Working as an intern for a Medical Center has it's obvious advantages: free pens (both clicky-top and twisty-bottom), regular visits to the Vietnamese place across the street (for both my bosses and myself…the Beef Vermicelli is amazing…), and a 10 percent discount on prescriptions. Oh, and helping people. I can never get enough of that.
In regards to helping people, I'm happy to say that I've been able to use some of my medical experience in my own life. Sure, I haven't saved any lives yet, but I've helped. I know that when you have frostbite, you're not supposed to rub the frozen body part or run it under warm water, trying to "suck" venom out of a snakebite is pretty much useless, and that bites from other people can be just as dangerous as bites from animals.
Unfortunately, my colleagues, fellow interns, medical textbooks or any search engines ever invented, could have possibly helped me recover from this kind of shock. Granted, I was somewhat prepared for what may have been waiting for me in my room, seeing as this person was standing at my door not four minutes ago, wearing only a little more than they are wearing right now. I'm unsure if I should perform CPR on myself or elevate my feet.
"You're letting all the cold air out, football head."
Oh wow, this is actually happening…my nose should begin bleeding in about three…two…one…
Instead of spilling about a liter of O negative onto my carpet, I closed the door behind me and set the glass of ice water down next to Helga, who had taken up residence on my floor. My radio was on, the weatherman rambling on about the heat and safety hazards and whatnot. In reality, she was laying down on my floor, with her legs stretched out on my bed, and bent at the knees.
Now, as one of Helga's best and oldest friends, and as a red-blooded male, I've seen Helga's legs before. That wasn't the shock. The shock probably came from seeing so much of them. All at once. Our "friendship" was a…special one, but I was sure she wouldn't have appreciated my less than discreet staring. Moving across my room (which was cooler than the rest of the house, but still well above 80 degrees), I sat at my computer and turned on the internet browser, simply because I had little else to do.
"Thanks for letting me crash." Helga said, her eyes still closed and hair fanned out beneath her. Her face was calm and her breathing even, despite the heat. And how, you may ask, did I know that her breathing was even? Oh, yes, I must have forgotten to mention, in addition to wearing the shortest pink shorts that I've ever seen, Helga also wore a matching sports bra, revealing a tanned and firm midsection. And nothing else. What am I supposed to do when my charismatic, funny adorable best friend comes to me in the middle of an epic heat wave, complaining of her own home's tragic brown out, asking for some relief? I do what any good "friend" would do…I invite her inside and tell her to go up to my room.
"Did I have a choice?" I joked, hoping to quell some of my own nervousness.
"No. Not really." She said, shifting her legs on top of my bed. How do I know this, you ask, since I am staring at my computer, which would cause me to be looking her opposite direction? I know this because of the glass screen on my computer, that is reflecting the image of my half-naked best friend right at me. So, in truth, I am staring at her, by proxy.
Why was she here? I'd asked myself that about fourteen times since she arrived. Did every house except for mine suffer from this brownout? Was everybody else's parental guardians that sensitive about turning on the AC? Could she have at least worn a decent pair of pants?
"You okay, over there?" she asked, lazily.
Suddenly, like a dense cartoon character with four and a half minutes left in the episode to resolve a conflict, I was hit with a flash of insight. That, or the heat was getting to me. Helga's behavior suddenly made sense to me. The seemingly random visit, dressed for the "weather", needing a place to "crash". A week ago, I wouldn't have thought much of this, maybe that Helga was suffering from heatstroke and just needed a cool compress. But today, it somehow made sense, and I was surprised that I didn't notice it until now.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Helga asked, struggling to keep the anger from her voice. She was never one to get easily offended, and I was surprised that she even let a fraction of it show.
"Don't get upset, I just mean that…" I started, with no knowledge of how to end it.
"That…?" she pried, moving her empty milk carton back and forth across the table. Even with her calm demeanor, I was certain that she'd let me have it if I said something stupid, which was nearly inevitable.
"I mean that…there are times, when you don't act like a girl." Arnold said, defending himself.
"That doesn't mean I'm not a girl, that just means I don't act like all the other girls you know." Helga had fought this battle before. She was anything but the typical girl; she had been since her youth. But with the emergence of puberty (and all the blessings that came with it), it seemed as though Helga was actually striving to let the fraction of femininity that lurked somewhere in her being to come out. And when it occasionally did, I guess so few people noticed it (myself included), that she eventually gave up.
"Hey, don't get me wrong," I began, leaning back from across the lunch table. "As few and far between the occasions are, you definitely can act like a girl. Like right now: you're getting offended over something trivial and stupid. Girls do that."
Helga responded by crossing her arms and further narrowing her eyes.
I could feel myself grasping at straws and coming up with nothing. "Okay…you…" I started, looking around. "You have one of those hair-tie-up thingies on your wrist. Girls do that."
"A hair scrunchie?" Helga said, pulling the black hair-tie off of her wrist.
"See! You even know what they're called. Girls know things like that." I knew that my defense was cracking, even before Helga stood up to deposit her food. "You're gonna get me later for this, aren't you?"
"Oh, definitely." Helga said, smiling wildly, after she'd thrown out her trash. "And do you know what the best part of it is going to be?" she asked, biting her bottom lip in excitement.
"You're not even going to see it coming…" she finished, standing behind me and leaning in to whisper it in my ear. I was thrown out of my trance when she stood back up and began walking out of the cafeteria. "See ya later, buddy!" she called behind her, from across the crowded room.
I was in for it. I just didn't know what it was yet.
Turning slowly in my computer chair, I stared at Helga through tapered eyes. That sneaky fox, trying to sneak her revenge in like a…a small, sneaky, night animal. Like a fox. A sneaky fox.
"What?" she asked, still upside down on my floor. She finally noticed my gaze and either realize that I was on to her plan (which I was, by the way) or I was freaking her out, and she was considering making a run for it.
"Nothing." I replied, innocently, turning back to the computer. "So, was this your first stop today?" Hopefully, if I kept the conversation low-key, she wouldn't catch on to the fact that I'd already caught on.
"No, I tried all the usual places: the mall, the movies, the pool. Too many people." she sighed.
"Well, they play old movies behind that shopping center down on Main, when the sun goes down. That might be fun." I suggested, expecting her to play along.
"Sounds like a plan." she said, barely moving from the floor. For a moment, I wondered why Helga cared so much. Granted, we'd established ourselves as friends long before now, and as friends (more importantly, as a friend of Helga Pataki), I learned that the playful banter that flew between us was never to be taken seriously. Nevertheless, if she was going to go through with her plan, I had to follow through with mine. It was only fair.
Nodding silently before turning away from her, I stretched my arms, and feigned a yawn. "You were not lying…its way too hot, even with the air conditioning on…", I said, smiling so that she couldn't see. While she was busy nodding in agreement, I crossed my arms in front of me, and clutched the plain white T-shirt that I wore around my back. Sliding the shirt up my torso and back, and finally over my head, I cast the shirt to the side without turning to see Helga's reaction.
Know, I'm not one for bragging, but after two years of Junior Varsity baseball, one year of Varsity Wrestling and another year of Varsity Basketball, I have to say that I'm pretty well put together. Not quite ready for the cover of GQ, but I can hold my own. Without her knowledge, I could see her jaw drop in the glass of my computer screen, before she shook her head and located her drinking glass on the floor. As she emptied the glass, I kept my composure, as if nothing out of the ordinary happened. And believe me, Helga, in my room, with both of us half-naked, is very out of the ordinary.
"You alright back there?" I asked, glancing back, even though I already knew that Helga was still trying to cool herself off and imbibing as much water as she could. She nodded as she finished off the glass, but when she turned slightly to see that I too was turned, giving her a glimpse of my chest and back, she immediately returned the glass to her lips, now trying to inhale the ice cubes at the bottom.
This must be what it feels like to be an evil super genius. To watch your plan unfurl, and actually work…the satisfaction is astounding. I could very well get used this.
In a split second, however, I'd forgotten all plans of getting back at Helga. In her haste to quell the burning in her belly that came from the sight of my rippling abs and pecs (what? I found a romance novel in the attic some years ago, and may have read a tiny, miniscule portion…sue me.), Helga had swallowed an ice cube. An entire ice cube. As if fanning herself, she began waving her hand as the muscles in her neck began looking strained.
Vengeful Arnold set aside, I jumped up from my chair and went to stand behind her. Her arms were flailing about in such a manner that I almost couldn't wrap my arms around her torso. When I finally did, I located her navel (which was not difficult with her level of undress) and began performing the customary three abdominal thrusts to her stomach before pausing. After the second thrust, however, Helga lurched forward and the ice cube popped out of her mouth.
Taking deep breaths and holding her throat, Helga breathed a thanks from in front of me. Taking a few deep breaths myself, I let my arms relax, relieved that she was alright. "That was close." I said, leaning forward, as she had, resting my chin on her back.
It wasn't until that exact moment that I had an out of body experience. And not in the way that most people have them, in the "What on Earth are you doing?!" kind of way. Where I realized what I was doing, whom I was doing it with and how it looked.
"Oh…" was my reply to this realization, and from the way that Helga stiffened in my arms, I figured that she had just realized it too.
"This is…profoundly awkward." Helga said, still not moving.
"I agree."
"We should probably-"
"Make some kind of effort to-"
"Separate?"
"Yup." she said. Before either of us realized it, we'd sprang apart like a tightly wound coil and stood a few feet apart, still completely silent.
"Well, I should probably get going…" Helga said, biting her lip and blushing, in a way that I could only describe as utterly adorable, and looking around my room.
"Yeah, and I should, you know, get ready for…the movies." I stammered.
"Yeah." she said, as if she forgot. "The movies. I'm gonna head home and…take a shower."
"Same here."
"And it's, ya know, hot out and everything, so it'll probably be…cold." she said, blushing further at her own words.
"Yeah, I might need a, ya know, cold shower too. Because it's cold. I mean hot. It's hot. So the shower should be...cold." I guess I had no room to talk, because I could feel my face heating up as well.
"Um…okay. So…see you later." Helga said, stepping backwards toward the door. Once she'd gripped the handle, she turned it clumsily, until the door opened. "Bye." she muttered hurriedly, shutting the door behind her.
I waited until her footsteps had subsided and I heard the front door closing before I collapsed on my bed, facing my skylight window. I'd forgotten about the radio, amongst the ruckus, and listened as the weatherman's voice droned on.
"It seems as though the East Coast is in for another harsh week. This Heat Wave is far from over, people…"
Tell me about it.
I know, I know…The Compromise, Back Home Epilogues, and now this. I'm putting a lot on my plate. But this is just something I whipped up. I've always wanted to do a collection of one shots centering on one idea (in this case Awkwardness, specifically the Awkwardness of going from Friends to More Than Friends), so here it is. I'm not sure if I'll actually use the word "awkward" in all of them. I might. I probably will...who knows. I once read a fabulous story over on FP (it's called Relationships, Pie and Other Complicated Stuff...trust me it's great) and the author managed to use the word "pie" in every chapter. It was great fun looking for that. Anyway, here's my new baby. Call it my summer project. There'll be about 4-6 more of these, so stay tuned and have fun. What will make this different from anything I've ever written? Here, let me tell you: 1) It's a series of one-shots. That means a little mini story all under one story instead of broken up. 2) They're in no chronological order at all. In fact, none of them are connected at all! 3) Aside from a few lines here or there, it'll be pretty much ArnoldxHelga all the way. One chapter in particular will feature two other characters, but they won't be heavily involved. 4) Nearly every single installment has happened to me at least once. I'm not even lying. Even this one. Maybe not under the same circumstances, but pretty close. I was hoping that this wasn't too much of a stretch...I mean, Helga has done some rather silly things to prove that she's a girl...and even sillier things to impress Arnold. What else...at the beginning of this chapter, I mention pens with "clicky-tops and twisty-bottoms";that came from an episode of Scrubs, which is one of my favoite non-cartoon shows. Inspired by a heat wave through which I am enduring (Big ups to Maryland!!). Pray for snow. -PointyObjects