Between my snack tray and bookbag, a sheet of paper laid face-down on a table, and for a while, I stared at it. Perhaps I’d misread it. Perhaps my name wasn’t printed on it. I lifted the sheet, peeked at its underside, and slapped it atop the table.
I rubbed my temples.
Compared to any other high school in the state, Westwood’s student-body size wasn’t anything to sneeze at. So, to believe Westwood could’ve enrolled a second Heather Sue McCormick wasn’t illogical, right?
Laughing and chatting, students poured through a doorway and into snack lines and sat at tables, and among them, Larisa, who’d soon make a b-line toward me at our table. Okay Heather: be cool. No need to drag a friend into this.
Larisa arrived, and in a seat opposite mine, sat, and plopped her bookbag atop the table. She snatched the sheet, flipped it over, and—without reading it—said, “Heather, yes: next semester, you’re enrolled in zero-period swim class.”
‘Zero-period’. The term rung in my ears. ‘Zero-period.’
Each year, students scheduled classes that occurred during normal school hours, period one through seven, but considered an option to schedule an additional class before first period, ‘zero-period’. During zero-period, a student arrived at school an hour earlier than the rest of the school and took a class that satisfied a required course.
Larisa sat. “So, no use sulking.”
I gasped. “How did you know?”
“That you have zero-period or that you were sulking?” She shook her head, reached in her bag, and laid a piece of paper beside mine. “Because, months ago, we both enrolled in zero-period.”
I did a doubletake. “We did?! So, we’re enrolled in zero-period together??”
“Well, not exactly.”
“Why?” I picked-up her sheet. “Wait, your schedule says you’d took zero-period fall semester, first-half.” I peered at her. “Why would it say you already took it?”
She played with her fingers. “Because I sort-of already have.”
I flipped my palms upward. “What?? How have you ‘sort-of’ already taken it??”
“Whoa, Ms. McCormick, someone needs to recall that, before fall semester started, I tried to persuade her to take it at the top of the school year while it was still warm outside, but she, dead-set on making a first-week-of-school impression, didn’t want a swim class to mess-up her new hair-do.”
I slumped in my chair, pressed hands to my face.
“So, someone remembered.” She shook her head. “You know: for so long, it’s often been you who’d say this to me: ‘We both knew this day would come!’ Ever since I’d asked were you certain you were okay with taking zero-period swimming spring first-half, and you’d said ‘yeah…sure’, but hadn’t really considered the question and were too focused on a first week impression.”
I shook my head. “Likely because when I’d heard ‘spring’, January/February weather hadn’t dawned on me.”
“Sure, our swimming classes are at our indoor pool, but you and I walk to school; and, first thing in the morning, who wants to trek through snow and frigid air and then jump into a school pool which may, or may not, be heated.”
I slapped my forehead. “Stupid, stupid…”
“Oh, come now–don’t beat yourself up.”
I peered at her.
“No really, don’t beat yourself up–you’re wearing my hairclip, and at some point, I’ll need that back intact.”
I sighed. “All jokes aside: what am I going to do?”
“What do you mean, ‘What are you going to do?’ You’re going to attend a swim class you’d signed-up for.”
I folded my arms. “But I don’t want to.”
Larisa gazed upward, rubbed her chin. “For times like these, what’s that word would you’d lay on me?”
“‘Duty…’”
“‘Duty,’ that’s right! Heather Sue, it’s your duty to follow through with your schedule as printed.”
I sat upright. “Speaking of duty: why didn’t you do your duty as my friend?”
“What?”
“Why didn’t you drag me out the beauty salon and with you into fall first-half zero-period?”
“Because you wouldn’t listen to a word I’d said, and anyways, how many times would you able to make a sophomore-year first impression?”
I peered at her and then sighed. “You’re right, it’s my own fault. I apologize.”
“No apology necessary, and chin up: it’s not like swim class is a semester long. Yes, it’s a fifteen-week physical education course, but the swimming portion is only the first six weeks.”
My eyes widened. “Ah, yeah!” I squeezed her hand. “Larisa, you’re the best!”
She shrugged. “Not certain why: you’ll be in the school pool and I’ll be in bed.”
I chuckled. “Rub it in much?”