Poetry
Fern Walters had always known that she would be the last of the group to find any kind of romance. Whenever she aired this view to the others, it was immediately countered with "Fern, you can't say that, you're a lovely person…"- but she knew she was right. It wasn't out of bitterness- she just knew, like she knew that she wanted to be a writer (and maybe an actor) when she was older. She was too dreamy, too imaginative- she saw the world in what her parents called "a special way"- and she wouldn't ever be part of the casual parings and get-togethers of everyone else. What did they have in common with the example of literature-did Arthur and Francine have anything like the deep, passionate love that had been held by Romeo and Juliet? Tempestuous as it may be, was Rattles and Sue Ellen's relationship anywhere near as heady and unstable as Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw's? Could the soul-destroying love that Vronsky had felt for Anna Karenina have anything in common with Muffy and Buster's on/off antics? Fern, admittedly, did have a high threshold- but who wouldn't, after reading of so many passionate pairs of lovers?
So she was quite surprised when, one Monday morning getting books out of her locker in the halls of Lakewood High, she heard someone swearing in a language she thought only she understood.
"Get out of-my-sight! Thou-dost- infect-mine-eyes!" The voice (vaguely familiar, she thought) was accompanied by muffled clanking noises, and the sounds of a struggle. She turned the corner- and saw George Lundgren, still wrestling with the perennial problem of how to get his antlers out of his locker.
It was his voice. "Richard the Third!" she said in shock. George looked up, an embarrassed flush blooming on his face. "Oh. Hi, Fern. I've, erm...my antlers…" Fern shook her head, more important things on her mind. "You just quoted from Richard the Third while trying to get your antlers out of your locker?" He flushed again.
"I…I found it hard reading the English material, so my Dad suggested I act it out… I…understood it a lot better, and really started to…enjoy it. I…like the way the words sound. I try and remember bits…it sounds better than normal talking, and…" He rubbed his neck with one hand, the other still braced against the wall. How tall he is, Fern thought suddenly, and his voice is deeper and his hair's grown longer…how did this happen without me noticing it? Because we haven't been in the same classes since elementary school, that's why… "Do you need a hand?" she asked, partly to distract herself from her own whirring thoughts. "No," he grunted, "I've-got it-"- and with a twist and heave, he was free. She picked up his rucksack and handed it to him, feeling that as some sort of representation of something, it was a little inaccurate. "Thanks," he said, rubbing his neck again, that same embarrassed flush darkening his cheeks. "No problem," she answered, equally awkward, and then walked away. George watched as she walked up the corridor. "For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night" he murmured, and then, realising that he had, for the second time that day, spoken poetry in public, ducked his head down, and tried to look inconspicuous.
They didn't see each other for a while after that- their classes were different, and the school was so big that it was impossible to find anyone unless you actually sought them out. So it was at the school dance that they next met- not the prom, a placeholder for the after-party, which was of more social significance anyway- but a smaller dance, that the popular clique avoided like the plague, and the middle-to-bottom members of the social pyramid attended with abandon.
He found her there, watching with a faint smile as couples whirled round the floor… he recalled his own dancing days, and Fern's record of dance tuition, and wondered if there was a chance of them having a dance. He wondered how anyone could watch other couples by themselves and still look so happy- but Fern had never been quite like anyone else, ever. He took a deep breath- and walked over to her.
"George!" Her face lit up, and he smiled at the light which shone over it. He took her hand in his, trying to get as much meaning in the words as he could. "If I profane, with my unworthiest hand, this holy shrine, the gentle sin is this- my lip, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand, to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss." She was smiling in the dim light- she knew the scene as well as he did. She folded her hand round his, looking up into his eyes. "Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, which mannerly devotion shows in this: for saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch- and palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss." He moved closer, taking courage and wrapping an arm round her waist. "Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?" She smiled wider at that, and leaned over to breathe in his ear- "O then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do."
Any of the couples on the floor at that moment, had they looked over to a shadowed wall on the edge of the gym, might have seen Fern and George sharing the first of many loving kisses- so wrapped up in each other that many of the couples on the floor would have been jealous of such affection from another. But Fern and George were both quiet, and sensitive, and artistic, so no-one paid any notice to them- leaving them space for themselves, devoid of anything else. "Who could refrain, that had a heart to love?" whispered Fern. George shook his head, smiling at her shyness. "And within that heart, courage to make love known," he replied- and they kissed again, the lights from the dance whirling over their heads and into the night.