Why was she asking me to come here? Perhaps maybe she wanted to tell me something or scold me, had she not been brave enough to do so during the lunch period? What in the world could it be? I did make fun of her and disrespect her a couple times during lunch. Was she going to tell me never to talk to her like that ever again? I could get a mental image in my head already of the situation and how it would turn out. She would be like “Don’t you ever disrespect me like that again, you’re impulsive and rude and I don’t want anything to do with you ever again.” My heart will sink and I would be left with nothing to say in retaliation. I’d probably start stammering and whatnot. I really had a bad stammering problem in which I only did so in moments of great fear and nervous energy. Nothing could prepare me for what she had to say.
“You said what?” I said to Christy as I turned my head slightly while in a stagnant position.
“Boy I said come here!” Christy quickly jeered while stomping her foot. I didn’t want to be the cause of such animosity so I quickly ran towards her. I bowed my head and knelt towards her feet as if she was my master and I was merely a slave. “Yes Masser! How may I be of service towards you my king?” I said while pretending to scrub her feet with the cloth on my shirt.
Christy almost fell over as she began laughing abruptly. “OH MY GOD!” She said in the midst of her laughter. “I can’t take you.”
I replied with a short laughter as I got up from the cafeteria floor filled with food wrapping and remains of chocolate milk. “Sike naw, what you wanted to say though?” I asked Christy as I began to stare at her.
She extended her forearm towards my chest to let me know that she needed a couple seconds to catch her breath as she was still laughing. “You are so ridiculous.” There was still a big smile spread across her face, she was finding it hard to contain her joy. I stood firmly and simply smiled in return to her ongoing laughter. I started to think maybe if she was going to tell me a bad remark I might not like or chastise me for scolding her for most of the lunch period she had maybe changed her mind, due to the fact that she was smiling uncontrollably and was on the brink of almost falling over.
She managed to calm down her laughter and told me, “I’m not gonna be here tomorrow.” She calmly said as she blankly starred at me.
“Ok…….” “Umm… that’s nice.” I then replied to her. Though I was shocked and heartbroken she was not going to be there the following day I didn’t want her to know that was how I was feeling. Again, I wanted to give her the impression of me being a bad boy and not caring about anything in the world.
“Boy can you just take some papers from the office tomorrow and come drop it off at my house.” Christy said.
I stared at her bleakly for a few seconds without blinking. “I don’t know where you live though.”
“Ima give you my address and number so you can call, I live right near UPENN.”
Christy lived fairly close, UPENN was not too far off from the school, definitely within walking distance. There was no doubt in my mind I was going to do it for her. “I don’t know…” I said. “I’m gonna be pretty busy tomorrow.”
“Boy what you gotta do?” She exclaimed.
I quickly thought of a lie. “Me and my mom is going out to eat.”
“Oh my God are you serious? You can’t go another time? I really need those papers and nobody else is reliable come on, you the only one I can count on Jason.”