I was sitting in Home Ec passing notes with my best friend, my mind far from the day’s lesson, when for some reason the click of the slide projector caused me to look up and come face to face, or sort of, with a bigger than life case of genital warts. Literally, bigger than life, since they were being projected onto a four foot by four foot screen and the picture had been taken with oh so loving care for the close-up. This, I assumed, was to ensure that we, as young adults, just beginning to test our sexual wings, or so the school system thought, would take this lesson in Sex Ed and sexually transmitted diseases with proper seriousness. Of course Dawn and I were simply ignoring most of it, while the rest of the class tittered and made barely hushed commentary on the size and hygiene of whatever poor men had posed for the slides. I kept half an ear on the lecture, and I knew that Dawn did too, to catch when the teacher, Mrs. Self, said the word “testicles.” Mrs. Self had been teaching Home Ec at our school longer than any of the present students had been there, and she also regularly had her hands into a compost pile up to her elbows without flinching, indulging her passion for gardening either on her own house, the Home Ec cottage of the school, or the small Memorial Park on Main Street, when she wasn’t herding unruly boys through their lessons in sewing and cooking, or advising the local chapter of the Small Business Leaders of America. A busy, and not normally squeamish woman, Mrs. Self generally flowed through her day on a tide of propriety and manners. At around five foot eight, she still could look down on most of the boys in our class, and her hair, though it was obviously graying, was cut in a short, no nonsense style, and had obviously once been some dark shade of brown. Generally, she didn’t let anything make her twitch, her manners matched only by her iron will, but for some reason, she could not say the word ‘testicles’ without stuttering.
It was good to know she was human.
“If you’ll just look here, students,” she began, tapping the projection screen with a pencil, appearing not to notice that since she was standing in front of it, she had diseased male genitalia plastered all over her face, “you will see that this man’s infection is worst around his t-t-testicles….” Mrs. Self’s face turned a delicate shade of pink, the only indication that she’d noticed her own stutter. About then, Dawn threw an eraser at me, to get my attention. She’d pushed the notebook that we used almost exclusively for passing notes during the classes we had together over to me, and had obviously been waiting for me to read what she’d written.
Stupid! He’s married! I flinched at her words, obviously angry. I could tell because she’d left deep indentations in the paper with her letters, and her handwriting was even worse than normal. Dawn could never let me live down what she called my “Rosie Moments.” These, according to her, were “moments of such sheer stupidity and or ditziness that I can’t for the life of me imagine anyone else doing the same thing. Sort of like a blonde moment, but there’s only one of you, and thank god for that.” I couldn’t really argue with her on that one, especially considering the predicament I was in now.
I know, I know, but listen, I am just messing with him. In my mind, at that point in my life, that made it all right. I figured you only get caught if you wanted to, and Trent seemed so nice, listening to me, talking about anything and everything, and giving me money to go pick things up for him and letting me keep the change.
On the half block walk back to the school after Home Ec, while Dawn eyed the alley across the street where she went to smoke every time she had a chance, we discussed it further.
“It will be ok, we’re just having fun. I can keep things under control.” My voice sounded positive, sure, and in control, but Dawn’s assessment of the situation was persuasive. Now, I wish I’d listened to her, but then? I was sure that I had the world at my fingertips and everything was coming up roses. Or so I kept telling myself.
“Under control? You, keep things under control? Have we forgotten already the fire that you started in the shed your dad converted to a playhouse for us? Under control is not your thing.” She was my best friend, but sometimes, like now, I wanted to smack her.
“For one thing, you helped me light that fire, my friend, and we got it put out before more than the floor got scorched, even if it did ruin a perfectly good pair of shoes, and for another, yes, under control.” My voice was sounding less sure. I had a feeling that things weren’t under control, and wouldn’t be. Boy was I ever right.
“Changing the subject just a bit, how is Dee doing?” Dawn adored my daughter, and had asked the same question every day since Kennedy had come down with another staph infection.
“She’s doing better, she’s with poppa today, and Ron is doting on her hand and foot as usual.” The mention of Ron, Dee’s grandfather, reminded me of her father. I had made a mistake and gotten pregnant at fifteen, but I swore my daughter wouldn’t suffer for that, even though her daddy was away at college and only got to see her on weekends, if then. The love of my life had gone off to college, apparently without a backward glance. No wonder I was getting myself into this mess.
“Yeah, much as I dislike the Mastersons, I have to say that they’re both fabulous with Kennedy. I still say it’s a miracle that that sweet baby girl came from Jarred.” Dawn and Jarred had never gotten along, but since Kennedy was born it had faded into more of a love-hate relationship, rather than the knock down drag out brawls I had always been afraid were going to burst out whenever they were in the same room before.
“She came from me too you know.” This was a long standing argument between us, more for the fun of it than any real offense.
“Yeah, you can tell by the way she’s a little drama queen. ‘Oh GOD, mom!’” Dawn mimicked the phrase that was Dee’s latest addition to her vocabulary. I still wasn’t sure whether Dawn had taught it to her or not. I pushed Dawn to one side playfully as we approached the main school building.
“I love you too, you bitch.” I was laughing as we walked down the hall to our lockers, side by side of course, since one of us immediately traded with the person who was actually assigned to the locker beside the other one. And if that person didn’t want to trade, well, a week of one of us leaning against the door of the locker while talking to the other one when they wanted to get their books generally changed their minds. If that didn’t work there was always making them late for fourth period for a week, leaning against the locker all through brunch, until the bell rang. Generally, we managed to sweet talk whatever teacher we had to get out of getting a tardy for that class when we had to do that.
“Ugh, I swear dude, I don’t care how ‘prime’ the location is next time, if you’ve got Heath by you again next year, we’re leaning on whoever is by me. I can still smell his nasty gym socks. I don’t think he ever washed the ones from last year, and just brought them back. They must be near to growing intelligent life by now!” This year, we’d kept my assigned locker. Dawn took a can of air freshener from the top of her locker and once again sprayed it liberally into the bottom of the locker, trying to cover the smell of athlete’s foot.
“Look at it this way, maybe we’ll get to dissect them in science this year. We can always ask Horner.” Dawn laughed and slammed her locker, turning to lean on it while she dug through her notebook to find last nights homework for the next class.
“Tomorrow, I’m bringing Lysol. Possibly bleach. Maybe a haz-mat mask too. Did we turn in that paper Mrs. Burhenn assigned us yesterday or put it off? I can’t remember, and if we put it off I need to find it and fill it out before she starts today’s discussion.” Mrs. Burhenn was the high school English teacher, and one of our favorite teachers. She let Dawn and I slide on a lot of things, because we always managed to get our homework done, and usually understood the classic writers better than anyone else in the class. She had heard about us testing out of reading To Kill A Mockingbird in Laughlin’s class, and read over our work on the book we had chosen to do instead, a college-level novel about a man and his crazy family. She decided to read the book and challenge some of our conclusions about the characters one day when we were working in the library, and the resulting discussion of psychoses, the AIDS virus, controlling parents and personal success was enough to convince us that we would like her, in spite of her reputation as the meanest teacher at the school. She wasn’t mean, she just expected you to live up to your potential in her class.
“We turned it in, remember? You took a nap.”
“Oh yeah, and you broke out the nail file. We’re kosher then, lets go see what she’s got for us today. If I hear one more word about what’s his face, I’m gonna scream. We’ve been on that guy for a week and I still have to look at the book to remember his name, let alone what he wrote about. You’d think people would have more taste when they decided to label someone a classic.”
“I hear that. I think we’re moving on to Poe today, so you can save yourself the trouble of sharpening your pencil to stab yourself in the eye.”
“Poe! Now there is a classic. ‘Quoth the raven, Nevermore’” She walked the last few steps to our desks backwards, a dramatic wrist pressed to her forehead, and then faked a faint into her seat.
“And you call me a drama queen. At least the guys I get dramatic over are still alive.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t sleep with Poe. But at least his writing makes you feel something, even if it is chills.” Dawn had high standards for her literature, and so did I.
“I’m glad you wouldn’t sleep with him, since he’s a corpse, and morbid to boot. But I agree, I’m glad to move on.” Just then, Mrs. Burhenn herself walked in, carrying a stack of papers that was no doubt today’s worksheets. While Dawn and I had been talking the rest of our classmates had trickled in and settled into their seats.
“I was bored too, girls, but he’s on the curriculum. We’re getting into some authors you can really sink your teeth into in the next few weeks, you’ll be glad to hear.” Mrs. Burhenn was a short, amply rounded woman with an infectious laugh and a hunger for the written word that had led her to become an English teacher. She also had a firm hand on the reins of her class room, but if you paid attention during the discussions and got your work done, she didn’t see anything wrong with whatever you decided to do during the rest of the period, so long as it wasn’t breaking school rules too badly.
“Listen up, the rest of you. As Dawn and Rosie have already figured out, we’re moving on to a new author today, one of my favorites. To commemorate this fact we’re going to have a little contest. Our author is Edgar Allen Poe, and the contest is to name as many of his works as you can.” Here, she held up her hand, and continued, “Rosie and Dawn are prohibited from this contest, because we all know how that would turn out.” The class tittered while Dawn and I slumped back in our seats, disappointed. Mrs. Burhenn always gave out candy bars or sodas as prizes for her contests. “Don’t look so glum, girls, you two get to compete against each other in a minute, to keep things fair.”
Dawn and I grinned at each other, and settled in to see how many of our classmates had a clue. Not many, it turned out. Mrs. Burhenn tossed the prize across the room to the winner, who turned along with everyone else to watch us. Most of the time, our classmates could care less about us, unless they wanted something or one of the teachers pitted us against each other. Since Dawn and I were both competitive and prone to good-natured smack talking during moments like these, they enjoyed the show.
Mrs. Burhenn took her time, building suspense, as she opened her book on her podium and turned it to the page she wanted before lifting her head and looking at us.
“And now, for our main event,” she wisecracked, “who can recite the most of Poe’s famous poem, The Raven?”
“You are so going down!” I turned around in my seat to look at Dawn, who was slouched in her chair with a smirk on her face.
“If you’re so sure about that, Ms. Prima Donna, I’ll let you go first. Don’t trip over your nevermores.”
“Very funny. How about a little something extra to make it interesting?”
“Now girls,” Mrs. Burhenn broke in at this point, “I can’t let you gamble on school property. Not for money. So if you want to bet, it has to be something else. And nothing illegal.”
“All right,” I said, smirking at Dawn. I knew the perfect bet. “If, no, when I win, you have to wear makeup to school for a week, and do something with your hair other than a pony tail.” The whole class snickered at that, Dawn was famous for hating makeup and primping. She was always a total tomboy, jeans and a t-shirt, same pony tail every day, her only concession to fashion her addiction to what she called ‘tall shoes.’
“You’re on. And when I win, you have to wear your own nails, bare, for two weeks.” I gasped and involuntarily glanced down at my acrylics, just done this week, with a perfect French manicure. Going without my nails for two weeks would be hell. But I didn’t expect to lose.
“Fine. I’ll go first, and show you how it’s done.” I clenched my hands into fists and closed my eyes, trying to read the poem on the back of my eyelids. We’d had to memorize it two years ago, so I was fairly sure I still remembered most of it. Eyes still closed, I began. “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,” I kept going, pausing to remember the exact phrasing, all the way through “’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door-“ and there I lost it. Three verses. Not bad. I smirked at Dawn, doubting her memory was better than mine, and settled back into my chair, waiting expectantly.
“Not bad, not bad at all. Just your bad luck that I happened to run across the Collected Works of Poe set Mamaw gave me last night.” My jaw dropped and I slumped now not in an arrogant, casual way, but with defeat. If she’d read it last night, I was toast.
She had read it. Not only did she breeze her way through the poem, she recited it with dramatic pauses, hushed tones, frightened voice in all the right spots. By the time she finished, the whole class wondered how they hadn’t realized what a good poem it was, and she got a round of applause along with the candy bar. Mrs. Burhenn thanked her for getting the class interested, and we moved on to the day’s lesson. All through class I could feel her smirking at my back, and I stared at my nails, my beautiful nails!
“I expect to see those nails short and naked tomorrow morning,” Dawn commented as we walked out the classroom door. She had a grin on her face that said she knew this was going to kill me and was enjoying every minute of it. Well, it was a long standing argument between us. She tried to get me to loosen up and get a little dirty, and I tried to get her to straighten up and wear something that matched.
“I hate you,” was all I said as we walked to our lockers.
“Oh come on, you can’t tell me that its going to kill you to be without your nails for two weeks. Look at it this way, with the money you save from having them filled and changing polish every three days, we can go to Lamar and get Dee a new toy.” Dawn stacked her book in the top of her locker and bent down to grab the library book that was sitting in the bottom. We were headed to separate classes this hour, her to her Teacher’s Assistant hour, and me to German.
“Honey, with the money I save on my nails these next two weeks we could go to Pueblo and get Kennedy a new Tommy outfit. But I’m not going to. I’ve decided I’m hitting that hair place I found in Amarillo and getting the braids.” I’d come across a hair shop that would do long extensions cheap, and the lady did good work. I felt it was time for a change, and decided that was it.
“You’re gonna look like a walking mop with braided extensions, but its your head. I’ll catch you for lunch, your car or mine?”
“You still driving your mom’s MG?” Dawn’s mom had the cutest little British roadster, an MG Midget convertible. The only thing wrong with it was the color, factory yellow, that looked like something that had come out of one end or the other of my daughter since she’d been sick.
“Yeah, she said I could drive it ‘till it snows, and I’m taking advantage of every minute of it. God I love that car.”
“Yours then, its nice out and we can put the top down. I’ve got the boom box in my car, and I’ll snag some CD’s.” The car was adorable, but it didn’t have a stereo, just a radio, and it would only pull in AM.
“Cool, meet you out there.” I watched Dawn slouch her way down the hall, sighing yet again over her lack of fashion sense. Today she was wearing a baggy dark blue t-shirt with Eeyore, of all things, plastered across the front of it. Her jeans might have fit if they’d been a size smaller and instead of her usual tall shoes today it was white tennis shoes, with blue markings. Dawn had the body of a model, all slim lines and gentle curves, if only she’d show it off. I knew she had that body, because I had practically the same one. She was 5’6, most of it leg, blonde-ish, and had striking eyes, green at first glance, but if you looked close enough, if she let you, she had a ring of hazel near her pupils. She let me fuss with her and make her over once in a while, mostly just to shut me up, and when she did the results were striking, but she still walked like a guy. No elegant glide for that girl, she had to stride like a cowboy heading for the chuck wagon after a long day in the saddle. I shook my head and went to class.
After an hour of being yelled at in barely comprehended German, I hurried down the hall to my locker, threw my books inside, grabbed my purse and bolted for the doors. I snagged the boom box and a random stack of CD’s from my car and walked down the sidewalk to where Dawn was leaning against her sporty little ride. I slowed as I came closer, because she was talking to someone I didn’t immediately recognize. Once I got a look at his face, I realized it was a kid from the class under us, and as I came in earshot I noticed he was babbling. Oh my. Dawn had a fan.
“And my dad says that the British roadsters can outrun a Jag! Have you ever tried it?” The kid was bubbling over in his effort to make some kind of connection with Dawn, while she was standing there looking aggravated.
“Have you seen many Jags in this county kid? Buzz off, will ya? We’re headed out. Hey! Don’t touch the car! I just washed it two days ago, and it looks like its been longer than that for you. Hey Shiftless get a move on dude or we’re gonna get stuck in line behind all the guys again and there won’t be anything but plain cheese pizza left.” Dawn pushed off of the car, moved the kid out of the way with one finger on his shoulder, and hopped the drivers side door to slide down into the seat, as I came around the car and opened the door. She pulled down her sunglasses and looked over them in a move she’d picked up from me, and eyed the kid one more time as she started the car. “A word of advice, bubbah. That strange girl with her nose always in a book in your class?” The kid nodded, looking uncomfortable. “Make friends with her. She’s going to grow up to be us.” With that, Dawn slipped the car into reverse and flew out of the parking spot, popping it up into first before she’d come to a complete stop and spinning the tires down the street.
“Dude, that was mean.” I told her as I popped a CD taken from the top of the stack into the player without bothering to look at what it was. “That kid just wanted some attention, and I think he liked you.”
“Attention, ha! And I noticed he liked me when he couldn’t keep his hands out of his pockets for five seconds. Seriously, I don’t do younger and that kid so isn’t my type.” Dawn grinned at me as she shifted gears effortlessly, a skill I admired. She had tried to teach me to drive a stick, but quit after three hours when I couldn’t get it out of first, saying that her mother would kill her if she let me fry the transmission on her baby. We turned onto Main right beside a semi, and I marveled again at how tiny the car was. The top of the tires on the trailer were taller than our heads.
“You can’t be serious, he had his hands in his pockets playing with himself?!? Oh god dude I’m sorry!” I broke out laughing, which spoiled the whole sympathetic look, but it was funny. Dawn shot me a look that I could tell was a glare even behind the sunglasses, and told me to turn the music up. I twisted the volume knob and then twisted myself to set the stereo on the ledge behind the seats. With the top down, it was a tight squeeze, even for the tiny CD and tape player combo, but it fit. We had measured the space to make sure, before we bought it. Once I turned around, Dawn accelerated, causing the wind to blow my hair around. Not the sleek, exciting looking blow-back that was in the movies all the time, but that crazy hair everywhere blow that happened in real life. She did it on purpose, a satisfied smile on her face as I frowned at her and her ponytail. Her hair never got in her face with the top down. Score one for the pony tail.
“You don’t really think the kid was playing pocket pool, do you?” I asked as I attempted to gather my hair and put my hand over it at the back of my head, finally succeeding in capturing most of it.
“Probably not, but he might as well have been dropping one wing and running in circles. He needs to shower more often and shut the fuck up once in a while, or he’s still going to be a virgin when he graduates. Although, come to think of it, I don’t know whether he’s got a hard on over me or the car. That’s the third time he’s ambushed me, and he always wants to talk about the car.” Dawn patted the dash affectionately as we pulled into the parking lot at Loaf-N-Jug. Ahh, greasy pizza. Lunch of champions. Or, actually, lunch of small town high school students finally old enough to drive and skip the institutional slop.
“Would you be relieved if it was the car and not you, or disappointed?” I joked as we climbed out of the car, hurrying to get in line before the carload of football players that had pulled in behind us.
Dawn laughed, “I don’t know, maybe a little of both.”
“Hey, Dictionary, you cut me off at the school!” The belligerent tone belonged to Tristan, one of the football players that had been behind us. At roughly six feet tall, with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a physique straight out of sculpture, he was the object of many a girl’s fantasies. Dawn had admitted to a couple herself, but said that in hers, his mouth was duct taped shut, or he was a mute. I could see her point.
“I did?” Dawn tilted her head to the side and looked up at Tristan with a vacuous little smile on her face. “Oh, gee, Tristan, I’m sorry! I guess my mind just doesn’t let me see cars that are so obviously compensations for tiny genitalia.” Her smile turned to a smirk and she turned back around in line to tell the clerk what kind of pizza we wanted, as Tristan’s buddies all laughed in spite of his glare.
“You’re a bitch, has anyone told you that today?” Tristan wasn’t giving up, especially since she’d given him the verbal smack down in front of his friends.
“Actually yeah,” Dawn jerked her head at me, continuing “she beat you to it. But in your case, I’ll take it as a compliment.” I had paid while all of this was going on, since it was my day, and snagged the pizza and the sodas I’d grabbed while Dawn saved our place in line, moving to head for the doors as she did. There was only one problem with our plan. Tristan was standing in our way, pissed off and beet red.
“I think you can buy me lunch, since you cut me off.” He smiled a smile that would have been attractive, if he hadn’t looked like he wanted to hit us just then. He wouldn’t, even if most of his friends weren’t raised better than that, there were other people in the store who were, and his dad would kill him if he ever hit a girl. He just looked like he was thinking about it.
“I think not.” Dawn began to brush by him, me hot on her heels glaring at all of the guys with Tristan impartially. As Dawn walked by, chin in the air and for once not slouching, he reached out and grabbed her arm. Uh oh. Stopping dead when she felt his fingers closing around her arm, she turned slowly back towards him, stepping closer to him so that his arm crossed the front of his body. He’d grabbed her right arm with his own, and I knew Dawn well enough to know she’d stepped into him deliberately, not because he’d pulled, or because she wanted to brush against him, which she did with one more step, but because it put her left hand within reach of him. She raised that hand and rested it around his bicep as she got up on tip toe, apparently using him to balance as she stretched to speak softly into his ear. I was close enough to hear what she said, but his friends weren’t.
“Let go of me, Tristan, or I’ll make your arm go numb for the rest of the day.” Tristan flinched a little and I knew she must be pinching a nerve somewhere. She knew where to find them, thanks to her parents each spending a few years in law enforcement, and she wasn’t afraid to use it when she needed to. “I didn’t give you permission to touch me, Tristan Patrick. Maybe someday I will, if you can stop acting like a jackass all the time. Until then, lay another hand on me without my express permission, and I’ll break it, do you understand me. Smile and nod like I’m whispering something dirty in your ear, setting up a makeout session after school or something.” Tristan swallowed once hard, and did a passable impression of a dirty leer, but his smirk was a little wobbly around the edges and he nodded to fast. He let go of Dawn and she settled back down to flat feet, her left hand still around his upper arm, and her right hand coming up to rest on his chest. She smiled and stepped back one step, trailing her fingers across his chest and down his arm, before turning to the doors and sauntering out.
“You’ve got balls. Wouldn’t that technically be assault?” As soon as the door closed behind us, I gave her a faintly admiring look. I might have used my feminine wiles on Tristan, but I never would have been able to hurt him without anyone really noticing. I handed one of the sodas and a slice of pizza across the car and got in.
“Big brass ones that go clang clang, baby. And its only assault if he turns me in. Do you see him doing that?”
“Ummm no. But you have to show me what you did to him, I never even saw your hand flex!” I wanted to learn that one. Even if it would hurt me to learn it, as she always told me.
“That’s because it didn’t. As soon as I grabbed him I put pressure on the nerve, so that no one would notice when I squeezed. Oh, there are hair ties in the glove box; you’ll need both hands to eat.” Dawn waited at a stop sign for me to pull my hair back in a loose pony tail so that I wouldn’t eat it along with the pizza, and then pulled back out on Main somehow holding the steering wheel and her pizza in one hand while shifting with the other.
“Damn girl. He’s gonna be out to get you now, you know.”
“Good. I want to hurt him some more. I hate that idiotic nickname.” Once, in junior high, when the class clown had asked Dawn what she’d done over the summer, she had smarted off that she spent it reading the dictionary. The nickname had stuck, and it only made her madder if you pointed out that she’d stepped right into it. I hid a smile by biting into my pizza.
“So, back to the subject at hand. You realize, don’t you, that not only is Trent married, he’s also your boss. And old. And, well, Trent.” She made a face, wrinkling her nose in an expression that said ‘eww’ louder than words. I made one right back, sticking my tongue out at her.
“I thought we were beyond this already. But yes, I realize all of that. And he’s not that old.” Dawn had finished her pizza in her typical wolf it down fashion, and took her time answering, because she was lighting a cigarette.
“We won’t be beyond this already until you knock this shit off. He is that old, and hello, married?” She rested her left arm on the door with her cigarette in her hand and held the steering wheel with her right, not that her arm stayed on the door very long at a time. She was puffing as fast as she could so that she could get at least two cigarettes in before we had to go back to the school.
“I know this. But I’m not going to get caught.” I was almost positive I wouldn’t get caught.
“At least tell me you’re not sleeping with him or playing tonsil hockey. Or giving him hand jobs, or anything sexual. And you are going to get caught. You know it as well as I do.”
“We’re not doing anything like that yet. And maybe I will get caught, but damn it Dawn, he makes me feel good. He makes me feel better than I have since Jarred left.” I looked down at my lap, intent on picking the label off of my pop. A hand flashed into view and touched my arm briefly before withdrawing. Dawn knew I didn’t really like being touched a lot, and I knew it was hard for her not to touch the people she cared about, so we compromised. I thought I could feel the ‘I told you so’ hanging in the air about Jarred, but when I looked up, there was nothing but sympathy in her eyes.
“I want you to be happy, Rosie, but this is not going to end happily ever after. And, as much as I hate to say it, Jarred might want to get back together with you.” I stared at her. She knew as well as I did he hadn’t called me in weeks. “Ok ok so maybe not, but you never know. You two have been on again off again for years. Maybe this is just off again.”
“I don’t want to think about it. Let’s change the subject. Whatever happened to what’s his face? The junior that wanted you to help him with his Bio homework.”
“He really wanted me to help him with his Bio homework. I made him buy me dinner, and got to smell his cologne while I pointed out which areas to study in the chapter. You know Horner always goes for the vocab words, or the stuff in bold, for his tests.”
“Yeah, I know. So that’s really all he wanted huh? Too bad, he’s kind of cute.”
She sighed, “Yeah, I know, just my luck.”