Tampa Read Free Page B

sunlight poured in and anticipation closed my throat. Because they were coming from the bright outdoors, upon entering the darkened classroom their bodies were backlit, their faces featureless and shadowy, and their outlines seemed angelic—every tiny wisp of hair illuminated—in a way that made each one appear to be materializing from a dream. But when they came into focus, most were disappointments. I actually didn’t catch Jack’s entrance; some terrible creature whose chin and feet were elephantine in comparison to the rest of his body had approached my desk to talk at me about the books he’d read that summer. But I saw Jack soon after the bell rang, already seated. He seemed to be a larger, stretch-limbed version of a younger boy—chin-length light hair, unimposing features and a mouth that was devilishly wholesome. He was looking in my direction, though not in an overt way. Occasionally a friend would whisper something to him, make a comment, and he’d turn his head and nod or laugh. But then he’d shyly glance back up front. There was a hesitant politeness to his movements; he started to grab a notebook from his bag, second-guessed himself, looked around to see if others had taken out notebooks and only then bent over to unzip his backpack. I could imagine him pausing with the same demure reluctance as he took down the side zipper of my skirt, his alert brown eyes frequently returning to my face to check for a contradictory expression that might indicate he should stop, at which point I wouldhave to goad him on, say,
It’s okay, please continue what you’re doing
.
    I realized with a bit of embarrassment that it was the first time I’d remembered to take roll all day. Suddenly I was actually curious about who someone was. His name was ordinary yet peculiar—two first names.
    “Jack Patrick?”
    He gave a timid smile, more polite confidence than self-awareness. “Here,” he said.
    Rapunzel, Rapunzel
, I thought. Reaching up to the nape of my neck, I shook out my hair and brought the pencil’s lead tip to my tongue.
    *
    When I stepped
outside after my last class, the unfiltered afternoon sun was blinding. The bedlam atmosphere of the day’s end made the stoic brick walls of the junior high and all its false markers of imposed order—the perfect geometry of the landscaping, its immaculate semicircles of wood chips bordered with green hedges and palm trees—seem like relics of a recently invaded and devoured civilization . Youths walking home screamed jungle cries and sprinted past one another like feral carnivores, running together toward some invisible, felled big-game carcass just outside the boundaries of school property. I squinted against the bleached-out concrete walkway that served as an umbilical path to the school; it contained some type of mineralized rock that made it glitter in the light. Holding a stack of manila folders against my chest—student informational surveys, including all of Jack’s emergency contact information—my eyes narrowed against the reflective flash of the ground and my pumps made scratching steps across its granular surface. It felt likea daydream, like I was walking to my car across a trail of luminous sugar.
    “Every summer gets shorter,” a throaty voice called.
    No sooner had I heard the words than I smelled the cigarette. Turning, I straightened the fingers of my right hand and raised them to my forehead, half visor and half salute. In the faculty parking lot, Janet Feinlog was sitting down on the foot ledge of her blue conversion van’s opened door. She was looking straight ahead; a small stump of burning cigarette served as a gravity-defying bridge between her fingers and two inches of suspended ash. Unsure if she’d been speaking to me or to herself, I pressed the remote in my hand and disabled my car alarm with a pronounced beep.
    “Do you know what I’d give for one more week of summer?” she asked. There was a shake in her voice that told of inner