Story a Day

It was the night of Tom’s graduation. He had finished the graduating part. Now his hair was a little creased from the mortarboard, and his armpits were a little sweaty from all the attention. It was one in the morning. He felt relieved and restless and tired.

When everyone had walked out of the barn, the air had smelled like an electrical storm. Now, outside Shari’s, it was raining.

Tom’s graduating class was small. There were seven of them: Tom, Alissa, and five others. The ceremony had been short. Seven wasn’t that many names.

Tom and Alissa sat in Shari’s, watching the thunderstorm out the windows. There were a few other customers in the restaurant, but no one from school. Tom had a third cup of coffee in front of him. Alissa had a second glass of Coke and half a slice of cherry pie. They didn’t like the same foods. Alissa liked sweet things, and Tom like savory things. Maybe that was part of having different chromosomes: different palates. They also didn’t have a secret language. They didn’t have the same noses; Alissa’s was pointy, and Tom’s was round and small. They both had blue eyes. They both liked to hide in the hall closet when they were crabby. They both had small ears. Only Alissa knew how to swim. Only Tom knew how to play the guitar.

They both liked to read. They both knew the right times to interrupt the other one’s reading, and the wrong times, just by looking. Maybe that was like a secret language, after all.

They had both learned to read on their fourth birthday. The grownups were finishing their cake, and Tom and Alissa were holding one copy of Curious George across their two laps. “George was curious,” they both sounded out, recognizing the words simultaneously. It had been their closest moment.

It wasn’t just a barn that they graduated in; it was a converted barn. The converted barn was also their high school. They had graduated in the gym, which was also where they ate lunch. The classrooms were in different parts of the barn. Math in this cubicle, music in that one. There was no hay in the school, although the English room was in what used to be a hayloft. There were no dirt floors, either. The floors were linoleum.

Tom watched Alissa. She was looking out the window, her sharp nose looking sharper in profile. She stared at the droplets on the window as if they were letters on a page. Tom stared at her as though she were the page that started a new chapter. That page always had half as many words on it. It was half-blank. They were both tired. They were both a little cranky. Tom felt too caffeinated. He took a sip of his coffee.

Alissa would go to State. Tom hadn’t applied to college. He thought he wanted to get an apartment in town and be a novelist. Now the thought of it made him sleepy.

At first, he had been mad at her for leaving. He was livid. He threw books across the room and broke one of the strings on his guitar. Now he just stared at her, curious, engrossed. Was it because she really was like a book? Did he just want the pages to turn already?

image: kennymatic on flickr