Open Mouth Insert Foot.

          “You doin’ good today?” He asked my Mom as he began scanning and bagging our stuff. Mom smiled as she got her checkbook out. She always liked it when Jonathan was at the register. He was fast.           
         “I’m doing well today,” she replied. “How about you?” She’s always been good at striking up conversations with people in Wal-Mart…or anywhere else for that matter.           
         “Eh, pretty good. Pretty good. How about you, Carolyn? You having a good day?”           
         I looked up at him. He was a good foot taller than me. Then he smiled at me. A full out, eye crinkling bad-day-melting smile. I tried to think of something cute and witty to say.           
         “Y-yeah. Good doin’…uh, I mean doin’ good.” Shoot! Obviously I haven’t inherited my mother’s ability to talk to people. I lifted my hand to run it through my wavy, shoulder length brown hair, only to manage hitting my elbow on the credit card machine in the process. “Ow!” I exclaimed. “I’m such a klutz,” I muttered to myself, rubbing my elbow and wishing we could just leave so that I didn’t embarrass myself anymore than I already had.           
         Jonathan laughed an, his eyes crinkling again. He had a nice full laugh. He shrugged, all the while still scanning and bagging our stuff. Since it was the middle of December we had a little more—okay, a lot more—than usual. He really is good at that. I can barely walk and talk at the same time without causing myself bodily harm. He can talk and scan canned peas.,, I snapped out of my multi-tasking comparison to hear him say something about “thinking it’s cute.” Wait, what was he talking about me being cute? I dismissed the idea immediately. There was no way that he could’ve possibly meant me. He was probably talking about the Ben and Jerry’s that he had just scanned. I mean, they do come in pretty cute packaging. Yeah, that had to be it because I just am not cute material. Helping people with their English homework material, maybe. But not cute. Definitely not cute.           
         He smiled again and I felt myself automatically smile back. It was always so hard not to smile whenever I was around him. “So how’s Mrs. Sellars? Still doing the Drama Club thing?”           
         Mrs. Sellars was the Theatre Arts teacher at our high school, where I had met Jonathan. He’d been a senior and I’d been just a lowly freshman.           
         “Um yeah, we went to competition last month.”         
          “Ooh,” he winced. “How’d that go?” Since he was a senior by the time I’d met him he had witnessed plenty of Mrs. Sellars’ pre-competition meltdowns and mini-freak outs. It was her way of releasing nervous energy. Him being a senior when I met him also meant that as cute as he was, good a friend as he was he was also completely and totally out of my league. But now, three years later I was the senior. Not that it mattered or anything…           
         “Actually it went great,” I told him with a laugh.           
         “Oh yeah?”           
         “Yeah,” I nodded and smiled at Jonathan. He returned it instantly. “We got the highest score since we started the regional competitions: an Excellent.”           
         “Wow.” He looked impressed. “That’s great! I’ll bet she was excited.”           
         “That would be the understatement of the year.” Hey, maybe I can do this talking thing, I thought to myself doing a small celebratory dance in my head. Go me! Go me!           
         I paused my dancing for a moment to look at him while he work. He’d finally stopped looking at me, thank God. His hair, which had been darker in high school, had lightened to a beautiful honey blond. It had grown a little bit longer too; just barely brushing the nape of his neck. The sound of a throat clearing drew me out of my nonchalant observation. I looked up and found myself staring into his eyes. Oops…guess I wasn’t as nonchalant as I had wanted to be. His eyes were an intense light green that seemed to shift to a mesmerizing light blue. And those eyes were gazing intently into mine. I felt like a kid who got caught with her hand in the cookie jar right before dinner. How could I have not really noticed his eyes before today?           
         “So, um…” I felt myself starting to blush profusely and wished for the umpteenth time that I could tan rather than freckle and sunburn. Tan people don’t blush as easily I’m sure. “Have you talked to Cagle lately?” He was still staring at me with those piercing mood ring eyes of his; the expression behind them unreadable.            Cagle had been his best friend since they were freshmen. He was also one of the first friends I’d made at school besides Jonathan. I didn’t really want to talk about Cagle at the moment but it was easier to talk to or about Cagle. I didn’t have a crush on him like I did his best friend—which I might as well admit to myself. It was Jon that made my brain forget how to speak English properly—much less in coherent sentences.           
         “A few days ago. He’s doing pretty well. Still lives over near McCain with his family. The salvage yard is making some pretty good money too.”           
         “Oh. Well that’s good that he’s living…with his family I mean. It’s good that…” I sighed heavily as I trailed off lamely. Why me? Jonathan was looking at me with an amused expression, one eyebrow raise. I also noticed that he was both tanned and freckled. Lucky duck.           
         “I’m still livin’ at home I don’t have a girlfriend so I’ve been able to save a bit of extra money.”            Doesn’t have a girlfriend? What the heck did he bring that up for? Was he hitting on me? I never knew with these kinds of things. Ask me to read a book for English, great. No problem. Gimme a couple of days. Cold read a monologue for Advance Theatre? Easy. Figure out if a totally cute guy is hitting on me? Might as well be asking me to do long division and while learning Russian.           
         Jonathan finished up with the last few items (some string cheese and a couple of Cokes) and gave Mom the grand total. She sighed and wrote it out on the check signing it with a flourish.           
         “One of these days I’m going to stick to the list.” She tore it out and handed it over to Jon. He laughed and glanced at Mom’s ID. As the check was ran through the machine his eyes were on me.           
         “So what about you Carolyn?” It took me a moment to realize what he was asking me.           
         “Oh, me too.”           
{indent]Another eyebrow raise. “You don’t have a girlfriend?”           
[indent}“Yes…I mean, no. A boyfriend,” I blurted out before my brain could stop my mouth. “I have one I mean.” Stupid mouth. What did ya go and do that for? It wasn’t true in the most literal sense. I didn’t have a boyfriend. But I did talk to a guy in Montana fairly often so it kinda counts.           
         Mom looked at me sideways, putting our many plastic bags into the cart. Otherwise she gave no indication that she’d heard my mouth vomit. Bless you Mommy. Jonathan studied me for a moment.           
[indent}“That’s great,” he told me with a smile that wasn’t as crinkly as the smiles that had preceded this one, I noticed. It might’ve been my imagination but he looked a little disappointed, too. “I’ll see you later?” He asked as he handed me Mom’s ID and receipt.           
         “Yeah, sure.” I looked up at him and smiled, then turned away to catch up to my Mom. I didn’t have to look back to know that he was watching me walk away.           
         “You have a boyfriend?” Mom asked as we buckled up after loading our goodies into the van.           
         “I dunno,” I admitted. “I guess that I’ve always had a bit of a crush on Jonathan but when we were in school it’s not like anything could’ve happened between us…I mean he was a senior and I was a freshmen. And it’s not like he even really likes me that way!”           
         “Could’ve fooled me,” Mom commented as we slid into the outgoing traffic and headed towards home.           
         “Mom!”           
         “Fine. I won’t say anymore.”            “
         Ya promise?” I asked.           
         “Keep it up chuckle head,” she warned me with a smile. “And you’re getting fried dishrags for dinner tonight instead of spaghetti.”