It's Friday, I'm in Love

The Heywood Society presents A Streetcar Named Desire at the Peterhouse College Theatre.
26 May. 2003. Tickets £14. Doors at 19:30.

I’d been staring at the flyer Tom had handed me a few days ago for ages, running my fingers over the place I knew his number to be scribbled on the back. I wondered if he liked plays, or if he’d just been handed the flyer on his way out of a building or something. I wondered if that building was part of the college the play was held at, or if he was even in college at all. He certainly sounded smart, if that counted for anything at all. He was probably old enough to be finding something to do with his life. He looked to be in his 20s, but his exact age I wasn’t daring enough to guess. If I said 20, only 3 years older than I, he’d turn out to be 30-something which would suck. I wasn’t good with guessing peoples’ ages.

I’d been thinking about the whole thing too much – so much so that I was beginning to feel ill because of it. I flipped the flyer around and started dialling his number again, because I had to get it over with before my parents were home. I hated talking on the phone when they were in the room, and our new house had the phone in the kitchen. They never let me go house shopping with them, only my sister, so of course we were stuck in a country town with one bathroom and the smallest guest bedroom – my room – you could imagine. I could hear it dialling now and I almost hung up again.

“Hello?”

“Uh, hi, this is Katherine. You… you gave me your number the other day in the library?”

“I know.” I could hear him smiling through the phone. “So how are you?”

“I’m good. I’ve been busy moving into a new home but other than that –”

“Oh so you’ve really only just moved into the area, huh? Wow. I mean, I thought you’d been there a little longer…”

“No. Since Saturday. I was in France for about 6 months before here, and London before that, then I think it was Cambridge…”

“Ahh, I live in Cambridge. I board at the college, otherwise I know I’d get lazy with my classes. If I live close enough, I know I’ll go. Besides, it makes it easier for travel so I can work a little, too.”

“Ahh.” He spoke so much. I barely had to say anything at all as he continued to talk about his Classics courses and about how his college library was always out of the books he needed.

“So I tend to borrow from your town because I travel there for work, and you guys never seem to run out of copies of the Odyssey and the Metamorphoses.”

“I can’t say I’d ever pick either of them up…”

“Oh, but you must!”

“Perhaps when my list of reading isn’t already to the ceiling.” He laughed, and I smiled, because he had such a lovely laugh. Things went silent for a moment, and I thought I’d better bring up our little date before my parents got home.

“So, darling, are you still up for Friday night?” he asked, before I could even formulate the question.

“For sure.”

“Well seeing as you don’t know your way around the area too well, I can meet you at the library and we can go from there. I’ll show you around a bit. It’ll be fun.”

“Sounds lovely, Tom. I’m sorry, but I have to go…” I heard the front door creak open as they finally got home, hopefully with food shopping as there was just about nothing to eat in this house.

“No problem. I’ll see you Friday at about 7 then, yes?”

“7 is fine. Bye bye.”

“See you, love.” I hung up the phone just as my parents entered the room, tucking my hair behind my ears as they stood staring at me.

“Who were you talking to?”

“Annie. I was missing her.” Annie was my best friend back in France, but we’d had a massive falling out before I moved and we never reconciled. I didn’t really care, either. My mother, of course, didn’t know this, and so she simply smiled at me as she passed me to put away the shopping.

---

Mr Henderson had been picking at me all week, telling me to attend the homework club they held on Friday afternoons in the school, which was kind of inconvenient because I had a date to be getting ready for. I tried not to worry, because I’d have plenty of time to go home, get ready, and walk back to the library by 7. I mean, how much time would it take?

“I’m here for the homework club?” I sounded so unsure, I knew, as I walked into classroom 2B just after the last bell and a few dozen faces looked my way. My eyes met with those of a very familiar stranger across the room, who was staring at me in probably the same awkward way I was staring back at him.

“What’s your name? Are you a student or a tutor?” the man beside the door asked. He had a checklist in his hands and was looking for an answer, I realised, as I’d been standing there for quite some time without having said a word.

“Katherine Phelps, and I’m a student.” I knew I looked older than I was at times, but I guess he’d asked because I still wasn’t wearing the school uniform yet. The truth was, my mum had bought it in the week for me, but I didn’t have to wear it until Monday and certainly didn’t plan to until then. It was probably the ugliest colour I’d ever –

“And what do you need help with today?” The man’s eye was twitching and I wondered if he chose to help out at the homework club, or if he was just stuck doing it. Surely, he’d want to be home by now. I recognised him as one of the teachers in the school, I think Mr Ralph, but I couldn’t remember what subject he taught.

“Well I have this stuff on Ancient Greece to do…” I stood with my eyes on my shoes as Tom still hadn’t stopped staring at me, and I wondered what he was doing there. He tutored in his spare time? Was this his job? I found myself smiling as Tom stood and walked up to stand beside me.

“I’ll help you out with that,” he offered.

“Ahh, Mr Classics,” Mr Ralph joked, and Tom giggled.

“We can sit outside under the sun if you’d like, while it’s out?” I nodded, and followed behind Tom as he grabbed his satchel and made his way down the hall and outside until we got to the back paddock where Agricultural Studies was held. He took a seat at the wooden bench near the small building there and I sat beside him, silently pulling the books I needed from my backpack. “We should probably talk…”

“Hmm?”

“I mean, about tonight. Honey, I didn’t know you were a student. I mean I guess I am too, but it’s a little different. I’m 22. You must only be about 17? 18?” I’d never felt more rejected in my life as I turned to Tom, his eyebrows furrowed and his lips turned into a saddened expression. “You seem like a lovely girl, and you certainly look a lot older than you are… but I can’t be dating students. I’d lose my job.”

“Oh.” I understood what he was saying, just, I didn’t want to hear it.

“So what’s this about Ancient Greece you need help with?” His smile had returned, just like that, and I realised I could have been any girl to him. I was just some girl he’d given his number to. He probably did it all the time. I listened to the confidence in his voice as he read from my textbook – about what I wasn’t too sure – and sighed as the thought of not being allowed to think about him entered my mind. If I’d have been at any other school, perhaps it wouldn’t have mattered, but I knew in my heart it’d be wrong to ask my mum to change my school just for a single date with a stranger. I didn’t know him. He could be a real creep, for all I knew, though I very much doubted it. I returned to reality as Tom sat staring across at me, looking to be after an answer.

“Sorry?” He sighed and turned the page.

“You know, if you want your grades to improve, you’re gonna have to listen to your tutors each week.”