It was a cold day. Cold days were the worst of all--they drained your spirit and made you think of forgotten things in life. Things like lost ink pens, dead leaves, that really nice pair of jeans mysteriously lost in the wash. I sat in flesh-saturating cold on a bench outside the school. I wished my ride would hurry up and come get me, but it was taking longer than I liked. It was too chilly to be comfortable.
I sat there surrounded by people who wouldn't talk to me. They were whispering, like high school girls do, about something that had happened on the bus ride back--about the boy who got motion sickness and threw up all over himself and how he did it in the middle of town--they were talking and laughing. They didn't like him very much. I thought he was all right, but I wasn't going to tell them that.
They wouldn't talk to me, but, of course, they would talk to Donnovan. He was on his famous skateboard, performing tricks for our amusement, I think. All I really remember is that he would jump and the board would flip halfway, fall flat, wheels up, and he'd curse, again. I sat and watched in causal amused silence, hoping my glances in his direction wouldn't sear marks into his eyes.
He was smiling at me every time I looked again at him. Sure, Laura and Tiffany were flirting with him, and Angel would giggle along with the purposefully insipid jokes he made, but he was smiling at me.
Donnovan and I were tight. Whenever we were together on the bus, a situation familiar to our statewide-traveling team, we'd discuss philosophical or artistic issues, occasionally talking about relationships. I found it getting harder to discuss how I felt about boys, mostly because he was rapidly becoming the only one I was interested in. Not that I'd had much luck--for several years I'd gone without a boyfriend. He thought it unusual that a girl like me hadn't had another by her junior year of high school. He was dating another senior at the time, but he'd told me a few weeks earlier that things there were about to change.
I got confirmation of this a few days after that particular talk when my sister informed me that the senior in question had been crying in the girl's restroom that morning. My sister asked her what was wrong, and the girl replied that Donnovan had broken up with her. Thinking I would be happy, my younger sibling was surprised when I said that I wished he'd been kinder. I don't get off on other people's misery, even if it helps me to become happy.
It was funny to me. Not even a week had passed, and already it felt as though he were paying an unusual amount of attention to me. On the bus that night, we had been talking about his college friend who had been in our art class the previous year. "Yeah, he's been askin' about you," Donnovan had said, like a conspirator.
I had smiled bemusedly, thinking it very silly for any boy to show any sort of interest in me. "Cool. Uh. why?"
He leaned towards me a little, his beautiful brown eyes leaning into the shadow of mine, his wonderful boy smell wrapping me in his essence. He drawled, "There's just something special about you."
I was roused from this reverie by Laura's sharp, brackish laughter. "You don't say, Donnovan." I wished she hadn't said. I rolled my eyes; she was acting stupid again. I would have loved to tell her what a fool she was.
Donnovan had one of those looks on his face--half-patronizing, half-smacking of the smart alec that smirked in his innermost soul. "Yeah. Hey, just look at them. They're right inside the building," he said nodding towards two teachers in the hall. It was the pair of teachers deemed worthy of inclusion in student lives, Mr. Roberts and Ms. Goldsmith. "He's giving her that smile."
"What smile?" asked Laura.
"That smile. Y'know, when he looks at everyone else, he gives them the 'dammit, you're stupid' smile. But with her, it's like he really respects her or somethin'." He let his eyes duel with mine for a second, cocked his head slightly, danced the skateboard backwards, and took off for the other end of the school parking lot.
I'd seen that 'dammit, you're stupid' smile on Donnovan's face nearly every time he'd looked at Laura lately, like he thought she was an empty-headed flirt. And she certainly could be sometimes. She'd already lost two bets because she thought she'd be dating him off and on throughout the semester. He knew about the bets, although I didn't tell him about them; we laughed about stuff like that. I liked Laura sometimes, just for the entertainment value, when she wasn't being an empty-headed flirt around Donnovan.
But Donnovan really respected me. I could tell. He always stood up for my integrity if it ever came into question in a discussion. He liked getting my opinion. I listened to his woes. He told me, later, that I was his only way of discussing deep issues, as everyone else was either talking about themselves or Donnovan's talents.
Yes, Donnovan was talented. He had a nice touch with the brush, the pen, the odd lump of clay. He coaxed life from many mediums and made that quality stay for just a little while in frozen form, enough for him to record it for others to see. He often drew little things for me on pocketed pieces of paper--flowers, eyes, many abstract landscapes with bare backgrounds and startling figures out front.
He was touched with a genius, and it was a mixed blessing. The twist was, he had people ramming praise down his throat: art teachers, college recruiters, even empty-headed flirts like Laura. He had his own progeny--a group of followers who seemed devoted to the idea of who he was and his ideas on life. But he resented his idol-like status in our tiny town. He thought others should have their own special ideas; independence didn't mean merely switching from the average high school mindset to the average high school art groupie mindset. He needed someone to debate things with, not a yes-man who could never understand creativity and independence, no matter how many times he tried to copy Donnovan's individuality.
And then he met me.
From the first time we met, I recognized a sympathetic soul, another true artist. Donnovan discovered me in art class as a quiet, thoughtful girl with Eastern religious tendencies and a liking for his favorite band. He enjoyed my peculiar angle on life. He asked me for poetry sometimes, which made me happy. I couldn't tell during that semester, but at length others could see that we were falling for each other. I didn't realize that had been happening until it was too late.
Laura was one of those who could discern what conspired between Donnovan and me. She has been known to feed off other people's jealousies. I thought then, and still think, that she tried to wedge herself between us because she thought it fun. She did get off on other people's misery, but I wasn't going to point that out to her. I was too nice.
Donnovan wheeled back to our group, so cool and casual, glancing at everyone. The whispering stopped, followed by soft laughter. "Okay, let me show you my new trick," he said. Wheeling quickly towards the planter, he leaped the skateboard up on the siding, scooting across the surface like a skier. He came down with a resounding clack; we applauded. He pretended to smoke a cigarette and blew his breath to make it look like smoke, then curtsied.
"Encore!" we cried.
Pleased and only too happy to oblige, he tried to do it again, but ended up on his behind on the ground. I smirked kindly in the chill of the night. I thought it served him right, the show-off. Even a very spiritual, artistic person isn't immune to a little conceit over a job well done. He was human, after all. "That's okay, man, you don't have to get it right every time you want to show off for us," I remarked with a hint of mocking in the inflection of my voice.
Donnovan looked up at me from the ground, grinning. Dear, silly boy. "Yeah, guess not." He picked himself up. "But--can you do this?"
He put distance between himself and the door, started racing forward, and leaped his skateboard over a standing garbage can. The four of us cheered.
"Okay, Angel, who's cool?" he demanded.
"Hmm. No comment," she said in a way that made us titter.
"No, no! Okay. Laura. Who's cool?"
"I am!" she giggled.
He gave an exaggerated shrug. "Who is cool?" he asked, looking at me.
"Everybody's cool!" I said optimistically. He threw his hands in the air, teasing all the time. I laughed. "No way. You're the coolest, Donnovan."
"Yeah, that's it. Finally." More seconds of moody eye contact. With that he took off again.
I sat and shivered suddenly. It was exciting, but I was cold. I wondered what time it was. Luckily the wind brought only a dry chill, but it caressed my face and brushed away the warmth there. I put my ungloved hands over my nose and grinned at Laura, who was looking at little me as I sat under the orange lights of the parking lot.
I tuned back to the conversation between Laura and her little friends. I thought I might join them, but then again she was eyeing me like cats eye each other in the night. Having decided not to talk to them after all, I got up and leaned against the wall. No doubt I'd only face daggers in her bland words and teasing about the number of times I'd sat with Donnovan on the bus.
He skated up. He looked at them, huddled like football players, and looked at me, in good company by myself against the rough bricks. "What're they whispering about?"
"Mmm. Dunno."
"Heeyyyy . . . yooou, let's whisper too," he said, dropping his voice dramatically low, slipping nearer, skateboard left in the frozen grass. I didn't know what to do, what to think. He was so close. I lowered my eyes as Donnovan put his hand around my ear, his lips brushing my hair.
". . . hhhiiI . . . luhhhve . . .you."
With that, he wheeled suddenly and skated down the sidewalk, presumably before my heart attack commenced.
I stood fixed where it happened. Cold didn't matter. My mind tried to find the edges of the moment just passed, and as it struggled, my legs told me to run away--but no, they told me to run to him, beg him to repeat what he'd just said and put it in writing, kiss him, forget that anyone else was alive. Was I happy or sad? I didn't know then and I don't know now. And I never figured it out in those few moments; Laura's maddening laughter broke my train of thought.
"And then," she brayed, "Mr. Roberts and Ms. Goldsmith are gonna elope!" The group was nearly breathless with laughter, having been in silly stitches most of the night. I laughed in stark relief. Everything was going to be all right. The joke was funny and there was no need for all the tension built up in me all of a sudden.
I seemed to see things differently then. I, at that moment, became one of Donnovan's devotees, but there was a difference between them and me. While they wanted to be close to him because he was great, I wanted to be close to him because he was my friend. Laura was, unknown to her, no longer important. I was warmer then than I'd been all day, even curled up in my bed, because of those three words that connected us.
Donnovan had come to where the sidewalk ended again. I wanted him to come back so I could stand beside him, let him tell me he loved me. And I would tell him what he had to point out to me--that I loved him.
Perhaps it was irony, or bad luck, or just a stupid coincidence, that when he was halfway back to the spot where I stood, my ride showed up. I lingered on the way to the car, wishing everyone good-bye. The door closed with a soft click. Donnovan and I made eye contact again as the car drove away. At the last second, he broke into a dazzling grin and whirled about to head home. I wonder what he called that smile.