Come See About Me Read Free Page B

across Iliana’s face, her keen gaze demonstrating that she’s
listening intently to every word the mayor says. The yearbook committee
captioned the picture “Most Likely to Rule the World,” and they weren’t talking
about the mayor.
    When we’d first
gotten close at the end of ninth grade, Iliana and I were both honor roll
students without specific career aspirations. For a long time I thought that
I’d pick up a BA and then, if I still hadn’t figured anything else out, try for
teacher’s college. Iliana hit on what she wanted to do before I did and at
first she tried to guide me in the same direction. I helped her design posters
and buttons for her election campaign at the end of eleventh grade, but the
thought of having to do typical student council things, like organize funding
drives and plan pep rallies, bored me to tears.
    If Iliana and I
both weren’t such loyal people we probably would’ve drifted apart in twelfth
grade. People change, especially during high school. But we hung on. Busy as
Iliana was, we still hung out together, and every once in a while I put my name
down for council led initiatives, like the time I signed up to do the student
volunteer day at our local food bank. Bastien, one of the few black students at
our school, was volunteering at the food bank that day too. We sorted dried and
canned goods next to each for over an hour, until someone asked him and a
couple of the other guys from school to help unload a truck of donations in the
warehouse out back.
    That hour was the
most interaction Bastien and I ever had during high school. We’d shared a
couple of classes over the years but moved in different circles and had never
really gotten to know each other. Bastien’s grades were as good as mine but he
was one of the kids you’d always see carrying around a sketchpad, stubby piece
of charcoal and some manga novel or comic book. Our first real conversation
happened at the Operation Foodshare bank. This was back when the Winter
Olympics were being held in Vancouver, so all of B.C. was wild with Olympic
fever. Jon Montgomery had won the gold in men’s skeleton for us only the night
before and Bastien and I talked about watching his final fast-as-lightning run
down the track.
    When Shaun White
and the halfpipe came up, Bastien’s eyes popped and he switched the topic to
Torah Bright. Her name was on the lips of practically every guy at school the
day after she won gold, so that wasn’t anything new, but I teased Bastien about
it before admitting that she was hot, the kind of girl who’d be hot walking
down the street in an old sweatshirt but was extra hot because she had
super hero powers on a snowboard.
    Bastien grinned
at me. “You know, you sound like you might have a thing for her too.”
    “Everybody can
tell when someone’s beautiful,” I said. “Whether they like him or her or not.
Guys can tell about other guys too. They just don’t like to admit it.”
    Bastien, still
smiling, shook his head like he wasn’t going to entertain the idea. I started
naming male athletes anyway, and then actors and rappers, which was when things
got interesting because Bastien said he didn’t listen to pop music and hip hop
much anymore and didn’t even know some of the people I’d mentioned. “I mean, I
hear it around, you know, because it’s everywhere,” he added. “And some of it’s
all right but I prefer, like, jazz, blues and classical.”
    “So you’re an
intellectual,” I kidded.
    Bastien squinted
at me, his smile biting deeper into his face. “Yeah, look who’s talking, Little
Miss Honor Roll with her best friend in student council.”
    “By honor roll
standards I’m a slacker,” I countered, my hand wrapped around of a can of
mandarin oranges that I’d pulled out of the sac between us. “But Iliana makes
me look good. Besides, aren’t you Mr. Honor Roll yourself?”
    “True,” he
conceded just seconds before he was called away to unload the truck. And that
was