Career Day

Part Two

After algebra, it was time to head to the library for the dreaded Career Day. Howie and Jasper settled into seats next to each other. Jasper wished he could disappear into his book bag. He hated crowds like this. It was bad enough being in a classroom with thirty other kids, but being jammed into the library with a couple hundred?

People matter. People are real.

He’d begun repeating this mantra to himself recently, over and over. Trying to believe it.

“I bet we get four guys in ties who try to tell us about what they do on the weekends so that they sound ‘cool,’”Howie said. “Like, ‘And then on the weekends, little dudes, I take off this suit and tie and leave behind my actuarial job and totally kick it eighties-style with my band, Humpbeat.’”

“Five,”Jasper said.

“Deal.”Howie shook Jasper’s hand. “What did we just bet?”

“Ah!”Howie raised a finger in the air. “That I shall determine after I learn if I won or not. Momma didn’t raise no fool. Speaking of fools, check it out.”He pointed down a few rows, where a beautiful African American girl with beaded braids down past her shoulders chatted with some friends. “There’s the girl crazy enough to go out with you and not me.”

Jasper froze up. The “girl crazy enough”was Connie Hall, a new girl in town. In tiny, white-bread Lobo’s Nod, Connie had stood out at the Coff-E-Shop, where Jasper had spotted her a week ago, right before school started. It had been near closing time, and only Jasper and Howie were there, except for Helen Myerson, who was locking up that night, and Connie, who’d been nursing something tall and icy in a corner by herself while flipping through a book. Howie had raced to the bathroom after gulping down three large iced teas and, before he knew it, Jasper was staring at the unfamiliar girl.

Who totally busted him a minute later when she looked up and locked eyes with him in a way no one in town had since his father had been arrested three years earlier.

Jasper was momentarily poleaxed by the girl’s bravery, her coolness. Her uninhibited grin.

And her looks, of course. Let’s be honest....

Without even realizing it, he was up and walking over to her. He was almost within hand-shaking distance when he realized he had no idea what he was going to say to her.

“Jazz!”Howie cried as he emerged from the bathroom. “You won’t believe what color my—”He broke off, not finding Jasper at their usual table, spinning around to look for him.

“Jazz?”the girl said, arching an eyebrow in a way that made Jasper want to lurch toward her.

“Jasper,”he corrected, and figured a handshake was in order.

“Connie.”Her hand was slim and dry and strong.

“I’m Howie Gersten,”Howie said, ambling over and holding out his gigantic NBA-sized hand. “I bruise if I put my watch on too tight. You’ll like it. You’ll come to find my vulnerability sexy.”

Connie smirked at Jasper, as if to say, Is this guy for real?

Howie, oblivious, kept up the patter he liked to think of as “flirting.”

“And in case you’re wondering,”he said, “I’m totally down with the sistahs.”

“The sistahs are rethinking their options,”Connie said with an unself-conscious confidence that stabbed at something deep in Jasper’s brain. The next thing he knew, he was asking her if she was busy the next night, and she was saying that, in fact, she had nothing going on.