The New Girl

5

Theater, boys, and cars

 On November fifteenth, Alexa went down to breakfast to find a crowd around the normally untouched bulletin board. The cast list for the school play had been put out. Auditions had been the Monday before. Alexa had auditioned but hadn’t told any of her friends. Now Rachael called her over, saying, “Lexi! You’re Taylor! You’re like a serious lead!”

The first read-through of the script was that afternoon in Alexa’s social studies teacher’s room- Mr. Wolman, who was also the director of the plays. The play was called Complicated and was a story of the problems that all teens and pre-teens face daily in school. Alexa was surprised who got the other leads: Ryan played the male protagonist, Trevor; Kendall played Taylor’s (Alexa’s character)’s best friend, Michelle; Kevan played Tommy, Michelle’s crush; Rachael played another of Taylor’s best friends, a girl called Mimi; a guy named Nate Gesell played a guy named Drew; Julie played a minor character named Tori; and Alex played Danny, another minor character. It was a bit awkward because Taylor and Trevor (Alexa and Ryan) were supposed to be in love.

“’I love your outfit today, Mimi!’” Alexa read from her script.

“’Me too,’” read Kendall.

Rachael struggled to sound as self-centered as the least self-centered girl Alexa knew possibly could. “’I know you do. Isn’t it so totally fabulous?’” She burst out laughing at how ridiculously different her character was from the real Rachael.

Nothing particularly exciting occurred until the day before Winter Break (the evening of the Winter Holiday dance), unless you count that Alexa got A’s in all classes except language arts/English, (where she actually got a low B, almost a C), Mrs. Timmons turned out to be the most evil teacher on the Earth, Alexa’s really cool math teacher, Miss Loves, assigned new seats (Alexa was placed right next to Lissy, just like in science), play rehearsals continued regularly every day for an hour and a half after classes ended, Alexa made a lot of new friends, and Lissy taught Alexa how to correctly apply mascara.

Almost all of Alexa’s friends went to the Winter Holiday dance. A lot of the South Tower guys were there, and Alexa knew and was at least sort of friends with them by now: Bradley, Alex, and Ryan of the Boyz, a short boy named Aiden, his twin brother Andrew, Nate, and a slightly annoying class clown, Paul Caruso, who everyone just called Caruso. Charlie was there, too, but he ignored Alexa.

This dance was so much more fun than the Halloween dance, and somehow it seemed to last a lot longer than the two hours it actually was. By the time the dance was over, Alexa was red-faced, hot and sweaty, and as she was leaving the gymnasium, her science teacher, who was chaperoning, called her “The Dancing Queen”. As she was walking towards the North Tower, she noticed Bradley, standing right outside the gym, looking lost. He was heading to the front door, but it was obvious that his parents weren’t there. Alexa turned around and walked towards him.

“Bradley, were you planning on going home for the break?”

He turned around, startled, saw it was her and relaxed, then answered, “Yeah, but it doesn’t really surprise me that my parents aren’t here. My parents were vacationing, but if there’s snow in between here and there, they’d be stuck at the airport. I heard that there was a lot of snow in other parts of the U.S. this week, so I guess I’m stuck here. Shouldn’t you be getting going? Your parents are probably waiting. Leah already left with her mom.” His face darkened for a second when he said this.

“You won’t be totally alone here. I’m not going home.”

“Really? Why?”

“Well, it’s just me and my dad. Not much fun. My dad is too absorbed in his work to care about me, really.”

“What about your mom?” Bradley asked.

“My parents are divorced,” Alexa said quietly. “I don’t even know where my mom is.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. Don’t you have any siblings?”

She laughed bitterly, and Bradley cringed, unused to this cynical Alexa. “I did. Jordan was a medic in Iraq. He wanted to help people, not hurt them. He couldn’t save himself, though.”

“I’m sorry,” Bradley said again. “My dad was a general in Iraq. And, you know, medic’s the most important job.” He was clearly trying to make up for both his blunders about her family.

There was a long, awkward silence. “Hey, are you okay?” Alexa noticed he looked pretty down.

“Yeah, well, Leah just broke up with me. I’m kinda bummed about that.”

“Aw, that stinks…” Another awkward silence. “Well, see you,” Alexa said.

Bradley looked slightly more disappointed. “I guess I’ll see you around?”

“Yeah, I do go to the same school, after all!” Alexa joked. He laughed. She had hoped he would. “Well, good night, Bradley.”

“See ya.”

Alexa began climbing the stairs to her dorm, all the while wanting to turn back and say something, but she didn’t know what. “Lexi?” Bradley suddenly called. She turned.

“Yeah?”

“Umm, well, uh… Oh, never mind,” he said finally. She began climbing the stairs again and he started walking to his own dorm, but he kept looking back at her, and she kept doing the same.

The following morning, Christmas Eve, Alexa went down to breakfast, and wasn’t at all surprised that there was hardly anyone there. She grabbed a tray of food, and since all the Girlz were spending break with their families, she sat with Bradley, the only person at the Boyz’ table.

“Hey,” Alexa said.

“You’re sitting with me?” Bradley asked.

“Yeah. I don’t really feel like sitting all by myself. It’s not like I’m the only one doing it.” For a while, they just sat in a mildly awkward silence, eating their breakfasts. 

  “Hey,” Bradley said suddenly, “You wanna to go into town?”

“That sounds like fun,” Alexa answered almost immediately, “I’ll go get my wallet.”

“I should probably get some cash, too. The North Tower isn’t too far out of my way. I’ll walk with you.”

When they arrived at the foot of the spiral staircase leading up to Alexa’s dorm, Bradley waited at the bottom until she came back down, then they went to the South Tower. He invited Alexa in for a quick peek at his dorm while he found a ten dollar bill. It was pretty messy, and there were several pictures of him and Leah Perris, his ex-girlfriend. Alexa looked at them in silent jealousy- guessing he was either too heartbroken to get rid of the pictures, or just hadn’t gotten around to it yet- while Bradley grabbed his black Puma jacket, the one he wore nearly every day.

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly, “it’s kinda messy.”

“Whatever,” Alexa smiled, “mine is too.”

He grinned at her. She noticed that Bradley had freckles across his nose and cheeks, but they were so light that they could only be seen from up close, like when you could see that he had really long, really thick lashes. He had recently cut his long hair, and Alexa was having trouble deciding whether he looked better with long hair or with short hair. She suddenly, but not for the first time, realized that Bradley was really, really cute!

The two decided to go to the park just off Main Street. It was a pleasant, quiet place that was open to the public. One corner of it was devoted to a children’s playground, and there was also a little woods, flower gardens and topiary displays, and spread throughout were areas with a single bench under a single shade tree. But being winter, there was not a leaf on the trees, minus the evergreens for obvious reasons.

Alexa and Bradley wandered aimlessly around the park. Here and there were clusters of teenagers from the nearby public school, Reynolds. One group of loud boys whistled as they walked by, and it might have been a trick of her eyes or something, but Alexa could swear that Bradley’s hand moved toward hers protectively when this happened.

The sky had been slowly clouding over, and by now, the first flakes began to gently fall, dusting the ground, the park benches, and the kids’ heads with a soft powder. It hadn’t felt cold when they had started out, so Alexa hadn’t brought a coat. When she started shivering, Bradley noticed, and in one fluid motion, had slipped of his black Puma jacket, and draped it around her shoulders. It was warm and smelled of cologne and boy-sweat, a mix that when paired with the fact that Bradley Rilke -who was probably the cutest boy on campus-had just done one of the most romantic things possible, made Alexa almost faint with happiness.

Alexa and Bradley walked around the whole park, and they were just crossing Main Street, when Alexa experienced one of those moments where time seems to slow down, but you can’t do anything. They were crossing the street, and Bradley’s Puma jacket fell off her shoulders and into the street. She bent to pick it up, and suddenly heard a cry of “Lexi!” She looked up, jacket in hand, and saw Bradley running from the far side of the street towards her, and a car about ten feet away and coming closer. Alexa was frozen, like a deer in the headlights. She couldn’t get her legs to move, to escape the path of the car that tried to stop, but just slid on the ice. She waited for the inevitable impact, clutching Bradley’s jacket like a lifeline, when a soft, warm, yet strong hand grabbed her and pulled her out of the way. It was anything but gentle, but as Bradley tumbled to the asphalt with Alexa next to him, a mere few feet from the line of danger, somehow his hand found hers. For a while (it could have been seconds or eternities), Alexa didn’t know what to do except sit holding Bradley’s hand.