Go Tell It on the Mountain

The Junior class had a meeting the next morning during first period; discussing the up-and coming spirit week and who was going to work concessions at the homecoming game that Friday. Jim Monroe, president of the Junior class, addressed us all on what was to be done with the money from concessions, which normally went to fund the Junior-Senior Prom and our Senior trip the next year. Basically, everything you did as a junior at Reardan determined how your Senior year was going to be. Your entire year was like being in the scouts. We weren’t selling cookies or popcorn…well, actually, we sold both at different times of the year but there was no jamboree to attend. No, the goal was to get your marketing badge and ponder if you would actually get to ask someone to Prom.
Normally, I would listen to what was going on during these meetings, but I wasn't that morning. I had only one thing on my mind: Getting out of working concessions on Friday.

"Hey guys, listen up: The following people will be working concessions this Friday night: Paula, Kristy, Andy, Carl and Kyle.”
"Make sure you're all there early for set-up,” Laverne Retowski, one of our class advisors and the school secretary, ordered.
"Which is when?" Kyle asked, while chewing on a piece of licorice; he always had some type of candy on him. Either his teeth were made of some sort of sugar-resistant substance or his dentist deserved the Nobel Prize for Medicine.
“Five thirty, sharp!" she ordered, pointing her finger on each word.
"We need you to come early to load up the equipment from the concession stand to bring up to the field.” Bev Butcher, our second advisor and another school secretary, stated in a loud voice for 8:15 in the morning. Sure, it was her normal, booming, voice, but it was loud for that time of day.
Jim looked to them, then to us and then back at the sheet of paper he looked at earlier, "Oh and everyone needs to clean up the bleachers immediately following the game.”

Laverne double-nodded at that, which was her attempt to signal each and everyone one of the junior class that it was mandatory for us to show up and do it. Sure, I'd clean after the game, but I'd rather be talking to Ceci DURING the game than handing off cups of coffee in near sub-thirty degree weather. I probably would have preferred dumping the water-cooler of hot chocolate on myself to stay warm.

The meeting was adjourned at the sound of the bell ending first period and the junior class walked out of the library in droves…except for me, I was busy pleading with Mike.
"Mike, I--?"
"--You want me to do your concession work on Friday, don’t you?”
Mike’s ability to know the answers was scary sometimes. There were times that I thought that one day we’d have to fly down to Vegas and have a go at the tables.
“Yes! Don’t make me beg, please.”
“How the mighty have fallen.”
“I humbly acknowledge and resemble that remark.”
“One condition,” he said.
“What? Anything! Except for money, because I currently do not have any and I’m not sure how I’ll get any to-”
“One condition,” he repeated.
"What?!" I pleaded, almost ready to kiss his feet...even through it would be a terrible mental image for all in view.
"That will be discussed later.”
"Thank you. Merci. Domo arigato!" I chanted as I bowed. Mike waved me off as if I was a peasant and walked out the library door.
I turned to Laverne.
“You're now working at next Monday's volleyball game, no matter what.”
“Thank you,” I replied and walked out the door.
"You have to work on Friday?" Ceci asked, as she greeted me in the hall.
"No, I do have to work at the volleyball game on Monday.”
"Oh, so we're good for the Friday game?"
"We are." I said with a slight smile and Ceci returned to with a large grin.
"You better get to your class and say thanks again to Mike for the both of us.”
"I already told him in three languages."
“How proper.”
"I was very close to begging."
"I assume there were strings attached? There usually are in these types of agreements, right?"
"Yes, but he wouldn't tell me."
"It wasn't money?"
"No."
"Test answers?"
"Only if he wants to lose points on his GPA."
"I think I understand the issue."

* * *

In English, I continued to read from the novel, but, unlike yesterday, I was actually reading it and stumbling on each paragraph, because I did not listen to Mrs. Balum's introduction. I thought about asking her, saying that I didn't understand but I didn't want to risk the embarrassment that might come by asking such, so I turned to page five and started again.
"In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.
"Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,’ he told me, ‘just remember that all the people in the world haven t had the advantages that you've had."
I continued to read, slowly trying to understand the words in a different way. It was almost like I supposed to get something out of the book’s narrative. Like a reversal of “The Book of Job”—yet another book I didn’t understand. The notes in the back of either book didn't help much either.

When the lunch period began, I walked down to my locker to find Ceci standing against it.
"Nick Carraway's father tells him that before he puts anybody down, for any reason, he should stop and remember that not everybody’s had the life that he's had. They may not have had all the chances to do things that he did. Or, maybe their lives were even worse. Either way, it’s kind of Biblical."
I could only stare back at her with my mouth probably hung wide open. I guess she read that to mean ‘I kind of don’t follow’.
“We’re told to not look down on others and to help them in need, even if we gain nothing while on Earth.”
“So Nick helps everyone out?”
“What page are you on?”
“Thirteen.”
“Well, we can’t spoil the book for you.”
“Yes, yes, you can. Please. Please, spoil it.”
“Nick becomes King of England.”
“Really?”
"And he invents the electric guitar after fighting in World War Two."
“How many times have you read it?”
"Many, many times,” she replied as she picked up my copy and then placed it back on the upper shelf. "We need to get you to read it at least once. So you’ll know if I’m lying or not.”
“Where do you want to go for lunch?”
“Let's go where we went yesterday. Good for you?”
I nodded in reply.
We turned the corner and walked out the front door, passing the old gym before there was any conversation.
“I've met a lot of people these past two days."
“I’m sure you have.”
“Yes, and seen many guys who wan t to try and ask me out. I see them talking about me but I would have to turn them down; I couldn’t go out with any of them if they asked me.”
Too soon?”
“No.”
“Is there a kind of southern rule?”
“No, it’s because you haven 't yet,”
“Well, I-" I began, surprised to be placed on the spot, but liking it the same. “It’s just I—“
“Andrew, when you look at me, what do you see?” she asked as we stopped—in almost the same spot as the day before.
Her eyes shined; brighter than any emerald I had ever seen and I had only seen one. What did she want me to say? I could tell her a poem; I could profess what I thought of her when she ran up …just a few days ago, but was that what she wanted to hear?
“You, I see you.”
"What you see is a girl. a plain girl,”
"You’re anything but plain, Ceci.”
"I am on the outside. Inside, however, there’s more beauty than I could ever hope to see in a mirror and more potential than I can talk about. And you know something else?”
“What?”
"I see that potential in you.”
Ceci then took both of my hands, held onto them and then bowed her head down. In any other situation, I’d would have thought I was on “Totally Hidden Video” or being set-up in a huge way…or I was still asleep and having that dream that one never wants to wake up from.
"I want you to know that if you want to fly, then fly. If you want to win, then win. If you want to dream of me…” She let go of my hands but I quickly grabbed hers, which caused her to lift her head up to look right into my face. "Then let me know so I can dream it all with you.”
We continued to stand in the middle of the street with my brain trying to contemplate what she was saying. I wanted to think I was a romantic, that I could translate her words to mean something between us. So many hints…but I didn’t have a clue, even at that time. Here was someone who was interested in me and what I knew…again, she might as well had been a hallucination or an illusion that no one else could see. My personal ‘Aloysius Snuffleupagus.
I had that brainless look on my face once again but she didn’t seem annoyed.
“How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“What you do…”
“I have help.”
“Could you teach me?”
“We’ll learn more together.”
I nodded as started we walking once again, and like before, walked past people going back to the school who passed us earlier.
“Can imagine what all the people who passed us must be thinking?”
"What?"
"They could have sworn that they saw the same thing yesterday.”
“Déjà vu.”
l turned to look at her as we turned the corner to the store.

The Reardan Store, or “R-Store” as it was locally called, was a safe haven from the generic, yet probably much healthier, school lunchroom. Our school was an open-campus at that time, allowing students to leave the grounds and trek down the road to the town’s only grocery store. The R-Store had everything the aspiring academic apprentice was looking for from the four primary food groups: Sugar, Meat, Fat and More Sugars…in the form of an aisle of candy that went on more than it should have for the size of the town.
Then, the large size of the cold soda aisle which had all the variations of Coke, RC Cola and Pepsi—including Crystal Pepsi…at least for a while. My standard lunch was to pick up a bottled soda—usually a Dr. Pepper; a package of Red Vines licorice and then to the main course: a beef and bean burrito or a pizza snack (same thing as the burrito, more square and a bit larger). I had skipped these items yesterday and only got a coke, as Ceci didn’t get anything, but on this day we got the same things…except for the licorice; which was substituted with a box of ‘Twix’ chocolates.

It wasn’t the healthiest of lunch, but at that time I had not considered my metabolism slowing down one day and it would have been considered sacrilegious to buy yogurt and a stick of celery (although on some days I would sometimes choose to buy an apple).
We walked back to the school in almost total silence with the exception of a back and forth laugh—it was hard to walk and eat, especially when we were not looking at the road before us but at each other. So for the rest of the school day, when you saw one of us, you usually saw the other. The ‘honeymoon’ period was in full swing. I’m sure you’re familiar: couples holding hands like they’re surgically grafted together; vacant expressions to everyone else but each other; and the quasi-mindless discussions…mindless except in our case as our conversations were more like friends who had known one another since grade school.
We arrived back on campus and into the hall as the bell rang.
“Bell?”
I nodded.

“I’ll see you later then,” she replied as she hugged me and then ran down the hall. She didn’t, like, speed through it…she held onto me for a moment or two longer and at that time I really wanted to say something, but I didn’t think it was the right time. I had known her for less than a week but it seemed longer. I didn’t think “forever” but something else. She wasn’t the girl of my dreams, more like the answer to a prayer I had a long time ago…one I thought would never get answered…as well, I didn’t want to think of God as a genie or Santa Claus. I hugged her back tightly.

I had thoughts during my sophomore year to just drop out of school and walk across the United States without thinking about things or people because if I did, I would think about myself and on the reasons why I was not at school, why I wasn't outgoing and never dared to risk to leave my little island that was my locker and my classes. It was safer to blend into the ether then to go out and make a mark. Yet, here I was, as a junior, suddenly forgetting how I used to act and allowing someone else to come and direct my life. I didn't see an issue with it. Maybe someone would say she controlled me like a puppet or a dog but that thought never occurred to me. We were a team; something that most couples only wished they could aspire to.

I had watched couples come and go, like dying leaves. Everything's go-lucky perfect at the start and it slowly dies as its all superficial...they concentrate on the beauty of it all but never look into the leaf: what makes it green and how it is a small part of the plant...petals, flowers, fruit...all part of the plant or the tree. We're looking at the lush display but not paying attention to the root...the things holding it all together...and a tree with loose roots will fall. It will fall due to inadequate soil, slow growth, disease or insects. You think I would have done better in biology, eh?
The last two class periods went by in the same way all of my classes went since earlier that week: in a blur. For a moment, I feared that my grades would drop due to so much time that I focused on Ceci. I had to fight that--or feel the wrath of my parents wondering why my GPA had slumped further than the high-C, low-B average I already had.
"He's not on drugs...at least he doesn't look like he is."
"I don't smell pot or cigarettes on him."
"He's not drinking--I had him walk a straight line."
"It's gotta be something! Andrew, you're grounded from whatever or whoever it is that's causing your grades to fall."
I sat in the pit, a very uncomfortable place to sit for an extended period of time without a pillow. I was determined to complete my math assignment--or to at least muddle through it enough to make Mrs. Humphrey believe that I was trying in a "bless his heart" sort of way, but just hadn't mastered it.
Maybe Ceci knew about Geometry proofs.
When I arrived at her house I found her in the same position she was in Sunday morning. This time, she had a book in front of her. I watched her for a few seconds and then walked closer; she noticed me then.
"Hello.”
"What are you doing, reading about stretching?"
"Reading scripture. I do it every day.”
"Right at this time?”
"No, sometimes in the morning, during school and, or late into the night.”
"Could you read me a bit to me?"
She looked back at me, she was wearing glasses, which made her look older, about twenty, something, I supposed, but still cute.
“You want me to?"
"Sure,” I replied as I sat my backpack down and took the same position she was in...or I like to say I gave it my best shot. She straightened up her back and began:
"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearful l y and wonderful l y made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." She looked up to me.
"What does that mean to you?" I asked.
"You look into a deeper meaning too?"
"At times. So, what's your take?"
"I like to think it means we're all created with a light inside us...one that's brighter than gold, brighter than the sun."
"But sometimes we hide the shine."
"Yeah, we do sometimes. Why do you hide yours?"
"What?"
'I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"
"No, no, I can’t deny it’s the truth." I replied as she laid her Bible down and grabbed my hands. "I'm a negative person...haven't really found anything to be, you know, happy about."
"What makes you happy."
"You do."
"You need more than just me to be happy."
"One step at a time. What about you?"
"Like you said, I haven't felt very shiny myself...I've felt a bit alone even when I pray...maybe I'm not listening enough or I won't like the answer so I'm ignoring it."
"So, you've actually heard from God?"
"It's never been a booming voice or a little whisper, like you, I haven't heard anything like that...just a feeling sometimes. The last time I thought I felt it was-"
“-Saturday afternoon?”
"When I saw you and Mike helping us out. Something told me to watch over that guy...and he'll watch over you."
“You know, we could write up a “’Relationships for Dummies’ book.”
“It would probably be a best seller.”
“I’m not good at interpreting signals…good or bad.”
“Is this another club membership I can join?”
“Yes, that one too, is all inclusive.”
She looked back down at her Bible, bit her lip for a second and then looked back to me. "Ready for Gatsby?"
"No, but it has to be done."
'Do you have your book?'
"Yes,” I replied, reaching over to get it.
'What seems to be the problem?" She asked.
“I just can't get into it.”
'Did you go over any background in class?"
'A little,” I lied, not wanting to clue her in on my short attention span when it came to teachers droning on and on.
"Nick Carraway is telling a section of his past to us, about a man named Gatsby, who was….You know, I think that we should watch the movie. What do you think?"
"Will that spoil the novel?
"Probably so. The book is always better than the movie.”
“I can deal with that.”
"There's a catch," she added.
“Lay it on me."
“I'll test you every day on sections that I want you to read. Because the book is in first person, there’s a lot of information that Nick says, that a movie could never do justice. So, if you don’t read it-”
“I fail?”
“Yep.”
I thought about it: I could learn a lot about the novel and spend more time with her. It was a win-win. Besides the additional reading assignment, I could not see a downside to this.
"I’m game.” I replied as we stood back up.
"Let's go."
We walked into the house--there were more boxes unpacked: a lot of photography equipment, like lights, screens and various black boxes.
"Sorry, we're still unpacking stuff. I just need to set up my equipment,” she replied, walking over to the television set. "I thought about putting it together a few days ago, but--"
"Can I help you with any of that?"
She shook her head and pointed to the couch. "Nope. Take a seat for me, please."
I tried to not look at her, By leafing through the pages of the novel, but I failed.
"Captioning equipment. High school students I can understand, but characters from a distance on a small screen with a glare from my glasses, you know?” she had correctly assumed that I was going to ask her what she was doing. I loved her for that.
After she had finished all of the hookups, she sat down beside me and started the film. I turned up the volume, listening to the dialogue as well as reading it. The film version starred Robert Redford as Jay Gatsby, Mia Farrow as Daisy Buchanan, two actors I had never really cared for prior to seeing it; and that guy who was on Law & Order for like, forever and a day.
It was a serious minded film, but that didn't stop her from sitting very close. I wanted to wrap my arm around her but...this was more like a class, an assignment, than a date and I thought that it wasn't a good idea...until she actually threw my arm onto her shoulders with a slight smile to her face.
"Don't let this distract you, okay?"
I could only nod.