Disclaimer: I don't own High School Musical… though if Disney would like to give it to me, it'd be pretty bad ass.
Authors Note: I began these as a collection of short stories that could be read independently. Most of them still can be, but they follow lineally from each other and refer to each other, so they've kind of, sort of, become a series. Okay, fine, they're a series of ten chapters. They're all told from Gabriella's POV, and take place the summer she is twenty-two. I really adore what I've written so far, but I'm warning you it's because I've taken the characters that I love and completely manipulated where they are. Like this is so AU I should probably just give them random names and create a FictionPress account. But it's just so fun to write stories about Troy and Gabriella. So PLEASE take that into account- because Sharpay and Ryan aren't related and East High isn't really in it and minor characters in the movie may seem more or less involved in this story than you think necessary. But they're telling the story I want to tell. So try not to make any assumptions when you see a character's name, because that may just confuse you. And if you all hate it and think it's crazy then I'll be bummed but understand, because some of what I have planned seems out there- but I promise it's written with the dearest of intentions… so read and review… pretty please :)
PS- Here's the Sparknotes version of what you need to know: Ryan and Sharpay aren't brother and sister, and he happens to be gay. Taylor and Zeke dated through high school and she had a baby when they were eighteen and another one two years later. So they didn't go to college, but they're together and run a B&B that Gabriella is staying/working at, because her mother got transferred somewhere else. Everything else will be revealed with time…
PSS- If you've watched Dawson's Creek, it may help to know that I kinda put these character's in that setting and changed details accordingly. (Hence, the B&B) Because I was in love with Pacey Witter, long before Troy Bolton ever existed.
CHAPTER ONE:
SASS
Or How Sharpay and I Had Scrambled Eggs and a Moment
********
It's barely past eleven-thirty in the morning. The day is exuding the kind of heat that makes every part of my body slick. Showering is redundant; clothing is a necessary nuisance, and after too long in the sun my fingers feel thick and my vision turns blurry.
I wait on the corner of Elm and Main, under the green canvas awning so thoughtfully provided by the First Bank of Albuquerque. In accurate chronological order of establishment, it was actually the fourteenth bank of Albuquerque, after the others all went bust, but I suppose that makes it the first bank to survive two world wars and a Depression and still maintain community confidence.
Fissures of impatience shoot up through my body. I resist the urge to look at my watch, tap my foot, or sigh with sufferance. My own irritation irritates me. A little boy who must only be six or seven passes me, yanking at his stiff collar and complaining at the top of his lungs.
I understand the sentiment.
Finally, I see Sharpay walking towards me.
And the thing about Sharpay- that defining, immediate thing you always think of when you hear a person's name is that she has attitude.
Sharpay Evans walks with attitude. She walks with sass. For me, sass is a word that conjures the 1950s, and I think of sass being sold in the drugstore near the soda fountain. I think it has something to do with the word sarsaparilla.
But Sharpay is sass personified. She moves like the sprawling, tightly-built, brassy, sassy New York City down the wide, tree-lined streets of Albuquerque. Streets that meander and curve almost recklessly, as if time isn't a luxury and everyone can afford to take the long way; streets that smell of faintly of salt, home cooked meals and warm sand.
She moves like Main Street with its original 1950s drugstore complete with requisite soda fountain is the bustling, brimming, bursting Fifth Avenue.
And when she walks down it, it is.
I hated her attitude for years. I hated it because I admired it. Because I coveted it. I wanted that kind of certainty. Because Sharpay's attitude is authentic. Mine is whiny and uncertain, buoyed by the fact that I'm smarter than most people, and I know it. Mine is a defense, a cover, and a protection for the wide-eyed fear that lives in my cells and breathes in time with me.
Sharpay's attitude is authentic and easy. She's a thirty-four-year-old, cocktail-drinking cynic in a twenty-two-year-old body.
Even now, another fissure of annoyance crawls up my body. She manages to look like a blonde version of Audrey Hepburn straight out of Roman Holiday, whilst I'm a character from Bastard out of Carolina.
I'm wearing faded denim cut-offs, one of Zeke's old shirts, and blue flip-flops. My hair could kindly be described as a messy nest. Sharpay is wearing a black-and-pink print skirt, a matching pink cotton tank top, and elegant black sandals. Her hair is coiffed. Seriously, coiffed is the word for it.
But she smiles at me, and my semi-annoyance melts.
"So," she says, reaching me, "I've decided I'm Lorelai Gilmore."
"You run the Independence Inn in the picture-perfect town of Stars Hollow and flirt with your grumpy, daily coffee provider Luke?"
She frowns. "Well, I didn't put so much thought into the declaration. Mostly, after watching an old tape of That Damn Donna Reed, I was just thinking that I had Emily Gilmore for a mother."
"Ah." I nod. "Promise me you're not pregnant with your Rory, after having a mad affair with a motorcycle-riding rebel with a smile to die for, or at least roll over for? If you are, I better be there when you give birth. We can't have you giving the baby the same name as you. Sorry, but I just think there's only one person in that could handle a dog breed for a name and I'm looking at her."
"You're a regular riot act, Montez."
"I'm here til' Thursday, with a Wednesday matinee. Enjoy the lobster. And can I say that Gabriella is a great name?"
Sharpay tucks her arm through mine and we start walking down Main Street. "I am not, to the best of my knowledge, pregnant, nor have I rolled over for Christopher, or anybody else recently."
"Oh."
"Ryan and I had a fight."
"I was getting really excited about being a godmother. So, what did you fight about this time?"
"Why do you say this time in that tone of voice, like its a regular occurrence that we fight?"
"Sharpay, we've been spending every Sunday together for the past month of our summer break, and every time we've met, you've said Ryan and I had a fight."
"At least I'm predictable."
We cross over Main Street, not bothering to look for traffic. In a town like Albuquerque, the traffic stops for you. And when it doesn't, somebody writes a furious letter of complaint to the Albuquerque Gazette, and it gets first berth on the letters to the editor page. And because the Gazette is the voice of God to the residents of Albuquerque, people get up in arms and demand a solution to the widespread problem. They call the Sheriff, who gets right onto it.
You can only get up in arms in a place like Albuquerque. In New York, they don't give a shit, or they hurl abuse at the driver. Here, we call a town meeting and people speak out with outrage about how bad things have become. After all, it only has to happen once to be a widespread problem around here.
Twice, and they're ready to call in the National Guard.
"So what did you fight about this time?" I ask, already knowing the answer.
"Same thing."
I sigh. "He's still going on about it?"
"Yes."
"Seriously? He's still trying to convince you that Michael was the love of your life and you were a frightened fool for letting him go?" Sharpay nods. "I think Ryan was secretly in love with Michael."
"He seems to have taken the break-up harder than me," Sharpay agrees. Her eyes are hooded though, because she hates fighting with Ryan. She does it because Sharpay is a fighter, and she doesn't know how to be anything else. If you go to the line with her, she will rise up to meet you, and she'll kick your ass. But she wont always like it, and she rarely enjoys it.
"Want me to beat some sense into him?"
"That's sweet, but no."
"You sure?"
"Very. He has a beautiful face, and I'm sure you could do some irreparable damage to it."
"I think that's a compliment."
Sharpay smiles. "I never compliment you Gabriella, you know that."
"Oh, of course. We've got that whole, you stole the love of my life, like, four hundred years ago thing to maintain."
"You do remember. And you stole the love of my life."
"Please. Troy was a dumb, sweaty jock. How could he possibly have been the love of sophisticated, suave Sharpay Evans' life?"
"Point. Although I think you just complimented me."
"I never compliment you Sharpay, you know that."
"Sorry, my bad."
"I have that whole I can't trust you as far as I can throw you thing to maintain."
"I'll try harder to remember," Sharpay replies facetiously.
We reach The Sugar Shack and enter.
Terrible name, great coffee. Also, excellent food and fairly cute waiters. It opened up after we went to college, which figures. Of course, they opened up the Starbucks and a Kinkos after we left, too.
Sharpay and I start our Sundays together at The Sugar Shack, with a latte and scrambled eggs.
Taking our usual table, I see one of the B&B customers sitting at the back of the cafe, wave at me enthusiastically. I wave half-heartedly in return and sit down hurriedly before he decides to come over and talk to me.
He's a thirty-something stockbroker from Philadelphia, and he spent most of last nights dinner attempting to look down my shirt. Which was gaping open to present a near-indecent view of my décolletage, but one of the buttons had fallen off and I couldn't be bothered changing, and that's not the point, because I didn't invite him to stare. Zeke gave him the burnt corner piece of lasagna and Taylor glared at him over dessert.
Never underestimate the power of Taylor Kennedy McKessie's glare.
"I think I've figured out Ryan's problem," though, Sharpay says. She moves her chair forward, and the strap of her tank top slips down her shoulder.
"Do tell."
Sharpay yanks it back up. "Ryan thinks I broke up with Michael because of him."
"Is that Ryan being self-centered, or is it the whole I-hold-you-back-because-I'm-gay-so-you-don't-date-people thing?"
"The latter."
Seth, our usual waiter, approaches our table with a smile. He's one of those funky-cool waiters, with spiky hair and glasses, and he looks like he's just finished discussing Goethe or Voltaire with a philosophy major/sociology minor. His attitude seesaws between banter and insolence.
"Morning ladies. The usual, I presume?"
I nod. "Two lattes and two scrambled eggs."
Seth scribbles something illegible on his pad. "I suppose you two will be leaving me to go back to college eventually.
"Yes," Sharpay replies. "Back to a life of nightmarish term papers and perennial drunkenness."
"Sounds horrible."
"Oh, it is."
"I'll miss you," Seth continues.
"We're here for at least another nine weeks. And the only thing you'll miss is the tip we've never given you," I say wryly. "And possibly Sharpay's scandalous wardrobe."
"My scandalous wardrobe?" Sharpay asks. "Says she displaying legs up to her ears in the shortest pair of cut-offs God ever saw fit to invent?"
"Shut up."
Seth looks at Sharpay conspiratorially. "She's single, right?"
Sharpay makes a face that can only be described as long-suffering. "Sort of."
Seth winks, and walks back to the counter. Reflexively, Sharpay and I appreciate his butt. Then I round on her. "What does sort of mean? And what's with the long-suffering look?"
"Gabriella, there are many fine degrees of nuance to your supposed state of singledom, and you know it. I know it because I've been forced to watch the by-play for the last seven years."
But I'm not listening to Sharpay's familiar lament; I'm watching her. She's moving her hands too much… tucking her hair behind her ear when she doesn't need to, smoothing down her already-smooth top, touching the salt and pepper-shakers on the table, shifting them a fraction of a millimeter to the left, then back again.
Sharpay usually has total control over her nervous gestures.
"It was a bad fight, huh?" I ask intuitively.
Only Ryan can do this to Sharpay. Of all her friends, only Ryan can rile her like this.
Sharpay nods curtly in response to my question. "I told him why I think he keeps pushing the issue with Michael. He got mad and said that was ridiculous, and that he only wants me to be happy. I said he was self-righteous and didactic, and I could make my own choices. He said I cant make my own choices because I keep subconsciously picking men I know I wont get serious with and then I can legitimately break it off because I don't want to get involved for fear of being hurt."
"I hope you told him he was full of shit."
"Of course I did."
But there's more. Something more she's not telling me, because Sharpay wears her relationship with Ryan sign-posted on her face. They're too close, too screwed up, too much in love but not really, to effectively hide anything.
"Sharpay," I say softly.
"I was mad. I was really mad, and tired, and I'm so sick of having the same argument with him."
"Sharpay," I repeat.
She bites her lower lip. "I wasn't thinking straight. I told him I kept picking men I wasn't serious about because I wanted a man I couldn't have."
Oh, Christ.
That's their Thing. Ryan and Sharpay's Thing.
The Thing you never, ever say, not ever, no matter how drunk, no matter how angry or upset or jealous you are. Except if one of you has a near-death experience, and even then most people hold back.
Every relationship has one. The grand, dark, twisted Thing neither person dares to say out loud, because it would make the world different and too malleable to find balance.
"You said the Thing."
She releases her breath. "Yeah, I did. Then I ran away."
"That's good. Running away is always a great game plan."
"Gabriella…"
"No, really, I think that was your best course of action, given all the other possibilities."
Sharpay looks down at the table. "He thinks he's not gay."
"What?!"
I'm loud and shrill, and heads turn in surprise. When they see it's just the Montez girl and the Evans girl they turn back around and roll their eyes. Damn fool girls making a fuss as usual.
"What?" I repeat, still shocked, this time in a cracked whisper. "How does someone stop being gay?"
"How the hell should I know? The same way they stop being straight?"
"But-"
"He came into my room last night, at three-thirty. He sat on the edge of my bed and said, Do you think that being attracted to you makes me not gay? Because I'm attracted to you and I think that makes me not gay."
"It makes him bisexual," I point out, the word making me uneasy. I'm not sure why. It's one of those words I'm not comfortable with.
Her strap falls down again, and she leaves it there, presenting the perfect, white curve of her shoulder. "He's fucking me around."
"He's fucking you up, I correct."
"I said the Thing. Out loud. And neither of us had a near-death experience to back that up. I think I'm fucking him up."
"He trumped the Thing, I exclaim. I'm not gay totally trumps the Thing. If you're gay, I'm not gay is like the mother of all Things."
"He doesn't think he's not gay. He's just not sure anymore."
"Well, hell, I wasn't sure whether I wanted to take Witchcraft in the European Mind or Inventing the USA in history last semester. I wasn't sure whether to buy a camel-colored overcoat or a grey overcoat for winter. I wasn't sure what to wear this morning. Not being sure about your sexuality, after you've already put your friends through one messy identity crisis, isn't called being unsure. It's called screwing around with peoples minds."
Her eyes have gone wide with surprise. "Why are you so angry?"
"Because!" My voice cracks again. "I'm angry for you. He knows how you feel. Way before you said the Thing. He's known for ages now. How could he not?"
"I'm that obvious?" Sharpay asks sarcastically.
"Honey, when it comes to Ryan, yes, you are."
Seth suddenly arrives with our lattes, depositing them neatly on our table. "The eggs shouldn't be a minute."
I continue after Seth disappears. "Ryan shouldn't get to tell you that he's having doubts, as if he's just giving you the weather report. Aren't you angry?"
Sharpay takes a sip of her coffee. "I'm mostly surprised. I had no idea. Absolutely no idea. I didn't see this coming at all, and usually I can tell when he's in the middle of a dilemma."
"The arguing was probably a big clue," I offer.
"Probably. Maybe I just didn't want to see it that way."
"So, how do you feel about it?"
She sighs. "Again, I don't know. It was easy when he was gay and I couldn't have him. It put him in a certain category, and I got to be tortured, and make excuses, and avoid commitment. And now, I don't even know what to think. It's too much."
I lean back in my chair. "I'm sorry, Sharpay."
"Yeah. So am I. I think. I don't know. I'm betting things are going to be horribly awkward now, though."
"Ah, our old friend Awkward. Gotta love his work." I finish off my coffee. I didn't even realize I was drinking it, but I do that all the time with caffeine. It took me a while to work out I was addicted, but now I don't even try to pretend I'm not.
"I can't do anything about it. I can't stop Ryan from feeling the way he does. I can't tell him not to have doubts because its fucking me around and I'd like some certainty. That's totally unfair on him and I'd like to think I'm a better friend than that. He's allowed to have doubts."
"So, what happens now?"
Sharpay scoops up the foam of her latte with her spoon. "Well, like I said, I had no idea he was feeling like this. I guess we go on the way we were, whilst Ryan sorts his shit out. And anyway, what if? What if he suddenly decides he's not gay and he's crazy about women again? What the hell is that? We start dating? What kind of bizarre world is that? I'd spend the whole time riddled with doubt, wondering whether its just me, whether I'm a comfort zone, whether I'm easier than being a minority member of society," she shrugs helplessly.
"It's still unfair."
Now, Seth appears with our scrambled eggs.
"I don't want to talk about it anymore," Sharpay finally declares. "I want to just ignore it for a little while. I spend my whole life thinking about Ryan, which is ridiculous. How was yesterday?"
"What, the party?" She nods. It was okay. Jason drowned his many sorrows in a bottle of Jack Daniels.
"He's still shitty?"
"He's Jason. I turned him down and told him I had absolutely no feelings for him. For the third time. And my statement wasn't underpinned by a kiss at the end of the conversation. Of course he's still shitty."
"What is Jason's problem? The guy breaks up with Ellen three weeks before the end of semester, returns from California like the prodigal son, and expects you to stand in as his rebound girl because you're were high school sweethearts for like three-fourths of sophomore year? He needs a shrink."
"Jason would eat a shrink alive halfway through the first session. He takes self-analysis to a whole new level of actualization."
Sharpay smiles. "True."
I swallow a mouthful of perfectly scrambled eggs. Aside from his maudlin act and the ensuing embarrassment it caused, and the inappropriateness of getting drunk at his sister's fourth birthday party, the rest of the afternoon was really nice. It's a pity you couldn't be there.
"Somebody had to work while everyone else played hooky," she points out.
"Well, Emma had a wonderful time. She was wearing the new dress Troy and I bought her. The one from L.A."
"The blue one with the smocking on the front?"
"Yes. We deliberately decided not to dress her in pink or white, because Mrs. Cross does it so much."
"Well, who can blame her? She didn't get to do anything like that with Jason. Although, it would explain a lot if she had." Sharpay only eats half of her eggs before pushing the plate away. Her gestures are still agitated, overly-executed. "I bet Uncle Troy was in his element."
I roll my eyes. "Of course he was. Emma reveres him."
"She just turned four. She'll grow out of it."
"One can only hope. I know plenty of women who are still under the Bolton spell, and they're long passed four." I point to the plate, and casually ask, "Are you going to finish that?"
"No. Do you want it?"
"No. I just wanted to know if you were going to finish it."
Sharpay eyeballs me. "Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"If you want to express concern about my eating habits, don't dance around the subject and pretend to be subtle. Which, by the way, you aren't. Just ask."
"Sharpay, you usually eat like a horse. When you don't eat, it means you're stressed. I just want you to recognize your patterns of behavior."
"I know," she replies, aggravated. "Should we discuss the many nuances of your singledom, madam?"
"So, where do you want to go next?" She gives me a pointed look. "Where do you want to go?" I repeat, returning the look.
Never underestimate the power of the Gabriella Marie Montez glare.
"Well, you still have to buy a dress for that Small Business function."
"Oh, God. Don't remind me."
"Taylors getting wiggy?" Sharpay asks knowingly.
"Getting? You're suggesting that she doesn't live in a perennial state of wigginess?"
"Did we just walk into a Buffy episode?"
"What, with the mocking, and the slayage, and the Bronzing, and the complete decimation of the English language in the name of pop culture coolness?"
"Yeah, that."
I shrug. "Taylors wigginess has reached a whole new level of frightening. Caleb asked me the other day if he could have a holiday from his mother."
"Gabriella, she just won the award for Best B&B in the state. In seven weeks, she's going up to Santa Fe to receive the award from the Governor, at a large ceremony that requires eveningwear with matching accessories. There'll be champagne and nice food, and glitz and glamour, and photographers. She's the mother of a four year old and a two year old, and probably can't remember the last time she got dressed up. Plus, she's worked damn hard for this. She's entitled to be a little wiggy."
"Yes, I suppose."
"Why don't we head over to the boutiques on Cedar street?"
I screw up my noise. "How much money do you think I have?"
"Taylor will probably pay for it."
We stand and head over to the cashier. "She's so wiggy, she probably will."
********
We eventually find the perfect dress, and, because I'm with Sharpay, the Goddess of Shopping, its on sale, and she bargains the salesgirl down another $40 because of a fault in the lining that nobody will ever see.
However, it takes us nearly three hours to do all the swanky boutiques and other stores on Cedar St. to our satisfaction, and we meander home slowly in the heat, exhausted. We buy two choc-tops with hundreds and thousands from the Mr. Whippy on the corner of Elm and Maple.
The founders of Albuquerque a bunch of religious hypocrites, money-hungry adventurers, and mind-numbingly boring farmers found a theme they liked and stuck with it when naming our streets. We have Elm St., Cedar St., Maple Ave., Pine Rd., Birch Crescent, Acacia Lane, Yew Court, Juniper Boulevard, Poplar Rd, and even Dogwood Avenue.
When our forefathers ran out of trees they knew the names of they moved on to the original world of numbers. The rich part of town runs from First Street to Seventeenth Street, but not in order, because that would have been logical. So, Seventh Street is between Twelfth and Ninth, and Twentieth comes before Second Street. Also, there's no Sixth Street. Don't ask me why. Ryan used to live on Eighth Street.
The ice cream melts and drips, coating our hands and wrists. We giggle and hurry to lick it up, but we have trouble through our laughter. The other pedestrians stare at us with detached and slightly condescending bemusement. It's a silly, irreverent moment, half-remembered from childhood: stumbling down streets with sticky, melting ice creams, with not a single thing to worry about. That time when tomorrow only meant doing it all again, and the day after that was too far away to care about.
And because I wouldn't want to share this silliness with anyone else, I tuck my arm through Sharpay's and we giggle and stumble between the shadow-and-sunlight montages of the enormous oak trees.
You get to a certain age and feel like some things are beyond you: playing on the swings or the slide, finger-painting, eating fairy bread. You stop yourself from doing those things those simple, easy, laughing things and put them away, because adulthood apparently means only dealing with complex matters.
But every now and then, I can't repress the urge, and I have to climb the elm tree in the yard, and sit on the uppermost branch with satisfaction, or make myself a piece of fairy bread, and lean against the counter, chewing with unfettered joy.
Sharpay understands how I feel, because she holds firm to my arm all the way home, our elbows crooked together, and our hips bumping. Long after we finish our ice creams and we stop giggling and our stitches disappear.
The heat of the afternoon is finally beginning to soften as we reach her house. The trees across the creek are purple and blue shadows, and everything in front of us is muted gold.
Ryan is standing at the screen door, holding two longnecks. I squint and realize the beer is Sam Adams. After another moment, I realize he's topless. I shamelessly admire the view.
Sharpay sees him too, out of the corner of her eye. "He's been swimming."
"Oh."
"Thanks for another great Sunday. Thanks for letting me shop vicariously through you."
I shrug. "Any time." I pause. "What are you going to do?"
"About Ryan?" She cant' help it; she looks over at him. Her eyes darken. "Who the hell knows? We'll find our way through the shit. Because were Ryan and Sharpay. Because I love the way his nose crinkles up when he's sad. And the way his hands are huge but gentle. The way he always knows when I want a beer, so he waits at the door with it. So, well find some way."
"If there's anything…" I shrug. "Well, you know."
I'm not ready to say it yet. I'm not ready to say out aloud that Sharpay is my best friend, that she's my sanity when everyone else drives me insane, that I love her in my own messed-up, mostly-afraid, Gabriella Montez way.
She touches my elbow and nods. "Yeah, I know." Then she points to my bag. "He's going to love it."
"The dress?" I frown. "Who's going to love the dress?"
Sharpay gives me that looks she's perfected. Absolute, sharpened disdain for people who deliberately misdirect. I'm very familiar with her patented look. "Degrees of nuance, Montez."
"What?! I don't want… yes, he's going to love it," I admit, giving her a half-smile.
Sharpay gives me her version of that smile, before walking away. She reaches Ryan. He bends to kiss her, and she turns her head so that the kiss falls on her cheek.
I stand on the lawn, still half-smiling, swinging my bag, and watch Sharpay, knowing that one day soon, I'll be able to say the words.
Because I love the way her hair turns frizzy in the heat, and her voice wobbles when she's really passionate about something. The way she doesn't need to hear the words to know what I mean, or what I'm thinking.
And because she walks with sass.
********
SASS (verb, intransitive) to speak impertinently, to sass back, to answer back [US colloquial]
