That Strange Blonde Girl Part 2


    Lara seemed calm and level headed the night before, sending her cheating father away, and trying to encourage her mom.  But she held back a lot of anger as she returned to school the next day.  It wasn’t so much just anger against her parents, but at a new perception of things.  

    She always had the intelligence to see through falseness.  However, she learned to ignore it, because everyone else did.  Or she thought everyone else did, because she didn’t think of herself as particularly smart - she couldn’t believe that others didn’t see through these charades.

    Especially since most of them were only very thinly coated in other things.  Obviously, her parents fought, and she caught little bits of the conversation here and there because it was loud.  She already suspected that her father may have cheated at least once from those bits of conversation she caught.  Her parents trying to keep it from her was a falsity, and not a good one at that, in an effort to keep the peace.

    The breakdown of it prompted her to start to bristle at other falsehoods meant to keep the peace, or avoid trouble.  As she observed other students quietly throughout her school day, she started to notice more fakeness meant to hide the truth.

    Movies often characterized immortal love affairs between high school football players and cheerleaders.  The truth was, the football players were five year old boys in teenage bodies.  They constantly pranked the cheerleaders and then congratulated each other about it, and the cheerleading squad hated them.  Most of the football players had such a bad reputation that they dated outside the school.  They also, of course, bullied less strong students.

    The real immortal love affair was actually between two students who fit pretty well together, though they couldn’t associate in school.  Not because of cliques, but to avoid suspicion of what they were really up to.  

    There was this dark, purposely scary looking boy with long black hair and haunted eyes, who kept to himself.  He was from a well-to-do family who often left him home by himself.  There was also a fairly popular blonde cheerleader who was also from a well-to-do-family and was also often left home by herself.  Because they had two things in common - being left home, and having a big, comfortable house - they were secretly a couple.  A couple who was secretly having sex.  So they avoided each other publicly during the school day to avoid any suspicion, but met up during their private time.

    It’s for the most part how Lara learned a lot about deviant sexual habits.  

    She often tried to find solitude around the school to eat lunch, or read.  One time, she found a little used sunlit space in a hallway next to a small auditorium used only by the Drama Club in the evening.  Usually students were not allowed there during the day, but Lara discovered that nobody bothered to lock the door, and none of the students bothered to check.

    Except for that couple.  Apparently they agreed to meet and talk during lunch in the theater, just a thin door away from that hallway where Lara sat sideways on a bench, leaning over a book and reading.  She tried so hard not to listen, but the words found her ears - how they described in detail all sorts of sex acts they were attempting.  It made her feel ill, but also strangely interesting.

    That’s why when she found her dad was cheating, she became so angry.  Not only because her mom was hurting, but because what came to mind to Lara were those acts, and being forced to imagine him doing those with some stranger, secretly.

    She never thought to make contact with the two students, but that same unlucky day after her dad left, it was forced upon her.  They decided to exit the theater early, and using the door right beside where Lara was reading.

    The dark boy looked at Lara, and Lara looked at him.  He then angrily asked, “Did you hear what we were saying?”

    True to her character in school of avoiding conflict, or any contact with other students in general, she just rolled her eyes and went back to reading.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’d better not tell anyone,”  he said.

    In a rare moment of speaking, Lara simply sighed, and said, “Whatever.”

    Then a surprising moment.  Just when the dark boy was becoming angrier, the blonde cheerleader - who called herself ‘DD’ - stopped him and said, “Jack...she’s cool.  She doesn’t talk to anyone.”

    Lara didn’t even look up.  Somehow, she had the reputation in school as someone reliable and trustworthy because she was quiet.  So she stuck with that reputation, and continued reading.  But she never returned to that spot after that day.

    It added to her feelings of frustration and anger that day.  Things she observed daily that she just brushed off philosophically any other day were grating on her nerves.

    Case in point, she had gym class next.  She knew the gym teacher liked teenage boys.  She watched his eyes, as he watched their bodies closely.  He was careful, and tried not to give away his secret, because he had a good job, and a wife and kids.  But he stared intently enough that she felt someday, he would screw up.  Today, that made her angry, and frustrated that she could not do anything about such a deviant teaching in her school.

    And there was a math teacher at the other end of the spectrum.  He was kind of geeky, the type one would imagine didn’t find many dates in the adult world.  So every girl in the class with very little self respect wore low-cut shirts and shorts, pushed the limits of the school dress code, and sat in the front row.  They thought it would get them a better grade.

    He was distracted by them.  It was way too easy to tell, because he would pace the room, and occasionally stop and look, and lose track of what he was saying.  But what those girls didn’t know was it made him angry, because he knew what they were trying to do.  And being geeky as he was, he was furious that they were compromising their educational quality that way.  Lara watched as it made him angry, and she became angry too.

    She was so distracted that he ended up asking her to remain after class once to talk to him because she failed to answer one of the questions during class.  She approached him at the end of the lesson, after everyone else left, and she began to worry if his eyes moved over her body as well, like those girls who made her angry.  Then he started to scold her, but only briefly.

    He started out angrily, “Let me tell you something.”

    And then he pulled a book out of his desk, and a pen from his shirt pocket.  The pen hooked a small laminated business card, which fell to the floor.  Lara quickly kneeled to pick it up, and realized that he did the same, only too quickly and desperately to get it in time.

    That prompted her to look at the card.  It was from a massage therapist across town.  She looked at him not with anger, but with pity as she saw the panic in his eyes.

    Not a word was spoken, but later she would be the only student to get an ‘A’ in his advanced math class.  A nonverbal understanding, of sorts.  Today, however, as she took his class, she could think of nothing but how phony he was.

    It was also the last class before lunch.  Since she sat in the back of the room, so she often left after everyone else, briefly casting the teacher, Mr. Lewis, a look of pity over having to deal with the other girls in the class.

    This day, however, was destined to grate on her in every way.  As she started to leave, he said, “Wait, wait.”

    She stopped and looked at him, her backpack over her shoulder.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I suppose you have um...questions...um...about that item I dropped,”  he said.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“No.  I really don’t,”  Lara replied.  She started to leave, but then she felt bad.  His shame, his lack of ability to speak about it, reminded her a bit of her dad.  She turned around and shut the door to the classroom.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Look, I know you’re an adult, and you’re kind of a geek so you don’t get a lot of dates.  I’m sorry about that.”

    She referred partly to the fact that he always wore crisp white shirts with one pen and one pencil in the pocket, and pulled-up work pants and black shoes.  That his hair was greased back too, and he had thick black glasses.  So it was unlikely he changed into something else when he left for the day.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“So, you know, do what you want to do for fun,”  she continued.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“What’s...wrong with me?”  he asked.  “Why can’t I attract women?  I’m sorry I’m asking you this, but I...I don’t have anyone else to ask.  You look at me every day when you leave, and I see pity in your eyes.  I know you’re smart.  So...what can I do?”

    Lara let her backpack slide to the floor, and then she squinted at him.  She wanted to leave the room, but there was something about the satisfaction of resolving this that compelled her to stay.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Lose the hair gel,”  she said.  “Get some metal frame glasses or contacts, those would be cooler.  And dress more like me, but with your own thing.”

    But that didn’t feel like enough, so she added one last thing.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“And dude, if you can talk to me, you can talk to any girl.  So talk to them like you talked to me.”

    He nodded, and then he stood as Lara picked up her backpack.  “Thank you,”  he said.  “Thank you, really.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Why did you really ask me?”  Lara asked just before she left.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Like I said, you’re smart.  I can tell,”  he said.  “But unlike the other girls in your class, you’re not so--”  He left the rest to what both of them already knew about the girls who sat in the front row, showing as much skin as possible.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Why do they make you so nervous?”  Lara asked.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You know how it is these days,”  he replied.  “One wrong look, standing too long too close to one of them, and I get fired and carted off to jail.  You’re the only teenage girl in my class I feel safe talking to.”

    Lara shrugged.  She knew it meant because she hated just about everyone, students and teachers included, and she wouldn’t dream of letting any of them close to her.  “I...gotta go.  Or my lunch will be cut short.”

    She then opened the door, and nearly stepped out of the room, but her brush-off seemed to wound him deeply.  So she stuck her head back in around the edge of the door, and said, “Maybe we can be friends.  But I won’t go to the massage place with you.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Fair enough,”  he said, trying to stifle a laugh as she left.


TO BE CONTINUED
    


-- Story written and copyrighted (C) 2012 by Jason Froikin, and may not be 
--    reprinted without permission.  
-- Chronicles of a New World and all characters therein are property of 
--    Strike Two and Jason Froikin.