The Cheerleader and the Art Geek - 1. Kiss Me Slowly

Marianne stood at the sidelines of the football field, her thick brown hair tied up in a loose bun at the back of her head. Her eyes were narrowed against the breeze and her full lips were pursed, the nip and tug of the wind drying out their usually plush surface faster than any other scenario might have done. But still, though the day was long and the weather was painfully frigid, she did not dare move to take shelter somewhere else. She really didn’t want to move, either. The young girl was perfectly content just sitting there, watching the players dance their sporting waltz to and fro across the field.

Such graceful performers…Marianne found her thoughts running away from her as she followed a particularly elegant receiver dash forward with the slight curve of the football in his hands. His feet seemed to step in time with the rustling of the trees, his panting breath rolling forth in clouds of silvery blue. It was quite artistic, the way he moved, the purpose in his ready steps. It lulled her into a type of dream-state, where her mind was open to thoughts of both the present and the past…

“Marianne!”

Suddenly there was a voice calling her name. The girl started in her seat, her blue-grey eyes flying open and her lips parting in a silent question. But, of course, no one was there when she finally cast her gaze around the bleachers. It was a sharp day, and spectators didn’t like the cold, even if their home team was hosting a rather important football game…but who had called her name? Certainly not one of the players. They were much too involved in their—

“Marianne!”

There it was again! She jumped to her feet. Who could it possibly be? One of the cheerleaders? A friend, looking for her in the shadows of a cold, frosty, grey spring morning? It seemed to come from behind her, behind the bleachers, but what was behind there that was of any importance to anyone? Only the washrooms were back there, and the dressing rooms, and the—

The old oak forest.

Marianne had been slowly gathering herself up and heading toward where she heard the voice calling her name, but now she was frozen, her eyes wide, her mind dwelling in a past she had sworn never to visit again. It was varied, the memories were varied…the old oak forest…

“Marianne, come play with me!” The little boy cried, his little boy fingers reaching from the slightly swaying bough of an old tree, waving at her and asking her to come and join him at his perch. “You promised today you would.”

To a five year old Marie, promises were everything. She looked up with her round doe-eyes, chewing her lip as she watched her friend wriggle farther out on the branch, reaching down as if to pull her up. “But, Tommy…it’s so high…”

“Aw, don’t worry about that! Just don’t look down.”

“But I’m scared, Tommy…”

“You know what my Mommy says?

Marie only blinked at him, her little fingers wrapped tightly around the pinky finger of her other hand. She shook her head, her short dark hair bobbing with the action.

Tommy grinned the grin of a child, all his teeth showing and his round cheeks dimpling in an honest, sweet way. “She says it’s okay to be scared of the Boogie Man, even if some people aren’t. She says it’s okay to not want to eat your vegetables from time to time, but you have to at least try them. She says that brushing your teeth will make them shiny and nice for the Tooth Fairy and being good all year will make Santa Claus not give you coal in your stocking and trusting in your Mommy and Daddy will make the Easter Bunny give you more chocolate around the house! Didja get all that?”

Marie, lost in her world of imagination, blinked her doe eyes at him again and nodded. "I...I think so." She wrinkled her nose. "But I won't say I like the vegetable part."

Tommy laughed in his childlike manner. "Naw, it's alright, once ya get used to it. But doncha worry about that! C'mon up here!" He was just so eager...Marianne couldn't resist.

"I'm coming!" she called, shoving her soft curls out of her eyes before reaching out to the lowest branch her short, youthful arms could catch. Marie wrapped herself around the branch before wriggling around, unsteadily climbing to her feet, using the tree’s trunk as a balance beam. “Look—I’m doing it!” Her voice was shrill and bouncy with her excitement. “Look, Tommy! I’m climbing a tree!”

The boy looked down at her and smiled that big kid smile again, his dark eyes innocently sparkling from above. “See? You’re doing great, Marie! Mommy would be proud. You’ll get up here real quick now that you know what you’re doing!”

Marianne grinned, reaching for another branch. Something in her heart swelled, something that her five year old mind couldn’t place, but the childlike joy of doing something on her own replaced it real quick. A five-year-old’s freedom was like a dandelion’s feathery seeds just starting to take flight in the early mornings of summertime—light, free, and completely unstoppable.

The little girl quickly reached another hand up for the next branch, then the next, then the next, and in just a matter of minutes, Marianne was sitting nose-to-nose with Tommy, who was still grinning. She could see his crooked front teeth, the darker rings in his light brown eyes, the way his hair stuck up at the side. She wrinkled her nose—Marie could even smell the breath curling out from between his dry, cracked lips. She had never been this close to a boy before…they were like an alien species to the child.

Marie looked away and scooted back on the branch, laying a tiny hand on the trunk to make sure she didn’t fall. It was high…very high, to be exact, but for some reason, she wasn’t all that afraid.

“Oh, look Tommy, look at those clouds!” She lifted a hand and pointed eagerly at a gathering of fluffy white things, lumped together to make shapes that played with Marie’s mind’s eye until it saw dragons and mermaids and all kinds of wonderful things. She scooted closer to the boy to get a closer look, craning her neck to watch them as they floated by on the breeze. “Aren’t they pretty? My Daddy always says they’re the thoughts of angels, watching over us as we live our lives, making sure we don’t get hurt.”

Tommy wrinkled his nose. “You really believe that stuff?” he said.

Marie only blinked at him. “Should I…should I not?”

Silence stretched between them for a few moments. And then Marie said, “Why don’t you believe in angels, Tommy?”

It was an innocent enough question for an innocent enough child. All her life, she’d been raised to believe that there was a man up above looking over everyone, making sure everyone was okay, with his friends the angels helping to clean up messes around the world. Her parents took her to church every Sunday, and she’d sit in Sunday School with her friends, learning about all the good things Jesus and the Saints did, and how God’s love for everyone made him sacrifice his own son to save them all. Marianne didn’t understand what it was that Tommy didn’t think was real about everything. To her, everything was real.

Tommy didn’t want to answer the question. His lips were pressed tightly together, a cut on them ripping open and starting to leak little droplets of red. Marie watched one form, then start to dribble down his lip, and looked away. Her innocent mind couldn’t handle what was to come.

Finally, though, Tommy spoke. “I just…don’t.” His voice was soft, softer than the pad of a cat’s paw as it walked across a gentle carpet. “I dunno what it is. I just don’t think that stuff is real.”

“But Tommy—”

“No, think about it, Marie.” He turned to her sharply, the flyaway pieces of his hair bouncing in the breeze he created. “A man in the sky, watching over all of us with winged people? Mommy and Daddy think it’s stupid. They think we came from monkeys. And what Mommy and Daddy say has to be true. They don’t lie.”

Marianne had always liked monkeys… “But that doesn’t mean we came from them!” she blurted, and then covered her mouth, only to clamp her arms back around the tree trunk as she started to wobble. “God created us. And everything we see around us. He created all this, Tommy, and…and…” Marie sniffled, her doe eyes looking moister with every word.

Her companion only sighed. He suddenly looked very grown-up, like an adult on the street passing outside their car, grown-up, sad, and tired of the world.

“Tommy…” Marie scooted over and wrapped her arms around him, resting her forehead on his shoulder the way she would when Daddy was reading her bedtime story. “Don’t be sad. It’s okay.” The child blinked her round eyes at him, truly believing what she said. “Remember what your Mommy said? It’s okay to be afraid of the Boogie Man, even if someone else isn’t.” The girl paused, wrinkling her nose. “And then there was something about vegetables. Yuck.”

Tommy looked at her then. Marianne looked back. And then they both started to laugh, the sound of it ringing across the fresh spring morning where the two children were left alone to be—

“MARIANNE!”

Suddenly, the dream world slipped away, and Marianne nearly leapt out of her skin, clutching for dear life at the bag on her shoulder. She could still feel the frigid breeze of that day long ago, the chilly feel of the tree branch holding her weight. The curve of her rear was cold, probably because the ground beneath it was being frozen constantly by the battering winds of oncoming spring.

Wait.

Ground?

Marianne leapt to her feet, turning around and around in tight circles as grass and dirt and little clinging rocks flew everywhere from where they were flattened to the seat of her pants. Yup, she’d been sitting on the ground. But hadn’t she been over by the bleachers just a moment ago, looking out at the forest?

The old oak forest…

No! Don’t you go there again, Marianne. She berated herself. You know where that will lead you, and it’s nowhere good! You hear me? Daydreaming isn’t a good thing to do. I. Said. N—

“Marianne, what in the world are you doing over here? I’ve been calling your name for, like, ten minutes!” Suddenly, a voice popped up behind her, followed by rushed, stomping footsteps that, even though they were heavy, had a graceful tread to them. “They told me you were sleeping, but I thought I heard you call back, and—are you okay?”

She slowly turned around to face the newcomer, her eyes wide and doe-like, her thoughts dazed and her inner self smacking her over and over for being so stupid. It was just a dream…a dream. What a strange dream to have in the middle of a football field! Why didn’t she think of that sooner? “W-what? Yeah, I’m fine, just a little sleepy, I guess…” Right on cue, her body produced a yawn, and she stretched her arms wide for emphasis.

Her companion’s eyes widened, his lips screwing into a worried look. “Are you…are you sure? Cuz if you’re not, I got you a little something…” He reached out and took her hand, uncurling her fingers and dropping something in the palm of her hand. “I saw it and it reminded me immediately of you…”

Marianne looked down, really looked, noting the way his fingers curved, the way his skin tone went unbelievably well with his football uniform, how whatever it was he had given her felt against her sensitive skin. Though that last one was more of a feeling…oh, who cared? It was the thought that counted. She slowly uncurled her hand…and gasped aloud. “Ohmygoodness, it’s beautiful!”

“You…you like it?” As a gentle gust of wind blew by, he smiled uneasily, his lips looking cracked and dry in the dull, frigid light of the day. The movement of the air tousled his hair, playing with the flyaway strands at the side of his head and blowing his bangs out of his eyes so the darker rings of brown could be seen. He was blushing…or maybe that was just the cold. “I had a dream last night—and I know it sounds crazy—but…you remember that morning when we were young kids? When you taught me about the clouds and the angels…”

He continued to talk but after the last sentence, Marianne was gone, lost in her own world, as a smile crept infectiously across her full lips. It hadn’t been a dream at all…or if it had, someone was looking down upon them, smiling and wishing them a great future. It was like a breath of fresh air, and Marianne reached for his hand, slipping the delicate chain over her neck with the other, where the pale white cloud-angel charm dangled elegantly against her chest.

Dream or no dream, this was the here, the now. This was the reality.

His hand in hers, she started to lead him away.

And together, Tommy and Marianne lived the happily ever after they’d always dreamed about.