Loving It: The Girls of Bloomington North Book Three

By Denise Gwen

At Bloomington North High School, the year is jam packed with activities and students trying to survive.Auditions opened for the school play and it leaves Mona wanting nothing more than the main part with her crush, Esau. But his on-again off-again attitude is throwing mixed signals.And with her luck, she'll be stuck with Gustave - both in the play and at prom!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Denise Gwen
• Release date: Jul 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005101213

Denise Gwen

Denise Gwen writes!!!

Book preview

1

T he Real Inspector Hound, Gustave said aloud, reading the flyer attached to the bulletin board at the entrance to the Drama Department. Is that a musical?

No, Esau said, it’s a comedy, but I did hear Mrs. Voinovich say they need someone who can play a keyboard.

Perhaps I’ll audition.

Esau said nothing, but a wave of disapproval wafted over Gustave and he fought back a flare of resentment. To be fair, it wasn’t quite disapproval, it sounded more in the nature of disbelief, as in I can’t believe you’d have the balls to think you could audition for—and get cast in—a play, Gustave.

Well, Gustave would just have to show Esau, then.

Oh hey, guys, Mona Bloodworth called out as she approached. She wore a heavy coat, scarf, and hat. Her cheeks flared pink. She looked oddly pretty. She’d never become a truly pretty girl, but walking into the building, fresh and pink from the cold, she glowed with a cheery bloom. She sidled up beside Esau. Auditions already?

Yeah, Esau drawled. It’s a play this time, not a musical.

Oh? What’s the name of the play?

"The Real Inspector Hound, Gustave offered. I’m going to audition."

Oh, well. Mona studied the notice for a long moment. Well then, perhaps I’ll audition too. She turned to look at them. So, how was your Christmas?

Esau scoffed. We don’t celebrate Christmas. He slouched away.

Mona looked stricken. I meant, how was your Christmas break?

Gustave smiled at her, hoping to compensate for Esau, who was, apparently, in another one of his moods today. It was great. And yours?

It was good, she said forlornly, watching Esau’s back.

Hey, Gustave said, gently touching her arm. Let’s go grab a cinnamon roll before the bell rings.

Oh, she said, gazing longingly at the cafeteria. I already ate breakfast—

Come on, he urged her. It’s only a cinnamon roll.

Oh, but the calories, she murmured.

Even so, she turned on her heel and followed him to the cafeteria.

Emmanuel Solis, an asshole, strolled past. Hey, you faggot, he called out pleasantly to Gustave. You do a lot of fudge-banging over the break?

Gustave, of course, ignored the insult.

Mona bristled with tension.

Ignore it, he cautioned her.

Hey, Emmanuel! Mona called out in a loud voice.

Emmanuel whirled around.

I heard you flunked Algebra. She wrapped her arms loosely around her waist, in the classic gangsta-style gesture and barked out, Way to go, you fucking loser!"

She pronounced the word loser like a gangsta, with a long loos, followed by an ah.

Way to go, you fucking loos-ah!

Emmanuel hitched up the jeans sliding down his butt crack. Cunt.

Hah, Mona said mirthlessly. Is that the best you can do, you loos-ah?

Emmanuel walked out of the cafeteria.

A group of cheerleaders, dressed up in their maroon-and-gold uniforms, and seated at a long table, watched the entire exchange. Stacy Musgrove, one of Gustave’s worst tormentors since his days in middle school, smirked at him. She studied Gustave first, then Mona for a long moment, before ducking her head to talk to the other cheerleaders.

Gustave turned to Mona. I can’t believe you just said that.

He had it coming.

What’s gotten into you, all of a sudden?

The smile she gave him strained at the edges. Aren’t you just so God-dammed good and tired of it, Gus?

Tired of what?

All the nastiness. The name-calling? Aren’t you sick to death of being made fun of all the fucking time?

Mona, don’t use the f-bomb, Gustave said reprovingly. A lady doesn’t use that word.

Oh, a lady! She cried out sarcastically, but her cheeks flushed and she looked away in embarrassment.

They stepped forward into the breakfast line. Gustave gallantly grabbed a tray. Mona grabbed two silverware settings and placed them onto the tray as Gustave pushed the tray down the line.

A few kids stood ahead of them in the line, selecting cinnamon buns. Gustave smiled with pleasure. There were plenty of cinnamon rolls available, and he saw just the one he wanted. The caramel icing oozed off the bun onto the small plate, looking all tempting and warm.

But really, Mona continued, in a lower voice, haven’t you had it up to here? She gestured with her left hand, flat, palm-down, in front of her face, to indicate just how far up to here she’d had it.

Gustave reflected. Yes, I suppose I could say I’ve had it, too.

I’ll bet you have, she agreed fervently.

I’ve had it dished out to me pretty good over the years.

I’ll say.

And in a way, things didn’t really start getting better until this year.

What changed for you?

"Well, for one thing, I joined the orchestra for the school musical, Guys and Dolls."

Okay, she said, I can see that. You joined the cast.

After all my years of public education, of being tormented, of being made fun of, of being ridiculed and laughed at and mocked, it felt like, it felt like—

You’d finally found your own people, Mona finished for him.

Yes, he said. That’s it, exactly. I’ve finally found my own people. I know where I belong. With the theatre kids, for sure. And even if Mrs. Voinovich doesn’t cast me in the next play, then I’ll try out for keyboard.

Okay, the keyboard?

Esau said they’re looking for someone to play a keyboard during the show.

Oh.

He had a pretty good idea he’d get cast as the keyboardist, and even if he didn’t get cast as the keyboardist, then he’d do what Keith Nelson liked to do, and work backstage as a theatre tech.

No matter what happened, what he did know was this: somehow, in some way, in some fashion, he’d fit in. He’d make himself fit in.

Don’t you understand, Gus, Mona continued, as he pushed their tray down the line, it’s just like what happened to the Jews in Germany in the nineteen-thirties. They’d been scapegoated for years before the Holocaust—

Oh, the Jews were persecuted for centuries before that, Gustave interjected, but Mona blithely ignored him.

—and everyone made fun of them, and they were blamed for the fact Germany was bankrupt after World War I, and people called them names, horrible names, and then look where it went from there. Her blue eyes shone. They got gassed at Auschwitz.

Uh, huh. Gustave reached for the cinnamon roll of his dreams. The plate slid toward him and with a satisfied sigh, he placed it onto his tray. He looked up at a sound and noticed one of the cafeteria ladies. She stood behind the display of cinnamon rolls, her gaze focused entirely on Mona.

Gassed? She asked in a stricken voice.

"Yes. It was Hitler’s idea to exterminate the entire Jewish population. I just finished a book on this topic over the Christmas break. It’s called Hitler’s Willing Executioners."

Oh dear, the cafeteria lady said. Why, honey, I never.

Mona, Gustave said. Get a roll.

Oh. She reached forward, grabbed a cinnamon roll and put it onto the tray beside Gustave’s roll.

The cafeteria lady’s gaze drifted to Gustave. Honey, did you read that book, too?

Ah, no, Gustave said. But I have read other treatises on the Holocaust.

He didn’t add, I’m a Jew, by the way, so I already know all this.

My, oh my, oh my goodness, the cafeteria lady said.

Those who don’t know their history, Mona said importantly, are doomed to repeat it.

Well I never, the cafeteria lady said. I feel sorry for them poor Jews. She shook her head. I’ll never figure that one out. She smiled at Mona. You kids sure are smart, I’ll give you that. I never made it past high school.

Oh, Mona said, and Gustave watched as an internal awareness filled Mona’s eyes.

They reached the cash register where another cafeteria lady stood. She rang up the cinnamon rolls. Gustave reached for his wallet.

Oh, Gus, I can pay for my own.

No, Mona, he said, it’s my treat.

The cafeteria lady at the cash register beamed. Oh, aren’t you just the sweetest little boy?

Little girl, the first cafeteria lady said, tell me the name of that book again?

Gustave paid, collected his change, and carried the tray to an empty table as Mona gave the cafeteria lady detailed instructions on where to find the book, including the shelf it was located on at the Barnes and Noble on Third Street, the only surviving bookstore in Bloomington ever since Borders closed.

Gustave sat down at the table and began to eat his cinnamon roll as Mona talked to the cafeteria ladies, utterly engrossed in the subject of the Jews and their persecution.

And slowly, by degrees, the Jews were deprived of everything they held dear—

He finished his cinnamon roll—delicious, utterly delicious—looked over at Mona, but she was still talking, so he went ahead and ate Mona’s cinnamon roll. Mona was cute, in a ditzy, dorky kind of way. She meant well, he supposed, even if she didn’t have the first clue as to what real persecution felt like.

Being a student at Bloomington North High School, was just one proof of the persecution he’d undergone in his life, but it went back further than that, to his earliest days in school, to Kindergarten. The bullying, the cruelty, the torment; it’d all started in Kindergarten, for sure.

He supposed it didn’t compare to the ignominy of being shoved into a gas oven.

At least not by much.

2

E xcuse me, but what are you doing?

What? Oh, what? Startled from his reverie, Gustave looked up, surprised. He gazed up into the eyes of Hannah Burns, a blonde cheerleader. He shifted in his seat, a slow burn rising up his neck. Oh, it’s nothing, he said, shoving his Sudoku papers under his psychology class folder. A corner of a piece of Sudoku paper stuck out from the folder, and Hannah reached forward gently, tugged on the paper until it gave, and then just stood there, in the middle of the classroom, staring at it.

He flushed with humiliation. She might think she was staring at a piece of college-lined paper with indecipherable numbers scratched upon it, and wonder at how he’d arrived at each and every scratch-marked number, but to him, this piece of paper was as personal and as intimate to him as a personal diary into which he’d poured out the longings and joys and frustrations of his heart.

She studied the paper with obvious confusion.

I know it’s a Sudoku puzzle, she mused aloud, but you’ve written numbers all over the paper, outside the boxes . . . everywhere. She pointed at a neatly jotted-down row of numbers appearing on the left side of the page and written beside the series of Sudoku boxes. As if he needed help in understanding what he’d done to his Sudoku paper.

He winced, wishing he could disappear. Of all the stupid people—

She gestured at the numbers he’d placed in neat rows and columns outside of the Sudoku boxes. What do these numbers mean, Gustave?

Oh, it’s an equation I’m working out, he said vaguely, hoping this cross-examination would end soon. He glanced hopefully at the clock, wondering when Dr. Vivian would walk into the classroom and start the class.

Hannah knitted her brows together. I mean, she said, holding his precious paper sideways, it looks kind of like you’re playing a Sudoku game, but it also looks like it isn’t.

Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God.

Inspiration struck him. He realized, suddenly, how to talk his way out of this. Well, yes, he said, "you’re right, in part. I do start