"Annotations"
Paulkins
High School Au
Word Count: 2038
*
He didn't know what to expect, honestly. The idea of clinging to a thoroughly soaked, mud-caked textbook sent shivers up his spine as he imagined the feel of wet, grainy paper under his fingers, but with every page of meaningless scribbles and half-hearted attempts at a decent annotation in his secondhand copy, Paul lamented the death of another one of his brain cells. He drummed his fingers against the desk and sighed.
"Is it really that bad?"
"You wouldn't believe it, Bill," Paul said under his breath. He kept his eyes locked on the projector screen. "Every other paragraph is some new rant about how useless school is or a shitty attempt to solve a problem that stops halfway through. This book belonged to a future dropout." He paused to copy a problem into his notebook.
"Cut the girl some slack, Paul. Maybe it's how she focused. Tons of people doodle while they learn."
"How many people write essays in the margins of their textbooks?" Paul pointed at one of the notes, a particularly long paragraph about, in her opinion, how schools favored the academically gifted over the artistically gifted. He appreciated her enthusiasm, but he just wanted to pass the class, not debate the nuances of the U.S. school system.
"Maybe she just really hates calculus." Bill flipped to the back of his own textbook, presumably to check his answer, then started to erase large chunks of his work.
Paul looked down at the problem he started and rubbed his face in defeat. "Then I don't blame her." He took to drawing stars on the corner of the page.
"Hey, what's her name again?" Bill asked, pulling out his phone. "Maybe Charlotte knows her?"
"I think it's Erica... or something like that. Let me check." He flipped to the front cover and ran a finger down the near-illegible list of names, stopping on the final entry, penned in the same messy black pen as the myriad of sarcastic notes. "Emma Perkins."
*
"I don't know why you're so hung up on this, Paul." Bill threw his bag on the floor of the library's lobby and collapsed into a chair. Paul sat across from him, slinging the arm of his backpack over his chair and pulling out his textbook. "She's not going to use the book again, why write back?"
Paul opened his book to the first page-covered, save for a patch of blank space at the bottom, by a lengthy rant about secondhand books-and clicked a pen. "I don't know."
"You were complaining about it not even three days ago. What changed?"
"Nothing. I just think it's fun. Like... she left something behind, maybe it's my turn." He bent over to start filling in the blank space.
Funny how much you hate secondhand books, Emma. Are these notes supposed to make me hate them too?
"Yeah, sounds real convincing." Paul jumped, his pen dragging a line off the corner of the page. He checked to ensure that it hadn't obscured Emma's writing and turned toward the intrusion.
"Shut up, Ted. Why are you here?"
"Study date."
"Really?" Bill asked with a derisive smile. "With who?"
Ted glanced around the room, his eyes lingering on any conventionally attractive girl. "Haven't decided yet."
Paul turned back to his writing and scribbled over the stray line. "Gross."
"Says the man writing love letters to Miss Imaginary in his calculus book."
Paul chose to ignore the jab. He flipped a few pages and started to read Emma's thoughts on "Finding Limits: Graphically and Analytically."
Fuck limits. I'm at my limit.
He smiled and penned back a response.
Me too. Imagine wasting a month on something you'll never need again.
"So, did you hear about the end-of-year trip?" Ted once again broke his flow of writing. Paul leaned back in his seat and rubbed at his eyes.
"No, did you?" Bill asked. Paul couldn't care less, but Bill loved the yearly school trips, even when they took a cheap trip to the zoo or museum.
"Yeah, Mr. MacNamara let it slip. They're busing us over to see the Hatchetfield High musical."
"Oh." Bill's face fell. "Well, what musical are they doing?"
"Who cares? We get to watch the Bees make a fool of themselves on stage. It's going to suck regardless."
"It could be fun!"
"Sure, Bill."
"I'm with Ted on this one, Bill." Paul leaned on the table and started fidgeting with the corner of a page. "High school productions aren't usually... good. We'd be better off watching a movie on the projector in the auditorium."
"You guys are no fun." Bill slammed his book closed and put his head down. Paul picked up his pen again and started flipping through the book, looking for something else to reply to.
*
The next time I have to hear theater girls whining that they want Lin-Manuel Miranda to write a musical about calculus I'm punching someone. Probably myself. Maybe if I do it hard enough I'll pass out.
Why did Isaac Newton invent this bullshit? Did he secretly hate teens and want them to suffer?
Mark this down as time number 2437 that I've snuck coffee into this class and time 2438 that I didn't give a shit.
"Are you going to read that during the show, too?" Bill asked. We were pressed into a bus seat together, trying to yell over the cacophony coming from the back.
"Only if I can't find an excuse to leave by intermission."
When the bus finally pulled into the parking lot, Paul grabbed the book and ran off, catching his breath by the front doors while he waited for Bill, who got swept up in the rush. They trailed behind the group, avoiding the crowd jostling to get into the building first.
At the front of the auditorium, a lady with wrinkles and graying hair marked off seats on a giant seating chart as she checked tickets. Paul handed her both his and Bill's.
"Row H, seats 23 and 25. Enjoy the show," she wheezed. On their way in, Bill grabbed two programs and passed one to Paul. When they took their seats, he thumbed through it, glancing at the names and bios of all the actors and crew members.
A few familiar faces caught his eye-people he'd seen at the library or in line at Beanie's-though most of the cast were strangers. He found the crew list and saw Charlotte's face smiling back at him. He grinned when he saw her title, "Stage Manager." She'd been working for that for four years.
He flipped back to the front, hoping to find a synopsis before the show started, but something distracted him. He stopped in the middle of the program and stared at the face of the most disinterested girl he'd ever seen. Next to her picture, however, was what really caught his eye. "Emma Perkins, Jean MacLaren." He scanned through her bio.
Emma is excited to perform as Jean MacLaren in her second Hatchetfield High production. She would like to thank Ms. Carolyn, AJ, and her fellow cast and crew, as well as her loving sister, for supporting her in her performance career. Her past roles include Tigerlily in Peter Pan: A Musical Adventure and Laverne La Verne in the Hatchetfield Children's Theater production of Lucky Lucky Hudson.
Paul tapped Bill on the shoulder and motioned to the program. "Hey, Bill, look at this-"
Bill held out his hand and whispered, "Shh, it's starting!" The house lights dimmed and the stage lights rose to reveal the ugliest backdrop Paul had ever seen. He shifted in his seat, fiddled with his program, and prayed the show would be better than the painted monstrosity behind it.
*
If it weren't for the miniscule chance of finally meeting Emma, Paul would've snuck back to the bus, forgoing the "cast meet-n-greet" entirely, but instead, he pushed through a crowd of fans swarming the production's "Fiona" and found Emma, waiting in the wings, completely alone. She must've seen him coming, as she raised a hand in half-hearted greeting.
"Hi," she said, barely above a whisper. "Come to pity me?"
"No. I mean yes- wait, no! I just, um..." She laughed at his poor excuse of an answer. It was warm and sweet. He fidgeted with the book in his hands, the tips of his ears burning.
"It's okay, really. My sister is coming for the show tomorrow, she had work tonight. No pity needed." She gave a weak smile and did a little curtsy, like she had to prove she wasn't upset.
"No, it's not that! I just..." Paul's words caught in his throat. Now that he could see her standing in front of him, all the ways he imagined this conversation going felt... wrong. Strange. "I dropped my calculus textbook in a huge puddle. Soaked completely through. Mrs. Anderson gave me a replacement, a hand-me-down from here, and it was yours from last year, so-"
"No way!" She pulled the book out of his hands and started flipping through the pages. "All my old notes and rants are in here!" Then she stopped flipping pages and her brow furrowed. "Who wrote all of this?"
Emma held out a random page. Underneath her messy black scribbles, Paul saw his own tidy blue inkings staring back at him. She pulled the book back and flipped through, more vigorously this time. "It's like this on every page..."
"I, um... I wrote all of that." She didn't stop turning pages, so he pressed on, a bit stronger. "I read all of your notes as we went along, and I thought it might be fun to... respond. Sorry if it's, like, weird, or..." He trailed off, watching Emma linger on the last few pages. He felt his own heart thumping in his chest.
"Emma," she whispered, reading from the page, "I haven't met you yet, and I don't know if I ever will. Maybe you graduated 10 years ago and you have a life. A husband. Kids. Maybe I was right about you from the beginning and you're a dropout with no prospects. Who knows?" She smiled. "But your notes and rants got me through this year, so I thought it was only fair to say thank you." She looked up from the book. Paul swore that his heart skipped a beat.
"Sorry if that's... I don't know, too much? I just... you seemed really nice and funny in your notes, and now that I've met you for real..."
"I honestly never thought anyone would read those stupid rants and shit. I just got really bored of learning calculus." She laughed again, and this time he laughed with her. Something about it was infectious. "So... How did you like the show?"
"If I'm being completely honest? I didn't."
"That's fair. It was a shitty performance."
"Not all of it," Paul mumbled, hoping that Emma couldn't hear.
"Oh, really? What part did you think wasn't the worst thing you've seen in your life?" She smiled like she'd just told the best joke in the world. Maybe she did. Paul was far too distracted to notice.
"Oh, um... Actually..."
"Spit it out, dude."
"You." Paul realized what he said, his eyes wide, and immediately started to backtrack. "I mean, not you! I mean, yes, you, but not... you. Your performance. Like... your dancing and stuff. And you have a really pretty voice too. I mean-!"
"You think so?" Her smile faltered a bit, but when it came back, it accompanied a light blush.
"Yeah, I do."
"Oh. Um, thanks." They locked eyes for a moment, just long enough to send Paul into a panic, but she glanced away and shifted her weight.
Screw it.
"Hey, Emma, are you busy after this?" He winced at the waver in his voice, but Emma either didn't notice or didn't care.
"Nope. I think we have a cast party, but I'm up for any excuse to get me away from these assholes." She gestured to the slowly dwindling crowd. "Why, what do you have in mind?"
"I was thinking coffee from Beanie's? My treat."
"That sounds great."
*
Some innocent high school Paulkins to brighten your day. I have a few longer works planned out, but this will be a nice book to come back to between projects or for a refresher.