What Binds the Fabric Together?

Forgive my corny title.

DISCLAIMER: Do I look like Jonathon Larson to you? Actually, you don't know what I look like, but still.

"Um, is this home ec?" Roger asked apprehensively. He handed the teacher a note and looked around the class room. Two rows of tables like the ones from the science labs faced the black board while twenty or twenty five small table, each holding a sewing machine bordered the room facing the walls. This room was totally different from any of the others in their run-down school. Colorful posters of food pyramids and cartoon characters delivering inspirational messages covered the walls, which had been painted light blue and had a border of flowers right below the ceiling. A door in the corner opened into what appeared to be a food science lab with ovens and stoves.

The teacher looked up from her grading and took the paper being thrust in to her face. After reading the note, she said, "Alright then, Mr. Davis. You can take a seat up there by Emily. Understand me now though, there will be no fooling around in my class or you will be out of here and there won't be anything else for them to drop you into." She looked at him sternly as if trying to prove she meant business. It surprised him slightly that a woman who kept photos of her cats on her desk could indeed be intimidating.

"Right. Thanks," he said simply. Despite his disgust at being placed in a 'chick class,' he really needed this to work out. He was already on this ice with his guidance counselor for being kicked out of his computer class. It wasn't his fault. Teachers had been separating him and his buddy Tom since they were in first grade. If this teacher hadn't known that, well that was his problem; not theirs. Plus, Collins always seemed to find a way to get in trouble around computers. At least they weren't caught surfing porn or something. That was far too low-brow a crime. Maybe Collins' true genius fell in his ability to not get caught. His English, calculus, and chemistry teachers, being something like allies, had vouched for him, but in the end, Roger had been sentenced to a week of detentions and to finish out the remainder of the semester that period in home ec.

Fine. Whatever. He could sew a set of pot holders, maybe bake some cookies if that's what it took. Somehow, he suspected his placement in this class was more a form of punishment in and of itself than a class size and scheduling issue, as had been claimed. He took a seat next to the girl Ms. Nichols had indicated at one of the two-person tables. Rolling her eyes, Emily moved a couple of her notebooks aside to make room for Roger to put his stuff down, as if it were some great trouble. No wonder this girl sat alone.

Deciding to take the diplomatic route, he said, "Hey, I'm Roger. The teacher wanted me to sit here. Cool?" smiling.

He wondered how someone could roll their eyes that much, that fast without getting a headache. "I know who you are," she said, irritably, "and I don't care where you sit." She began filing her claw-like fingernails as they waited for Ms. Nichols to begin the lesson. After a few moments, the dumpy woman took her place in the front of the room.

"Good morning, everyone," she said. There was a general murmur of greeting and she continued. "Since we just finished our family unit, we're going to being sewing. I've got some worksheets and packets we need to go over, then in the last twenty or so minutes, you can being practicing basic stitches." Roger groaned inwardly. This sounded boring, and he couldn't' really see how he would ever use something like sewing. Collins was probably carrying out some sort of nefarious plot in his old computer class as they spoke.

The teacher passed around papers detailing safety rules and explaining tools for the better part of an hour. There were three different sorts of scissors alone, not to mention all the pins and needles: dressmaker's pins, machine needles, embroidery needles, and all the different gauges. It was enough to make Roger wish he could crawl under the table and go to sleep, never to awaken.

For as long as he could remember, Collin's mom had kept a sewing machine set up in their spare bedroom. For as long as he could remember, they'd been forbidden from going anywhere near it. Mrs. Collins had offered to teach them to sew when they were about thirteen and Tom had given it a shot, if only to appease his mother. It's not that he couldn't figure out how to operate the machine or cut the fabric, it was just that all the IQ in the world couldn't make one capable of guiding a piece of cloth under a madcap needle in a straight line. In the end, he'd ended up with a mangled pair of pajama bottoms that he ended up giving to Roger anyway because he'd cut them too small for himself. From that moment on, both boys had washed their hands of sewing forever and steered clear of the back bedroom of the Collins home as much as possible. They could cook though, that was for sure. So at least they weren't both completely without domestic abilities.

Finally, each student was assigned to a sewing station and given two 6x6 squares of white scrap fabric. They were to thread a bobbin and practice a simple straight stitch, sewing the squares together. Miraculously, Roger managed to get his bobbin wound tightly with red thread and loaded it into the little compartment under the presser foot. Or maybe the miraculous part was that he had actually remembered what the "presser foot" was. After a few attempts, he managed to stick the thread through the tiny hole by the point of the needle, but not without a few pricks to his calloused fingertips, which hurt all the same. Roger decided he rather disliked needles.

He lined the cloth up under the needle and flipped the switch on the side, turning on the small light. When he pressed his black Chuck Taylor down on the foot pedal however, nothing happened. How anticlimactic. He'd been expecting the machine to fire up fiercely and send the needle flying across his fabric. "What the fuck?" he mumbled under his breath. It was obviously plugged in because the light was on. So what wasn't anything happening?

"It sort of helps if the foot pedal is actually plugged in to the machine. Duh!" Emily sneered. Of course she would be assigned to be seated next to him. Damn the alphabet. She handed him the loose end of the black cord.

He examined it suspiciously then took it and stuck it into the outlet on the side. "Thanks," he said, trying to be civil, "bitch" he added quietly, not trying quite so hard.

Before she could say anything, an office TA with thick glasses and some zealously religious t-shirt tapped her on the shoulder. "Your mom's here," he said, handing her a call slip, "says you've got a dentist appointment or something." She got up and left with the TA, leaving a vacant machine. With her seat empty, the teacher sent another student over to sit down. Apparently in their class, there was at least one more student than sewing machine.

Without looking at his new neighbor, Roger got back to work on his assignment, This time, when he applied pressure to the foot pedal, the motor inside kicked into gear and the needle began plunging up and down through his fabric. Instead of pulling the cloth through in a line of stitches, a mess of thread from the top and bottom tangles around the needle before it jammed in place. "Damnit, you're not supposed to be doing that," he said under his breath, although he wasn't sure if it was meant for the machine or himself.

He set about pulling out the loose threads and cutting the knots, finally clearing the area of the red mess. Flipping through the packet of work sheets, he found the one about machine parts and read, "'Presser foot must be in lowered position' okay, I guess that explains that. Let's try this again." He turned the wheel on the side to lower the mechanism and hit the black lever by the needle, bringing the presser foot down with a snap on the plastic deck.

Once the machine was finally ready to sew, Roger lined up the fabric, tongue poking out the corner of his mouth. He put his foot down on the pedal like it was the gas pedal on his Trans Am. The fabric jerked sharply from between his fingers, running through the machine at a crooked angle and falling off the other side, dangling by the red thread.

"Fine," he groaned, softly, "I give up! Why can't we just skip to baking cookies? I love cookies; I'm good at making cookies. God."

Beside him, the girl who'd taken Emily's seat giggled in his direction. He turned and looked at her, hoping that she was laughing with him, rather than at him, even though he wasn't really laughing himself. Looking at her, however, he saw that it was in fact a guy, probably a freshman, he guessed. He did look a little feminine, though: the boy's eyebrows had clean edges and his slender fingers here ended in shaped, smooth nails. When he spoke, his voice was gentle too.

"Having some trouble, honey?" the boy asked, smiling. Roger had never been called 'honey' by another guy. Well, Collins had once called him 'Pumpkin,' but that was after they had broken into Roger's parents' liquor cabinet, so he supposed that didn't really count. After all, Roger was known to sing nursery rhymes if properly inebriated.

With mock surprise, he asked, "How can you tell?"

The guy smiled and shook his head, "Well, since I sat down here, you've almost cut your fingers off twice. I'm Angel, by the way."

Roger extended a hand to shake Angel's. The guy might seem a little different, but judging from the appearance of the neatly stitched square in front of him, he knew his way around a sewing machine. That made him alright in Roger's book. "Roger Davis. Freshman?" he asked.

"Uh-huh, but I was also new like, last month. I'm guessing you're a…junior?" Angel guessed, narrowing his eyes.

Nodding, Roger said, "Yeah, and I have no idea why I'm in this class. My friend Tom and I got into some trouble in out computer class and I got kicked out. He, on the other hand, did not get caught. But at least I'm not the only guy that got stuck with this crap."

Angel laughed easily, "Actually, I didn't get stuck, I signed up. I want to take Clothing, but you gotta pass this first. I'm dreading cooking though," he said.

Across the room, Ms. Nichols cleared her throat. "Let's keep it to a dull roar ladies and," she paused momentarily looking at Roger and Angel, the only 'gentlemen' in the class, "you two. This isn't social hour."

They both turned to their machines and lowered their heads. "Bitch," they muttered in unison and grinned sheepishly. Roger was actually glad for the interruption; it defused the potentially awkward moment talking about class placement. He'd assumed that Angel's place in the class was the result of a need for a place to stick him, as was common with mid-year transfers.

"So you can actually sew, huh?" he asked.

"Yeah," Angel answered carefully, as though expecting harassment for the fact. "I know most guys aren't supposed to-"

But Roger cut him off, "I think it's cool. Tom's mom tried to teach him, but I guess it's tougher than it looks." He help up his pointer finger with was still leaking a tiny drip of blood.

Angel grinned again. "Thanks. So you say you're a master chef, huh?" he asked. "Well I'll tell you what: I'll help you through sewing and we'll make sure you have that nice apron and pillow case to take home to your mama. After that, you can make sure I don't kill us all trying to make cookies. I burn cereal."

They shook hands between the two machines. "Sounds like a plan. Collins-Tom- well, no one calls him Tom, I guess. Collins' mom taught us to cook when we were kids," he said.

"You spend a lot of time over at this Collins' house, huh?" Angel asked, casually. "With his parents and stuff."

It was true. Every day after school, he could probably be found at the Collins home and often stayed for dinner. Because he was uncomfortable about imposing, Mr. or Mrs. Collins asked him almost every night if he'd be staying for dinner, even though they'd already set a fifth place for him at the table. Around seven-thirty or eight, after the sun had just gone down, one of them would tap politely at Tom's door and say, "Roger, it's pretty late. You're welcome to stay here rather than driving home in the dark." He even had a small box in Collins' closet, lovingly labeled "Roger's shit," for just such nights. He wasn't just free loading though. Whenever yard work needed done, a walk needed shoveling, or any other general chores, Roger was right beside Tom doing his fair share. Once or twice, he'd even babysat Miranda, Tom's seven year old sister by himself when need be.

It wouldn't be his 'mama' that he'd be showing his apron and pillowcase too, either. He'd pull it out of his backpack proudly in the Collins' living room while Tom giggled on the couch beside him and say, "Hey, Mrs. Collins, check out what I made him home ec 'because someone sold me out." It would be Collins' mom who would inspect the edges with her expert eyes and say, "That's not bad at all, dear. Nice job." His chest would swell with pride, but he'd just stick the neck strap over Collins' head and try to tie the straps around his waist while his friend held him at an arms length by the forehead. If he was honest with himself, he would admit that he worked as hard as he did, gaining mostly A's and B's, in school, because he wanted Collins' parents to be as pleased with him as they were with their own son.

Not really wanting to explain that much detail with someone he'd just met, Roger simply said, "Yeah I guess. We've been friends since, jeez, sandbox age, so he's kind of like my brother. His folks are cool." He turned back to his machine and felt the need to study the rule-lines on the deck. Out of the corner of his eye, however, he saw a look on Angel's face that said that he completely understood what his relationship with Collins' family was all about.

Angel glanced over his shoulder to see that the teacher wasn't watching them, then reached over to Roger's machine. "Alright, you know how to drive right?" she asked, detaching excess thread and pulling the thread from the bobbin up further. Roger nodded. "Okay, well when you get in your car, what do you do? Seatbelt, lock the doors, adjust the seat, and adjust your mirrors, before you even start the engine, right?" Well when you're gonna sew, there's stuff you gotta do before you can press the foot pedal or-?" he prompted.

"The gas pedal," Roger said, smiling, "Okay, I get where you're going with this."

For the last few minutes of the class, Angel explained the process in simpler terms for Roger to understand. When the bell rang, he was ready for the next class. We would run to Wal-Mart tonight and get the required yard of fabric for their aprons. Their next class, he would attack his project with at least some level of competence. As long as Angel was sitting next to him to give him reminders, that was.

And then they could make…COOKIES!

I meant for this to all be one chapter, but you know how it goes sometimes. Next chapter will feature the next class and Roger's accident. It will also be the last chapter. I may even end up like, resubmitting it as all one document. We'll just see how it goes. I swear this isn't turning in to slash, just a friendship.

What kind of fabric will both of the new pals have for class? You'll see.

Just to apologize in advance, it's going to be at least a week before I can update because we're going on vacation Saturday. Sorries.

Reviews? You know you wanna…