Miss Naughtie Two-Shoes and the Rebel

Chapter 3

"OMG! Just look at her face."

"I know right. So gross. I think I'm not eating pizza for a while."

"Does she ever wash her face? Look, a good cleanser is all she need."

Andy hears the barrage of nasty words as she deposits her leather jacket in her locker. Silently fuming, she yanks her math book inside her backpack.

The locker door is blocking her view, and she can only see the girls from the waist down. Three sets of wedge shoes. Different designs and colors, but all of the same kind. Talk about embracing your uniqueness, she mutters under her breath.

The Hellcat Trinity, she decides to call them. Not only do the trio puts a united front to spread hostility, they choose to do so in matching shoes.

"Those zits are begging to be picked."

"Eww, that's disgusting. I'd rather kill myself than be seen in public with that face."

"That's just mean."

And then laughter. This time, they don't even try to keep their voices down.

Gritting her teeth, she slams the metal door shut, startling the other students around, including the meanies just a couple of yards from her. With clenched fists at her sides, she counts in her head and takes a deep breath.

Walk away, her mind tells her. The urge to swing her bag at them is strong. But her self-restraint is stronger. She doesn't need that kind of trouble right now. Not when everything is all new to her. New territory. New challenges. She needs to blend in. Not stand out. Not make unnecessary enemies. It's not her fight. She slowly backs away and dashes to the opposite direction, away from Hellcat Trinity.

"What the hell's wrong with her?" The distinctly shrill voice belongs to a Hellcat.

She thinks about the girl, the object of their hate and ridicule. What battles does she have to endure everyday? To be at the receiving end of such despicable behavior. She's scarred not just physically. With all the taunting, she wonders the kind of psychological damage it can wreak on her during this crucial stage where fitting in is the norm. And what's truly revolting is the way one Hellcat just casually planted the dangerous idea-kill one's self. Just like that. Without an ounce of remorse or regard to the thought that maybe the thing has crossed the girl's mind. And what would it take for someone who's pushed to the edge to resort to that? A bad day? A cruel joke?

The height of ignorance, she screams inwardly. If you're stupid, you're just stupid. No amount of education can make up for that. A simple kindness can make a world of change. But sometimes, looking past a person's biggest source of insecurity or unworthiness can actually save a life.

If you don't stand up for yourself, who will? She remembers her uncle saying to her when she came home one afternoon with a graze on her knee. A neighbor's kid had pushed her off her bike. When school break came, her uncle had enrolled her in a taekwondo class.

If only that girl was brave enough to face her tormentors and speak up for herself, she wouldn't have to suffer the burden of guilt.

The surest way for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. Uncle Chris told her to remember that, too. And she acted exactly in the favor of the devil incarnates. Had Uncle Chris known, she just might get a good telling-off. And she can imagine herself talking back to him, Now, I'm the bad guy?

She's so absorbed in her inner turmoil that she didn't notice the guy who is standing along a beeline to her direction.

The guy, tall and attractive, has a laid-back way about him. Lean, but just about the right kind, his Chambray shirt is snug around his shoulders and arms and hangs loosely around his midsection and narrow waist. Overgrown hair skims the skin of his prominent cheekbones. His thick, almost straight brows are drawn together, and his deep-set eyes squint with a subtle hint of amusement. He keeps his lips pressed in a line; the bottom was plump and moist with a slight indentation in the middle. It seems by how the corners quirk up and his dimples deepen, that his lips are about to break into a wide smile, he's just purposely delaying it.

Crossing his arms and planting his feet firmly on the tiled floor, he braces himself for the inevitable, like he has seen the future, but won't move a muscle to change its course.

With an expression on her face that he can't quite read because her head is bowed slightly forward, paying attention mostly to the floor, future storms the hallway like she's on her way to a fight. With every long stride, the nearer and nearer she gets. She's so close now that he catches a whiff of her scent. Any moment now. And then, BAM!

Andy feels like she hit a wall that the impact makes her move a couple of steps backward. By reflex, she transfers her weight on the heels of her foot while keeping her knee in front of her slightly bent to regain her balance. Is it her stance though that prevented her from falling down? Or is it the pair of hands that are clutching her arms in a vise-like grip, stabilizing her?

"I'm sorry," she manages to say, still shaken. "I wasn't looking where I was going." Lowering her eyelids, she tosses her head sideways and glances obliquely at his arm to intimate that he can let go of her already.

He takes his hands off her, startled like he is scorched by the fire of her skin, but he didn't immediately move out of her way. The smell of her hair, a wonderful concoction of woody, citrusy and flowery, is just too hard to resist. He is tempted to demand the brand of her shampoo, but instead he asks, "Where were you going?"

"Room 203," she answers almost instantaneously, averting her gaze in embarrassment. Because he's a full head taller than her, she doesn't see his smiling face and glinting eyes. And she dare not look up at him.

"You missed 203. Third door behind you." He points out matter-of-factly.

"Oh! Thanks. And again, I'm so sorry," she mumbles. But just as she is about to turn around, she takes a glimpse of him from the corner of her eyes. And she almost catches her breath when she realizes how ridiculously good-looking he is. Well, it was not a vivid picture of him but she's decidedly sure that the man she'd bumped into is the product of an extremely lucky genetic inheritance. "

Oh, God. I'm talking Gregor Mendel. She whirls, straightens her body and steadies her gait as she walks toward her room. In case Handsome Dude is still looking.

Glancing up, a white on black sign reads 203. She walks into the classroom and scans the crooked rows of arm desks that are slightly worn from years of abuse.

The walls are peppered with all sorts of diagrams and posters. Two wide panels of whiteboard are flanked by chalkboards that can either layer or slide along a track so that there is a lot of space for the lecturer to write on. The teacher's table can be found on the far-end of the room on a wooden platform that goes wall to wall.

She instantly identifies the girl from the wild disarray of students from the color of her oversized shirt: black with a splash of rainbow on the chest. Before she left her locker earlier, she took a quick glance at her.

When the girl lifts her head, she catches her staring and their eyes connect for a few seconds. The girl tucks her chin and goes back to reading. Andy picks the seat beside her.

Carefully, she settles on the chair and pretends to busy herself. Just then, the teacher, a squat middle-aged man with a bald patch on the crown of his head, enters the room and is welcomed by the scraping noise of the chairs against the floor as students arrange their seats and the rows are finally straightened up.

For the first time, there is silence in the room and everyone's attention shifts toward the commanding presence of the teacher as he says his morning greeting in a voice that is so deep and rich and full of authority that it could have belonged to a high-ranking military official who is also necessarily a very tall one.

Usman Ayson. He scrawls on the board in block letters of uniform height. Mr. Ayson starts the roll call and studies each student as their name is called, as if memorizing the face with the name.

The lecture goes on smoothly without anyone making a fuss. It looks like, in a manner of speaking, Mr. Ayson's booming voice holds the whole class captive the whole time. That anytime anyone breaks the rule, he might get ordered to perform twenty push-ups. Before the class ends, the boards are filled with neatly written text and perfectly drawn symbols and diagrams - a piece of art in itself. Andy, who has a love-hate relationship with Math, chooses to only love the subject from now on.

The rest of her classes turns out uneventful, as she listens with undivided attention and faithfully takes down notes. She's starving by the end of last period and heads toward the cafeteria.

Her mouth waters and her stomach growls at the smell of food that wafts in the air. Unlike in high school where all hell breaks loose as soon as the clock says recess time, there is order in the clean and spacious dinner hall. Right away she gets in queue in front of the food counter, filling her tray with a complete meal plus extra servings of rice and viand. She will need the calories for heavy work later.

The long tables are quickly filling up with eager diners. At the farthest end corner, she notices a lone student in an almost empty table. After realizing who she is, she walks toward her without sparing a thought.

"Do you mind?" Pointing to an empty chair across from her, she asks and promptly occupies the seat before she can object. The girl shrugs, in a like-I-have-a-choice manner.

"I'm Andy." Curling her lips in her sweetest smile, she offers her hand, looking directly into the girl's eyes as soon as she's seated.

"Nikki," she answers reluctantly and shakes just the tip of her fingers, like it's the rim of a toilet bowl. Propped on her elbow, her face stretches grotesquely as she rests one cheek on her palm. She is stooped over and playing with her food around her plate. To be honest, she looks funny but Andy is in no mood for laughing, either. Knowing what she went through this morning or what she has to go through each day, she can't blame her for looking so despondent. And hi-jacking her physical space like this only makes her like an interloper in her personal issues. But it's all part of the plan. Establish contact first.

Act natural, Andy. And naturally enough, she sweeps clean her tray in one go.

Slack-jawed, Nikki can't help but stare at her the whole time she voraciously devours her food.

"I know what you're thinking and you're right. I'm a glutton," Andi announces when she sees Nikki gawking at her. She flashes her a toothy smile.

When Nikki notices a bit of green stuff stuck between Andy's teeth, she points out, "You've got somethin' in your teeth."

Andy fishes out a tiny folding mirror from the outside pocket of her bag. "Oh!" Turning her body sideways, she tries to remove the errant food particle with her tongue, pushing saliva between her teeth to dislodge it. Tstststs. When it's finally gone, she guzzles the rest of her pineapple juice.

"Are you going to eat that?" asks Andy when she notices a slice of untouched custard pie on Nikki's tray. She's being brave here as she feels really full at this moment.

Nikki gives her a look of total disbelief but she pushes her tray slightly forward. "Suit yourself."

"Thanks," Andi says, all smiles. "We're classmates, you know." She carves small bites of the treat with her fork and chews leisurely. Uncharacteristically enough to gain Nikki's scrutiny.

"Yeah, I know." Nikki removes her hand from her chin and massages her cheek for a while, as if to put the muscles into place. Tucking her hair in her ears, she stirs in her seat and faces her directly.

Andy gets a good look of Nikki's pimple-riddled face and the pockmarks of healed acne. But what really draws her attention is Nikki's pair of chocolate brown eyes. Boy, they're smoldering. Long, almond shape and severely slanted toward her temple, the effect is akin to when someone's hair is pulled in a very tight ponytail high in the back of her head. "You have beautiful eyes, did you know that?" For a moment, Andy is distracted by her narrow, symmetrically full rosebud lips with a peaked cupid's bow, which is striking in its own right. But her gaze immediately returns to her upturned eyes, which makes her thinks that even in old age, she might look just as young.

"Well, I guess." Nikki fidgets, painfully aware of Andy boring her eyes into her. She has never been complimented by a man before. But coming from another woman, it's something else. Whereas she imagines how flattery - when paid by a man - can make someone blush the way movies and books describe it, it feels empowering when it comes from another woman. It entails a string of feel-good emotions, just like the ones she's having right now. If she was to trust her gut-feel, Andy seems genuine.

Also, she thinks Andy has tried hard enough as she looks like she's just about to gag if she took another bite of pie. For whatever intentions Andy might have, Nikki feels that she can let her guard down just this once.

"You don't have to finish that," Nikki suggests, nodding at the half-eaten pie on her plate.

Releasing a long sigh of relief, Andi agrees, "Yeah, I think I'm full."

Nikki chuckles and she's quite surprised at herself. "Why do you do that?"

Andy is just as surprised, but hides it well. "It looked tempting for a sec-." Andy didn't get to finish her sentence as she belches. Scrunching her nose, she gets a sniff of her burp, odd from the mixture of all the food in her stomach. "Sorry." She fans the front of her nose with her hand, as if to clear the air of any lingering smell.

They burst out laughing.

"You know Devon Aoki?" Nikki retrieves a large book from her canvas hobo bag. "Here." She opens it and shows Andi a close-up photo of a woman inserted inside a plastic slip at the back of the front cover.

"Your sister?" Andy asks innocently.

"No, silly!" Nikki throws her head back, laughing. "She's a supermodel and an actress."

"No, way." Andy eyes her dubiously. When Nikki doesn't bat an eyelash, she examines the picture again. "Gosh, you look so much like her you could pass up as twins. She's so beautiful." Turning to Nikki, she adds, "And technically, so are you." And then she notices the fashion design sketch on the first page. She becomes completely quiet as she slides her gaze toward the drawing. The figure of a woman is exaggeratedly long and the glittery, crimson gown has a voluminous skirt. "It sparkles. The paper literally sparkles!" Completely enthralled, she turns the pages one by one and stoops over further so that her face is only a ruler away from the drawings - like inspecting jewelry or historical artifacts sealed in a glass box.

Andi glides a finger along the beautiful silhouettes of Nikki's watercolor sketches. She doesn't know much about fashion, but she is beyond fascinated. "You drew these?" She gushes then continues to flip back and forth through the pages like she can't decide where to look first. "These are topnotch. Oh, my God, you are super talented. No wonder, your cat-eye wing is so spot-on," referring to her flicked eyeliner. "You're a true artist. Really, these are high-fashion. Is that what you call it? High-fashion?" She blabbers on.

The whole time Andy was viewing her illustrations, Nikki was grinning like an i***t. Her spontaneous reactions, switching back and forth between admiration and fascination, made her heart swell with pride.

Andy almost misses the uncolored sketch at the last page. Squinting her eyes, she studies it. And then her eyes widen and her body stiffens. Putting her hands over her heart, Andy announces, "Ok, I'm getting major deja vu here."

"What do you mean?"

"I dreamed about this dress. Hurry cover it and I'll describe it. You'll know I'm not kidding you." Andi darts Nikki a wide-eyed look. When Nikki doesn't budge, she coaxes her, "C'mon, I dreamed about it just last night."

Nikki yields and takes the book. She doesn't cover it with her hand, but she makes sure it's hidden from Andy.

"Ok, shoot."

Andy clears her throat. "You know I looked at it only briefly. So you can't say, I'm cheating." Nikki doesn't say a word but acknowledges it with a nod. And then, she begins, "It's off-shoulder with a thin band that continues toward the sleeves. It dips slightly to the middle, there's a thin nude-colored gauze," she pauses as she finds the right word, "or a see-through film to close the gap. Like if you put it on, you're like showing some skin but in reality, you're not." Nikki gets it, she doesn't have to explain. "There's groups of beads and sequins here," she describes while pointing, using her own body for demonstration, "here and here. They resemble a floral pattern. It's cinched at the waist by a thin belt of twisted sequins and beads. The flower appliques with more beads are generous around the hips and tapers by mid-thigh. And then layers of chiffon. I know yours doesn't have color yet, but in my dream, its - "

"Midnight blue." They said in unison. They stared at each other in utter shock: eyes the size of saucers and jaws dropped open.

When they have recovered from their collective astonishment, Andy asks, "How did you know the color?" She still shivers at the extreme coincidence. Or should she say destiny.

"Of course, I knew. My mom and I sewed it."

Andy mouths an O, still in disbelief. "Does this mean anything to you? Honestly, I think it's a sign."

"A sign of what?" Nikki asks tentatively.

"I think we're gonna be very good friends."

"You think?"

"Uh huh."

"Then, I would very much like to show you this cocktail dress in person."

"You would?" Andy becomes misty-eyed. "You know what, I'd be very much honored to see this dress. And I'd also love to tell you everything about this silly dream. Wait till you hear the rest of it, it's hilarious. But let's save it for another day. I hate to go," and then adds dramatically, "but this isn't goodbye." She gives Nikki a bear hug. "I gotta go. See you tomorrow."

Nikki is taken aback by the spontaneous physical display of affection. Andy's body is warm, but her personality is warmer. She thinks that she might just survive college after all.