How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight. . .
. . . when setting you free and letting you fly. I love you when in the sky of another you want to exist and...
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III. By First Impression
"THEY SNIGGERED! CAN you believe it?"—Dee unenthusiastically nibbled on her red velvet cookie—"they’re a drove of squirts.”
I leaned inwards, fully agreeing. We were sitting on the brick benches in front of the senior's building. I would rather go to another building, but Dee’s legs were shaking so much after queueing for what she said was forever that we just had to rest somewhere closer. The school’s bakery’s the busiest on Friday afternoons, so it was no surprise I actually found her standing at the very end of the line.
Dee went in five turns before me and just like mine, her interview lasted less than two minutes. She had answered that she was a reader. But then the ignoramus asked what her favourite book was. When she answered ‘all of Middleton’s plays,’ one of them asked who Middleton was. She told them. Then the interviewers gave a suppressed laugh.
“They think it’s scandalous to like twisted things.” I took a bite of my peanut butter-filled sandwich and crossed my legs. “Wait, what? Was that why you got rejected? Because you said your favourite is Middleton’s plays?” My precious bite almost jumped out of my mouth with my rushed question.
Dee heaved in exasperation. “That’s why I’m telling you they’re a drove of squirts!” She picked up another cookie from the carton container. “But no, that’s not really the whole reason. They asked if I had a specific journalistic writing I wanted to do. I said I wanted to write short stories and flash fiction for the Literature section. But the girl wearing red glasses said that for that section, they were looking for someone who writes poems.” Dee turned her body to me. “But they’re still a drove of squirts. Save the girl with red glasses.”
“Don’t you remember the boy interviewer?” I asked. “We used to think he was cute.”
“Cute what?!” Dee stood, her face grim and white—the same face she had every time a schoolmate asks her what Paris was like. “That haughty squirt? Cute? Never!”
“But we really did once think that.”
“No. I refuse to etch that in my memory.” She put a broken piece of cookie in her mouth and sat. “And yours? What happened?”
“Because I said I’m not really a reader.”
She nodded. “But let me tell you, you are a reader.”
“I don't like that term. A student reading her textbooks and notes is also reade—”
She pushed the last bite of the red velvet cookie into my mouth and took the container apart. She pressed it flat between her palms and strode to the nearest recycling bin to toss it. “We better get going before the market shop closes,” she said as she walked back to my direction.
Both Dee and I liked going to the market shop. It was located next to the Shakespeare Theatre that performed plays for a week once every month—excluding June and July. We liked passing and looking at the open theatre. Since watching our first Shakespeare play in first grade, we had been wanting to work in the theatre, but for years now there had been no available roles, whether it be paid or volunteer work, performer or service roles.
