The Tribuo - 2. part 1, chapter 2

- II -

TUESDAY

I decided not to wait too long if I was serious about this weekend, and I strolled towards Julie right after the first class was over.

“Hey, Julie,” I said and she looked up, somewhat startled. “Sorry,” I smiled. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Oh,” she smiled back tentatively. “You didn’t… Not really.”

“I am Matt…”

“Yeah,” she looked away for a second. “I know.”

Oh, be still my heart! Is she blushing? Yup. Well, this is going to be easier than I thought.

“Hey,” I said casually. “What are you doing today after school?”

“Umm…” she looked at me from underneath her bangs. “Nothing, really… Why?”

She was actually really cute, I realized. Wonder if she is a virgin. Probably.

“Wanna get some coffee?”

“Umm… Sure,” she smiled again, and I smiled back. Excellent.

“Matt!”

Ugh. Of course… The shrill voice belonged to none other than my sister. Is she stalking me or something?

“So, coffee after school?” I asked Julie and she silently nodded. “I gotta talk to my sister,” I said apologetically.

“Yeah, that’s quite all right…” Julie muttered. “I’ll see you later, Matt.”

She walked away and I checked her out from behind. Not bad.

“Matthew Donahue!” Jess hissed in my ear, and I jumped.

“What?” I asked with irritation. “What do you want?”

She grabbed my sleeve and pulled me away.

“What are you doing?!” she hissed several seconds later.

“What is it to you?” I demanded and pulled my arm free.

“Matt…” she started saying, but I cut her off.

“If this is about Ally,” I said in a low voice. “Then stop right now! Look, I told you… Getting together with Ally was a mistake, I am sorry. But I am not going to pretend that I care about her, okay? You can hate me all you want, but it’s not going to change a single thing! So just leave me alone, will you?”

“Matt…” her voice trembled with righteous anger. “You are…”

“A pig, I know,” I interrupted her. “Now that we are clear on that, go away.”

I knew that she was itching to say something else, but she just whirled around and walked away. I sighed. Sisters…

****

The English class was almost over -- ten minutes or so left -- when the sub said in her husky voice that sent shivers down my spine:

“Okay, I talked to your teacher this morning, and she wanted me to let you know that the project is still on.”

Almost everyone in the class groaned. Except for Julie, and to my enormous surprise, Jess.

“So,” the sub continued. “I am going to assign each one of you a partner. The project is due on Monday morning, almost a week from today.”

“Monday?!”

I blinked at the outrage in that voice and looked up. Ah, the emo kid.

“That’s ridiculous!” he looked like he was about to pull out his razor blade any second now. “It's not enough time!”

The sub shrugged indifferently.

“Your teacher told me that everyone here had been informed about the project in advance. It was mentioned on the syllabus that everyone in this class has received, correct?”

Somewhat agreeable moans and groans from the class. The sub nodded with slight satisfaction.

“Excellent,” she said. “I am going to split all of you into pairs now… When you are assigned a partner, you may leave the class.”

I shoved my book away. I knew exactly how she was going to do this. Alphabetically, of course. And since Julie’s last name is Doherty, then it is pretty safe for me to assume that we would be partners for this ridiculous project. I closed my eyes and smiled to myself. This is going to be even better than I thought.

“Okay,” the sub was saying meanwhile. “Your teacher told me to do this alphabetically, since it would be the easiest way…”

I smirked.

“...but I am going to try something different,” she finished and my eyes flew wide open. Huh? Different? What the hell…

I stared at her in disbelief when she announced that I would be partners with Lucas Jennah. No freaking way! I have to be partners with this weird guy?! What about Julie? I almost groaned when she said that Julie would be paired up with none other than my beloved sister. Well, crap… I got up and threw my backpack on my shoulder. I was fuming. The sub didn’t seem so hot anymore. I was almost all the way out of the door, when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around. Great, my new partner -- the Weirdo.

“Hey,” he said somewhat uncomfortably.

“Hey,” I muttered back.

“Umm… I guess we are in it together.”

“Yeah,” I winced, thinking that maybe this wouldn't be too bad. I mean, I could just make notes or whatever, give it to him, and…

“Umm… I suck at those projects,” he said and I closed my eyes. Of course, he sucks at those… That means I was stuck with him. Or maybe…

“You know,” I said slowly. “I could just do the whole thing by myself and give you whatever you need for the presentation…”

“No,” he sighed in defeat. “I’ve tried that before. I almost got expelled.”

Well, damn. Yeah, I believed him. The way he looked… I mean, this guy had 'troublemaker' written all over him, with the tattoo and all. I suppose that he would get into some deep crap if someone found out that I was the one who was doing all the work. I sighed.

“Okay. Well, go ahead and choose the topic, and…”

He looked at me as if I just spoken in Swahili.

“Never mind…” I felt a headache coming up. Okay, since we had less than a week left for the damn thing, that meant we needed to start on it today. With this guy as my partner, we would need all the time we could possibly get. “Well, let’s get the topic now then. Before all the good ones are gone…”

We looked over the list of topics, and I felt a slight pang of panic. Oh dear God… This will be even worse than I…

“Here,” Jennah grabbed a pencil and swiftly circled one of the titles. “We’ll do this one.”

I blinked. What just happened? I looked at the topic he chose. “Glengarry Glen Ross”? Oh, don’t tell me this guy actually reads once in a while…

“I've seen the movie,” he shrugged when he saw the look on my face.

The movie. Right. I forgot that they made a movie out of it. Well, at least he knows the plot.

“Okay,” I nodded. “So I guess we need to start as soon as we can, huh?”

Jennah shrugged indifferently.

“Whenever. But yeah, I guess the sooner the better.”

“Today?”

“Sure.”

Jesus, could he get even more indifferent? Fine, let’s do the damn thing and hopefully we’ll be done just in time for my weekend with Julie. Oh, crap… Speaking of Julie… I looked around. Yup, there she was, talking animatedly with my sister.

“Hold on a minute, will you?” I muttered and Jennah shrugged again.

“I’ll be outside,” he said and I just nodded.

I walked up to Julie and my sister.

“Hey, Julie,” I said, ignoring a flaming glare from Jess.

“Oh, hey Matt,” she said with a small smile.

“Umm… About coffee… It seems like we will probably have to do it later. Unless you wanna go now?” I would ditch Jennah in a heartbeat. Seriously.

“No,” she sighed. “I mean, I do…” she blushed again and I silently cursed the sub. “But this project…”

“Right,” I sighed. “Plus all the homework…”

“Maybe Friday?” she asked shyly, and I high-fived myself in my imagination.

“Yeah,” I said. “Friday sounds great. I am sure I’ll be done by then with this whole ordeal.”

“Great,” Jess cut in so coldly that I blinked. “Let’s go then.”

“Bye, Matt,” Julie said while being dragged away by my sister. I swear, sometimes I think that Jess is my evil twin. Literally.

I sighed, went outside, and looked around, trying to figure out where the hell Jennah was. Finally, I saw him. There he was, leaning on a car, smoking.

“You shouldn’t smoke on school grounds, you know,” I said when I walked up to him. “They can really get on your ass for doing that.”

“Eh,” he said and flicked his cigarette away. “Wouldn’t be the first time. So, where do you wanna do this?”

I thought for a second. Coffee shop was out of the question. I mean, you can’t do a project in one of those places -- too distracting. I didn’t want to drag him to my house, considering that Jess would probably be there with Julie. Not a good combination. That left one option. Well, two.

“We can do it in the lab here…” I said and he winced. “Or we can go to your place,” I sighed.

“My place it is then,” he nodded. “Go get your car. I am not driving you around, Miss Daisy.”

Right. I could see that I would not be enjoying working with this guy. Oh well, let’s just get this over with, shall we?

“So I’ll just follow you then?”

“Uh huh,” he unlocked his car and threw his bag inside. “Hurry up, will you? I have a life besides this idiotic thing, you know.”

Ray of sunshine, this one. I glanced at my watch. Okay, it’s almost three right now. I guess I am going to be stuck with him for the next two or three hours. Charming.

****

To my enormous surprise, Jennah turned out to be not as bad as I thought at first. He didn’t talk much, but when he did, he would actually say something smart and to the point. And I suspected that he actually did read the original play. There were a couple of times when he mentioned something that wasn’t in the movie. Of course, I might've been wrong -- it has been a while since I've seen that movie.

I looked at him more closely. He narrowed his eyes against the cigarette smoke -- I guess his parents couldn't care less if he smoked in the house -- and he was typing something on his laptop. Huh, he is actually quite decent at typing. He glanced at me and pulled a cigarette out of his mouth.

“What?” he asked.

“You type pretty well,” I said and he hemmed.

“Yeah,” he said. “I do it for my Dad all the time.”

“Where does he work?”

“He is in the military,” Jennah said absent-mindedly and stabbed his cigarette in the ashtray. “His typing sucks. So every time he needs something done on the computer, I am the one who has to do it.”

“What about your Mom?” I asked and reached for my coffee cup.

Jennah glanced at me again.

“Why?” he asked with suspicion. “Are you taking notes about my family or something?”

I rolled my eyes.

“Never mind. Was just doing small talk, that’s all.”

“I am not much with small talk,” he said quietly.

“I can see that,” I nodded.

“Here…” he squinted his eyes at the computer screen. “I am going to print this shit out. Read it.”

The printer in the corner of the room hummed to life and I got up. Good God, how long have I been sitting down? I stretched so hard that something in my back made a cracking noise. Jennah laughed at that.

“Screw it,” he said lightly. “Break time.”

We went into his back yard and he immediately plopped on the grass. I did the same, since the weather was good and the grass seemed quite appealing. Jennah lit another cigarette and closed his eyes.

“She died,” he said suddenly, and I frowned at him.

“Huh?”

He opened his eyes and looked at me solemnly.

“My Mom,” he said calmly. “She died when I was nine.”

“Oh…” I said, feeling like an idiot. “Sorry…” Okay, this was awkward. This was the last time I asked someone about their parents.

Jennah shrugged and closed his eyes again.

“Yeah, me too,” he said simply.

Okay, what the hell is wrong with me? Now I was itching to ask him why she died. Ugh, just shut up, Matt. Shut up!

Jennah twisted his mouth in a weak smile.

“She had brain cancer,” he said, and I had no idea what to say to that.

“Oh,” I said finally.

Jennah opened his eyes and stabbed his cigarette in the grass.

“Stop fidgeting,” he snorted. “You wanted to know, right?”

“Umm…”

“I’m gonna make more coffee,” he got up without looking at me. “Oh, by the way... I think we should call it a day for now.”

I blinked and looked at my watch. Holy crap! It’s almost eight? No way!

“Oh, yeah…” I got up as well. “I didn’t realize how late it was, sorry…”

“Pffft,” he said with his usual shrug that I was used to by now. “Before you go, read that stuff, will you? Make changes or whatever. I’ll retype it later.”

“Sure,” I followed him back into the house. “Hey, where is your Dad?”

“Not coming home 'till Sunday,” Jennah said indifferently. “Soldier thing.”

“Right…”

“Want coffee?”

“Umm… Sure.”

“Okay, start reading then.”

I looked at him thoughtfully while he was working the coffeemaker. Huh, who would’ve thought -- this guy was actually okay, I kinda liked him. Not like we’d be best friends or anything like that, but at least I didn’t feel like shooting myself point blank in the face while he was around.

I pulled the papers out of the printer and sat on the couch. Hmm, not bad, I thought with amusement. We managed to come up with stuff that covered almost eight pages! A couple more days, and this thing would be over; and then I finally would be able to go out with Julie. I started reading, and to my surprise, I didn’t find too many typos. There were three or four of them, and I marked them all with the pencil. In overall, the paper was quite decent.

“Looks good,” I said after I finished reading.

“Cool,” Jennah said indifferently and handed me a cup of coffee.

We drank it in silence for several minutes.

“So,” he said suddenly. “What’s up with your sister?”

“Why?” Now it was my turn to look at him with suspicion. “Don’t tell me that you want me to hook you up or something…”

He snorted at that.

“If I want to hook up with someone, I do it by myself,” he said. “I don’t ask people to do it for me. No, the reason I asked…” he drank more coffee. “She looked pretty pissed at you.”

“Yeah,” I sighed, and out of the blue, I just told him about the whole Ally fiasco.

He laughed after I finished, as if it was the funniest story he'd ever heard.

“Sleeping with your sister’s best friend and dumping her immediately afterwards is stupid in my book,” he said finally, and I rolled my eyes.

“I know that. Believe me, that wasn’t my intention at first.”

“Uh huh,” he gulped the rest of his coffee down. “It was a pure and powerful feeling you got, right?”

I grinned and finished my coffee as well.

“I guess not. It’s just… I don’t know. When it comes to girls, I am… Picky,” I finished, and ignored obvious mockery in his eyes.

“Picky,” he snorted and I shrugged.

“Well, see…” It felt good to be able to talk about this. Not like I could confide in Jess. “Every one of them is the same. I mean, they all want the same thing -- love ‘till death do us… Cuddle ‘till morning… Teddy bears and flowers, you know?”

“I actually do know,” he nodded solemnly. “As hard as that might be to believe…”

“Yeah, well…” I shrugged. “I guess I am just looking for someone who is… I dunno… Different?”

“Good luck,” he sighed. “All girls love to cuddle, deal with it.”

“Yeah… Well, I’ll just keep looking.”

“Uh huh,” he yawned. “I’ll see you tomorrow. I still need to do some other crap besides this project.”

“Yeah, me too.” I got up. “See you…”

“Later,” he said absent-mindedly, pulling his laptop towards himself.

“Thanks for coffee,” I said before walking out.

“Uh huh…” he muttered without looking up.

…When I got home that evening, I realized that I totally forgot to ask Julie about her phone number. Damn! Oh well, I’ll ask her in the morning.