Irises

by softydog88

Chapter Two

The Oreo Tree

"Maybe it's not about the length of time you've known someone; maybe it's about instant recognition on an unconscious level. Our souls know each other." —S.E. Hall

October 12, 1995

He hurried out of the cafeteria, his Iron Man lunch box in his right hand, his carton of milk in his left. He pushed his way past a group of children―this was the lunch period for grades one though four―and he raced across the blacktop past the kindergarten to the trees just this side of the perimeter fence. She was there, of course, alone as always and he stopped when he saw her. She was sitting against a tall, stately oak. The ground around her was littered with a beautiful kaleidoscope of red and yellow leaves, a perfect setting in the dark, brooding autumn afternoon. She sat with her legs drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped around her knees. Her wavy red hair flowed over her shoulders and down her sides where it nearly touched the ground. She sat motionless, and something about it bothered him, as it had every day since he saw her on the first day of school. She seemed infinitely sad.

He approached her slowly, shuffling his feet, his gaze cast downward. He listened for an indication that she knew he was there, but she was so quiet that he finally looked up and he was surprised to find her only a few feet away. He wanted to make a meaningful gesture to show how serious he was, so he took off his Yankees cap and held it over his heart the way some of the fans did at the ball park during the national anthem. She didn't notice, and he jammed the cap in his back pocket. Then she choked back a sob and his 9-year-old heart broke.

"What's wrong?" he asked as softly as he could muster.

She looked up in surprise, shook her head, tried to dismiss him with a wave of her hand. Instead of leaving, he sat down facing her, took a napkin out of his lunch box and offered it to her with a smile. She grabbed it, dabbed at her eyes a few times and handed it back to him with a frown. What pretty green eyes, he thought, though he hadn't seem them. It just seemed like the proper, romantic thing to think. And redheads always have pretty green eyes.

"Nothing's wrong," she said. "I just want to be left alone."

"You're always alone. I see you here every day, eating lunch by yourself."

"So what? Why do you care?"

"Don't you want some company? I'm alone, too. We can be alone together, and presto! No more being alone for either of us." He smiled, but she wasn't looking, and he moved directly in front of her.

"You keep saying 'alone' and you're just making it worse," she sighed. "And I don't need things to be any worse than they are, thank you very much."

A leaf floated through the air and landed on her head so softly that she didn't notice it. He grabbed it and offered it to her; she took it and dropped it immediately.

"So let me make it better," he said. "I have four Oreos in my lunch. You can have two." He held out a plastic bag and shook it while raising his eyebrows. She squinted at him suspiciously but grabbed the bag anyway.

"I love Oreos," she said with a crooked smile. Hope shot through him; somewhere beneath that sadness there was joy, and if it took a thousand Oreos, he was going to bring it out.

"They're the best," he grinned in return. "Hang on a second, I bought milk."

He plopped the carton between them and worked it open from both ends, forming a square so they could dunk. As they both reached for the milk their knuckles touched for the briefest of moments.

"Oops," she said, her face rapidly reddening. "You go first."

"OK." He dunked, and held his Oreo in front of him. She giggled as a few drops of milk landed on his Levi's.

"Cheers," she said, and they knocked their soggy cookies together. She took small bites, licking her lips between them, and he immediately decided that it was endearing. His crush, nurtured through many a day of gazing at her from afar, was already growing.

"It's Marilyn," she said as they walked together after school. "Marilyn Singletary. Funny how we didn't think to introduce ourselves during lunch."

"Hey, there were cookies to be eaten," he replied. "Priorities."

"Really? What's your excuse now?"

It took him a moment to figure out what she meant. "Oh!" he said. "It's Jason Tompkins."

They continued their walk, trading facts about their favorite TV shows and movies. Then Jason took off his sweater and she noticed the pinstriped t-shirt he was wearing.

"So you're a Yankees fan?" she asked.

"Big time," he said, trying to sound manly despite the fact that he wasn't a fan at all. "My dad takes me to games on the weekends when he's not working, which is not very often." That much, at least, was true.

"That sounds like fun." She read the name on the back of his shirt. "Who's Jeter?"

"He's the Yankees new shortstop, Derek Jeter. He's going to be great!" He thought for a second. "Are you a fan too?"

"No, but my dad is. I used to watch with him once in a while, but he can get pretty mad if they lose." She didn't mention how her father shouted at the TV when things went badly or the slips of paper he tore up and threw in the air when he lost another bet. And she was especially careful to omit the drinking.

Jason stopped. "Here's where I get on the train," he said.

"Just how far from school do you live, Jason?"

He laughed. "I'm not going straight home. It's Monday, so I have my sax lesson."

"Your what?"

"My saxophone lesson." He held up his instrument case and smiled, then played a little air sax for a few seconds, his fingers flying along faster than they would have on an actual saxophone. He added to the illusion by pursing his lips and tapping his foot to an imaginary beat.

Marilyn blushed. "Sorry, I thought you said something else."

He suppressed the urge to laugh. "My idol is John Coltrane. Do you like jazz, Marilyn?"

"I don't know. I've never really listened to jazz. My mom likes soft rock, like America, Air Supply and Bread, which I hate, so I definitely don't take after her." She rolled her eyes.

"I know what you mean. If you're going to call yourselves a rock and roll band, get a freakin' amp for Pete's sake!"

Marilyn laughed. "My musical tastes run more to Michael Jackson, REM, Talking Heads and Depeche Mode."

"Wow. That's all over the map. But I like that."

"I'm versatile," she chuckled.

He glanced at his watch and winced. "Tell you what," he said as he stared into her pretty green eyes, "tomorrow I'll bring six Oreos. Three for each of us. And I'll meet you under that same tree. It'll be our place. The Oreo Tree."

Before she could answer, he waved at her and ran down the steps into the subway station. From the bottom step he turned around and looked up, ecstatic that she was still there, looking down at him, glowing like Tipi Hedren in Vertigo.

"By the way," he said, "I like that band of freckles across your face. It reminds me of the Milky Way on a summer's night in the country."

He was gone. She walked to the bus stop for the lonely ride home, but this time it didn't feel quite so lonely.

"Can you miss someone you just met?" Marilyn asked her mother, Sandra, that evening.

Sandra grinned. "I guess so. I mean, I don't see why not. What's his name?"

"I didn't say it was a him," Marilyn replied gruffly.

"Oh," Sandra said. "Well..."

"His name is Jason. I just met him today, but he's really my only friend right now."

Sandra covered Marilyn's hands with her own. "Yes, you can miss your friend. Even after a single day. So, how did you meet?"

Marilyn told Sandra the story, being careful to omit the fact that Jason had approached her from a shared sense of loneliness. Then she heard a sound at the front door and her father, drunk and grunting as he struggled to get the key in the lock. She hurried to her bedroom. She laid in her bed and covered her ears with her pillow to drown out the same argument her parents had been having for a year—the argument that had led her to a tree at the edge of the schoolyard where she could be alone to cry. She desperately wanted to be in a place where she didn't have to worry about her parents threatening each other. A place where she didn't have to watch her father destroy himself. A place where she had friends.

But I have a friend now, don't I? she thought. Jason had promised to see her tomorrow and to bring more cookies to that tree. Their tree, he had said. He even named it. A friendship based on cookies? She was sure her parents had even less in their lives these days. Besides, she and Jason had talked about many things during lunch, from books to movies to music and she felt better when it was time to go back to class—like she was no longer so utterly alone even in a small school. Maybe it's OK to go through life with just one friend, she thought. Just me and Jason against the world.

She decided that if that was the case, she'd isolate herself in her room. No outside distractions; just a pile of videotapes and some CDs. She started by pushing a shirt against the door to keep out the light. She took some black sheets out of her closet and tacked them across her windows, watching with satisfaction as the streetlights disappeared. Then she turned on her TV and VCR. Her isolation as complete as she could make it, she put in a Bugs Bunny tape and leaned back to enjoy herself.

Her headphones had just covered her ears when she heard the front door slam as her father stormed out of the mom was crying and the pain in her sobs made Marilyn start crying, too. She buried her face in her pillow so she wouldn't be heard.

No, it'll be me and Jason and mom. She needs me. And I need them.