Solstice - Of The Heart by John Blenkush Page B

of town last
night.”
    “Why were you late for
school?”
    At this point I thought I would have
been better off to have played hooky and missed the entire day. But
I was reminded why I hadn’t stayed home and played sick. I didn’t
want to miss seeing Aaron in Biology.
    “I overslept.”
    I gave him the best excuse I could
think of.
    “Mom usually gets me up.”
    Mr. Roberts adjusted his tie before
jotting down a memo in my folder. “Okay. Bring a note from your
mother tomorrow.”
    “Sure. I will.”
    He scribbled a line on my note as to
the time I had left the office. Somehow I felt as though I were
being held prisoner on someone else’s time clock. As long as Aaron
was being held prisoner too and his schedule coincided with mine I
didn’t care.
    Ms. Wroblewski handed me a clip board
to track the scoring of the hockey teams. To my surprise, the drama
queens played quite well, given the fact they were primping their
hair as much as they were swinging their sticks. It looked like
their scoring had as much to do with some of the opposing team’s
players stepping aside as it did to the drama queen’s skills at
hockey. Could it be some of the opposing team’s players were all
about scoring points off the court?
    I have more of a creative bent than an
analytical mind, so math is not one of my strong points. It’s hard
enough to concentrate on numbers without clock watching and
thinking of what I was going to say to Aaron in Biology class. I
took the maroon beanie out of my back pack, pretended I was wiping
my nose with it, and placed it in my lap. Interjecting thoughts of
Aaron filled time and, when time was filled it sped up.
    All good.
    Lunch came and went. Cherrie, as she
said, didn’t show. Neither did the Delmons. I sat out on the cold
concrete wall and ate my P&J in silence. The clock ground to a
near stop.
    English went well and fast. The drama
queens were in seventh heaven because we were studying
Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet, and this was being done in
conjunction with drama class where the play would be reenacted. I
imagined all three of the drama queens would kill for the role of
Juliet, depending, of course in part, which boy in school landed
the role of Romeo. I could only hope to be in the same room when
the drama queens battled it out. Would they pick straws? Or bare
finger nails?
    Shakespeare is a hard read, but I got
the gist of his play Romeo and Juliet. What teenage girl doesn’t?
Two star crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding
families. Falling in love with your beau at the tender young age of
thirteen and getting married! I wasn’t sure about the married part,
but then I hadn’t met my beau yet, or had I? I looked at the maroon
wave-cloud beanie for an answer. It reminded me of the opposite:
Two different layers of air moving at different speeds and in
opposite directions causing friction. Not what I wanted to hear
right now. I tucked the beanie away in my back pack. The bell rang
and I hurried off to art class.
    I love art. As I mentioned I have a
creative bent. I imagined it was one of the reasons—among others—I
was so attracted to Aaron. There was so much to his physical
appearance that the pen and the camera could capture. He didn’t
seem to have a bad looking angle. I imagined each creation derived
from his form would reveal another nuance, like peeling an onion,
layer by layer, and reveling in the magnificence of each
stratum.
    We took turns in art class standing in
front of the artists and having them sketch us as we posed. Today
it was Lindsay’s turn to model. She is a beauty in her own right, a
tad bit on the skinny side, but, if she played her cards right, she
could be a runway model. She has long hair, is tall, petite facial
features, and a slim figure.
    As I worked on drawing Lindsay, my
number 8B-2H pencil seemed to take on a mind of its own. I drew
what I thought to be an excellent rendering of her body, but no
matter how hard I tried to stay