Page 53 of Until Now
The ladies in hairnets dish out our portions of tuna casserole slop. We’re prisoners in Sing Sing, taking whatever we can get.
“Hey! There’s Beth. She’s looking over here.”
He looks in the direction I’m pointing to, and immediately his face flushes.
“Calm the fuck down. You’re turning red!”
“We’ve got to hurry. I need to get a table and save a place for her and her girlfriend.”
“Who is that with her? Is that the new student? The ninth-grader?”
We take our trays and move across the gymnasium to the tables.
“Don’t know. Don’t care,” Hunter says, looking over his shoulder.
“Well, I do! She’s pretty.”
“Go for it. You’re about the only eighth-grader who would have the balls.”
“I do, and I will.”
We slide onto the bench of the closest table available. Hunter quickly spreads out his lunch, covering two extra spaces for the girls we hope to corral.
“Not like that!” I say. “Make the other girl sit next to me, not next to Beth.”
He switches the saved spaces as I run a hand through my hair, check my breath, and adjust my balls under the table. And then we watch. Every moment passes slowly as they get their food. Two boys ahead have turned and are talking to them.
“That pisses me off,” Hunter says, noticing his rivals.
“You should signal her over next time she looks.”
He watches like a hawk hovering over a mouse. Pretty soon, he waves, letting her know where we are sitting. As if she didn’t already see us. It’s just backup. Good thing we got here when we did; kids are starting to squeeze in beside us.
“Here she comes. Do I look all right?”
“Yeah, you look good,” I say, completely ignoring the hair and the zit.
Hunter doesn’t take his eyes off Beth as she approaches. I know he likes her hair and how it almost touches her butt. But mostly, I think he likes that she isn’t one of the mean girls. She’s not silly or giggly. And she knows about baseball. That’s pretty good, I think. I’d like a girl like that too.
“Hi,” he says as the girls join us at the table.
“Hi,” Beth says.
They’re forced to follow our brilliant plan. The girl smiles as she sits beside me.
“I’m Bing.”
“That’s a good name. I’ve never heard it before.”
“Well, it's really Bingham, but my dad started calling me Bing. I guess it stuck.”
“This is my cousin, Frankie,” Beth says. “She just moved here from Vermont. You haven’t seen her in any of our classes because she’s a ninth-grader.”
I think I’ve always liked older women, ever since sixth grade when I had a crush on Mrs. Petijon, my art teacher. It was the way she dressed. Those sweaters really interested me.
“I’ve never met a girl named Frankie.”
“Well, it’s Frances.”
