THE ONE WITH CARLA AND BETH
—–
“If you are not going to make a run at Jenn Potter, how about Poppy Fields?” Bridget asked me as she caught up to Ben and me. She had gotten hung up in the dining hall after lunch, but we were all heading toward the library for D&D. We usually always played in Adam’s room, since he had one of the cool, weird ones with the big bay windows that had room for all of us to spread out. But Adam’s roommate Lester had some serious homework and had banned us that afternoon. No one cares about spring term senior grades… except Lester’s mom. And Calculus was kicking Lester’s ass.
“What is it with all of you?” I grumbled exasperatedly, including not only Ben and Bridget, but my other male and female friends at school.
“You are our friend,” Bridget shrugged.
“And you have clearly learned the Secrets of the Girliverse,” intoned Ben sonorously. “It is time to use them.”
Bridget snorted.
“Seriously,” Ben went on. “We are all wondering what will happen in the general populace’s minds if you were to actually have a date here, much less if you keep up that ‘slugging percentage’ of four thousand. Hell, I’m wondering what it would do to my perceptions, if you managed to get laid here at school.”
“Oh, so I am a sociological experiment for you?” I snarked.
“Well, you are also my friend. And everybody wants to see their friends get laid,” added Ben, nobly.
“Listen Ben, the perceptions of Alistaire are already changing here,” Bridget observed thoughtfully. “You’ve seen it, haven’t you, Alistaire?” she asked me.
“What do you mean?” I temporized. I had, in fact, seen changes in the way people interacted with me, but I was curious to hear Bridget’s thoughts.
“Yeah,” Ben agreed. “Tell us what you mean.”
“He is a subject of conversation now,” Bridget said to Ben. “Not like the Talk of the Town or anything, but suddenly, Alistaire gets mentioned in idle conversation, just like other good-looking guys. And you even get asked about occasionally,” she added, turning to me. “Not like, active interest, but in the same way I get asked about Beth, or Carla, or… I dunno, Freida. Never happened before.”
“Well,” Ben said immediately, but very slowly. “I guess I do see one huge change… Bridget suddenly thinks you are good-looking, Al.” And then he danced out of Bridget’s reach as she swatted at him. That was good, because it kept either of them from catching my blush. I had heard that, too.
When Bridget and Ben calmed down, they returned to the subject of me. “But why have things changed here if no one knows anything?” Ben insisted. “Here at school, only the six of us have a clue that anything happened at all with Al.”
“Maybe it is the way you guys’ perceptions of me have changed, and other people are picking up that vibe,” I contributed. This whole conversation was irritating, and uncomfortable on a host of fronts, but it was also interesting. I can’t resist an interesting discussion. Also, I knew I still had so damned much to learn, and anything that might increase my sexual opportunities, now that I had sexual opportunities, was a big priority.
“No, it’s you,” Bridget said. “I don’t think you have any idea how differently you are acting suddenly.”
“Al is still Al,” scoffed Ben.
“He is to us,” Bridget replied. “No, even to us, Al is now Alistaire.”
“I am not buying into your crazy name change schtick,” Ben chuckled firmly. “He’s Al.” God Bless You, Ben.
“Carla’s little joke is spreading, you know,” Bridget said with an evil grin. “It’s not just us. Other girls have started using the name, too. Hell, even Ms. Green called him Alistaire in the hall yesterday,” she laughed.
“Oooh!” Ben said, wide eyed. He elbowed me. “Maybe you should just hit that!” he chuckled, referring to the 24 year-old rookie teacher who was, honestly, a walking wet-dream.
I just shook my head, but didn’t smack him or anything. I’ll admit, I didn’t hit Ben because I was too busy visualizing Ms. Green tits. There was the after graduation party… The faculty all came to that. It was also explicitly designed to be the first time we all interacted together as adults, not students and teachers…
I’d be a fucking legend.
I realized that we had all stopped walking.
Ben and Bridget were looking at each other.
“My God,” Ben said to Bridget. “I think he is trying to work out in his head how to actually nail Ms. Green!”
“Christ,” muttered Bridget. “See what I mean?”
*
The next Saturday was gorgeous. New England springs, when they aren’t snowing out of nowhere, can be beautiful, and this was a perfect example, with high, blue skies, the faintest zephyr of breeze, and a few degrees warmer than usual. The Track meet was over early, since the other school didn’t have enough guys to field a complete JV, which meant that each event that didn’t have a JV race took only two-thirds the time to run. That, in turn meant that I was in the lovely but uncomfortable position of walking slowly back to the main campus with Beth and Carla. Bridget has actually left the meet early. That was usually a cardinal sin, especially for distance runners. We needed the most cheering because our races were so long, and we were expected to repay that much-appreciated attention with our own cheers for everybody else, all the way to the bitter end of the meet. But Bridget was baby-sitting for the Sarniokis. That was cool for Bridget. The Sarnioki munchkins were among the least annoying of the faculty brats.
But that left me wandering along with two good buddies, both of whom I was having sex with, unbeknownst to anyone, including each other. To be honest, the real reason that I had not made a pass at either, or both, of Jenn Potter or Poppy Fields was that I didn’t feel like I had the time.
I had class. I had Track. I had D&D. I still had a little homework. I even had two clubs. Those clubs had done their job as extracurriculars, helping me get into USC, but now they still consumed a couple of valuable hours a week while I and the other seniors involved handed over the reins for next year to the hapless morons, I mean the group of Juniors, who would be running those clubs the next year.