Finding June (11 page)

“I thought for a minute I was going to have
to carry you up to your room,” he said with a grin.

“Lucky for you, you didn’t,” I reassured him.
“I’d like to see you try to carry my dead weight up those
stairs.”

“I’ve had to carry your dead weight a lot of
places over the years. I don’t think the stairs would’ve put up
much of a fight,” he countered playfully. I rolled my eyes at him
while I secured a long strand of brown pearls around my neck.

Walking into the classroom that we used for
seminary in our church building, Joseph pointed to the pizza-shaped
dessert sitting on a table and gave me a quick thumbs-up. I smiled
at him but refrained from laughing. Our seminary room was always so
quiet in the morning before our lesson started. I liked to think it
was because everyone was being so reverent, but I knew it was most
likely due to the early five o’clock hour. There were only about
ten people in our seminary class, since most of the kids our age
went to the later one at six. Only we zero period kids got up to
learn about the gospel that early, when a lot of people were just
getting into bed.

Joseph and I took our seats in desks toward
the side of the room and pulled out our notebook and scriptures.
Seminary was nice because it was a lot like auditing a class in
college—you can go to class to actually learn, not because you know
you’ll be tested on the material or will have to turn in
assignments, but rather because you want to be there. We didn’t
even need to take notes on the material; I just liked to write down
little thoughts that would come to my mind while Sister Pond
taught.

Slowly, people trickled in and took their
seats, some in pajamas, others fully dressed, but everyone looking
like it was a struggle just to keep their eyes open. Joseph looked
around the room, a bemuse expression on his face.

“Maybe we should move to Utah so we can have
seminary in the middle of the day,” he whispered. I nudged him
playfully but didn’t respond, finding that I was too tired to think
of a clever comeback. Maybe Joseph was right—the stress of the show
was already taking its toll on me, and we hadn’t even started
filming yet.

Since it was Friday, our lesson in seminary
wasn’t straight out of the scriptures like it normally was.
Instead, we would break into groups, read a story or talk given to
us, then get up in front of the class and tell them about it,
making us the teachers. I always liked this idea because it shook
things up a bit. Plus it was really easy to let your eyelids droop
so early in the morning with just one person talking for an
hour.

Sister Pond passed out papers to each group
and gave us ten minutes to figure out how we were going to present
it. Joseph and I had been given a talk from General Conference on
charity. Some people would stick to the standard method of standing
there and talking, while others would try to be more creative by
acting their lesson out or playing a game.

Joseph and I would normally try to be pretty
creative with our lesson, but today I was just too exhausted to
think of a clever tactic. Instead, we opted for playing a game of
hangman with the class to get them to guess what the topic of our
lesson was before we taught what we had learned from reading the
talk.

After seminary was over, we grabbed a slice
of the fruit Danish, thanked Grace, and hopped back into Joseph’s
car to go to theatre. Joseph had eaten his Danish in about two
bites, but I savored mine, trying not to eat it too fast. It was
some sort of pastry crust with cream cheese frosting, cherry pie
filling, and sugar glaze. I was pretty sure if heaven had a taste,
this dessert would be it.

“Are you going to eat it or marry it?” Joseph
asked me jokingly.

“I’m still not sure yet,” I replied happily,
making every bite count.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone who
loves dessert as much as you,” Joseph said with a shake of his
head.

“And if I play my cards right, you never
will,” I answered. We drove for a moment in silence as I finished
my Danish. I felt as if Joseph was gearing up to saying something
important. His mood had quickly gone from lighthearted and joking
to tense and quiet.

“You remember that we’re supposed to perform
our skit in class today, right?” he asked finally, revealing what
the cause of his tension was. He was afraid I would attack him
again.

“Yeah, I do,” I answered carefully, not sure
exactly where he wanted this conversation to go.

“Are you ready for it?” he asked, equally as
carefully.

“I am,” I replied. This was ridiculous.
Joseph and I were never weird around each other. It was blatantly
clear to me that I’d have to be the one to make this situation less
awkward. “We don’t have to actually kiss in the skit if that’s what
you’re worried about.” I said, proud of myself for being so
bold.

“What?” he asked. I couldn’t tell if he
sounded puzzled or a little upset.

“Well, that’s what you’re worried about,
isn’t it? Me attacking you again?”

“No, June. You can attack me any time you
want,” he said with a laugh, though he went quiet right after the
laugh had escaped him. “I mean . . . that came out wrong,” he
muttered. “I think the kiss is fine . . . I just want to make sure
it’s okay with you if we do that.”

I thought about this quietly, puzzled by what
he had said. Why would I mind? I wasn’t the one who had gotten all
weird after we had rehearsed the kiss, was I? I tried to think back
to yesterday, which seemed like years ago already. Maybe I had
acted a little weird.

“I’ll be fine,” I said. “Now that I know
you’re fine with it, I won’t be concerned at all. I just thought
maybe the whole thing made you uncomfortable or bothered you or
something,” I said with a shrug.

“It definitely doesn’t bother me,” he said
with a smirk, though just as before he let his face melt instantly
into a mask of neutrality. “That came out wrong again,” he amended.
I giggled at his odd behavior but wondered inwardly what it meant.
He was definitely not acting like his usual self.

When we pulled into the school parking lot,
we were already running late for class. Joseph quickly grabbed his
backpack and our fake sack of money while I shoved the neon green
water guns into my bag. We ran to the theatre, which proved to be
very difficult in my heels, and made it just as the first group was
getting up to perform their skit. Joseph and I slumped into some
seats in the audience, trying to keep our panting to a minimum.
Almost instantly Xani was sitting next to Joseph. I couldn’t help
but wonder how she would react when she saw our kissing scene. I
half thought she might think I had planned this all along—that I
had somehow bribed Mr. Carroll into pairing us together and giving
us this script. But maybe it was just my exhaustion talking.

The first group to perform consisted of four
people. They acted out a scene where two of the students were on a
date with each other while the other two stood behind their
respective person and voiced their thoughts. It was actually
amusing to watch the difference between what the sitting people on
the date were saying and what they were thinking. The skit ended
with the girl’s thoughts walking over and slapping the boy’s
thoughts, while the sitting girl simply said, “Check please.”
Joseph glanced over at me and shook his head sadly.

“They got to be funny,” he said.

“You get to be funny too,” I said helpfully,
though the way we had put our script together meant it ended up
being less funny and more intense.

As soon as the first group sat down, Xani
popped out of her seat to walk up on stage. She threw Joseph a wink
over her should and mouthed, "Wish me luck," as she walked
away.

“You little heartbreaker,” I whispered to
him.

“None of that is my fault! I’ve done nothing!
I just come to class to learn. Is that such a crime?” he whispered
back dramatically.

“Save the acting for our skit,” I shot back
with a wicked grin.

Xani’s skit consisted of her and a girl named
Laura. They were supposed to be new roommates who were meeting for
the first time, only to find that they were complete opposites.
They walked around the stage, arranging their imaginary rooms and
talking about their likes and dislikes. While Laura’s back was
turned, Xani would rearrange her things so that they weren’t on
"her side," only to have Laura do the same thing to Xani as her
back was turned. This all occurred as the girls continued to talk
about how well they were going to get along despite their
differences.

“Even Xani got to be funny,” Joseph said in a
singsong voice under his breath.

“Well, then, why don’t we show them why we’re
good even without a funny script?” I challenged.

“Fair enough,” he replied happily.

Right as Xani sat down next to Joseph and
leaned over to talk to him, he bolted out of his seat and hustled
to the stage, obviously happy to avoid any close contact Xani would
force upon him. I followed suit and sat down on a black wooden
block, right next to where Joseph had dropped our pillowcase full
of board game money.

Glancing at the audience, I felt a wave of
nerves go through my body as my palms began to sweat. I loved
acting, but being in front of a crowd always made me nervous. On
top of that, Joseph and I had to perform a pretty intimate scene in
front of our classmates, which was never something you wanted to
do. It didn’t help knowing that all of the skits thus far had been
funny—it just made our skit seem out of place. Also, as paranoid as
I’m sure it made me, I couldn’t help but feel my classmates would
be more critical of my acting ability now that they knew I was on
Forensic Faculty
.

I cleared my throat and gave Joseph the
smallest of nods, letting him know I was ready to begin. I saw him
pause for a moment before completely altering his expression to one
of pained frustration. I was always amazed at his ability to do
that. He began pacing back and forth across the stage, making sure
to throw an exaggerated trip in there for at least a little bit of
humor. The class laughed and I saw the smallest flicker of a smile
cross his lips.

“What could you possibly be thinking?” he
finally spat at me while he continued to pace. He kept his head
down with his eyes trained intently on the ground in front of him,
as though it took all of his concentration not to shoot me right
then and there. I wondered for a moment if anyone else in the class
thought it was a bit terrifying to see Joseph so worked up, even if
it was fake. “Robbery is an
art,
not an excuse to throw a
brick through a window." His voice was full of venom, as if I were
a complete imbecile whose only goal was to drive him crazy.

I stood up from the black wooden box on
stage, making sure Joseph was pacing away from me so he couldn’t
see me pull out my neon green water gun. I silently padded up
behind him, so when he spun around he was met with a very angry
June holding a gun hard against his chest. He stared at me
intently, his eyes burning a hole through my head. Even when we had
rehearsed, Joseph hadn’t looked that angry. It left me speechless
for a moment.

“What’s more artful than smashing a window,
taking the cash, and still not getting caught?” I countered,
pushing my water gun against his chest even harder so that he
stumbled backward a few paces. This only intensified his look of
utter disgust and hatred. I didn’t like this angry Joseph. Without
warning, he grabbed me by the wrist of the hand that was holding
the gun and pulled me in close to him. I didn’t have to fake my
look of shock on this one, since this wasn’t how we had rehearsed
the scene.

“If you don’t point that thing somewhere
else, I’ll have to reconsider my idea of working as a team,” he
threatened in an icy tone before angrily releasing my wrist. I
stood for a moment, staring at him in shock that was half acted and
half real. When I finally came to my senses, I turned around on my
heel and began to walk away from him, my shoes clicking loudly on
the stage.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked
in annoyance.

“To find a new partner,” I yelled over my
shoulder, keeping my gaze straight ahead as I walked across the
stage.

“Perfect. How about while you do that, I’ll
stay here and count all that money you just made me?” he replied,
walking over to our bag of money and kicking it with his foot.

I stopped dead in my tracks. The effect was
much better than I had hoped because just as he finished speaking
and I stopped walking, my heels stopped clicking on the stage,
casting the entire auditorium into a tense silence. I reveled in
the unexpected dramatic effect for a moment before saying my next
line.

“I see your point,” I confessed, turning
slowly to face him. I placed my gun on the ground to indicate a
truce before I began walking slowly toward him, trying to muster
any feminine wiles I possessed. I tilted my chin toward the ground
so that I could look up at him from under my eyelashes and let a
small sideways smile play on my lips.

“Really, there’s no reason to fight, right?”
I asked innocently, stopping in front of Joseph. Just as we had
rehearsed, I rested my arm on his shoulder, letting my fingers play
with his hair. I could see the color begin to rise in Joseph’s
cheeks and tried to ignore the fact that our whole class was
staring at us in silent suspense.

“We’re on the same team, aren’t we?” I asked,
now close enough that our noses were touching. As smoothly as I
could (in heels) I used my foot to push our pillowcase full of
money behind me, getting a few scattered laughs from the audience.
This must have boosted Joseph’s confidence, because his entire look
suddenly changed. Rather than looking timid and afraid, he suddenly
looked purposeful and sure of himself.