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Modern Day Jo
Chapter Seven: A New Boy in Town
“So, is this what you do all day? Stack movies on a shelf?” Josie asked, clarifying James’s job position.
“Pretty much.”
She stood next to him admiring the neat rows he had created on each individual shelf. Half of her was amazed at the attention that he seemed to pay to each individual movie, and the other half thought how cool it would be to topple them over in an intricate domino pattern. Instinctively, the index finger of her right hand reached out to push the cheap plastic case of Animal House over.
“Don’t you dare knock those over,” James warned, grabbing her hand before she could complete the deed. “I’ve spent hours setting this up in alphabetical order.”
“I wasn’t really going to do it!” she claimed, wrenching her hand away from his grasp. “I was just thinking about it.”
“Does your hand act independently from your brain, then?” he questioned, mocking her previous statement. “What are you doing here anyways?”
Josie thought for a while before providing him with an intelligent response, “I was bored, and I thought I would see what you were up to.”
“Really?” he asked, even though he suspected she had ulterior motives. “Where’s Chrissie at? I assumed that you two were inseparable.”
“She said that she was too wiped out from our sleepover last night to venture out into public.”
“I see.” He left the subject at that and intended not to pry further into the girls’ lives, but Josie had other plans.
“Are you very disappointed? Because you look like it.”
“Disappointed about what?” he asked, oblivious to her devious intentions.
“About Chrissie not being here, stupid!”
“Well, um, I do kind of miss her tugging on your arm and attempting to calm you down,” James stammered, causing Josie to believe that he was still hiding his true feelings.
“You know she doesn’t think that she’s pretty at all. What do you think, huh?”
“Even though she’s as tall as a building and as thin as a toothpick, she’s got a face like a million dollars. What more can I say?”
“That you would be interested in going out on a date with her!” Josie exclaimed, causing a couple of browsing customers to turn their heads in her direction.
“I don’t think that she likes me very much.”
“You don’t know that for a fact. She’s just shy, that’s all!” Josie tried to explain, waving her arms madly above her head.
James stared at Josie in disbelief before coming up with a good reply, “Listen, Jo. I just don’t think it would be a very good match. I need a girl that’s loud and outrageously annoying.”
Before the not-so-subtle hint hit Josie’s brain, her cell phone ceremoniously rang. “Take On Me” by A-ha played in its horrible midi format. James covered his ears with his hands. Quickly as she could, Josie extracted the cellular device from the back pocket of her washed-out jeans and answered it without even looking at the name.
“Hello?”
“Hey!” said the flighty voice on the other end that could only belong to Katie.
“What do you want?”
A sigh escaped Katie’s mouth, causing Josie to shake her head. “You don’t have to be so rude, you know?”
James stared at Josie as she fiddled with the belt loops on her pants with her free hand. The other hand continued to mash the phone as close to her ear as it could get. Reluctantly, he returned to his job of stacking nameless movies onto the shelves.
“I’m not being rude!” Josie defended herself, not paying any attention to how loud her voice really was. “It’s just a simple question. You called me. You must obviously want something.”
“Well, did you ever stop to think that I might not want something for myself?” Katie asked, infuriated beyond belief. “I was calling because of your stupid little idea, idiot!”
“Well, how was I supposed to know?” Josie continued with her extreme hand motions and shrugs, causing James to struggle to keep from laughing at her. “You didn’t show any interest in it at all. I thought that you didn’t care.”
“Yeah, but I got a great idea. I just thought that I would call you to tell you about it, but since you don’t want to talk to me…” her voice trailed off causing Josie to panic.
“Wait! Wait! No, tell me your idea!”
“I would like a full apology first,” Katie demanded.
“I’m sorry,” Josie grumbled, ducking her head so that James wouldn’t hear her.
“What was that?” the pleased girl asked.
Josie repeated her grumble, causing Katie once again to ask her to clarify what had just left her frowning mouth.
“I’m sorry!” Josie yelled, exasperated.
“Alright, alright,” Katie giggled. “Well, I was thinking about Tom Garigrin. I mean, why not him? You guys have gotten along since grade school, haven’t you?”
“Good lord, Katie. Tom and I haven’t been friends for the last two years due to the excessive amount of alcohol that he pours into his stomach every night.”
“Damn…”
“Please tell me that you’ve thought of someone other than him. Like maybe someone that you know that I would like.”
“Nah, most of the guys I know wouldn’t be interested in you.”
“Well, thanks for that big confidence boost.”
“I guess that you could come to the street dance on Saturday night. Maybe we can find somebody there.”
“Street dance?” Josie asked in disbelief. “I’m not entirely sure that I’ll find anybody there. If I have to dance with a fifty year old stump head with two teeth, I’ll slit your throat.”
“There are some good guys there. In fact, that’s where I met Kyle. I think that he had a crush on you, and he just broke up with his girlfriend yesterday.”
“He can barely spell his own name, let alone mine. Plus, he’s probably about the size of four of me.”
“Josie, that’s mean!”
“It might be mean, but it’s the truest thing I’ve ever said.”
“We’ll just have to see how it goes. You might fall in love with somebody that you never even thought of in that way.”
“Yeah, whatever, talk to you later.” Harshly snapping the phone closed, Josie shoved it back into her pocket.
“That was just Katie,” she started to explain to James.
“So, there’s a dance Saturday night?” he interrupted her explanation, throwing her train of thought off track.
“Wait, what?” She blinked several times, trying to bring his question back into focus.
“You said something about a dance Saturday night.”
She scratched her head before answering. “Yeah, but, uh, what does that have to do with anything?”
“I was just thinking that it would be something cool to go to. That is, if you were going, it would be cool.” He ran his hand nervously through his hair to sweep the few pesky bangs out of his eyes.
“Not to judge your character, but I don’t think it would be something that would interest you. It’s just a bunch of incredibly loud speakers blaring the same unbearable hip-hop over and over again. Of course, there will be plenty of skanks dressed in tight tube tops and beyond-mini skirts hump dancing under the lights of the rotating disco ball. Whatever gets you off, I guess.”
James laughed in uneasy embarrassment as Josie wished that she had picked a couple of better words for her unedited but accurate description. However, his bashful laugh soon turned into a big goofy smile, so she didn’t feel so bad about embarrassing him.
“Will Chrissie be going?” he asked, picking up another movie from the gray cart to place on the shelf.
Josie’s eyes widened in amazement as she realized that golden opportunity that had almost blown by her. Thankfully, James had supplied her with the right incentive to continue her side plan.
“I don’t know…maybe…” she said, trying to sound as vague and disinterested as possible. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, I thought that if you thought that I was only going because of Chrissie, then you would be excited about me coming to the dance. I want you to be excited about me being there.”
“James,” she said, leaning up against one of the shelves with her shoulder. “I have no idea what you just said.”
“Never mind.”
“I’ve got to go. See you around.” She turned to exit, but he grabbed her wrist before she could travel very far.
“Where’s the dance going to be at?”
Her eyes traveled down to where his right hand encircled her wrist and her silver charm bracelet was trapped between the two body parts. The childish hearts and stars were pressing painfully into her bare skin, and she could feel them etching marks onto her body. She wondered why he had such a tight grip on her.
“Seriously, James,” she said, keeping her gaze on her captured wrist. “I don’t think that you would be interested in a street dance. It doesn’t seem like your thing.”
“I know it’s not my scene, but I want to hang out with you at some other place besides this,” James said, motioning to his workplace surroundings.
“We can hang out some other time. Trust me, street dance equals zero fun.”
James hesitated at first before saying, “Well then, if it’s not fun, why are you going?”
Josie started to explain but her reasoning got stuck in her throat before any details of her plan got out. Pondering whether or not she should tell James about her plan to find her Laurie, Josie stared off into space with her mouth hanging partially open. After her brief meditation, she finally decided that he more than likely wouldn’t understand her brilliant idea and lied.
“I’m only going because there’s some guy there that I’m trying to hook Chrissie up with.” She didn’t know if it sounded believable, but it was a start.
“I thought that you were trying to hook her up with me.”
“Whatever gave you that impression?” Josie asked, as though the thought had never entered her curious mind.
“You did. You must admit that you’re not exactly sneaky when it comes to something on your mind.”
“Well, whatever, just let go of my arm so I can get out of her. Lots of work to do, you know!”
James had momentarily forgotten that he had been retaining a death grip on her wrist, and reluctantly, he loosened his grip and watched Josie’s hand fall back to her side. Upon being immediately released from her imprisonment, Josie quickly made her way to the exit and left without even saying goodbye. The door slowly swung closed, and James returned to his redundant work, shaking his head while thinking about the girl who had just blown him off.
“She’s certainly something…” he muttered, picking up a copy of Heathers and putting it on the shelf.
Walking along her lonely street, Josie swung a slender twig back in forth in front of her to make her journey slightly more exciting. She imagined that she was a buxom pirate queen in charge of her massive wooden ship, ordering her obedient crew to swab the deck and reload the cannons with the wave of her shiny sword. However, her dream was rudely interrupted by the screech of tires and the beep of a car horn.
“Yikes!” Josie screamed as the front of the car stopped mere inches from her body.
There was nothing insanely spectacular about the car that had almost plowed over her. It was nothing more than a regular black Honda Civic. Not knowing what else to do, she roughly hit the hood of the car with her fist and screamed at the top of her lungs.
“I’m walking here!”
The car window slowly rolled down, and a young boy stuck his head out of the opening. His blonde hair immediately caught the wind and floated around his tan face like a cloud. Two deep blues eyes caught site of Josie with her face turning red with anger, and he instinctively tried to make up for his error by blaming it on her.
“You were the one that walked out in front of me,” he said.
“What?” she asked, taken aback by his complete disregard for her safety.
“You need to pay more attention to where you are going.”
“I live on this street, idiot,” she said, placing her hands on her hips to give her the feel of possessing the stature of a super hero.
“Well, so do I. I just moved here actually.”
Her mouth immediately dropped open upon his last statement, and it took a couple of minutes for her to realize how stupid she looked. Snapping her jaw back into place, she took a few steps around to the side of the car to get a better look at her reckless neighbor. Handsome, somewhat brash, and living on the same street. Yes, he definitely had some of the qualifications for her Laurie.
“Laurie,” she whispered, her eyes shining with accomplishment.
“Huh?” He tried to position himself so he wasn’t lying on his arm and smashing it into the door.
“Oh, nothing,” Josie tried to cover her blunder. “You said that you just moved here. Where do you live exactly?”
“That plain white house a little ways down on the corner.”
Josie could barely contain her excitement as her voice raised more than a couple octaves. “That’s right across from my house!”
“Really? I was wondering who lived in that house. It doesn’t seem like anybody lives there.”
“Well,” Josie bit her lip. “My mom works at the hospital, and she’s hardly around. Plus, I’m an only child, so…”
“No father?” he asked, clearly forgetting to consider the fact that he could be treading on an awkward situation.
“My parents are divorced. I hardly ever see my Dad except for holidays.”
“Oh, it’s about the same with me. I live with my dad now. We moved from California, and I’m going to college at Colorado Tech in the fall.”
“I’m going there, too!” she screamed, bouncing up and down.
“What an interesting coincidence,” he observed, putting the car in park and turning off the engine.
“I don’t believe in coincidences. They’re just an excuse to ignore fate.”
“And do you think it is fate that I moved into the same neighborhood as you and that we are going to the same college?”
“Too early to tell,” Josie said, backing away from the car to stand on the safe sidewalk. “I guess you need to be getting on your way, though.”
“Yeah, really I do,” he said, turning the car back on quickly. The engine was loud and in need of a tune-up.
“Well, maybe I’ll come visit you sometime, alright?”
“Sure, whatever.” His reply was slightly less enthusiastic than Josie had hoped for.
“My name is Josie, by the way,” she said, waving as the car slowly started to move up the road.
“Michael,” he said, waving as she jogged to keep up with the accelerating vehicle. “See you later!”
She stopped running after he punched the accelerator and shot up the street only to have to stop at a stop sign about one hundred feet away. Waving her arms wildly, she watched the car perform the classic “California Rolling Stop” and then speed away. Not sure whether he waved back or not, she just assumed that he probably returned the gesture. Smiling at the thought, she began to slowly walk back to her home.
“Michael,” she repeated his name, letting it float around in her pondering subconscious. “Could he be Laurie? Only time will tell!”
