A Comedy of Errors

or

The Date Cometh

Jubes slammed the door to her room peevishly. Thank god for twelve minute passing times. She'd bolted up to her room and grabbed her forgotten english project from her desk and was cruising down the hall in two minutes flat. *Damn, I'm good at this. I'll be in class with plenty of time to spare. Maybe I can even pry out of Angelo what's been buggin' him. Havent seen him that fidgety since he tried to quit smoking cold turkey. If I'm really lucky I might even be able to avoid M and her new accessory, Ev. Uhng.* Gliding at a fairly impressive pace down the stairs from her room, past the kitchen and outside to take a shortcut to the classrooms, she hummed "Aliens Exist" along with her diskman. Threat of Frosty going after her because she'd forgotten her model from "A Midsummer Night's Dream" gone, she was actually in a rather perky mood, emphasized by the fact that she'd downed several packs of Pez in first hour.

She was proud of her project, one of the few that she hadn't been forced to do kicking and screaming. She'd decided on making a figurine of Puck, her fave character from the play. He stood about twice the length of her hand, dressed in left over scraps of denim from her jean cutoffs. She'd gone bargain shopping and picked up a Ken doll for his body a few branches of fake flowers. Several hot glue-gun burns later, he was dressed as a punk-fairy. For a finishing touch she painted his eyes in an imitation of Gambits with some nail polish and black rhinestones that'd fallen off of her Halloween costume. Being a bit of a packrat definately had its advantanges.

She had the open door of the classroom in her sights and slowed tring to regain some of her composure so no one would think she had actually cared enough to run to class. That would completely ruin her rep as a consummate slacker. Just as she was turning into the classroom door someone came striding out. She clutched her Puck model to her chest to protect it and ended up losing her balance, which resulted in her landing with a hard thump on the wooden floor of the hall. Angelo stopped short and of tripping over her as he came to a halting stop, "Chica! I'm so sorry, I didn't see you!" He reached down to help her up and she thrust her model into his hands, pulling herself off the ground.

"You should really watch where you're going Ange, you coulda' ruined my project, then Frost-bite woulda' killed both of us," Jubilee said in a rapid-fire manner that left no room for punctuation or even a breath. She retrieved her Puck model from Angelo's hands and started going around him into class; maybe she could start in on her hourly nap ahead of time.

"Nothings up," Angelo said sounding a bit unsure. "I just need to talk to you for a minute."

"Can't we do it in class," Jubilee asked throwing a nervous glance at the door and then quickly glancing at her watch. She didn't want Ange to think she didn't care but she also didn't want to be late, five tardies usually added up to K.P. duty in Ms. Frost's class.

"Um...No," Angelo started looking unsure again. "I really need to talk to you alone. Now." He looked her right in the eyes and Jubilee was quick to spot the ugency of this conversation. She sighed, resigned to her fate of Kitchen Patrol, secure in the knowledge Angelo would be there to help her every minute of it. He'd better be, or she'd 'paf' him to kingdom come. She let him lead a little farther down the hall where there were a few decorative chairs placed along the hall. Plunking herself down in one, she looked up at him.

"Alright....shoot." Angelo fidgeted, feeling extraordinarily awkward. He paced in front of her for a moment, then sat down, then stood up and paced again. She watched him in a state of dumfounded confusion as the skin on his fingers lengthened, a sure sign he was worried or nervous about something. When midterm grades came out the week before, his hands had resembled grey shoestrings. As much as he pretended not to care about how he did in school, Jubes knew he wasn't exactly willing to settle for failing. A D-, maybe, but not failing. Finally he began.

"I don't know where to start so I guess I'll just start...UM...do you remember just before finals when we tried to kick our bad habits?" Angelo had stopped his pacing and stood just in front of Jubilee. She smiled and her eyes glazed a little remembering their failed attempts at self control. Angelo waited until she nodded and then tried to hurry this along because her attention was straying back towards the classroom door. "O.k. good. Well remember right after that when we got stuck in the library in town for an entire afternoon?" Again he waited for her impatient nod. "Yeah well," he took a deep breath and pressed on. "EversincethenI'vesorta'reallylikedyouandIwantedtoknowifyou'd...well, if you wanted to talk about it." subconsciously Angelo was kicking himself. He'd meant to ask her out on a date, not if she wanted to talk about it. Talk about what? How he was feeling about her? 'OOOHHH!!! Stupido!'

To her credit Jubilee didn't say anything to deepen his already wounded pride. After few seconds of shock, followed briefly by a period of mental adjustment, she stood up and started to walk to the still open door of the classroom. Then she remembered she hadn't answered him. She turned on her heels to face him, "Um...Ange?"

"Yeah," he replied quickly again kicking himself for sounding so anxious.

Jubilee reflected on how cute he was when he had that hopeful, vulnerable look on his face. "I think we should talk about it," whatever 'it' was, "Maybe later tonight somewhere."

"Yeah, that'd be great!" Angelo liked how this was sounding. Maybe this would turn out to be a date after all. "So where do you want to meet?" He said trying to capture his usual nonchalance.

Where?! How could he ask her where? Jubilee's mind raced on for a few minutes and her eyes fell to the Puck model in her hand. "The woods," she spit out automatically and regretted it just as quickly.

"The woods!" Angelo was a bit surprised. 'Meeting in the woods on a first date, (if this could even be called a first date)' he admitted to himself. ' I didn't think Lee was that type of chica, then again maybe she does just want to talk, maybe she just spit it out on reflex, maybe she really might wanna go to the movies or dinner or stay in to catch whatever’s on HBO tonight, or maybe she just feels more comfortable in the woods, or maybe she just doesn't want to be seen with an ugly hombre like me...not that I'd blame her...' Just then the last tardy bell rang and Jubilee gave Angelo an impatient glare. Angelo gulped and croaked out," Okay, Okay" as a means of stalling but Jubes took as an agreement to her earlier suggestion.

"Great," she said sounding a little put out, "well, then I guess I'll just see you later tonight, in that clearing. You know the one between the dorms? Around, um..." the door to the classroom was closing and Jubilee cursed herself for being late once again. Why couldn't she just get there on time for once! It wasn't as if she didn't have enough time between classes, she had 12 !@##$ minutes! "Twelve!" she exclaimed cursing the tardy bell. Unfortunately Angelo misinterpreted her exclamation as the time she wanted to meet. He silently raised an eyebrow at her retreating back, ' Well, I don't know how tonight's gonna turn out but it's definitely gonna be interesting! Hell, maybe even fun, unless of course we get caught, then it'll just be embarrassing.