The Season of Shay and Dane (6 page)

shay

My heart is racing.

I’ll stay in the lobby
long enough, as if I really have something to do here before going back outside.

I watch the people
passing by, trailing down the sidewalk, and get lost in thought. . .
What
just happened?
For the first time in my life I wanted to steal every look I
could of him. He’s so tall, and his shoulders, so broad and erect. His physique
is perfect—a runner’s body. I catch myself and feel the warmth of blushing, and
try to be convincing that the
observation
was from a science—anatomical
standpoint.
Who am I fooling
. . .
?
Really, he would stand out
anywhere, and normally I would turn away, but the thoughts came and left. . . and
I couldn’t. And now that I know he’s truly nice. . . —it makes me shiver.

I walk down the steps
to get back over to my building.

I held his hand. . .
there was such surety in it.

“
Hellooo?
Anyone
there?”

“Jenny! I didn’t see
you.”

“I don’t know how not—I’ve
called your name twice only a few feet behind you! And what were you doing
coming out of Langley? Change programs?” Always teasing.

I look at her and
smile. “Hardly.”

“And what’s that Cheshire
cat smile about?”

“Jenny, he came?”

“Who came?”
She’s looks at me as if I’m out of my mind.

“Dane
.
” I wait
for her reaction, and for the first time I’m feeling independent of whatever it
ends up being. She looks stumped, and I continue. “I came back here at 7:00;
the same time we saw each other yesterday just to see if he’d show up. And he
did.”

“
Are you kidding me
—no
shit?” She stops walking and turns to me. I face her. Her eyes softening as she
fully sees my expression. “
Ohhh
. . . you’re going to have to come down
from that state,” she warmly responds, “before your class starts.”

I keep my smile,
thanking her with trust in my eyes, and locking arms as we walk up and inside.

dane

The whole thirty
minutes Coach Lewis has spent bitching about Harvard hasn’t even ruined my mood.

“Hit the track!”

I start off down the
hall to change into practice gear.

“Dane!”

What now?

I look around for my
next command, controlling my expression. “Yeah, coach?”

“You’re up first after
warm ups!”

“Got it.”

No doubt the 100m is
the biggest event in track and field, and any win is sure to be glory for
him—especially against our biggest rival. I wouldn’t say that about any other
coach that I knew, but his
manifesto
seems pretty self-centered. I’ll
let him have it—what other option is there?

I won’t let him ruin my
morning though—not today.

I slam my locker door
shut and walk to the tunnel to get out to the center of the field onto the
grass. A couple of the other runners have already started warming up.

The temperature’s a
little brisk, but my body feels warm all over—like the excitement of seeing her
can’t be shaken away even here on the course.

I sit down, extending
my legs, and begin bending methodically into stretches.

Standing, I get set
into a lunge and then a couple of other positions, holding them, giving my body
time to react. I roll my neck and stretch my arms out to my sides, pulling my
spine up as straight as I can get it and pushing my chest forward, stepping
onto the track for a couple of slow laps around.

As I come around the
last corner, I hear the whistle blow. I know what he wants. I jog right up to
the starting point.

“I’ll give you two
minutes!” he hollers from the side.

Two other runners line
up beside me.

I bend my right leg up
behind me reaching to get hold of my shoe, and pull it up to the back of my
thigh, switching legs, letting out a deep breath, bouncing a little and rolling
my shoulders to get centered.

“Ready?!”

I lower into position.

“3—2—1!”
Whistle
blow!

I get in immediate
stride—accelerating—my breathing vents fast.

The speed of the rhythm
is second nature.

I’ve lost peripheral
sight of the other guys.

I wind my run down to a
jog, circling about half of the track.

Coach Lewis is making
his way across. “Good time! I expect the same result Saturday!” Compliment or
warning, I wasn’t going to try to figure it out. I just knew my job and I had
to do it.

I paced myself the rest
of practice after proving my time. Any injury now—I’d go from star athlete—to
being shunned. As loyal as the student fans are, they wanted Yale to dominate
every event—and the feeling of being turned on could rear its ugly head pretty
fast.

shay

I finish sitting the
last fetal pigs on the front, two lab tables.

“Listen up class!” I
call over the chatter. The sound winds its way down and I can begin.

My voice has to carry
over the entire room. I speak a little more loudly, “We talked about this
before you left on break, but since it’s been a little while I want you to
review it fast.” I walk around the room passing out the dissection guides. “And
I want each lab table deciding which incisions are going to be made by which person
before you begin.” A little talking starts to generate. “Wait a minute—before
we get started I’ll be coming around to see if you’re organized. After I get to
each table, then you’re free to begin. Remember—do not cut—or move, more than
is necessary to expose a given structure. And pay particular attention to the
spatial relationships of organs and glands as you expose them—know that their
positions are not random.” I get to the last lab table and slide the final four
guides across it to the remaining, waiting students. “As you’re waiting for me
to come around, take a minute and go over your notes quietly.”

I move from table to
table checking for their preparedness. As I get to the last one, I look around
the room. There’s an excitable eagerness to the near silence. Most of the
students left now are the serious ones, with the class being a little more than
half its size from when we began. A lot of the students who left ended up
enrolled in the introductory biology course with the parents having high hopes
of a generational doctor, only to find out that it’s not for them, and
some—just slackers, and dead weight for the rest of the class. I’m glad to help
anyone out, who’s trying. But when you miss labs and show up late unprepared,
there’s only so much guidance you can give before they have to come to realize that
they need to drop the course for their benefit and everyone else’s, including
mine.

I walk to my small desk
at the back of the room and sit on the edge of it where I have a good view of
all of the activity going on. These are the days I like the best. By now I’ve
managed to garner their respect—the majority of them anyway, and fortunately
without ever exposing my age. I’m sure some of them in here are the same age as
me; others I could be an older sister to by just a couple of years—and hearing
from fellow graduate students, there gets to be a bit of animosity between
people if they find out. But days like today, when they’ve gained enough
knowledge and have lasted this far, it’s kind of like a reward they’ve earned—to
get to actually perform some physical aspect of biology. The mood just changes.
It’s on these days that I get the most thank yous as they leave.

I position myself a
little more comfortably, watching and waiting for anyone needing my help, and as
I do, I notice the small
gift
out of the corner of my eye that I sat
down as I walked inside, with its plastic bag still taped to the top, and smile
to myself.

dane

I decide to grab some lunch
at the student union since I have only an hour before my last class; the walk
home and back would take up most of that just navigating through all of the
people crowding the campus.

I get in line and take
a tray from the stack and put it on the three metal bars that run the length of
the food display, picking up some shepherd’s pie, a salad, and two milk
cartons—grabbing a fork and some napkins as I finish up.

I pay for my food and
spot a table near the window.

I take a bite, not even
tasting it, just lost in thought—
that I was so damn glad she was there
.
Was it really a coincidence? I mean, girls know all kinds of tactics—many of
them obvious as hell. But if she was curious, she was almost as nervous today
as she was yesterday. I smile poking around at my next bite, thinking if she
had wanted to show up to look for me, I must have really gotten into her head because
this girl was anything but forward. . . Shay.

I peal apart the seal
on the milk carton, pulling the flap out and pinching it to a point, drinking
all of it at one time, when I hear my name from across the cafeteria by the
registers.

Vince makes his way
over and pulls up a chair opposite me. I can’t shake him, but the company’s
alright for lunch anyway.

“Hey,” I say.

He starts right in.
Always angling, for some
gain
he’s in pursuit of. “You know Gretchen?
Well, she’s got a friend who wants to meet you.”

I’m sure she does. Here
we go. I nod, acknowledging I’m listening to him as I eat my salad, and let him
finish.

He leans in, “Yeah,
well, I hear from some of the other guys on the baseball team that she’ll make
your eyes roll into the back of your head. . . and if I weren’t hooking up with
Gretchen, I’d have a go at her myself.”

He’s a class act
.
I look down at the rest of my salad—that somehow looks less appetizing with
each word out of his mouth. I’m
absolutely
glad that my sister’s never
encountered him. First glance, I’d probably knock the shit out of him—never having
thrown a punch in my life.

“Think about it—it’ll
get me some points, maybe with both of them.”

I move my eyes up from
my tray to look at him—I’m sure if someone did a CT scan, his brain would be in
the shape of a dick. “Yeah, I’ve already thought about it. No thanks.”

He shakes his head,
like I just passed up the last chance of ever knowing
carnal pleasure
.
“I just don’t get you man. You never bring anyone home—you’ve got to be getting
backed up.”

I’m done
.

These girls actually
get into bed with him—I can’t even finish my lunch near the guy. “Listen Vince,
I’ve got class in a couple of minutes—see ya back at the building.”

shay

“I could eat a horse!”
Jenny pulls open the door to Mama Gia’s. A small rope of bells jingles against
the glass. I follow close behind listening to her speak in Italian to the
greeter at the front podium. Who laughs and motions a waiter, and leads us to a
table in the center of the room. This is right up her alley; it’s a chunk of
Italy—at the base of campus. Most people come here for a semi-formal occasion,
or anniversary I suppose. I’m sure even some for a first date.

Jenny introduced it to
me and my parents the day we moved me into my apartment, and were all too tired
to think about cooking. My parents loved it. My dad thought Jenny was a saint;
guiding me right to some good decisions about getting life started here. First
the apartment, now
the best little Italian restaurant
he’d eaten at in
years. With a stomach full of spaghetti, I could tell he was feeling more and
more at ease about me being here on my own—with Jenny. Anyway, since then we
manage to eat here about once a month when we’ve had an especially long day—just
getting back from breaks and into the swing of things seems to be a regular,
for one of those days.

She says some things in
Italian again to the waiter and all I can pick up is “. . .
Guido
. . . “

A moment later he’s returned
with bread and oil.

“I ordered for us,” she
says, dunking a torn off piece of bread into the oil and motioning for me to
dig in.

“Thanks. You’re sure
you told him only marinara sauce, not meat sauce this time?” I ask, reaching in
the basket for a slice of warm bread.

“I told him last time
too—he just got it wrong.” I laugh at her. “What?”

“Nothing,” I smile and
keep tearing my bread, swiping it in the oil. She probably did say it right.
She’ll never admit it though if she didn’t, which completely amuses me. I think
the one thing that bonds us more than anything else is our stubbornness.

At any moment I expect
her to delve into an inquiry about. . . Dane. Even thinking his name heightens
something in me. I’d prefer getting through most of our meal though before she
does begin asking questions. I decide to direct conversation for a while, as
long as I can anyway.

“Did you get through
your classes unscathed?”

“
Me?
It’s the
little shits you should be worried about. I’ll say it a thousand times—why
would anyone want to be a teacher?” She rolls her eyes and gestures to the
waiter to get our water glasses refilled.

I spend half of my time
entertained by her. “They’re not that bad,” I jibe.

“Not that bad! Who
sedated you?”

I pass my glass to be
filled. My smile is stuck. I could have the worst day and get near her energy
and forget even why I was feeling that way to begin with.

“Okay, your Pollyanna
optimism is your strongest trait—I’ve come to accept that,” she allows jokingly,
seeming all but put-out forking her spaghetti to spin against her spoon. “But
today you’re almost skipping—and we can’t have that. So spill, fess up about
the runner with legs up to my neck. What’s his name? Mundane?”

So she did notice.

dane

I don’t even want to
study. I just want to lay here looking up at the ceiling thinking about her.
I’ll give myself thirty minutes to rest and get composed—then I’ll have to hit
the books. . . no matter what.

She grips me.
And
for some reason I don’t mind. It’s not worth it to mention it to anyone; I
don’t know even enough about her yet. All that I do know is I feel alive inside
and out near her, like a
man—
protector
, not like anything I’ve
ever felt before. And yet, there’s a resistance to her—I can’t understand it—at
the same time, a want in her eyes. I know it. I saw it.
She’s just so damned
vulnerable
—it consumes me.
God
—I’ve not thought about it the last
couple of days—maybe she has a boyfriend
.
But I don’t see it
.
There’s no way someone that timid. . . she’s just too shy. I close my eyelids
picturing her. . . the gentleness in her movements, the sweet way she says
things. . . and how when I looked for that brief moment into her amber eyes. .
. what I  saw, transfixed me.

I’ve got to get out of
here and go for a run
.

I grab my keys to the
apartment off my dresser and lock up, making my way down the street to the
stadium. It’s sure to be open and people still around, at least until the sun
starts to really set. I’ll run until I tire myself. What studying I don’t get
done tonight, I’ll do around classes tomorrow.