by Megan Rose
“Whoa, Lacey, take a breath,” Mayra said.
“What? I’m just excited.” Her smile grew a little bigger than usual.
“You’re talking so fast the human ear can’t even decipher what you’re saying,” Mark said. “Maybe just relax a minute before you go get lunch.” Lacey nodded and took a breath. Mayra turned to her.
“Wanna go to Julio’s?” she asked.
“Oh…” Lacey looked down at the floor. “Um…I’ll tell you about that later. We’ll go somewhere else,” Lacey said and nodded overenthusiastically.
“Wow, you’re really excited,” Mayra said and chuckled. “Let’s go before you burst. It was nice to meet you, Mark! I’m sure I’ll see you again.” She smiled at him and Lacey bolted out of the store, pulling Mayra along with her.
“You’re right, my lunch will be much less boring in my store by myself with nothing to do,” Mark said when they left the store. “…Guess I don’t get a Yodel today,” he mumbled. Well, that was fine anyway. He had a bunch of stuff he had to do, and an hour break for lunch would have just gotten in the way.
✽✽✽
The rest of the week passed slowly and Mark didn’t see Lacey at all. He guessed she was going to lunch with her friend every day to talk about girl things. Although he appreciated being spared the girl-talk, he still missed her. He figured that they had eaten lunch together the last week because she had been friendless. He was just a fill-in while Mayra was away. Which was fine, because he needed to find some guy friends anyway.
✽✽✽
Friday night came and Lacey was trying to find something she thought was cute, while sticking to Connor’s criteria. Something sophisticated but youthful, that wasn’t boring but wasn’t flashy, and he had awkwardly hinted that he wanted her to wear something low-cut.
She went with her red, sleeveless scoop-neck dress and a pair of black pumps that she had deemed her Sex and the City shoes. They had a spiked heel and were shiny and looked just like they were designer. At least, Lacey thought they looked like they were designer. She had never actually seen a real pair of designer shoes close-up. But she figured they must be close.
Lacey observed her appearance in her too-short mirror, bending down and then standing on a chair to see the whole thing, albeit in pieces. It might be a little fancy for a diner at a college, but she knew Connor wanted her to dress in something nice.
She followed her usual pre-date routine, doing her hair and makeup while listening (and singing and dancing) to Shania Twain, her favorite. She went in her room and practiced her lines while looking in the mirror, trying to emulate the expressions assigned to her. She had a little sheet with smiley faces for each of their lines that denoted what her face was supposed to look like.
When Connor had given her that, she thought maybe Mark was right about him, because that didn’t seem like a normal thing to do, but then he gave her a list of things he was allergic to that somehow made him an innocent little kid again. Plus, even if she did agree with Mark she would never tell him. She’d never hear the end of it.
The doorbell rang. Lacey checked her hair and touched up her lipstick one more time and then went to greet and (hopefully) dazzle Connor.
“Connor!” Lacey took in his not-as-creepy-as-usual appearance. His smile was huge. And white. And different. It was brace-free. “Your braces! They’re gone – I didn’t know you were getting them off.” Lacey tried to look a little less shocked, but she couldn’t help it. He just looked so much better. “Did you just get them off today? Is that why you wanted to go out tonight?”
“Well not at first, but then it just worked out that way. I figured, you know, maybe people might notice…”
“Everyone will notice, Connor! You look incredible. Honestly, your face looks completely different. This is not Connor standing in front of me…this looks more like a…a Calvin.” She nodded, satisfied with her choice of a sophisticated name.
“Calvin? That’s such a geeky name! What’s wrong with Connor? I like Connor.” Connor shrugged.
“No, nothing’s wrong with it. I was just joking around. And how can you say Calvin is a geeky name? Ever heard of Calvin Klein?” He looked at her, oblivious. “Okay, anyway, let’s stop jibber-jabbing and let’s go!” Lacey bounced up and down as she spoke and then grabbed her purse.
They drove over to the college together in Connor’s parents’ car while going over their dialogue and practicing improvisational lines. (Lacey didn’t quite understand that part as the very definition of improvisation was to do something without preparation.) They parked and walked to a cute little diner-looking campus restaurant. It was decorated like it was supposed to be from the 50s, with a jukebox and tables with big red, squishy booths. It was mostly empty, but in the corner sat a group of kids who looked like they were about to burst out into “Greased Lightning.”
Lacey worried for a moment that they might be the theatre geeks, all in costume to promote the musical. Leather jackets, hair gel, cigarettes – maybe they were shooting an after-school special and they were the bad guys. She looked around to see the cameras so she could maybe get on TV, but there weren’t any. The group of hooligans called out to Connor as soon as they walked through the door.
“Hey Connor! Who’s that, your sister?” some kid with slicked back black hair asked.
“Oh, leave him alone, Joe! He’s on his first date.” The only girl at the table snickered and crunched on her straw obnoxiously. She had wavy brown hair and was wearing one of the boys’ jackets around her shoulders. “Aren’t they cute? Good luck, Connor! I knew a girl would say yes to you eventually.”
“Are we sure that’s a real girl? She’s awfully pretty to be going out with Connor,” said the kid in the back corner with blonde bedhead and a T-shirt that read “FBI: Female Body Inspector.”
“Connor, did you finally create a species that’ll date you?” The girl laughed heartily at her stupid joke and then started to choke on a piece of ice.
“Hey Rizzo,” Lacey called across the room, “I’m human, I’m a girl, and I’m trying to go on a date here, so do you mind? Also, not to be rude, but you have something in your teeth.” The girl’s face took on a look of horror and she frantically dug through her bag for a mirror.
Of course, she didn’t really have anything in her teeth, but Lacey wanted to bother her. She wasn’t very good at thinking on her feet. If Connor had told her more specifically about them ahead of time, she could have definitely prepared some pretty severe insults, but without notice all she could think of was a slew of “Yo’ mama” jokes, and she didn’t really know any of their mamas, so it wouldn’t have quite the effect she was looking for. “Come on, Connor. Let’s go sit down.”
Lacey took Connor’s arm and pulled him along with her to a table at the opposite end of the restaurant. She sat so she was facing the greasers and looked at Connor’s comically red face. He really was easy to make fun of. But she would do her best to make him look good tonight.
He didn’t deserve a bunch of imbeciles who shared one collective brain to give him crap. He was a good guy, and he was probably going to be all of their boss one day anyway, so they really should start showing him some respect.
“So Connor…” Lacey smiled her best flirty smile and said, “This is a great place. I love the atmosphere – the dimwitted gang over there is a nice touch.” She spoke somewhat loudly, and she could see the girl rolling her eyes at her. “So, what do you like to do?” she touched one of his hands, which was gripping the table so tightly that it was glowing white. He was looking straight at her but it looked as if someone was strangling him. “Connor?” she asked quietly. “Are you okay?”
Connor didn’t answer. He just kept up that look of a deer in headlights and opened his mouth a quarter of an inch, as if he were trying to speak. “Connor, it’s your line,” she whispered. “What don’t I like to do? Parenthesis, chuckle. Remember?” This was bad. He wasn’t moving at all and she was worried that all the blood that existed in h
is body had made its way to his face. That couldn’t be good for the rest of him.
“You’re right Connor,” she announced loudly. “I think we should go back to your room.” She pulled him up out of the booth and tried to guide him out of the restaurant without anyone seeing his mortified face. She tried to move his stilt-like legs, but she wound up just dragging him along with her, making him look like a cardboard cut-out of himself.
“Connor, you going so soon?” the kid with the Vaseline hair asked. “What’s the matter? Your cousin have to meet a real date?”
Lacey resisted the urge to throw the ketchup bottle on the table next to her at them. Clearly, they didn’t believe that this was a real date. She couldn’t really blame them; they were right. Lacey took a deep breath and accepted what she was going to have to do next. It was for Connor, who was her friend after all.
He would do anything for her, she was sure of it. So what was one little sacrifice on her part going to hurt? Maybe she would get some free Chinese doughnuts the next time she ordered takeout.
Lacey drew in another breath and said, “Oh Connor, you’re so funny!” Then, carefully she angled herself and Connor so that the rat pack in the back could only see the back of his head but could still clearly see that the act was legitimate. She grabbed the front of his blue-checkered button-up shirt and pulled him toward her.
He let out a strangled noise that sounded like he was saying sorry. “You don’t have to apologize, Connor! Every school has their group of uneducated degenerates who only got in because their parents lied on their applications for them.” Rizzo stuck her tongue out at Lacey and gave her the eye roll to end all eye rolls.
“I just can’t believe this school is so lucky to have you!” She pulled him even closer and his mouth opened another quarter of an inch, and she could feel him trying to make words. Lacey closed her eyes and planted a big kiss right on Connor’s lips as dramatically as she possibly could.
She tried to make it look like a good kiss, even though Connor’s lips (along with the rest of his body) were completely frozen. She released him.
“Oh Connor, let’s go up to your room!” She tried to pull him out of the diner without anyone seeing his face, and she heard the “cool” kids back at their table laughing their heads off.
Well, she thought she had been convincing. Lacey did consider herself quite a good actress, and she really thought she did a standout job. And it was the best she could do given what she had to work with.
She had to tug Connor along with her the whole way back to the car, and she was just thinking she would have to drive home herself when he finally came out of his stupor. His face returned to its normal eggshell color and he finally produced sound.
“Lacey! I can’t…They…You…“
“It’s okay, Connor. It’s all fine. Those guys are complete jerks. You don’t have to impress them. Just don’t even pay any attention to them. They think they’re really cool, but they’re morons.”
“They’re in half my classes. It’s hard to avoid them.” Connor leaned on the car and blinked a few times, probably trying to make up for all the blinks he lost when he was frozen.
“Wait, aren’t they older than you?” Lacey thought they hadn’t looked fresh out of high school.
“It’s their senior year, but they’re still taking general education courses. I’m only a freshman but I tested out of some of the beginning classes, so I’m in class with them.”
“Well, I think you made a very good impression on them tonight. They’ll leave you alone. And you can ask me out on another date whenever you want. I’ll be happy to go out with you. You’re a great guy.” Lacey patted him on the cheek and smiled. “Now, do you think you can drive me back home or am I going to have to call someone?”
“No, I can do it,” he said. “I’m fine now, really. I’m not exactly sure what happened back there. I got…I was just really nervous I guess. I don’t usually get that freaked out around them. I guess I was just expecting them to treat me differently when they saw I was with someone like you…didn’t really make a difference though, did it?”
“Like I said,” Lacey took the keys out of Connor’s jacket pocket and unlocked the car, “they’re morons. Just ignore them. One day, you’ll be in charge of the world, and they’ll be broke, having a belching contest in a bar somewhere, wishing they had been nicer to you in school. You’re a genius. All they have are leather jackets and bad attitudes…and really pretty, flowy hair.”
“My braces,” he mumbled. “They didn’t even notice my braces were gone.” He climbed in the car and sat down. Lacey almost wanted to cry for him, she felt so bad. He was just a nice kid who was trying to fit in and maybe make some friends. What was their problem? He tried to shut the driver’s-side door, but Lacey pulled it back open.
“Connor, you know what? I’ll call Mayra. You should go back to your room and get some rest. You look tired.”
“Are you sure?” He yawned. “You’re right. I should get to sleep. Thank you so much for doing this, Lacey. You have no idea how much I appreciate it.” He smiled at Lacey and gave her a quick hug. “I know you really tried. I’m sure it wasn’t easy to kiss me.”
“Oh Connor, it was no big deal!” Actually once she decided to kiss him, she had the sudden urge to throw up. She didn’t want to be grossed out to kiss Connor, she just was. She had the idea that he was going to taste like cheese balls, which could have to do with the multiple times that there were orange fingerprints all over her takeout bags. And those few times he had shown up and smiled with big chunks of cheese balls stuck in his braces. She shuddered at the thought.
But actually, it wasn’t that bad. He was one-hundred percent paralyzed at the time and he was freezing cold, so it kind of felt like she was kissing a dead person (not that she would know what that felt like). At least his lips weren’t chapped and razor sharp like they had looked when he had his braces.
Once Connor was out of sight, Lacey marched back over to the diner and stormed into the retro college hangout. She was going to give those ingrates a piece of her mind. “You know,” she started when she walked through the door.
Then she glanced at their table, her mouth dropped open, and the words she had been formulating in her head flew away. Her mouth became too dry for her to talk. Next to one of their baskets of fries was what looked like an invitation to the club Juice.
“Hey, Connor’s cousin is back!” the guy in the corner announced. “Nice to see you again. Would you like to join us?”
“I…um…actually, yeah.” Lacey pulled a chair from another table and sat herself at the end of their booth. They passed her a basket of fries to nibble on. “Thanks.” She was conflicted. She took a french fry and chomped on half of it, thinking about her loyalty to Connor versus her desire to go to the only club that existed within a one-hundred-mile radius of Whindry. “Here’s the thing…” she said as she finished the fry. “You were really mean to my friend.”
“Oh, he knows we’re joking!” Greasy Hair Guy waved away her comment. “You saw the flyer, didn’t you? You want to come with us?”
“Really?!” She sat up straight in her chair. “Well, I don’t really want to go with all of you, because you’re all stupid bullies…” The group of students looked at her, waiting for her to make her point. “But I do really want to go there. And my friend won’t go, because something about ‘the industry.’ I don’t know exactly what industry she’s talking about, but apparently someone’s doing something wrong. So, I have no one to go with, and it looks really lame to go by yourself. And I heard that since it just opened, they’re only letting in invitees. How you get invited to a new club opened in the middle of nowhere, I don’t know…Were you guys invited?”
“Yeah.” Rizzo laughed. “Hey, listen. I’m Claudia. This is Joe,” she pointed to the guy next to her who had been overzealous with his hair gel. “Marty,” she pointed to the curly-headed kid across from her who looked like he was stoned.
“Hey,�
�� he smiled and glanced at her before he took back the basket of french fries.
“And this is Kevin,” Claudia patted the shoulder of the blonde sitting in the corner across from her. He had been mean to Connor. But he was also kind of cute. And it’s not like Connor would know she was going to the club with them. It’s not like he would be there.
Yes, she decided she could go to Juice with them and still stay loyal to Connor. It’s not like she was picking them over Connor – she’d always pick Connor first. But as she looked around at the crew, they seemed a little less like jerks and a little more like kids who knew how to have a good time. There was nothing wrong with her having a good time, was there?
"So how do I get invited to this place?” she asked, grabbing the flyer.
“You can go as one of our dates,” Joe said.
“Not Joe. Joe’s my date.” Claudia picked up Joe’s arm, wrapping it around her.
“Well, you’re my real date. But you got invited, so you don’t really need a date. If…” Joe the Hair Gel Guy looked at Lacey questioningly and Lacey realized he was waiting for her to tell them her name.
“Oh,” she said. “Lacey.”
“If Lacey needs a date I’d be more than happy to oblige.” He pulled his arm out from behind Claudia and combed his fingers through his hair (which did nothing, as it was all glued in place).
“She’ll be my date,” Kevin said.
“Why do you get her?” Marty complained.
“Marty, where are we right now?” Claudia asked.
“In your room, right?” He looked around. “Whoa, when did we get here?” He absentmindedly scratched his stomach.
“That’s why,” Kevin said. “Don’t mind him, he never has any clue what’s going on.”
“I do too,” he started. Claudia waved the basket of french fries in front of his face. “Oh, fries. Gimme.” He snatched the basket from her hands and started downing them like he hadn’t just eaten a full cheeseburger with a side of fries and a chocolate milkshake.