“Hasn’t the first bell rung?” I asked.
“I have Mr. Morton for homeroom,” he said. This explained everything. Mr. Morton had a perpetual hangover, which was at its peak during homeroom. He never called roll.
“What are you doing up there?”
“Climb up and see,” he said, removing his head and shoulders from my view.
I hesitated.
“Come on, Susie.”
It was my one day in life of being a bad kid – of at least feigning the moves. I placed my foot on the bottom rung of the scaffold and reached my arms up to the first crossbar.
“Bring your stuff,” Ray advised.
I went back for my book bag and then climbed unsteadily up.
“Let me help you,” he said and put his hands under my armpits, which, even though covered by my winter parka, I was self-conscious about. I sat for a moment with my feet dangling over the side.
“Tuck them in,” he said. “That way no one will see us.”
I did what he told me, and then I stared at him for a moment. I felt suddenly stupid – unsure of why I was there.
“Will you stay up here all day?” I asked.
“Just until English class is over.”
“You’re cutting English!” It was as if he said he’d robbed a bank.
“I’ve seen every Shakespeare play put on by the Royal Shakespeare Company,” Ray said. “That bitch has nothing to teach me.”
I felt sorry for Mrs. Dewitt then. If part of being bad was calling Mrs. Dewitt a bitch, I wasn’t into it.
“I like Othello” I ventured.
“It’s condescending twaddle the way she teaches it. A sort of Black Like Me version of the Moor.”
Ray was smart. This combined with being an Indian from England had made him a Martian in Norristown.
“That guy in the movie looked pretty stupid with black makeup on,” I said.
“You mean Sir Laurence Olivier.”
Ray and I were quiet. Quiet enough to hear the bell for the end of homeroom ring and then, five minutes later, the bell that meant we should be on the first floor in Mrs. Dewitt’s class. As each second passed after that bell, I could feel my skin heat up and Ray’s look lengthen out over my body, taking in my royal blue parka and my kelly green miniskirt with my matching Danskin tights. My real shoes sat beside me inside my bag. On my feet I had a pair of fake sheepskin boots with dirty synthetic shearing spilling out like animal innards around the tops and seams. If I had known this was to be the sex scene of my life, I might have prepared a bit, reapplied my Strawberry-Banana Kissing Potion as I came in the door.
I could feel Ray’s body leaning toward me, the scaffolding underneath us squeaking from his movement. He is from England, I was thinking. His lips moved closer, the scaffold listed. I was dizzy – about to go under the wave of my first kiss, when we both heard something. We froze.
Ray and I lay down side by side and stared at the lights and wires overhead. A moment later, the stage door opened and in walked Mr. Peterford and the art teacher, Miss Ryan, who we recognized by their voices. There was a third person with them.
“We are not taking disciplinary action at this time, but we will if you persist,” Mr. Peterford was saying. “Miss Ryan, did you bring the materials?”
“Yes.” Miss Ryan had come to Kennet from a Catholic school and taken over the art department from two ex-hippies who had been fired when the kiln exploded. Our art classes had gone from wild experiments with molten metals and throwing clay to day after day of drawing profiles of wooden figures she placed in stiff positions at the beginning of each class.
“I’m only doing the assignments.” It was Ruth Connors. I recognized the voice and so did Ray. We all had Mrs. Dewitt’s English class first period.
“This,” Mr. Peterford said, “was not the assignment.”
Ray reached for my hand and squeezed. We knew what they were talking about. A xeroxed copy of one of Ruth’s drawings had been passed around in the library until it had reached a boy at the card catalog who was overtaken by the librarian.
“If I’m not mistaken,” said Miss Ryan, “there are no breasts on our anatomy model.”
The drawing had been of a woman reclining with her legs crossed. And it was no wooden figure with eyehooks connecting the limbs. It was a real woman, and the charcoal smudges of her eyes – whether by accident or intent – had given her a leering look that made every kid who saw it either highly uncomfortable or quite happy, thank you.
