A&E/N: My (roxmysox55) first cliffie! It is a very tiny one, but I am proud of it. It's my baby. Yay!

LP: Let's all take a moment to savor this precious occurrence!

Okay. Moment over. Read the story!!

Chapter Seven: Fourth of July

I was marinating steaks when Guitar Guy came in. It was the Fourth of July, a day that had meant absolutely nothing to him just the week before, but after I'd told Gail that between the newly arrived Germans I lived with and the Orminians I worked for, I wouldn't get to celebrate at all, she'd said we could barbeque today. The Jefferson Place had a lawn big enough to put up some picnic tables for the staff to eat on too. Gail wasn't a hotdogs-and-hamburgers kind of gal, so she'd set me to marinating steaks and pork chops and chicken with her own secret recipe while she got the grill going.

"Hey," he said, coming in with his guitar case in hand. Instead of heading right over to the cabinet to take out his stool and sit down, he stood behind me and looked over my shoulder at my work.

The heat rose to my face, having him so close, but I regained my composure before he noticed. "Hey," I returned, satisfied with the coolness of my voice.

He laughed. "You're bright purple again, Linen Room Girl."

"Uh…"

Guitar Guy kept laughing as he jumped up to sit on the counter next to the bowl I was working out of. He almost put his hand in it, but I moved it just in time. "Oops. Sorry."

I smiled nervously, thinking of what Gail would say if he'd stuck his hands in the marinade, or worse, spilt it all over the floor.

"What're you making?" he asked, taking an interest in cooking for the first time I could remember.

I brushed a little more onto a steak. "Well, it's a secret recipe," I explained. "Gail won't tell me what's in it, but it smells like some sort of barbeque sauce and honey and some sort of dressing too, I think."

"She sure is a good cook." He smiled. "Well, I guess she'd have to be to teach you how."

I tried to keep from laughing. "Aren't you supposed to be over there playing your guitar and not over here bothering the girl who's cooking your food? I could spit in it, you know. That's what chefs do when someone makes them angry."

He stuck his tongue out at me and hopped down just as Gail came back in to take another platter out. "How's it coming in here?" she asked.

I finished with the steak I'd been brushing. "Good. Just three more steaks, two more breasts, and one more chop. And then we can eat, right?"

Gail sighed. "Just as I feared. We don't have enough, Cyndi. Can you run to the store for me and get more? I would go myself, but if I left you with the grill, you'd probably burn the house down while I'm gone."

I glanced at Prince Robi out of the corner of my eye to see if he was listening. He was scribbling on that piece of paper again. "I can't go," I said. "I can't drive, remember? And I don't think Mrs. Hoffman would like it if I called her up and asked her to take me."

Gail slapped herself on the forehead. "Right. Of course. Well…"

"I'll take you."

We both turned around to look at Guitar Guy. "Really?"

He shrugged. "Yeah. I'm pretty much here all day long doing those studies and I just about never go anywhere. I think they may have forgotten I even have a car. Sebastian would rather drive me around in his limo, but why be a passenger when you can drive yourself?"

I shrugged. "Okay."

BREAK

I've been through enough of those extremely uncomfortable, awkward, silent car rides with people who I didn't know well enough to strike up a good conversation with to know what to expect on that ride to the store with Guitar Guy. This time I wouldn't have a kitchen sink to hide behind. But I figured I owed to it him, since he'd made me such a nice, unexpected offer. So I prepared myself for the worst and focused on not turning bright purple again.

That day was full of surprises, though. And I was wrong.

"It used to be my uncle's car," Guitar Guy said as he opened the garage. Because it was behind the house and opened on West Street, I hadn't even noticed it before. The automatic door opened to reveal a forty-year-old, newly restored, bright red Mustang convertible. "I don't know much about cars, or much about slang in this country, but people tell me it kicks ass. I think that's a compliment."

"Wow. It's great. I'm almost afraid to touch it."

"Well, you're gonna have to touch it to get in it. Come on."

Slowly and carefully, I opened the passenger door. If I bumped it against one of the boxes, I'd probably get sued by the whole country of Orminia. He laughed, swung open the door on his side, jumped in, and slammed the door. "I promise the country of Orminia won't sue you if you put a dent in the door," he said, reading my mind.

Tan leather surrounded me and shiny silver buttons winked in the sunlight. He pressed a button that moved the top down and a light breeze tousled my hair. I felt like I was in a music video when he started driving down the street. "It's like being in a music video. Or a car commercial at least. Nobody in the suburbs has something like this."

"Well, it runs great. I bet an old car like this would be a great one to learn on," Guitar Guy said, winking.

My eyes widened at the thought. "Me?"

"Is there anybody else in this car?"

My heart started racing with excitement. "You'd teach me how to drive this car? For real?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe if I thought you really wanted to. Your lack of enthusiasm just hasn't convinced me." Prince Robi broke out into a grin. "Whenever you want to. We'll just find an empty parking lot some time."

I nodded. "Thank you." I hated that I was sitting in a moving vehicle because I had the urge to jump up and down. "I'm like the only person I know who can't drive."

"Not for long. Hey, we're here." He pulled into the parking lot at the grocery store. "Do you want to just run in there really fast? It always takes forever to find a parking place somewhere like this on a holiday weekend and if I know Gail…"

"Yeah. Sure." That car ride was like a normal car ride with someone I know. It's almost as if we're friends or something. I took one last look at the guy in the kick-ass car as I walked through the automatic doors. Yeah. Friends. I like that.

It's amazing how many people barbeque on the Fourth of July. Half the town was in the refrigerated meat section, the other half was in the check out lines, and both halves had their cars parked in the parking lot.

As I was leaning over a freezer reading the labels on the different white meat chicken breast packets, I heard an all-too familiar voice beside me. "What sort of idioten writes these nutritional facts? How well do they expect people to be able to read this language?"

I shook my head and moved over to inspect a package farther away. With any luck, they wouldn't notice me.

"Cyndi?"

I looked up. Heike and Elfie were standing there in their dark green Bob's Best Catering aprons and hairnets. "Hi."

Heike shoved the hamburger in my face. "You read this to us. What percent lean is this meat?"

"It's 70 lean. How much do you want?"

"That much is fine. We don't really care, since we're not the ones who'll be cooking it anyway. We decided we want a barbeque after all and not a pizza, so you have to skip your little thingy at work and come cook for us. Mike is coming over."

"But you already said you were ordering in and watching the Hoffmans' fireworks. I'm not canceling my plans for that."

"You have to. We are your legal gilligans and you have to do whatever we say. We want cheese burgers and hotdogs and you're going to make them for us."

I rolled my eyes at them. "No. I don't even know what a gilligan is, but tonight is a national holiday, which means I have the day off to do whatever I feel like. Plus, my friend, who drives a '66 Mustang convertible, is waiting outside for me. I gotta run. And the both of you would be better off with meat that's a lot leaner than 70." I picked up my pile of meat, dropped it in the cart, and rushed to the self check out line. It felt good to give them a taste of their own medicine, even if I didn't get to have my big exit. I was in line for twenty minutes and The Sisters actually left before I did.

BREAK

It was after five by the time we got back, though we'd left a quarter after four, and by then the picnic tables were all set up on the lawn, the meat that we had was all grilled, and the head chef was at her wit's end. "Goodness gracious! Where were you two?" she exclaimed as we came up the front walk, each carrying three or four plastic grocery bags.

"Everyone goes to the grocery store on the Fourth of July, apparently. Even The Sisters were there. They wanted me to skip tonight and go barbeque for them and Heike's boyfriend."

"Are you?" asked Guitar Guy, alarmed.

I smiled. "No. I told them it was a national holiday, so I could do whatever I wanted."

"Well," said Gail, relieving us each of bag and heading towards the kitchen, "that's fine with me just as long as whatever you want includes helping me finish up in the kitchen and getting these people fed."

"Of course."

"Need an extra hand?" Prince Robi asked, setting his bags on the kitchen counter.

Gail squinted at him as though a bright light were shining off his face, and then looked at me and shook her head. "Now, why you would want to do a thing like that is beyond me, Your Highness, but this here kitchen is no place for a prince, even when you're just strumming that guitar of yours. It's our job to feed you, not the other way around, and I'd think it'd be better if you just let us. Now you go ahead and head outside because all those people out there are just dying for you to go and sit by them. We'll be out later."

He started to protest, but then he sighed and walked away.

When he left, Gail took out a steak, handed me a meat mallet, and had me hammer it while she started up another batch of marinade. "You want to tell me why that boy's wanting to be around you so much?" she asked me.

I knew why I wanted him to want to be around me so much. The thought of having a friend who wanted to help me instead a glowering pest hovering around me ordering to do things for them was such a relief! But I knew at the same time that he had only taken me to the store because he needed a break after being cooped up with his lessons most of the day, that he'd only offered to teach me how to drive to show off his kick ass car, and that he was only in the kitchen so much because it was the only place to practice his guitar without being noticed. It would just be wrong to think that that was actually some sort of friendship. I shrugged. "I don't know."

She smiled to herself but said nothing more. I got back to hammering the steaks with a meat mallet. It's funny how working long enough in a kitchen, repeating the same steps over and over again, can make you forget whatever it was you were worrying about before. When you have to concentrate on not smashing your fingers with hard metal spikes, you find yourself concentrating a little less on the strange relationship you have with the prince of Orminia.

By six, we were ready. The laundresses, servants, maids, Szylveszter, Sebastian, the security guards, the plumber who had just gotten done fixing the bathroom sink, Gail and I, and Prince Robi all crowded outside to eat the food that had taken at least an hour longer than it should have to make. It was good, though. Mine and Gail's cooking at the finest, as always. Guitar Guy had done exactly what Gail had told him to do, and he was sitting at the far end of a picnic table at the other end of the lawn between Seb and Szyl, gabbing with every single security guard. I was stuck with the maids and laundresses, some of which had come all the way from Orminia with the prince, and all of which talked too much for their own good. They gossiped in two languages and broke out into screeching laughter. They looked at me when I didn't giggle along with them and I knew I would be the object of their ceaseless gossip the next day. If all these girls worked alongside each other, it was a wonder any work got done at all.

By eight o'clock, everyone had finished eating the chocolate cake Gail made for dessert, and were more than ready for the fireworks. The security guards had gotten loads of them, at my request, and were setting them up behind the fence. I took two folding chairs, the really crummy cloth ones that stand on triangular legs you know will collapse at any moment, out of Gail's trunk and put them up front to get a good view. Just as I sat down, a huge explosion nearly jolted me out of my seat and the sky filled with the glittering lights of a firework. Nobody can ever be prepared for that very first one. It grabs the attention of every single person, no matter how involved in conversation they were just a second before, and even the dumb girls who'd been gossiping for hours stopped and stared at it in silence. Another one followed then, and then another, and by then everyone was staring in amazement and oohing and awing subconsciously.

"Is this seat taken?"

The sound of Guitar Guy's voice behind me startled me just as much as the first firework. Nobody had said anything for the past five minutes at least. "Uh…" I searched the tables behind us for Gail, and found her sitting beside Sebastian and Szylvezster, gazing up the fireworks with her mouth wide open. A plate of untouched food was in front of her. She'd spent so much time serving others, she hadn't had a chance to eat herself yet. Gail wouldn't be over for a while, if at all. "No."

He smiled and sat in the folding chair next to mine. "You do this every year?" he asked over the blasts.

"Yeah! It wouldn't be any sort of July without it!"

He covered his ears. "It's pretty loud, though!"

"Well, yeah, but it is beautiful!"

Guitar Guy looked at me and smiled. "Yeah," he said, "kinda like you."

Or at least that's what I think he said . It was right in the middle of another explosion, but he wasn't yelling like he had been before. He might have said "like you" or he might have said "achoo." So that's why I said, "Bless you!"

"Huh?"

Oh. I blushed. "Nothing! I mean, uh, thank you!" I reached over to rest my arm on the black, hard plastic armrest, but instinctively moved it when I when I felt his arm beneath mine. My whole armed tingled as I quickly placed it back in my lap. I was afraid to look back and see his response, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw him shift in his chair and rest his hands on his knees. Something came over me then; I don't know what. I was caught in the spur of the moment, I guess, and still feeling warm and fuzzy from his touch and his complement. Slowly, I moved my arm over both arm rests, and placed my hand over his. He flinched out of surprise, but he didn't move his hand. Finally, our eyes met. His were a deep brown that shown with all the colors of the fireworks above our heads and then some. I'd never been so close to him before. My heart was pounding. I was probably the brightest shade of purple that I'd ever been, the color people turned when they were holding their breath, which I was. My stomach was doing flips. I knew that if I looked at my watch, barely a minute would have gone by, but it felt like that exact moment had lasted forever.

In that moment, I knew he was going to kiss me. No one had ever kissed me before. No one had ever held my hand the way he was or looked into my eyes the way he was. It was really scary, but in a good way. We leaned towards each other, ever so slowly. I knew he was just as nervous as I was.

Then another firework went off. It shot up in the air, squealing and squeaking for all it was worth, as if it wanted to burst my ear drums. It exploded with an intensified boom. The girls behind us screeched in fright. I jumped, and just like that, the chair's crummy plastic, triangular legs, slid towards each other, causing the chair to fold in on itself. Before I could get my feet back on the ground, I fell backwards right along with it. I found myself flat on my back, stuck in the dumb thing. I could hardly move at all. Prince Robi quickly jumped out of his own chair, which he just barely saved from folding in on himself, and reached down to pull me out of it. He struggled, but he finally did.

"God, Linen Room Girl," he said, laughing.

I laughed too, even though my legs and shoulders stung. He helped me straighten the chairs out again, but that screeching firework had been the big finale. There were no more left, and by now everyone was throwing away their paper plates and paper cups and heading inside.

"Cyndi!" Gail called me over to help her clean up.

"Coming!" I called. I looked back at Prince Robi, having absolutely no clue what to say to him. Time had paused for us a minute ago. I'd completely fled reality. It was just me and Guitar Guy in our own little world with fireworks illuminating the dark summer sky around us. Now we were back and I wanted to escape more than anything, but the chance was gone. It had fled when the firework went off and the chair folded in on me, and I had no idea how to get it back. "Uh…see ya."

He offered me a sad excuse for a smile. "Yeah. Happy Independence Day."

"Thanks. You too."

"Cyndi!"

BREAK

A&E/N: Love the cliffie? Love it? Love it?

Review and let me (us) know!

--LP and roxmysox55