If You Want to Be Happy

Thought Bubbles

Connor

Now I know how French kissing got its name. Mademoiselle Madla once told us that French kissing isn't actually called that in France. They call it English kissing. I think that's absurd. It can't be anything but French.

When I taught her French in the cafe, that was when I knew. When she puckered up her lips and spoke in that soft, throaty voice, lips remaining parted at the end, it was all I could do not to lean across the table and slide my tongue between them. I wished I hadn't come up with the image of the strawberry. I couldn't help but fantasize about her actually passing that strawberry from her mouth to mine, tasting her sweet, tender lips in between juicy bites.

To think looking at that lovely little mouth has much the same effect on me as seeing Jenna bare her top and bottom to me by our lockers. I guess I'm just green-minded, as Benita would say.

The weird thing is, I'm not even really that imaginative, normally. My mom's an editor so I've always naturally written correctly and fluidly. I do well in English except when I'm asked to do a creative assignment like the one Mr. Kozinsky assigns when we finish reading Pride and Prejudice this week.

"Mr. Darcy actually proposes to Elizabeth earlier in the book," he points out. "Of course he did it at the wrong time, when Elizabeth had just found out that he had prevented his friend from proposing to her sister. But what if somehow they worked things out at that moment and Elizabeth accepted his proposal? Would the other events in the book have occurred?"

Mr. Kozinsky asks us to discuss this with a partner. Naturally, my partner is Benita. I complain to her, "I never know how to answer questions like this. How can you be sure what would have happened if things were different?"

"No one's asking you to be sure, Connor. This is just an opportunity to consider, you know, whether Elizabeth and Darcy are meant to be."

"'Meant to be.' What does that even mean? They just manage to get along when Darcy makes the decision to do whatever will make Elizabeth happy. If he hadn't been too proud to make up his mind to do that at this point, then they would have gotten together already."

"Connor, that's it!" She begins writing furiously and after a minute shows me what she's gotten down. She has to read some of it aloud to me because I can't understand her hasty scrawl. I make a few comments, but Benita does all the writing. And we are done just in time to make our report. Because she did most of the work, I offer to take care of most of the presentation.

"My partner and I agree that elements must be added to Darcy's proposal in order to make it acceptable to Elizabeth without radically and unbelievably altering her personality," I begin. "And so it becomes necessary to imagine the scene we are about to present would take place soon after the disastrous proposal. Darcy will return and say," I made my voice deeper, "Forgive me, Miss Bennet."

"Miss Elizabeth," Mr. Kozinsky and Benita correct me at the same time.

"Right, right, only her sister can be called Miss Bennet." I begin again, "Forgive me, Miss Elizabeth, I spoke in haste and in anger. Upon consideration, I understand the reason for your fury towards me. I wish to offer to make amends. I will prevail upon my friend to propose at once to your sister. Once she accepts, may I hope that we might have a double wedding?"

"If you can find it in your heart to accept your faults and make such amends," Benita says as Elizabeth, not even needing to read the lines she had written on our paper. "Then I will find you worthy of my respect and even, in time, my love. Because it doesn't make sense," she adds, going out of character, "For her to fall in love with him just like that."