Just like that, Stefan Baker had gone from being my confidant and best buddy to being the daily source of my fear and anguish.
It was a stormy “flash flood” sort of day in October that my life would find a new direction. I was walking—or, rather, rushing hurriedly and anxiously—to my next class when I turned a corner and my face lodged itself between a huge pair of breasts.
I sputtered and backed away, then stared up at the face of a woman, whose shocked expression comically mirrored my own.
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
To my surprise, she laughed, then said, “Well, if that isn’t a peculiar way to greet someone, I don’t know what is.”
“I wasn’t watching where I was going. I’m … I’m sorry. I’ll go.” I went around her and took off, red-faced and mortified.
It was later during my home period that the note came. “Caulfield,” Mr. Hank, my teacher, called out. He lifted a pink slip that had just been set on his desk. “Summoned to the office.”
I was confused, clutching my backpack to my chest. “Why? I didn’t do anything.”
“You’re not in trouble, silly,” sang Mr. Hank in his twangy, country accent. “You’re just bein’ called to the office. Hurry up, don’t keep them waitin’.”
I remember the cold feeling of sweat in my pits as I took the slip with me down the long hall to the front of the school. The lady at the desk took my slip, gave me a tightlipped smile, then kindly directed me three doors down and to the left. I went where I was instructed and found myself at a partly opened door.
On its front was a placard that read: Becky Lemont, Counselor.
“Come on in, Mr. Caulfield,” she called out at me from her desk, having spotted me through the crack in the door.
I stepped inside. My eyes fell on the lady whose bosom I had gotten far too intimate with earlier that day in the hallway. “Hi,” I greeted her tentatively.
She picked up a folded sheet of paper from her cluttered desk and extended it toward me. “You dropped this.”
“I did?” I took it from her and looked it over. It was a handout from my math class two weeks ago that I didn’t need. It must have fallen out of my textbook I was holding against my chest when I ran into her. “I don’t really need this,” I confessed to her.
“Well, it’s yours anyhow. Do what you want with it.” She gave me a little smile. Her glasses looked like they belonged to a perky secretary from some 70s movie, pointy at the sides and cherry red, and her hair was twisted up into a peculiar, tight bun. That Becky Lemont was a total character who I knew from that moment on I would never forget.
I blinked. “Is this the only reason you called me into your office?”
“Well, that, and you looked like you could use someone to talk to. It’s your home period, isn’t it? You aren’t missing anything.”
I stood there staring at her like she was a crazy person. She sort of was, at first.
“Sit,” she commanded, giving a nod at the chair in front of her desk. “I’m bored. Paperwork suuuucks,” she groaned, emphasizing and stretching out the word “sucks” like it made her totally cool and “on my level” to say that.
Oddly, it did the trick. I broke a tiny smile and helped myself to the chair, then proceeded to sit there and hug my backpack (and newly reclaimed math class handout) to my chest.
I didn’t make good conversation that first day. She asked me a couple more times if there was anything on my mind (I insisted there wasn’t), inquired about a few of my classes and interests (I avoided mentioning baseball at all for some reason), then started talking to me about cats. Black cats. Gray cats. Orange cats. Cream-pawed cats with chocolate-tipped ears. Cats with no fur. Cats with no tails. Cats, cats, cats, and cats.
“Ooh, there’s the bell,” sang Ms. Lemont when it rang. “How about you come by again your next home period tomorrow? You’re a fun kid, even if you hate holding conversation like a normal human being. We’ll work on that.”
She saw the sadness in my eyes, yet never once dove to dig it out of me that first meeting. Somehow, that was more comforting than anything, the freedom to just … not deal with it all.
“Thanks,” I said to her.
“Isn’t it funny?” she called out to my back, her voice stopping me at the door. “How a little insignificant sheet of paper brought us together? Bet you thought you’d go your whole high school career without speaking to a counselor. Most do.” She shrugged, then shot me a wink. “Guess you’re one of the lucky ones.”
Lucky. If only I knew exactly how lucky I was to run into her that day in the hallway. Or, more accurately, run into her boobs.