Author's Note: Again, Thanks to Carol, even if I haven't used her characters yet, I am planning on it. Secondly, feedback is GREATLY appreciated at [email protected]
* * *
Sam took the keys out of his pockets and unlocked his apartment door. Inside Lara was packing up her suitcase. Sam just put his stuff down on the table and walked to the doorway between the kitchen and living room.
"Just in case you are wondering Sam Coulson, I am checking into a hotel until my flight on Monday. Your behavior was far too atrocious for me to handle."
Sam was reeling now. How dare she? His behavior?!? She really was a piece of work. "Wait a minute. MY behavior!? At the idea that you didn't get one joke someone you just met had made, you followed them and attacked their intelligence! MY BEHAVIOUR!? You really are something else, Lara. Frankly I am really ashamed of you."
"Oh boo-hoo Sam. I don't give a shit if you are ashamed of me. I'm ashamed that I wasted so much time on some nobody who would rather live in the past than take the leap and move to New York to be with his girlfriend of 5 years. 5 YEARS, SAM!!! And were living hundreds of miles apart. You're hanging on to this life that really is no life at all. And look around! You hang on to these hockey trophies for what? You're a sentimental loser who can't get his priorities straight. I'm going to go out there to get me a REAL MAN!!"
Sam couldn't believe his ears. She had just insulted him directly to his face numerous times. But thinking about Josie and her reaction to being harassed by Lara, he answered, "Fine then. It's agreed. We are through. Now get the hell out."
And with that he headed to the kitchen to get something to eat. He settled on a can of Sprite, which he drank while standing in the doorway again. He looked at Lara, who just stared at him in disbelief. She couldn't think of what to say.
"Oh my God, Sam. Are you dumping me because I hurt your precious student?"
"No Lara. You attacking Josie was just the end of a long line of events that pissed me off. I let it go before because I figured I owed you that much but you crossed the line tonight. I've been thinking about it all night and I just can't figure out why in the world you felt the need to do it. Josie was nothing but nice to you for the brief amount of time you spent together. The second you showed off your firm's prestige and she made a joke out of it, you flipped your lid. This isn't the first time either, I've seen you do it before but because it was people you knew, I figured it was none of my business and I stayed out of it. But now you're expanding your territory and are harassing my students."
"Oh! I get it. You're in love with her! With that Josie girl! AREN'T YOU? Just admit it, Sam."
"No Lara, I am not in love with my student. But the problem is, I am not in love with you either."
Lara was so insulted that she just got up and left. Sam could tell that he had hurt her feelings but he didn't care. He was having such a horrible evening and he just wanted it to end. He was happy that he had wrapped things up with Lara though. He was just afraid that she would assume that it was all said in the heat of the moment. He knew that he meant it though, so if she were to bring it up again, he would have to just stick to his guns. Sam went into his room and changed into his T-shirt and shorts. He got his toothbrush out of his bathroom cabinet and looked at himself in the mirror. He knew what that the relief of having freed himself of Lara was completely transparent because even he could see it written all over his face. Then he went to bed.
After a while he heard a faint knocking on his door and was surprised to have Lara back so soon. Sam got up and answered the door. To his surprise he found Josie standing in his doorway with an eerie amount of confidence. 'Very unlike her,' he thought. She walked into his apartment without saying anything. She went and sat on the couch just staring around. Sam was totally shocked. It was the middle of the night and Josie was in his apartment.
"Uh...Hey Josie.....What's up?"
"Well actually Mr. Coulson, I was wondering if I could talk to you about something."
"Now?"
Sam was completely confused. She managed to find out where he lives and showed up on the middle of the night. Not being able to avoid it, he checked her out. She was wearing form-fitting blue jeans and a little black tank top. He couldn't help but feel attracted to her even though he knew it was completely wrong. Josie then got up from the couch and stood directly in front of Sam.
"You're checking me out, aren't you?"
"No, no, no. No I'm not, Josie. I swear."
"Don't worry Sam, you don't have to try and deny it."
Oh my God. She called him by his first name. Sam started to take a step back to help him control himself in this irresistible situation.
"Well-" he started.
"So I was just wondering, did you work things out with your girlfriend?"
"Actually, I broke up with her."
She took a step closer. "That's good...You want to kiss me, don't you Sam�"
Sam closed his eyes to avoid looking at her beautiful face. He wondered if he was just having some wonderful hallucination. "Yes-" He managed to blurt out.
"Well then why don't you, Sam?"
Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Was all he could think.
"Because of our predicament Josie, your my student. I'm your teach-" She interrupted him by putting her finger to his lips.
"Ssshhhh. Don't think like that. We aren't in the school halls, or your classroom. There are no teachers or other students here. It's just you and me. No one else."
"That's true..."
"Well then, what are you waiting for?"
"Absolutely nothing." And with that he swept her up in his arms and kissed her. Holding her as tight as possible. They kissed for quite some time just standing there in the living room. Eventually they broke apart and Sam kept his eyes closed, trying to fully register the events that had just occurred. He then opened his eyes to find Lara's haggard face staring back at him menacingly. He jolted backwards�waking from the shock.
Very upset that Josie had been nothing but a dream, a new revelation hit him: He was in deep trouble. He was attracted to a student. A STUDENT! A woman who was eight years younger than him. Panicking from what he had just revealed to himself to be true, he decided to get up for a while. He grabbed another Sprite and sat down in his favorite chair in front of the TV. Sam had just turned on to a repeat of a golf tournament when the phone rang. He looked down at his watch to find that it was 4 in the morning. Who could be calling him now? As he walked over to the phone he prayed it wasn't Lara because he wasn't ready to talk to her yet.
He answered the phone groggily. "Hello?"
"Oh my God, Sam; I did it again didn't I? I am so sorry.What time is it exactly there?"
"4 am."
"Oh darn. You know what I'll do? I'll buy a clock, keep it here by the phone and have it set to your time. That way I'll never give you these middle of the night phone calls anymore."
"Don't worry about it Mom, I was up anyway."
Gail Coulson was concerned. "What is my eldest son doing up at 4 am, I taught you better than that Sam." She said jokingly.
"First of all, I was in bed earlier but I had a great / horrible dream that I can't shake from my mind so I'm up now. Secondly, I broke up with Lara tonight."
"Oh that's GREAT NEWS!! No offense, Sam; I just never liked her. What made you finally do it?"
"Well we were at this club tonight and we ran into my new transfer student and we had a great conversation until Lara got back from the bathroom and ruined it all. She leeched on to my arm like a clingy well-a clingy girlfriend and then she announced how I was going to move to New York, which, I realize now, I never had any intention of doing. Anyway, she then had to brag, like she does to everyone about how her firm has season tickets to the Met and Josie made this wonderful joke! She went 'Well I love basball!' (Sam could hear his mother laughing on the line.) But then Lara attacked her saying things like 'I'll bet you don't even know what the Met is!' Luckily, Josie knew and totally showed her up-in an amazing way. I was so pissed off at Lara that I broke up with her."
Gail could sense that there was more going on here than Sam was letting on. She decided to go with her gut instinct and ask: "So who's this Josie girl? She new?"
"Yes, she's this wonderful new student from Scranton! She's so unbelievably intelligent! All the faculty love her and don't have enough good things to say about her."
"What about you?"
"Oh I love her, too." The second he said the words, he put his hand to his mouth in disbelief at how easily the words came to him.
"I knew it! From the second you told me that you were having this mini conversation of yours!" She was laughing because she loved to be right.
"Oh God mom, I'm disgusting. I'm in love with a student. My student no less. Why? Why is this happening to me? I have never, ever been attracted to a student before. Never, and now look at me. I'm so embarrassed at how horrible I am."
"Sam, oh honey. Don't worry; you're not disgusting. You're a great man and Josie would be lucky to have you. And the whole age thing, well, don't worry about it. 8 years is barely anything these days. I know lots of people with age differences much larger than that. You remember that girl Janice who used to live around the corner from us when you were growing up? Well I just found out that she just married a 46-year-old man. That's a 21-year difference. So if she can marry a man 21 years older, you can certainly lust over a woman 8 years younger."
"MOM!!!!!!!!!!"
"Ha ha ha. You know I'm just playing with you, honey. But I assume she is the reason you aren't sleeping?"
"Well, yes. But not for.....those...kinds of reasons." He said scrunching up his face in embarrassment. "I may be in my mid-20's but I still don't want to hear about it."
"All right.All right, I'm sorry. No more sex jokes. But honestly Sam�tell me about her. It'll be refreshing to hear about a real woman in your life instead of Lara who's gone now. Hooray for that."
Sam was surprised that all the Lara bashing didn't really bother him. He still needed to sort out his feelings for that but he did know that they were through.
"Okay, fair enough..... Her name is Josie Geller and she switched into my class a little over a month ago. She came into my senior lit class wearing an outfit that really made her stand out from the crowd. But anyways, I didn't really think twice about it, you know? I was just like 'ok, another student.' But then, I was saying how As You Like It is a perfect example of a pastoral comedy and then I asked what it meant. One of my students said, 'Oh yeah, that's what they do to milk!'"
"Oh my God, Sam, you actually have people that stupid in your classes?"
"They get worse, actually, but my point is that Josie raised her hand and said a complete, accurate definition plus the origin of the word. I was totally blown away. She said things that even I didn't know. And then I totally embarrassed myself by asking 'Are you sure you're 17?'"
"Oh Sam, you didn't..."
"Oh I did. She seemed a little uncomfortable with the question though..."
"Well of course she did Sam. It was a peculiar question. Well what else?"
"I talked to some of the other teachers and she's brilliant in all of her other subjects, too. She's unbelievably nice, which would be a nice change of pace from Lara. Oh God Mom, listen to me, I'm talking as if we have a future."
"Don't give up hope, son. Either everything will work out and you'll be unbelievably happy or things won't work out and you'll bounce back WAIT!! Let me rephrase! You'll bounce forward. Never back. Never back to....her. No. You're too good for her."
"Thanks Mom, I really appreciate this. I should probably go sleep now. It's verging on 4:30 now. I do have work tomorrow."
"All right Sam, happy dreams. Just not too happy okay?" she said, laughing the whole time.
"MOM!!!!!!!We've been over this."
"Ha ha ha ha ha. Goodnight, hon. We're still on for my visit next week, right?"
"Absolutely. I'll see you then."
Sam felt much better about his situation after his conversation with his mom. She seemed to have that effect on him. It was probably the "mother touch". Sam went back to bed to what he was later grateful to be untroubled sleep.
* * *
Josie went back to her apartment and felt good about herself. She had managed to stand up for herself perfectly. It was just strong enough to get Lara to back and weak enough so that she kept it dignified. At that point other memories from the evening came back to her.
"I went there alone. I was there for 20 minutes. Got yelled at by 2 women. Never sat down anywhere. Got pitied by the gorgeous Mr. Coulson and everyone at the Sun-Times staff saw it all. Josie then felt miserable. She knew that she had no experience with men but she decided she could get through life completely content on the condition that people accepted that she was content. The one thing she hated most in the world is pity. Giving it was pointless. People only pity when they are too ignorant to be helpful. Getting it had no purpose either. It just makes the person on the receiving end feel worse about their situation. Josie then went straight to bed falling asleep almost immediately.
* * *
The next morning Josie woke up to panic realizing her alarm clock had failed to do its duty and she was running far behind. She through on a new summer dress she had bought on the weekend that was black with yellow daisies on it. Surprisingly she managed to make it to school on time. Remembering what Gus had said about being friends with the popular people so as she passed them she said: "Hi Guy. Guys. Guy's guys."
"Hi Loser!"
"Loser!"
"LOSER!! Ha ha ha!"
Josie felt really uneasy and on edge now. Why were they tormenting her so much more now? As she walked down the hall everyone turned and laughed. At this point Josie ran down the halls to the bathroom. George in the van spotted the mishap much earlier than she did. Josie had accidentally fallen asleep on her hand where she had the stamp "Delloser" from the club the night before. The stamp had worn off onto her forehead where anyone could clearly read "Loser."
Josie started to panic, took a paper towel and started rubbing it frantically. George didn't quite understand why she was reacting so heavily to a slight mishap. George wasn't quite prepared to see the vomit which Josie inevitably filmed a few seconds later.
Josie then sat against the bathroom stall reminiscing about her own terrible high school experiences. She remembered how she totally loved Billy Prince who to her happy surprise asked her to prom. She remembered how the night of the prom he called her and told her to wait for him on her porch. She remembered seeing him drive up. She remembered being greeted by a few eggs that Billy and Cindy Grayhorn, his actual date, threw at her face and dress. She remembered crying harder than she had ever before and she remembered hiding from her mother who came outside to check what the commotion was.
Josie then proceeded to run through the halls of South Glen at full speed, crying at the same time. But unfortunately, she turned the corner to the front door, she ran into the office door, which knocked her right out.
A few seconds later she awoke to the sound of her brother's voice, "Josie? Josie! Are you okay?"
"Rob? What are you doing here?"
"I just registered. Check it out! Manufactured at the Tiki Post!" He flashed her his phony school ID.
"Can you do that?" Josie was totally confused. Why was Rob signing up for high school? He wasn't a reporter. And he graduated just as she did, many years ago. "I just did. Josie, this is it. It's game time. I thought it was over but not yet. This is the 9th inning."
"But you're 23 years old!"
"Yeah with the reading comprehension of a 15 year old. Anyways I'm popular and you wanna be popular. I can recognize a cry for help when I see one."
"Hear one."
"Whatever. You want me to help you or not?"
"Yeah I guess."