Read Spanking Shakespeare for Free Online

it’s over.”
    Better yet, just shoot me now.
    When the movie ends, we stand outside the theater, and I tell Celeste how interesting I thought the film was, and she tells me that I should really try to rent the Inuit film, and I tell her that I will, though it’s more likely that I’ll chop off my left pinkie and sell it on eBay.
    Celeste looks at her watch. “I should go. I’m meeting a friend for dinner.”
    I nod, simultaneously relieved to be escaping our date without further damage and terrified that she is ditching me to go have dinner with some other guy. “Yeah, I need to get going myself. Are you taking the bus?”
    “No, it’s close.” She squeezes my hand. “I’ll see you tomorrow in class.” Then she turns and walks off.
    Bye. Feel free to discuss my bowel movements if you run out of things to talk about.
             
    “Well, I’m glad to see the old pathetic Shakespeare is back,” Katie says to me at lunch the next day.
    “I hate those bathrooms,” Neil says. “I told you to go to Showcase Cinemas.”
    I push the food around my plate.
    “Oh, cheer up,” Katie says. “She’s a stuck-up bitch anyway.”
    “You think everyone is a stuck-up bitch,” I say.
    “Not them,” she says, motioning to a table across the cafeteria where Rocco Mackey and a group of his friends are sliding their hot dogs in and out of their mouths.
    “Gross,” Neil says. He wipes ketchup from his tray with his finger and licks it off.
    Katie smiles. “
You’re
saying ‘gross’? You keep a journal of your bowel movements.”
    Neil blushes and shoots me an angry look.
    I shrug. “I didn’t know it was a secret. You seem so proud of it.”
    “You have got to be the biggest freak I have ever met,” Katie says.
    “What? What’s so weird about it?” Neil asks.
    They begin going back and forth, and I let my eyes wander around the cafeteria. It’s all so familiar, the same groups sitting in the same places having the same conversations. At one table, I notice, Charlotte White is sitting alone, hunched over a notebook, writing furiously. She is completely absorbed, writing in an uninterrupted stream, pausing only long enough to turn the page before her pen races onward. With her free hand she sweeps some strands of hair out of her face like she is shooing away a fly. What could she be writing? What kind of dark, brooding voices are lurking inside her head?
    “I’ll see you guys later,” I say, standing and pushing away from the table. “I’ve got some work to do.”
    “Bye,” Neil says without looking up. He has pulled out his special notebook and is showing a speechless Katie his “daily log.”
    I don’t know what I’m doing, but I find myself taking a circuitous route so I can walk past Charlotte’s table. As I get there, I pause, and in that moment she looks up at me and quickly closes her notebook.
    I offer an embarrassed smile. “Are you working on your memoir?” I ask.
    She shifts uncomfortably. “No. I mean, maybe. I mean, I don’t know if I’ll use any of this.”
    I nod, because this makes perfect sense. “Who do you have for writing seminar?”
    “Mr. Parke.” She puts her notebook in her bag.
    “Really? Me too. What do you think of him?”
    “I’m not sure,” she says. Then, after a moment, “He talks about his testicles a lot.”
    I laugh. “Usually just the left one.” It occurs to me that this is probably the longest conversation I have ever had with Charlotte White. For all I know, it’s the longest conversation anyone has ever had with Charlotte White.
    “I actually have to go,” she says. “I’m way behind on my memoir and the quarter ends next week.”
    She gets up, and as she begins to walk away, I ask her what she was writing about.
    She shakes her head. “It’s kind of personal.”
    Of course it’s personal. Otherwise I wouldn’t be so curious. “Sorry,” I say.
    “Maybe if I knew you better…”
    I tell her I understand.
    She starts to walk away