Page 7 of Notice Me, Jameson Hart

who’s that guy?

J ameson Micah Hart.

Born on the Fourth of July, which makes him the most American person in Arcadia by default.

He’s six-foot-three of grade-A, corn-fed athletic perfection.

And while Adam may be the quarterback, it’s Jameson who dominates the football field.

He’s such a force to be reckoned with that I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he’d been assembled in a lab by scientists tasked with creating the ideal wide receiver.

His hair is bleached to the exact shade of summer wheat, courtesy of too many hours in the sun and possibly a bottle of Sun-In he’ll never admit to using.

His smile could sell toothpaste to a dentist. His laugh makes teachers forget they assigned homework.

And when he walks down the hallway, freshmen spontaneously develop crushes they won’t understand for another three years.

He drives a beat-up Honda that is somehow cooler than any luxury car in the student lot.

He volunteers at the animal shelter, where puppies line up to be held in his giant hands.

His Instagram is filled with workout videos that are shared by the official Arcadia Knights account.

Each one garners thousands of views from people who claim they’re watching for the “football tips.”

He’s the guy who gets voted Homecoming King as a sophomore, breaking a twenty-year tradition.

The guy who helps the janitor clean up after pep rallies without being asked.

The guy whose mere presence at a party guarantees it won’t get busted because even cops respect him too much to ruin his fun.

In other words, Jameson Hart is perfect with a capital P.

The first time Jameson Hart came to my attention was during English class freshman year.

Ms. Petrowski had assigned oral reports on literary greats, and most of us did ours with the enthusiasm of sloths.

But when Jameson stood up to present his report on William Shakespeare, the earth tilted on its axis, and I was the only one who noticed.

He walked slowly to the front of the class with a stack of index cards, his usual swagger replaced by something I’d never seen before. Uncertainty. Those nimble hands of his that caught footballs on the gridiron shook as he arranged his notes at the podium.

“So, um…William Shakespeare—” His voice cracked on the last syllable. He cleared his throat and tried again. “William Shakespeare was born in 1564.”

I leaned forward in my seat, enraptured with the boy standing in front of me. His right foot tapped against the linoleum floor in a nervous rhythm that I was certain matched his quickening pulse.

“He wrote”—Jameson licked his lips. Once. Twice. Three times—“thirty-seven plays. Or thirty-eight. Scholars debate—” The index card slipped from his fingers and fluttered to the floor.

Nobody batted an eye. They were all too busy staring at their phones or writing notes to each other. Not even Ms. Petrowski pretended to care. Her eyes were on her fingernails being sharpened with a nail file.

Jameson bent down and struggled to retrieve the index card from the sticky ground. I was fascinated. The golden boy had tarnish.

When he finally managed to stand back up, his face was flushed. And not in the attractive way, from exertion after a game, but the blotchy red of genuine embarrassment. His tongue darted out again to wet his lips.

“Sorry,” he said to no one in particular.

“Where was I? Oh, right. Plays.” He gripped the edges of the podium until his knuckles turned white.

“Romeo and Juliet is probably his most famous tragedy.” He stopped, checked his cards, then continued in a more mechanical tone. “It was written between 1594 and 1596.”

The foot-tapping intensified as he continued his fifteen-minute oral presentation. I took in everything, from his Adam’s apple bobbing and the sheen of sweat on his forehead, to his left hand tugging at his collar as he finished.

“In conclusion, Shakespeare remains relevant because his themes are universal. Love, jealousy, ambition—these things don’t change.

He sprinted back to his seat while the class offered scattered, polite applause.

Ms. Petrowski made some notes and called on the next student.

But I couldn’t stop staring at Jameson. He was slumped in his chair, as frazzled as if he’d been shoved into a washing machine set to spin.

His chest was heaving, and he kept running his fingers through his hair, turning it into a bird’s nest.

Seeing him this vulnerable and nervous, this human and real—it was as if someone had adjusted the focus on a camera, making him stand out among the unimportant stuff.

Suddenly, he wasn’t a collection of statistics and achievements.

He was a boy who got scared and licked his lips when he was anxious.

He was, in no uncertain terms, a boy with flaws.

The second time Jameson Hart stood out to me was during sophomore year at one of the football games.

We were losing, but not by much. Halftime was nearly over, and I had this image in my head of Adam in the locker room, hyping up the team.

Naturally, being a theater nerd, I envisioned it less as “Go, Team, Go!” and more as Riff singing about being a Jet in West Side Story .

The other players would be snapping their fingers as Adam’s voice filled the room with that same dangerous energy Russ Tamblyn had in the movie.

Jameson would be the lone holdout. Not because he would find it weird or anything, but because there’s always that one person who is the audience’s mouthpiece.

The one who would say, “Hey, are we seriously breaking out into song?” But then, his foot would start tapping of its own accord.

His shoulders would move up and down in time with the beat.

And when the chorus returned, he’d push off the wall and throw himself into the number with more enthusiasm than his teammates.

The marching band’s fight song yanked me from my daydream of Jameson holding out the final note like a badass.

The football team streamed back onto the field, a blur of garnet uniforms and gold helmets.

I pulled my scarf tighter around my neck, and my breath formed little clouds in the frigid air as I let out a measly “woohoo!”

Dad was sitting on my left, pressed up against the railing.

The metal bleachers were cold beneath our butts, but thankfully, we were wearing long johns under our jeans.

A thermos of hot chocolate was balanced between his thick thighs.

“I see them,” he said, nudging my elbow and pointing a gloved finger to where Adam and Robbie led the pack.

My eyes roamed past my brothers. Cheerleaders along the sidelines shook their pom-poms in the air.

The crowd erupted, holding up signs for their favorite players.

The smell of popcorn and hot dogs hung in the air, causing my stomach to growl.

There was a sense of family, of love and camaraderie, that I only thought was possible in TV shows and movies.

As the team positioned itself strategically on the field, my eyes zeroed in on the player with the gold number eighty-five across his back.

I’d watched Jameson play dozens of times before, but tonight was different. I could feel it in the air, in my bones. In my heart.

When he shifted slightly on the turf, the stadium lights hit his helmet and created a halo effect around his head.

His broad shoulders filled out the jersey in a way that made him less of a high school student and more of a gladiator preparing for battle.

He crouched low, one hand gripping the ground to keep from teetering forward.

His whole body vibrated with anticipation, waiting for Adam to snap the ball.

The instant the play was in motion, Jameson exploded off the line, his cleats kicking up tufts of dirt.

The defense tried to keep up, but he was too fast for them.

His long legs propelled him downfield, reminding me of Forrest Gump.

He glanced over his shoulder and spotted the ball spiraling toward him.

He reached up into the sky, and the ball settled into his hands.

He quickly tucked the ball against his body and kept on running. He spun around the other team’s players, his body moving with the fluidity of a dancer. An equally massive player dove for his legs, but Jameson hurdled over him without breaking a sweat.

Dad shouted something about his technique, but I couldn’t hear him over the roar of the crowd. I had tunnel vision for the beautiful boy racing into the end zone, spiking the ball, and bringing us six points closer to victory.

“That boy’s hands are solid,” Dad said as we all sat back down to watch the next play.

But I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. I was trying to rationalize the guy from English class with the one out there on the field.

Where did all that nervous energy go? Did he use it as fuel?

Was it as simple as this was something he knew like the back of his hand?

Was it because this was for fun, and Shakespeare was for a grade?

As the game continued, I forgot about the cold, the hunger, even my brothers. I was too busy watching a warrior at work.

The third time Jameson Hart stepped out onto the stage of my adolescent consciousness, the entire town of Arcadia was wrapped in a thin layer of manufactured cobwebs and neon orange lights.

This was October, and here, Halloween is less a holiday and more a competitive sport.

The story goes that in 1994, a B-list director rolled into town and shot a supernatural thriller called “Midnight in Arcadia.” The movie bombed, but it left a legacy: every autumn, we outdo ourselves, turning Main Street into a set piece from a cult classic nobody remembers.