Past Tense
Mabel waited nervously in a corner booth of Greasy's Diner. Lazy Susan, a few years older but just as cheerful with her constant wink, bustled over, keeping her water glass filled. "Your brother and uncle joining you, dear?" she asked.
Mable smiled—a bright smile, she'd been unbraced for three years now—and shook her head. "Not today. But I'm expecting someone."
"You in college now, or what?" Susan asked, gesturing at the pile of books on the table.
"Not exactly. I'll be a senior in high school next year." She sighed. "Dipper's off to West Coast Tech September after next, though."
"Well, that's nice." Susan refilled Mabel's water glass and bustled away.
What am I doing here? Mabel asked herself. She sighed. It was crazy. Cray-cray, she'd called it when she was twelve. Now that she'd turned sixteen, that sounded too cutesy. And where had her confidence gone? She wasn't used to feeling nervous and jumpy and unsure of herself.
The bell over the door tinkled, and Mabel looked up. It was Pacifica, fifteen minutes late. She looked even cuter than she had as a kid. Cute? No, she was gorgeous, very chic in low-top boots, tight white jeans, and a belted purple top. Her hair was still long and golden. She spotted Mabel and came toward her, swinging a shopping bag. "So," she said, slipping into the booth. "Here I am."
"Hi," Mabel said. "You look great."
Pacifica sniffed. "Of course I do. You look about the same as always."
"I'll take that as a compliment," Mabel said, grinning. "So . . . how have you been? We haven't really talked over the last couple of summers."
Pacifica shrugged. "I'm not jumping when my father rings a bell," she said flatly. "Other than that—you know."
"How's high school? Are you ready for the big senior year?"
"High school sucks, OK? Everybody there is so boring. My old posse drifted away, and people treat me like I'm some kind of outsider. Not that there's any kind of clique there I'd even want to join."
"That sounds rough," Mabel said. "I'm sorry."
Pacifica snorted. "Feel sorry for yourself! At least I'm not in a public school."
Lazy Susan popped up, interrupting her. "What can I bring you young ladies?"
Pacifica didn't even look at the menu. "Garden salad, Catalina dressing on the side, hot tea, slice of lemon. One slice, no seeds."
Mabel said, "Burger and fries and a medium Pitt."
"Got it."
As soon as Susan had gone back behind the counter, Pacifica plumped the shopping bag, which appeared to be light, on the table. "Where's Dipper?" she asked.
"Probably out with Wendy," Mabel said.
Pacifica tucked a strand of her hair into place and sniffed. "I heard they're an item."
"Like front-page news," agreed Mabel.
"So? You hate her, or what?"
Mabel blinked. "Hate Wendy? No! She's cool, you know?"
"Well, yeah, maybe, but she's like an old lady!"
"Dipper doesn't think so," Mabel said with a smile.
"Well, if he's easily satisfied. . . ." Pacifica trailed off. "So, anyway, I brought that dumb sweater back to you." She reached into the bag and pulled out a beige mohair sweater with an embroidered llama. "I never wore it much. Too small for me now."
"I guess so," Mabel said. "You've got a great figure, Pacifica."
Pacifica stared at her coldly. "Are you coming on to me?"
Blinking, Mabel said, "What? No! I mean, you know, I'm not saying you're not beautiful, but I don't—I'm not attracted to girls. I kinda have a boyfriend now."
"That's good, because I am definitely not attracted to you-or your brother either, for that matter," Pacifica said. After a moment she grudgingly asked, "So—who's the boy? Do I know him?"
"I dunno. Ronnie Nabel?"
Pacifica laughed. "What? The kid who vanished for like a year and his parents didn't even call the cops because they thought he'd run off to Mexico or something? He was in my class until he dropped out of sight. Then he was a year behind me. I don't know him. I mean, his family wasn't exactly at our family's social level—"
The food came and Pacifica broke off. Mabel watched her pick at her salad. After a moment, Mabel asked, "Something wrong, Pacifica?"
"No!" Pacifica dropped her fork and her chin. She began to sniffle. When she looked up, a tear was running down her cheek. "Yes. I hate being me!" She swallowed hard. "You—you get up in the morning and you tell yourself it's going to be different. You're not going to be a stuck-up, snooty little bitch. But when you grow up a Northwest, when you get it drummed into your head every miserable minute of every miserable day—I hate it!"
"Hey, hey," Mabel said. "It's okay. You know, Pacifica, you can't change your parents. You can only change yourself."
"Easy to say." She reached for her purse and fished out a twenty. "Here, this'll cover your food, too. I remember the night I put on the sweater. It was chilly." She bit her lip. "Thank you."
"Wait," Mabel said. "I didn't want the sweater back. I just wondered if you'd kept it." She reached to the floor and picked up a tissue-wrapped package. "Here. This is for you."
"What is it?" Pacifica asked suspiciously.
"One way to find out."
The blonde girl careful undid the tape and opened the package. She held up a mohair sweater, exactly like the one she had brought in, with a llama embroidered on the front. This one, though, was her size. "For me?" she asked with a crooked smile.
"Of course. I made it just for you. You know, a disembodied head once told me that llamas are nature's warriors."
"Coming from anybody else, that would sound crazy," Pacifica said.
"Well, I can be kinda crazy," Mabel confessed. "Look, Pacifica, I wanted to ask you if you'd be interested in partnering up with me."
"I said I wasn't attracted to—to girls, either!" Pacifica said, blushing.
"Partners in a business!" Mabel said, laughing. "Look at these." She opened one of the books, revealing a whole set of colorful sketches: Sweaters. Hats. Scarves. "These are my designs," she said.
Pacifica leafed through. "Wow. This is really pretty. And this—you could sell these for hundreds of dollars! Oh, look at this one—I'd love to have one of these! I had no idea. I mean, I knew you loved to knit—"
"Grunkle Stan gave me the idea. Last summer just before we went back to Piedmont, he watched me pack my sweaters and said, 'Ya know, sweetie, I don't say this often enough to you, but—there's a buck to be made here!'"
"He's probably right," Pacifica said. "But I'd be no help. I can't knit. I can't do anything useful."
"Well, I've got the talent and the imagination," Mabel said slowly. "But I need one other ingredient. I don't have start-up money. My folks aren't exactly rich, and I can't ask Grunkle Ford and Grunkle Stan to stake me—I owe too much to them already. I thought maybe you—but that's okay. I didn't mean to be pushy."
Pacifica said, "Let me get this straight: You got me to meet you here, you made me this sweater just so I'd give you money?"
"No," Mabel said in a small voice. "Oh, I knew I'd mess this up. I wish I was smart, like Dipper! Pacifica, I didn't want you to give me money. I wanted you to invest in a business. We'd be partners. With maybe twenty thousand dollars I could get all the materials, rent a space, develop a Web presence and contacts and maybe get specialty shops interested—but no, I insulted you. I didn't mean to. I'm really sorry."
"I think I'd better go," Pacifica said. She got up.
"Pacifica," Mabel pled, "take the sweater at least. Please. Remember the night we had the golf tournament? This is just a little more sharing."
Despite her cold attitude, Pacifica actually smiled a little. "Sharr—sharring?" she asked. Then she shook her head. "I think I had enough sharing back then. You know, that stale taco really gave me a stomach-ache." But she took the bag with the original sweater and stuffed the new one inside. "See ya," she said, turning on her heel.
Mabel was weeping as she packed up the books. Susan came back to the table. "Somethin' wrong with your burger, honey?" she asked. "You only ate half of it."
"No, I just don't have much appetite," Mabel said. "Here. Keep the change." She handed Susan the twenty.
"Oh, hon, that's too much!"
"No, it isn't," Mabel said. She stood up and looked around. "I may not ever come back here. I want to remember how everything looks and smells. Could I hug you?"
"Why, sure, sweetie." It was a warm hug, like the ones Mabel could barely remember getting from her grandmother Pines, who had died when the twins were only ten. When they broke apart, Susan said, "Now, don't be all sad. You come back here any time you want, Mabel. You just brighten the place up like sunshine."
Mabel nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She packed all the books into a backpack and went out swinging it. Head down, feeling about as low as she ever had in her life, she trudged down the street, heading toward the McGucket Mansion—it had once been Pacifica's home, but now her parents, poorer after the events of Weirdmageddon—that meant they were now merely wealthy rather than fabulously rich—had moved to a smaller place on the outskirts of town. Fiddleford McGucket, more or less sane, had bought it and usually had Grunkle Stan, Grunkle Ford, or both in the guest wing.
Barely noticing where she was going, tears blurring her vision, Mabel stepped off a curb and then suddenly jerked as a car horn blared. She whirled around—and saw Pacifica at the wheel of a gold-colored Volkswagen Eos convertible, top down. "Mabel!" she yelled, pulling up to the curb. "Get in!"
"Huh?"
"Get in!" Pacifica leaned to open the passenger door. "Toss your junk into the back seat and get in!"
Mabel scrambled to do it. As soon as she was in the seat and belted in, Pacifica pulled away from the curb. Mabel stared at her profile. "What happened?"
"Tell you later."
"Where are we going—oh, my God! Not—"
"The Putt Hutt," Pacifica said. "How's your game?"
Mabel shrugged. "Probably lousy. I haven't played in a couple of years."
"You beat me and I'll stake your business," Pacifica said. "Deal?"
"I don't know—the Lilliputtians—"
"Pah! They won't interfere this time. I made a little deal with them years ago. They always let me play without any funny business—and I don't call in the exterminators!"
"But I'm really out of practice."
"So am I."
They paid for a game, selected their putters, and set about the match. Pacifica led off on Hole 1 with, well, a hole in one. "Good shot!" Mabel said.
"Will you say that when I beat you?" Pacifica asked with her old superior smirk.
"Well—sure. 'Cause it was a good shot." Mabel sized up the hole, took her swing, banked the ball twice—and right into the hole to match Pacifica's score.
"Huh. Out of practice, huh?" Pacifica asked. "You just wait."
They were even at Hole 9. Pacifica had bad luck on 10 and was down one; but then they pulled even again when Mabel flubbed a shot on Hole 12. At the eighteenth hole, Pacifica again scored a hole in one.
"Oh, darn it," Mabel grumped. "This is the one that always gave me trouble." She took a deep breath. You can do this. You can do this. You can do this.
She swung, the ball rolled through the obstacles—
And missed the cup by a bare three inches. Mabel tapped it in. "You win," she sighed. "Good game, Pacifica. Thanks for giving me a chance."
"Yeah. I—I had fun," Pacifica said. She retrieved her purse from a locker, opened it, and took something out. "Here you go."
Mabel took the check, already filled out and signed, from her. "Pacifica, I lost! You said that if I beat you, you'd invest in the business, but I lost!"
"So?" Pacifica said, shrugging. "I didn't say that I wouldn't put up the money if I won, did I? This is part of my trust fund, by the way. I expect a good return on it."
"I'll do my very best," Mabel said, laughing and crying at the same time. "What changed your mind?"
"Oh, I looked inside the new llama sweater and saw that label you'd sewn in," she said. "The one with the embroidered rainbow shooting star and the name of your business: Pacibel Creations." She looked at Mabel with misted eyes. "I never had a partner before." She swallowed hard. "Or even a real friend."
"Oh, you're wrong, Pacifica. You've always had one of those," Mabel told her softly.
They hugged. A couple of fourteen-year old boys playing through the course saw them and hooted. "Get a room!" one of them yelled.
Pacifica growled, but Mabel laughed raucously. "A room?" she yelled back. "We're gonna get a whole building, ya little dork!"