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Hey You -*- Copyright 2006 by Ellen Hayes.
Any resemblance between the writings in this work, and any actual persons or places, living or dead, are purely coincidental, except when used for satirical purposes.
This work contains adult situations, adult language, adult concepts, and possibly sex. If you are legally not allowed to read materials containing such things, then you will be breaking the law by reading this. I am not responsible. Continuing to read this document, or storing it or reproducing it in any format means that you explicitly affirm that you are legally allowed to possess and read such materials in your city, county/parish, state, and country.
All rights reserved. See the bottom for distribution rights.
Hey You
Well, son of a BITCH, Debbie thought in amazement. She'd heard Kelly's announcement and put-down of that little preteen clique that had been harassing her; everyone had, because the first few words had made everyone shut up. Debbie had heard most of it, and she STILL couldn't quite believe Kelly had said it all out loud, here, now...
Shit. This is gonna confuse things... Just what she didn't need was a major distraction from what she was trying to get people to think. Fuck... And there was NO way she could ignore this; it was too... Too big, she finally decided.
I guess... Bridgette was still creeped out, but none of the other girls seemed to be, since they were all laughing and talking and stuff about it like it was somehow no big deal. She KNEW some of the older girls weren't lesbians, since they'd talked casually about boyfriends and sex and sexual performance in a way that told her that some of them at least had actually DONE what they were talking about; even, or maybe especially, Pam (who looked like she ought to be 'frigid') and Jill (who looked the most like what Bridgette had thought a lesbian would look like).
"It's about one in ten," Amanda said loudly to someone else over the table.
"What?!" Bridgette gasped.
"About one in ten," Amanda insisted. "And it's even more than that that've tried it at least once."
Several of the older girls were nodding at that like they knew that already. "Are you serious? What about you?" That burst out of her before she could stop herself.
As Bridgette turned a dark hot red - she could feel it - Amanda grinned lazily at her and said, "A lady never talks about her- what goes on in her boudoir, Bridgette."
"No, she was asking YOU," Jill grinned. "Not a 'lady'."
"FUCK you Jill-"
"How come," Kelly interjected, "nobody's asking ME?"
"'Cause," Pam answered instantly, "I told you; if you want to get the babes, you need some new clothes, and a make-"
"That is not FAIR!" Kelly protested, blushing hard. "I do NOT!"
"I certainly wouldn't date YOU looking like THAT," Sabrina huffed, stunning Bridgette because SHE was the LAST girl she'd have thought-
"Sabrina, you date guys, remember?" Pam mentioned through her own giggles.
"Oh! Right," Sabrina said as she slapped her forehead, like she'd forgotten that little fact. "Still, though," she said to Kelly, who was sort of grinning uncertainly as her blush faded.
"I can't figure out if they're serious," Cory whispered in her ear.
Bridgette twisted back and answered in Cory's ear, "I thought they were, at first..." Maybe it IS just a big joke? She can't REALLY be a lesbian, can she?
Amanda was kind of letting everyone else carry things at this point, because she wasn't sure that she hadn't said just the wrong thing with the 'one in ten' comment, even though it was true, she'd read it.
Gina, who seemed the most comfortable of the freshman girls with Kelly's revelation, asked her directly, "So, um, do you like look at the girls in gym class? 'Cause if I was into girls, I would," she admitted.
"Uhhhhhuh," Kelly shrugged with a grimace, looking like she meant 'not really'.
"'Uhhhhhhhhhuhhh?'" Anne-Marie, who happened to share gym class with Kelly, repeated, and pointed her boobs - which were substantial for her age - at Kelly. "That's all you can say? Is 'uhhhhhuhhhhhh'?"
"They're not THAT big," Kim corrected.
Anne-Marie continued, ignoring Kim, "The BOYS don't go 'Uhhhhhhh- huhhhh'!" Gina was trying to keep from laughing, as were Cory and most of the other little sisters. Sally looked confused but sort of fascinated, like she was trying to figure out what was going on.
"Well maybe you should date boys," Kelly shot back at Anne-Marie, sort of belligerently. Amanda couldn't tell if Anne-Marie was joking or not either.
"Did you just DUMP her?" Jill crowed in mock disbelief.
"What?" Anne-Marie asked, and Amanda caught the wink Jill slipped the other girl. "Hey, wait, you can't just DISS on me like that!" Anne-Marie protested to Kelly, though she was starting to giggle.
"I guess you're just not COOL enough, to date a lesbian," Jill smirked, which made them all laugh again, even as Anne-Marie laughingly protested, "I am too!"
Anne-Marie turned to Kelly with a fake look of desperation on her face and wailed, "You HAVE to date me now! I'll fling myself off a BRIDGE if you don't!"
"No way, bitch! I asked her first!" Jill disputed.
"Actually, she asked Kathy first," Pam mentioned, but a glance at Kathy, who was choking again, told all of them that she wouldn't be saying anything coherent for a while. Amanda put her hands close to her ears in case Kathy did that shrieking thing again.
"Why don't you take Tuck back out to the car," Bill suggested to Mike. "Give him something out of the cooler, let him sit down. If he needs a Big Cough, do what you can." Mike nodded without speaking, and escorted Tuck slowly out of the building.
"Sir?"
"Uh, sorry," he said as he turned back around. He also preferred to get the kids away from the register area when he was making large purchases; it helped cut down on whining later if they didn't know how much something cost, or if they hadn't gone to the trouble of adding it all up. And today was going to cost him close to two thousand dollars, though he thought it was money well spent, and he had the money free to spend, and most importantly Sarah had agreed to it before they'd left the house that morning. Maybe we could come out here, get her a set, make a day of it out of town... She liked romantic stuff like that, sometimes; if he planned for it and rested for a few days before, he could handle them, and the results. Have to be next week or later, though, he realized. Can't toss Tuck out of the house when he's like this. Well, I could, he realized, over to Mike's house. Hmm...
Kathy had had to go to the bathroom, finally, to rinse her face in cold water and remove some trashed makeup and either reapply it or leave it off, she wasn't sure yet. At least I finally stopped laughing, she sighed. She felt good, but rather limp, and she hadn't been able to contribute much to the discussion. Usually it's me that cracks everyone else up... Not today, though. Kelly had zinged her but GOOD, and she hadn't managed to recover until now.
She hadn't expected basically all the girls to come with her, but the noise hadn't changed when she'd gone halfway, so she looked back over her shoulder. And there they all were, following her like they were a bunch of ducklings. "Oh man," Kathy sighed as she turned around again and kept walking. And snickered, a (hopefully) last spasm.
Kelly protested, "But I don't-"
"Shut UP," Pam insisted, and then started doing things around her eyes. "I'm not as good as Debbie, but I'm pretty good... just don't MOVE, okay?"
Well, this explains some of what was going on with them, Dan decided. Mike and Tuck had gotten a lot closer to Kelly than the rest of them had to their own Little Brothers. He swallowed, which hurt, and tried to think. Then he realized what the pain meant.
"Well, I mean," Debbie said, trying to figure out how to phrase what she was going to say so that Sonia would think it. Oh! "I mean," she repeated to slow herself down and curb her enthusiasm, because she'd just figured out how to tie it in, "it makes sense. You know what happened to the band hall today?" Sonia nodded impatiently, so Debbie rapidly continued, "There's a LOT of people in band, and so they're all pissed. But nobody did anything IN school, you know? They waited until after school when no one was here. I heard the drama people are talking about hiring a security guard or getting parents to work shifts to keep it from happening to the theater. But, you know, it's like, it takes almost no time at all to just HURT someone, you know? That's been happening IN school, DURING school," Debbie emphasized. "And more and more lately, like people are figuring out they can get away with it. And people were calling her a lesbian when school started, before she said anything - she just moved here this year, from Alaska, you know; so it's not like anyone knew from before - so it's not like staying in the closet was any protection or anything. So, you know, maybe this will sort of act like to get the other gay and lesbian students-"
"Like Brian Long?" Sonia interrupted.
"Or that guy Victor Kloskowski, or-"
"Shelly Fields," Sonia interrupted again, naming another of the rumored 'deviants' that everyone 'knew' and no one had evidence for.
"Yeah, like, there's sort of a natural grouping there, and maybe if they all get together, they can sort of watch each other's backs. I've been trying to keep an eye on MY friends, you know, and vice versa, and I've heard of some other cliques doing the same thing, even sitting down and figuring out who has classes next to who. So maybe she'll be safer after this, since she could have someone to watch out for her. Speaking of classes," she said as they turned in to math class just as the bell rang.
That went pretty well, I think, Debbie decided as she sat down. Damn, she really did it, she exclaimed silently as she remembered Kelly's lunchtime outburst. I can't believe it... She was going to have to keep track of what happened to Kelly as a presumed result, though apparently she'd previously been deemed 'unpopular' and 'weird' and so she was already taking abuse for that; it would be harder to tell if people objected more to Kelly's announced lesbianism, or just the increased notoriety. It wasn't always good to be noticed for any reason at all, Debbie knew.
Paul Dobson wasn't sure he'd heard correctly. "She what?"
"She announced to the ENTIRE cafeteria that she was homosexual!" Susan Reiter, one of the German teachers, re-exclaimed in horror as she stopped shaking her head for a few moments. "I can't believe," she added as she resumed, "that anyone would be so bold as to ANNOUNCE such a thing! And in front of all of her friends?!"
"What else happened, Miz Reiter?" Paul pressed. "Was there any other disturbance, or violence, or-"
"There was one very tall girl, I think she's on the newspaper staff as a photographer," she said, and Paul guessed it was Kathy Collins, one of Eugene's friends. "She was on the floor just laughing like a lunatic, so loud you couldn't hear yourself THINK!"
Kathy, he agreed.
I still can't believe I did that... Kelly thought as she waved at Sabrina and went into her class. Sabrina had been arguing with her about clothing, and what she could do to make Kelly look much more fashionable and 'in tune' - which Kelly didn't think was necessary; she was comfortable in what she wore now - but she hadn't even mentioned...
I wonder if she was doing that to AVOID talking about me? Kelly wondered suddenly. She DOES know clothing and stuff; maybe she just wanted to find something to talk about that she knew already. That made some sense, she decided as she sat in her desk and started getting her notebook out. But then why was she trying to change-
A burst of giggles broke her out of her reverie, and she knew it was the usual cluster of girls, snickering at her from behind her. She felt the usual flash of shame and embarrassment as her neck heated up, but then realized, Hey, they must be talking about what I did at lunch. Man, that WAS pretty wild... Especially Kathy! She started snickering at the memory of tall, fit, ever-so-competent Kathy thrashing helplessly on the floor and making those immensely loud and attention-getting noises, and from the looks of it being unable to stop herself too. She was really funny like that... Kelly wondered if she could ever let herself go like that, but she wasn't sure she wanted to, really; it seemed undignified somehow, or something like that.
The bell rang, which made her look up, which made her remember that there was going to be a test today, so she stuffed her notebook back into her pack and waited. Huh, she realized, they stopped giggling. Worried about the test, I guess.
"Well, at least now she'll start getting points..." Amanda grinned to herself.
"Say what?" Paul Grant asked.
"You know, for a microwave? Recruiting?" Amanda explained, her grin broadening.
"What are you talking about?" Paul challenged.
"Oh, it's from that Ellen Degeneres show, you know?" He didn't look like he did. "Oh come ON! Last April? She came out on national television?"
"Oh yeah... points?"
Amanda shook her head. "Never mind. See ya Monday!"
Bill smiled after checking the children's-view mirror - the interior rear-view repositioned so he could keep an eye on the kids, who could be contentious liars if not watched by a relatively impartial judge. Both boys looked like they'd fallen asleep, like they'd done on the drive up. Any time his son was sleeping, he was healing; there seemed to be a definite positive correlation between time spent sleeping and speed of recuperation, either from injury or illness. He'd supposed it made sense; they had been treating Eugene's symptoms partially on that basis for years, which is why he was taking-
Wait, IS he taking Valium? Bill wondered. Sarah put it on the to-do list for this morning, but I don't know if she called Dana yet... and if she prescribed any, I didn't pick it up after we got him out of the hospital. Hmmm. He glanced back at his son again, who was apparently sleeping peacefully, sprawled out over the back seat. Not having any now... Still, it was inevitable that he'd have them; he'd better check when he got home.
So what's the best way to protect those broken ribs? he asked himself.
"Oh, no," Paul Dobson said for Ms. Raleigh's benefit. "We are QUITE liable." A chance remark had stuck in his head, and he'd spent the last ten minutes looking the reference up via the World Wide Web and the multi-engine search option. "Nabozny versus Podlesny, U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals." He decided to print this page out. "Basically, if we - the school district - do not address any sort of sexual or gender-related abuse, the school district as a whole may be held liable. To the tune of millions of dollars," he added.
"You didn't hear?" Evelyn Thomas, who was one of the shortest girls in school, shook her head at Debbie. She was also a flute and piccolo player, which somehow fit, and stories had it that she could be absolutely merciless to people who couldn't march. Debbie guessed that she used her smaller size to bully people, though she apparently didn't do it that much outside of band. "Tom Wallace, he's one of the bass drums... He got into a fight with some football jackoff at lunch 'cause the jackoff said something about how band DESERVED what'd happened because we were so stuck up and shit."
"BAND stuck up?" Debbie exclaimed, thinking, Must've been A lunch because it didn't happen during B, and it's too soon for her to hear about anything during C.
"Yeah I know," Evelyn said back, then sighed and looked away. "The monitors managed to pull 'em apart, but the jackoff threatened him, saying he'd get it later."
"That sounds ominous, with all the other stuff going on," Debbie said carefully.
"Yeah I know," Evelyn agreed again, looking worried.
"Man, I still can't believe she did that," James said to Cory as the two of them walked along the halls. Cory didn't need to ask who he was talking about.
"Me neither," she said, though it sort of made sense if you looked at her.
On the other hand, she'd been accused of being a lesbian once, by one bitch who'd gotten entirely too jealous about the guy SHE wanted being totally uninterested in her and completely fascinated with Cory (not that Cory was that interested in the guy, but nobody paid attention to that part either.) And she KNEW she wasn't...
She'd actually thought about it, months later, during a few days when she'd had some dental work and some Vicodin to really derange her thoughts; just thinking about it to think about it, really, and wonder if she was, and how she would know, and whether she would notice right away, and all sorts of weird philosophical points. It was far more interesting than late-morning television.
At least James was talking to her again, though; she'd felt immensely bad about not paying attention when whoever it'd been had knocked his glasses off, and every time he got more than usually awkward around her (which was every time he'd seen her), she felt bad about it all over again.
"Do you," she said to keep him talking, then changed her mind. "Why do you think she did it? Like that, I mean, in front of everybody?"
James shrugged. "Some other freshthing girl was teasing-"
"'Freshthing'?"
He shrugged again. "Something I picked up from the guys, Tuck and them."
"Oh yeah... Hey, what happened to the other guy, Mike? And, uh, the, uh-"
"George?"
"Yeah, I thought they had lunch with you-"
"Out sick, Dan said," he said. "Strep throat, I think. Tuck..." He shrugged. "You probably know more about him than I do."
"Huh? Why?"
"Oh, I, uh, I thought some of the girls went to visit him yesterday."
"Huh. Wasn't me, anyway, an' I didn't hear anything about it," she disclaimed. They were at his class, so she waved at him and said, "See you Monday, okay? Have a good weekend."
"Huh? Isn't Kathy taking us-"
"Oh, yeah, right," she nodded. She'd almost forgotten. "Uh, well, see you after school, then," she said rapidly. "I gotta git," she pointed towards her next class.
"Yeah, see ya," he called over his shoulder as he went in.
Well, that went better... she thought with some relief as she picked up her pace.
James walked in feeling halfway decent for once, so of course the usual dorks had to try and spoil it. "Oooh, new girlfriend, geek?" Ralph sneered.
"She's just a friend, dork."
"One of them lunchtime LEZZZZZZZZBO's?" he sneered, drawing it out, and everyone in his group laughed on cue. "She gonna teach you how to get girls, squint?" And everyone laughed on cue.
Sq- Oh. Lame. Tucker could do better... "Not like YOU could tell me anything," he tossed back. Then he remembered the way the other girls, especially the older ones, had been telling Kelly, or teasing her, how to get girls, and laughed out loud.
"Hey Kelly!" Kelly looked up from trying to untangle her sports bra, over at Anne-Marie, who was staring at her with an expectant grin. "Uhhhhhhhh?" she grinned as she pushed her chest out and wiggled, making her bra-covered breasts bounce.
The locker room got totally silent.
"AHahahaha!" Kelly burst out, followed an instant later by Anne- Marie.
"They were like making lesbian jokes in there!" Bonnie whined, and Sherry Eaton had to stiffen her face to keep from sneering. Bonnie was a whining snitch, whose father seemed to have an uncanny ability to find teachers' home numbers and call at the worst possible time to complain about some lack of preferential treatment for his daughter.
"Just ignore it," Sherry said as calmly as she could.
"But I can't get undressed in a room with those PERVERTS in it!" Bonnie squealed.
"Fine, you can sit out today," Sherry snapped as she pointed at the bleachers. Damnit! She KNEW she shouldn't do things like that, and she was fairly sure that Bonnie did them on purpose to get her way, but sometimes she just wanted the whining to stop too much to restrain herself.
Paul gave the stack of printed memos to Trisha and said, "Make sure these get in everyone's mailbox NOW, before school lets out." He'd thought it prudent to get a memo in before the weekend, about the official policy he was making on gay and lesbian students coming out, and the reasoning why they had to remain apparently unbiased. Some of the reasoning, he admitted to himself as he walked back to his office.* The Nabozny case should scare any administrator with half an ounce of cunning or self-preservation; he wanted the teachers to realize that if they set the school district up for a similar legal case, they would be cut adrift instantly.
Sometimes I like this job, he realized suddenly, when he had to stop himself from whistling.
I was supposed to do something... Look at cards and shit, Tuck remembered. Inna minute... He hurt so bad after the last cough, and he was just starting to warm up again in the hammock, he didn't want to stick his arm out and lose the stored heat.
"Where's Jody?" Coach Walls asked, looking concerned.
Everyone shrugged, so when it looked like no one else knew anything, Shannon said, "She was looking pretty sick at lunch."
"Look," interrupted Jennifer, "what about what happened today, about the pep rally?" Everyone started complaining about that, and Coach Walls eventually had to shout everyone down.
"Yeah, sorry, but she's having problems with Carol, so I said I'd drop her off," Debbie explained to Monica as she waved at Honor. "You want to get in the front seat now?" With hardly any prompting, Honor had talked a lot about Carol and the other cheerleaders, and Monica had been pretty bitter and upset about most of it. Debbie had barely needed to say anything at all. That worked out pretty well...
"Did you hear about that girl at lunch today?" Monica asked Debbie as she slid into the seat and slammed her door shut.
"Which-"
"The one who said she was gay!" Monica insisted.
"Oh! Yeah, I saw it even," Debbie said. "Man, that was pretty brave, I mean after all the shit that's been going on at school lately. Do your seat belt, okay?"
"Shit," Monica said as she grappled with the belt. "I dunno, I mean, I don't see how she could do that, right in the open like that."
"I don't either," Debbie said absently as she checked the mirrors before pulling away from Honor's house.
After a few seconds, Monica speculated, "Maybe she just figured she doesn't have anything to lose."
"What? How so?"
Monica shook her head. "I mean, after band..." Debbie nodded solemnly. "Anyway," she continued, sounding subdued, "maybe she just figured that if things like that could happen to anyone, she might as well come out, you know? Like, before anything happened to her for some other reason. Or NO reason."
"That's kind of weird," Debbie remarked. "You think that was it?" she prodded.
"I dunno, but, I mean, I'm getting this weird feeling at school, like I'd better do what I need to do NOW, before something happens to ME, you know?"
Debbie was respectfully silent for several seconds, in case Monica had just blurted that out; if she had, Debbie wanted her to think about it. Then she said, "Jeez... that's pretty scary. I mean, what IF, you know?" Monica was nodding at her. "I never thought of it like that..."
"Maybe that's what she's thinking of, like 'if I don't do it now, I might never get the chance...'"
"We ordered three cellphones," Sarah told the clerk. "Name of Bill or Sarah Tucker? I'm here to pick them up."
"Nope," Kathy answered before cranking the starter on her Talon, which blotted out all conversation for several seconds.
"It really doesn't bother you?" Cory asked as Kathy pulled out of the parking lot, consciously trying not to drive like Debbie even though she'd been several minutes late getting out to her car.
"No, not really," Kathy replied idly, more concerned with keeping her Talon a minimum distance away from other peoples' vehicles. "Don't talk for a minute."
When she got to the first real stoplight away from school, where she thought she was moderately safe from the rest of the students, she answered further, "I mean, hell, it's not like I haven't been asked before either."
"You have?!" James and Cory both gasped, in unison.
She couldn't look at both of them at the same time, so she settled for glaring at Cory. "I'm big and butch, and I'm not very feminine when it gets in the way of things I want to do. So of course I've been asked."
After several seconds of very pregnant silence, Cory dared, "Who?"
"None of your business," Kathy said firmly. "Besides Kelly," she found herself grinning. James let out a single bleat of laughter behind her. "If they wanted you to know, they'd tell you." She shook her head. "Besides, it's not really... I mean, I wouldn't want everyone to know what GUYS have asked me out, so I don't think I want everyone to know what GIRLS have asked me out, the same way."
"Why not?" James dared.
Kathy sighed. "I dunno... Just seems, like it's not really everyone's business, like not something that ought to be common knowledge or discussed in the halls. If someone asks and gets- Well, if someone asks me to go out and I say 'yes', then of course people might find out about it, because they might see us together, yah?" They both nodded. "But if someone asks and I say 'no', then it might be embarrassing... For some reason, getting told 'no' is- it's seen as a failure for some reason. Like how's anyone going to know without asking? It's stupid but it seems to work that way. So, since there's a, uh, a social stigma of failure attached to getting told 'no', I don't see a reason to put that stigma on someone just for asking."
"There's a stigma? Just for asking?" Cory asked.
Kathy looked over at her for a second, but she saw the light turn green out of her peripheral vision and had to re-center her head. "Hell yes. James? Am I right?" she asked over the increased engine noise.
"Uh... Yeah, I guess..." he admitted from the back seat.
"Really?" Cory asked, like she'd never even considered this before.
"I'm back," Debbie said, getting Monica to look up from her lap; homework, Debbie guessed.
"Good God!" Monica complained as she saw the shopping cart Debbie was pushing.
"Trust me, it'll all be worth it," Debbie assured her. And, whatever she didn't use on Monica, she could use on herself. Or eat; at least a quarter of what was in the cart was food of one kind or another.
"So, uh..."
"What?" James looked really uncomfortable, again, Cory noticed.
"Do you think Kathy, uh, that she's, uh... she's-"
"Oh!" she exclaimed when she finally got it. "I don't think so... unless she was making it all up."
"What was she making up?"
"Oh, she's said stuff about guys she's dated, and a couple she wished she was still dating but can't, and some that sound good but you shouldn't even consider dating," Cory recalled. She'd already been asked by one of the last kind, and it was a good thing Kathy had warned her first or she'd have fallen for his stupid lines like Kathy'd said she did. "But I don't think she was making that stuff up, I mean."
"Oh."
"You really thought she was?" Cory asked, curious.
He shrugged with his head bent down, staring at the ground. "Well, I mean, she never actually SAID, one way or the other. And she sort of gave the impression that she wouldn't say if she was; you know how she said she wouldn't say who had asked her, and how she sort of turned that into anyone asking her? So, like, she didn't really like answer it directly."
"Huh," Cory remarked, now able to see what he was talking about. "Yeah, okay... I don't think she is, though..." Though she wasn't entirely sure, now. That dork... Like I don't have enough to worry about already!
Jody finally pushed herself out of her car, walked around it to the Tucker's mailbox, and pushed her battered letter through the little slot. She couldn't really do it before school let out, but there was no way she was going to practice today, or the parties tonight, or any of it. And she HAD to get this done.
Unfortunately, she didn't feel any better when the deed was done. She just felt empty.
She took a few deep breaths before she found the energy to walk back to her car and get in. It won't make any difference...
But she'd had to do it.
Bill typed the car's description and the partial license plate he'd gotten with the binocs before the car passed out of sight behind a neighbor's shrubbery. Wonder who that was... He hadn't seen her right away, but nothing had alarmed, so she hadn't done anything. And while he hadn't recognized her, the number of girls in the house in the last week was more than he could keep track of.
Kelly unlocked her apartment and came in, dumping her pack on the floor as she relocked the door then rushed to the bathroom. She hadn't been let go long enough after lunch to go, and after that... she felt a little weird about going into a bathroom at school now, and especially in the locker room, because she was afraid people might complain, or do something bad. "Yeah, real brave NOW, stupid," she sighed to herself. Why didn't I THINK before I did that?
And maybe I can take this makeup off. It was illogical, but she kept FEELING it on her face, like it was a thick coat of paint.
"My GOD, did you hear what happened at B lunch?" Reina asked.
"What hap-"
"Some freshman girl, she's like with all those geeks you know? She just up and announced she was a LESBIAN!"
"WHAT?!" Ginger shrieked.
Allison Hunter picked up the phone, then put it down. For the fourth time. "Stop it!" she demanded.
"So, I mean..." Rose repeated, feeling unsure what to say next.
"I don't think it matters," Tracy said.
"What?!"
"Well look, I mean, you know, how many kids at school are gay? Just by percentages, some of 'em are. We've got, what, over a thousand people there; SOME of them have to be gay, right?"
"I guess," Rose agreed unhappily.
"So, so what? I mean, if she asks you out that's one thing, but, you know, I don't care, as long as she leaves ME alone. I mean, what does it matter if she is? It's her life, and not mine. Thank GOD!" she said, which made Rose laugh. "I couldn't stand being a lesbian!"
"What? Why not?"
"Dude I'd have to break up with Alan!" Tracy rushed, laughing.
"Oh so like you've forgiven him for the prom thing?"
"Yeah, I think so... he's been really nice to me all week, since I called-"
"I'm the one that called him!" Rose protested, laughing. They'd ALL called him, on a speakerphone, and tortured both Tracy and Alan mercilessly until Tracy had finally hung up.
"Well still, he took the hint-"
"Hint?!"
"Man, I am so shit," Dan sighed to himself. He wasn't entirely sure if he was sick, but he knew he was illin'. The late nights and lack of sleep were catching up to him fast. But, once he reported everything to Mike and Tuck, he could go home and sleep. He'd taken the last of Debbie's pep pills half an hour ago, when he'd been home for a few minutes, but it hadn't helped yet. Waiting for the bus wasn't helping either, but at least he didn't have to walk all the way.
"I just can't figure out why she did it today," Kim told Pam.
"I think she just got tired of being called the name, you know?" Pam suggested. "I mean, if I WAS, and I kept getting called it, especially as an insult, it would REALLY piss me off after a while."
"So are YOU coming out Monday?" Kim teased.
"Hell no! I'd have to stop dating guys!" Pam laughed.
There was a silence over the phone, then Karen Stockman asked plaintively, "Why?"
"'Cause it was funny!" Anne-Marie defended herself. "It was kind of weird, though, because everyone stopped talking, and then it was like nobody did anything except get dressed after that. I think some of 'em were whispering and stuff, but you know the normal talk? There wasn't any of that."
"God, do you think they think you're one now?" Karen asked.
Anne-Marie shrugged the phone where it was pinched between her cheek and her shoulder. "Maybe, but... I mean, I'm NOT."
"Does it really matter?"
"DOES it really matter?" Anne-Marie asked back.
There was a silence on the other end of the phone.
"You think she's a lesbian too?" Mark asked.
"What, the- Kathy?" Brendan remembered her name. "I dunno... I mean, I've seen her dating- like on dates with guys, before."
"She wasn't at Homecoming with anyone," Mark said.
"No, she was there taking pictures," Brendan asserted. "I remember. She was wearing jeans and some kind of shirt, and had a camera bag and stuff-"
"She didn't get a date to Homecoming? Don't you think that's kind of suspicious?" Mark argued.
"Well, someone had to take pictures, right? She took one of me and Courtney-"
"Yeah, but like she didn't even try to go? Or dress up for it?"
"I think I've seen her at other dances," Brendan said, but he didn't seem very sure of that.
"So? Better?" Debbie asked.
"Ohhhh yeah," Monica smiled lazily back, as she lay supine on her bed. "I gotta get my dad to give me enough money so you can do this every week," she breathed, and Debbie chuckled appropriately.
Debbie had done nearly everything she could think of to do to Monica in an hour and a half, from a deep conditioning treatment on her hair down to a pedicure, and Monica honestly looked a lot better, and most importantly a lot more relaxed and un-tense than she had when they'd gone inside Monica's house. Luckily, Debbie had learned to get payment for this service up front; otherwise, clients would choke and get all tense again when she mentioned the cost.
I really ought to do this to MYSELF tomorrow, Debbie decided, saying nice things to Monica on autopilot as she packed up her stuff. Now... call Lisa and get her, before I have to talk to Miz Tucker at dinner.
"Dude, I'm telling you, it was Debbie," Brian asserted.
Dan challenged, "Why did you say she had reddish hair, though? It should've looked darker under the sodium, not lighter."
And Debbie's hair was pretty dark already, close to black. Brian shrugged. "I dunno, man, I'm just telling you what I saw."
"It was her normal color today, I saw it at lunch."
"Anon-" Tuck's computer said before he apparently changed his mind and stopped it somehow. Then it said, "Anomalous."
"Yeah, that's it," Brian agreed. "I'm not saying you're lying or that you're wrong or anything, I'm just saying that I saw what I saw, you know? And Jill," he remembered, "identified it as Lisa's car. Don't those two hang around together sometimes?"
Dan looked at Mike who looked at Tuck who nodded.
Then he frowned, and typed, and the computer spoke, "I thought you said the other girl had black hair query."
"The one who wasn't Debbie, yeah," Brian agreed.
"L-I-S-A is blond," the computer said, and Mike blinked and looked over at Tuck, but he was nodding at the same time.
"It's WHAT I SAW," Brian emphasized slowly.
"God, I can't believe she just ANNOUNCED it like that?" Steve complained. BS'ing over the phone was a lot easier than trying to get to Andy Costello's house; he lived miles away.
"Well, hell, man, if she was, she might as well-"
"WHAT?!"
"Dude, have you seen her?"
"No? What does that have to do with-"
"Everybody has been giving her shit since day one, since school started, man. I heard the cheerleaders did something to her on that first day, too, to fuck with her, like they assigned her to some guy as a little brother, as a joke on her-"
"THAT's cold."
"Dude, you know it. So, man, why the hell NOT tell everybody? It's like being black, you know? Are you gonna try and hide it, be white all the time, or-"
"Don't you think being black is kind of more obvious than being gay or whatever?" Steve asked; Andy ought to know, being black at least.
"Maybe." Before Steve could say anything else, Andy continued, "I heard stuff from my grandpa, about stuff, like black guys trying to pass as white, and it was important then, 'cause they couldn't get good jobs otherwise-"
"What?"
"Yeah, back in the Forties, man, it was REAL important."
"Body armor? Like Kevlar?" Sarah was looking at him skeptically, which wasn't what Bill had hoped.
"Uh, well," he said as he looked down and took his glasses off, "what I was thinking, was that we could sort of make a day of it. You know, check out a restaurant, maybe see whatever sights are there..."
"Get a hotel room?" she asked, but he detected amusement rather than scorn or bewilderment.
"Well, if you wanted to," he said as he slipped his glasses back on. It was amazing how dirty they got just-
"I think I might rather go camping for that, dear," Sarah smirked at him.
"A hotel would be nice," he hinted hopefully. He liked having a proper bed, and sheets, and a bathroom, and a roof that was quite a distance over his head, and real walls and such things that would keep curious hikers and animals out and the noises in, for times like those.
"I just, uh, heard, uh, what you like said, uh, in the cafeteria today, and, uh, I, uh, I was, uh..." The entire message was like this, and there was a name but no phone number to call; Kelly was already irritated because some of the makeup wasn't coming off, and Audrey wasn't home so she couldn't ask her how to get rid of it. And now this.
Who is this twit? Kelly wondered as the message playback finished for the second time. 'Allison Hunter' didn't tell her anything. And why is she calling me?
And why is she so nervous?
Joan Rieke cursed out loud and grabbed the phone and dialed before she could get afraid again and not do it. This is STUPID! she told herself as it purred into her ear.
"Ah!" Kelly jumped as the phone rang right as she was reaching for it. I think I'll let the answering machine get it, she decided. Might be that Allison again, and maybe I'll have some idea of what she WANTS this time. Maybe she had a couple of drinks before now and got calmer? I hope so... She was enjoying being home, alone, and not worrying about what people were going to do.
Julia sighed; rehearsal today was shit, and it was completely obvious to her why. If it wasn't worry about what had happened to band, and what therefore might happen to THEM next, it was conversational 'buzz' about what Kelly had done in the cafeteria. Not unusually, nearly everyone had heard about it by the time practice started after school. Though that definitely did NOT mean that they were all done talking about it.
But the two things in combination were sure messing things up. She thought Ms. Kane was going to have a full-on fit, and not to show someone what she wanted in a scene either.
"Hello?"
"Sarah, it's Dana Treble. Are you home today?"
"In and out; right now, I am." She'd just finished taking Dan home when she'd found him; he didn't look much better than Michael. He'd been tiredly effusive in his thanks, and swore upon his immortal soul - she'd been rather bemused when he'd said that, unprompted by anything she thought she'd said or done - that he would rest all night and sleep late the next day, to recuperate. "Calling about Eugene and Michael?"
"Yeah, I had a few minutes in between patients; I thought I'd see what was up before I came over tonight. Six okay?"
"I think so... let me check." She got up and went to go ask Bill if six o'clock would be a good time for her to come by.
"Dear Valerie," the letter started. It was laboriously scribed in beginner's cursive, the letters simultaneously standard-form and really messed up because he obviously wasn't very practiced in writing yet. Third grade, Tucker remembered.
Im sorry to hear that you are sick. I hope you get better soon.
Kim is okay and fun sometimes but I miss you. Shes not as fun as
you and she doesnt cook either.
No apostrophes, Tucker noted.
Please get well and come back. I miss you LOTS! Stella does too
and Mom and Dad and everyone. So please please please come back
when youre better!
Ricky Parker
His vision blurred before he closed his eyes to concentrate on eliminating the swelling pain in his throat. Stupid kid.
"I dunno, Debbie, I don't like it..." Debbie looked up at Lisa, waiting for her to finish.
When it became apparent that she had, Debbie asked, "Can you think of a better idea? I mean, SHE called ME, wanting to discuss things... I got the impression I'd better do it. You know, she has too much on both of us right now. We HAVE to..." Especially NOW. Why Lisa waited to object to things like this until the last minute, was one of her more annoying habits.
"I don't like that either," Lisa complained. "What if she decides it's in her best interest to do something, like turn us in? To the cops or something?"
Debbie sighed as she shook her head. "She won't; she's in as deep as we are."
"No," Lisa disputed firmly, "she's NOT."
Debbie finished loading her car, ignoring Lisa's imploring look as long as she could. "Look, like, it's too late to stop now, it's too late to back away from her now. We're stuck with her. And she had some good ideas, you know? The posters have really been working."
"I just don't trust her. I don't trust any of 'em," Lisa admitted as she looked away.
"Just 'cause you can't trust 'em with one thing doesn't NECESSARILY mean you can't trust them with other things, Lisa. You know that." It was a reversal of the way things usually worked, but she knew that she could trust Tucker not to involve the police, under any circumstances; and she thought the rest of his family were the same way, now that she'd dealt more directly with them. And she well knew that sometimes you could trust people in business you'd be stupid to trust in a personal relationship. She put a hand on Lisa's shoulder. "Please, Lisa, I need to talk to her tonight. Will you come with me? It'd make me feel better... safer, if you were with me."
Lisa just nodded, without looking up.
"I haven't even asked," Sarah admitted to Dana Treble, "I'd just assumed he was."
"Well, what's he been eating?"
"Whatever we can get him to eat. You know how he gets... Michael's been bullying him as usual, even though he's sick too, and-"
"I wish," Dana smiled into the phone, "that I could prescribe someone like Mike to all my teenage patients."
"He's pretty effective." In one limited way, it was a good thing that Michael had been sick this week; it meant that he would hang around Eugene all the time, and to the extent he could, ensure that Eugene drank, ate, took his medications on time, rested or slept as much as possible, and so on. "I mean, he can be pretty mean, but it seems to work."
"It's a boy thing," Dana said, and Sarah nodded. If she tried the same tactics on Eugene, he'd get utterly stubborn and refuse to do them at all.
Kelly was very grateful that the answering machine speaker could be turned off. She just wished she could turn off the tape noise it made too. And the living room phone; it was old enough that it didn't have a switch to turn off the ringer, and old enough that Dad had had to wire it into the jack, instead of plugging it like a modern phone. The calls kept coming, and she was scared to pick up the phone and call someone, in case she answered one just as they connected. They were getting weirder, too.
She decided to get up and check the door locks again.
"Yes, Ricky," Kim sighed. "She IS going to get better. I saw her last night. She's still sick, but she's out of the hospital at least." She didn't say that she wondered if Valerie would come back before Christmas; she looked almost DEAD, hanging there in that net or whatever she was in, pale and bruised and hot with fever, and utterly mute.
"Did she read my letter yet?" Ricky asked shyly.
"I think she did, but I didn't ask. She's still really sick, Ricky," Kim warned. "It may be a while before she comes back."
He sighed and slumped, obviously displeased. Well, hell, it's not like I WANT her to stay gone! Kim snarled internally. Ricky was getting on her nerves, moping around for Valerie all the time like he'd been doing all week.
"Gotta go talk to Deborah, and probably Lisa, tonight," Sarah reminded Bill after she kissed the top of his head. "Michael's mother called and I'm taking advantage of her again tonight; make sure Michael looks good at dinner or she'll take him back. She misses him." Nearly every time Michael got sick, Eugene did too, so Bill and Sarah had historically watched both boys most of those times, which allowed Elaine to do her church-related work during the day. It wasn't much harder to care for the two of them than it was for one; and Elaine was perfectly willing to watch Eugene if both of them were busy. Despite this, Elaine still apparently felt guilty about leaving Michael at their house for days on end.
"Maybe we could ship both of them over there," Bill mentioned. "How're you doing? Tired?"
She thought about it for a moment. "I suppose... I'm not sure it would help, having them at Michael's house, though. With the two of them together, we hardly have to bother with them. It's everything else. Oh, and Dana's coming over tonight about six, six thirty, to have a look at both of them. Among other things she wants to check on Eugene's constipation." He was prone to it when his normal diet and routine were disrupted, and of course being reluctant to eat like he was when he was in respiratory distress, just exacerbated the problem because his system didn't have enough bulk to work with. "She said she'd bring some kind of stool softener, but she wants him to start drinking Metamucil again."
"Well, shit."
"That's the idea," she grinned, the same time he did. She'd half expected him to say, "Garbage in garbage out," but sometimes he still surprised her.
"That was so weird..." Sabrina mentioned.
"Yeah, but... I dunno. How do you feel about it?"
"How do YOU feel about it?"
"I dunno..."
They didn't say anything for several seconds.
In theory, Sabrina was for gay rights, equality, openness, and all that; it was, she'd just discovered, a little different to have One Of Them sitting at the same table and looking back at her (sometimes). It made her a little uneasy, for reasons she couldn't really explain. Everyone had rallied around Kelly instantly, almost by instinct, but now Sabrina was- Not second thoughts, exactly, she told herself, but, I guess... wondering what it means. Implications, ramifications, all that.
"I think," Pam finally said into the vaguely uncomfortable silence, "that it was kind of cool, the way WE acted. I mean-"
"Yeah." Sabrina was sure of that. Whatever she thought about Kelly personally, or about having a lesbian sitting across from her looking at her, she didn't think that it deserved the kind of abuse she'd seen happen to Kelly right there in front of all of them. And that had started before anyone even knew about her. "And Kathy..."
Pam laughed, though thankfully in a normal way, not Kathy-type ear- bursting insanity. "I think she thought it was funny!"
"Well, DUH!" Sabrina snapped back, and then both of them were laughing.
Mrs. Tucker was waiting by the door as Debbie pulled into the parking lot. "Oh God," Lisa sighed as she stared straight ahead, pretending she hadn't been looking around.
"She can't do anything to us IN the restaurant, Lisa," Debbie said, hoping to convince them both.
"So why are we going out to the parking lot afterwards?" Lisa snapped.
"There's some things you shouldn't talk about in a public place, remember?" Lisa could be a bit dense once in a while. Or, she was really displeased about the meeting and acting dumb to try and get Debbie to do something else.
"Oh, right, she works," Kelly said to herself, before hanging up the phone. "Damn..." The quarter rattled down into the slot, and she scooped it out absently, trying to think of who else she could call.
"Three please, and a booth," Mrs. Tucker informed the hostess. Debbie felt uncomfortable letting her take charge, but didn't feel like it was wise to argue.
"Yes," the hostess nodded, and scurried out with a handful of menus. They followed the small woman to a booth near the back. Debbie looked around and found few other patrons seated near them. They ordered drinks - Debbie was pleased that Mrs. Tucker didn't order anything alcoholic - and then stared at anything but each other for a few moments.
"Deborah," Mrs. Tucker started, and Debbie glanced up, feeling unreasonably guilty. "Eugene wanted me to apologize again to you, for what happened yesterday."
Debbie just nodded to Mrs. Tucker and grabbed Lisa's hand and squeezed as tight as she could. She didn't kick her leg because that was the one thing that would set Lisa off instantly.
"He thought," she continued, "that somehow a cheerleader had gotten into our house and was chasing Mike with intent to harm him."
After a long moment's consideration of dozens of responses, Debbie replied, "I hope none of them are actually that stupid."
Mrs. Tucker's lips twitched, like she was about to smile, and she said, "So do I."
Well, the lies have already started, Sarah commented to herself. The unplanned lies, she corrected, because she hadn't had time to talk to Eugene about why he needed to apologize. Bill was supposed to do that tonight, and if he didn't she'd talk to Eugene tomorrow. Thank heavens Michael was quick-witted enough to say that Thursday.
"Anyway," Deborah said briskly. "That's not what you wanted to talk about tonight, was it?"
"No," Sarah agreed, noticing that Lisa looked less uncomfortable when she said that.
"So anyway-" Pam was interrupted by the doorbell. "Oh! Date's here, gotta go!"
"Have fun, don't do anything all of us wouldn't do," Sabrina suggested.
Pam laughed, said, "Bye!" and hung up. "Commmmminnnnggggggg!" she yelled as she trotted towards the front door.
"I was counting on him NOT coming back!" Deborah burst out.
Sarah gasped, "What?!"
"See, one of their best academic students - I've seen his grades - and he's so abused and terrified that he won't come back to school? I mean-"
"I can see that," Sarah interrupted. "But he said he IS going to go back. And he means it too. We can't actually force him NOT to go..." That wasn't entirely true; it was just that trying to hold Eugene captive for the rest of the school year would be unworkably difficult, requiring either Bill or Sarah, or possibly both, to quit their jobs so they could be full-time jailers. And, if he wanted to go as badly as he seemed to, that's what they would have to do to thwart him. If THAT would work, and Bill was vaguely hinting that it wouldn't-
"Shit," the girl said softly. "And, there's no way you can talk him out of it?"
Sarah looked away, and wanted a cigarette. "I don't think so. The little shit's as stubborn as I am." She snarled suddenly, "We didn't KNOW it was that bad there, as bad as it was; he didn't say anything about it to us..." Things had happened, but Sarah and Bill had both thought - or assumed - that it was more random opportunity attacks than directed against him specifically.
"So why does he want to go BACK there?"
"I don't damn well know!" Sarah shot back. Then she sighed; she did know. She just didn't want to think about it, because the memory still made her shiver. "He said, 'They came for me. Just like for the fucking Jews.' That's what he said," Sarah added, "just like that. Then he said, 'They're not getting my friends.'"
Both girls looked shocked.
"He thinks it's his duty to be there for them," she sighed. Then she looked at Deborah. "Do you think you could talk him out of going back?" She knew she was grasping at straws, but...
Debbie actually seemed to consider it, because she stared away for a while, fretting, before shaking her head. "I don't think so. I don't think he'd listen to me any more. Esp-" She cut herself off. "Mike's not staying home, though, right?"
"What? No. So of course Tuck's not going to leave school if Mike's there," she said as Deborah nodded repeatedly in agreement. "He said that last night." She'd probably semi-deliberately forgotten that part, she realized. She REALLY wanted a cigarette at the moment. "God damn it," she said as her jaw clenched.
"Uh, h-h-h-hey, I-" Lisa reached out to Deborah protectively.
"It's not your fault, Deborah; I know that," Sarah snapped as she turned partially away from the two. "I'm just, so... How can he be so goddamned stubborn about something that could get him killed?!"
Deborah's helpless shrug mirrored her thoughts.
<Why not?> Eugene signed while glaring at Bill.
Bill explained, "Because you don't have unlimited minutes, they're expensive, and if you had the chance you'd overspend your budget without realizing it dialing up from class."
<Got you,> Mike signed, grinning. Tucker slapped at him.
"Maybe earlier?" Debbie presented hesitantly. "It would be helpful if the parents YOU call, start talking to each other, and the best time would be over the weekend, when most of 'em aren't working."
"I can see that," Sarah sighed, "but I have to work too; I've got three showings after noon, and those take a while."
"Well, I mean, just, when you can," Debbie said.
The phone rang again - the old one that she couldn't turn off - and Audrey asked, "Do you want to get it?"
"No!" Kelly exclaimed.
"What?"
They stared at each other as the phone rang again, and Audrey finally said, "Okay, I'll-"
"No!" Kelly said again as she rushed around and put her body between Audrey and the phone. "Um," she said as Audrey looked really confused. "I've, uh, I... Look, I don't want to explain this right now," she said desperately, "but I'm getting calls that I really don't want to answer, and-"
"Well just tell 'em to buzz off," Audrey suggested, sounding like she thought Kelly was losing it.
"Um... that's not it," Kelly said.
"Well, what is it?"
"Um." She REALLY didn't want to talk about this right now, not like this. "When's Dad going to be home?"
"Eleven tonight," she replied in a challenging tone.
"Um. Can we talk about this tomorrow?" Kelly asked desperately. "Please? And, uh, just ignore the phone for a while?"
"I can't ignore the phone, Kelly! What if it's your dad?"
"He's got your cellphone number!" Kelly said desperately. She didn't want to ignore the people calling her; she just didn't want to talk to them yet. She REALLY wanted to talk to someone like Kim, or Jill, or Kathy maybe, or Tuck, but NONE of them were home or talking. "Please, just this one thing... please?"
"No, look," Sarah argued. "You're not thinking. A hierarchy will automatically be co-opted by the existing power structure-"
"No it won't!"
"It WILL, Deborah; if not now, then in a couple of years. Wasn't the previous principal a fascist?" Eugene had claimed he was, more than once. "What would someone like that do with a position like this? They'd co-opt it!" It was so blindingly obvious to her, she couldn't really understand why Debbie wasn't seeing- "Or were you not planning for the long term on this?"
"What long term?"
Stupid, Sarah thought, though mildly. "You can't just do something like this to solve a current problem; it makes it harder for anyone after you. If you don't set up something deliberately to be in opposition to the current power structure, then-"
"But that's what I'm trying to do!"
"Deborah, stop interrupting. The way you're setting this up is the same way it works currently, just with a different leader, a different hierarchy. That's too easy to incorporate into the existing status quo later, when someone less reponsible or idealistic or too easily bribed gets in. You need to organize things, start it from the BEGINNING in a way that is resistant or impossible to incorporate. The United States government has the separation of powers, and we've managed to hold on to that for over two hundred years; it'll keep working until we throw the Constitution away." Somewhat, she amended to herself, but it was far better than nothing. "You need to set up- deliberately set up the opposition to the establishment, so that it CANNOT be incorporated INTO the establishment, by its own structure, or it WILL be incorporated, guaranteed. I've seen it, dozens of times." Well, that was probably an exaggeration; she had seen it more than once, though.
"Okay so what DO I do?" Debbie snapped, obviously irritated.
"This is something we should take outside," Sarah said slowly and quietly. "Really; we need to make sure we aren't overheard." Deborah's jaw muscles tensed, as did Lisa's a moment later, but neither of them argued with her, and after a few seconds Lisa turned her attention to her food.
Dana Treble waited for the scale to finish swinging, but she'd already estimated what the reading would be, which confirmed her earlier guess. "You've lost at least five pounds," she told Eugene. He shrugged dully, making the scale bounce again, but it settled quickly to 114. "Maybe seven? Since the camping trip?" She entered '114lbs' into his file on her Palm. "Okay, you can sit down; Mike, c'mere and let's see what you weigh." She helped Eugene off the scales and to the toilet, where she helped him sit down.
"He looked pretty bad, I think," Sabrina told Julia, who'd called a couple of minutes ago. She'd wondered what the call was about; this was possibly the reason. "I mean, he was ALIVE and stuff, and he looked like he WOULD be okay, I mean not crippled or anything, but... He looked pretty ill, to me. And his parents want him to rest as much as possible.
"I was wondering," Julia asked, "you have tutoring with Tuck's dad, right? Were you going over there tonight? I wanted to say hi, give him a card or something."
Aha. "I hadn't really planned on it," Sabrina answered; she hadn't really thought about it either. She'd 'planned', as far as that went, on eating and going to bed as soon as she could manage without her parents getting suspicious or setting herself a bad precedent. "Oh, damn," she remembered, "I've got all his homework, and Mike's too. They asked me to get it yesterday." She thought for a second, then asked out loud, "Do you really think he'd want it tonight, or would tomorrow be soon enough?"
"I dunno. Depends on whether he's coming back to school or not."
"Oh hell." She hadn't thought about that. "Do you think he won't?"
"M'dear, I am seriously wondering why ANY of us go," Julia answered soberly. "And I'm not the one that spent a week in the hospital. That place is getting insane, like the Middle East."
Sabrina didn't think it was that bad yet; she hadn't seen any checkpoints and nobody was openly armed. But those memories were really dim, and she wasn't entirely sure she actually remembered them; she might have picked them up from newscasts.
"I mean," Julia continued, "I like the drama group and stuff, but for the rest of it? You know, I mean, I was thinking, maybe I SHOULD just drop out now, go to community college and start work on a real degree, and just skip the last year and a half of bullshit. You know?"
"Yeah, I mean, I can kinda see what you mean... MY parents would shit bricks, and then the weeping and wailing, gnashing of teeth and rending of garments..." Oddly enough, it was her father's reaction she dreaded most. She could talk rationally enough with her mom about things like that, and while the two of them would argue, it would stay relatively quiet and calm; her dad was the one that would pull in everything wrong she'd ever done in her life, every possible problem, and just blow things completely out of proportion until something like being two hours late from a date turned into three (literally) more hours of yelling and screaming. She'd wondered sometimes if it wasn't some sort of plot on her dad's part, to make disobedience just too much of a hassle to even attempt.
"A reaction of truly biblical proportions?" Julia asked with a grin in her voice.
"You know it! Uck!"
"How much are you drinking?" Doc Treble asked Tucker directly.
He shrugged, then typed, "Enough to keep my throat from hurting."
"You need to be drinking more. You don't want another urinary tract infection, do you?" Tucker shook his head; the one time he'd had one, he had been possessed of a desire to castrate himself or otherwise amputate the ITCHING which had driven him crazy, and only insanely large quantities of cranberry juice - which he hadn't especially liked BEFORE then - plus the fortuitous coincidence of the basement toilet having enough room to mount a computer, monitor, and a small cooler full of liquids had kept him from doing it. That and his sister's half-joyous declaration that women, who had no penis, had these ALL THE TIME. Tucker had figured that this was one of those cases in which alleviating the symptoms only made the real problem worse, and had restrained himself. Barely.
So he took the bottle that was nearest and drank, breathed, drank, breathed, one-and-two-and-one-and-two until the bottle was empty. "Good!" Doc Treble smiled down at him. "Did you have any Metamucil?"
Oh, no...
"Can I have the receipt?" Debbie asked.
"Wh- Oh, for business meal deduction?" Mrs. Tucker asked. Debbie nodded. "No," she said.
"Why not?"
"Because for one thing I paid for it, and for another it's got my credit card numbers on it," she explained.
Ah well, doesn't hurt to ask, Debbie thought, and Mrs. Tucker didn't seem upset by the request. Thankfully. The night hadn't gone badly, and Mrs. Tucker had assured her, unprompted, that Tucker was sorry about yesterday without actually mentioning what had happened - not that Debbie needed a reminder - and Lisa, thankfully, hadn't tried to get into an argument with her about it.
"Sabrina?! Thank God!"
"Who is this please?" Sabrina asked, trying to be polite.
"It's Kelly, Tuck's little sister? Can, can we talk? Tonight? I've got a BIG problem." She sounded like it.
"Uh, yeah, I guess... I have to go eat supper soon, though-"
"Could you like come over here and pick me up after? Or, I mean, I could meet you somewhere, but, but... I don't know what to do!"
She sounded a lot worse than she had in the cafeteria today. "Uh, yeah, I guess. Would it be okay if we stopped by Tuck's house? I might as well give him his homework-"
"Yeah, I mean, I could talk to him too, or something..." She sounded like she was losing her mind with the relief of getting some help, for whatever it was; sometimes, just knowing someone else was willing to help would dissolve whatever resolve had been keeping you going alone. "I can meet you at Tuck's house if you want."
"Yeah, okay." She didn't know where Kelly lived, but Kelly hadn't seemed the least bit upset about meeting her at Tucker's house. "What's this about?" Sabrina asked.
"Um..."
"Can't talk about it over the phone? People there with you?" Sabrina guessed.
"Yeah," Kelly breathed in relief, again.
"Parents? This is about, uh, you being a, a lesbian?"
"Yeah sorta. Please, can-"
"Yeah, give me about an hour and a half, is that okay?"
"Yeah," Kelly sighed.
"Okay, at Tucker's house, in an hour and a half. Right?"
"Yeah, great," Kelly breathed. "Oh God, yeah..."
"I'll be there," Sabrina promised.
Stephen took a deep breath and let it out. His heart was pounding frantically, and he felt sick already. "Mom, I think-" No! he yelled at himself. Don't! "No, I'm pretty sure... I'm gay."
It was out, now, and strangely he felt for an instant like he was flying.
"Hey you
Don't tell me there's no hope at all.
Together we stand,
Divided we fall..."
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- @>--,--'----- Ellen Hayes o===[-------- __ vicki .sig +
-=[1990]=- / virus 12.2 + http://www.barkingduck.net/ehayes PGP key: EFC9 5D55 (1996) +
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