Chapter Two
Junior Classical League
Brian watches as Bender kisses Claire's neck and whispers something in her ear that makes her blush. Brian can protect her honor, but she'll never look that way at him. He sighs and turns away, to see Rob also watching the couple in a much more obvious way. Rob is in awe of Bender's abilities with the ladies and every time Bender kisses Claire, Brian can see Rob making mental notes and melting with envy. That's better than his own furtive jealousy. Brian's a freshman and she's a junior, she's rich and he's not, she's beautiful and he's insignificant, she's perfect and he's nothing. And Bender is Bender.
Not that Claire isn't nice to him. Under all that rich girl stuff she's a naturally sweet person, warm, gentle and caring. When she thinks of him, she's kind, but she doesn't think of him much. He resumes eating his burger, but his eyes follow her as she buses her tray and heads to the girls' room.
Bender enjoys Rob's hero worship and is now giving him pointers on making it with girls.
"Girls are just like guys, they want what they want, but see, girls think they shouldn't want it. What you need to do is-"
"What you need to do," Andy interrupts, "is shut it, Bender. Don't listen to him, Rob. What you need to do is treat women with respect. Bender, if you keep this up, Claire will hear about your advice column. I don't think you want her to know what you're telling Rob."
Bender subsides with a smirk, unrepentant, just as Claire returns.
Allison looks in Brian's direction from under her shaggy hair. She understands people in a unique way and he knows she's aware of his unrequited affection. Her sympathy warms him; she knows what being on the outside is like.
Mulling this over, he is surprised when he hears an unfamiliar voice say, "Brian Johnson? From the Junior Classical League?"
He looks up to see a girl with black hair and green eyes. She's dressed even more strangely than Allison, in black men's trousers, a tattered black sweater and at least six silver earrings.
"It is you! I saw your dramatic reading at the last convention. I was going to Brookline High and you guys creamed us."
He feels a blush rising.
"I only placed second. You're Beatrice, right?"
"Yep, that's me. I was so excited when I heard I would be transferring here and I could join your team. The next meeting is Thursday?"
"At 3:30, yeah, up in Mr. Tillson's classroom."
"I'll see you there!"
The whole table is silently looking at him.
"Latin Club," he explains. "She knows me from Latin Club."
"She's got enough junk in her ears to set off a metal detector in an airport," says Bender.
"You're famous, Brian?" Claire asks.
Allison doesn't say anything but he senses a happy glow from her direction.
Andy bursts out, "She looks weirder than Allison!" He quickly looks at Allison and says, "Sorry. You always look great, but you know what I mean."
The guys, Rob, Gil and Lester have been looking on enviously.
"I was supposed to do that reading," mutters Rob.
"But Mr. Tillson chose Brian because he was better," Gil retorts. "Way to go, Brian. I remember Beatrice; she rocked in the certamen event."
"I'm glad she's on our side now. We'll do even better at next year's convention," Lester says excitedly.
Brian sees Beatrice much sooner than he expected. The next day when he plunks his bag lunch down at his usual spot at the lunch table, he notices a female huddle going on at the other end of the table; Allison and Claire are ministering to Beatrice, who looks upset.
Andy leans over and says, "Claire found her in the bathroom. Someone was being shitty to her. You know, girls are much worse than guys. Guys just hurt you and then leave you alone; girls keep at you until you go crazy."
"Priscilla is a BITCH." Brian and Andy are both surprised at this loud, profane outburst from Claire. Allison pulls out the chair between herself and Brian and gestures Beatrice into it. Rob usually sits there, but Beatrice's need seems greater.
Knowing what it is like to be on the receiving end of bullying, Brian gives her an encouraging smile. She wipes her nose and tries to smile back.
"It's stupid to let someone like her get to me. I don't even know her."
"Claire's right, she's the biggest bitch in school. Don't mind her."
Bender descends with his usual flourish, seeming to take up more room than other people as he arrays himself and his overcoat, and then the three guys arrive, making a hubbub that draws attention away from Beatrice.
The guys are laughing over something Gil is saying.
"Tell us again, Gil!" Rob encourages.
Gil can barely get it out, choking on his own laughter. "Semper ubi sub ubi ubique."
Brian has heard this one before and rolls his eyes and in so doing he catches Beatrice's eye. They share a tolerant smile.
"Oldest one in the book," she observes.
"Oldest what?" Allison asks.
"Oldest Latin joke… ubi means 'where,' so it's a pun that means 'Always wear underwear everywhere.' Sure to get a laugh from the under fifteen male populace."
Having turned fifteen just a few weeks ago, Brian feels relieved he hadn't laughed.
"Yeah, that's not really funny is it?" Allison is remarkably honest for a compulsive liar.
"The first couple of times I heard it when I was thirteen, it was funny. It's been a while since I've found it amusing," Beatrice says.
"You started Latin when you were thirteen?" Brian asks.
Beatrice answers, "No, my dad started me when I was ten, but I didn't get to study it in school until I was thirteen."
Beatrice becomes more impressive by the minute. Her prowess at the Latin quiz bowl is now explained.
"I'm glad you're with us now," Brian tells her.
"It'll be exciting working with you guys. His dramatic reading," Beatrice turns to Allison, "was phenomenal, right down to the syllable."
"I only came in second." Brian feels a blush burning his cheeks.
"Yeah, second to Bart Newfield, who was sixteen at the time."
Distracted by such flattering attention, it takes a while for him to notice Allison flipping through a wallet not her own.
"Umm, Allison, you need to give that back."
"You stole my wallet?" Beatrice sounds more impressed than angry.
"You've been to see Bauhaus?" Allison is holding up a laminated ticket stub.
"I'll tell you about Bauhaus if you teach me how to pick pockets."
Wow, a friend for Allison? She must be very strange indeed.
Beatrice continues to dominate Brian's day. After the last class, he makes his way to the Willow Street exit to walk home and bumps into her on the way out.
"You headed this way?" he asks. "I live in West Shermer."
"Yeah, me too."
He's never asked a girl to do anything with him, but his new lease on life after the breakfast club urges him to say, "Wanna walk together?"
His heart beats hard until she says, "Sure, let's go."
He is afraid they might walk in silence until he recollects their mutual interest in Latin and starts the happy topic of Roman mythology. This carries them right up to Milton Avenue, where they part ways. When he says goodbye, Brian notices how green her eyes are and his stomach does a little flip-flop. This feels very different from the tug at his heart when he looks at Claire. And there is no Bender over shadowing him. She's impressed with his dramatic reading, she remembered his name months after the convention, she seems to like talking to him. He warms himself with these facts as with a tiny flame.
By Allison's invitation, Beatrice returns to the breakfast club lunch table the day after. Again, she takes Rob's seat, between Allison and Brian. Brian is afraid Rob might feel hurt by his displacement, but Rob gives him a little thumbs up and waggles his eyebrows. He hopes to engage her in conversation but to his surprise, Allison dominates that end of the table, interrogating Beatrice about the Bauhaus concert she saw in October.
"I've held up my end of the bargain; you know all about the Bauhaus concert," Beatrice says. "Let's see how you do your light-fingered tricks."
"Get up Beatrice. Brian, take her seat." Allison rearranges them, then gives Beatrice instructions behind Brian's back, repeatedly removing his wallet from his back pocket. He didn't volunteer for this, but it is thrilling to have Beatrice leaning in so close to him he can feel her breath on his back.
"I'm glad I keep mine on a chain, Johnson. No practicing on me," Bender observes.
Allison peeks around Brian to say, "We can practice on Claire's purse next."
That afternoon, as Brian heads toward the Willow Street exit, he sees Beatrice loitering, as if she were waiting for him. Her smile, when she turns and sees him, makes his stomach do the flip-flop thing again.
"Hi, Brian. You heading home?"
"Yeah, you too?"
"I've got to stop at Benson's. My mom asked me to get some milk on the way home."
Brian holds the door for her and they turn towards West Shermer.
Fearful of an awkward silence, he asks, "How do you like Shermer so far, Beatrice?"
"Except for that Priscilla girl, I like it fine. Your friend Allison is really cool. How do you know all those upperclassmen?"
"We all had detention together one Saturday. We just kind of stuck together after that. I mean, those guys started dating and I sorta… I guess I'm the host. They all came to sit at my table at lunch because my friends-"
"Your friends aren't stuck up. I always sat at the Latin Club table at Brookline. I'm glad Claire found me when Priscilla was going after me. If she had gone on much longer, I would have decked her, then I'd be in trouble for fighting again."
"Again?"
"Yeah, that's why I'm not at Brookline any more. Fighting. Beat the shit out of a guy who thought taking my Walkman would be funny. My music is everything; I couldn't let him take it, especially as it had a bootleg of a Cure concert. My parents took the Walkman away as punishment, but the bootleg is safe."
"A bootleg recording is worth physical violence?"
"Of course it is. It's irreplaceable. Anyway, he'd been asking for trouble for a while. Dick."
Once again fearing silence, Brian starts, "Andy used to be a dick. But he changed. Because of the breakfast club. Lester? Andy taped Lester's buns together in the locker room one day after P.E. But he said he was sorry and I think he really meant it because he cried. But maybe that was just the marijuana?." He stops suddenly, realizing he's babbling and perhaps shouldn't have mentioned drugs and definitely shouldn't have mentioned Andy crying.
"You smoke marijuana?"
"Just once, during detention." He's glad the drug reference has distracted her from Andy crying.
"What was it like?"
"It made me laugh a lot and do stupid things. Bender knocked me over…" This isn't sounding too interesting. "Andy went crazy and broke a window, then started doing gymnastics all over the place."
"You guys don't seem like delinquents, but you did all this stuff in detention. What were you in detention for anyway?"
"I had a flare gun in my locker that went off."
"A flare gun? That is totally random. Why did you have one in your locker?"
He wants to avoid this topic. "That's a long story. Allison is the only one who didn't do anything bad to get in detention. She came because she didn't have anything else to do. She used to not have friends, but I don't know why, she's very nice, and when she talks she's funny. You should have heard this big lie she told about being a nymphomaniac." Damn, maybe mentioning Allison's lying is not so great either. He's babbling again, but he doesn't know how to stop. "Bender was a dick too, before detention."
"Bender still is a dick," Beatrice interjects.
"Yeah, but he used to be worse. He's nice to me now. Or at least, he doesn't try to scare me anymore."
They've reached Milton Avenue and Benson's Grocery.
"I guess I need to get milk now. I'll see you tomorrow?"
Those green eyes latch onto his.
"Umm, yeah, tomorrow." He nervously zips his jacket up and down.
"Bye." She turns toward the automatic door into the grocery store and is gone.