Lily arrived to school early, having been told the day before by Jake during a conversation on her AIM account that she would be presenting the next morning’s announcements at school for the day. Her post was one of “ALTERNATE PRESENTER,” which she was completely satisfied with due to her aversion to public speaking. The feeling was pure, it was unadulterated and often caused anxiety and nausea.
The true reason Lily had even applied for the post was to continue her sister’s tradition of the Andrew’s girls as confident, poised and sophisticated. In reality, Lily was not. While in an intimate setting among friends she was expressive and witty, with perfect comic timing and use of sarcasm, she was the complete opposite when making presentations or being in front of a camera.
This morning she had taken care to put herself together with the help of her sister, who had blow-dried and straightened her hair and chosen her black turtleneck dress and suede boots to wear. It was decided that this was an outfit that would most fit the part of anchor while allowing Lily to look fun and attractive. Her efforts were not ineffective, because at 7:20 AM she swung her backpack off of her shoulder and nodded her acknowledgement to Jake, the school’s resident “A/V TECH,” which was a deceivingly official title, since she knew he spent most of his time during these jobs playing computer games and reading up on the newest technologies in cell phones and video cameras.
Oftentimes he would repeatedly tap Lily’s shoulder, eyes wide with excitement . . . and exclaim, “Look at this! It’s the new Nikon digital camera! It has more clarity than any other camera and can take up to 15 hours of video with one battery life!” Each time, though Lily would laugh and reply, “Wow! That’s so awesome!” she really knew nothing about video cameras or the other technology pages he would show her, but she read all of the features that he pointed out to her with avid interest because this boy with the black eyes and pink cheeks was one of her most intimate friends, and anything that interested him interested her.
She was excited that he liked to share things with her, and so she shared things back. This was the basic formation of their friendship, and this she thought would never change. However, all was forgotten when, at 7:22 AM, the door open and John emerged from behind it, rushing into the room. He was taken aback by the sight of Lily fixing her microphone on her dress and stopped there, his face breaking into a beatific smile as he gazed at her from across the room.
“Oh- hey Lily! You’re on today?”
“Yeah, Annie couldn’t make it, I guess.”
“Well then I’ll be watching specially for you!” Lily laughed, and was about to respond when she was interrupted by Jake, who faced John and asked,
“What do you need?” “I- oh, right. I needed Mr. Webster to ask him about the English homework, actually. Isn’t he usually in here?”
“He’s not today. And we’re actually about to start, so…” Unceremoniously, he tried to usher John out of the room, but not before he could look lingeringly at Lily and say,
“See you later. Don’t forget, I’ll be watching!” Lily could only smile before he ran back out of the room. Jake immediately went back to the computer screen. Lily, feeling her anxiety approaching, asked worriedly, “Are we really about to start?” With a smile she could not comprehend, Jake said, “No. Not at all… it’s just, um, gets really crowded in here fast, so…”
“Oh, okay, good. Now I can never get this microphone right with my hair. Maybe I should just put it up?” Though the latter part of her rambling was meant for herself, Jake suddenly interceded.
“No, don’t, you look good with your hair down.” Stunned at her friend’s complementary interjection, Lily looked up at him, unable to speak. Jake was not a person to compliment anyone, even by accident. He was a dry, sarcastic being, which is the reason the pair got along as well as they did. The comment hung in the air for a moment, until Jake cleared his throat and said, “Well, time to set up.”
