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: : : THE FIRST THING HE DOES when he gets to school on Tuesday is go looking for her. Usually before first period he can find her sitting in the window-well on the second floor but today she's not there. He spends a minute looking at the spot where she should be, as though she might just materialize. Fuck, he thinks.
He decides to check the cafeteria. Some mornings they hang out down there, waking themselves with vending-machine Cokes. Maybe she's there. He passes a clock—six minutes till class. Plenty of time, he tells himself. Plenty of time.
By the time he gets down there it's mostly emptied out. He stands in the doorway and scans the room for army jacket, for blond ponytail.
Someone punches him in the shoulder. It's Maurice. —Hey Porno Pollard, he says.
—Hey, says Tim, still looking over the remaining clusters of lingerers, the few people still gathering up their stuff. An electronic chime rings out over the PA system: he's officially late.
—You got any new product?
—New— Tim says. He shakes his head. —No—not at the moment—
—Cause if you're sellin', says Maurice, —I'm buyin'.
—Uh, says Tim. —Can I talk to you later? I'm sort of in the middle of something—
—Sure, says Maurice. He begins to walk off, backwards, pointing at Tim with both hands as he goes. —Porno Pollard! he says, loudly displaying his admiration for what he obviously sees as a kind of suicidal foolhardiness. —Porno Pollard!
Tim smiles uneasily. In his peripheral vision he notices someone listening in on this exchange—a teacher? an administrator? all he's sure of is that it's somebody older, somebody wearing a tie. Tim wants to glance at the guy but he knows how suspicious that'll seem, he tells himself don't look don't look, and then of course he looks. Of course the guy is looking right back at him. Their gazes fuse. Tim freezes.
The guy turns to look at the clock. He looks back at Tim.
—Don't you think it's about time you got to class, young man? he asks.
—Uh— Tim says, —yeah. I'm going.
He doesn't find Megan until right before Physics. They have the class together so he knows she's going to show up. He waits around outside the classroom, pretending to be interested in the different kinds of rocks in the display case, until he sees her coming around the corner.
—Hey, he says.
—Hey, she says. She frowns, looks at the floor. —Listen— she says.
—Look, he says, —I just wanted you to know—
—I know what you're going to say, she says.
For some reason this pisses him off a little bit. —What, he says. —What do you think I'm going to say?
She looks at him angrily, as though he's forcing her to do something humiliating. She sneers. —You're going to say I like hanging out with you but I don't think of you like that.
—That's shit, he says.
She flashes her skeptical look at him but he doesn't change his answer. —Yeah, she says, —that's shit.
—I mean that's not what I was going to say, he says.
—I know what you mean, she says, quietly. —So. Okay. What were you going to say?
He thinks about it. —I don't know, he says. This gets her to crack a smile, at least.
—Okay, she says. —Now we're going places.
—I guess, he begins—I mean, I don't want to say I don't think of you that way, because I do, I mean, sometimes.
—Great, she says, dryly.
—Look, would you shut up? I'm trying to say something here.
—Doing a great job, she says.
—Well—he says, —I mean, that's just it. I fuck things up. That's me. And so it's like—(the electronic chime rings here)—sometimes I think, yeah, what would it be like, with Megan? But I don't want to fuck it up. With other girls it's like OK whatever, it's like, I don't give a shit about them in the first place. Do you know what I mean? I'm not—I can't say it right.
—I know what you mean, she says.
—So— he eyes the door, he knows they're late—so I don't know, maybe we could talk about it some more.
Megan nods. —Okay, she says. —I'm cool with that.
They go in and get seated. Mr. Butler hands out the tests. Tim stares at the problems and tries to remember how they're supposed to be done.
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