Ch. 12: Por Favor

CHAPTER TWELVE:
Ally and I walked to our next class, which we actually had together, Spanish. We waited by the door with the little crowd of other students while she caught me up on how ridiculous our Spanish teacher apparently was. Mr. Hall was supposedly a horrible teacher in that he waved his master’s degree around and demanded that the class respect him for it. He also supposedly had terrible class management skills but most of the class’ nonsense faded away on its own already because the class was just totally over him. Fun.
“Oh crap! I almost forgot!” Ally exclaimed, a huge grin on her face. She whispered, “Sean is in this class.”
She wiggled her eyebrows and I laughed so hard I nearly snorted when none other than Sean himself showed up.
“Ladies,” he greeted. He just stood there next to us, like he has been our friend for years. He leaned over to me, “You didn’t say you were in this class. Might make it actually worth going to.”
“I, uh, didn’t realize. Still getting my first real days in.” I told him.
Sean motioned to Ally, “Ally right? Hi I’m Sean.”
“Yeah, hey,” she said, impressed he knew her name. There were only a few juniors in the class.
“Did you do any of the homework for this guy? I mean, man, I gave it my best alone but it’s like I don’t learn much here so to Google I went,” he spoke to Ally, arms crossed and in thought, like they have chatted all their lives.
“Yeah, I was telling Rachel alllllll about Mr. Hall. But she should have a pretty easy time since her mom speaks Spanish,” Ally informed him.
Sean turned to me, impressed, “Well, Rach, this really is going to be way better with you here. Do you speak Spanish too? Or more like you understand?”
“I speak very little. I preferred English as a kid and my mom never pushed us, so now I am like a broken, one-way translator. I like that my mom gave me the independence to decide that kind of thing but at the same time regret it, it’s like I am less Peruvian than other Peruvians because I’m stuck like this,” I rambled on.
I don’t know what it was about Sean that relaxed me and excited me like this. I just totally overshared.
“I can get that,” he told me, “My mom is like that with Dutch. I’m sure if anyone can make the most of this class and come out learning something, it’ll be you.”
I smiled at him. The door was opened from the inside by a pale middle aged guy with a short beard and glasses, who I assume is Mr. Hall. He didn’t say anything, just opened the door all the way and walked right back to his desk. Okay, I guess we were going in? Students filed in and that is when I spotted Angela in the crowd, as well as Maxine and Marsha headed our way from the bathroom.
I followed behind Ally, with Sean behind me somewhere. Sitting wherever we liked is apparently what we do in this class. Ally led me to her usual table, which was quickly filled by Maxine and Marsha. Sean tried to walk around the crowd and was eyeing the last spot at our table, when Angela sat down.
“Hey! How’s it going?” She asked me enthusiastically.
“Oh, hi” I responded, distracted by Sean’s clearly disappointed face.
He ended up walking to a table next to us, at a seat relatively close to mine. Was he really trying to sit with us? I noticed him waving off one of his friends at the table in the back who looked confused. Sean was sitting at this table with other people because he wanted to be near me? I looked back to the giddy faces at my table. Maxine, Marsha, and Ally were all looking at me grinning like they knew something I didn’t. Except Angela, she didn’t seem to notice any of that while digging around in her bag. I opened my eyes at the three faces trying to silently convey: guys, quit it, you’re going to embarass me. Which of course made Ally laugh.
“What’d I miss?” Angela asked the table, confused.
Mr. Hall rang a chime in the front of the class before anyone could respond. We dove into some warm ups that were on the board and I just started getting into a groove when I felt something poking at my side. I lifted my right hand to my waist to the source of the poking and found my hand grasped around a pencil. The holder of the pencil had let go as I grabbed it so it ended up in my grasp. I turned and saw Sean at his table, staring at his paper with no writing tool in his hand. He glanced up and gestured towards the pencil. That’s when I took a better look at it. There was a roll of paper spooled around it?
As I unspooled the paper, words appeared. He had written me a note, old school. Taking a quick look up to make sure Mr. Hall wasn’t looking, I continued to open the note carefully, using the warmup worksheet on conjugating verbs to cover it a bit.
Looking forward to tomorrow, the note said. I grinned. He actually had really clear handwriting. Loopy, and almost like cursive. I wouldn’t have guessed that. I took the note and folded it in half, putting it in my front jean pocket - maybe to treasure forever.
I spent the rest of class trying to focus, sharing the occasional glance with Sean. Near the end I decided it was time to let him know I actually couldn’t make it tomorrow. Opening my notebook I quietly tore off a piece of paper to write on while Mr. Hall explained some kind of group activity we would be doing next week that required meeting with other people outside of class. Looks like it was going to be with the folks at our table.
I quickly wrote out, Sorry, I actually can’t make it tomorrow.
Now to get the note to him.
I rolled the note around the pencil and looked around. Everyone was paying way too much attention and I couldn’t do what he had done. I waited until someone on the other side of the class asked Mr. Hall a question, and leaned over as far as I could. I got within a few inches of Sean’s side, then the class’ attention started switching back to the front and I yanked my arm back so fast I smacked the table in front of me with the pencil. Ally looked at me inquisitively.
I shrugged her off, and she mumbled, “Oookay…”
She looked at Maxine.
Damn. Messed that up. I glanced around and no one else seemed to notice except Sean who looked at me questioningly. I picked up the pencil, tapping my finger on the note portion, and he nodded in understanding.
He stretched, lengthening his arm right towards me. I responded by moving my chair back just a tad and… passed the pencil right to him. Success!
I must’ve not paid much attention in our pencil-passing because by the time I moved my chair back Ally and Angela were standing up with their backpacks in hand. Looks like it was time to pack up. Maxine and Marsha were leaning over filling things into their bags on the floor, Ally placed a folder in her bag. The whole class started moving and talking, and suddenly the volume got really chatty.
I put my things in my bag and stood right as Sean came up to our table.
“You sure? Anything I can do?” He asked me, holding the note in his right hand, left hand on his chest near his heart. He looked hurt.
I was taken aback by his sudden seriousness. My eyes flicked to Ally who was watching us while the class moved up and towards the door. With all the chatter we had a little bit of privacy but not much.
“I, uh, don't live nearby. I’m from Melbourne, and have to take the bus. But it’s not a flexible schedule. Sort of a one way in, one way out situation,” I replied, one hand on the table trying to get some support for the heaviness of this.
He smiled a little, “Well, I could drive you home after? If that would be okay? Por favor?”
Be still my heart. I mean it wasn’t, it was racing.
The bell rang, the door flew open and people started their way out when all I could say back was, “Sure.”
He lit up, “Good, great. I’ll text you?”
I nodded. We followed the crowd out the door, Ally, Maxine, and Marsha were waiting for me a little up ahead.
“Well, this is me,” he said while gesturing to the left, towards the student parking lot. “See ya,” he waved.
His friend from Spanish class greeted him by the door to the parking lot and he nodded in greeting to me. I raised my hand back, and turned to find Ally, Maxine, and Marsha right there.
“Okay, now you can,” Maxine told Marsha with permission in her tone.
Marsha took a deep breath in, “Oh my god, that was torture!” she smacked Maxine on the shoulder. “I can’t believe I had to go through a whole class like that. You wouldn’t even look at me!” motioning to me. “At least talk to me silently when I am dying! Only Max bothered to notice my absolute freak out. God, poor Angela she was so oblivious, I mean even more than you Rach. Well, I mean, not like that, I know you know Sean was trying to sit there, but the whole class it was like we didn’t exist. Ah good lord, I was dying, just dying. Max kept shushing me and moving my hand away when I was trying to wave at you to at least talk silently. Ally, I swear if we weren’t miming each other through that I wouldn’t have lasted, I just wouldn’t have.”
She took a big breath in after that insanely fast monologue, I mean faster than some Gilmore Girls dialogue fast. We all looked at her for a minute, then Ally started cracking up, which got us all laughing.
“I’m glad my dilemmas bring you all such delight!” Marsha declared and stomped away.
She looked back at us, still laughing, then added, “Well are you coming or not? I have many, many observations to share.”
She marched right back and hooked her arm through mine, leading me down the hall with Ally and Maxine following close behind.