When Her Heart Beats

A Story by exodized

I met a very interesting girl at work recently, and I've been trying to characterize her so I could understand her. So, I wrote this fantasy. names and location have been changed

I walked into the student lounge to set up for the day and my boss met me at the door. She said "Michael, we have someone new working with us today. This is Melissa." She waved forward a girl that I wouldn't have believed to be able to drive, much less care for children.

Melissa turned out to be seventeen, thin as a rail with dark, curly, shoulder-length hair and bright, green eyes. Her skin was tanned darkly, as though she spent long hours in the sunlight. She was wearing a school uniform, which hinted at the reason a girl like her was working at a daycare program like this. "Hi," she said, not quite looking at me.

I took her hand and pumped it lightly. "Hi Melissa," I replied. "I'm Michael. It's cool to meet you, I've been hoping to have a partner in crime for a while now." I smiled at her to make sure she knew I was kidding. After all, sarcasm was how I operated.

Rachel said something in spanish, turned from us, and walked briskly out the door, as if she was in a rush to get somewhere else. I nodded after my boss, knowing her, she probably had two or three other prgrams to take care of, and I'd been doing this for a while. I could show the new girl the ropes.

I started showing Melissa all the diffreent toys the kids would be allowed to play with today. At CampusCare, we tried to make the time the kids spent with us fun and educational, only we actually cared about the "educational" part. Or at least, I did. I got paid enough. We went through the setup without much trouble, Melissa taking notes on a little pad she brought out of her purse. I glanced back at her every once in a while, hoping to set her at ease. Being nineteen and single myself, I figured it might pay off. Besides, I was betting that a girl who spoke spanish fluently, was tanned so thoroughly, and was of a similar complexion to my boss was probably from South America somewhere, an immigrant who would react warmly to kindness.

At exactly three o'clock the first kids began arriving. I still haven't managed to learn all of their names, despite doing this for a month and seeing them five days a week. But I greeted those I knew by name and set them up with whatever caught their eye. This was the usual routine, although without the constant clamoring for attention that was usually reaching its climax. Melissa was handling kids fairly well, and they were all shy enough around somebody new to keep quiet. I smiled. We'll see how long this peace lasts.

By three-thirty Melissa and I were cycling through the various groups that the kids had arranged themselves into. I broke up a small squabble over a jar of Play-Doh, but that was all. Melissa had no problems to deal with, she was smiling and seemed to be having fun. Good for her.

At four-ten, Katelyn walked in to take those kids who had signed up for gym time off to play dodgeball, or to swing-dance, or whichever activity was planned for the day. She took eight, which left Melissa and I with thirteen. I let my mind wander, which was something that happened often when Katelyn was around.

Look, I'm a teenage boy. I work at a daycare, which employs many more females than males, or so it seems to me. Maybe I'm just lucky enough to work with all the girls and everywhere else the scenery stinks. It doesn't matter. The only thing that mattered to me right now was picturing Katelyn walking lightly down the stairs to the gymnasium, gliding down the hall to the door and holding it open for the kids, bracing a significant amount of her body's almost non-existant weight to keep it from closing on them. My daydreams were getting so intense I almost didn't notice when Melissa dumped her uniform sweater on a chair, slipped off her shoes, hopped into a pair of jeans and wriggled out of her uniform skirt. Then she took of her blouse and wadded all her school clothes into a ball, which she placed in a plastic bag drawn from her purse.

If I hadn't seen the transformation take place, I doubt I would have been able to keep my jaw shut. The change took about a minute, but the girl I was looking at now should have been a bikini model. In her tanktop undershirt she had curves that most ski resorts would pay millions for, and they flowed down the length of her body very nicely. It was weird and beautiful looking at her, as if I was staring at some kind of plastic surgery miracle. Girls simply didn't look like this where I was from.

To keep her from noticing my interest I quickly clapped my hands for attention. Four fifteen. "Okay folks, can I get everyone to pick up whatever you're playing with and bring it to the big table here."

"But I'm right in the middle!" a little dark-haired girl told me sternly. Angela, I think her name is.

She was sculpting some sort of masterpiece out of popsicle sticks and glue, but I've gotten this sort of resistence before. I walked over to her, and crouched so I could get down to her level.

"We'll move everything really carefully," Melissa said warmly. She stood only a little behind me, as if she was worried I was going to freak out on the little thing. I smiled.

"Exactly," I said. "How should we start?"

Angela consented to this, although she made Melissa do most of the work. This let me clean up a glue spill from some of the other kids, who thought it would be more fun to mix their paint with the glue and redecorate the table. Since I was apparently going to be left out of the sculpting, I sat down with Zach and Hannah, the artists of the group. We started to colour.

At five o'clock parents started coming by to sign out and take their kids for dinner, or swimming lessons or whatever. By five-ten they were gone, which left just Melissa and I to clean up. That's when I thought it would be safe to really talk to her.

"So Melissa, how do you know Rachel?"

"Oh, she knew my parents. When we moved here and I wanted to find a job, she said she might be able to find a place for me here. I don't know about you, but I definitely didn't want to work at Mcdonalds or something like that. Anyways she told me it was after school daycare, and I can get along with kids, so here I am."

"Cool," I responded. As I threw out some papers the kids had left behind, I went a little deeper. "Where did you move from?" I turned around to look at her when she answered.

"We moved from Santiago."

"Oh, Chile? I noticed how tanned you were, I wondered."

"Mhm. I used to spend some time on the beach, lots of time playing outside at school. First I burned, but after living there so long my skin got used to it."

"Sounds great. I wish I could visit."

Melissa walked up to me and said with some smoke in her voice "Maybe one day you will."