Wilson Coffee Shop (Part 2)

Kylie Schwartz unzipped her sequined pencil pouch. She emptied the contents onto her desk. One black pen, two red pens, one green pen, four mechanical pencils, and two regular pencils. She looked around the classroom. Four boys and three girls, not including herself. She looked up at the clock on the wall. 7:49. Looking back down at her desk, Kylie thought about how she wanted to arrange her pens and pencils. She decided to line the pens up red, green, black, green and red on the left-hand side of her desk. On the right-hand side, she would place the two regular pencils outside of the four mechanical pencils. As Kylie straightened her writing things, she heard the classroom door open behind her. Jumping slightly in her seat, she turned around to see a man, in his late-thirties or early-forties, wearing a button-down shirt and carrying a coat and a briefcase. He walked up to the long table at the front of the room and set his belongings down.

“Good morning.” said the man as he looked around the room and gave a weak smile.

The students didn’t say anything. One of the girls coughed.

“Ok,” said the man as he opened his briefcase and pulled out a white binder. “I hope you all had a nice Winter Break?”

A couple of students nodded.

“Good.” the man said. He opened up the binder and then looked up at Kylie.

“As you may have noticed, we have a new student in our homeroom.”

The four boys and three girls turned around in their seats to look at Kylie. She looked down at her pens and pencils, holding her breath.

“Don’t be shy,” said the man quietly, “why don’t you stand up and introduce yourself?”

Holding onto her desk, Kylie stood up slowly. As she stood up, she bumped the desk and disrupted two of the pencils. She quickly fixed them as she felt the students and the teacher watching her.

“Umm…”

The classroom door opened again, and this time it startled Kylie even more. She watched the tardy girl stride past and plop down into the seat in front of her.

“Sorry I’m late, Mr. Wilson.” said the girl loudly as she crossed her legs and looked at her French-tipped fingernails.

Kylie looked up at the teacher, Mr. Wilson. He was rubbing his temples and looking down at his white binder.

“Megan, I told you if you were tardy one more time that I would send you to the principal’s office.” he said without looking up from his binder.

Kylie sat back down, grateful that the attention of the class was no longer on her.

“Yeah, well I figured since it’s a new semester that I’d get a fresh start.” said Megan, pulling her hair behind her shoulders.

The class was silent as they watched Mr. Wilson. He kept looking at the white binder, and started tapping his fingers on the table.

“Alright.” he finally said. “But next time, I’m sending you to see Principal Ferguson.”

Megan perked up in her seat and even though Kylie was looking at the back of her head, she could tell that she was smiling.

Kylie couldn’t look away from Megan. She had never seen hair so beautiful. It was so dark that it looked blue. Kylie wondered what the best name for her hair color would be. She decided on Black Velvet.

“Kylie?”

Blinking, Kylie looked up and realized Mr. Wilson and her classmates were staring at her. She looked ahead and saw that Megan was staring, too. Her brown eyes were tinged with specks of yellow, and her dark eyebrows were long and beautifully arched. Kylie noticed the slightest hint of pink in her otherwise pale cheeks, and wondered if the color was makeup or an effect of the cold January weather. Her lips looked soft, and Kylie wondered if she regularly applied lip balm.

“Kylie?” said Mr. Wilson again. She could hear a hint of annoyance in his voice.

Kylie stood up and willed herself to look away from Megan.

“My…my name is Kylie. Kylie Schwartz.” she said, feeling heat rising into her face. She knew that her cheeks were not beautifully pink like Megan’s. They were probably a blotchy red.

“And where did you come from?” said Mr. Wilson gently.

“I um…well I come from here, I guess. I just transferred is all. From Central.”

“Why?” said Megan, with her perfectly arched eyebrows furrowed and her delicate nose turned up.

Kylie felt her cheeks burning even more and imagined the yellow specks in Megan’s eyes were tiny, glowing fires.

Mr. Wilson cleared his throat awkwardly and held up his white binder.

“Let’s take attendance.” he said.

Kylie sat back down, keeping her eyes locked on her pens and pencils until she was sure that Megan had turned around. Once the burning in her cheeks had stopped, Kylie looked back up at Megan and her black velvet hair.