Chapter Ten
I knew, almost the moment that I stepped into the limo, I knew. I knew that she wouldn't be able to come tonight.
My stomach did an unhappy somersault but I pushed it aside because, however much, I felt sick in my gut, it was nothing compared to Mia's face, which was beyond miserable.
At least I finally found out what she was actually doing tonight. She was going to a ball. No, I'm completely serious. She is going to a real Ball! This was the reason why her Grandmother pulled her out of second period, to go get her fitted for a dress.
I felt a little better as I listened to her, not because I knew the reason of why she couldn't go out tonight, no I was still bummed out about that, but it was because of the faces she was pulling as she spoke about the ball, and her dress and about how she's only going because her grandmother wants to show her off like a show dog or something to her arch rival, Contessa Trevanni, the woman who organised the whole Ball.
If I wasn't so bummed out, I would have been laughing.
"I am sorry." Once she had finished.
I pulled a face at her before moving from where I usually sat beside Lars, to sit beside her because Lil was at her breakfast meeting this morning.
Lars shot me a sympathetic look.
"Mia, you have nothing to be sorry about." A bit more noticed would have been nice, but I wasn't going to hold that against her, considering how hard she had tried to get out of going to this Black and White Ball thing.
When she twisted her head around to face me, I saw that she didn't believe me.
"No, really, Mia." I said, wrapping my arm around her and kissing the side of her head fondly. "I understand. You're a princess. Duty comes first."
I heard her making a huffing noise at that, but she snuggled into my side none the less.
"I'll try and get out of the ball early." She said as we got out of the limo when we arrived at school.
"Only if you can." I said. I didn't want her sneaking out of this ball and getting herself into trouble because of it. "But if you can, you should try and stop by mine." My mind was already working at full gear, trying to work out the small details of my back up plan for this evening.
I noticed her face becoming worried but I didn't have time to ask her about it because I was asked to come to the admin office where they wanted help installing a new printer there.
Rolling my eyes, I gave Mia a quick peck on her cheek before following the kid who had delivered the message about the printer to me.
They installed the printer the wrong way. It took me all of homeroom and some of first period to fix up the mess they had made.
"Next time, just ask me first before trying to do this yourselves." I said, sighing heavily to the women in admin, all of whom nodded in agreement with me
Stretching my arms above my head and started making my way for English only to run into Lil who had only just arrived.
"Mom and Dad are going to be so pleased to hear about this." I commented once I saw her. She stuck her tongue out at me.
"How did it go? Your breakfast meeting?" I asked as I walked her to the admin office where I had just left.
"The meeting went great!" she said looking very proud and smug with herself.
"Did they agree to apologize to you or whatever it was that you wanted from them?"
"Nope, better than that."
I waited a moment before, waving my hand for her to continue.
"And that would be?"
"They're going to option my show."
"Really? Seriously?" Why they must have been desperate to get her out of there if they're willingly going to option her show. Makes me wonder what her original demands had been, for them to offer her this.
"Anyway, what are you doing out of class?" Lil asked as she got late note written up for her from one of the ladies behind the admin desk.
"He fixed our printer for us." The lady who was writing up Lil's late note explained. She gave me a warm smile. "Thanks Michael."
I went a little red and said it was no problem.
"Keep this up and you'll get a job with Uncle Matthew and his IT Company." Lil teased while bells went off in my head.
"He'd borrowed our Star Wars DVDs' hasn't he?" I asked, the gears in my head turning even faster.
"Ah, yeah, he did. Why?"
"I gotta go." I said walked towards the Gym.
"Michael, your English classroom isn't that way!" Not that it matter because class was just about to end anyway. "Michael, why?" I heard her screeching after me but I ignored her as I ran for the pay phones outside the gym door.
Shoving a five dollar note into the pay phone I dialled Uncle Matthew.
'Hello Mattew Hewitt speaking, how can I…'
"Hey Uncle Matt."
'Oh hey, Michael, what's up? Please tell me you've finally decided that school really isn't the place for you and you want to get a job with us?'
"Um, not quite." I said laughing because Uncle Matt asks me this just about every time he sees me, "No, I was wondering if you could possibly drop off our Star Wars DVDs over at ours sometime tonight."
'You having a marathon with the girls, are you?' I don't know whether to be amused or not by the fact that even family friends now just how often Mia is over at ours and how much she loves Star Wars too.
"Yeah, something like that."
'Ok, I'll do my best, alright. I'm rather busy around here at the moment, but how bout I drop by home during my lunch break and then after work, I'll drop them around yours, how is that?'
"That would be great, thanks so much Matt."
'No problem. So, can I ask you something?'
"I'm not leaving school Uncle Matt. I'm graduating in May anyway."
'Nah, not that. I was just wondering if what you're father has been saying is really true.' I started cringing.
"What's he been saying?" I asked cautiously.
'Just that you've finally got your act together and that you and Mia are finally together.'
I thumped my head against the wall beside the phone.
'I'll take that as a yes.' Matt said sounding gleeful. 'Alright, I'll drop the DVDs over at yours ASAP. See ya Michael.'
"Bye Uncle Matt." I said with a groan before I hung up.
Great so even Uncle Matt knew something was going on between Mia and me. Fantastic! He was going to tease me for months for this!
"Michael?" I nearly had a heart attack as I spun around to see Gupta standing behind me. I expected her to be pissed. I mean I was late for class and I was using the pay phone that was only meant to be used at Lunch time or in emergency. But instead of being pissed and yelling her head off at me, she simply sighed and said.
"Michael, admin is having trouble with their computers."
"Right." I said and immediately started heading for Admin. "You know," I said as I turned back to her, "I really should get paid in more than just chocolate bars for all the work I do around here with the computers. How about putting me on the payroll?" I asked cheekily and Gupta simply rolled her eyes at me.
"Very funny Michael. And remember, this is actually punishment for what you did at the end of last year." I gave her a blank look.
"What did I do?"
"You hit Mr. Richter during the last week of school."
"Oh yeah. I forgot about that." I admitted sheepishly. "So, being on the payroll…."
"Not a happening thing. However, getting your hands on the school's full collection of Isaac Asimov might be." My face immediately brighten.
"Seriously?"
"If you promise not to hit Josh Richter, no matter what the reason," she gave me a long look, "you continue to fix the schools computers for as long as you are here and you don't miss a single day of school for the rest of term til your graduation, consider them yours, free of charge."
"More or less. I still have to work for them." She gave me one of her best principle smiles before heading off for her office while I went back to Admin, the ladies there almost crying at the sight of me.
"Where have you been all morning?" Paul asked me as we walked into the Chem.
"All over the place." I replied feeling completely exhausted.
"Were you fixing all the computers in the school again?" Felix asked curiously.
"Uh huh. I wish they'd stop calling for IT guys to come in, they keep stuffing everything up." I groaned. "Or importantly, I wish that the admin staff stop trying to fix the computers themselves." I cringed in memory of the Admin's printer that I just managed to save this morning.
"You seriously need to get paid for all the shit you do around here." Felix commented.
"I told Gupta that."
"And what did she say."
"No, but if I follow a couple of strict rules the complete school collection of all Isaac Asimov works are mine by graduation."
"What makes you think that Gupta will graduate you?" Felix teased.
"Yeah, she might hold you back a year so as to have another year of your computer magic." Paul laughed.
I glared at both of them while Judith softly giggled.
"Besides all that, how are things looking for tonight?" Jude asked and I immediately groaned, my head falling onto my crossed arms.
"Aw, that good huh." Felix said patting my back.
"Plan B?" Paul asked.
I lifted my head from my arms and nodded, sighing.
"What she doing?" Felix asked curiously.
"Going to a ball." I replied.
"The Black and White Ball held by Contessa Trevanni?" Jude asked and we all stared at her with wide mouths.
She went red and looked a little annoyed.
"Stop looking at me like that." She growled at us.
"But-but, how did you know?" I asked bewildered and she hit me over the head with her text book.
"Ow!"
"Ok, as much fun as it is to watch you hit Michael over the head all day, would you mind answering his question before you continue on with it?" Felix asked.
"Hey!" I said but was ignored by my three so called best friends.
"Oh, there's no real story behind my knowing about it. I mean, I don't know about it because I'm going to it but I have a friend who is and she told me, so you know girl gossip. Also I heard that Lana Weinberger was going too."
"Oh great." I said sarcastically, thinking about Mia and Lana being stuck at a ball, together, and all the many things that could happen there between them. This could only go well.
Another thought came to me which caused me to shudder, "is Richter going too?" because that would so make things all the more worse for Mia.
Jude thought for a moment before shaking her head.
"I don't believe so."
"Good." I said with a sigh of relief.
Our Chem lesson was slow today, so the four of us spent most of the lesson talking about our still unnamed band.
"So who is actually in it?" Jude asked, she only knew of us being in it and that the whole band idea had been mine, but that was basically as much as she knew.
"Um, us," She rolled her eyes at that and waved her hand at me to get on with it, "Trevor, you know from English…"
"Doesn't he play the trumpet in the school's marching band?" she asked amused.
"Yeah, but he can also play the guitar pretty well, so that's what's he's doing with us." Felix explained.
"And with have Boris of electric violin." And just as I expected, she started giggling.
"I'm sorry, but Boris?"
"I know, right. We had the same reaction." Felix said with a snort, while Paul shook his head, laughing quietly.
I glared at all three of them.
"He's a good musician and a good guy." I defended him hotly and not because he was my sister's boyfriend, but because he seriously is good at what he does and he is an all round pretty good guy.
"I know, I'm sorry." Jude apologized. "So, what are you two playing?" she asked turning to Paul and Felix, which quickly turned out to be a mistake on her part because they started fighting over which was the true glue of a band, the drums or keyboard.
"You've done it now." I muttered to her and she simply stared at the two ripping into each other in disbelief and guilt.
"You're going to have to do something about that, you know?" I muttered as we headed for our next class, which luckily neither Paul nor Felix were in with us.
She pulled a face at me.
"Do I have to? Can't I just pretend to be oblivious to it until we graduate and escape this hell hole?"
"That's four months and then there's the summer break before we're off to college. That's a long time to act oblivious." I pointed out and she scowled.
"Argh! Why can't I just be invisible again?" She growled furiously as she slammed her bag down upon her desk at the back of the classroom.
"You were never invisible to Paul." I reminded her. "It's Felix who didn't notice you before."
"Then why can't we return to that? Paul noticing me from afar and Felix not noticing at all!"
"Because that's changing time and to my knowledge time travel hasn't yet been invented."
"Hurry up and invent it already!" she growled at me.
"You're the one who clones Fruit Flies; you invent the means for time travel."
"You're the computer geek!"
"So are you!"
"MICHAEL!" She wailed and everyone in class looked back at us weirdly.
"Fine," I said sighing, "let me get through tonight and then I'll help you with your Felix/Paul problem, ok?"
"Ok," she mumbled somewhat morbidly. "So how are you planning on working tonight?" she asked obviously desperate to steer the conversation as far away from her as fast as she possibly could.
"She comes over to mine after her ball thing and we watch StarWars there?" I said shrugging.
"What about food? Are you going to have dinner, like you were going to do at the Screening Room?"
"Um…" I hadn't actually thought about that.
"Because I doubt they'll feeding her anything beside finger food at the Ball."
"You're probably right." I said, "I'll give Maya a call at lunch and ask her if she might possibly stop by Balducci and get some veggie burgers and chips for me for tonight."
"I think you'll actually have a better night doing this then you would have had, if you were still going to the Screening Room."
"Really?" I asked curiously.
"Yeah, you'll both be in your comfort zone. And trust me, for a first date, its helps to be in ones comfort zone."
"Ok." Because really I had very little experience with this whole dating thing, I honestly had no idea what I was doing, I had just been doing what I felt was right for both of us.
"Anything else?" I asked and Jude thought for a moment.
"I don't think so; you seemed to have covered all the major details. Just… when she does arrive, be kind."
"Oh yeah," I said sarcastically, "'cause I'm really going to start yelling at her or something." Judith gave me a deadpan looked.
"That's not what I meant… and you know it. What I meant was, when she arrives, she's probably going to be embarrassed and feeling guilty about this whole Ball thing messing up your first date, so your main job when she arrives at yours is to get her as comfortable and as relaxed as possible because she'll probably be upset and worried that you'll be mad at her."
"Why would I be mad at her?" I asked bewildered.
"Oh sweetie, I thought you understood by now. Girls and boys think very differently about the same things in their relationship. You might be more or less over this and looking for ways to get around the whole ball thing, but she's probably freaking out about whether or not you're going to dumb her over this or not."
"WHAT?" I yelled and was quickly told to shut up or get out by my teacher who actually looked startled when realised it was me he was saying it too.
"What? How can she… I mean, no seriously, how could she… that's insane!" I grappled for words but they were failing me in my disbelief at Jude's words. Jude simply shrugged.
"Girls think differently about relationships then boys. Especially girls with low self esteem."
I wanted to argue that point except that I couldn't because it was true; Mia's sense of self worth wasn't particularly high. Oh she had some self-confidence now, but her self worth was still pretty low.
I sighed, running my fingers through my hair.
"Ok." I said and nodded.
Jude smiled at me and we tried to do our work, even though we had no idea what had been said by our teacher at the beginning of class being too busy talking about our own problems.
At lunch, as I past her by her locker, I gave Mia a quick kiss, telling her that I had some things to do during lunch, but that I'd see her in G&T before I sprinted off for the pay phone before anyone else could grab it.
Getting Maya to agree to stop by Balducci, as well as the corner store, was surprisingly easy. Or nor surprising, since I had said the magic word almost immediately into our conversation and she was agreeable to do whatever I wanted, even extra, promising to get all the ingredients for ice-cream sundaes.
I swear life is made so much easier when your girlfriend is basically liked by everyone of importance in your life. As you might have guessed, the magic word is Mia. Like with my parents, Mia is Maya's favourite out of the three of us. And I honestly don't blame her or them for that. Mia is my favourite out of the three of us.
I would have sat with Mia during G&T, but Boris was worrying about his part in the band. He was worrying that he might let us all down and that he wasn't good enough to a part of the band. HA! He's like the best musician out of all of us.
And I told him that.
I also told him that this was mainly just for fun and that if I didn't think or want him in the band, I wouldn't have asked him to be in it. He then asked the absurd thing of "You didn't just ask me to be nice because I'm dating your sister?"
I quickly informed him that no, that wasn't it at all. I would have still invited him to join the band even if he wasn't dating my sister.
He seemed to be greatly cheered by this, before asking me what we were actually planning on calling ourselves. I simply groaned and he quickly dropped the topic.
"What are you up to?" Lil asked after dinner. Well, after mom, dad and Lil's dinner, I wasn't eating until Mia got here.
"Huh?" I was looking over our StarWars DVDs', checking for any scratches that might have occurred during their time with Uncle Matt. Doubtful, because he's oppressive compulsive with technology of any kind, but still it was something to do and it kept my mind of the time which was 7.30, not that I was checking my watch or anything like that. 7.30 and 5 seconds.
"What are you doing?" Lil asked again, sounding exasperated.
"What does it look like I'm doing?"
"Being obsessive compulsive."
"Fraid there's only one of those in this family, Lil and it's not me." I gave her a pointed look and she made a rude hand sign back at me.
"So?" she asked after a few moments and I sighed.
"Since she can't go to the Screening Room, I'm bringing the Screening room to her… If she comes."
"She will." Lil said calmly and I looked at her.
"Seriously?" Lil rolled her eyes.
"God, you're both as bad as each other. Honestly, you two are made for each other!" She grumbled in exasperation. "And I mean that too." she added.
"That we're as bad as each or…"
"That you are meant to be together, yes that. Though, you are as bad as each other too. Honestly," she said and shook her head before looking down at me with a sly grin, "she was worried that you were going to ask Judith Gershner to go with you to the Screening Room tonight because she couldn't come."
My mouth dropped in disbelief.
"What? Why?" Lil shrugged.
"I don't know. I mean, you two do hang out together a lot and you do have a lot in common, so." she shrugged again while I just shook my head. I like Jude, I really do, but… hello Mia. Mia wins hands down against every single woman in the world in regards to me. Why couldn't she see that?
"I think this is a really sweet idea." Lil said suddenly, drawing me out of my mental debate.
"Huh?"
"This whole set up. It's a good idea." Lil said.
"Thanks." She went a little red in the face.
"I'm going to be spending my evening in the kitchen and then later my room working on my show, so you know, I won't be around to bother you two or anything." She informed me, a formal note to her voice which made me laugh.
"Thanks Lil."
"Everything will be fine." She told me. "Tonight will go well and you two will be sickening together."
I smiled up at her, grateful for her words and for her acceptance of this whole thing with Mia. I mean, I know she said way back in early December that we, Mia and I, had given her plenty of time to get used to the whole we liked each other, but that didn't mean that all the weirdness of this was completely gone.
"Lil?"
"Hmmm?"
"Are you sure you're ok with this? My being with Mia I mean?"
"Would it really matter if I wasn't? Like would you seriously stop dating Mia because I wasn't happy about it?" she asked with a teasing smile.
I thought for a moment, actually torn. I mean, being with Mia is something that I have wanted for a while, but if being with her meant messing up hers and Lil's friendship…
"Ok, that wasn't meant for you to start double guessing yourself, you know," Lil laughed. "Michael, I'm fine with it, ok. Honestly, I am. I mean, it is weird at times, but most of the time, I don't really notice because beside from the kissing, you two are basically acting the same way as you did with each other at the end of last year and when we were younger. Getting along with each other, just now with the kissing on the side." She shrugged.
"So you're fine."
"I'm fine. Though," and she started to smile wickedly now, "if you hurt her, I'll happily break your face." She informed me cheerfully before skipping off for the kitchen.
I sighed heavily as I watched her go before setting up the first StarWars movie in our DVD player. I then sat on the couch with a Terry Pratchett Discworld book, waiting for Mia to arrive.
At around twenty past eight Pavlov, who had been sleeping by my feet for the last hour, suddenly stirred and became restless. One minute late the door bell rang and Pavlov bounded off the couch, barking his head off with me almost falling off after him. Wow, when I looked at the clock again (because I was fairly sure it was her because who else but her can get that sort of reaction out of Pavlov?), she did managed to get out early. I honestly wasn't expecting her until close to ten or even eleven o'clock tonight.
After a moment of straightening myself out, feeling slightly embarrassed that I hadn't changed out of my old jeans and Boomtown Rats T-shirt, but I honestly thought I would have more time. But nothing to be done about it now and headed for the door, opening it and then forcing myself to not let my mouth drop to the floor because of the sight of her.