Distant Rumblings

by John Goode

  “Um…,” I said, not sure what tofu was now that I thought about it. “Best to stick to an omelet right now,” I recommended, not sure how he’d take eating a protein substitute.

  “Eggs, cheese, and onions?” he read to me, verifying that was what I meant.

  “Close enough,” I confirmed, not even wanting to go into what the eggs really were. I never noticed how hard explaining what a vegan diet consisted of before that moment.

  Wanda, the part owner, came up to our table with a huge smile. “I know you’re ready, Kane. What about your very cute friend?”

  I blushed as I handed her my menu. My dad and I ate here so much they knew what I had for each meal by heart now. Hawk looked at her with an intense stare for way too long before saying, “Did you just make a comment about my looks?”

  She nodded. “Hard to miss them, cutie. So what you have?”

  He looked back at me, and in a voice that was more than audible to Wanda asked, “Is this servant addressing me with familiarities?”

  I saw the look of disbelief on Wanda’s face as I grabbed the menu out of his hand. “He’ll have the same,” I said, ignoring him.

  She looked down at him as she took the menu from my hand, every motion deliberate. He opened his mouth to say something to her, and I kicked him under the table as hard as I could.

  “Ouch!” he cried in shock. “You kicked me!”

  “Thanks, Wanda.” I gave her my biggest grin. She walked away slowly, never taking her eyes off of Hawk. Once she was out of earshot I looked at him. “What is wrong with you? You can’t talk to people like that!”

  “You are mistaken. I can and will.” His voice was louder than I liked, and the few diners looked at us in confusion.

  “Shut up!” I hissed, trying to slump down in the booth. “People are staring at us.”

  “So?” he cried, looking around. “Let them stare, as if I would care that people such as….”

  “She was taking your order,” I said, trying not to lose my temper. “You didn’t act like this at all last night!”

  “The other woman didn’t address me as if we were equals,” he said, and then paused. “Did she? If she did you should have told me.”

  “You can’t treat people like that.”

  “And servants should not—” he began to recite.

  I had no idea what was going to follow that, but I knew it wasn’t going to be good. I ducked out of the booth and pulled him out as I headed toward the door. “Be right back!” I called out to Wanda, who was standing by the order window talking to her partner, the cook, Linda. Once outside, I spun on him. “Okay, look! I have no idea why you started acting like this, but you have to stop!” He looked as if I slapped him, but I didn’t care. “Those are people, real people! You can’t just talk down to them.”

  “I can,” he answered simply as he began to count off on his fingers. “One, I am above them, so I can surely talk down to them. Two, I am far better looking, which means that my opinion—”

  “You’re better looking?” I exploded, interrupting his list. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

  He paused a few seconds before explaining, as if I was a child. “Because the better looking a person is, the more status they have.”

  He could have said he was also secretly a Nazi, and I would have been less shocked.

  “Are you serious?”

  “He very much is,” Ruber said in my ear.

  “Your culture is based on how good-looking someone is?” There was literally no more outrage that could be crammed into my tone of voice. “That is what you base things on?”

  “On perfection,” he tried to explain. “Which physical beauty is a large part of, yes. I am royalty, and she is of working class—”

  “She is the owner, you asshole!” I shouted over him.

  “She is the owner of a tavern,” he corrected me. “And one that cannot even provide actual eggs, so I am not sure how good a tavern it is.”

  “And she is a friend,” I added, trying to calm myself down because I was sure everyone in the diner was looking out the window at our fight. Quick glance over… yep, all looking. Awesome. “You are a guest here. Not a prince, not royalty, not anything. You get that?” From the look on his face, he didn’t. “Lemme ask you this, how were you going to pay for the meal? You have any money on you?”

  In a very low voice, he said, “My meals are usually gifts—”

  “And if you couldn’t pay for what you ate, you know what they would have done? Made you wash dishes to pay it off!” You’d swear I told him that he was going to have to have sex with pigs from the look of disgust on his face. “You aren’t in your world anymore, and the sooner you stop acting like you’re better than everyone else….” He began to respond, but I overrode him again. “… and realize you are not better than everyone else, the quicker people will stop thinking you are a douche bag.”

  He turned pale, and his eyes looked like they were going to fall out of their sockets. “Why would you need a bag—for—” He turned toward the street. “I think I am going to be sick.” I watched him puke into the gutter, holding his stomach as he heaved.

  “Sometimes the most literal translations are the best,” Ruber said in my ear, and I tried not to smile.

  “You are going to go in there and apologize to Wanda or I swear to all that is holy—”

  “I will! I will!” he said, holding a hand up for me to stop. “Just please do not mention containers that are for….” And he began throwing up again.

  “Well done, Ruber,” I murmured.

  “Thank you,” it responded, obviously loving Hawk’s reaction.

  Chapter Twelve

  JEWEL SAT in Donde está Da Bean trying to drown her sorrow in a double sweet, extra foam latte, wishing she wasn’t as furious as she was. Looking at the mug on the table in front of her only made her sadder because she and Kane had had a Saturday ritual forever. They’d come in, both order their favorite coffee, and then mix the two of them to make truly horrible mugs of coffee that were unique and theirs. She began tearing the corner of her napkin, shredding it meticulously as she turned it around and around in her hand. There were already two piles of paper piled up next to her mug; this one would be the third.

  She knew she shouldn’t be feeling betrayed, but what she knew and what she was feeling were two different things.

  She had been friends with Kane ever since she could remember. There wasn’t a memory of Athens that wasn’t somehow connected to him. In all that time she had believed she knew him, but obviously, she’d been wrong. The person she knew would never have blown her off to go to the movies with a boy. Even if the boy was hotter than just about everyone on the planet combined. Halfway through her napkin, she felt her eyes tear up.

  Jewel had heard of friends drifting apart when a boyfriend or girlfriend entered the picture. She didn’t want to think this would happen to them. Even though Kane was better looking than she was, she had assumed the lack of other gay kids in the town would put their chances of finding someone about even, somewhere near nil. She knew there was no way she could get a guy, even a guy who was as open-minded as the ones in Athens were. Every other girl was a rail thin vegetarian that looked like a strong wind could knock them down.

  Her napkin lay in a neat heap of tiny pieces near its siblings. Jewel realized that she was taking a bubble bath in emotional self-pity. And she had absolutely no intention of stopping until the last bubble had escaped down the drain. How trite: fat girl sits alone, crying her eyes out. Jewel hated the way that idea sounded. It was such a stereotype that she felt like puking.

  Kane had always been her shield, her impromptu boyfriend, standing between her and the crushing weight of being a high-school outcast. The two of them liked to ridicule the town and its absurdities. Part of the reason Jewel mocked Athens was because she knew she would never find love here. All the girls were vegans, annoyingly in shape, cliquish as their PTA perfect mothers had been before the
m. Jewel knew logically that her weight hovered near average for her height, but logic flew out the window when she looked at the popular girls.

  She had always known Kane was as desperate as she was for a boyfriend. She just hadn’t been prepared for him to find one, much less one as hot as the guy she had seen him at the movies with. She was still confused on where the guy had come from. Kane had said he had just started at Quince, but as of yesterday morning, not one person, other than Kane, had said a word about him. None of it made any sense to her. She got up and retrieved another stack of napkins from the condiment bar.

  All she knew was there was a hot guy, and Kane hated her.

  She didn’t want to know much more than that to be honest. She was miserable, and right now, that suited her perfectly. As she sat back down, her hand slipped into her pocket and pulled out her ever-present iPod. Running on memory, she let her fingers scroll through her playlists. She had created a playlist for every emotion she might experience in a typical day. She zipped past sad, angry, depressed, and stopped on heartbroken.

  She had never had to use that particular playlist before, but she didn’t miss the irony involved in making a heartbroken playlist, just in case.

  She stared glumly into her latte and swirled the foam around with her straw as the Carpenters began to wail into her ears. Completely consumed by her self-inflicted misery, she lost herself in her music. Which was why she never saw him coming.

  AFTER A series of heartfelt apologies given to Wanda, her partner, and the other people in the diner, Hawk sat back down in the booth and waited quietly for the food to arrive. He looked upset, and I felt bad for the way I snapped at him. But I didn’t feel bad enough to let the topic go. I needed to understand something that struck me as idiotic, but that was, apparently, the basis of Hawk’s way of life.

  “So your whole society is based on perfection?” I asked after a few minutes of uncomfortable silence. He nodded solemnly but didn’t add anything to his answer as he pretended to examine the street outside. “How does that work?”

  He looked back to me, and I saw his eyes were now ice blue. “Why should I tell you anything? So you can judge and mock my way of life some more?”

  I sighed, realizing this argument was going nowhere; when a thought crossed my mind, I did a mental double take. “Because according to our standards, your way of life sounds shallow. But you aren’t shallow.” And I knew I’d hit what had been bothering me since the topic had come up. “You aren’t shallow; I want to understand. Please.”

  “Shallow?” he asked a little too loudly as Wanda glared over the diner at him. In a whisper he asked again. “Shallow? So my way of life is shallow but the human way, your way is deep and perfect, right?”

  “I didn’t say that!” I countered. “But we just don’t pick who is more important based on something as stupid as looks.”

  “Really?” he said, the anger in his voice growing. I was about to answer when he left the booth and walked over to the counter. He flipped through a stack of magazines to read while-you-waited, grabbed one, and strode back to me. “Spike had found some of these in the house where we were,” he explained as he opened a People magazine to a picture of Brad Pitt. “So this man must have cured a disease or is a mighty warrior to command ten million dollars a movie. A movie is one of the frozen plays such as we saw yesterday, correct?” I nodded, although I’m not sure he noticed, since he kept on talking. “I am assuming that ten million dollars is a lot of money, but I haven’t quite figured out your currency system yet. Forgive me if I am incorrect. But if what I read is correct, this man makes an exorbitant sum of money for doing nothing more than being handsome. How is that different?” Before I could answer he flipped the page to a picture of Angelia Jolie. “It says this woman commands the same amount of money, so together they must be like a king and queen. Am I right? And while we are at it, please tell me what a Kardashian is.”

  “I wish I knew.” I mumbled as I looked down at the myriad of pictures of beautiful people staring blankly back at me and tried to find an answer that didn’t taste like ass in my mouth. “They make a lot of money, but we don’t follow them—”

  “Your entire society is built on the acquisition of material goods, and those goods are procured with money, correct?” he asked.

  “Yes, but that is not what leadership is built on.” I tried to explain. Hawk realized he still stood staring down at me and immediately sat opposite me.

  “According to the teacher at the academy, your country is based on a system of privately owned companies that are run for profit. So doesn’t that mean this Pitt fellow and his wife make the most profit? And if they aren’t your leaders and in charge, does the person who does lead you make more than they do?”

  “Well, no. But they aren’t our leaders,” I said, wondering what his conclusion was to be and not liking the possibilities.

  “So your society is based on money, and you give the most money to the prettiest people. Your leaders make less money than the pretty people who, unlike the best looking people in my world, are not trained to lead. So the rich, pretty people are ‘idols’ because they’re rich and pretty? And useless,” he said, sitting down across from me.

  I opened my mouth to say something when the other people in the diner began to clap. Cries of “You tell them! Capitalism sucks, man!” echoed throughout the restaurant as they thought Hawk just another eccentric hippie.

  He looked around, smiling, not knowing why he was being celebrated but enjoying it nonetheless.

  “Oh brother,” I said under my breath.

  “He did seem to take that round,” Ruber commented as Hawk nodded and waved to the people.

  Our food couldn’t come fast enough.

  JEWEL LOOKED up and realized someone was watching her.

  There was a guy sitting at one of the corner tables, staring intently straight at her. Jewel knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she’d never seen him before, because if she had, she would’ve never taken her eyes off of him. He had dark features, Indian brown skin, long black hair, and pair of smoldering dark eyes that seemed to absorb the light from around him. He had a well-worn black leather jacket on that just screamed rock and roll to her. He was part James Dean, part Marlon Brando, and part Sid Vicious in one sexy package.

  He hadn’t looked away when she looked back.

  Realizing she was staring, she lowered her eyes and looked for a fresh napkin to shred. She peeked up and, sure enough, he was still looking at her. He flashed her a tight grin. For some reason, his smile made her imagine what a wolf would look like if it could smile. She felt a rush of excitement as she looked down again. Who was this guy? Where did he come from? Was he really looking at her? When she stole another glance, she was startled to see him standing at the edge of her table. He wasn’t drinking coffee, didn’t have any food in his hand, in fact, he didn’t seem to be doing anything but watching her.

  She slipped off her ear buds and looked at him expectantly.

  “You’re listening to Music?” he asked. His voice was deep and rich with the slightest hint of an accent she couldn’t place.

  It was obvious that English wasn’t his first language by the way he emphasized the word music. She smiled and nodded. “Darling Thieves,” she answered, turning her iPod off.

  “Is that a minstrel?” he asked, the confusion on his face softening his features slightly.

  “Um, it’s a group,” she offered, not entirely understanding the question.

  “A group of minstrels?” he asked again. “Or a group of thieves?”

  She laughed at his joke, though he didn’t laugh with her. “I’m Jewel,” she said, hoping he would offer his name.

  Instead, he asked out of nowhere, “You are friends with the boy called Kane, are you not?”

  She felt her previously forgotten sadness come rushing back. There was no way she could keep the bitterness out of her voice as she answered, “We were friends.”

  The boy smiled at her admiss
ion. “You are angry with him?”

  “Why? Do you know him?” It was virtually impossible for him to know Kane without her having any knowledge of it.

  “He’s seeing—” the boy paused, choosing his words carefully. “—someone who was a friend of mine romantically.” It was obvious from the way he uttered the last word that he loathed the situation as much as she did. Suddenly, things began to make sense.

  Jewel made the connection instantly. “The guy with the shaggy hair and blue eyes?” Of course he would know Kane’s stranger. All hot guys knew each other.

  The boy nodded. “His name is Hawk,” he clarified.

  “Hawk,” she muttered to herself. “Another hippie.”

  The boy stared at her without speaking for several seconds, prompting her to look up at him to see why. When he realized she was waiting for him to speak, he almost barked out, “I don’t like him either. Hawk, that is.”

  Jewel sighed as she said, “Kane isn’t my favorite person either.” She was feeling depressed again but tried to cover it.

  “Perhaps we could dislike them together,” he offered.

  The look of sincerity on his face was just too much for her, and she had to laugh. “You can sit down, you know,” she said, gesturing at the chair.

  He pulled it out and sat across from her. “I’m serious, we are better than the way they treat us. I know you feel the same way.”

  She couldn’t deny that. “I know, but what can we do about it?” she said, looking down in sadness.

  “Figure out a way to get them back,” he answered bluntly. When she looked back up to him she saw the same wolfish smile had returned to his face. “My name is Spike,” he said, shoving his hand across the table. “We should become allies.”

  Jewel took his hand, not knowing where the hot new guy had come from, but as his eyes flashed with purpose, she realized he was making a certain amount of sense.