Chapter 13

T.S. Eliot apparently wrote somewhere that April is the cruelest month. Maybe he went away every February. Because as far as I'm concerned, April has nothing on February. February is still cold, it's still dark, and it has that damn Valentine's Day in the middle of it.

My own February hadn't really been that bad, particularly since it followed a January where I had come a little too close to being thrown out of school. I had made a friend with benefits, even if we'd only had benefits once so far. And even if we didn't really have one of those Valentine's Day relationships. I had made a bunch of other new friends, too. And I was on track for A-pluses in Government, History, and my Honors English Seminar.

Then, on February 27, I got my first Religion test back. Mrs. Jenkins must have spent the entire weekend grading them, the old biddy. She gave me an A and yes, I know that an "A" is an excellent grade. It says so right on the report cards. A = Excellent. So I really couldn't complain about it. Besides, she'd written "Very nice job, Patrick" across the top of the test, and she smiled at me when she gave it back like I was a prize show dog that she was particularly proud of. But A+ = outstanding. And I needed outstanding grades to get into UVA. I had been right. I could have done better on that essay question.

The day hadn't started off well, either. Jeanne and I were about to get into our car for the trip to school when Andy Lebo pulled his land ark into the driveway behind my car and honked his horn. We watched Jill come out of the door and climb into his car. Jeanne and I traded glances and got into ours. And then we waited for Andy to leave. And waited. And waited.

Finally, after five minutes, I left the car idling and walked over to Andy's car. He had turned the radio up and closed the windows. He and his buddies, Jesse Trasker and Brian Hughes, who were sitting in the back seat, were just laughing at me as I tried to ask him to move. Jill was sitting in the front seat, and while she didn't join them in laughing, it didn't look like she was doing anything to help us. Finally, with about five minutes to go before the start of school, he backed out of the driveway and tore off down the road. Jeanne and I followed at a more sedate pace, and were naturally a few minutes late by the time we got to school.

Mr. Smithson refused to let me into homeroom without a note from the office, and when I got there I found Jeanne ahead of me, nearly in tears. We were the only people there other than Rachel Carter, who was so busy typing that she hadn't noticed Jeanne arrive. I hadn't had occasion to come by the office since we'd danced together, and I was very happy to see her wearing her hair loose now.

"Hey, gorgeous," I called out. "How 'bout some service over here?"

Her head snapped up, ready to take offense.

"Here's trouble," she grinned. "What can I do for the Sterling family?"

"The Sterling family got held up by a bunch of assholes on the way here," I told her, "and can't get into their homerooms without notes."

"What's this?" Pete Peterson came bustling out of his office. "What happened, Trick?"

"We just had a run-in with some guys who wanted us to be late," I said.

"Who?" he asked. He seemed a little eager, like he hadn't disciplined someone in a while and needed to pad his statistics.

"It was —" Jeanne began.

"Mister Peterson," I interrupted her. "Do we look like we're the kind of people who'd squeal on our classmates?"

With a disappointed glance at Jeanne, who probably did look like she was that kind of person, he agreed that no, we didn't.

"Anyway, it didn't happen on school property," I said. "But we still need notes to get into our homerooms, of which we only have about five minutes left."

As Pete was interrogating us, Rachel had prepared the necessary paperwork, and we both hustled out of the office.

"Why didn't you tell him?" Jeanne demanded as we were about to part ways.

"Do you really think that he wouldn't confront Andy, and that Andy wouldn't take it out on Jill?" I left her standing there, open-mouthed, as I hurried back to Mr. Smithson's classroom.

I passed Andy's locker on my way to fourth-period Astronomy, and he was just leaning on it, smirking at me.

"Nice trip, Sterling?"

"Yeah, thanks, Andy," I said as I hustled past. "You know, next time you and Jesse and Brian oughta try to finish your play date a little earlier so you can pick Jill up before school starts, huh?"

I'd said it loud enough that it got some giggles from the kids within earshot, and it earned me a righteous glare from Andy. In retrospect, of course, it probably hadn't been the smartest thing to say.

And then Religion. I could tell that Tanya was delighted with the A that she showed me, and I did my best to share her enthusiasm as we dumped our books in our lockers and walked to the cafeteria. It would have been hard to explain why a fuck-up like me was all of a sudden getting bent out of shape because he got an A rather than an A-plus. Instead, I told her the conclusion of the Lynn Edwards saga, and then had to tell the whole thing over again at lunch for everyone else's benefit.

After school, Tommy and I began our weightlifting program. It went well, and Tommy told me he wanted to come back every day. But Coach wanted us to start the first week doing every other day, so Tommy agreed to wait until Wednesday.

At dinner that evening, Jeanne did something that I hadn't seen her do in a long time, even by my truncated measuring stick. She complained to Dad. She launched into a diatribe about our having been late to school, and put the blame squarely on Jill.

"Hey, I didn't do anything," Jill protested.

"It was your stupid boyfriend who just sat there in the driveway laughing at us," Jeanne pointed out.

"I didn't tell him to do it," Jill argued petulantly.

"So why didn't he just drive you to school?" Dad asked Jill.

"I don't know," Jill said as she played with her food. "He said he wanted to..."

"To what?" Dad asked.

"To jerk Trick around a little," she said reluctantly.

"Why?" Dad pressed her.

"'Cause he says that Trick tried to break us up," she said, tears forming in her eyes.

"Hey, Dad," I interrupted.

He looked over at me.

"It's not a problem," I said. "I'll take care of it. I'll make sure Jeanne gets to school on time."

He gave me a long look, and then looked at Jeanne and Jill in turn.

"Good," he grunted. "Because it's not like I can stick around here to referee your little high school problems."

We all returned to our dinners, but after Jeanne and I had finished the dishes, I knocked on Jill's door. It was ajar, and I could see her in there at her desk, her ear plugs in and her head nodding to something mellow on her iPod.

"What do you want?" she asked when she finally realized I was in the doorway looking at her. She dialed down the volume.

"Is it important to you that he thinks that I tried to break you up?" I asked her.

She made a show of taking out her earplugs and asking me to repeat myself. I did, even though I knew full well that she'd heard me the first time.

"Yeah," she said. "You did."

"No, I didn't," I said gently.

"Yeah," she glared at me. "You did. Can you just leave me alone, please?"

"Jilly, what's the —"

"Please, Trick?"

I went out later that evening and parked the car on the street. When Andy came the next day, I just pulled out and left him fuming in the driveway. Even Andy wasn't about to mess with us in the middle of traffic. And after that he apparently decided it wasn't worth the trouble any more.

On Wednesday morning, I got back my Melville paper, another "Very nice job, Patrick" printed across the top. Unlike my Religion test, this one came with an A-plus attached to it. Thank you, Mrs. Palmer. On Wednesday afternoon, Tommy and I met again in the weight room after school for some lifting. He said he was a little sore, but he eagerly agreed to meet me again on Friday. On Wednesday evening, Tanya scuttled those plans with a single phone call.

"My parents are going to a friend's house for the Sabbath," she said.

"You guys are gone like every other week," I grumbled.

"I didn't say I was going."

"You're not going with them?" I perked up.

"No. Interested in an after-school special?"

"You bet," I said. At least, I thought I was. It sounded a lot like sex. Either that or we were going to watch TV. Either way, it would be time well spent as long as Tanya was there.

"Good. I'm feeling really horny."

So it wasn't TV. There was a long pause, and I finally realized that I was expected to respond.

"Me, too," I said.

"Good," she repeated. "I was getting worried."

"About what?"

"That you might not have, you know, liked it," she said shyly.

"Are you serious? It was great. You were great. It was amazing."

"You're blabbering," she giggled.

"Exactly."

"Then why didn't you ask me again?"

Was that the rule?! I couldn't ask her out to dinner or to a movie, but I could say, 'hi, wanna get together and fuck this weekend?' Is that what this meant? Hell, why didn't everybody do this?

"Uh, I guess I'm just too new at this," I said. "I've only done the boyfriend-girlfriend thing before."

We talked a little longer, and finally signed off with "see ya." None of that messy "I love you" stuff for me and Tanya.

On Thursday, I had a tryout for the Devil Rays, the team that had the first selection in the upcoming baseball draft in June. The scout tried not to appear that interested in me, and kept reminding me about up some hotshot lefthander at Vanderbilt that they were giving a real hard look. I uncorked a couple of my best fastballs — Tommy was getting more and more comfortable catching them — and told him that that was fine, I was looking at a bunch of colleges, too. Our little chat after the throwing session took up so much time that I never noticed Tommy leaving. As a result, I forgot to tell him about the change in our Friday afternoon plans until I saw him in the hallway Friday morning.

He was very disappointed.

"But I'm going over to Tanya's house, man," I said quietly.

"Trick," he pleaded, "I really need to get some serious playing time this year. I've gotten a couple of feelers from some Division II schools because of those games I caught Billy in last spring. My folks can't pay for my college tuition."

"All right, all right. Hey, I know, I have the key!"

"To what?"

"The weight room," I said. "We can go in there on Saturday morning and lift. How 'bout it, buddy? You get your lifting, I get my Tanya-time. Besides, I already told Coach you were my catcher this year."

"Seriously?" he asked, his eyes alight.

"Seriously," I nodded.

"What'd he say?"

"Actually, he said you better start lifting," I admitted.

"See?" he laughed. He punched me on the arm. The right arm, fortunately.

On Friday afternoon, I drove Jeanne home, shoved her out of the car, and raced off to Tanya's. Maybe I was a little more polite than that. The car probably came to a complete halt before Jeanne exited.

I rang the doorbell. My phone started ringing. Yeah, like I was gonna stop and take a call. I waited a minute and knocked, peering through the glass windows on the side of the door to see if I could catch a glimpse of Tanya inside.

I rang the doorbell again. My phone started ringing again. I finally understood. With a smile on my face, I pulled the phone out of my pocket and saw Tanya's number on the screen.

"Where are you?" I asked.

"Upstairs," she answered.

"Upstairs where?"

"Upstairs in my house."

"Well, why don't you come downstairs and let me in?"

"I should come downstairs to open the door when I'm naked and about to step into the shower?" she countered. "Why don't you just turn the handle and see if it's locked?"

I did. It wasn't. One of these days I would actually go up the stairs in the Szerchenkos' house one step at a time.

Tanya had her own bathroom off her bedroom, and she was waiting for me in the bathroom doorway. She was standing with her back to me, looking back over her shoulder at me. I tried to keep looking at her face, honest, but with those long legs, that tight little butt, and the way her blonde hair cascaded down around her shoulders, it was a battle that my good manners had no chance of winning.

"Coming?" she arched her eyebrows.

Not yet, fortunately, but I was damn close. She walked into the bathroom, out of my sight. I heard her start the water as I pushed my pants and my shorts and my socks off, hopping ever closer to the door. I heard the shower curtain being pulled back as I unbuttoned my shirt. By the time I added the shirt to the trail of clothing and entered the bathroom, the curtain was already closed again. It was a combination bath and shower, with more than enough room for two. I reached for the edge of the curtain farthest from the showerhead, and pulled it open enough to slide inside.

"Mmm," Tanya purred without looking at me. She had put her hands against the tiles on the front of the shower, and stood there with her legs spread, as if I was being invited to frisk her. Instead, I simply watched the water stream down her shoulder blades until it ran in glistening rivulets off of her incredible ass.

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A Stitch in Time

Marsh Alien

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