In ten minutes it would be summer. Although June 21st was still three weeks away, for Jon Edmonds—and everybody else who went to Jefferson Middle School, he was pretty sure—summer started the moment that bell rung, and wouldn’t end until August was almost gone.
And what a summer it was going to be. He would have the house to himself. His sister was taking summer classes at UT Memphis, and would be staying down there most of the summer. She’d come up some weekends, which would be great. Stacey could be a lot of fun in small doses. Most of the time, though, she’d be seven hours away in Memphis, and Jon had found that having his big sister all the way across the state made having one almost bearable.
His mom would be at work, or out—out dating, taking classes, attending seminars or saving the world—almost every hour that she wasn’t asleep. His mother’s constant absence had, at one time, been something that he hated, but now that Stacey was no longer there to either torment him or share the seemingly endless miseries of her life, his mom being gone didn’t bug him so much. It was actually kind of nice.
During the school year, he got his homework done in the afternoon and had the whole night to play videogames, program his computer, read, watch TV, or talk on the phone. Much of the time, his mom didn’t get home before midnight. When Stacey had still been living at home, she had made him go to bed early, had monopolized the phone and the television, and when he had tried to read or work on his computer in peace, she had always sought him out and tried to make him as miserable as she was. She had told him stories about all the terrible things that happened between their parents before Jon could remember, before their father had left. She would go on about how bad their mother was for being gone all the time, leaving the terrible responsibilities of “raising” Jon on Stacey’s already burdened shoulders—
Jon shook his head. He looked to the front of the room, where Mrs. Matthews sat, head down, studiously reading a paperback. He looked around at the other students, most of them, like Jon, waiting patiently for the bell to ring; there weren’t too many discipline problems in the advanced algebra class. He looked up at the clock on the wall. Just five more minutes, and he was free for three glorious months.
There was no point in letting his mind wander into the past, he told himself. That was all over. Stacey was out of his life, and in remarkably better spirits for the few weekends she was in it these days. For himself, Jon was perfectly content to have Pop-Tarts for breakfast and TV dinners in front of the television, and didn’t mind his absentee mother. His dad—Jackson, in his mind; that’s what Stacey called him—hadn’t made one of his awkward, bridge-building appearances for two years running, and Jon was guessing this year would be the same. It was one thing to manage to show up once in a while when you were only four hours away, but quite another when you lived halfway across the country. Last Jon had heard, his dad had moved to California and was protesting something somewhere. All put together, it was very likely that this would be the best summer ever.
Last Christmas, Jackson had inexplicably sent Stacey an Atari 5200, which had characteristically arrived a month late (along with socks and some Star Wars toys for Jon, which were kind of cool but really for a younger kid—he was, after all, fourteen) and his mother had insisted on boxing it up and sending it to Stacey in Memphis, where it had stayed, in the box, until Stacey had come up two weekends ago and given it to Jon. Not only did that bode well for future visits—life away at college was obviously making Stacey nicer—but it was just in time for summer. He already had a Pitfall cartridge, and was saving his allowance to buy another game cartridge in a week or two.
He had recently managed to persuade his mom to let him upgrade his computer—a very groovy TRS-80 Color Computer—to 32K of memory and Extended BASIC, and to buy him an the Editor/Assembler so he could start writing not just in BASIC but also assembly language, like a real, honest-to-God computer programmer. He had also shaken her down for a new chemistry set—a big one, one with almost everything. Being the only child in the house with an almost never-present mother had a few perks beyond controlling the telephone and the TV.
As an added bonus, Dr. Bernhard from down the street had loaned him a book on electrical engineering and given him some cheap “build your own radio” and “build your own calculator” kits from Radio Shack several months ago. The old guy had a wall full of books in his living room, and had, just a little over three months ago, pulled down half-a-dozen for Jon to take home and keep as long as he liked. Electrical engineering, chemistry, physics, even history books.
And it was all in his room at home, waiting for him. Just three more minutes.
Not everything was perfect, of course. He still didn’t have cable television. It seemed like every kid in school had cable now—everybody was talking about MTV, where they played nothing but extremely cool music videos all day long. He had seen MTV over at Johnny Two’s house. Jon and John and Megan eating popcorn and drinking Coke—well, Megan usually drank Tabs—and eating popcorn and pizza rolls and sometimes passing around a pilfered Budweiser. They watched J. J. Jackson and Martha Quinn and the extremely ultra hot-looking Nina Blackwood and the other guys with the big hair intro super-cool videos by Hall & Oates and Men At Work and Thomas Dolby and Johnny Two’s favorite, The Greg Kihn Band—and one of Jon’s favorite, Styx. Johnny Two had HBO and Cinemax, too, the best part of which was Cinemax After Dark. Movies like Emily, with Koo Stark—who was unbelievably beautiful, and in a movie where she was naked and fondling herself and then in a shower soaping up with some other naked woman, which proved beyond reasonable doubt that cable was the miracle of the age—and Emmanuelle in Bangkok, with Laura Gemser, who was, like, a goddess. But since he didn’t have cable, and had to depend on Johnny Two for MTV and Cinemax After Dark, his opportunities to see such high art were usually few and far between.
Given his success with computer upgrades and chemistry sets, he had leaned on his mom for cable, too, but apparently things she considered educational were easier to get out of her than stuff she considered frivolous, and she never watched television.
“Pay for television?” she had asked, brow furrowed. “You’ve got to be out of your mind.”
But, it was a minor issue. Johnny Two—his best friend, John Miller, actually, but Doreen and Stacey had gotten in the habit of calling him Johnny Two early on, and it had stuck—had cable and a BetaMax, so summer entertainment nirvana was never more than four blocks away.
Last but not least in the list of incipient summer goodness, there was Megan. While Jon didn’t have any illusions about the likelihood that Megan was going to end up being his girlfriend or anything, it was likely they would be doing a lot more stuff together this summer. Megan’s sister Carla had a new car and a new boyfriend, and the best and least suspicious exit strategy, as far as Jon could figure, was for Carla to take Megan out “to the library” or some such, and Megan was pretty good friends with both Jon and John, so Carla might drop off Megan at Jon’s house or take them all to the mall and ditch them for a few hours to get some “quality” time with her boyfriend.
Jon suspected that Megan liked Johnny Two significantly better than she liked him, and that the other John was the real reason she’d end up hanging with them over the summer. Most of the time, she seemed focused on Johnny Two—touching his hand, laying her head to his shoulder when she laughed at some stupid joke, putting her hand on his leg. Remembering that Jon was there only when she asked to borrow his homework. Forgetting she knew Jon when some of her friends from gym class were in the hall.
“Pay for television?” she had asked, brow furrowed. “You’ve got to be out of your mind.”
But, it was a minor issue. Johnny Two—his best friend, John Miller, actually, but Doreen and Stacey had gotten in the habit of calling him Johnny Two early on, and it had stuck—had cable and a BetaMax, so summer entertainment nirvana was never more than four blocks away.
Last but not least in the list of incipient summer goodness, there was Megan. While Jon didn’t have any illusions about the likelihood that Megan was going to end up being his girlfriend or anything, it was likely they would be doing a lot more stuff together this summer. Megan’s sister Carla had a new car and a new boyfriend, and the best and least suspicious exit strategy, as far as Jon could figure, was for Carla to take Megan out “to the library” or some such, and Megan was pretty good friends with both Jon and John, so Carla might drop off Megan at Jon’s house or take them all to the mall and ditch them for a few hours to get some “quality” time with her boyfriend.
Jon suspected that Megan liked Johnny Two significantly better than she liked him, and that the other John was the real reason she’d end up hanging with them over the summer. Most of the time, she seemed focused on Johnny Two—touching his hand, laying her head to his shoulder when she laughed at some stupid joke, putting her hand on his leg. Remembering that Jon was there only when she asked to borrow his homework. Forgetting she knew Jon when some of her friends from gym class were in the hall.
Jon understood. Johnny Miller was funny. He liked to skateboard, and looked extremely cool doing it, and was definitely in better shape than Jon. His parents had more money, so Johnny Two had more money, and he had a dramatic shock of skate-punk blonde hair—bleached, Jon knew, but the effect was the same. The girls—including Megan, most of the time—swooned. And it was clear when they hung out that Megan and Johnny Two were just really good together. Jon wasn't exactly happy about it, but he couldn't begrudge Johnny Two Megan's affections. Johnny Miller was a good guy.
Looking up at the clock, which barely seemed to be moving—were seconds really that long?—he shook his head and sighed. That’s just how it was. Still, she was gorgeous, she had big boobs, even for an ninth grader, and was prone to wear pretty revealing stuff during the summer. Before, his summer encounters with Megan had been fleeting. This summer, he might have entire days with her, either with the other John but maybe also without him. That had, after all, happened more and more often over the past several months. The opportunities to try and look down her shirt alone would be staggering. He could brush up against her boobs with the ever-useful accidental-elbow maneuver. Maybe offer her a backrub, when they were alone.
Would it lead to her French kissing him and rubbing up against him naked and riding off into the sunset? No. But there was going to be plenty of time to be close to her and maybe catch a look at some excellent cleavage. And that was certainly more than any summer before. It was going to be great.
At long last, the bell rang, its familiar stutter and thump—there was something wrong with it that apparently wasn’t bad enough for anybody to get it fixed—music to Jon’s ears. Mrs. Matthews dismissed the class with a casual wave of her hand, not looking up from the book she was reading. Exam results had been handed back the day before—Jon had aced it, natch—so, on this final day of school, Jon had been given his entire 6th period algebra class to reflect upon the wondrous summer ahead.
He almost didn’t want to leave. He relished the anticipation as much as anything, and sat peacefully in his desk as the bell stopped its laborious rattling and the rest of the class beat a hasty exit.
After a minute, Mrs. Matthews looked up. “Jon? Did you hear the bell?”
“I was just thinking.” Jon smiled. “Planning my summer.”
“Well, good. I hope you have a great summer vacation this year.”
“I’m going to,” Jon replied. “You have a good summer, too.”
Mrs. Matthews laughed. “Well, when you’re an adult, summer vacation isn’t all that big a deal. I’ve got a job teaching summer school this year. So, not a lot of days by the pool.”
“Jeeze, that sucks.” Jon stood up, picked up his book bag, and started heading toward the door. “Sorry”.
“Don’t be.” Mrs. Matthews smiled. “I had some very good summers in my life. Very good. If I spend every summer from now until the day I die teaching summer school, I’ve got nothing to complain about. I had some good summers.”
She stood up, picking up her own books—quite a lot of them—and her purse. She looked at Jon and smiled. “You just make sure you have some summers like that before you’re my age, okay?”
“That’s the idea,” John replied cheerfully. He thought for a minute. He liked Mrs. Matthews, and she liked him, and he always wanted to keep his teacher relationships a little more intimate than flippant. “Thank you.”
She smiled warmly at him; he had clearly struck the right tone. “You’re very welcome, Jon. Now, stop hanging around school. It’s summer vacation!”
“I’m going, I’m going.” Jon walked out the door, turning right towards the closest exit. Mrs. Matthews headed left. “Bye!”
“See you next year, Jon,” she called over her shoulder as Jon pushed open door that led out to the soccer field. Jon smiled. He liked most of his teachers, but Mrs. Matthews was nicer than most.
The weather outside was perfect. It was balmy and breezy and the afternoon sun was cresting the hills in the distance. Jon took a deep breath, and began walking home.
What a great way to start the summer.
Looking up at the clock, which barely seemed to be moving—were seconds really that long?—he shook his head and sighed. That’s just how it was. Still, she was gorgeous, she had big boobs, even for an ninth grader, and was prone to wear pretty revealing stuff during the summer. Before, his summer encounters with Megan had been fleeting. This summer, he might have entire days with her, either with the other John but maybe also without him. That had, after all, happened more and more often over the past several months. The opportunities to try and look down her shirt alone would be staggering. He could brush up against her boobs with the ever-useful accidental-elbow maneuver. Maybe offer her a backrub, when they were alone.
Would it lead to her French kissing him and rubbing up against him naked and riding off into the sunset? No. But there was going to be plenty of time to be close to her and maybe catch a look at some excellent cleavage. And that was certainly more than any summer before. It was going to be great.
At long last, the bell rang, its familiar stutter and thump—there was something wrong with it that apparently wasn’t bad enough for anybody to get it fixed—music to Jon’s ears. Mrs. Matthews dismissed the class with a casual wave of her hand, not looking up from the book she was reading. Exam results had been handed back the day before—Jon had aced it, natch—so, on this final day of school, Jon had been given his entire 6th period algebra class to reflect upon the wondrous summer ahead.
He almost didn’t want to leave. He relished the anticipation as much as anything, and sat peacefully in his desk as the bell stopped its laborious rattling and the rest of the class beat a hasty exit.
After a minute, Mrs. Matthews looked up. “Jon? Did you hear the bell?”
“I was just thinking.” Jon smiled. “Planning my summer.”
“Well, good. I hope you have a great summer vacation this year.”
“I’m going to,” Jon replied. “You have a good summer, too.”
Mrs. Matthews laughed. “Well, when you’re an adult, summer vacation isn’t all that big a deal. I’ve got a job teaching summer school this year. So, not a lot of days by the pool.”
“Jeeze, that sucks.” Jon stood up, picked up his book bag, and started heading toward the door. “Sorry”.
“Don’t be.” Mrs. Matthews smiled. “I had some very good summers in my life. Very good. If I spend every summer from now until the day I die teaching summer school, I’ve got nothing to complain about. I had some good summers.”
She stood up, picking up her own books—quite a lot of them—and her purse. She looked at Jon and smiled. “You just make sure you have some summers like that before you’re my age, okay?”
“That’s the idea,” John replied cheerfully. He thought for a minute. He liked Mrs. Matthews, and she liked him, and he always wanted to keep his teacher relationships a little more intimate than flippant. “Thank you.”
She smiled warmly at him; he had clearly struck the right tone. “You’re very welcome, Jon. Now, stop hanging around school. It’s summer vacation!”
“I’m going, I’m going.” Jon walked out the door, turning right towards the closest exit. Mrs. Matthews headed left. “Bye!”
“See you next year, Jon,” she called over her shoulder as Jon pushed open door that led out to the soccer field. Jon smiled. He liked most of his teachers, but Mrs. Matthews was nicer than most.
The weather outside was perfect. It was balmy and breezy and the afternoon sun was cresting the hills in the distance. Jon took a deep breath, and began walking home.
What a great way to start the summer.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment