Chapter 6

Who Needs Pictures?

September, as it did every year, brought the start of a new school year. I was beginning my junior year in high school, Isabelle was a sophomore. Hopie was going into seventh grade.

The first day of a new school year always brought me happiness and sadness. The start of a new year was in one respect a chance at starting over, at doing everything better that I might not have excelled at the previous year. On the other hand, it was the end of the summer, and I was returned to the monotony and necessity of going to school each day.

As always, I sat next to Isabelle on the bus that morning. We were both sporting new school clothes and new book bags full of new notebooks, pens and pencils. We talked idly about teachers, mostly those Isabelle was going to have that I had had the previous year, as neither of us knew much about where I was going, and I had already talked to Rose and had all the necessary information for the first day.

Rose was going to college in a week. It would be strange not to have her home all the time. I was going to be the oldest of my sisters at home. I could hardly believe it. The summer I actually got to know and like Rose, she was going to college and wouldn't be home anyway. It certainly was strange the way things worked out.

I saw Sarah standing at her locker almost as soon as I walked into my high school. It was a prestigious co-ed private prep school. I had always been happy that my parents hadn't sent me to an all girls school, as most of the private schools in the area were.

"Hi Sarah," I said as I walked up to her new locker. "Found your locker already, I see."

"Yes I did, it wasn't particularly difficult," she said, sort of mocking me in a friendly way.

"I barely saw you this summer," I said. "What have you been up to?" I noticed that Sarah looked exactly the same as the last time I had seen her, long, dark curly hair pulled back into a loose ponytail, green eyes staring at me just as they always did.

"Not a lot, how about you?"

"Not much, hanging with my sisters mostly. I had my coming out party, I told you that, right?"

"Yea, how did that go?"

"Pretty good."

"Who was your escort?"

"Robert Hanley, he's my parents' friends' son. You've probably met him before, he goes to Edward." Edward was an all boys prep school nearby.

"Yes, I think I've met him. Pretty tall, dark, short hair, blue eyes?"

"Yea, that's Robert."

"He's nice."

"He is." I had been thinking a lot about Robert lately, although I hadn't seen him since my coming out. "I'm going to go find my locker and my homeroom now, okay? I'll talk to you later."

"Okay. Enjoy," Sarah said semi-sarcastically. "See you later."

Sarah and I never had our lockers or homerooms anywhere near each other, as my last name was Abbot and hers was Winchester. I was usually in the first homeroom, she in the last, or close to it. I quickly found my locker and put my new supplies into it, then went to the homeroom that the notice I had gotten in the mail instructed me to go to.

The school day passed very slowly, most every teacher listing rules and policies that we had heard what felt like millions of times before. Yet when I got home, the night got far more interesting.

It started out normally, my mother asked me how school had gone, and I told her it had gone fine. On the way upstairs to do my homework, I stopped to tell our current maid, Juanita, that she was scrubbing the bathroom floor inefficiently. She ignored me and kept doing it the way she had been. I ignored the fact that she had ignored me and continued to my room.

Shortly after I had finished what little homework I had, my mother called up the stairs to tell me that I had a telephone call. This wasn't particularly unusual. I picked up the phone in my room. "Hello?"

"Hi Emily, it's Robert." This was unusual. Robert had never called me before to my memory. I had only ever seen him in the past when our families had plans together, plans that neither one of us had ever had any hand in planning.

"Hello Robert," I said, altering my voice slightly to try to sound older. I don't know if it worked, my sisters were far better at flirting than I had ever been.

"So…" he said, giving me no indication as to why he might have called. I had no idea whatsoever what I was supposed to say. It wasn't that I hadn't talked to boys on the phone before, but I had only ever talked to boys on the phone that I was already dating. "You started school today, didn't you?" he said, breaking the silence.

"Yes," I replied, still fighting to sound as if I knew exactly what I was doing. I stretched out the telephone cord almost as far as it could go and stood at my doorway, glancing down the hall toward Isabelle's door. In the brief silence that followed my reply, I stared at the door, willing it to open, or self-destruct. Either would have been fine with me.

"I did too," he said. "How did it go for you?"

"Oh fine, I guess," I said. "The first day is always a bit boring, don't you agree?"

"Definitely," he said. "All of the teachers tend to go over the same policies we've all heard since the first grade."

"First grade? It seems like we've been hearing them since before that," I said relatively naturally.

"Yes it does," he said, laughing. I still didn't know what I was supposed to do. He was quiet again, did that mean I was supposed to say something? I sandwiched the phone between my ear and my shoulder and stood on one foot, pulling off my shoe. I threw it at Isabelle's door, hoping to get her to come out. "What was that?" Robert asked.

"What?"

"That banging sound."

He had heard my shoe. Oh no. I didn't know what to tell him, but it wouldn't be that I threw my shoe at my little sister's door so that she could help me with this whole awkward conversation. "Oh, um, construction. There are some workers fixing the road outside, they make some pretty loud noises." It was one of the worst lies I had ever told, but I hoped that he wouldn't notice.

"Oh," he said. I thought he sounded skeptical, but I could have just been paranoid.

During another awkward silence, Isabelle emerged from her room. "Did you…?"

I pressed my finger to my lips and mouthed "Robert. Help," a little more spastically than I had intended.

Isabelle came into my room and sat down on my bed, then signaled for me to do the same. "Relax," she whispered, loud enough so that I knew what she was saying, but not loud enough for Robert to hear. She stood up and went over to my desk. She pulled a notebook and a pen from one of its drawers, and took it with her when she sat back down. She opened to the first page that hadn't been written on and wrote say something.

I took the pen from her. What? I wrote.

Anything. Make conversation.

I nodded. I could do that. "So uh, the whole school thing? I think it's probably a good thing that we didn't do anything yet in math. I'm not looking forward to that."

Isabelle shot me an interesting look and wrote in the notebook again. Good start, but why are you talking about school?

"Math isn't too bad," he said. "I really don't like English."

"Really? English is one of my favorite subjects. History on the other hand…"

"Aw, history. That has got to be my very least favorite class. It's just so boring."

"Yes, sincerely boring."

Don't talk about things that bore you, Isabelle wrote. Talk about things you like. Get away from school!

"So, do you take a language?" he asked me.

"French. I like it, it's very flowing, flowery."

"French is a little too girly for me," Robert said. "I take Latin." I wondered if I shouldn't have mentioned French. He had asked, though.

Isabelle was writing again. Don't talk about girly things, talk about things he can get into.

I took back the pen. He asked! "So, do you like Latin?" I asked him.

"Yea, it's okay I guess, it isn't my favorite class."

I though about asking what his favorite class was, but just then Isabelle circled where she had earlier written Get away from school! I gave her a questioning look, and she wrote, Most guys like sports…

Perfect. "So, do you play any sports?"

"Basketball in season. But it's off season now. I play football with my friends sometimes, but not on an organized team or anything."

I liked this. I never had seen myself with a boy who was as into football as some at my school were. "That's nice," I said, which was basically what I was thinking. Isabelle shook her head.

"Oh, why am I talking about sports? You don't care," Robert said out loud.

"I asked you," I said, my smile coming through in my voice.

"Oh, you did," he said, realizing that I had. "Why? You don't care."

"Well, I guess you're right, I really don't," I said, laughing a little.

This seemed like an appropriate place for an awkward silence, but Robert interrupted before it could occur. "Do you want to go out sometime?" he asked me. "No," he said, before I could answer. "I hate it when girls ask me that. It doesn't give you an out. Let me rephrase. Do you want to go out… this Friday? Dinner and a movie? No, that's too formal for a first date… Movie and a pizza?"

"Movie and a pizza this Friday night sounds perfect to me," I said. "And so does sometime."

"Excellent, but how about we do the movie pizza thing this Friday, since I went through the trouble of making it up off of the top of my head, okay? We can do sometime another time. That is, if this time goes well."

"I'm sure it will," I said. "I'll see you Friday night."

"I'll pick you up at five, we'll get pizza and then catch a six o' clock movie."

"Sounds perfect." It did. I had never pictured myself on a date with Robert Hanley, but, well, who needed pictures, really?