A Very Ordinary Boy (Part 1)
From Chapter 4:
The last hour or so of my first shift at FfT must have happened but I don't remember anything about it. I was still in a state of shock over the way Noah had seemed reluctant to go. And then there was the wink. For me. From Noah Richmond. Too unreal. And what about the two Davids -- Michelangelo's and Donatello's? And how come Noah knew about Italian art in the fifteenth century? So many questions. My head was all over the place trying to come up with answers. So when Michelle came to tell me to cash up, tidy up and get off home I had no idea that so much time had passed. And then, just as I was opening the door to leave, there was another surprise, my share of the tips. I definitely hadn't been expecting that, hadn't given it any thought in fact. But Michelle explained the FfT rule, that all `gratuities' (apparently that's the correct term for what tips the customers leave) are shared between whoever is working that particular shift, no matter who was doing what and however many hours they've worked. My share came to more than my official day's earnings. I'm liking this working life more and more every minute!
Chapter 5: Confusion
Let me tell you one word that sums up the past couple of weeks - completely mad'. Okay, so that's two words - shoot me! Seriously though, the past fourteen days have been all go/full on/completely mad -- just name your favourite phrase or cliché. You know, I never realised how simple and uncomplicated my life was before, before a part-time job got thrown into the very ordinary mix (thanks Dyl and Si!). Before then it was pretty much just school, homework and hanging out with my two best friends, but now I have to factor in my shifts at FfT, with the result that the whole predictability of my life has been thrown totally up in the air/out the window/into turmoil - there's another choice for you. (Though maybe turmoil is pitching it a bit strong.) I spose I hadn't realised before how easy I've always had it -- nice house, good school, okay parents, regular allowance, no sibs -- it was way cushy, and mostly it still is, but choosing to work two days after school and Saturdays has made me aware that I've got so much more freedom, more choice and more security than lots of people.
Take the folks who hang around FfT at closing time when we're clearing up and getting ready to go home. At first I thought they were crims of some sort, casing the place and planning to break in and steal the day's takings once we'd gone. Honestly, they looked really shady types. Yeah, I know, talk about a super-charged imagination, so you'll not be surprised when I tell you that this was way out of my comfort zone, I mean way, WAY out for someone as ordinary as me, someone who'd lived the kind of sheltered life I had. Michelle laughed when I told her what I thought was happening and she straight away put me right. It turns out they're homeless folks who are waiting for us to lock up so they can go through the bins to see what food has been thrown out. Can you imagine it? Being that hungry and desperate? Michelle says she regularly takes stuff down to the local shelter, and not just left-overs but bread and pies she bakes specially, but some folk don't or won't or can't go there so they have no choice but to dig through someone else's rubbish just to stop themselves from starving. Talk about sad.
And then there are kids in my school like Shayna Jones. She's the eldest of five kids, super bright and really quiet. She's had an after-school job in Mac D's for as long as I can remember and I never thought much of it until these last few days. But now I've found out she basically keeps her family afloat. Her mum died three or four years ago, dad drives local deliveries and they need the money from her job to help pay the bills. And she still turns up to school on time every day and she gets an A for pretty much every piece of work. How amazing is that? I don't know how she does it. I'm shattered after only a few hours work a week -- and I have the choice to walk away if I want to.
But I don't suppose you're interested in all that stuff, and to be honest I don't really know why I've told you, it's just that, lately, I seem to be thinking about things in a different way, sometimes for the first time, you know, like serious stuff that I never gave a thought to before. Maybe it's the prospect of leaving school in a few months or having to decide what I want to do next year and even having, finally, to knuckle down and get some half-way decent grades. Maybe it even means I'm growing up. Now that is a scary thought. What wouldn't my psychologist mum give to know what's going on inside my head these days?
Anyway, you probably want to know less about all the heavy stuff and more about how things are shaping up at FfT, particularly about any potential boyfriend candidates. The answer, in short, is a great big hairy NOTHING! It seems that hot gay guys my age, even slightly warm straight ones, aren't great book buyers, at least not on the days and times when I'm working. On Tuesday and Thursday after school my customers have mostly been older women (like my mum's age) who have orders to collect (usually books for kids or historical romances) or they've been crumpled-looking men who come in to browse through the second-hand book shelves looking for obscure reference books or long-forgotten authors. The three Saturdays I've worked so far have been different because Michelle needs me to help out in the café way more, especially over lunch time when the place gets crazy busy. The Saturday crowd is really varied -- there's lots of young families (it's okay, you don't need to look so shocked, even though I do really want a boyfriend, I'm no home-wrecker), there are groups of Greenside High kids (I've given most of those boys the visual once-over at school and then the thumbs down -- even the out gay ones), then there are the couples (they're pretty much always so obviously straight and wrapped up with each other there's no point in even fantasising about them, even the good-looking ones), lots of random shoppers (random and unremarkable), yes, all sorts -- but I haven't seen anyone who even vaguely fits the description of possible boyfriend. And believe me, I do keep looking. But it's only been a couple of weeks so I'm not letting myself get too disappointed yet. And besides, I can hardly expect anyone to walk in carrying a sign saying: Young, Gay, Single and Available to be Jack Smith's Boyfriend. I wish!
Dyl and Si have put in an appearance every Saturday since I started at FfT, looking really pleased with themselves (I s'pose cause they're convinced that their stunt of stealing the Help Wanted' sign from the window was what got me the job in the first place), and expecting special discount rates on whatever they order, even though they know how pissed off I've been with them. I've told them that they've got to pay full price, just like everyone else, but, whatever, they're still my best friends so I make sure they get extra-big slices of cake. But something's not right, not the same as before. Somehow there seems to be a sort of distance that's grown up between the two of them and me and I don't think it's just because of the job. No, there's a sort of yes we're still besties but not quite as besties as before' vibe going on. Yeah, of course, they know I don't think the Help Wanted' stunt was cool and they have apologised for it like a thousand times, and it really isn't a big deal any more. But there's definitely something strange going on. Maybe it's more of the growing up stuff. If it is, I don't like it.
So, like I said, no potential boyfriend material so far, but there is one person who has been in every time I've been on shift. Yes, you've guessed it - Noah Richmond. At first I didn't think anything about it, after all, he is Michelle's cousin, so what could be more natural for him than finishing work and then calling in at the family coffee shop on his way home? And not just because of the family discount (i.e. free) but because Michelle's food is really good. And I'm not just saying that cause I work for her. Her brownies could give Rosa's a run for their money. On most Tuesdays and Thursdays when he's come in he's sat down at one of the tables for two in the window, which has suited me fine cause that's in direct line of sight from my seat at the back of the book area which means I've had plenty of opportunity to spy on the object of my increasingly-frenzied bedtime wank fantasies. I've always thought he was gorgeous (well, for the last couple of years at least), but ever since I've been working at FfT I've come to realise that he's incredibly sexy as well. Everything about him -- the confident way he walks, the casual way he sweeps the hair out of his eyes, the smile that genuinely lights up his face (it really is like he's got a light bulb or a candle or something beaming out from inside him), the easy way he greets Michelle with a hug every time he comes in. Add up all these things (and a whole sack-full more) and you get the most beautiful, the most desirable and definitely the most frustratingly-unobtainable boy I have ever laid eyes on. Being gay sucks!
And what makes it worse, or maybe better - oh shit! I'm so confused - is that he always gives me a wave as he comes in, you know, setting the little brass bell ringing. I swear it's got a special tone that it reserves just for him so I know to look up as he arrives. (Of course, I know that can't be true but you try telling that to my imagination.) And he doesn't wave to anyone else, even if there are other customers, regulars, that he goes over to talk to once he's collected his standard order of double-shot moccachino and GF brownie. No, he only waves at me. And smiles. But never a wink, not after that one on the day I did my first shift when he looked back at me as Tani was dragging him away. Maybe it never actually happened -- the wink I mean. Maybe it was a wishful-thinking wink, imagined by a resolutely-closeted gay boy on the face of his first proper crush/wank fantasy.
A couple of times Tani has come in to meet him after work and, naturally, she's been all over him. It's like, a scarf couldn't wrap itself around his neck any tighter. Then I've had to find things to do or, if there wasn't anything, make up things so that I wasn't spending all my time staring at the two of them smiling and chatting and being all girlfriend and boyfriend together, and wanting to go right over to their table to tell her to ... to, well, I don't know what exactly, except I don't want to have my nose rubbed in the fact that she's got him and I never will.
And then last Thursday when he came in, late for him - nearly five o'clock, once he'd picked up his drink and brownie, instead of going to sit at one of the tables in the window as usual, he came through into the book area, and not to look at the books, oh no, he came straight over to the counter where I was working at the computer, checking the stock figures. Michelle had told me it had been extra busy on Wednesday and that she wanted me to update the regular weekly order to replace some of those sales. Anyway, I was so caught up with updating the spreadsheet that I nearly fell off my chair when I heard a sort or quiet cough and glanced up to see my load-blowing wank fantasy looking down at me with a sort of questioning look on his face. Once I'd managed to drag my wits back from wherever they'd been spooked off to, I more or less found the words to explain what it was I was busy doing, all the time being oh so grateful that I was sitting down. Grateful because, with me sitting, there was no way the beautiful Noah Richmond would be able to see the bulge in my shorts caused by the instant boner I'd sprung as soon as I'd laid eyes on him. Now I know what they mean by covered with embarrassment', cause, even though he couldn't see the cause, he'd certainly be aware of the lobster-coloured flush that just had to be flooding across my face. Oh shit!
And although there's no way he couldn't not have noticed (the blushing, not the boner), he didn't make me feel uncomfortable about it, didn't pull my leg or even make a joke of it. No, he just started talking to me about art, Italian Renaissance art, like we did before. In fact, he carried on the conversation as if it hadn't been more than a week since the last time we'd spoken. He asked me if I knew about people like Giotto and Tintoretto and if I'd ever been to the National Gallery collection. Somehow I forgot all about being embarrassed or about the boner in my pants (which had wilted anyway, with all the blood rushing from down below straight upwards into my face), and started telling him about Cellini's statue of Perseus (so hot!) and the amazing pictures painted by Caravaggio. And then -- Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! -- I went and said how I couldn't help notice that Caravaggio's pictures were full of semi-nude boys and young men and that that had to mean that he was gay or, at the very least, bi. And instantly it was back to lobster face and wishing the floor would open up and swallow me before Noah could show, just like most jock boys, how uninterested he was in talking about gay stuff and walk away. But neither of those things happened and I could feel the lobster start to fade. He did walk away though, saying he had to go and catch up with Tani, but not before switching on a huge and definitely friendly smile and then, just as he turned to leave, winking at me again. Now I know what you're thinking, that my over-active and desperate imagination was working overtime again, but I kid you not, there's no doubt about it, it was a deliberate, and 100% knowing, wink.
Talk about confused. I couldn't make it out at all. The picture I had of Noah Richmond when he was at school, and certainly the reputation he had there was of a typical jack-the-lad, handsome and muscled stud, taking nothing seriously, dating every girl in sight, good at sports but barely scraping by in anything academic. But that picture didn't square with the Noah Richmond I was beginning to see, the one who knew loads about art, who was happy to spend time with a boringly ordinary nobody like me and who seemed to be completely unfazed by the idea of latent homoeroticism in sixteenth century Italian painting and sculpture. And one who winked! I couldn't get my head around it at all. I made a mental note to myself to try to get some background information from Michelle about her cousin, but there was no time just then to do anything about it `cause, at the exact moment that I started to try to puzzle it out, I heard Michelle saying goodbye to the last customers and locking the front door. Home time.
I don't remember much about the ride home (I was right, the distance was nearer twenty minutes than five) because all my mental capacity was 100% focused on the puzzle that was Noah Richmond. You probably think I consistently over-do the whole ordinary Jack' stuff but I promise you it's true. There is absolutely nothing about me that would encourage anyone to get excited (or even vaguely interested), least of all someone so far out of my league on every level as to be on another planet. I look ordinary, I lead an ordinary life, I AM ordinary. So how is it that the anything-but-ordinary Noah Richmond seems happy, almost comfortable, to spend time with me? Seriously, if you've got any answers to that question, even weird ones, please get in touch cause it's doing my head in.
Stupidly I forgot to switch to my normal awkward teenage son' mode before sitting down to dinner -- baked stuffed mushrooms with spicy rice, one of Rosa's specials - but luckily my mum was distracted by an upcoming meeting the next day with a particularly challenging client and so didn't spend long at the table before disappearing off to her study to go through her notes. I say luckily' because, any other day, she'd have pounced on the fact of my brain being away on walk-about to try to get some useful adolescent son psychology' insights. So Thank You' to whoever it was who was destined to be under her spotlight the following day, you saved me a whole load of grief. I'm pretty sure my dad noticed that something was up but, true to form, he kept his thoughts and suspicions to himself and didn't say a word before I could escape up here to my room.
Okay, so I may have avoided the spotlight glare of my psychologist mother this evening but I couldn't escape the jumbled mess of my own confused and confusing thoughts, not even in the safety of my hideaway at the top of the house. Even my sketch pad and pencils, usually 100% guaranteed to take me far away from any sad or unhappy place in my head, couldn't stop my mind from trying to make sense of the Noah Richmond conundrum. Could it be that he's been asked by Michelle to pretend to take an interest in the new part-time help? Nah, she doesn't know me well enough to be aware just how close I am to being one of the saddos. Or maybe Noah is the sort of person who likes to pretend to be interested in someone and then, once they've been hooked, drop them like a lump of toxic dog shit. But that doesn't explain the knowledge of Renaissance artists or his enthusiasm for talking about them. No, if anything, given his reputation, that makes him into the vulnerable one.
Oh for fuck's sake, this is ridiculous, I'm just going round and round in circles. This growing obsession with Noah Richmond is in danger of tying me up in knots, and if there's one thing my mum is truly expert at, its homing in on teenagers and their emotional and psychological knots. And once she gets her teeth into a good old complicated tangle she doesn't let go until every little kink has been loosened, analysed and sorted'. Well, I'm not about to provide her with even the smallest hint of this teen's inner turmoil' so I need to get some sleep. But I also need to try to find out more about Noah. But it's too late and I'm too tired to work out the answer now. Time to blow a load before I go to sleep. Good night!
As an author, it's REALLY encouraging to know that there are people out there who are taking the time to read what's been written, and then bothering to send a response. So please do feel free to write to me at the email address given at the top of the chapter. I welcome all comments and guarantee to write back. PJ
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