Love and War on a Playground

Love and War on a Playground

“No, nothing big, more like a minor… ruffling of feathers.” I felt myself smile, my pale thin lips curling up at the ends though the woman on the phone couldn’t see the gesture. The harsh breath of a stressed parent, sparked by the word ‘incident’ continued to crackle across the phone line. I readjusted the sunshine yellow phone onto my opposite shoulder and gazed out of the finger-smudged window to the empty playground. The kids were at lunch. Though the phone still buzzed with electric sound, I became momentarily distracted: Someone had stuck play dough on the right hand corner of the window, where, in the sun, it had begun to crust over and shrivel into the unfortunate shape of a man’s privates. It would take me at least a half hour to scrape the gunk off later. The phone had gone silent.

“Veronica is fine,” I said, registering the silence as an expectant one. “She hasn’t done anything wrong. She’s just… She got a bit carried away with Valentines day.”

I brought the offending piece of paper up to my face and studied it. It was the one of the worst hearts I’d ever seen. One of the worst ones after 20 years of teaching first grade: The poor lopsided mess fluttered pathetically from where it had been crumpled by the little boy who had received it. The smudgy crayon stained the page in cramped letters that shrank down the page until it was unintelligible. The backside was smothered in rainbow glitter still drying over a deranged sharpie smile and flat eyes. It was the kind of thing a mother would keep forever.

“…. What did Ronnie this time?” asked the mother, her voice wavering with impending doom.

“Well, actually, she sent a love letter, to one of the quieter little boys, Aaron. And Aaron… well, he had to be picked up by his mother because he couldn’t stop crying. The whole thing embarrassed him greatly.” I heard a nervous chuckle through the phone, and the tension I always got when speaking to anyone over the age of 15 lessened slightly.

“I am so sorry about that, Linda.” Said the woman.

“I’ve already had a talk with her about the whole thing, but really, when you come to pick her up today… I kept the letter for you. You have got to see it.” I turned over the sparkly crumpled scrap of construction paper in my hands, carefully smoothing out its rough surface. “ It’s a keeper.”

***

“What’s he got that I haven’t got?” Brandon said, nudging me in the ribs as he picked up a green tray from the towering stack at the right edge of cafeteria. Turning in the direction Brandon had indicated, I watched, out a window, a tall wiry lady escort Aaron down the sloping hill, still dotted with flecks of gray, dirty snow. His face was still red and blotchy and he was holding his mother’s hand, like the baby that he was, all the way to the parking lot. 

“He reads a lot,” I supplied in a bored voice. I’d never understood Brandon’s need to be cool to girls. Girls themselves weren’t terrible, but they weren’t really worth any interest. They weren’t usually good at soccer, judging by how easy it was to steal the ball from them with a simple fake out; they bawled the minute you teased them, landing you in timeout before you could say, “Just kidding"; they chickened out of doing anything even a little dirty: ask them to roll around in the dry dust, ask them to scoop up a sludgy mound of muddy goo to chuck at teachers when they weren’t looking, ask them to pick up a stinking nightcrawler and the answer would always be a silly scream and a giggling “Ew, no!”

“Who cares if he reads, Ben? He’s a stupid nose-picker.” Said Brandon, frowning at the crusty mashed potatoes that had landed on his plate with an audible thump. “It’s all he does: Reads under his desk when no ones looking, and picks his nose. I don’t pick my nose, and I don’t read. I bet when he picks his nose, he eats it—ow!”

While Brandon had been ranting, the line in front of the dessert rack had cleared without his notice, so I took the opportunity to shove him along. As Brandon studied the options, unable to decide between the Chocolate pudding and what we assumed to be some kind of butterscotch custard, Ronnie strode past. She held her dirty blonde head defiantly high, keeping her gaze consciously ignorant of our existence.

“Look,” said Brandon, shoving a bunch of red, white and pink papers into my already occupied hands. “I got cards from Gina, and Cloe and Carrie and even Natasha—she must have just meant that one for me and missed my basket, right? Aaron thinks girls are stupid, so why bother giving him one, especially when I can actually do cool stuff, like play soccer—have you seen Aaron try to kick the ball? No? You know why? Cause he just sits around on the swings and reads. He doesn’t even like girls!”

Personally I thought Aaron had the right idea: but there was no stopping Brandon’s tirade now: Whenever he started in on something he actually cared about, he was hooked like a four year old eating their first pixie stick: He would indulge until everything was good and finished, or till he got sick. Sometimes both. We reached the circular table by the window that we’d been assigned to last week. Already sitting at the seats nearest the window sat Ronnie and her friend, who clung to her more like an extra head than a person, Emily. Though, I guess you could say the same about Brandon and me.

Before spotting us, they had been whispering together in a way that reminded me of the way my mother and Aunt Furgie had at my cousin’s wedding, when the bride had failed to show up at the church for five hours. When the girls saw us approaching, they hushed up and were as silent as a busted walkman.

“Hey there, Ron,” Brandon said, putting on that stupid smile he only uses when girls are around or he’s been caught taking a few dollars out of his mom’s purse. He snatched up the chair next to where Ronnie sat. “So how did little baby Aaron take the proposal? Should we be expecting a wedding any day or did you decide to put it off?”

This snapped Ronnie’s attention towards Brandon and I swear I saw her eyes crackle with lightening even as her cheeks reddened. “For your information, Brandon, it’s none of your beeswax. Aaron is very sensitive. Besides, you don’t understand anything about love. He just needs a day or two to get used to the idea.”

For some reason, this wiped the smile off of Brandon’s face. “So love, is it?” He retaliated with a fresh sneer. “So you love Aaron, huh?”

Ronnie’s glare deepened. “Yes. I’ve loved many boys but I love him the best. I would do anything for him.”

I noticed Brandon’s back stiffen at that. He sat up a little straighter in his chair. “Really? Anything?” he snickered. “I doubt it.”

“Oh yeah?” Ronnie said, defiantly. “You don’t know anything, cause you’re too stupid to know what its like to want someone. You’re just a tiny little boy who only kisses his Mommy just to say he’s kissed a girl.”

“Oh, and you think you would’a kissed Aaron?”

“Yeah, I would have. I kiss boys.” Ronnie growled, looking away from Brandon.

“Sure you do.” Brandon said. Behind Ronnie, Emily caught my eye for a second. We shared a glance at the ceiling and a shake of the head.  

“Fine,” Brandon was saying, “You. Me. Recess. In the fort and bring a witness.” He chuckled lightly, and I had the horrible feeling this meant I wouldn’t be kicking the ball around the blacktop today. “We’ll see if you’d actually kiss a boy.”

“I’ll kiss you anytime, anywhere, Brandon.” I thought Ronnie looked more ready to pummel Brandon than kiss him. I wouldn’t have put it past her.

***

I always hated going outside for recess in the winter. The air chilled my lungs to my very heart, and with today’s letdown, my heart couldn’t really handle much more chill. It was nice in the fort though. Even without the leaves, it was set back far enough in a cluster of trees that it sheltered us from the gazes of the teachers huddled  in the gazebo at the center of the playground.  The brown dead branches of the willowy tree and the dry yellow grasses of winter were enough to shield those inside from the wind, wandering eyes and interruption. It was the perfect spot for a dare.

“Don’t you think this whole thing is kind of dumb, Ron?” Emily asked in a muffled voice; her purple down jacket covered the whole lower half of her face, including her mouth. Only her pale blue eyes and strands of strawberry blonde hair were visible with her hood pulled down.

“It’s not a matter of it being dumb, it’s a matter of principal!” I said. “He thinks I’m a chicken, and I’m going to show him and his fat head that he doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t know me and he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. “ Emily sighed, visibly exasperated. Ben and Brandon clambered through the brush after a few minutes.

“So you’re actually going to do this?” Brandon said.

“You better believe it.” I said, not returning the grin he flashed me.

“Fine, lay one on me then.” Brandon stooped to the ground and sat back against the trunk of the raggedy little tree that created the fort’s ceiling. I kneeled next to him on the ground. Leaning foreward, my eyes met his briefly, and I was shocked to find them wide with nervous energy ringing his grey irises. He wasn’t even smirking.

“You ready?” I asked, unable to keep contact with eyes and concentrating instead on the charred wooden log resting under his back. He nodded slowly. My chest hammering, I began to close the gap between our lips. I almost faltered but the image of Brandon’s triumphant grin if I failed flashed in front of me like the blistering beep of a 6:00 am alarm clock. Emboldened, I kept going. Our faces were hardly an inch apart.

“Wait!” Brandon cried in a hushed voice. “One more thing: No tongue.”

I blinked at him in confusion. Tongue?

“What would I do with my tongue?” I asked, completely bewildered.

Brandon looked back at me blankly. “I have no idea.” We broke into nervous giggles, and with our faces so close, I could smell the peppermint from the candy cane he’d been eating during Math on his breath.

“Can you guys hurry up? I want to go kick the ball around a little before recess is over.” Came Ben’s voice from behind them. “You know, have some real fun.”

“We’ll be done in a sec,” Brandon said, waving his friend off and sharing a significant glance with me. This time, it was him who leaned forward to close the distance. I felt a soft warmth touch my lips for barely a second; and then it was gone. Wasting no time, Ben grabbed Brandon by the wrist and dragged him towards the blacktop at the top of the sloping playground, leaving me alone with Emily in the fort.

“See you around, Ron,” Brandon said before he was tugged away, leaving me with nothing but a smirk, a wink, and a muddled warmth in my stomach. Turning towards Emily, I sat back down in the hideout and gazed out over the sloping overgrowth at the view of the sparkling city in the distance.

“You know, Valentine’s day is a stupid holiday.” I said, biting my lip. “I bet Brandon regrets he ever suggested this dare.”

“Yeah, I bet. I dont think he thought you’d actually do it. You showed him though!” Said Emily, cheerfully.

“Yeah.” Without turning my head far enough to be noticeable, I glanced across the woodchips. Ben and Brandon were running to the blacktop where a full soccer game was already in progress. Brandon never turned his head back towards the grasses of the fort. Our eyes did not meet momentarily before he turned back around to catch up with Ben. We never kissed again.

“I guess I did show him.”

Though what I’d shown him, I was never quite sure. 

© 2012-2014 Lex Vex