The White Fence

14. Gossip in the Sanctuary

            I let Patrice convince me to go to the game and predictably she had at least six other people around her in no time at all. It seemed like every time she went somewhere, someone was stopping to say hi to her. I went unnoticed for most of the evening while I read the book I’d brought with me, and Mason High took home another win. I think they were on a streak or something.

            After the game, Patrice and her friends all went to the Trick to celebrate, and when I went along with them, I got a few surprised looks from some of Patrice’s other friends. But Patrice was nothing, if not loyal. She took my book from me, though, before we all crowded into two booths. There were so many of us in so little space, that I was touching arm to arm, or toe to foot, with half a dozen different people. I found myself sitting across from Patrice and Darnell, and beside Shelton Pierce, another one of the players on the team. The arrangement, I was sure, was the reason why Patrice’s friend, Lina, who I didn’t have the best of relationships with on a good day, and was sitting on my other side, kept giving me funny looks. Middle school all over again. 

            “So, hey, uh, Tracy,” Shelton said stiltedly after a look from Patrice that I wasn’t supposed to notice. “Hi.”

            Patrice gave me a pointed look this time, and I searched for something to say. “Good game,” seemed appropriate, but I couldn’t really think of anything to follow that up with. I couldn’t pretend I’d watched the game; I didn’t even knowwhat position he played. That didn’t seem to bother him, though; he seemed as if he were used to people not knowing what to say around him.

            Shelton was the teenaged dream; he was the kind of guy that you were supposed to have a crush on. I was certain that half the school did, and being this close to him, it wasn’t hard to imagine why. He was adorably cute, like a tall, well-muscled baby, and one of the major players on the team. He had a Jackie Robinson-like possession to him, too, an ease and toughness of skin that had allowed him to win over all of those people who didn’t want ‘some Negro kid’ darkening the football team.

            Because of the lack of room, his arm was flung casually over the top of the booth, and I was sitting less than an inch away from him, practically pushed into his side. He still had the slightest sheen to his hair, and even in the plain white t-shirt that the players wore underneath their jerseys, he looked good. I couldn’t deny that.  

            A ‘gentle’ nudge from Patrice had me searching for something else to say, but I hugely doubted that he wanted to know what experiments Mr. Colben and I were working on, and I didn’t know what else might be interesting to him. I was inept at making small talk, but I tried. I listened to the rest of the conversations that went on around us, and mimicked them the best I could, but I felt seriously out of my element.         Lina must have agreed because she kept talking over me, making me feel even more out of sorts. It was a tremendous testament to Patrice that Shelton kept talking to me, kept directing conversations at me, making eye-contact with me. Even though it was overwhelming when Shelton gave you his full attention, it still didn’t feel quite the same way it did when I was looking at Derek.

            I breathed easier when it got close to Patrice’s curfew, and I had an excuse to excuse myself from the crowd. Shelton looked after me when I got up, pausing in the middle of a conversation he was having with one of his teammates. “You leaving, Tracy?” he questioned. He actually managed to sound as if he cared.

 “Yes,” I said, feigning a nonchalance that I didn’t actually have. “Curfew.”

            Lina snickered, already scooting closer to him. “I ain’t got no curfew,” she declared. “I ain’t still some baby.”