Coffee? Part 2

by Margaret Iuni

This is part of an on-going series. To read the first part of this story, click here. 

I rolled my eyes. Great, I thought to myself, this kid thinks he’s a regular old comedian. I turned on my heels and trudged towards the stairs. I was already beyond done with that particular Monday and it hadn’t even hit eight o’clock yet.

“Macy! Wait up!” Sears called out. He caught up to me in three long strides and stepped in front of me. He looked distressed, as though struggling for the right words. Either he wasn’t used to talking to girls or he really was not a morning person.

“What, Sears?” I asked bitterly. His nervous eyes were scanning the room, looking anywhere but my agitated face. His arm was stiff by his side, awkwardly bouncing again and again off his thigh.

“Look,” he paused here, finally looking me in the face. “Macy- may I call you Macy?” he interrupted his own speech. I could tell this was seriously a concern of his, as though his current position in my life didn’t give him the right to be on a first name basis with me. Which, seeing as I would never know his real name, was awfully considerate of him. I tilted my head slightly, cocked an eyebrow, and nodded. I was unwilling to give in to his puppy dog eyes yet, just in case he was really as nasty as Uncle Target.

“Great. Macy, then. Listen, this is actually no less awkward for me than it is for you. I really… I just, I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot, you know? We’re going to be spending a lot of time together and it’s not worth it.” His words were rushing together now. “I’d like for you to have at least one person you feel is on your side in this house, because, even though we both are, I know my dad isn’t exactly the fuzziest companion and I-.”

“Wait. Uncle Target is your dad? I thought he was your commanding officer?” I was honestly surprised at this turn of events because 1) Uncle Target did not look like the fathering type, 2) Sears looked nothing like him, and 3) if you were under the impression that everyone on the job was going to die looking after me, why on Earth would you bring along your son? Sears became completely deflated.

“Me? No. I’m a senior in high school. I just got dragged along… er, not that I don’t want to be here.” Sears looked about ready to suffocate himself with a pillow. “Look, what I’m trying to get at is that this really doesn’t need to be so bad.” He cleared his throat and extended his hand. “So, um, hi. I’m Sears.”

I relaxed my face and extended my own hand. Not quite smiling, I replied, “Hi. I’m Macy. You’re living in my house for who knows how long. Please stop thinking that I’m scary. I swear I’m only like this in the mornings.” Sears flashed a genuine smile as we shook hands. I remembered his “smirk” earlier and wondered how badly biased I was already towards my new “family.”

“Right. About that room, though,” Sears stammered, “I actually do need to get dressed for school.” It was beginning to sink in that perhaps Sears was not as pretentious as he originally appeared. My mother always used to say that impressions were skewed before a first cup of coffee. Maybe she was right.

“C’mon, then, Sears. Better get you settled.” I took on a civil tone, trying to push beyond the Monday morning grudges. Sears sighed softly, relaxing for the first time since we had been left alone. I waved my hand over my shoulder in a ‘let’s go’ gesture, and started up the stairs. I pointed down the hall. “Last room on the left. That was Costco’s when he was here for an overnight… I guess that’s your dad’s now. The one directly across is supposed to be a guest room in case I ever wanted to have friends over but I don’t really think that’s an option anymore. So, uh, I guess that’s yours.” I tapped on the door right on top of the landing. “This here’s the bathroom. There’s this one, one in your dad’s, and the one off the hall by the kitchen. And this room,” I said, moving toward the first door on the right, “is mine. I’ll give you a full tour after school. Meet you in fifteen downstairs in the living room?”

“Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Fifteen minutes.” Sears shot one last small smile and took off towards his new room. I shook my head and went to my own. This was going to be interesting.

***

“Wait, so, let me get this straight. He’s an old family friend? Macy. You’ve had hot old family friends this whole time and never felt the need to share? I’m beyond offended.” Jasmine teased as she stirred her tea, attempting to dissolve the twelve spoons of sugar she had just plopped into the mug. She was having a really hard time keeping a straight face, as she was probably the only person in the history of forever who was consistently in a good mood at school.

“If I have to hear one more person ask me if he’s single, Minnie, I’m going to cut off my ears,” I said, a little bit seriously. It was a third-period-lunch day, meaning all we wanted was breakfast. I had my second steaming mug of coffee in front of me for that morning. Going to a small private school definitely had its perks, like coffee and tea in real mugs, but with such small class sizes, no student went unnoticed. And, as the new kid, Sears was attracting way more attention than he wanted to. In fact, he’d spent most of the morning trying to detach himself from the very, er, interested students of our senior class. Understandable, but when Sears finally pried them off of him, they began to flock my way. Minnie snorted at me as she always did when she was aware of what I was thinking.

The car ride over had been uneventful. Sears was a surprisingly good driver considering he said he’d only ever really driven in small towns and we’d thrown him into Brooklyn traffic. There had almost been an incident when one mother pushed her baby stroller into the street without looking, but disaster was averted. Not a single curse word was uttered by Sears, either. His eyes were as wide as saucers for the rest of the drive, though.

“Now, now,” Minnie said. “It’s all worse for him.” I knew she was right, but I was starting to get really bothered by all the unwanted and unwarranted attention towards me. I was feeling pretty unsympathetic.

“What’s worse for me?” Sears asked, finally making it over to the table. His eyebrows were furrowed and as he stood holding his tray, it occurred to me that he was waiting on joining us for my permission. I patted the seat next to me and he slid into it, small smile of gratitude on his face that I could tell Minnie was already analyzing and reanalyzing.

“Oh, you know,” Minnie laughed, circling her hand in the air, “Them.” Sears rolled his eyes, lifted a spoonful of cereal to his mouth and shook his head. Minnie laughed into her cup of tea splashing a little onto the bench next to her.

“Crap. Be right back. Napkins,” Minnie said as way of explanation as she swung her legs over the bench. Before she could even put both feet on the ground, though, Sears gestured towards the huge pile of napkins on his tray.

“Don’t bother,” Sears smiled. “Just take some of these. I doubt you want to go over there, anyway. Some girl standing next to me got a bit, uh, preoccupied with asking me questions while trying to get herself some juice and may or may not have forgotten to take her hand off the tap. There’s apple juice everywhere.” Sears glared into his cereal bowl. Minnie and I had been lucky enough to observe this from the safe distance of our table, but it had not gone unnoticed.

“Lighten up, Sears. Next week you’ll be old news,” Minnie said, as she patted his shoulder from across the table. She lowered her hand. “My name’s Jasmine, by the way. Minnie, for short. I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself when you got here at the end of first period because, well, the horde of girls. At least the Spanish test was easy, am I right?”

“I was exempt. I wasn’t up to that chapter in my old school,” Sears sighed. He looked at me thoughtfully, silently questioning whose transition would be worse. “I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

“In Spanish? No problem. We’ve got a great tutoring program-,” Minnie began. My eyes widened and silently cut her off. “Oh. Right. Never mind,” Minnie muttered hurriedly.

“Why? A tutoring program? That would be great,” Sears sounded like maybe there was still hope for the day. Minnie batted her eyelashes in my general direction as she passed off the explanation to me.

“It’s run by Carmen,” my hand over my mouth, I bit back a smile. Sears looked confused for a moment. Then he cringed.

“The one who overflowed the juice?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m sure she would be very willing to help,” Minnie giggled. In that moment, I swear Sears looked more concerned than during our almost-accident that morning.

“I’m pretty decent in Spanish,” I said suddenly. “I mean, I’m no Carmen, but I get by… if you still want the help?” Minnie looked at me puzzled, since I was over my teasing stage, and my voice had dropped to its formal tone again. Sears cleared his throat and looked down into his cereal.

“That would actually be lovely, Macy. Thank you,” Sears moved his spoon around in the bowl, sending his Cheerios into a whirlpool of sogginess. Minnie slowly lifted her mug to her face, eyes on me the whole time, and questioningly mouthed, “Lovely?” True, it wasn’t a word normally thrown around in cafeteria conversations, but the way it rolled off of Sears’ tongue, I had almost forgotten.

“Alright ladies and gents, one minute to the bell, start clearing your tables,” Mrs. Frock said over the lunchroom speakers. I looked away from Minnie’s face and started stuffing books into my already overflowed backpack.

“Heading to my locker!” I sighed. I looked up as I swung my backpack over my shoulder. Minnie nodded as she chugged the rest of her tea.

“I’m coming with,” Minnie said. Her locker was right next to mine and we had the same class next.

“Yeah. Sure. See you guys later,” Sears said as he stood and walked his half-full cereal bowl to the dump sink. As he watched the mushy cereal and milk swirl, this time down a drain, for the second time in just a few minutes, he couldn’t help but feel the slightest bit sorry for himself.