Chapter 4 – Open my book…
The half-broken clock in the art room buzzed 1:14 over and over until the final buzz diminished and the new time, 1:15 took over it's duty to blink for sixty seconds, having its fame and glory all the same until the next school day came. The art room was a sprawling sight of canvas, drawing paper, paint, and charcoal smears. Students eagerly dosed brushes with mineral spirts and palettes were being scraped as if every particle of paint must be removed for the day to commence. Long tables lay along this fourth-floor loft, as the sunbeams glistened down from the roof sunlight windows, cascading sparkles of color all about. Marie loved this room and held it dearly, probably as dearly as Double D held the chemistry room. In a strange way there was a striking similarity between the two, from the chemical odors to the careful approach of the subject matter. Marie didn't consider herself much of an artist, at least not as much as she would give herself credit for. She worked mainly in charcoal, for she loved the simplicity of blacks and greys. Her subjects ranged from the abstract to the personal, and the current project she was undertaking she titled Left-Handed Moon. But she just couldn't focus on anything, and simply laid crouched over her drawing paper, watching the digital clock blink as the seconds faded into minutes; and pretty soon nearly a half hour had gone past, with chemistry class creeping upon her like a raging stalker ready to pounce. End of day was fast approaching, and she didn't have the courage to accept that.
"What's the matter Ms. Marie, the art just not comin' to ya? That'll happen sometimes."
The calm voice was cast down upon her from this tall, lanky many that stood before her: Mr. Wicker. Mr. Wicker was the school's art instructor, and quite the artist he was. He was hugely tall, around six foot eight, and carried a great bald spot surrounded by fuzzy grey-brown hair. His voice was the most soothing thing ever heard, his slightly southern accent caressing itself as paint on a smooth canvas does. Marie felt very safe around him, very comforted. But even that soothing voice could not eliminate the feelings of nervousness and fear that overcame her.
"I don't know, Mr. W…" she said, meekly lifting her little head up, a pouting frown dominating her face. "I'm failing chemistry, and I really don't wanna have to take that class again, I just want to give up. I try and study, but it never works. I'm just not good at it…"
Her head collapsed once more into her arms, a nose sniffling underneath, heavily muffled.
"Now now Marie, it can't be all that bad…" Mr. Wicker said as he sat down on the table next to her, patting her on the back, "I wasn't so great at science in school, either. I had a C in chemistry for God's sake! But that's because those things didn't light up my soul. Some people, they get satisfaction from doing experiments and solving equations. But some of us get that satisfaction by putting our souls into our art. We shine on paper, but in a different way. We make our feelings take on shape, dimension, volume. We, uhh, we use the canvas…"
Marie was not very impressed by Mr. Wickers attempted reassurance, but she respected and appreciated his attempt nonetheless.
"I'm not really helping much, am I hun?" he asked meekly.
"Not really Mr. Wicker, but thank you for looking out for me though. I'm just so fed up with some of this stuff. I'll be glad when it's finally over."
"I understand Marie, believe me. But you're a wonderful artist. You bring life to your work, I see it every week! You apply yourself endlessly in my class; you have to find out for yourself how to convert that energy into good chemistry work. I wish I could help you on that, but as I said, definitely not the subject I got the good marks in."
"I know, believe me Mr. W. Luckily Dr. Strickland has hooked me up with a tutor, and he's a really smart and kind guy. I'm really hoping he can help me out on this, but the situation just makes me nervous as hell…"
"Aah, I see this all very clearly now…" Mr. Wicker said as he stood up and waved his finger in the air, a boyish grin creeping across his wrinkling face, "This isn't about chemistry, is it? It's about a boy! You like him, don't you?"
Marie blushed heavily and her only reaction was to stare at the box of pastels just across from her next to the sink. She blanked for a second before snapping out of it and looking back to her teacher. "Maybe….but it's the chemistry too,…it's uhh….it's both…"
And with that the bell clanged, and the class began to move towards the exit for the final class of the school day.
"Well you better get going now Marie, but don't worry about this, okay? Stick to those books, and just approach this how you'd approach one of your art pieces: improvise! What's the worst that can happen, huh?" Mr. Wicker said as he rinsed his hands under the sink and wiped them on his apron.
"Bye Mr. Wicker, and thanks a bunch. See ya on Monday!" She collected her books and scurried out.
"Bye now Marie!" Mr. Wicker said as he waved and leaned back into the room, busying himself with cleaning up the various art supplies.
Chemistry class came and went, and suddenly the three o'clock bell rang out and startled Marie like a jumping siren out of nowhere. She had spent the better part of the class daydreaming, dreading, and diverting. Dr. Strickland babbled on about something to do with orbitals, and she didn't really care that much. She thought about Double D, and how hard it would be not to blush the entire tutor session. But now that it was three o'clock, there was no hiding now. Double D was likely on his way, and Marie froze and stared into space as her classmates all shuffled and left around her, until she was the final person seated.
"Well, I'm heading home now, Marie…" Dr. Strickland said as he grabbed his bag and his lunchbox, pulling his keys from his pocket. "Edd should be up shortly, you guys have all the time you need. But I think the janitors lock the doors at five, so try not to stay too late, alright. Bye now!"
"Bye Dr. Strickland, see ya Monday…" Marie responded with a light wave as Strickland darted out of the door and into obscurity, leaving Marie in an empty void with nothing but the racket of the fume hood and the soft smell of acetone to keep her company. She quietly slipped into day dream mode for a brief second until the sound of door-tumblers startled her. The door knob slowly made its way around and the creaking sound escalated until the door fully opened and a visage appeared from behind it.
Double D walked in the room and waved towards Marie with a friendly smile upon his face.
"Good afternoon Marie, I hope you are feeling well for this tutor session!" he said as he walked towards the blackboard and took a seat in the mighty Strickland's office chair, feeling the power sink into his skin from the brown leather.
"….Oh, uh, hiya there…Double D. I'm not….too confident about this stuff, really. It's all wayyy over my head!" Marie responded, attempting to hide her blushing behind her right hand.
"Well, not to worry Marie, just let me know what you're having some issues with that way we'll be sure to go over them. I'd really hate to see you not do well on this final exam, for it is quite important I understand."
"Maybe we could…uhh….go over orbitals? It's the first thing on his exam review and it made me sooo confused before. Can you help, please?" Marie was blushing harder than ever, which was so difficult to mask on her pale skin. Her head began to sink below her arms now, trapped in a world of nervousness.
"Sure Marie, let us now turn our attention to the world of orbitals…" Double D then grabbed a piece of chalk and began illustrating his thoughts onto the dark slate of the blackboard. "Orbitals are the homes which electrons live in. Think of each orbital subshell quite like a room of the house, and as a room can only fit so many people in it, so too is true that orbitals can only accommodate so many electrons. So you see, when an electron fills the subshell of the orbital…" Double D paused for a second to glance back at Marie, who was sitting quietly, watching his every mood. "Oh Lord…" Double D thought, "I'm nerding out up here, she's likely more confused now than she was to begin with."
"Marie, I have an idea, and this might allow the material to make more sense than what is happening on this…um…blackboard here. How would you feel if I come sit next to you and show you the information in the textbook, that way you can know how to find this material later on when you'd be studying on your own?"
She froze as she heard his words spell out, however she did have to agree with him. Some side-by-side learning was perhaps the best way to go about this.
"…Sure Double D, I think that's a good idea…." Her voice was so low that it was practically a whisper, but that didn't deter Double D for one second. He quickly erased what he had neatly drawn on the blackboard, all the while repeating his mantra of messy, messy, messy…. After he was done, he scurried his little feet over to the lab desk where Marie was sitting, and very gently pulled the chair out and sat down.
"Do you happen to have your textbook with you, Marie?" Double D asked as he placed his hands together before him on the desk.
"Sure…." Marie responded, pulling it out of her black book-bag and gently releasing it onto the table. It was a rather large green tome with the word CHEMISTRY plastered across. Double D referenced the index before quickly shuffling the pages until he reached the chapter which discussed orbitals and hybridization. Marie watched intensely as his fingers skimmed through the pages, the breeze generated by the pages pushed a few of the hairs in her bangs, allowing her hidden eye to become visible for that one brief moment.
"Aha, here we are! Orbitals, just what I like to see on a Friday! How enchanting…" Double D said as he gleamed at the various illustrations presented on the pages. The s orbital was beautifully illustrated in the instance of the hydrogen atom, it's rotund shape, responsible for mechanisms of the universe themselves: stars.
"See Marie, here we are. Orbitals, in the quantum sense, are simply places where the energy of electrons exist. Since electrons can be particles and waves, they have a certain, well, flow to them. There are four major orbitals when discussing atoms: the s, p, d, and f! As each new atom adds a proton to its nucleus and then an electron, new subshells are needed to house all these new electrons! Energy levels are essentially like adding new stories to a house; it gives all these electrons new places to live, and the lower energy levels are covered before the higher. When we want to represent a quantized energy level, we denote that with an integer…" Double D pulled out a pad of paper and pen from his satchel and drew a number, 1. What this integer tells us is where does the energy of this electron exist. In the case of hydrogen, the energy exists in the first s orbital, and that is why we write this configuration as 1s. Now since hydrogen possesses one proton, how many electrons do you think it has, Marie?"
Marie had momentarily spaced out, though it was in no way due to boredom. She had been totally encapsulated in everything he said. It actually started to kind of make sense now. Strickland had always been so condescending in his approach to chemistry. He constantly talked down to the class and made everyone, especially Marie, feel really stupid for not understanding chemistry like he understood it. But she was captured by Double D's way of explaining these things, and she latched on to his every word. This didn't explain the strange way she felt in her stomach, but her brain was finally understanding something about chemistry.
"One….one electron, right…?" she meekly responded.
"Absolutely Marie, very good!" Double D replied, with a smile. "Hydrogen is going to have one electron in the 1s orbital, which also happens to be its valence shell. He quickly pointed to the large, white periodic table that hung over the drying rack, which was above the washing-sink at the end of the left row of lab stations.
"You see that row on the far left, starting with H, that is the s block. For every atom, an s orbital will be present, and as you go down each group on the table, you add new energy levels along the say. We call the final shell or shells of an atom it's valence shell, because this is ultimately where bonding will take place. For example, oxygen's electron configuration is 1s2, 2s2, 2p4. For an easy way to figure out this top-numbers…" he said as he pointed with his index finger at the superscripts, Marie's eyes darting to meet it, "…simply count across the row, or more technically, the period. So, for oxygen, it's four elements into this row, therefore it's 2p4. Together with the 2s orbital, its valence shell will possess six electrons. Marie, may I ask you a question…?"
His reference to her caught her completely off guard, and even visibly startled her to a certain extent. She had been busy wrapping her mind around everything that Double D was saying.
"Sure, go on…." She half-whispered.
"Is any of the material I'm discussing making any sense whatsoever?" Double D asked, straightening the hat on his head.
"Ohh….yes, Double D! I can't understand Strickland at all, he just kept rambling on about something that wasn't even in our notes! But with you, I can actually see this stuff and it makes total sense! I mean, maybe not total sense, but a whole lot more than before!" her flat face converted itself into what resembled a slight grin. Inside her smile was a mile wide, but it translated quite poorly on the outside.
"Ooh,…well, thank you Marie! I'm glad I could help you understand this better! I just um..-"
For the first time the two made eye-contact, Marie's piercing green eyes meeting the brown specimens of Double D's. It was awkward as hell, and no one said anything for several seconds. Double D had always been petrified of this girl, and the torment she gave him as a youth was just cause for this feeling. But ever since she gave up the harassment, he formed a pretty neutral opinion of her overall. He only saw her around, occasionally he might wave. But her thoughts comprised of him much of the time. She overanalyzed every greeting, every wave. Every little sign of attention suddenly became a big deal. This little study session alone was the longest Double D had ever been voluntarily around her. It had sent her senses into a complete overdrive, and she wondered If any of her sweat was visible, or her shaking for that matter. Double D appreciated her more meek side, and wondered if that's what she was truly like underneath the rather rough personality.
They eye-contact came to a close as Double D's eyes drifted to the large digital-clock upon the wall, which read out 3:47. My how time had gone by, Double D thought. Those Pink Floyd-isms had been true though, Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way…
"Well Marie, looks like our time for studying today has come to a close. I hope I was able to clear up a few things about orbitals today, though I don't know how successful I was in that endeavor." Double D said, closing the textbook and sliding it towards Marie.
"…Yes, thank you very much Double D! It really helped, and…" she gulped slightly, "…I'm…looking forward to our next session Monday…" the blush returned, red as ever.
"Of course Marie, I was more than happy to help you! I too am looking forward to this next session. We'll be sure to go over covalent bonding and how it applies to orbitals!" Double D then stood up from his chair, gently placed his satchel over his shoulder, and pushed the chair in until the hard plastic bumped the thick lacquer of the table in a gentle thud. Marie put her book in her bag and placed it on her back, standing up with him.
The two stood there for some time before one of them had the courage to make a way for the door. It was Double D in this case, and he held the door open as he waited for Marie to follow along. She did, but slowly at first. She honestly wasn't too certain of what was to happen next, nor exactly how she was going to get home. None of this had really been thought through very well on her part.
"Now I just got to figure out how I'm gonna get back to my house, haha…" Marie said with a nervous chuckle, with Double D closing the door behind them as they continued down the hall.
"Well, if you wanted Marie, you could walk with me. The evening is bound to not be too unpleasant weather-wise, and the exercise is sure to be beneficial for the health of us both!" Double D replied with a smile.
Her pupils immediately shrunk to a tenth of their usual size, completely taken aback by his comment. Did he just actually insist that we walk together? What is going on here, am I dreaming? This can't be happening, this cannot actually be happening. But shit, it is. I gotta answer, and I have to say yes. How could I say no, God I hope he doesn't notice my shaking?
"…okay, that sounds good…" she sheepishly replied. She looked straight down to the ground, fidgeting with her shoes in the process.
"Splendid, let us leave this place then. Until Monday, kind bastion of learning…" Double D gave his respects to this school by laying one hand upon a cinderblock of the wall, before he and Marie traveled down the stairs and out the front door, with the trailer park being around a ten-minute walk from the school, and the cul-de-sac a roughly fifteen-minute affair. As they exited the brick fortress, the wind blew wildly as it often does in the spring time. Marie's hair was tossed to and fro before she pulled a beanie-hat from her bag and donned it, unknowingly matching her tutor who sported his ever-present stocking cap.
She giggled internally at this realization, and the two stepped forward down the sidewalk as the budding trees danced abstractly in the fierce breeze, against the backdrop of the greyish-blue sky.