“Well, when I was born, needless to say…not a boy!” I had a certain tone that was both sarcastic and pointed, to both emphasize the story and hint to Reed that I heard his conversation. He didn’t seem to flinch, but I was proud of my passive aggression regardless.
“And so they just stuck with the name?” he asked.
“Well, there was some debate. My dad started to go back to the list of girl names they kicked around months before. But my mom, well, she sort of started to get pissed off, yelling at my dad about how girls can do the same things boys can, and why isn’t their daughter good enough for a hall-of-famer’s name, blah blah blah. So when it came time to put it down for permanent record, they went for it. And voila – here I am!”
We were finally at the classroom and Reed stopped to hold the door open for me, his stupid smile in full force now. As I walked through the rows of tables, I headed for the middle back, not turning to see which direction Reed had gone. I threw my backpack over one of the chairs and slid into the seat and was startled when I heard Reed’s backpack hit the floor next to me as he slid into the other seat at my table. I turned to face him, a bit puzzled by his action. He was shaking his head now and chuckling a bit to himself. My confusion must have been apparent on my face because he stopped abruptly and looked right into my eyes.
“That is seriously the best name story I’ve ever heard. It’s actually kind of awesome. You’re name’s special…just… cool, you know what I mean?”
“I guess so,” I said, completely taken aback. And before I could get myself into any embarrassing trouble, the teacher began to talk about his expectations for the school year.
So much for the first day being a breeze. Our science class was starting off with a major project, and it would count for at least 20 percent of our grade. We were to work with a partner and build a model of a sustainable community along with a four-page paper explaining our design and how it would help our fake community survive. I was busy taking down notes on the project requirements when I heard my name called. I looked up quizzically, afraid I had missed a question from our teacher, when he finished his sentence with “…you’ll be working with Reed, ok?”
I don’t know if I spoke or just stared wide-eyed. I felt Reed elbow the side of my arm and I looked over at him. He was just smiling and nodding. He almost looked excited to be my partner? I was good at these types of projects. Maybe he had heard about how smart I was and was looking for an easy pass. That was probably it. Great, I’ll be doing all of the work. Well, at least I know it will be done well and I’ll get a good grade, I thought.
When the bell rang, I shoved my notebook back in my bag. Chewing on my pen, I threw my pack over my shoulder and was heading for the door when Reed caught me just before I left.
“Hey, we need to swap numbers,” he said, pulling his cell phone from his pocket. I began sweating immediately, knowing the awkward encounter about to come up. I didn’t have a cell phone. I was probably the only teenager left in Arizona not to have one, but, frankly, I didn’t really have a need… until now. And my dad was always ranting about the dangers of teens with cell phones and how they are a distraction.
“What’s your number?” Reed asked. Swallowing, I rattled off our home phone number. Then he looked up at me, insinuating that he was ready to share his. “Want me to just call you now so you’ll have a record of my number and you can save it?” he said.
Oh god.
“Actually, I’m getting a new phone, so I don’t have one right now,” the words flew out of my mouth so quickly I hardly had time to register the lie I had just told, let alone come to grips with the massive persuasive argument I now needed to develop to talk my parents into buying a phone for me.
“Oh, well…” Reed paused, rather unsure of what to say next. “Huh, well… how about this… I’ll call you at your house, that’s the number you gave, right? And then we can figure out when we want to start working on this thing and then just take it from there?”
“Sounds good,” I said, both thankful that he seemed to not balk at my fib and sick at my further weakening from peer pressure.
“OK, well, I’ll see you later,” he said as he headed to the quad for his next class.
I just smiled as he walked away and then pretended to bend down to fix my shoelace. When I stood back up, he had blended in with the crowd and was surrounded by his friends.
3. Project
It was a Tuesday afternoon and I was heading to Reed’s for our first project session. School and volleyball practice flashed by in a blur. I vaguely recalled a quiz in algebra, which I suppose was a good sign for doing well. Rules of grammar in English, and science class was filled with a video on the relationship between plant life and oxygen. I am sure there was more depth to the video, but I spent 40 minutes pretending to intently watch and take notes, all too aware of my lab partner seated right next to me. From the corner of my eye I saw every doodle he made in the margin of his notebook. At one point, I thought he might have noticed my stealthy stare as he scribbled out a three-dimensional ‘HI’ that seemed to be daring me. But then he started to add wings and swirls and Nike Swooshes, so I was pretty sure it was just stream-of-conscious drawing.