Black Mariah

The only thing in the world that could have mad e Mariah uncomfortable in an art room was sitting right next to her with a smirk on his face as he scratched his charcoals roughly against his paper. She wanted to catch a glimpse at what he was drawing but every time she tried to something happened to distract her. First the girl next to her spilled her pencils on the floor, so Mariah helped her pick them up. Then, Mrs. Little came by to explain the assignment.
,“ We’re going to be working on a new project starting tomorrow. So you came just in time. I'm going to require each student to create a collection of works with the same theme to it. You have to have at least 5 works but no more than 8 will be accepted. I’ll accept all styles of work be it realism, abstract, whatever, as long as you can string it altogether on one theme. There's some newsprint up there if you want to start sketching ideas,” she pointed to the front desk. Mariah got up and picked two sheets of newsprint up to bring back to her seat. She pulled out her own set of charcoals and went to work. She started with a girl’s face only. She hadn’t quite decided what to do with her hair or figure until she saw frilly lettering on the table underneath her paper. (An art room is known for letterings and doodles on the table obviously) It made her think of an antelope so she drew antelope horns on the girl. She thought the theme could be animals meeting real life so she went to work on another sketch. She began sketching another girl, only this time she was smoking, and out of the cigarette smoke were bees and hornets and other black and yellow insects. The third girl was holding her arms to her chest as if she were cradling a child, only it was filled with water and inside were gold fish looking up to her. The last two works would include a woman wearing butterfly wings and another girl blowing bubblegum, and inside the bubble were flamingoes. When she finished she realized her sketches were spread all across the table and she started puling them back towards her. When she gathered the five and started stacking them together jasper looked over.
,“ Those were pretty good,” he mumbled, then got up to put his work in a slot on the wall. This appeared to spark memory in Mrs. Little because before Mariah could say thanks to Jasper Mrs. Little hurried over to show her which slot was hers.
,“ This one is empty you can use it to hold your work and utensils. That way you don’t have to fold it or anything to keep it in a small folder or whatever,” When Mariah finally returned to her table she sat and looked quietly at jasper working on another sketch.
,“ My names Mariah,” she said sheepishly, then immediately felt stupid. She was announced to the class of course he knew her name. He sort of chuckled at this as if he too were thinking the same thing. Mariah looked down. ,“ How come you keep staring at me?” she asked. He chuckled again and replied,“ Last I checked I've been staring intently into my artwork,” by now Mariah was getting frustrated.
,“ You know what I mean. On my way here, at the airport,” she trailed off. She didn’t mean to come off so angry. She wanted to say she was sorry but she didn’t know how to, at least to a stranger and with so much on her mind. That’s when he looked up, and met her eyes with the same diamond ones as before.
,“ It’s okay,” he taunted, “I forgive you,” then with a small laugh he returned to his slot to deposit more sketches, or most likely to let Mariah calm down. He returned and leaned against the table, and though he was sitting he towered over Mariah. The florescent light seemed to have brightened up his eyes and features and she notices a sweet smile come across his beautiful face. “So where were we?” he asked quietly.
,“ I'm not sure,” said Mariah reluctantly. “I want to know why you seem to be everywhere I am, and why at the airport you seemed so alarmed by me.” She sat quietly watching his face get serious. He sat for a moment searching for an answer.
,“ I haven’t quite figured that out yet,” he admitted. Mariah was in awe. How could he not know why he felt a way? What was he, psychic!? HE laughed some then. “Much more than that Mariah,” he chuckled. Before she even considered his answer, she realized how beautiful it sounded when he used her name. Who was this guy? And why on earth did he have this affect on her. It was like all her loss and sorrow drowned out when he said her name. And as she kept thinking she realized that his response was to a thought, and that he was probably listening on her thoughts this instant too. She looked up and saw him smiling at her and she blushed uncontrollably. He laughed then the bell rang.
,“ Where to next, Pre-Calc? Damn that’s harsh,” he said “I’m not getting that till next year. Ahh the price of being smart,” Mariah laughed at this.
,“ You don’t seem too dull,” she said. “Nope, I’m just as smart, the difference between us is: I'm lazy,” he laughed. “You’re taking pre calculus and I'm taking a study period,”
,“ Sounds ALLOT nicer,” she admitted. And he walked her to her next class. “Thanks, I'm not sure I would have been able to find this one on my own,” she turned to him, “Aren’t you going to be late?” and he just laughed.
,“ Free period,” he reminded her, and then sent her to the world of unforgiving numbers and formulas. And somehow she managed through it while thinking of him.
Come lunch Mariah didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know anyone and hated waiting in line alone. And even if she could wait in line alone she had nowhere to sit. She walked in blindly and sort of glanced around the cafeteria for a familiar face. She caught eyes with one of the girls from Economics and started heading in that direction, but before she could make it a hand on her shoulder pulled her around and a set of diamonds cut through her again.
,“ Why didn’t you tell me you had this lunch?” He asked. Jasper was standing in front of her with a few of the boys with him. They turned and headed for the doors and sat out in the courtyard outside. Only one other group was sitting out there near the back. Mariah sat down next to Jasper in the middle of an argument between the two other boys.
,“ You cant tell mom she’ll go crazy!” shouted one. “Well duh! She felt something about her, and I'm sure it was for a reason. She needs to know!” shouted the other pointing to Mariah.
,“ Oh, should I leave?” asked Mariah a little offended. But it seemed like no one even heard her.
,“ This is Colton and Caleb, they’re twins, they’re a pain, and they're freshman ” explained Jasper. “What they're arguing about is you. And I have to agree with Colton on this one,” he said, “Mom should know that I'm hanging out with Mariah. And mom should meet her. And we should figure out why its such a big deal that she's here,” It was silent for a moment. Then the two boys nodded. “Does she know yet?” asked Caleb and Jasper gave him and angry expression, and it seemed like they were communicating somehow. Then jasper turned to Mariah.
, “How do you feel about dinner at our house tonight?” he asked politely while Colton and Caleb were making faces at each other. Mariah laughed, “If its anything like right now I’ll be glad. I’ll have to ask my aunt first but it should be okay. What did Caleb ask you earlier? If I knew? What am I supposed to know?” she asked.
, “Not yet” was all he said.
After lunch Jasper stood up and said,“ on to chorus shall we?” Mariah laughed. “You have my schedule down better than I do!” when he got her to the chorus room he entered with her and walked her to the instructor.
, “We have a new student Mr. Michaels,” Then made his way to the center of the room. Mr. Michaels sat at the piano and asked Mariah her name and voice part.
, “I usually sing soprano one,” she whispered awkwardly.
, “Not with as quiet of a voice like that, you don’t!” he shouted and began playing scales for her to sing. As She made her way up his eyebrows began to rise higher and higher in surprise as the room filled with her notes and the class silenced. When he stopped she thought she must have done something terribly wrong. It was too quiet and the only girl in her view had a look of disgust on her face. Mr. Michaels stood and laughed and spoke, “Class, it appears as though our newest student, Mariah, can teach our soprano ones here a good lesson. She's hit a high C beautifully on her first try, while some of you still struggle with Gs!” at that he pointed the very top end of the soprano section, right behind the girl who appeared to already hate her. When she got up there Jasper gave her a wink and turned back towards the piano. The girl next to her turned to her, “That was beautiful! The girl in front of you, her name is Jessica, and don’t you worry about her face. She's just jealous. Before you, she was the best soprano in here,”
Mariah blushed, then was handed a copy of the music. When they were singing she swore she could hear Jasper’s voice over all the others. It was smooth and deep, but graceful and mesmerizing. A few times it caught her off guard and she had to stop singing. It was easy to make up an excuse though, she was new and it was Latin. At the end of class she hurried out so she didn’t have to look the other choir members in the eye. She was still embarrassed about her mini audition.
, “Your voice is beautiful! You didn’t tell me you could sing!” he said to her.
, “You didn’t tell me you could either,” she protested trying to change the subject of her voice.
“Oh please, you didn’t even hear me,” he said. Mariah decided to leave out the fact that she could hear him plain and simple and that his voice was the most beautiful thing she had ever heard. “Thanks” he said smiling then turned the hall
God he is cute Mariah thought.
And I don’t know how he keeps reading my mind, but I don’t care.