It was the industrial arts.
Despite his good looks and easy charm, he hadn’t had much luck finding a steady girlfriend. The jocks would always have first pick, followed by those who excelled in the fine arts. Then came the brainiacs, normal kids with no obvious issues, and finally the goths, emos, and stoners. Guys like Josh were often mistakenly lumped in with the stoners, which wasn’t at all true, at least in his case. Sadly, there weren’t very many girls who were interested in the industrial arts, so his high school years lacked the romantic opportunities afforded to other members of the student body.
In the parking lot, when they reached his car, he opened the door for her, because one of his brothers had told him it was a real power move. Josh didn’t know about that, but Kimmy blushed again and looked up at him with a surprised look on her face like maybe that had never happened before.
“No homework?” she asked when they were pulling out of the parking lot and he was still trying to come up with something to start the conversation.
“When you’re a solid C student, books aren’t necessary. I’ve got enough credits to graduate and as long as I don’t do something stupid like fail one of my classes, it’ll be a smooth ride all the way to graduation.”
“And then what?” Kimmy asked.
He told her he currently worked for a landscaping business loading bags of mulch and strips of sod into people’s cars during the warmer months, but that a friend’s dad hired him to pour concrete starting this summer. He’d been warned that it was backbreaking work, but it still sounded a hell of a lot better to Josh than voluntarily sitting in a lecture hall for four more years.
“I’ve never met anyone else who planned on working instead of going to college,” she said. “I’m going to work too.”
He glanced at her, surprised. “Really?” He’d figured she’d already decorated her dorm room in her head.
“Yeah.”
“Cool. Where are you going to work?”
“I don’t know yet. Mostly I babysit but I’d like to find a real job. I want to buy a car. And I need benefits and stuff.” That was another thing he’d find out later, that she and her mother had never had health insurance and they’d been lucky that neither of them had ever gotten really sick.
“How do your parents feel about you not going to college?”
“It’s just my mom and me. She’s cool with it.”
“You’re lucky,” he said. “Mine are not cool with it. ‘Josh, you could be a good student if you applied yourself. Josh, you aren’t going to get anywhere in life if you don’t go to college.’”
“College isn’t for everyone,” Kimmy said, and it would have been hard for anyone to miss the conviction in her voice.
“Well, I know it’s not for me,” Josh said. “But no one listens. They think they can convince me like I’ll suddenly say, ‘You know what? You’re right! I do want to go to college.’ It’s infuriating. My parents’ friends make comments all the time. So do total strangers. They find out you’re a senior and they automatically say, ‘Where are you going to college?’ When I tell them I’m not going, they all say I’ll change my mind. Like, I’m going to just flip-flop? It’s stupid. I think I’m old enough to know what I want.”
It was the most he’d ever spoken about it to anyone, and once he got started, he couldn’t stop.
“I’ve got three brothers. Two are currently in college and one has already graduated from Minnesota State. I pointed out to my parents that they’d finally get a break from paying tuition.” That hadn’t gone over well, but he’d only been trying to lighten the mood because everyone was so damn serious about the subject and he was tired of arguing about it.
“They’ll pay for it?” She sounded a little like she might have considered going to college if there was money lying around for it.
“They set up college funds when we were born. That’s another reason they’re so pissed. I’m squandering my opportunity. They think I’m ungrateful.”
“So, you take a lot of industrial arts classes and stuff?”
“I’ve taken all of them. I’m not bored in those classes. The As I get balance out the Ds I get in my other classes.”
“Which one is your favorite?” she asked.
“Construction. I like building things, but what I really like is doing the wiring.”
“You mean like for the electricity?”
He nodded.
“Have you ever been shocked?”
“Well, yeah. A whole bunch of times. It’s no big deal.”
“Wow,” she said, and he grinned.
By the time he pulled into her driveway, he could feel an even more thrilling form of electricity, the kind you felt when two people seemed to be clicking on all cylinders. “Let’s go out,” he said when the car came to a stop and she unbuckled her seat belt.
“Yeah, okay,” she said.
He grabbed a pen from the floor of his car, where it had been rolling around for months. “What’s your number?”
She told him and he wrote it on his arm. “I’m surprised we never met before this year,” he said.
“I know. I was thinking about that too.”
“I’ll call you tonight,” he said.
“Yeah, okay,” she said again, and he liked the way she looked at him like he was someone she might want to know better.
chapter 11
Layla
The teachers’ lounge was packed on Friday when Layla finally got a minute to heat up her lunch. Tonya waved her over and moved the stack of books she’d used to save Layla a seat. She crunched into her apple when Layla reached the table and said, “Hurry and sit down before someone else does.”
“Thanks,” Layla said, plunking down her enchiladas. She still hadn’t gotten used to cooking for one, but she’d learned to freeze the leftovers, so she always had something to heat up if she didn’t feel like cooking. It also made for easy lunches, even if she found herself eating the same thing for multiple meals.
“Tim and I are going to check out that trendy new tapas place by the mall tomorrow night. Come join us, just for a couple of hours. You need to put down that guitar for one night and get out of the house. At least give your hands a break.”
“You keep forgetting that I don’t want to leave the house.” Layla planned to spend the weekend in her basement studio. Maybe she’d also take a long nap or binge-watch something on Netflix.
“You said you were going to try to get out more. I miss the time we used to spend together outside of school.”
Their girls’ nights, movie dates, and shopping trips had come to a screeching halt when Layla left Liam and she’d gradually become a hermit. But it was time for her to start living her life again. “You’re right. I did say that. I’ll come for a little while.”