Page 11 of Stuck-Up Big Shot
I smile down at my phone like a loon. Ben is such a sweetheart. While I was crashing on his couch and searching for jobs, I’d mentioned how I really wanted to find something to help wayward teens because of the special place it holds in my heart. Mainly due to what happened with Melodie.
There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t think about or miss my friend. We were best friends throughout elementary, middle school, and the first part of high school. When I look back, there’s not one single event during those years where Mel and I weren’t together. The thought has my heart squeezing in anguish. It also makes me curious why Miles doesn’t seem to recognize me as the girl who used to be his shadow. I realize I’ve changed a lot since the last time we spent any time together, but I practically lived at his house during my formative years.
Mel and I met when we were five years old and enrolled in tadpole swim lessons through the YMCA. We both loved the water, and as we grew older, we both swam on swim teams, making the varsity team as freshmen in high school.
During those summers, when we were gangly, pimple-faced teenagers, we’d head to the J. Burkley Public Pool outside of town where her brother was a lifeguard.
It’s there that we both experienced our first crushes. Those summers were the best.
What Mel didn’t know, and something I’d kept a secret from her all that time, was that my first crush came well before the summer of our freshman year.
My first crush blossomed when I was in sixth grade, when my twelve-year-old self fell head over heels, madly in love with the handsome seventeen-year-old Miles Thatcher.
I remember leaving our Barbie dolls in a box never to be played with again, replacing them with hitting up the local mall and hanging out in Mel’s basement. We’d listen to music, watch movies, and spend time with Miles and his friends. Well, that’s a stretch. What we did was watch Miles and his entourage play video games all day long. Mel and I were always in the background, like wallpaper, garnering no attention from them whatsoever.
From my perch on a recliner, I’d watch his biceps flex as he easily and deftly maneuvered the controller in his hands. He’d been taller than his friends, more built and muscular—which made him every girl’s dream date.
I became enthralled with the shape of his arms and shoulders, which were well-defined from spending his summer playing baseball and lifeguarding. Mel and I would go with their grandmother to watch him play during the summer league games.
He was by far the hottest older boy in our town.
And the only one I ever dreamed about kissing.
But by the time I got to high school, Miles was already in his sophomore year at Yale, leaving Melodie behind at home with their grandmother, and me with a crushed and broken heart.
That’s about the time when our friendship changed. Mel grew more distant little by little until one day, our friendship was just gone. Looking back, perhaps it was Miles leaving home that was the catalyst for Mel’s downward spiral. Whatever the cause, I still feel remorse over not being there for Mel when she needed me.
That’s why I’m in school to become a social worker, and why this volunteer event would mean so much to me.
Glancing up from my phone’s screen, I see some action starting to happen as Blackie squats next to a tree he’s been loitering around for the last five minutes, and I smile with relief.
“Finally,” I groan.
But that relief is short-lived, and everything happens in a slow-motion reel, like that paper towel commercial where the guy is carrying a fresh-baked lasagna casserole in his hands and he trips, sending the food flying across the kitchen floor.
Which is exactly what happens to me.
From my peripheral vision, I see Miles striding out of the front door of the building, his messenger bag wrapped securely around his broad torso, his hands occupied with a cup of coffee and his phone. His head is down, so he doesn’t notice Blackie or me, but I can’t let this chance pass me by. I want to grab his attention. Because it’s important that I change his opinion of me. For some reason, he seems to find me annoying.
“Hey, Miles! Good morning,” I say and wave enthusiastically, but my greeting falls on deaf ears because he doesn’t hear or see me. In his ears, he’s wearing earbuds.
Well, that just won’t do.
I take a step forward, hoping to get in front of him just enough to flag him down when I realize I haven’t side-stepped far enough from where Blackie just dropped his doodie. My flip-flop slides right into the steaming pile of shit and sticks there.
“Oh shit!” I yelp loudly, trying to extract my foot off the ground, only to find the flip-flop is stuck in the poo and my foot slips out, which is when I lose my balance.
And because I’m now hopping on one foot trying to regain my balance, the other one dangling in the air, Blackie gets excited at my little dance and swings around in front of me, which is precisely when he sees another dog coming toward us.
Blackie surges forward, giving the leash just enough momentum so I’m flying forward, my feet having no traction against the slippery surface, as I land with a thud in a mess of doggie doodoo. The sound is just like you’d imagine, and it squishes hotly between my toes.
If my greeting a moment earlier hadn’t garnered his attention, this little uncoordinated act—flawlessly executed, I might add—does the trick to perfection.
Miles stops in his tracks, lifts his head from his phone, and sees me sprawled out, tangled up in a dog leash, brown poo smeared all over my feet and legs, helplessly staring up at him.
Heaven, take me now. I could just die.
“Sutton?” Miles clears his head with a shake as if he can’t believe what he’s seeing.
