A FELLOW OTHELLO
(Part 2)
Tommy
was trying not to make it look obvious that he was now dating Rachel. They didn’t want anyone talking about their
business. They sat at different tables, but
they were sitting so that they could look at each other, thinking the whole
time that no one noticed. Of course that
was wrong.
“Did
you notice,” Gale said as she leaned into Barbara so that the bigger girl could
hear her.
“The
way the two stare at each other,” Gale said a bit of mischievousness in her
voice.
“What
are you talking about,” Barbara asked.
“Can’t
you see how Tommy and Rachel are staring at each other,” Jenny said from the
other side of Barbara. “Like they think
they’re in some vampire story.”
Barbara
looked at the two; she was sitting on the other side of the table from Rachel,
but far enough away so that Rachel couldn’t hear the conversation. Turning her head she looked over at Tommy and
then back at Rachel.
“Well,
I’ll be,” Barbara said as she began to stand up. “She said that she wasn’t going to date him.”
“Yeah?”
Gale said in question. “You must be
kidding.”
“We’ll
just see about that,” Barbara said as she lifted up her pants, pulling them
over her belly.
Barbara
was a larger girl who had a big attitude to match. She walked with a purpose in everything she
did, and this time was no different. She
stopped right in front of Rachel, blocking her view of Tommy. Rachel looked up at the large girl standing
in front of her, taking all of Rachel’s attention.
“Hi
Barbara,” Rachel said. “What’s up?”
“Don’t
give me that missy,” Barbara said shaking her finger and raising her
voice. “You said you weren’t
interested.”
“What
are you talking about,” Rachel asked.
“You
said the last time I talked to you that you weren’t interested in Tommy,”
Barbara said, turning slightly to point towards where Tommy was sitting. “Did he trick you or something,” Barbara
asked. “Or are you just some hootsie
tootsie girl that goes around stealing boys.”
“No
way,” Rachel said, realizing that everyone at the table was beginning to stare.
“He didn’t trick me,” she almost giggled
as she continued. “And I don’t steal
boys.”
“Then
why are you dating him,” Gale yelled out from down at her side of the table.
Rachel
pointed eyes of poison at the girl, but looked back at Barbara.
“Listen
Barb,” Rachel said. “I value my
friendship with you, but I am my own person.”
Rachel explained. “You know my
history, how people have hurt me over and over again. That I don’t trust easily. There’s no way that I would allow anyone to
ever trick me again.” She paused as she
looked up at the towering, larger girl.
“And this is America, I can date who I want.”
Barbara
put her hands on her hips, a thoughtful look crossing her face.
“But
you said you weren’t interested,” Barbara asked, her voice filled with a hint
of anguish at losing a potential boyfriend.
“How can you tell me that you changed your mind?”
“Well,
because I didn’t say I wasn’t interested.
I said that I wasn’t sure if I
was interested,” Rachel explained. “That it would take something to convince me
that he was a nice guy and not some jerk.”
“So, I
take it that he did something to prove himself to you,” Barbara asked,
suggesting something lewd had been done.
“Yeah,”
Rachel said. “He turned out to be a
really nice guy.”
“OOOOHHHHH,”
Barbara giggled and the surrounding students at both Rachel’s and Tommy’s table
copied; Gale and Jenny the loudest of the group.
“That’s
not what I meant,” Rachel said, blushing.
Tommy’s friend’s elbowed him and slapped him on the back, Tommy ignored
them. “I just found out that he’s not
some shallow jerk like the rest of the boys in this jerkwater of a school.”
“You
all shut your mouths if you know what’s good for yah,” Barbara said, her eyes
of poison looking between the two tables. She needed to think of what to say
and couldn’t concentrate from all the noise. “I don’t want to have to beat any
of you.”
And
just as quickly the moment passed. Those
who had been disturbed by the noise and commotion had already gone back to
eating. By the time the lunch monitors
had made it over to the table everything had quieted down.
***
The bus
was bumping along the road on its way to the observatory. Looking out the side windows, on a small hill
was the large building that had a dome in the center of it. There was a large parking lot in front that
was filled with busses, cars and people moving towards the entrances of the
building. It looked like a giant ant
hill that was alternately getting filled and emptied at the same time by worker
ants.
Sitting
towards the middle of the bus in a three-seater was Tommy and Rachel. Sitting across from them was Gale and Jimmy
who were also sharing a seat. Gale was
talking to Jenny who was sitting in front of Gale. Jenny had only sat next to
Jimmy to keep Rachel from seeing him.
The story was that Tommy and Rachel were dating, but Jenny wasn’t
convinced, she knew better. Gale had
told her that it was just some big cover to throw Jenny off the way that Rachel
was going after Jimmy. Of course Jenny
was still upset with Jimmy because she thought he was cheating on her with
Rachel and he had been on that phone call with her. In Jenny’s fourteen year old brain, that’s
all that could have been going on.
Rachel was bad news and Jenny didn’t like her.
Gale
and Jenny were sitting in the aisle seat talking back and forth as if they were
talking about the most important things in the world, all the while Jenny
ignored Jimmy who was forced to stare out the window as they drove along.
Gale
looked over at Rachel and tried to include her in the conversation, ignoring
the dirty looks from Jenny. Gale could
handle that later, and Gale was certain Jenny would approve of the taunting she
would be doing.
“So
Rachel, you said that Tommy had proven himself.
How,” Gale asked. “I’m not trying
to say he did anything bad, but I figured whatever he did must have been pretty
spectacular for you to trust him after your past.”
Rachel
looked over at Gale, trying to gauge if Gale was trying to be rude or was
sincere. Rachel decided to give Gale the
benefit of the doubt, even she suspected that Gale was trying to be a snake.
“He
gave me this necklace,” Rachel said, pulling a silver chain from under her
shirt. “He said it was something his
mother had worn before she had died, and that for as long as we went out I
could wear it because he knew that I was special like his mom.”
“Wow,”
Jenny said as Gale just looked on thoughtfully, considering that Gale might be
wrong. Jenny quickly discarded that idea because she just couldn’t trust
Rachel.
“That’s
pretty incredible,” Gale said.
“Assuming…” But Gale didn’t finish the statement.
“Assuming
what,” Rachel asked. By this time in the trip Tommy had fallen asleep, his head
leaning against the window, then leaning back as the bus bounced along, moving
his head. Gale gave an extra glance over
towards him to make sure that he was asleep.
“That
it really was his mother’s and not something that he picked up from
Walmart,” Gale said and then saw the
look on Rachel’s face. “Which I’m sure
he wasn’t lying about that. You would
never see something that nice there.” Gale backpedaled.
A tear
pierced Rachel’s eye, but she quickly wiped it away. Pulling the necklace off her head, she
stuffed it into her binder, thinking that she didn’t want it on her in case she
lost it, but knowing that it was because she wasn’t sure it was real. Which meant that if it wasn’t real then Tommy’s
feelings for her were fake.
Gale watched
from her seat, Jenny marveled at her friends ability to destroy.
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