Girlfriend by Edi Fine
It’s that boring lesson again. All I want is a girlfriend. I don’t want any knowledge or values, surely not the ones our teacher, Moly Brooks possesses. So I do the logical thing. I stare at Karoline Foster, the most beautiful girl in our class, at school, in the world. Am I in love? Who isn’t?
She is so beautiful that she dates 19-year-old soldiers, so people say. Even 21-year olds! Guys wait in line. She is so popular, and smart too. She is a very good pupil and sits upright with her big brown eyes. A rolled bandana tied around her head secures her well-groomed hair. I don’t have a chance with her. I’m a skinny short guy, a lousy student who always has pimples. Not like “Bill the pizza” – his nickname says it all, but I have an average of five. It doesn’t make me a good looking guy.
The lesson goes on and on. I lose track. I take out my toilet paper, ask Edna, who sits next to me, to pass it without tearing. Then I ask her to tell the person next to her to do the same. The toilet paper runs through the whole class until it reaches me again. I roll it onto the cardboard tube, as if it is a normal chore. Some pupils giggle, and the teacher does not know what’s going on.
I take a quick glance at Karoline Foster, but she doesn’t seem amused. Oh no! I ruined it. I’m sure she thinks I’m childish, too childish for her.
“Alexander katz, please move to sit here in the first row. Yulia, you sit next to him, maybe he’ll learn a thing or two from you”, said Mrs. Brooks. Yulia – the second-best looking girl in class. Great. She doesn’t seem thrilled. “Everybody write, I dictate, you too Alex”. Too much attention for one day. I’m in the first row, I don’t have anyone to hide behind. “Can I borrow a piece of paper?” I ask Yulia. Silently, she passes me a clean white sheet of paper and places it gently on my side of the table. When I reach to take the piece of paper our hands touch accidentally. That surprises me and excites me in a weird way. I’m speechless. “Can anyone lend a pen or pencil to Mr. Alex?” Ohh That teacher won’t leave me alone today. “Bill the pizza” gives me a chewed-up pencil. Yuck! it was in his mouth. "No thanks" I think to myself, But I take it . He smiles at me. “Thanks Bill”’ I say.
I still feel the soft hand of Yulia. It’s crazy that it has such a strong impact on me. She’s quite the opposite of Karoline. Karoline is an all-American girl. Yulia was born here, in N.Y, but her parents came from Ukraine. Although most girls usually change the spelling to Julia, she decided to keep the original spelling from her homeland. I like that – Keep it real.
Yulia was beautiful and nice. She was kind of pale in an attractive way. Her eyes were blue and her nose was small. Karoline was a better student, and was perfect to watch, she could be a model if she wanted to. Yulia had a perfect smile. Usually, she smiled only at her friends. I watched her for afar, talking to the other popular girls in class. Sometimes she talked to boys from other classes. Since she was in the 9th grade, seniors were interested in her. I can see why. She was charming, and her smile – I wish I could make her smile at me.
I felt like a small boy next to her. I’m almost sure she is not a virgin. I never even kissed a girl. The teacher talked and talked and my mind drifted away. I wrote on a note:
Hi, Yulia Wanna pass notes?
I passed the note to her. She read it. Still no smile. She looked around. Mrs. Brooks was far enough. She wrote something and passed it to me: O.K.
I wrote: Do you have a topic you want to chat about? Again, the answer was short: I don’t know.
I wanted to impress her so I wrote: Do you know about birth controls?
She read the note and did not answer for a long time. I was afraid she found my note offensive. Another explanation could be that she is not a student who likes to pass notes. She is well behaved not like me. She always prepares her homework, and she doesn’t seem bored at lessons. For me, classes are a nightmare. Time moves so slowly that I feel like a zombie.
Then she answered: I don’t know much.
We started corresponding, Mrs. Brooks nodded at me, appreciating me for summarizing her lesson, which, of course, I didn’t know what it was about anymore. I demonstrated my knowledge, told her about pills, copper IUDs and hormonal IUDs, sprays. One time, she waited after I wrote something, then Yulia smiled. I was the happiest teenager alive. What a smile she has!. I read the note: if birth controls are so important for you, try sterilization.
I laughed, it did not suit the progress of the lesson. Mrs. took the piece of paper with all our correspondence. She read it: “Well Alex you sure know about that subject”, she said loudly. Some pupils started guessing what the subject was about. I blushed. Yulia bowed her head in shame, she always behaved well in class. The teacher put the paper in her bag. The bell rang for recess, and I left the classroom. I hoped Mrs. Brooks wouldn’t switch seats. I kind of like Yulia.
