Chapter 15 - Two Simple Things
After lunch was American Literature. Mr. Parker was my favorite teacher, and English was always my favorite subject. That made it easier to put aside my fight with Cindy and the anxiety of knowing I was planning to ask Kelly out in a few hours. Mr. Parker started by arranging us into groups of four, with our desks clustered together. He said we would be using these groups to discuss things we read and wrote, and when we did group projects. Luckily, Cindy wasn't in my group.
Cindy wasn't in Physics or my study hall either. That gave me time to gain some perspective. I could see how, from her point of view, she was being a good friend. But, now what? Let's say Kelly and I did start dating, and Kelly reached a point where she was comfortable dating openly. What then? Could I be friends with someone who thought my love life was an abomination? I felt like I needed to choose between a friend, and being able to love, or at least date, openly. Cindy didn't seem like much of a friend when I thought of it that way, and that hurt.
I spent quite a bit of free time in the remaining two hours imagining arguments with Cindy in my head. I imagined what I would say, and what her response would be. Was she doing the same? I guessed she was probably praying for me if anything. Towards the end of study hall I forced myself to stop worrying about Cindy and focus on Kelly. Practice started a half hour after school so that the girls from the co-op schools could make it here in time. That gave me about fifteen minutes to catch Kelly alone before she and the other girls would head into the locker rooms to get changed.
The bell rang, and I went straight to my locker to drop off my stuff. Then, I went to the bathroom to get changed into my workout tights and t-shirt. Sure enough, by the time I dropped my school clothes off in my locker, Kristy and all of her friends, plus some other girls from the team, were hanging out in the commons area in front of the cafeteria.
Normally I would have walked right up to the group and ingratiated myself, joining the conversation. Today I felt awkward. Kelly was talking to one of the junior girls. I think they were talking about their Precalculus class. I decided to talk to Kristy, Pixie, and DJ, who were in a little cluster.
"How was the first day?" I asked.
"Good, Ani," Pixie answered. "How was yours? Everything okay?" She and DJ looked at me with concern.
"Oh, you mean with Cindy. Did Kristy fill you in on the basics?" They nodded their heads. "I don't know. I mean, I believe she cares about me, but how can I be friends with her? If I ever do find someone that makes me happy, she'll be sad for me." I just shook my head. "Honestly, I don't want to think about that right now. I'll start ranting."
"Well you should rant!" DJ stated. "If she wants to throw around her backwards attitudes about love, she deserves to get put in her place! I need to bring her to our church so she can see how a congregation actually practices acceptance instead of judgmental bull crap! When I see her, I'm going to tell her she needs to treat you better than to..."
I felt my phone buzz and pulled it out of my waist band. I took it out, still trying to listen politely to DJ's pontification. It was a text from Kristy, who was standing right next to me.
Kristy: Kelly is totally checking you out in those tights!
My first instinct was to look at Kelly, but I caught myself. Instead I looked at Kristy. She was smirking and her eyebrows were raised. I crossed my arms and put my right hand on my mouth to hide a small smile. I started to become extremely conscious of how I was standing and how form fitting my tights actually were. To my knowledge, no girl had ever checked me out before.
"Let's go get changed," Kristy said to Pixie and DJ. She walked towards the locker room.
"Thanks DJ," I said as she wrapped up her lecture. "It really does help knowing that the people who know me best are okay with me. Well, besides Cindy. I really don't want people to start taking sides, though. That never helps."
She gave me a big hug and said, "Okay. Just remember, we got your back, girl." She went to catch up with the others. To my surprise, I saw Mey walking in my direction. She looked a little nervous as she glanced around. I think she might have been checking to see if anyone else was listening.
"Analee?" she said, as if she was asking permission to speak to me. "I want you to know that I think Cindy is wrong. I know what the Bible says, but if someone like you can go to Hell, then...none of it makes any sense."
I was stunned. I forced myself to find words. "Thanks, Mey. That's really sweet." She smiled quickly and walked away. I was so shocked that I forgot what I was hanging around for until Kelly appeared by my side.
"Hey, I heard you had a bad day, huh?" she said. The junior she was talking to must have left.
"Yeah, but I'm kind of over it. In some ways, it's been a really good day, too."
"That's good," she smiled.
The girls from the other schools were here, walking in the front doors and straight to the locker room. Their bus must have arrived.
"Well, I guess I should go get changed," Kelly said. She turned to walk away.
"Hey, Kelly," I stopped her, making sure there was nobody else within earshot. "I was, um, wondering if you wanted to maybe do something this weekend. I mean, with me. You know, like a date."
"Yes," she said quickly, but softly, and with a huge smile. She tucked some of her hair behind her ear.
"Awesome. How about Saturday? Dinner and a movie? I'll pick the restaurant, you pick the movie."
"Sounds great," she said, never breaking eye contact. We had a little awkward silence while we stood there smiling at each other.
"I better get to practice," she said.
"Okay. See you later." She turned and bounced off down the hall. I felt marginally less guilty this time about watching her pert little bum as she disappeared through the locker room door.
I wandered away with a smile on my face, walking down the hall that leads behind the gym to the small weight/workout room. After school, students were allowed to be in there as long as a coach or other adult was willing to supervise. Our physical education teacher usually stayed until five so people could use it.
I replayed the whole conversation in my head. I wanted to remember it. It was the first time I had asked a girl out. The beginning of my very first date. A momentous occasion! It seemed inauspicious, really. A simple question, and a simple answer. All that was implied in those two simple things, though...that was pure potential.
Those two simple things meant a whole evening of me having a beautiful and smart young lady all to myself. I would be paying attention to her, and she would be paying attention to me.
Those two simple things meant I might be kissing her again this weekend, maybe there would be more than kissing. Not too much more, of course. I wanted to take things slowly. Still, if Pixie hadn't woken up that night (that seemed so long ago!), something else would probably have happened. Who was to say something more wouldn't happen this weekend? But, how much more? Kissing was a natural stopping point. What else was a good stopping point short of sex? This was totally out of my experience.
On my way into the workout room, I was surprised to see Kala coming out of the small bathroom. She was wearing a warm up suit with the school logo on it like the coaches wear. She was the only person in there except for a couple of the senior guys who took a break from their bench press as soon as Kala emerged.
"Kala!" I threw my arms up and went towards her to wrap her in a hug she wasn't expecting.
"Hey," she laughed, hugging me back. "It's good to see you, too! What are you doing here?"
"Remember, I said I was going to work out while I waited for Kristy to get done? What are you doing here? I mean, I know you're coaching, but what are you doing in the workout room?"
"Changing. I come here straight from class everyday. Hey, while I've got you to myself. I was wondering if you'd want to do something this weekend. I was thinking we could hang out at my place, see what movies we can find to watch, make popcorn. You know, just chill."
"That sounds great. I would love to hang out with you. I could use a friend to talk to after today."
"Uh oh, what's up? Something bad happen?"
"Yes." I pulled her out into the hallway so we could talk in private. "My oldest friend that's still in school turns out to have a problem with the whole gay thing. Took me totally by surprise, and I'm not sure how to process it. However...something good happened, too."
"What's that?"
"Well, Kelly and I talked yesterday and today. It turned out to be a huge misunderstanding. We're finally on the same page, though. After things sort of normalized I asked her out, and we're going on a date this weekend!"
"Oh," was all Kala had to say. Her smile had faded. "Are you...um, sure that's a good idea? I mean, You guys seem to have a sort of disconnect. Right? Don't you want a relationship that starts off a little, I dunno, more smoothly? Maybe with more healthy communication?"
"I know we seem to go from hot to cold to hot again a little quickly. I think we both just moved too fast at first, and didn't really know each other. We assumed a lot, and it caused problems. We'll just take it slow, and see what happens."
"Yeah, slow is good," Kala nodded. "It was just yesterday you told me you were done with girls altogether."
"You've seen me at my worst in these last few days. First a drunken idiot, then a depressed woman hater, now a manic school girl looking forward to her first date. I promise, I'm usually on a much more even keel."
She smiled at me. "Don't worry about it. I enjoy being around you no matter how you're acting. Listen, if you're busy this weekend, we can do movies some other time."
"Well, the date's on Saturday. Could we get together Friday?"
"Sure. Yeah. You sure this Kelly girl won't be jealous? I don't want it to lead to another...misunderstanding."
"Don't worry. I'll never let someone I'm dating tell me who I can be friends with." I gave her another great big hug. "You better get out there."
"See you tomorrow at the game?"
"Absolutely!"
Kala still didn't seem like herself as she left. Concern was written on her face. "At least one of my friends still cares about my happiness," I thought. I hoped that soon I'd be able to tell her that the Kelly I was dating was the Kelly she already knew.
For one thing, I felt like I was keeping something from Kala. I didn't like that feeling. For another thing, I really wanted to be able to get dating advice from a girl who had actually dated other girls, and Kala was the only one I knew! It would be so much easier to talk about if she actually knew who I was dating.
As I used the dumbbells for some basic exercises, I was considering if I should ask Kelly if she would mind me telling Kala about our date. I was doing deadlifts with my back to the room and I noticed, in the mirror, one of the guys nudge the other and motion to my butt. They grinned at each other, and one said something I couldn't hear because I was listening to music. I turned and took my earbuds out.
"Really, Mark? Really, John? You've known me since 4K. Don't you feel like you're talking about your cousin or something?"
They looked each other thoughtfully. Both of them shrugged and said, "Nope," at the same time, then laughed at their own little comedy routine.
I rolled my eyes, then started to put my earbuds back in, but Mark spoke to me.
"So, you and the new coach are buds, huh?"
"Yes. We're friends."
"Are you guys...a thing?"
"No. Just friends."
"In that case, you should put in a good word for me." He waggled his eyebrows.
"Okay." I pretended to consider it. "I can tell her about the time you cried because you lost the relay race during the Olympiad, and your dad had to carry you to the car."
"That's not fair! That was in the fourth grade!"
John got in on the joke. "Hey, you could tell her about his little accident during gym class in the 6th grade!"
"Oh yeah! When he had to wear pants from the lost and found for the rest of the day because his parents were out of town and couldn't come get him."
"Okay! Don't say anything to her for me!"
"Have it your way," I said.
"So who's the new redhead hanging out with your sister?" John wanted to know. "She's pretty hot."
"Stay away from my sister and her friends, John," I said flatly.
"I didn't say I was going near her, did I? I just noticed she was hot. Come on, you didn't notice?" They were grinning at me.
"Okay," I felt my face get hot as I smiled, "I noticed she's a very beautiful young lady."
"Uh, huh!" they both said. Obviously getting a kick out of talking about girls with a girl.
"So what did you notice first when you saw her?" Mark asked with a lecherous smile.
"Her eyes," I said without hesitation. They looked disappointed.
"Okay, besides her eyes?"
"Her hair."
"You're doing that on purpose, now."
"No, seriously. Her hair is so dark, she almost looks like a brunette, but when she's in the sun it shines red, so it looks like she has a halo of fire. It's hot."
The boys looked at each other without the goofy silliness for once.
"Analee," John said, "you have a crush on this chick, don't you?"
"No..." I said. I'm a terrible liar.
"You are crushing on her!" Mark exclaimed excitedly. "Tell you what, I'll ask her out, and if she says no, you'll know she's gay." He said it with mock conceit.
"Thanks Mark. Always thinking of other people, aren't you? Seriously, just because a girl is hot, doesn't mean I'm crushing on her. Otherwise, I would have tried to steal Lisa from you in ninth grade."
That successfully derailed them and got them asking about other girls I thought were hot. I evaded their questions for a while, then went back to my workout, and they went back to theirs.
I realized after that conversation that Kelly and I would have to be very careful if we were going to successfully hide dating. Also, I would need to learn how to lie better.