knocking on the door. It felt like he was intruding on some family situation that he had no business to be butting around in.

When Mr. Reynolds opened the door the strange feeling vanished. He smiled at him and Cory felt for a second that all his worrying about Leigh was pointless. But then his smile faded and a stern, serious look replaced the friendly greeting. “She didn’t tell you, did she? Cory, Leigh Ann’s in the hospital.”

 

Mr. Reynolds was on his way back to the hospital. He only came home to get Leigh her play notebooks and her copy of Romeo and Juliet. She had forgotten her bag in the morning, which was completely understandable.

Cory was too shocked to talk during the ride to the hospital. He was glad that Mr. Reynolds volunteered information on Leigh’s hospital stay without prompting. Cory thought it helped him to talk about it. It also sounding like it was the first time he ever talked about it to anyone else, including Leigh. His words were shaky and seemed to bring up memories long concealed.

Mr. Reynolds told him that Leigh had a tumor in her heart. A cardiac myxoma.

“Cancer?” Cory blurted out.

“No, no. Nobody knows how the tumor forms…but it’s benign. Leigh’s been observed for the condition…ever since…Addison…her mother died from it three years ago.”

Cory felt like his heart was going to explode. He began to sweat and his eyes watered. “So Leigh’s gonna die?”

Her dad laughed. Cory thought it was an odd reaction considering the situation. “Addison’s tumor blocked a heart valve…and it caused irregular heart beats. She just thought she was overworked…performing too much, so she ignored the fevers and her being tired so much. None of us had any idea when it happened. One minute she was playing the piano with Leigh and the next…”

As he talked about it more, his expression lightened and Cory could tell that the conversation had made him feel much better. Cory envied the Reynolds. They opened themselves up so easily when they wanted to. Cory couldn’t even tell Kym that he liked her more than just a friend. But he didn’t think much about Kym then. He only wanted to see Leigh.

Mr. Reynolds went on to tell Cory that Leigh should be perfectly fine. The surgery went well without any complications. The removal of the tumor was a simple enough surgery, but when dealing with the heart no one really knew what could go wrong. Plus, the tumor was small. Her doctor noticed it on her last checkup and immediately scheduled the surgery. The chances of the tumor coming back were rare, but she would continue her annual checkups.

That visit to the hospital was scary. Even though Leigh’s doctor told both of them that everything was going as projected and Leigh was reacting beautifully to the medications and post-treatments, she wasn’t awake when they got there. The doctor said she needed her rest and was on sedatives to sleep but would soon come out of it.

The next day at school was horrible. He told Jason what had happened and all he could do was wait for the last bell. He met Mr. Reynolds at the hospital after school.

“She’s awake and talking. You can go in and see her now,” Mr. Reynolds said when he first saw him without any formal greeting.

Leigh looked pale and weak. But her eyes were wide open and she was sitting up with the aid of the motorized bed. As soon as she saw him she smiled as largely as she could. Her large mouth and wide eyes had grown on Cory so much that they immediately energized him and he couldn’t help from laughing. Just like Mr. Reynolds on the first car ride to the hospital.

After a few minutes of conversation and Cory could tell that Leigh was regaining her strength and vitality every second, he let the anger he had been unconsciously hiding over the last few days show.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Do you know what I’ve been going through? I thought you moved or…or worse.”

She just kept smiling at him. Lightheartedly she said, “Yeah, I’ve had a bad couple of days as well.”

Cory’s anger faded and was replaced by embarrassment. Could he have been any more selfish at that moment?

“It’s okay, Cory. I should’ve told you. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. It’s stupid, but I wanted to face this alone.”

“But why? I mean, you have your dad.”

“But you’re different. I needed to do it by myself.” She looked down at her hands. She had limited movement because of all the wires and clamps on her fingers. “It’s just like when I entered the poetry contest or joined set crew. It’s for the same reason why I’m gonna try out for Juliet.”

Cory just stared at her.

Leigh sighed. “But look, I know it was stupid now. I should have told you. I know you don’t understand but—” her smile faded and was replaced by the most serious look he ever saw on her face. “I promise I’ll never so something so stupid again.”

It made him feel special, like she never looked at anyone that way before, and his uneasiness and any signs of anger vanished. He didn’t understand why she didn’t tell him and figured he probably never would. He was just so relieved that she would be okay.

On the way home from the hospital that day, Cory experienced an overwhelming amount of guilt. His chest felt tight and his stomach queasy. He almost pulled over. How could he ever be upset about possibly not making the baseball team or finishing second in everything he did or if Kym never returned his feelings? He was a selfish person. Leigh was in the hospital, surviving a heart disease that killed her mom, Kym was about to have her jaw broken, and what about the other people who suffered from hunger, disease, and homelessness in world. He knew he was taking his guilt to extremes, but for the first time in his life he hated himself—he hated feeling sorry for himself when he had such a great life.

 

During the next two weeks, Cory tried to go to Leigh’s Stage with Jason. But it didn’t work. He kept teaching him Shakespeare and helping him with the rewrite of his paper, but Leigh’s presence was missed. There were no new characters of Leigh’s to laugh at or practicing lines from Romeo and Juliet. It felt like doing homework.

He visited Leigh in the hospital every day she was in and brought her her homework. Sometimes they read lines, but even the visiting hours were interrupted with nurses and doctors checking on Leigh and administering medication and meals that made practicing difficult.

Leigh didn’t seem to mind, though. She smiled from the time Cory came through the door to the time he left. Even though Leigh was recovering from heart surgery, Cory felt better when he was with her.

On the day of her return to school, Cory didn’t expect her to make Leigh’s Stage. She was later than usual, but when she walked back into the alumni room it was like she never left. Her energy and laughter picked up right where she left off and soon the three of them were giggling and reading and dressing up like Shakespearean characters.

It was getting closer to baseball tryouts and Leigh’s audition so she spent more time watching the movements of the Juliets’ in the movies and his workouts intensified and lengthened.

She suggested that they go to The Stage after school from now on so they both could practice a little more and still read Shakespeare. The Shakespeare section of their English class had long passed, but they began reading his other plays and acting out each scene as best as they could. Jason agreed to Leigh’s Stage after school and soon it was all they even talked about.

Cory’s mom got mad at him the few times he forgot to take home Bobby and Kevin. But they both got their driver’s licenses and were driving to school before it became a real issue with his mom.

Soon baseball tryouts were only two weeks away. Leigh stopped going into the alumni room during the mornings and helped Cory with his workouts. She wore a powered blue baseball cap with a clothing line logo on it with her long straight hair in a ponytail through the opening in the back. The tank top and shorts she wore showed she was in better shape than Cory had ever thought. She helped with ground ball drills and timing his sprints and L’s. She also was able to toss badminton birdies to him so he could work on his hitting and making contact. But that was about it.

Cory realized why she never tried out for basketball. He tried not to laugh or smile when she tried to do something athletic but sometimes he couldn’t help himself.

Everything in Cory’s world seemed to be fitting into place. He would make the varsity baseball team and Leigh would get the role of Juliet in the spring play. Not to mention, he felt Kym was beginning to have feelings for him. But he didn’t want to ruin it by rushing it or pushing it. It had to happen on its own.

 

Joey stopped messing with Cory ever since the fake scholarship letter. He even talked to him normally a few times and joked with him. Gwen, however, stayed humbled for only a few weeks. She began treating everyone the same way she did before even though occasionally someone would make a donkey joke. These jokes never bothered Joey and half the time he seemed too preoccupied to be concerned with anything going on around him.

The gossip the fake scholarship letters generated took its time, but by then everybody in the school knew about it. The comments and jokes seemed to increase daily since the boys’ varsity basketball team lost in the second round of the state tournament but nothing ever materialized and Joey regularly made jokes of his own. The way he handled it was heroic in Cory’s eyes.

It was three days until baseball tryouts when the jokes climaxed. Students were in the gym like they always were after school hanging out, flirting, and waiting for rides. The cheerleaders were practicing for their upcoming competition. Kym and Joey were sitting the bleachers watching when it happened.

Leigh, Jason, and Cory were on their way down to the alumni room when, from the balcony above the foyer leading outside of the gym, a giant banner was dropped. On it was a giant donkey, poorly painted, eating grass. Instead of the words “You’re An Ass” printed on it, below the patch of grass were the words, “At Least You Don’t Choke On Grass.” Under one of the donkey’s hooves was a deflated basketball.

Cory searched for Joey when the mob of students began laughing and hollering. Joey didn’t seem to notice what was going on. He continued to talk to Kym who looked visibly upset. Joey didn’t look at the banner until he was half way to the locker room doors and even than he didn’t look at it long. After Joey left her, Kym dashed outside.

Cory gave Leigh a pleading look and without saying anything they both made their way to the top of the balcony. They ripped the banner down to boos and other insulting remarks. Jason ran to the banner and began crumpling it up as much as he could. Cory and Leigh soon joined him and they walked the banner outside and threw it out in the dumpster on the side of the building.

Cory and Leigh remained silent as they walked to Leigh’s Stage. Cory knew she felt bad. Jason talked about how he thought they were both so awesome for tearing the banner down. They had stopped talking about getting revenge on Joey and Gwen well before the letters showed up. He never knew they were indirectly responsible for it in the first place.

“Jase, that’s enough.”

When they reached the door to the alumni room it was shut. The door being shut didn’t surprise them at all; it was the sounds Leigh heard inside the room that made them all step back.

“Somebody’s going off in there.”

They listened as closely as they could. The voice was definitely male and it sounded pretty angry. Cory heard some curse words and then a loud bang as if somebody threw something against the wall.

At first it didn’t register, but then Cory and Leigh looked at each other with disbelief. It couldn’t be.

“I’ll go talk to him,” Cory said.

He moved towards the door. Leigh stepped in front of him. “No, I should go. It was my idea in the first place.”

“But—” Leigh had already opened the door and walked in. She shut the door behind her. Cory tried to listen but he couldn’t hear a thing.

Cory expected Joey to come storming out after him or at least Leigh would come back out after a few seconds or so. But she stayed in there for what seemed like hours. Actually, it was only about fifteen minutes but as each minute ticked away he began to fear Joey had hurt Leigh or something. He didn’t like her in that room alone.

Just as he reached for the handle, Joey came out. He didn’t seem mad and his expression was rather pleasant. He smirked at Cory. “Thanks for taking the banner down, dude.” And he walked away.

Cory couldn’t wait to hear what had happened. He went into the room and Leigh was sitting on one of the couches with her head down. She didn’t look okay.

Leigh asked Jason to wait outside for a few minutes so they could talk privately. Jason understood because he put the pieces together as to why the banner had effected them so much.

“Are you okay? You don’t look so good. Does your chest hurt or something? Did he hurt you?” He sat down next to her on the couch.

“He thought you wrote the letters.”

Cory had feared as much. “He told Kym didn’t he?”

“No. He never told her. Or anyone. He’s actually a pretty sensitive guy.”

Cory was growing impatient. Why wasn’t she telling him what happened? What Joey said? “He didn’t seem mad anymore, though. I guess the banner was the last straw. It just broke him down.” When Leigh didn’t say anything, Cory stood up. “Well, come on, Leigh. Tell me what happened.”

She looked up at him. The color in her cheeks was returning and the left side of her mouth started to smile. “He wasn’t upset at all about the banner.”

“Really? What else could make Joey Vaudester so upset?”

“He’s in love with Kym.”

Cory’s heart broke. He realized that other guys had feelings for Kym but he never heard one of them say he loved her. Pins and needles pressed at his skin and his heartbeat quickened. “So they’re in love. That’s a strange way of showing it.”

Leigh swallowed. “She broke up with him in the gym.”

 

 

(C) 2010 by rmsl

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrival system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.

Not Yet

Basketball season was in full swing. The girls’ varsity team was in second place in their division. Hamilton was in first. The boys’ varsity team had first place already wrapped up with a month left to play before the state tournament because of their remaining weak schedule. The Trenton High boys’ team had to settle for second place, again.

Two days after Joey and Gwen found out their scholarships were fake, holiday break started. Two weeks of no homework. Cory would write anyway. And his dad would definitely keep him busy with shoveling the driveway every three hours and odd chores inside the house.

On the last day before break two things happened that surprised Cory.

Most teachers at his school did not prepare a seating chart, Mr. Maragelloto included. So Cory always tried to get to class before everyone. He never wanted to choose who to sit next to—Kym or Leigh.

He figured Leigh would understand if he walked in and chose a seat next to Kym, but lately Kym was becoming more emotional and almost possessive. He wasn’t even her boyfriend! She called him almost every night now. Usually the conversations only lasted about five or ten minutes, but he still loved the fact she was calling him. He also caught her a couple of times glaring at any other girl who talked to him. It creeped him out a bit.

But Kym was paying more attention to him, his workouts (even though they had been cut shorter because of Leigh’s Stage) were continuing to improve his skills and drop weight, and baseball tryouts were only seventy-two days away. He never guessed his senior year would turn out so good.

He was late getting to first period the day before break, though. Actually, he was late to school. He missed his workout and Leigh’s Stage because his mom needed a ride to work. Her normal driver called off that day and his mother was afraid to drive the freeway. So he took her in and got caught in rush hour.

He had walked all the way to the class before he realized he’d forgotten his literature anthology. By the time he hustled to his locker and back to class, Leigh and Kym were both already there.

But they were sitting together, sort of. Jason was in his usual seat. Leigh was two seats over from his left, leaving a seat for Cory. Kym sat in front of Cory’s intended seat. Wow, did he luck out.

“Did you read the act last night?” asked Jason. Cory sat down.

Kym turned around and smiled. “Yeah, teach, what happened between Petruchio and Katharina? I thought he was supposed to woo her or something.”

“I know, right? But all they talked about were crabs and needing glasses. I didn’t get any of it. I wish I could.” Jason fanned the pages of his copy of The Taming of the Shrew as if he was trying to cool himself down.

Cory realized he was staring at Kym’s lips and not answering. He regrouped. “I don’t quite get it either. I think he is playing with her. I don’t know.” Cory glanced over at Leigh.

“Your mom’s driver couldn’t take her again?” Leigh asked.

Cory nodded his head and whispered he was sorry for not showing up at Leigh’s Stage. Mr. Maragelloto started class and Kym turned back around.

Later in the class, Mr. Maragelloto gave them time to discuss their papers on Romeo and Juliet that were due when they came back from holiday break. They had to finish reading The Taming of the Shrew as well. So much for no homework. But at least his other classes weren’t honors classes and he didn’t expect much of any homework from them.

Joey never cared when Kym sat next to Cory in class. He always sat with his friends. But when they did group work, she would usually go sit by him. This time she made him come to her. By the look on his face it didn’t make him happy.

Leigh leaned in to Cory and whispered, “Hey, why don’t you ask Jason to join us at The Stage sometime. You know he’s dying to come. You talk to him so much about it.”

Cory didn’t know what to say. He had never thought about asking anyone else to join them in the alumni room. It was their place. A place they could be themselves. He didn’t want anyone ruining it. He couldn’t believe Leigh would take that chance.

“I…I don’t think so. He always acts like that.”

Still whispering, “That’s because he thinks you’re his friend. I mean you’re nice to him and all, but how many times have you called him to hang out?”

Where did this come from? He felt like his mother was scolding him about not being nice to one of the brothers. "So you want me to ask Jason to Leigh’s Stage?” he asked sarcastically. Cory didn’t realize he gave her a disgusted look too.

And she reacted to it. Her voice rose. “It’s not just mine…or yours or ours for that matter. Who says who we can or can’t ask?” She backed away in her seat, as if she recognized she said something she really didn’t want to say.

His voice rose. “Well, fine. Then I’m going to ask—”

He had never thought of asking Kym to join them. It was just understood. But if she wanted to get this way then why not?

Leigh spun towards him. “If you don’t want to ask him that’s fine. You don’t have to get all Montague and Capulet on me.”

“I just don’t wanna—”

Cory didn’t realize Kym could hear them.

The bell rang.

“Listen, he looks up to you. If you don’t want to see it fine.” She started to walk away and then stopped. “You really should work on hearing what other people say…and not just what’s in that head of yours.”

Did that just happen? Was it a fight?

He collected his books and walked out the door. When he passed Kym’s locker, she was wiping her eyes like she had been crying. What was going on with the world?

The rest of the day he couldn’t figure out what had happened in English class. One minute they’re talking about The Taming of the Shrew and then Leigh is chipping away at him like he was an unsharpened pencil.

By the time Leigh walked into study hall, Cory was already helping a few football players with their physics homework. It took all period for them to grasp the concept of momentum versus friction. The only desk open was three over from Cory, so Leigh didn’t have a choice.

He knew Leigh had set crew at the end of the day, but he went to the gym anyway. He couldn’t find her so he asked one of the other students he knew was in the group where she was. The student pointed to the balcony.

Right above the foyer that led to the outside of the school was a balcony. It ran the entire length of the gym. Mostly, it was cluttered with spotlights and microphone stands and other Drama Club equipment that Mr. Jurgenson stored there.

Leigh was moving one spotlight up and down. It looked like she was judging where the light would end up when she pointed it this way and that. She never looked down.

Cory called up to her a few times, but she didn’t hear him. Or she pretended not to hear him. Could she really be that mad?

On his way out of the gym Cory bumped into Mr. Jurgenson. He had a clipboard in his hand and his breath smelled of burnt tea. He gave Cory a nasty look like he was a groundling at The Globe who sneaked in through a hole in a fence and didn’t pay for his ticket to Hamlet.

“Watch where you are going. People have shed-u-als to keep, you know.”

What a day!

 

Cory had had fights with Kym before. He always thought they made him feel pretty bad and kind of sick to his stomach. But Leigh not talking to him after school in the gym the day before holiday break made him mad.

With all the time in the world on the first day off from school, Cory couldn’t write. He wanted to. But nothing. He was upset because of the way Leigh talked to him in English class, but also because he knew she was right about Jason. The guy was nothing but nice to him. And he never even said as much as “thank you” to the boy when he lent him a pencil. Maybe he should ask him over for dinner or something?

As he lay on his bed throwing a baseball up in the air and catching it, all he could think about was Leigh. It could be two weeks before he talked to her again and his Romeo and Juliet paper was due when they got back and the reading of The Taming of the Shrew as well. How would he understand it without her?

Cory remembered Kym and his first big fight. It was her sixteenth birthday and he didn’t wish her happy birthday all day in school. By lunch she was crying and everybody was mad at him. They almost had it out in math class. She even came up to him after school and said: “Out of everybody I only cared if you wished me happy birthday. How could you forget?”

But Cory didn’t forget. He purchased a dozen roses a few days earlier and had them delivered to her house while they were at school. When she called him later that night she was so happy. She couldn’t believe she ever doubted him. She said it was her best birthday ever. The guy she was dating at the time only brought in to school a card and a stuffed elephant. Kym hated elephants.

Kym’s sixteenth birthday had her mad at him for a day and Cory had always known she would love the flowers. But her seventeenth birthday was all together different.

That year Kym bummed a piece of gum off Cory everyday. Nothing too exciting, but he made it into his gift for her seventeenth birthday. He went out and bought her about sixty dollars worth of all different types of gum: Wrigley’s, Double Bubble, Bazooka, Double Mint, Big League Chew, and so on. He even made sure to spend at least twenty dollars on Big Red. It was her favorite.

He wrapped it all in a big shoebox and attached a card. The gum wasn’t the problem; it was the card. He wrote how much their friendship meant to him but it was how he wrote it that got her upset. He listed the most important things in his life: 1. baseball 2. writing. He thought he was only listing her last for emphasis. But when Kym read: and 3. You, she thought he was actually listing the number of importance.

Cory never thought she would take it that way. Who would? It was just for emphasis. But she stopped talking to him and wouldn’t tell him why. It wasn’t until after three weeks that she finally told him. How could she think that?

He remembered how horrible those three weeks were and how he went crazy trying to talk to Kym. And when she finally told him, it made him sick to his stomach every time he thought about it for a while after that.

But now he was mad at Leigh for being right.

He could call her. But it still bothered him that she would risk ruining Leigh’s Stage for Jason. She was right, though.

It wasn’t until the third day of holiday break that Leigh called him. Everything was right again in Cory’s world. He even wrote again the night of her call. She told him she wasn’t ever mad at him and that The Stage was something they created together and it was up to him to include Jason or not. She hadn’t heard him when she was on the balcony and, as for the first two days of break, she had doctor appointments that her dad had made weeks ago. “Nothing important,” she had said, “Just routine check-ups.”

She invited him over for dinner the next day and after they would read The Taming of the Shrew and work on their papers. Leigh’s Stage would take place in her basement. All was set.

The dinner was pleasant. They had spaghetti and meatballs with homemade garlic bread. Cory had two plates but Leigh and Mr. Reynolds barely finished their first helping. Maybe that was why Leigh remained so thin. It made Cory feel as if he cooked specifically for him.

Mr. Reynolds talked to both of them like they were adults. Cory liked it but for some reason it made him uncomfortable at times. His house was so structured. His family even had names under their seats at the dinner table. And nobody, nobody could sit in his dad’s seat at any time even if it was to look for a pen or use the phone. But Cory figured that after a family lost their mom, the dynamics changed. Leigh did tell him that she looked after him ever since her mom died and her actions towards him almost seemed motherly. But they were best friends.

And he could never bring himself to call her dad “Paul” either.

In the basement after dinner, Leigh’s Stage was a disappointment. Maybe it was because they weren’t in the alumni room, but Leigh felt distant like she was thinking about other things. Questions lingered and laughter was rare. They wrote their papers silently and barely discussed The Taming of the Shrew.

Cory came over everyday of holiday break when he was finished with the list of choirs his dad wrote for him. Mr. Reynolds would always whip up something good to eat and they would head downstairs in the basement for Leigh’s Stage. But it felt funny every time. Even when Leigh talked about new characters in her play or something funny that would happen in a scene, her face was blank. She appeared tired and listless. Her happy expressions were tight and forced. Cory even thought her acting was affected. She was just reading Juliet’s lines; she wasn’t feeling them.

On the Thursday before they had to go back to school, Cory had an idea. He brought Jason with him. He was so thrilled when Cory called he tripped on his garbage can in the kitchen and had to wash the floor before he could leave. Maybe the Jason issue bothered Leigh more than she let on. Or maybe it was the end of Leigh’s Stage.

“I read most of the play already, but I still don’t get their conversation in Act II. It doesn’t fit,” Jason said.

Mr. Reynolds didn’t seem bothered that Cory brought Jason. He made them grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato and onion. Cory burned the top of his mouth because he ate so fast. He wanted to go to Leigh’s Stage. Leigh’s attitude seemed to perk up when she saw Jason at the door. She was smiling freely and they all laughed through dinner. Even though Cory loved dessert time, when Mr. Reynolds brought out a homemade ice cream cake made out of ice cream sandwiches and caramel he cringed. He couldn’t wait to get down to Leigh’s Stage. Jason fit in perfectly and he wanted to test him out in their discussions.

“I think he’s messing with her. Testing her intelligence or something. Seeing what approach he should take to get her to marry him.”

Leigh beamed at Cory. She rubbed his arm gently. “I think you got it, but I think more’s going on.”

“Like what?” Jason asked.

“Listen to these lines. Cory read Petruchio’s part, okay?”

Cory read the line. “Nay, come, Kate, come. You must not look so sour.”

Leigh’s expression changed. He eyebrows went in towards her eyes like she was angry but her mouth still smiled. “It is my fashion, when I see a crab.”

“Why, here’s no crab. And therefore look not sour.”

Leigh wagged her finger at Cory slowly. “There is, there is.”

“Then show it me.”

This time Leigh put her hand in Cory’s face and turned away.

“If I had a glass I would.” Her face looked angry but her words sounded sweet and playful.

“They’re flirting with each other, oh…” Cory got it now. But Jason didn’t.

“They’re flirting? Why does she need a glass to flirt?”

Cory laughed. “No, listen. Not a glass like for water. Like a mirror to show Petruchio’s face…as the crab. She does like him.”

Jason nodded but Cory sensed he was not too sure of himself yet.

“Oh definitely…but she doesn’t know it yet. And Shakespeare uses this conversation to show just how much. Why would you spend your time arguing with someone you didn’t find interesting? She tries to push him away but her words tell a different story.”

Jason stared at Leigh and Cory as if he was a two-year-old child and they were trying to explain how the toilet worked.

They went on like this for a few hours. By the end, Cory had Jason understanding it and even giving his opinion on the characters’ motives. He used simple analogies and taught him to think like he were in Shakespeare’s time when reading certain words. Jason responded to him.

Cory was glad he gave into Leigh. He enjoyed having someone to teach instead of always being taught by Leigh. And Jason’s view of each scene added to their interpretations as well. Leigh let him take charge and didn’t interrupt. At times, she sat back and watched Cory work. That night their meeting should have been called Cory’s Stage.

Cory felt great. Until they were leaving. After saying his goodbyes to Mr. Reynolds, Jason bolted out of the door with Cory keys to brush off and warm up the car. Cory waited inside for Mr. Reynolds to wrap up a grilled cheese sandwich and another piece of the ice cream cake for him to take home. Jason said his mom would have been mad if she knew he even ate dinner already, so Mr. Reynolds let him off the hook.

He hugged Leigh goodbye and walked outside into the freezing night air. When he shut the door it buckled and didn’t completely shut. He went back up to the door to make sure it was closed and he heard Mr. Reynolds say, “Did you tell him about Monday?”

Leigh answered, “Not yet.”

That was all he heard as the door shut into place.    

 

(C) 2010 by rmsl

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrival system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.

Chameleons’ Ink

Cory’s father was mad that he had come home so late and barely finished the garden.

After the sun went down Cory went into his room and opened his journal. He didn’t have to look long for a pencil because one sat right next to his journal. The visit to Leigh’s house released a floodgate of images and emotions that felt brand new and sort of scared him a little. He did think like a girl. Joey was right.

But he couldn’t stop himself from writing. No matter how much he felt like a girl. Every word that transferred from his head to the page made him feel lighter, weightless almost. He knew these poems were some of his best stuff.

He made two copies of what he wrote that night—one for Leigh and one for Jason. He hadn’t shown him anything he’s written for a while and he felt a sense of wonder about what he came up with that night. He had to show Jason.

He went to bed that night and dreamt he was Romeo standing under Juliet’s balcony. But he couldn’t make out who played Juliet.

 

Jason didn’t mean to do it. Cory was as excited about his new poems as Jason was.

Jason missed homeroom because he had a dentist appointment. But when he came into English, he rushed to Cory.

“These poems are awesome! Definitely your best stuff. You’ve got to give them to Kym!”

His voice was loud, loud enough for Joey to hear him. Joey had been extra rough on Cory lately. Cory figured it was because he was jealous of how much time Kym was spending with him. Joey had always been sort of glad that she had Cory to talk to because then he wouldn’t have to hear the sappy stuff about her family. But recently, he seemed to change his mind and acted differently around him.

“Gimme those.” Before Jason had a chance to react, Joey had the attention of the whole class. He read each of the poems out loud. Cory tried to stop him but too many of Joey’s friends stood in his way.

Kym sat at her desk acting shocked. But she did nothing to stop Joey. It was as if she had waited for something like this to happen.

Leigh walked into class right as Joey read the first poem. It took her a few seconds to figure out what was happening. She just stood and listened like Joey was reading the poems to her. A smile crept slowly to her face and when she realized she was smiling she shook herself and changed her expression to one of anger.

In between most of the lines, Joey paused in order for everyone to laugh. But as he continued, his reading slowed and his face became white. He finished reading the final lines as if he wasn’t in front of an audience but was alone, soaking in each word for himself.

The laughter stopped and he handed the poems back to Cory.

Leigh walked past Joey’s desk and whispered, “You’re an ass.” She sat down next to Cory and started to talk about their reading assignment last night.

Joey didn’t acknowledge her, only shifting his eyes across his desk with his head down. Mr. Maragelloto walked into the room and all the talking stopped.

Cory was afraid to look at Kym. He didn’t know why. When he finally did her expression was plain, lifeless. Was it because of how her boyfriend had acted or because of the poems?

 

That afternoon at lunch, Jason let Cory know how sorry he was and how mad he was at Joey. They couldn’t keep treating people like that but he didn’t know one way to stop them.

“It’s okay, Jase. I’ve been through worse. Once in grade school, Kym saw a piece of tuna fish on my sleeve after lunch. She thought it was a booger. If I didn’t die that day, I don’t think Joey can do anything to me.”

Leigh crunched her face in disgust. “I woulda puked if I was her.”

Cory threw a pretzel at her and they laughed.

“We could think of something. We are very creative people,” Leigh said.

The rest of lunch they shared funny ways to embarrass Gwen and Joey. Cory thought nothing of it; it was just talk.

 

One of the techniques Leigh used in the alumni room to help Cory understand Shakespeare was to compare characters to real life people. Every evil girl was either Gwen or one of the other cheerleaders and every evil boy was Joey. Kym got to be a few of the princesses or queens, but Cory let Leigh be most of them. Leigh was a different person when they were in the alumni room. She came alive. Her strangeness seemed less dominant in that room. Not after long, Cory started to refer to the room as Leigh’s Stage.

Leigh never called it that. She said it made her feel funny talking in third person and if she called it My Stage it made her feel conceited. So she just referred to it as The Stage. “I like it,” she said once. “Shakespeare did say ‘all the world is a stage’.”

They were in Leigh’s Stage a couple of mornings after the day Joey read Cory’s poem out loud to the whole class when Leigh brought up an idea.

“I know what we can do to those two. It’ll put them right in their place.”

“Not that again. It was just fun at lunch. I don’t think I could do anything like that.”

Leigh gave him a look that she meant business. He agreed to at least listen to her idea. She wanted to create some college who would send both of them an invitation to attend the school on a full scholarship. Gwen for cheerleading and Joey for basketball. It was harmless because no one could find out who sent the letters and it was early enough in the school year for them to apply to other colleges.

“But how will they find out that the letters are fake? Announce it over the P.A.?”

“Naaa…that would be too mean. We just want them to feel foolish in front of their friends. Like Shakespeare does to Bottom in A Midsummer-Night’s Dream by turning his head into a donkey’s.”

Cory didn’t see how having your head turned into a donkey’s head was harmless. But he did like the fact that nobody could find out who sent the letters.

“But what if they never find out? It could be really bad.”

“I’ll think of something.”

Leigh dropped the subject as if she had already made up her mind but didn’t want to continue for fear of talking Cory out of the plan. She started to talk about one of her scenes from her play and Cory instantly forgot about Gwen or Joey.

He loved it when she talked to him about her characters. Her whole face sparkled and her performances made his heart race and his mouth hurt from laughing all the time. She never stayed too serious for too long. When she went on like this, he thought she looked sort of pretty. But then she would put on her costume for the day and all he could see was the same old strange Leigh Reynolds.

 

The next day, Leigh came up to his locker with the letters in her hands.

“You really are serious about this, aren’t you?”

The letters were official looking. She said she did them on her dad’s computer and used his drafting program to create the school’s logo.

“They’ll never fall for it. All they have to do is search the Internet and find out the school is fake.”

Leigh’s smirked mischievously and shook her head. “It’s not gonna matter that the school is fake. If I know the type of people they are, they won’t even consider going there. But they’ll brag to their friends about the scholarships.”

Cory had to give it her. She knew her character types. Cory had no doubt Joey and Gwen would eat up the letters and tell everyone they knew.

“How do they find out they’re fake?”

She pulled out her compact. “Look at the logo in the mirror.”

He couldn’t believe how smart this girl was! When the logo for the school was seen in a mirror it looked like a donkey eating grass with the words “You’re An Ass” one after another in a vertical line. How did she do that?

“How are we going to get them to look at the letters in a mirror?”

Leigh put her compact away and gave him a look that said: Are you serious? “Those cheerleaders carry around enough mirrors to burn down this school if sunlight hit them all at the same time. They even have three or four of them glued into their lockers. Someone is bound to spot it.” She seemed to sense his uneasiness. “Look, if after a couple days they don’t figure it out…I’ll send them another letter explaining it all. They won’t even hafta tell anybody then.”

Cory finally accepted the plan. He figured it was a long shot that either one of them would see the logo in a mirror. And if they didn’t, Leigh would anonymously tell them it was a joke in another letter. They would just tell everyone they decided to look at other colleges. No one would know any better.

 

When Cory saw a ton of basketball players surrounding Joey’s locker, he knew the letters arrived in yesterday’s mail.

By fifth period it seemed like every senior in the school was talking about the letters.

A few days passed and no one saw the donkey logo in the mirror.

Leigh wrote the other letters and planned on mailing them after school. She seemed disappointed about having to send them, but they still laughed and wished they could be at one of their houses when Joey or Gwen opened it up.

After the last bell that day, Cory grabbed all the books out of his locker he needed and headed to the gym to meet Leigh. He didn’t get to talk to her that much during study hall because he helped Maddy Lawson and Steven Dumbrowski with their government paper. Maggie just couldn’t stop using “I” and Steven never explained his relative pronouns. “Man, you explain it so much easier than Miss Masterson,” Steven said. Explaining things came effortlessly to Cory.

He passed Gwen’s locker. Michelle and Carl Krachi were hanging around the locker waiting for Gwen to get her stuff to go home.

“Gwen, can I see that letter again? I just can’t get over it. It gives me chills every time I read it.”

Cory stopped just short of Gwen’s locker. It couldn’t be happening.

Gwen was squatting inside her locker, rummaging around for a hairbrush. She pretended like Michelle’s asking to see the letter again annoyed her, but Cory knew better. “It’s on the top shelf.”

Michelle unfolded the letter. Carl Krachi read it from behind her. “Don’t read over my shoulder, you pig. I know what you’re really doing.” So she turned to face him.

Cory saw the donkey eating grass and the words “You’re An Ass” clear as day in the six by six inch mirror on Gwen’s locker door. So did Carl. He grabbed the letter from her hands and held it close to the mirror. He couldn’t stop laughing.

Gwen finally stood up to see what they were all laughing about and she saw it. She looked devastated. There were rumors that she had planned to go there. But rumors were rumors. She slammed her locker door and ran down the hallway. She left the letter behind.

By now everybody was looking at the donkey eating grass and the insulting words hidden in the school’s logo. Joey handled it better than Gwen, but Cory could see his self-image crumbling.

“Dude, someone got you good. This is the best prank I ever seen. Whoever did this is a genius! A god!” Cory didn’t expect Carl Krachi’s response. He did feel a little proud of Leigh.

Joey just laughed. “Like I was going to go there anyway. They were division two. You know I want to go to state.” If the prank bothered Joey, he wasn’t showing it.

“Yeah, dude, I know. But you have to admit it was a good one.”

As Joey and Carl walked down the hall, Joey’s eyes stayed on Cory longer than usual. He knew.   

(C) 2010 by rmsl

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrival system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.

An Audience For Juliet

The next morning Cory waited for Leigh to show up in the basement. He ran his L’s cautiously, staring at the door each time he passed it. When she came into the basement hallway, he ran over to her. Leigh never looked happier.

“Hey, Kym called me last night.”

They talked for an hour. He told Leigh that Kym had no idea what happened in the gym and when she found out she laid into Gwen. But not too worry, they would be friends again by lunchtime.

“I’m glad she’s not mad at you.”

“Me too,” he said.

She glanced over at the alumni room and then said, “I have to practice my lines. See ya in English, okay?”

Cory nodded and started running down the hall.

In ninth period study hall Cory sat next to Leigh. They didn’t talk much because she told him she had homework to finish because she needed to make her dad dinner when she got home.

Cory pulled out his journal. He hadn’t written in it for sometime now, but an unknown force compelled him to slide the pencil over the page.

The days went by like this for a couple weeks. He would see Leigh in the morning and then wait to talk to her in ninth period. However, she always had something to do in study hall. She either needed to study Juliet’s lines or draw up plans for a stage prop or do her homework.

Kym talked to him more than she ever did during this time, though. She called him at least twice a week and sat next to him during English class. Her flirting even increased. Cory felt something was going to happen between them sooner or later. He just wished it were sooner than later.

Gwen even settled down. She stopped making comments to Leigh even during her new character research. Leigh started wearing gobs of make-up and poodle skirts to school everyday. But something told Cory that Gwen had just been more covert about her insults. If she were still bothering her, Leigh would’ve never mentioned it to Cory.

Leigh told him that the new character’s parents were stuck in the fifties and only bought her poodle skirts and sweaters. Cory didn’t care; he just looked forward to seeing what Leigh would wear everyday. Her behaviors interested him.

One morning during his L’s, he stopped in front of the alumni room. Leigh was wearing a long white gown-type dress with long sleeves that flowed under her arms and her hair was tied in a pink ribbon at the middle of her back. The positioning of the ribbon made it look like she had a drape on her back. She had no make-up on but her face was bursting with natural color and enthusiasm. She cared about becoming Juliet probably as much as he cared about making the varsity baseball team.

He listened to her reciting lines of Shakespeare. He guessed they were from Romeo and Juliet but Cory couldn’t tell. He had read the first act of the play last night for homework and didn’t have the faintest idea what had happened.

When it seemed like she finished, Cory clapped. Leigh turned towards the door, blushing.

“I didn’t know anyone was watching me.”

“Well, you better get used to it because you know Mr. Jurgenson always packs the house.”

Cory thought Leigh was strange, but Mr. Jurgenson took the top prize. He was a short, frazzled man with a doughy appearance. He had to weigh at least three hundred pounds, maybe more. For some reason, he thought he was English. He used words like lift for elevators and lieu for bathrooms. And god for bid if you interrupted him during teatime!

He wasn’t considered faculty, because he didn’t have a teaching degree, but he had an office next to the English Department. He had gone to Cranwood High and a few years after graduation won the lottery. He donated loads of money to the school for the drama program so they made him the head of it. It wasn’t really a job anybody wanted so his appointment didn’t cause any waves in the faculty. But ever since Mr. Jurgenson took over, the gym was packed with people on show dates. Cory always thought he paid people to show up.

“Hey, was that from Romeo and Juliet? Because I don’t have a clue what I read last night. Could you fill me in?”

Leigh immediately went over to her book bag and pulled out her copy of the play.

“Here, sit down. Shakespeare’s easy when you get the hang of it.”

“Easy? It all sounds pointless to me. Why didn’t he just say what he wanted to say instead of talking all funny?”

“That’s how they talked back then. Well, not in poetry like his characters do but they used the same language.” She paused and stared at him. “I would have thought you of all people would understand Shakespeare…I mean because of the way you write. You’re just as good.”

“I’ve never been good at interpreting other people’s stuff.”

She looked at him again but this time with a sort of sadness in her eyes. “Maybe because you just have so much to say, you don’t pay attention when someone else is saying something to you.”

He had always felt that way. He didn’t believe there actually was another person who understood something about him. Leigh was strange but she was smart.

As she talked about the Montagues and the Capulets her face energized. As she explained the feud between the two families, using Shakespeare’s words and translating them into real English, her eyes sparkled. She really loved this stuff! She explained how the servants from both families opened the play in order to lay down the foundation of the feud and how even they hated each other.

“So the families hate each other, but we never really know why. I get that. But I thought Romeo loves Juliet, not this other girl…Rosa something?”

She hit his leg. “Rosaline. See you’re getting it. The reason for Shakespeare using Rosaline is unclear, though. Some say its so he can show how easily Romeo can fall in love and others say it’s to show his immaturity that quickly develops when he falls for Juliet. Because before Juliet he was just as involved in the feud as any other, but soon realizes they would be considered his family and he tries to change how he treats them.”

Cory was a little jealous of how smart Leigh was. But as she continued to explain the play, he realized that she wasn’t showing off—she was sharing her passion.

He wondered if he shared his passion for poetry with Kym if she would see the same wonder in him.

“…but what does it mean when Capulet says, ‘What noise is this?—Give me my long sword, ho!’ and his wife tells him, ‘A crutch, a crutch!—Why call you for a sword?’.”

Leigh stood up and danced around. She grabbed one of those tiny American flags on a plastic pole and pretended to stab him with it. “What are crutches? Think about it.”

“Crutches? The things you use when you break a leg or a foot? They had those back then?”

“Of course, I mean they didn’t look like they do now. I suppose it was meant to mean a cane or something.”

“So Capulet has a broken leg?”

She giggled. It was a laugh he never heard her make. “His wife was telling him that he was too old to fight, that he should be using a cane instead. It also shows that Lady Capulet is getting tired of the feud.”

During homeroom, Cory tried to reread as much of Act I as he could. He didn’t see it. At least he knew what happened and he could talk about it in class, but Shakespeare’s words still made absolutely no sense to him.

When they discussed Act I in English, Cory was glad that Gwen wasn’t in the class. She would have had more material to make fun of Leigh with other than the clothes she wore. It almost appeared as if Mr. Maragelloto and her were having their own private discussion of the play. He would ask a question, look around the room, and call on Leigh. It even made it to the point where she stopped raising her hand and he would just ask her her thoughts.

“Man, she’s incredible. How does she know all that?” Jason was easily awe struck.

Cory was impressed with Leigh’s interpretations, but at that moment he was more impressed with the way Kym looked in that short black skirt.

“Yeah, she’s good.”

Jason saw Cory staring at Kym. “You have a one track mind.”

During study hall Leigh tried to help him understand Act II. But he wasn’t getting it. He couldn’t concentrate and she seemed preoccupied with her thoughts. She attempted to describe one of the characters in her play she was writing, but Cory couldn’t think of any good questions to ask so that conversation fizzled as well. Finally, he just asked her what her favorite color was.

“Green. My mom looked beautiful in green.”

It did the trick. They didn’t stop talking until the last bell. They talked about favorite colors, favorite movies, favorite television shows, favorite foods, favorite numbers, favorite athletes (Leigh didn’t have one), and any other favorite that could’ve been thought of. Boy, did they laugh together.

As they were leaving the room, Cory noticed Gwen give Leigh a nasty look. Leigh scowled back. She made waves with her hands next to her ears to point out Gwen’s hair. Cory laughed again. He didn’t expect her to fight back.

Cory made his way to the gym. He planned on asking Leigh if she needed a ride home because there was a basketball game that day. He knew she wouldn’t have set crew. But as he was walking over to her by the stage, Kym stepped in front of him.

“Can you give me a ride home? Joey was out sick today.”

He melted. He loved it when she needed him. They met the brothers and Kelly outside and went home.

 

His morning workouts became shorter and shorter.

As soon as Leigh showed up in the basement, he met her in the alumni room to go over the previous night’s reading assignment. As the days passed, Cory learned that Leigh was an excellent teacher. Shakespeare’s words became less and less cryptic to him and he even began to give his own interpretations, which seemed to fascinate Leigh extremely.

The alumni room was the only place they discussed Shakespeare or Leigh’s play. The room inspired a certain feeling or atmosphere. Freedom from prying ears or taunts let Cory become Romeo or Leigh Ophelia from Hamlet. He expressed Romeo’s angst, as Leigh put it, and she could swoon all over the room lamenting Hamlet’s aloofness towards her as he searched for his father’s murderer. She used the best words to describe Shakespeare’s characters.

It started to make Cory think he wasn’t as good of a poet as he thought he was. Not with the way Leigh used words.

Even Mr. Maragelloto noticed the change in Cory. As they studied Hamlet, Cory participated more and more in the class discussions.

Jason asked Cory to help him with the play. And Cory didn’t mind teaching him between periods and having Jason look at him with amazement gleaming in his eyes. Jason knew about the alumni room and Cory felt at times that he waited to be asked to join the two of them. Six and a half hours with someone like Jason was enough for any person so he never brought it up. But he did enjoy helping him understand Shakespeare. Actually, he liked helping anybody with it now that he could understand it.

Leigh was an amazing actress. You couldn’t say the same for Cory, though. He attempted to help her recite lines and scenes from Romeo and Juliet, but both of them would always end up laughing when he stumbled over a word or said a line with a completely different tone than Shakespeare intended. Leigh would always tell him his performances helped her—helped her to laugh. They always laughed non-stop when they were in the alumni room.

Cory liked it best when Leigh would talk about one of her characters from her play or a scene she was working with. Her characters would come alive as she told their stories. She would prance about the room, sometimes taking on their personalities. She’d throw herself on the couch or fling herself over one of the round tables, still saying her lines as if she couldn’t control it; they just flowed out of her.

Leigh started going home with him everyday. Some days Kym would ask for a ride as well. His car was always packed. Leigh would let Kym sit in the front seat and never mentioned it otherwise. During these rides home, Cory sensed that Kym didn’t like Leigh tagging along for some reason. Jealousy? Wouldn’t that be wonderful!

On the days that Kym came with them he dropped Leigh off first. On every other day, Leigh would be the last person taken home.

They barely talked about Kym, or his feelings for her, but when they did Leigh would listen and give advice like she was their relationship coach. But Leigh was too serious during these conversations so he would change the subject as soon as he could to something senseless. If anybody would’ve heard them together outside of the alumni room, they would’ve never guessed that in the early morning hours they discussed Hamlet.

On the Friday of the big basketball game against Trenton High, Kym went with the cheerleaders to the game early. Joey played point guard on the team and liked her to be at away games. Bobby, Kevin, and Kelly took the fan bus provided by the school going to Trenton High so they stuck around after the last bell to catch it.

When he pulled into Leigh’s driveway, she asked him if he wanted to come in and meet her dad. He had been doing a lot better and wanted to meet the boy who was helping his little girl become the next Juliet.

Her house was nothing like he expected it. He figured it would be glamorous with bright colored drapes and polished tables. He guessed she would own so many books that they would’ve had to dedicate one room to all of them.

The inside was small and cramped like the builder used too much wood in places he shouldn’t have. The side door opened into the kitchen. It was only big enough for a few wood-stained cupboards, a refrigerator, and a stove. The counter space was almost non-existent. His mother would’ve hated that kitchen.

The kitchen went into the living room. The room had dark green carpeting with purplish drapes over the picture window.

The house was simple except for one thing: one of the walls in the living room was a giant mirror. In front of the mirrored-wall sat a black grand piano. The keys were covered with the lid and there was a framed picture of a young, beautiful woman who reminded him of Leigh.

“My mom. This was her piano. She used to play every night. We can’t seem to get rid of it,” Leigh said, picking up the picture and staring at it for a few seconds.

“Can you play?”

“A little, I guess. But my mom was amazing. She was a part of an orchestra in New York before she got sick.”

This was the most serious conversation the two of them ever had. But it warmed Cory inside. He was happy. He didn’t feel like laughing but he felt a sense of friendship he never experienced before.

“Play me something,” he said.

She shot a look at him and her eyes widened. The brown of her eyes appeared a lot softer than he remembered.

“Oh…I don’t think…” She stopped.

“If your mom taught you to play, let her live on through your fingers. There’s nothing wrong with remembering someone special now and then.”

She looked at the picture and ran her fingers over the cover to the keys. She was thinking. Cory learned to let her be at these moments and not interrupt. “Okay, sit with me.”

They sat next to each other on the short black bench. She lifted the key cover slowly, as if it would break off if she moved it too quickly. The keys were a brilliant white and they reminded Cory of Leigh’s smile. She tested a few keys and began playing.

The song was beautiful. Cory didn’t recognize it but it flowed and calmed you like the sounds of the ocean crashing onto the shore.

Leigh’s expression was so solemn that he wouldn’t have been surprised if she started to cry right then and there. Half way through the song, though, she started smiling.

“What the—”

Leigh stopped playing. Her skin paled even more than usual and her eyes expressed a concern Cory had never seen before in anyone.

The man who entered the living room was tall, at least six-five, and very skinny. He wore a pressed, button-down collared blue shirt with thin black slacks. He had slippers on his feet and no socks.

At first Mr. Reynolds looked horrified to see someone sitting behind the piano, let alone playing it again. But then his hardened expression relaxed and he smiled at Cory or at Leigh; he wasn’t sure. He came over behind Leigh and kissed her on the top of her head. His eyes were watering but no tears fell. She continued to play.

Mr. Reynolds sat down on the couch and just listened to his daughter play. He appeared off in his own world and didn’t make any effort to approach or introduce himself to Cory.

It seemed to Cory that they sat there for only minutes, laughing and Leigh playing and discussing songs. Mr. Reynolds even told stories of his wife and her concert days. They all intrigued Cory. But when he looked at the clock on the wall on top of the front door it was already five-thirty.

“Oh, Leigh I have to go. My dad wants me to pull up his garden before it gets too cold.”

He felt odd leaving without introducing himself to her dad. So he went over to him and held out his hand. Mr. Reynolds took it and they shook hands.

“I’m Cory Sutton. I go to school with Leigh.”

Her father looked up at him and smiled. “I know all about you. Call me Paul.”

 

 

 

 

(C) 2010 by rmsl

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrival system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.

Intentions

The phone rang. Cory waited for Kym to answer. He felt light headed and excited as if he was nine again waiting to open presents on his birthday.

Cory realized failing to get his name on the plaque above the English Department didn’t end his career as a poet. He did come in second. To Leigh? But he didn’t feel the need to write just then. It was the middle of October and he only had a little over three months to get ready for baseball tryouts.   godandflndnff

He switched the phone over to his other ear. He hated it when nobody answered at Kym’s house. Were they just not home or was there another reason?

“What?” The man on the other line said the word so quickly Cory wasn’t sure if he pronounced all the letters.

“Er…Hi…is Kym there, please?”

Cory guessed it was her older brother, Johny, or it could’ve been Jimmy, her oldest brother. He wasn’t sure.

“Hello?” Seconds later she answered. Kym seemed agitated that Cory called. She spoke softly and monotone.

They talked for a few minutes before Cory said, “I’ll let you go. You sound tired.”

“No…no. It’s okay.” Her tone sweetened. “Johny’s just being a jerk.”

As if a different person took the phone from Kym and kept talking to him, she continued to perk up.

Cory asked himself, what’s the difference? Ask her. “Wanna go for a walk?”

“Sure. I’ll leave right now.”

Cory couldn’t explain how he felt walking down his street to meet Kym every time they took a walk. She always insisted on meeting him half way, so he stopped making it a big deal. Walking to meet her made him nervous, as if he was going to meet a famous celebrity, but at the same time it felt like a meeting with the Glass Queen—one wrong movement and she would shatter. He knew Kym’s moods well but when she warmed to him, she looked more beautiful than any other girl Cory knew real or imagined.

Kym had on the same outfit she wore to school that day. She walked with her head down, rubbing her chubby arms. Kym was about five feet six inches tall, but in no way was she a large girl. Cory liked to call her “healthy.”

Kym was distant at first. Small talk controlled their conversation. Then suddenly, “Why do people make you feel like crap and then wonder why you don’t want to be around them?” She gave a sarcastic laugh and looked up at him.

Great. This was her warm mood. Cory could feel their closeness growing. His nervousness vanished by now and his arms quivered. A feeling of comfort flooded his body and he had a hard time not staring at her lips.

“What happened? Tell me,” he said.

Kym talked for a while. She said her parents asked her to go on trip next weekend to her aunt’s house, someone’s birthday. She had agreed at first, but then she realized she already promised Gwen to help at the cheerleaders’ car wash that Saturday. She couldn’t go on the trip now. But they didn’t understand. She promised Gwen.

Even though Kym talked and talked, Cory sensed she really had said nothing at all about what bothered her. She could never open herself up to him. Cory thought he was an open book and he was willing to read her pages over and over. Except for the fact he had feelings for her. But she kept her cover completely closed.

“He thinks I’m good for nothing.”

“No he doesn’t, Kym.” Cory just loved the sound of her name. Whenever he heard it, it brought romantic sensations of nostalgia and warmth.

“He coulda fooled me. He hasn’t spoke to me since yesterday and when he does, it’s just because he has to.”

“I don’t think you’re worthless. Kym, you know you’re not.”

“Yeah, well…”

“Why can’t you ever just accept a compliment from me, huh?”

She laughed artificially. “When you’re told your whole life that you don’t matter or you’re a piece of crap…it’s a little hard to think otherwise.”

Sometimes Cory thought she exaggerated her home life. He noticed her dad was a little distant on visits, but her mom was a bubbly, loving older version of Kym.

“What do ya think you’ll get on your report card this quarter?” she asked after a few minutes of silent walking.

“I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.”

She smiled like she smiled at him after school when she congratulated him on his poem. He loved her like this.

“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

“Nope,” he said.

If she knew about it, Kym never mentioned what he said to Gwen earlier in study hall.

 

The hallway felt cold. The shirt under his sweatshirt felt damp, but the air on his face was brisk.

He hadn’t written anything for two weeks since the poetry contest. His workouts grew in intensity and he shed eight pounds since the beginning of school. Mr. Foster watched as he zipped up and down the L-shaped halls.

“You better watch out,” he said quietly.

“Huh?”

Mr. Foster’s words registered too late and he smacked right into Leigh Reynolds. Her books went flying in the air, but she caught herself on the edge of a wall. She looked embarrassed.

Cory immediately went to the floor and helped her pick up her things. When he handed her the last notebook, and their eyes met, he smiled at her. She smiled back. He couldn’t understand why his feelings of annoyance for her left him or when they did. He just knew he wanted to smile at her. Maybe it was because he called Kym last night and she was in a really good mood; or maybe all his running that morning left him dizzy.

“Thanks,” she said.

He started to run again. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught her going into a room on the right of the hallway.

 

Cory wondered all day why Leigh was at school so early. He had never seen a student any earlier than 8:15 before. He didn’t get a chance to talk to her during English class so he waited for ninth period study hall. He felt anxious all day.

When he walked into study hall, Leigh was already sitting at a desk. She saw him walk in, got up, and sat right next to him.

He never apologized to her for how he treated her the first couple months of school, but he could tell she somehow sensed he was sorry.

She spoke first, “About the contest…I want…I didn’t—”

He cut her off. “Forget about it. Your poem was beautiful.”

“But I want you to know—”

“Look, I said to forget about it.”

She smiled with relief. It looked like a giant weight floated away from her shoulders. Her expression seemed to show she understood that Cory wasn’t mad about her winning and that it was really old news.

“Hey, why were you here so early?”

This question interested her because she turned in her seat, placing her long right leg under her other long leg. Her cheeks came to life and her large eyes glowed.

“I’m practicing. For the play in April. I want to be Juliet.”

“For the play? In the basement?”

“Yeah, in the alumni room. Mr. Maragelloto told me about it and he leaves it unlocked for me.”

She was unstoppable now. She told Cory how one day Mr. Maragelloto caught her reciting lines outside of his classroom. He told her that this school has not had a decent Juliet in years.

“So he told me about the alumni room. It has tapes of all the past plays the school’s put on. He also gave me other tapes of Romeo and Juliet so I can study the Juliets’ movements and tone. The morning is the only time I can go there because…”

Cory wasn’t sure he was glad he decided to talk to her. She told him about her father and how she tried to look after him as much as she could. They had moved here a little over a year ago before junior year because of her dad’s job. She told him how spending time with her dad and not going out for the basketball team made it hard for her to make friends here.

“But you’re so tall.”

“Yeah,” she smirked, “But I suck. Too clumsy.”

Cory laughed. It was easy to talk to her. She was so involved in what Cory said or asked.

“Is your dad sick or something?”

Her lively expression faded. Cory wished he had never asked her.

“My mother died.”

Cory realized talking about her mother dying was tough on Leigh, but that she sort of enjoyed telling him. She said she and her dad moved here after it happened. His job transferred him into an easier and less stressful position. But he has never been the same. She worried about him but he was getting better.

“Before my mom died…I was scared of everything. I always wanted to be in a play but I couldn’t even bring myself to sign up for set crew. But I promised myself I wouldn’t be afraid of anything anymore. That’s why I’m writing my own play. I’m determined to be Juliet too and the poetry contest…”

At that moment, Cory felt closer to Leigh than any person in his entire life. They barely knew each other but she was telling him these things like they were friends since birth. He envied her openness.

The bell rang. Boy, that was quick! Usually study hall seemed to go on forever, listening to the drivel of the cheerleaders or the macho-ranting of the football players.

 

Cory made his way through the students mobbing the gym floor. He forgot there was a basketball game later. The cheerleaders were practicing and most of the male student body stood around and watched.

Why hadn’t he just waited for Bobby and Kevin in the car like he usually did?

Leigh was standing in a group of students by the stage. Probably the set crew. When she spotted him, she ran over.

“What’s up?”

“I dunno. Do you need a ride a home?” Cory didn’t know where the question came from. He was tired of being a taxi service for the brothers and Kelly and now he was adding one more to his list of passengers.

Leigh’s face lit up. She smiled so largely that Cory could’ve counted each one of her teeth. He also noticed her button nose redden at the tip. She was so excited.

“Sure! We don’t have crew today because of the game. Let me get my things.”

Cory saw it all unfold before it actually happened.

Gwen was standing over by the door to the girls’ locker room with the other cheerleaders. Kym and Joey were there too. Just next to the door was a blue Goodwill bin.

It all happened in slow motion.

He saw Kym start to walk over to him with her back to Gwen. He saw Gwen’s leg rise. He saw her foot against the blue Goodwill bin. He saw her slide it along the floor, right in Leigh’s path to the stage.

Leigh must not have been paying attention to where she was going or maybe she was so excited to get a ride from Cory that she didn’t see the bin cross her path. She had ran to the stage so when her legs hit the bin, she tumbled face first over it. Her legs flailed in the air and she landed on her back.

“Maybe you can find an outfit for tomorrow?” Gwen taunted.

Everybody laughed.

Kym didn’t see what happened and looked confused when Cory passed her to go to Leigh.

She was okay. He helped her to her feet. She wasn’t even mad. This girl is so strange. He would’ve been furious. She went to get her things.

“You know, Gwen, what’s wrong with you?”

All the cheerleaders were still laughing.

Joey looked a little embarrassed to be there, though. He wasn’t smiling in the slightest.

“What’s wrong with me?” she said sarcastically.

Cory could’ve threw her across the gym. Why was he so upset? Leigh was handling it better than him.

“Gwen, why don’t you go take a shower. You look dirtier than ever today.”

As Leigh and him walked away, Kym stopped them. She hadn’t seen what Gwen did but she had a frightful expression on her face.

“Call me tonight, okay? I need to talk.”

Cory was so mad at what happened to Leigh that he transferred his anger to Kym. Her smile and pleading blue eyes didn’t affect him this time.

“Yeah, well…why don’t you go talk to Gwen? She’s your best friend isn’t she?”

 

Leigh lived closer to Cory than he expected. He dropped off the brothers and then drove her home.

“Thanks for back at the gym. But I’m really okay. You didn’t have to treat Kym like that either. I know how much you like her.”

“That girl just gets me. Who cares how you dress? I don’t know how Kym can be friends with her. They’re so different.”

‘Cory, it’s actually what I wanted.”

“What? You wanted to fall on your face in front of everybody?”

She laughed like she knew something that Cory didn’t.

“Well…no…but I’ve been dressing like this for research. For my play. I needed to see how people really treated someone like this. For a character.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah, the character’s coming along great. That girl has actually helped me a lot. So have you.”

Leigh looked at her hands in her waist. She seemed to be thinking something over in her head.

She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

“Thanks again,” she said as she got out of the car.

Cory sat in the driveway for a few seconds before he pulled away. That girl was definitely strange.

 

 

(C) 2010 by rmsl 

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrival system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.

A Reluctant Winner

Leigh Reynolds didn't talk to Cory again for three weeks.

Mr. Maragelloto ended their study of the Renaissance by announcing the annual Senior Poetry Contest would begin accepting entries tomorrow at first bell.

The winner would be announced over the P.A. system and have their name printed on the plaque above the door to the English Department. Names on that plaque went as far back as 1922.

But something told Cory that the present student body didn’t take it as seriously as the ones from years ago.

Cory knew he would win because Mr. Maragelloto had been the first teacher who actually loved his work. And he was the head judge. He told him once: “You write well, but you have to let your readers into your pain or happiness. If you keep at it like this, I see nothing that will stop you.” At first, this made Cory angry because it reminded him of what Leigh had told him about his writing and he found his annoyance with that girl grew everyday.

But once he got home from school the day Leigh stole his journal, his pencil flew across the page as if he was possessed. He didn’t hold anything back. He didn’t use any hidden messages or mysterious metaphors and even Mr. Foster would know who the girl in the poem was.

The only thing worrying him a little was that the winning poem was also read over the P.A. system and that would mean Kym would hear it. Or did it motivate him?

Leigh came up to his locker after English class. She wore brown pants and a brown shirt with short sleeves. She looked like a U.P.S. driver. Cory noticed how long her arms were as she wrapped her books close to her chest. She probably had a longer reach than a heavy weight boxer.

“You’re gonna enter the poetry contest, right?” she said.

“If nobody steals my entry,” Cory snapped.

Leigh laughed.

He stopped himself. He was treating her like so many others had treated him through the years. And she hadn’t really been mean to him. It was actually a compliment that she took his journal. His tone of voice towards her bothered him a little, but he couldn’t stand the way the girl looked at him. It was as if she could read his thoughts.

“Well, any one of your poems should win. Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

She walked away, towering over most of the girls. Except the basketball players. Cory wondered why Leigh didn’t play. She was definitely tall enough.

Cory stood at his locker. Kym and Joey were locked in a hug and he appeared to be talking sweetly into her ear. Kym blushed and turned away. They started going out at the end of junior year. Cory guessed the relationship wouldn’t have survived the summer but he was wrong.

When Carl Krachi came up behind Kym, Joey lowered his hands pretending to squeeze her butt. He winked at Carl and they both laughed silently. Kym caught him. She slapped his shoulder but didn’t look upset. Joey’s expression was one of exaggerated innocence.

When Cory walked by them he heard Kym say: “Oh, so you’re a player now, huh?” Cory didn’t hear any more of the conversation but he saw Kym giggling when he went into his second period class.

 

Cory’s schedule turned out to be worse than he ever imagined it to be. His ninth period was a study hall but it was with the cheerleaders, football players, and a group of chronic underachievers.

He tried everyday to not sit next to the cheerleaders but whatever he did they always managed to be an earshot away. The cheerleaders annoyed him, especially Gwen Leanetti. They sat there the whole period talking about boys and clothes and what they ate for the day: “Well, I heard if you eat only lettuce leaves your waist shrinks,” or “Danny Suchek smiled at me today,” or “I found the cutest skirt at Old Navy yesterday.”

It sickened him.

Some days he would tutor other students in math or explain what they were reading in English class to a group of students. But when they started Shakespeare, he wouldn’t be able to help. Shakespeare just confused him.

Tutoring made study hall bearable at times. He even helped some of the students in his physics class with the formulas they learned that day. Occasionally a football player or a cheerleader would ask for his help, but never Gwen.

Gwen Leanetti was Kym’s best friend. Cory was so glad when Kym quit cheerleading after sophomore year. But the girls had been friends since grade school so they still hung out all the time. She was really short with dark hair that curled up on the sides. Her hair made it look like she had a giant w on top of her head. And her tan skin almost made her look dirty at times, but it didn’t seem to bother any of the other boys chasing after her. Gwen seemed to have a new boyfriend every week.

But nothing would annoy him today. Today Mr. Maragelloto was announcing the winner of the poetry contest at the end of the period. He turned in his poem about Kym four days ago, right after first bell.

He felt his life would change after he won. He would show his parents how good of a writer he had become and he would spotlight Kym for the entire school. Maybe once she knew how well he could write, she would realize he wrote that poem back in eighth grade and not Billy Westbrook.

“Everyday we’re forced to look at that. I can’t believe how she dresses,” said Michelle.

“It’s disgusting.” Gwen put her finger in her mouth and gagged.

Cory didn’t like the fact Leigh took his journal and read it, but it annoyed him more that Gwen and her clones were making fun of her. Who cares if Leigh chose to wear clothes the color of animal barf or if her shorts were always cutoff sweat pants? Gwen looked like she worked in a chimney! Sometimes Cory felt that if Gwen was not Kym’s best friend, she might have felt differently about him.

The kicker was that Leigh could probably hear everything they said. She sat three desks over from Cory.

It seemed to him that everyday the seat Leigh chose ended up being closer to his than the day before. She had on tan shorts and a white shirt with a big, green dinosaur on the back. Cory guessed it was a free shirt from the zoo they would give you if you went on a special trip. Her shoes were white with bright red sections and her tan socks ended just above her anklebones.

He didn’t understand why she wanted to dress like crap, but Gwen’s rolling eyes and sighs irritated him much more. And the way the other cheerleaders unquestioningly followed her made it worse. He usually never paid any attention to the cheerleaders, lost in his writing, but today he could not keep from listening in.

He was about to tell Gwen to shut her mouth when static rung out of the P.A. system. Cory looked at the clock: 3:20. Announcements. He sat up in his desk and stared at the P.A. box like it was speaking directly to him.

The principal made her daily announcements. Glee club cancelled because Miss Timmonson was out; the cheerleaders were selling bakery in the north hall after school to raise money for new uniforms; reminders that the boys’ bathrooms had garbage cans in each of them and they were to be used; the football team had a meeting after school at 4:30 Lombardi time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, get to it, get to it. Cory couldn’t take feeling so many emotions at once any longer. He only wanted to feel nervous about the next time he talked to Kym.

“And finally, we all know the seniors have been anticipating the winners of the poetry contest…”

Yeah, right! The noise in the room barely lowered when the announcements started except when they heard the word cheerleader or football.

“…Mr. Maragelloto…head judge…will announce your winners…”

For some reason, Cory caught a glimpse of Leigh. She was looking down at her desk. She appeared to be worried or nervous. When Mr. Maragelloto announced the second runner-up, she glanced up at Cory with an air of relief. For a brief moment, Cory thought her big brown eyes were actually rather pretty.

“First runner-up, Cory Sutton with Everlasting Kiss.”

His heart broke.

Was it real? If he thought the shock of losing would crumble every bone in his body or the fact that once again Kym wouldn’t hear one of his poems written for her, when he heard the winner he felt as if they would turn to dust.

Mr. Maragelloto’s voice was clear and sharp: “Leigh Ann Reynolds with The Perfect Blue.”

Cory stared at the P.A. box as if more were to come, that Mr. Maragelloto had made a mistake, the real winner was…

Leigh choked when she heard her name. She paid no attention to her poem being read to the whole school or the cheerleaders who were still talking about her wardrobe. She only turned quickly in her seat and looked at Cory. He thought she looked horrified.

The final bell sounded.

“Those shorts are so shab. If it wasn’t for the stringy long hair, I’d think she was a boy,” Gwen said, as Cory passed her on his way out of the classroom.

Cory didn’t know what came over him. He felt as if somebody had taken control over his brain. An hour later, he didn’t even remember what he said to Gwen.

“At least intelligence isn’t measured by what you wear because if it was, your I.Q. would match your bra size.”

He didn’t wait for a reply. He knew Gwen would tell Kym what he said, but for some reason it didn’t matter then. Maybe he was going crazy? Sticking up for someone you thought was less annoying than someone else who crushed your dreams and plans in an instant…none of it made sense to him…his head hurt.

Out in the hallway, Leigh tried to catch up to him. For a few seconds the students flooding the hallway slowed Cory’s quick trot to a brisk walk and she managed to keep pace for a few feet.

“I didn’t mean—I only had to—Thanks.”

The mass of bodies cleared a path. Cory shot through it like a hard hit grounder through a hole at short, books clutched under his right arm and his head down. Leigh fell behind.

 

The gym was storming with students waiting for rides and hanging out. During football season the gym wasn’t used for much except Drama Club. It had a small foyer that lead directly outside of the school. Boys were kissing girls, boys were chasing and hitting each other, girls were standing and watching the boys—It was a zoo without keepers.

Cory didn’t know what led him there. Probably to avoid seeing Leigh. But also it was where Bobby and Kevin hung out after school and he wanted to leave. He needed to go home.

“Congratulations, Cory.”

He started to shrug but when he realized it was Kym he forced a smile and said thanks.

“I didn’t know you still wrote,” she said, flashing him a smile that turned his insides into spaghetti…with meatballs. She had on a light blue tank top with super thin straps and a pair of tan shorts cuffed at the bottom. Her light blue flip-flops quacked as she came closer. “I remember that one story…about the little girl. Didn’t you win something for that a couple years back?”

“You remember that?” His knees shook and his eyes darted from her plump, moist lips and her smooth neck.

“Sure. But I guess you’re at it again, aren’t you?”

He loved it when she flirted with him. Her ample cheeks would blush and her eyes seemed so inviting.

He also knew it meant they would be spending time together soon or talking on the phone later. This improved his mood a little. Kym didn’t ask him for anything—money, notes from class, or even to run silly errands—but she did seek him out as a pseudo-confidant. She didn’t really let him in to what truly troubled her but she did seem to enjoy him trying to find out.

Kym put her hand on her waist as if she was waiting for something. Her right hip pointed in the opposite position than her left side and her shoulders curled inward towards her chest. Cory realized later that she probably was waiting for him to show her the poem or tell her about it. But he was an idiot. And he knew she would probably not mention it again.

No, he wasn’t an idiot…he was a frightened little child. Why couldn’t he just give her the poem? Maybe if she wasn’t dating Joey. He knew Joey was harmless, but he did hold it against him that he dated Kym. And she seemed so happy with him. Cory liked it when Kym smiled.

“Kym, let’s go. I gotta pick up my lil’ brother.”

Joey came over.

Too late now.

As Joey walked away Kym looked at Cory. “Call me later, okay?”

“Sure.”

Cory sat down on a bleacher. He sighed and looked around the gym for Bobby or Kevin. He spotted Kelly’s ponytail whipping at her back. Within seconds he found Bobby and headed over to them.

Even though he lost the poetry contest, Kym lifted his spirits. Taking their walks or talking on the phone made Cory feel special. As if she showed him a part of herself that she didn’t show to anyone else. It felt like they shared a secret that Bobby or Kevin or even Gwen would never know. He knew Joey didn’t like the fact they were friends. This cheered him up even more.

As he waited for Kevin he noticed Leigh on the stage staring at him. Well, she tried to not make it so obvious but he could tell she was staring at him. She turned knobs and positioned spotlights on the stage. Cory felt her eyes on him like he had so many other times. This time it didn’t bother him. Even though she won the contest, he almost felt sorry for her.

Her big, brown eyes looked sad and her mouth was formed as if she was mad at herself for something.

Just as Kevin came out of the bathroom, Cory thought she was going to come down off the stage to talk to him again. He almost went up to her.

(C) 2010 by rmsl 

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrival system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.

Ophelia’s Gamble

Cory’s friends were late. They weren’t really his friends, but two brothers who lived on his street that his mother made him drive home. Neither one was old enough to drive yet and their parents couldn’t afford the busing because they lived two-point-five miles from the school. You had to live two-point-seven miles from Cranwood High to qualify for the free service. He sat in his ’74, reading Beowulf. At least this gave him time to do his homework.

He picked up the reading list for his English class. Shakespeare. He knew he would have to read it this year, but he could never understand it. He tried. Actually, he had a hard time interrupting other authors as well. His words flooded from his head to his pencil, but the words of others occasionally confused him. Especially Shakespeare’s how art thous and hitheros. Maybe it was because he had so much rolling around in his head? That girl reading Hamlet must have been trying to show off. Cory didn’t think anyone understood Shakespeare let alone chose to read it on their own.

“Freshman girls are so silly,” said Bobby as he opened the door to Cory’s car. “I don’t know why you would ever wanna date one.”

“Dude, you got Kelly. I need a homecoming date. It’s more fun to break in new girls than pretending with girls who already know you. Aren’t you sick of looking at that girl yet? A year and half? Wow,” answered Kevin.

Cory watched as Kelly lifted her hand, hatred in her eyes, to slap Kevin in the back of the head. Bobby saved him.

“Dude, she’s in the car. You don’t mind, Core, right?”

Cory shifted his books back into his bag. He grunted, pulling out of the school parking lot. Kelly only lived ten minutes out of the way, why would it bother him to take her home too? He felt like an unpaid taxi service.

He dropped each of them off at their houses and then made his way home. He closed the screen door behind him, throwing his bags on the kitchen floor. His parents wouldn’t be home until six so he had the house to himself for a couple of hours. He pulled out his journal. He had to search the throw-everything-into drawer next to the sink for a pencil. He poured himself a cup of coffee, sugar and cream, and sat down in his dad’s chair.

Writing to him was like an ADHD kid taking his Ritalin. It calmed his chaotic thoughts and simmered his emotions into coherent sentences and phrases. Boy, did he need to write. Poems mostly, but he wrote a story now and then.

Cory sighed as the pencil scribbled on a blank page of his journal. If he let Jason read it, he would love it. No criticisms. No help. He stopped showing him his poems as frequently as he did in the past, but he made sure to feed him one every now and then. He would have loved to show Kym his poems but after what happened in eighth grade it did not seem right, like he was trying to get her to like him the same way another guy had. He kept the original of that first poem taped to the inside of every new journal he kept, though. Besides, he knew what she would say if he told her he wanted to be a poet if baseball didn’t work out for him: “Cory, that’s sweet and all but what are you gonna do all day, sit and drink coffee with a beret on your head and pretend to be sad all the time?” she would ask. “Are there really people who do that?”

The funny thing was that anybody who read his poems, teachers or family members, didn’t think they were good. Cory just figured they didn’t understand them. His mom and dad thought it was silly for him to sit around writing all the time. “Go out. Leave. Find a girl friend,” his brother would say to him when mom made him go and get him out of his room for dinner. Honestly, the only one whose opinion ever mattered to him was Chelsea Blaketelli’s.

Chelsea was one of his favorite memories. He met her the summer after eighth grade at their campgrounds. She gave him the best compliment he had ever received. Chelsea had long, curly black hair and dark brown eyes. She was as tall as Cory and wore glasses that left tan lines above her ears. She was super skinny, toothpick legs and noodle arms, but she had to wear a real bra by the age of twelve. He didn’t remember her as being beautiful anymore, but for that summer she was the most gorgeous girl he knew. He had tried to get over Kym that summer, but it didn’t work.

Chelsea was the only other girl he had ever written a poem to. It wasn’t much better than the first one to Kym, and it didn’t result in a kiss or date from Chelsea, but it was on that swing set Cory decided to become a writer. She read the poem, swinging back and forth, bare feet scraping the dirt patch under the swing set. When she was finished she looked up at him and said: “You should be a writer.” He knew it sounded melodramatic, like a young musician getting his first guitar from his idol or something, but that moment stuck with Cory. He had never thought much of his writing before that day.

It wasn’t until the following summer that it had any impact on him, though. The first weekend out camping he ran into Matt, Chelsea’s younger brother. By this time Cory left Chelsea’s crush far behind him and was dreaming of Kym again. During their game of pool in the game room, Chelsea’s name came up. Matt told him that she memorized his poem and recited it to everyone she met. It shocked him a little, someone remembering it when she didn’t like him like that, but it sparked something in Cory. That night in the tent, he stayed up all night because his mind would not stop running…

“Wake up. Wake up, you idiot!”

Cory opened his eyes. His brother stood next to him, scowling. “Dad’s gonna be pissed. You didn’t cut the grass. If he knew you just sat around all afternoon—”

Cory shot out of the chair. It was 5:45 and his dad came home at six.

 

Cory listened as Kym read her poem in front of the class. They had finished Beowulf a few days ago and were now on to the Renaissance. The first few weeks of school had been uneventful. He worked out in the morning, drove Bobby and Kevin and Kelly home, and tried to write before his parents came home and made him do his chores. But now it was the poetry section of their literature anthology and Cory felt the excitement bubbling inside of his stomach every time he walked into first period.

Their homework last night was to write a four-stanza poem about anything they wanted. Kym’s poem was cute but she forced a couple of rhymes and tried to match a long a sound with a short o sound. Student’s giggled while she read it but she laughed too when she sat down. Cory didn’t care how bad the poem was because he would’ve enjoyed listening to her recite the phone book. He met her eyes when she walked back to her seat and mouthed, “It was good.” She gave an appreciative smile and sighed.

“We have time for one more. How about…” Mr. Maragelloto said, scanning the turned down heads and eyes trying to avoid his, “…Mr. Sutton?”

Cory walked to the front of the class. Joey called out “flower child” disguised as a cough. The class laughed. Cory couldn’t understand why Joey was in this class, let alone any of the other honors classes he was in. But he was perfect. He dated Kym.

Mr. Maragelloto quieted the class down. Cory unfolded his paper and read his poem. It was about an old baseball player describing how the field was so beautiful to him and how he would never reach the major leagues now that his career was coming to an end. He used assonance and consonance beautifully in each line and colored imagery of the green grass contrasting the brown dirt and white, chalky lime. When he looked up from his paper during stanza breaks he made eye contact with Kym. She smiled at him each time. He wondered if she knew the poem was actually a metaphor for their relationship.

Most of the students doodled in a notebook or whispered to someone next to them. But Kym and Jason listened. During the last stanza, Cory felt another set of eyes on him. The feeling was so bothersome that he had to glance up. It was the Hamlet reader. Her eyes were large and so was her mouth, but she wasn’t smiling or laughing. Her stare was constant and it made Cory feel uncomfortable. He rushed through the last few lines as if someone pushed the fast forward button on a DVD player. The bell rang.

Students rushed out of the room. Cory felt crushed. Another moment with Kym wasted. Jason brought him his literature anthology and they walked out together to second period.

Cory did not even notice he left his journal on his desk.

 

It wasn’t until the middle of third period Cory realized his journal was gone. His stomach fell to his feet. Don’t panic. It had to be in one of the classes. A teacher probably picked it up.

He had been so depressed and confused about what happened in English class that he zoned through second period. No one’s going to care about his journal. It only mattered to him.

Cory couldn’t wait until lunchtime so he could go and ask his teachers if they found it. Jason noticed something wasn’t right and asked him about four times what was wrong. Finally Cory just told him that he was tired, working out in the morning and all. Jason accepted the answer. Jason would’ve been the only other person who cared about the journal. But Cory couldn’t tell him he lost it. Jason would go around asking everybody if they had seen it and Cory didn’t need any more drama in his life or another reason for somebody to laugh at him. So he waited. Until lunchtime. Maybe Kym found it?

As Mrs. Green told him that she didn’t find any books left after class, Cory felt faint. Mr. Maragelloto didn’t find anything either. His heart zigzagged inside his chest like a caged bird spooked by a cat. He walked to the lunchroom feeling like he was in a tunnel and everything around him was dark. Who would take it? It wasn’t Jason because he would’ve given it to him right away. Did he wish Kym had found it? Maybe his secret would come out. What would happen then? It sickened and excited him at the same time.

When the last bell of the day sounded, Cory almost couldn’t get out of his seat. He wandered the hallways of the school as if his journal would just be lying on the ugly colored tiles waiting for him. He didn’t care if he kept Bobby and Kevin waiting. He realized he was being silly and that his journal was gone so he left through the front doors in search of his car. He didn’t remember where he parked it.

“If you keep wimpin’ out,” a voice said, “no one will ever know who you’re writing about.”

Cory looked up from the steps and almost tripped. The Hamlet girl was sitting on a step about twenty feet away with his journal opened on her lap. She had long, straight brown hair that reached far below the middle of her back. She was tall as well, probably as tall as Cory. She had bulging brown eyes and a large, oval mouth. She wore green shorts that went past her knees, cut from a pair of sweat pants, and a yellow shirt with arm length sleeves. She was plain and more of a geek than he was. She stared at Cory the same way she did during class. He shivered.

“Here,” she said, handing his journal to him. “I found it in English class.”

Cory couldn’t believe he had his journal back.

“I didn’t actually find it. I sort of took it. I wanted to read more of your stuff.”

Cory leafed through it as if to make sure none of the words were stolen from its pages.

“You read it?”

“Yeah, well most of it. You’re really good. I can’t write like that. But you need to open yourself up more. Let people feel with you.” She took the journal out of his hands and searched through it. “This one’s my favorite.”

Cory snatched the journal back and stuffed it into his bag. He was too shocked about the way this girl acted to even be mad.

“I was thinking maybe we could get together some time and you could read my stuff,” she said.

The nerve of this girl! He had never really felt hatred towards someone before, even Joey, but this girl was about to make history.

“I don’t think so.”

“Come on. I’m just trying to make friends. I told myself I would this year.”

“You have a pretty sick way of making friends. Stealing is always a good start.”

She smiled politely like Cory had just told a bad joke and she wanted to be nice. She came over to him and grabbed his hand, shaking it up and down. “I’m Leigh Ann Reynolds. But you can just call me Leigh. How’s that?”

Cory even hated how her voice sounded and her name made her sound like a man. He glared at her and walked past.

“Hey, does that girl in English class know you like her?”

He stopped and turned around. “What?”

“That girl in class. The one you wrote your poem about.”

How could she know that? For a moment Cory forgot his anger, surprised someone could interrupt his poem.

“It was wonderful how you compared her love to the major leagues. And how beautifully you described the field, it was obvious you were writing about her.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I gotta go.”

From his car he watched her walk around the building and then he pulled away.