Doesn’t hurt to try before abandonment

Judy agreed to meet Shanna at the Rocky Dale Public library on Saturday. Against her better judgment, Judy paired with her zealously nonsensical, cozy-up friend for an English paper. Judy knew from the onset she would do the work and Shanna would do the pawing, clinging, guffawing.

               She loved Shanna as sixteen-year-old girls sometimes do. But not as intensely as Shanna loved her. Consequently, a public space contextually shifted the mood. Words to the wise, her mother said, “Witnesses force us to behave the way stones weigh the drowning man. Your reputation bears fruit long after you earned it.” Judy wondered if the fruit might be bananas, or if being stoned involved party drugs.  Or if her mother was simply bananas.

               Shanna understood less about her mother with each passing year. Now her father, What’s his name? The girls settled at an open desk. For a library in a backwater town, like the gills of a fish, it flowed to its gills with overstuffed shelves. The center aisle crowded heavy pine desks, metal chairs, and the librarian’s station at the front. A drab, middle-aged woman with tight lips, grayish streaked hair cut short enough to avoid attention. Shanna, quite distinct, wore tight shorts and a purple t-shirt advertising a band. She pulled her hair into a ponytail.

               Judy chose less ostentatious imagery, although her brunette hair pulled tightly to her scalp. Her shorts, skintight lycra running shorts, bordered a T with an astrological symbol. Both girls looked younger than sixteen, lithesome, thin. She pitched her bookbag to the desk, flopped into a chair.

               Shanna smiled coquettishly. “Happy to be here?” Judy smirked. “What are we working on?”

               “Haven’t though much about it.” She placed her right index finger to her lower lip. “Let’s do the mating habits of sixteen-year-old girls. And boys.” Shanna eased into a chair. No bookbag, or notepad, or pen. “A research project?”

               “Like you have a wealth of experience. And leave me out of it.” Judy suspected the topic more ruse than practical planning. She was thinking Wikipedia transformed into a paper.

               Shanna smiled. “Oh, I don’t know. Spice up the soup. What spice are you? Paprika?”

               “Going through your mother’s pantry again? Try coriander. Maybe curry.”

               Shanna looked past Judy. “There’s that boy from our English class.”

               Judy turned. A boy studied a book on his table, three desks beyond them. “Jerry.” She turned back to Shanna. “By himself. Why is that no surprise?”

               Shanna furrowed her brow. “Don’t know him. How’s it you know him?”

               Judy glanced quickly at Jerry, then turned back. “He’s cute in a loser kind of way.” She arranged the materials from her pack to the table. Pen to paper, she wrote and spoke, “Mating preferences. Ugh.” She slid back into the chair. “I want to talk to him.”

               “Boy lust? I thought you and I….” She closed the thought.

               Judy strolled to Jerry, then stood next to him. He looked up. “Hi Judy.”

               “Jerry?” like she was auditioning for the forlorn damsel part in a school play. “English project? What are you doing? Who’s your partner in illiteracy?”

               “You mean, illiterally.” He studied Judy with his eyes, absorbing her, “Mackpeace Thackery. And Brad Cumberland. The football jock.”

               “Lucky you. A jock. Hottie. Who’s Thackery?”

               Jerry picked up a copy of Vanity Fair from the table to show her. “Nineteenth Century English novelist. Satirist.”

               “Never heard of him. Has Brad?”

               “Jerry’s mother puts his name on a ‘Hello my mane is Brad’ label every morning. I go for the esoteric.”

               “And Jerry gets his name on the report?” She bent over to pick a pencil off the floor. Jerry’s eyes beaded on her fundament. “Fundamentally, not a bad deal. I would make out with you for hours to get off that easy.”

               Absently, as if an aside, “In small letters, like a footnote.” Smile. He shifted uncomfortably, tugging at his shorts. “You? And Shanna?”

               “Mating habits of sixteen-year-olds.” Jerry’s eyes inflected a “no surprise.”

               Judy noticed him wriggling. “You glad to see me, or do all girls have this effect on you?”

               Jerry blushed crimson. “Apparently you do.”

               She laughed. “Glad to know someone does.”

               “What’s with the sixty-nine on the shirt?” He stared with reason at her chest.

               She pulled the shirt out to set up a canvas view. “Not sixty-nine. It’s a symbol for the astrological sign, Cancer, the crab. See,” she placed a finger on one circle. “Eyes of the crab. That’s an eye. Two eyes.” She touched the other.

               “Eye of the needle. Your birth sign?”

               “Yeah. You think? Crabby pickup line.” She mimicked the words as if a taunt. “Tell me, research here, you think about girls? What were you thinking as you undressed me?”

               Jerry flipped through the book. “Honestly, I was thinking about your crab?”

               “Sure. Crab’s eyes? Then what? Just fantasies? Something happening.” She pointed at him, her finger tracing from her eyes to her waist. “You spend a lot of time considering? Ever date? Girl? Boy?”

               Jerry flustered. “No, not that. I…” He knew Judy’s reputation for outlandish blustering. “You want to go out?”

               She pulled up a chair, eased it close to him. “May I?” He turned toward her. She sat. “Don’t get too excited Buster. Research. I need some material for this stupid project.”

               “Let’s swap partners.” He felt her warmth. Hormones charged. He restrained, bashfully. “Give it a try. You know, doesn’t hurt to try before abandonment.”

               She leaned in. “Swapping? Maybe. Will you kiss me? Research.”

               Hesitating, he awkwardly took her hand, his lips listed toward her nose, then crooking one eye to judge his positioning.

               “Like a crook, snatching a dropped penny.” She kissed him, a peck on his lips, then dropped back. “Feel anything? Some urges?”

               Jerry turned away. “You’re mocking me.”

               “No. I wanted to kiss you. I have since I first noticed you. More than research. Complicated.”

               He cheered, taking her hand again. “I can talk to you about Nineteenth Century English writers. My favorite period of literature.”

               Judy tousled his hair. “Not so much. That stuff bores me. I tried Harry Plotter.” She looked toward Shanna. “Look at her, like an eagle perched on a branch waiting to snatch.”

               “Potter. You the perch? Perca fluviatilis?”

               “Whatever. How do you know this stuff?” Her hand drifted to his thigh. She rubbed the shorts. “Date anyone? What kinds of moves did you make?”

               Truth or lie. “Well, I don’t date much. At all. Church things mostly. Not really dates. Boy Scouts, but that doesn’t count.” He realized how clumsy that sounded. “I mean, just talk stuff. You know how boys are. Give most things a try. Doesn’t hurt to try.”

               She cupped her head at her neck, stretching. “Not really. I know how I think boys are. All between the belt and the knees. Girls are shallow. They go for the look.” She laughed. “Not me. I like the strong intelligent, lusty type. Like you passing on the strong. Intense. You intense? You feeling some lusty intense?”

               He deferred, “Maybe you noticed. Discreetly, I mean.”

               Judy smiled, “Surmised. Discreetly or not, yes. Pretty obvious with you. Calming down?”

               “Comes and goes. Why are you taking this time with me? I’m surprised. I mean, you’re pretty pretty.”

               Judy’s turn to blush. “Like a song from West Side Story. You know, she sang in a whisper, “I feel pretty, oh so pretty.” She eyed the can on the table. “What’s that?”

               “Bad Ass. It’s a drink.”

               “In the library? Do you have to be an ass to drink it?”

               He grinned sheepishly. “Can’s not open. Doesn’t hurt to try before abandonment.” He glanced toward Shanna. Her attention did not stray from them. He could not discern if it was Judy or him. Judy, he thought. “You date much?”

               Judy turned her back to Shanna but kept focus on Jerry. “Depends on what you mean, I s’pose. Shanna and I hang around each other.”

               “Oh, but are you, like…” he hesitated, the words dangling, like bait, an allure.

               “Cozy?” She laughed to be heard by the scowling librarian.

               “Cozy? Maybe that’s the right appellation. Yes. Cozy, just saying.”

               Judy stood. “Call me. Tonight. Let’s go for a walk. The park.” She touched the hand resting furtively on Vanity Fair.      “You drive? We can park at the end of the greens. See what happens.”

               “See what happens.”

               She looked enquiringly into his eyes. First notice, a hazelnut brown. “You say that a lot.”

               He glanced at her again resisting the sensible eyes-only encounter. “Can I have your number?”

               She pulled the smart phone from her back pocket. “Text yourself.”

               Shanna was annoyed. “You two were pretty palsy. Naming the first one after me?”

               Judy smirked, “Only if it is a can of Bad Ass.” Shanna puzzled on this.

               Jerry gathered his materials, took Thackery to the checkout. As he passed Judy and Shanna, both of whom turned to watch him, he said, “See ya.”

               Judy called after him. He smiled. “Doesn’t hurt to try before abandonment.”