A Peanuts Tale
Chapter 11: On Pins and Needles
Featuring: Lucy, Schroeder, Violet, Sally, Shermy
"No, no, no. It can't be him"
She could never be this lucky.
She had never been this unlucky.
There stood Schroeder, in all his glory just a few feet away from Lucy. Her knees felt weak and her stomach was fluttering. She barely registered the sounds of the crowd surrounding her. Had it not been for her staring at Schroeder's face in front of her she wouldn't not have picked up the words he had just said.
"Oh, if it isn't you."
He knew who she was.
She knew who he was.
The problem was exactly that.
"Say something for crying out loud! Remember who you are!"
"My, my, are you really Schroeder? Look at you, all dapper and dreamy. To think after all this time with no calls or contact you'd show up at the very party I'm co-hosting. Fancy that."
"Yes, fancy that I suppose."
"Ah but where are my manners, I am quite rude. I doubt you've even met the host herself yet? Come, let's head over to Frieda. There's lots you probably want to catch up on."
"With all due respect, Lucy, I honestly only came to talk with the guys today. I might say some thanks to Frieda when I leave but I'm only really staying a short while."
"What?"
"Well you see-"
"I brought him here," Shermy cut in.
"This guy has been doing his own thing for god knows how long. It was high time he reconnected with us, you know, male pals and all. I'm sure you understand Lucy. I mean, wouldn't one of your friends do the same for you if you were in a similar position?"
"Ha, I really doubt any such person would go to the effort of dragging me anywhere I was actively avoiding."
Lucy glared daggers at Schroeder who seemed rather contained despite the obvious hostile presence before him.
"It may come of some surprise to you" said blonde newcomer, "but when I go forward in life I take the chance to look back every now and then. It's good to know where you're coming from to really appreciate where you're going."
"Of course, you don't want to look back to long unless you plan on tripping over a crack in the road."
"Well I tend to be very aware of the space I'm moving through. You'd have to have tunnel vision to only focus on one possible direction in life."
Though to outsiders this simply seemed like a strange reunion of old friends, Shermy knew that he had been caught in the middle of some dormant drama. The amount of venom hidden underneath both Schroeder and Lucy's words was enough to make any weak-willed person feel sick.
"For the love of god, what did you make me do Violet?"
"Oh I can't believe it! Schroeder in the flesh! Why it's been so long since we've seen each other. Remember me?"
"Oh, I couldn't forget you Violet. How have you been? Still the same after all these years?"
"Oh Schroeder, you wound me. I've never been better. Why I've grown into quite the woman as you have grown into being quite the man. I must say, you've somehow become more handsome than I remember you to be."
"Thank you, Violet. I must admit you're looking quite lovely yourself."
"Aw, how sweet. Although I don't know if it's fair to call myself pretty in the face of someone like Lucy here."
"Oh I think it's more than fair. In fact, not saying it would be an injustice to truth."
Lucy gritted her teeth in spite. It was plainly obvious to her now. Violet was using Schroeder to goad her into her anger. The girl had been the puppeteer behind all of Lucy's misgivings this evening. It was easy to assume that she been orchestrating this scheme for a while and that Lucy's earlier comments from the day had only further convinced Violet of enacting her plan tonight.
"When I get my hands on her, oh I swear-"
"By the way, it looks to me like you are a getting a bit overheated with all these people around. Would you care to have a drink with me out back?"
"It would be my pleasure."
"That's it."
"Okay you two, I get it. I understand now. Are you happy? Are you satisfied?"
The sudden raise of Lucy's voice caused a disturbance in the house. All eyes and ears fell on the group of old acquaintances. Curiously enough, Sally had been passing through the crowd looking for the apple of her eye when her ears perked up at that oh so familiar yell. While the old Sally would've stayed out of Lucy's way to avoid the price of her fury, the new Sally was willing to take a gamble. Perhaps by calming Lucy down and showing her initiative to help Patty thought Lucy would have greater trust in her, deepening their trust.
"Um Lucy," Sally called out "I'm not too sure on what's going. I do however, have the slightest idea that it wouldn't be a good decision to make a scene in front of all these people, especially in this party of all places. Perhaps you should pipe down."
"Pipe down? PIPE DOWN? I ought to take your pipe and shove it back into the hole you get all your crap from!"
If weren't for Sally forcibly holding her tongue with her teeth, she would've yelped in disbelief at the vulgarity of Lucy's words to her. It wasn't even so much of a crude sentence as it was one of the rudest things the Van Pelt girl had said to Sally Brown since their closer relationship had started.
"Maybe I imagined that our "friendship" meant anything past face value."
Lucy's eyes darted back to Violet, the original object of her offensiveness.
"Now listen here, little miss crafty crab. You seem to be under the impression that I'm an extremely passive and submissive girl. That I, when under the barrage of invectives, obloquies, and vituperations would simply sink down, get on my knees, and capitulate to your antagonizing behavior? Well guess what? YOU ARE WRONG. As wrong as any guess you make on what half of the words I just said mean. When you living with a talking dictionary for more than ten years you tend to have pick up a vocabulary that lends itself to a more distinguished class. The kind, I'm afraid, you would never find yourself in, my dear. So, before I quell your laurels any further any stifle any assertions you may have been willing to put forth I do believe I should switch back to using your language, which I assume will make it easier for you to follow along. Allow me to make it simple. You are last year's trash that I let build up because I was too lazy to make the effort of throwing you out. Maybe, just maybe I thought a raccoon or some other scavenging creature would come and find use for your garbage outfits and junk personality. Today however, I had an epiphany- oh, I'm sorry: a bingo moment, if you can catch my drift. I realized that no matter how long or how close you keep waste and rubbish nearby, it always smells the same and does nothing but dirty the air. So, tonight's the night. I'm finally taking out the trash to where it belongs. Enjoy whatever drinks and flirtations you indulge yourself in. Come tomorrow morning, you'll be where every hopeless, passed out, used up girl ends up: in a dumpster."
There is a scientific fact about lightning that might not be known to many people. You see, in the brief time the electricity appears and then disappears, the air where the lightning had moved apart. In short there is a space, a gap if you will, where in the smallest of increments of time no sound occurs and a vacuum is created. Of course, just as quickly as that vacuum comes to life in the world, the laws of nature destroy it with the crashing collision of air resulting in the deafening sound of thunder.
The instant Lucy's final words were spoken, the same effect took place over the entirety of the house. Not a single living being dared to make a sound. In fact, it was entirely possible that they couldn't. The air throughout all the rooms had been completely sucked out by the gasps of every person who could hear those appalling words. Yet just like the lightning, it took but a fraction of a second for all the sound to come back in thunderous mayhem.
"Oh my god!"
"Did you see that?"
"No way."
"Is she out of her mind?"
"What a freak."
"That was cold."
"She's heartless."
"Does she have no shame?"
"Look what she did?"
"I'd do the same thing."
"Look at the other girl"
"Do you see the look on her face?"
"Can't say I wouldn't react the same way."
"This is so wrong."
"This is wrong.
This is wrong.
This is wrong."
Over and over those words kept repeating in Lucy's head but it was far too late to take it all back now.
"You…you miserable… monster!" Violet lashed out, tears running down her cheeks and vitriol in her voice.
"I hate you! You hear me Lucy Van Pelt? I hate everything about you! There's not a single little trace of a redeeming factor that I can find in your entire existence. As of this moment we are no longer friends, we are no longer associates, and you are back to being what you started off as, a whiny brat that no one close by. You can kiss whatever perks and powers you had with me at your side goodbye. Let the whole world know that on this day, Lucy, good for nothing and smelt, became an enemy of Violet Gray."
With that theatrical display of emotion, Violet took her grand exit, sobbing loudly stage right out the door. Shermy was at a total loss for words. Schroeder, however, had a few choice phrases to say to his old unwilling admirer, and he was very much obliged to say them.
"Jesus Christ, Lucy, that was absolutely, completely uncalled for." If the young woman's face could lose any more color from the severity of Schroeder's tone she would be but a black and white portrait.
"I know more than anyone the excessive force your harassment tends to lean to. I, myself, have been the brunt of that kind of pestering for years. Yet never, in my life have I seen such a devastating attack on a person by you in public for all to see and join in the humiliation. This was to a friend of yours, no less!"
"Listen to me Schroeder, I'm not-"
"You know sometimes when I was younger, I wondered how you can sleep at night and wake up knowing that what seems to be your sole purpose in life is hurting others. Now, I only wonder how you've made it this far without someone striking back at you."
Schroeder dashed out the door and into the enveloping nocturne, chasing after the lost Violet.
Lucy turned to her last resort, the sole person she knew she could count on in this great moment of weakness for her.
"Sally! Thank god, you're still here. Look, you know me, right? You get everything I've said! You get the real me, don't you? The charming and lovely girl who's an inspiration to all!"
"I don't."
"Look at me, and tell me you get it. Tell me you get me-"
"I don't!"
Lucy's yammering and blabbing ceases. To her great astonishment, Sally Brown of all people was against her.
"I thought I knew you, I thought I had grown to know you. I mean we talked and laughed and did fun things together. I'm not exactly the most forward person when it comes to having friends and you're not exactly the most accepting human being on Earth. Still I thought, really thought that we had built something after all this time. Something solid, something in X-large that fit both of us together with room to spare. Yet after what I just heard and even better what you didn't hear from me I've come to grasp that whatever thing I thought we had made was fake. It was easy to rip apart and frankly you didn't seem to give a damn."
Tears began welling up in Sally's eyes. Without so much as word from Lucy, a cry of defiance or the like, Sally took off through the crowd and out the backdoor of the house. In her frenzied state, she barely saw the pair of a frisky Frieda and a dumbfounded Linus keeping close in the corner of two kitchen counters. The golden blonde girl laughed to herself in pity.
"What a note to leave a party on. O what a wonderful world this is!"
Lucy remained in the center of an uneasy crowd. Her only companion was Shermy, whose helpless presence seemed both awkward and fitting for the events that just occurred. Lucy's face was blank and her body still. In her head, her entire mental focus was on a single train of thought.
"Yes, if I could have a single wish at that moment I would ask for but a single redo of today and nothing more. Perhaps then I could've salvaged something from whatever wreck of a relationship Violet, Sally, and the rest of my friends had been a part of. Perchance, I could've started to act less like a selfish prick, and more like a decent human being. That might've been what everyone had wanted, what Schroeder had wanted. Maybe it had been time for me to be the bigger person, rather than talk big. I don't know. It doesn't matter. For once in my life, I truly and utterly screwed up on the level of Charlie Brown."