There She Goes

Natasha’s freshman year was her first year at a public school. They’d graduated the safe, juvenile walls of Grace Community Christian School, and were walking into the dangerous, vicious halls of public high school in Tempeh, Arizona. John’s parents were sending him to public school as well, and Jared was already a public school kid, making John’s transition easier – not so much for Natasha. Her first day of school entailed a lot of snide remarks about her ‘child prodigy’ status, and a lot of vicious remarks from the preppy, bitchy peroxide blonde cheerleaders about her fashion sense.

Natasha’s ‘fashion sense’ entailed wearing a pair of loose-fitting boot cut jeans and a shirt she’d gotten from John two years ago – a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers raglan , blue sleeved with a cream torso part. She put on flip-flops on her un-pedicured feet, and had a red backpack slung on, with a binder and pens inside. Natasha didn’t use a purse at school – it was impractical and she would have had to carry her binder separately. She didn’t wear a stitch of makeup, didn’t do anything special to her hair other than tying it back – well, Natasha supposed, she had straightened it, so there was a bit of a difference there.

Natasha was quiet at school, didn’t really fit in with any clique – she wasn’t geeky enough for the geeks, wasn’t pretty nor athletic enough to be a cheerleader, wasn’t into doing good deeds to be with the volunteer group, wasn’t musical enough to be with the band nerds, wasn’t rich nor well-dressed enough to be a rich kid. She knew she was always a bit of an odd one even at her small Christian school, Natasha knew, but here, she really stood out as a loner.

Natasha was standing in line at the cafeteria on her third day, receiving a baked potato and a salad, when Jared walked up next to her, startling me.

“Hey… Nat, right?” he asked, smiling, putting a chocolate milk on his tray.

“… Natasha.” she replied, putting a juice box on hers, along with her baked potato (extra cheese, sour cream, chives, turkey bacon) and Caesar salad. “Jared, right?” she asked, eyeing his tray, which was carrying a bag of crinkle chips, a buffalo burger, cheese fries and skittles.

“Yeah, we met at that party, right? John’s birthday thing.” He laughed, and Natasha smiled uncomfortably. “Yeah… That was great.” she lied through her teeth, giving the lunch lady her five dollars and tried to walk away, but Jared caught up to her quickly.

“Hey, I didn’t see you sitting at a table the past couple days… Do you want to sit at mine?” He invited, and Natasha bit her lip. She’d been sitting outside on the grass the past two days, doing her homework and listening to music on her Discman. She knew Jared sat with the ‘cool party dudes’ table – a table consisting of John, Jared and a few of the other kids who were famous for getting around lots of parties.

Natasha stopped where she was standing, thinking. Did she want to face John? She didn’t know, she realized, and felt herself replying, “Sure, why not.”

Jared gave her a big grin. “Alright, man!” He said, and we walked over to his table.

Jared’s table was already crowded and full of action. A couple kids were slinging food around with plastic spoons and forks, two seemed to be in a deep discussion on something about bras, and John was talking to two kids, one with wide, goldfish eyes and a wide-open mouth and another with messy, copper brown hair and blue eyes that Natasha thought were nice-looking.

Natasha sat next to Jared and a skinny looking kid wearing an open button-up with a white t-shirt underneath, quietly picking apart her baked potato and sipping on her juice box.

“Hey, Natty!” She heard John’s voice, and she looked up, fork in her mouth. John was grinning widely, and the kid next to him – the wide-eyed goldfish kid – was smiling at her, too.

“… Hi.” Natasha replied quietly, and the one with the copper-brown hair who happened to be sitting directly across from her turned around from his discussion with John and said, “Hi, I’m Garrett.” His voice was nervous and a bit shy-sounding, and he was chewing on a chocolate bar, his eyes suddenly hidden by the edge of his hair, and she replied, “Natasha.”

“I’m Eric… Or Halvo… Or Halvorsen… or Hizzle.” The goldfish kid said awkwardly, and Natasha gave him a small, awkward wave, trying to eat her baked potato.

John cleared his throat as Natasha was about to take a third bite. “Hey, Natty, I know you’re probably busy with genius camp or something, but me and my friends got this band practice thing going on. I was wondering if you wanted to come?” He asked eagerly, and she looked at him, wide-eyed, astonished by the fact he wasn’t angry at her anymore.

She finally replied, “Uh… Sorry, but I have to… Dog-sit for my neighbors.” she lied through my teeth, and John knew her neighbors didn’t have dogs, but John replied, “No problem, we’re not even that good anyways, it’s no biggie.” Before returning to his conversation with Garrett and… Hizzle. If that was even his name.

Well, Natasha thought, At least we’re not fighting anymore.

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By the end, it was clear that freshman year was a relative success to Natasha socially. Natasha now had a handful of friends, albeit male, and passed freshman year with flying colors (duh.) John said they could spend his birthday in Phoenix, just the two of them, and John kept his promise. They took the bus into downtown Phoenix and spent the morning and a good part of the afternoon at various stores trying out guitars, reading books and comic books, looking through vinyl records, and going through clothes stores. They ate burgers and fries at In N’ Out, and at about four o’clock, John took Natasha to a fancy dress store, despite her protests. “It’s your birthday, not mine.” She tried, but he shook his head.

“We never do anything for your birthday – you should have some fun.” John said, smirking, and Natasha facepalmed herself. “You know I hate dresses.” She glared at him, and John replied, “Yeah, that’s why you should try one on.” He replied, pushing her towards a rack of dresses. “Come on, you can’t always be a bro forever.” He sighed, and Natasha gave in, starting to look through the dresses.

Whenever Natasha pulled out a dress, saying “This is kinda cute,” John made her try it on. After a few initial bad dresses that even the gay changing room assistant couldn’t help but cringe at, John started smiling as she tried on the nicer ones – the one red floral strapless button-up dress, the chiffon-and-gauze bandage dress in light pink, a fun spaghetti-strapped sun dress in a simple off-white. They didn’t buy anything, but John took pictures with his camera, and Natasha found that, at the end, when they got booted out of the store for closing time, they were genuinely having fun.

They walked to the restaurant they promised their parents they’d meet at, and the two families had a meal of pizza and a delicious apple cobbler. John drank enough root beer to kill a horse, and Natasha got a chocolate milkshake, and everybody had a great time taking pictures and eating and secretly snickering as the parents got teary-eyed at how their kids were growing up so fast.

Outside the restaurant, as the parents fought over who would pay the bill, Natasha hugged John. “Thanks for the good day.”

“Hey, it wasn’t good.” John replied, and Natasha gave him a confused look, before he said, “It was a fuckin’ great day. Way better than last year.”

Natasha grimaced. “Let’s not have a repeat of last year.” She sighed, and John gave her a good squeeze before the parents came out of the restaurant, as Natasha’s parents looked triumphant. “That was a great meal, wasn’t it? How was your day, kids?” Mrs. Carver asked, and John replied, “It was real fun, thank you for letting Natty come out with me.” John might have been a partying kind of kid, but he was he was always polite to adults.

Eventually, everyone said their goodbyes and went to their respective homes. Natasha stayed up all night dreaming of dresses.