Not So Different

39. Green-Eyed

Jane was smiling at a boy. She probably thought he was 'cute'. Come to that, for all Sonny knew he probably was 'cute'—it wasn't for Sonny to say, was it? In any case, Jane kept smiling at him. She was even doing something with her eyes—Sonny didn't want to call it 'batting', but what else could it be called?

'Hey', Sonny said to her. 'Hey!'

Jane turned her head back towards him and stopped smiling. 'Huh? Sorry.' She turned her head to look at the boy again. 'That guy keeps looking at me.' She started smiling again.

'Well, either he's mistaken me for a girl in the bad light in here or he's wondering whether he can cut me out. I'm going to the bathroom anyway, that'll give him his chance. Or both of you.'

'Hey, you don't have to ….'

'I don't have to go to the bathroom? Actually I do. So don't sweat it. I'm not making a special trip on your account. Feel free.'

Mystik Spiral were about to finish their first set, so Sonny figured he should answer nature's call before Trent came off stage. Sonny and Jane had come to ask him to help with a school assignment, to produce a multimedia project combining words, images, and sound. Sonny was going to write the script and Jane was going to create the images—and, Jane had suggested, they could get Trent to do some music for them.

Jane had revealed an ulterior motive for teaming with Sonny on this occasion: she needed something better than a C to get off academic probation and avoid the threat of taking the class over again and, as she had said, 'Sonny Morgendorffer does not get Cs'. Sonny couldn't help it: he always admired accuracy. (Of course when he had been obliged to take gym classes he had been lucky to get a C, but those days were fortunately past.) In this case, he had an ace in the hole which would guarantee their results. He planned a script about an innocent school student being interrogated by Federal immigration agents after a teacher with a grudge made a false allegation that the whole family were in the country illegally. O'Neill would know it was a veiled reference to Sonny's own recent experience, so they'd have him right where they wanted him.

By the time Sonny got back from the bathroom, the first set was definitely over, but Jane wasn't talking to Trent. She was talking with the boy with the green eyes and the long hair, and they were both smiling. A lot. He must have come over to her in Sonny's absence, which was more or less what Sonny had predicted. As Sonny came up, they seemed to be arranging to do something together—he caught the word 'food'.

Jane turned to him. 'Oh, hey, Sonny. This is, uh ….'

'Tom', said … Tom.

'Hi', said Sonny curtly.

'So, are you family support too?'

'Sorry?' Sonny said.

'Jane was just telling me that her brother's in the band. And you?'

'Oh, I see. Right', Sonny said, 'I'm not Jane's other brother, I'm not the brother of anybody else in the band, Jane and I are friends from school, I'm not her boyfriend, we're not dating, I don't do the whole dating thing, and is there anything else I can help you with?'

While Tom was taken flat aback, Jane interposed.

'Tom's car's falling apart, so we're going for a ride', she said, with her own special brand of logic. 'I'll be right back.'

'Hey. We're supposed to talk to Trent, remember?'

'You talk. I'll be back for the second set. Later.'

'Nice meeting you', Tom said implausibly before he and Jane breezed out. Sonny suspected they were smiling at each other again.

'Great', he said looking after them. He wondered idly whether Tom had initially mistaken him for a girl. Not that it mattered. Anyway, Trent came up to him at that point.

'Hey, Sonny. You guys wanted to talk to me about something?'

'Um … yeah. But Jane went out for some food.'

'That's okay. You're here.'

Sonny started to explain about the school assignment. Initially Trent thought that the idea was to make the project a documentary about Mystik Spiral, but once Sonny had set him straight, Trent still seemed eager—insofar as 'eager' was a description that ever applied to Trent. Then Trent asked after Jane. When Sonny told him what she'd said, Trent mentioned that the second set wouldn't be for another hour. Sonny was tired and didn't want to wait that long, so Trent offered him a ride home. On the drive, he asked Sonny why Jane had gone for food without him.

When Sonny explained about the 'Tom' she'd gone off with, Trent asked who he was, and Sonny said that they'd never seen him before. 'I don't know what made her think it would be all right to go for a ride with him.'

'You got to relax, Sonny. Just because you don't do the whole dating thing doesn't mean Janey doesn't, or shouldn't.'

Sonny remembered Trent saying something similar during their failed attempt to go to Alternapalooza. This wasn't about trying to stop Jane dating, though. When Jane and this Tom had been eyeing each other, he'd got out of the way to give them a chance, hadn't he? 'That's not the point. Doesn't it bother you that Jane's gone off with somebody she's only just met?'

'Janey can look after herself.'

'I hope so', said Sonny, as Trent pulled up in front of the Morgendorffer house. 'Anyway, thanks for the ride.' He got out of the car.

Before driving off, Trent suggested that maybe they could talk about the school project at his place the next day, if Sonny came over. Sonny agreed that maybe they could.

The next day, though, Sonny didn't at first feel like contacting any Lanes. He thought he'd wait until he heard from Jane. When he'd heard nothing and it was almost noon, he broke down and telephoned. Jane answered sounding as if she'd just got out of bed—but then Jane often sounded like that long after rising.

'Did I wake you?' Sonny said. 'I guess that means you haven't been murdered. Well, that's good.'

— 'Do you have any idea what time it is?'

Sonny could hear that Jane knew perfectly well that he had the high ground and her attempt to wrong-foot him was only half-hearted. When he gave an unadorned factual answer to her question she fell back.

— 'I guess righteous indignation isn't really appropriate, then.'

He pressed his advantage. 'Not on your part, no.'

He knew he had her, but she gave one more wriggle, challenging him for disappearing the previous night. He turned that one back on her easily and she gave up, apologising for ditching him, although she had come back for the second set.

'I thought we weren't staying for the second set', he said, and she repeated her apology before turning the conversation to the project. Sonny told her what Trent had said and Jane told him to come over at once.

'Only don't rush. He won't be up for another two hours.'

Sonny knew that Jane wasn't much better than Trent at waking up quickly, so he was happy to take his time and have some lunch before he headed over to the Lanes'. When Jane answered the door to his ring (with bed hair, he noticed) she still sounded a little defensive, and when he asked her about it she said, 'After you called, I got up, got dressed, and then fell back asleep. You did call, right? 'Cause I don't think I could have dreamed a conversation that nasty.'

Sonny wasn't going to disavow what he'd said to Jane earlier, but he also didn't need to repeat it, so he just asked after Trent. Jane said she'd heard movement in his room, but that might have been raccoons. She yawned and offered Sonny breakfast.

'Thanks, but I don't really like to eat breakfast after lunch. It spoils my dinner. So, you want to work on this multimedia thing?'

'I don't know, Sonny, I'm really beat.' Suddenly Jane's eyes widened in shock and she raised her voice. 'Hey! How you doing?'

Sonny could feel his face moving. Why was his face moving? What was Jane talking about?

'Hi', said a smooth voice from behind him. He looked round.

'Hi, Sonny', added Tom.

Sonny looked from one of them to the other and back again as Tom explained or excused his presence and Jane bantered easily with him. Then she invited Tom inside.

'No', said Tom, with a 'warding-off' gesture of the hand, 'you've got company', but Jane grabbed his wrist and pulled him inside. Sonny found himself stepping through the doorway just to avoid getting knocked over, and then it was left to him to shut the door.

Before the situation got any more awkward—or maybe just to make it more awkward—Trent came downstairs at that point. Greetings and introductions were exchanged, and then Sonny tried to get back to the topic of the multimedia project. Trent invited Sonny into the kitchen to talk about it. Sonny suggested Jane should be in on the conversation.

'You go ahead', Jane said. 'I'm not quite up yet.' She turned to Tom. 'I'll walk Tom to his car.'

Sonny started to object, but Trent supported Jane, so Sonny discontentedly followed Trent into the kitchen, where he started making coffee. Sonny took a seat at the table. Hanging out with Trent was all right, but otherwise the world was off-kilter. When he tried to get the conversation onto the multimedia project, Trent pointed out that Jane wasn't there. Sonny pointed out that he had pointed out that issue first. Not at all to Sonny's surprise, but a little to his disappointment, Trent admitted that he'd only been trying to give Jane a moment with Tom.

Sonny said, 'Do you think it's weird that they just met last night and he's already inviting himself over?'

'I guess he likes her.'

Sonny chewed that over a little. He still didn't like the taste of it. Before the conversation could go anywhere else, the phone rang. The call was to remind Trent about an 'important' audition, and he rushed off.

Just before Trent left, he told Sonny to help himself to the hot water. Sonny got up and went over to the stove. He turned off the heat, saving one of the Lanes' saucepans from being completely burnt through when the water boiled dry. Then he looked around the room before trudging back to the table to collect his backpack.

When he came out of the kitchen, Jane was nowhere to be seen. When he looked outside, Tom's car had gone.

She must have walked him to his car, into his car, and off.

Sonny carefully pulled the door to behind him, hooked his arms through the straps of his backpack, and headed home.

Sonny saw a lot less of Jane than usual in the week that followed, but eventually Jane got around to telling him that she finally had some sketches she liked, and that Trent had been working with a composing program. Sonny told her that the script had been finished since Monday. 'I had a lot of free time last weekend', he said.

Jane apologised for not getting together with him.

'No big deal', said Sonny. 'How's Tom?'

'You really don't like him, do you?'

'This isn't about how I feel about Tom. How should I feel anything about him? I don't even know him. And neither do you. That's what I don't like.'

'I've gone out with him a few times. He's a pleasant young fellow.' Jane gave him a droll look. 'Are you trying to make rules about how well people should know each other before they go out together?'

Sonny shifted his eyes to the side, and his cheek twitched. 'I know', he said slowly. 'Trent told me. Again. Just because I don't do the whole dating thing doesn't mean you can't.'

'Wait a minute.' Jane raised an eyebrow. 'What do you mean, again?'

'He said much the same to me back when we made that trip that never reached Alternapalooza. On the way back, when you fell asleep in the van. You know how Trent is, he didn't come the heavy or anything, but I could figure out what he was getting at, both times.'

'Oh.' Jane pushed some hair out of her eyes. 'Anyway, Tom's seeing his friends tonight, so you and I will definitely get together.'

'Thanks for fitting me in.'

'I do what I can.'

Back to normal, Sonny thought. But he revised that view at their evening pizza meeting, when Tom appeared as they were deciding what to do when they finished eating. He greeted Jane, Jane greeted him, and Sonny gave him the prison yard stare and asked him what he was doing there.

'Those really good friends of mine—they totally blew me off. I figured you guys might be here.'

You guys?

Jane invited Tom to join them for more pizza, but he said he was only going to stay a minute. Sonny offered to lend him a stopwatch.

'Hey, Sonny', Tom said, 'if you want me to leave, just say so.'

Sonny turned away from Tom and back to his pizza, raising one hand in a gesture of dismissal as he said, 'Okay, bye now.'

Jane started to protest, so Sonny reminded her that they'd just agreed to see a movie.

Tom said, 'What movie?'

'It's called', said Sonny, 'The Movie About Totally Platonic Friendship That's Only Suitable For People Who Have Platonic Friendships But Spells Sudden Death For Any Sort Of Romantic Connection. Maybe you should see it some other time if you can ever find those really good friends of yours again.'

'Hey, Sonny, did I say I wanted to go to the movie with you?'

'No, but you never mentioned wanting to horn in on our pizza time, either.'

'Sonny, you're so darn pleasant and friendly, I don't see how anybody could resist an evening with you. But just on a crazy whim, I think I'll go home and watch TV by myself.'

Jane called out to Tom as he left, but he didn't turn back. Then she turned on Sonny.

'What is it with you? You're not acting like somebody who accepts that I'm dating somebody else.'

Sonny's face went dead. 'It's not about who you're dating. It's about your being here now in the non-dating part of your life with me, not in the dating part of your life with Tom or anybody.' He stood up. 'Unless you've decided that the dating part of your life is so important you can dispense with the other part, and you'd rather go for another ride with Tom if he's available instead of spending the evening with me.'

'Sonny, don't you think you're overreacting?'

'If I weren't here, you'd be chasing after Tom right now, wouldn't you?'

'I don't know.'

'Then here's your chance to find out.' Sonny left his last slice of pizza behind and walked out into the night.

Sonny went over to Jane's the next day. He had to. When Sonny Morgendorffer entered into commitments, he made good on them. He'd said he would do the multimedia assignment with Jane, and he knew she needed the grade to get off academic probation and avoid taking O'Neill's class over. And that meant they needed Trent to get the music done so that they could complete the assignment, which was due the next day.

When he saw Jane, he explained all this to her carefully. It wasn't his grade that was in question, after all. She was prickly and sarcastic in response. So that hadn't changed. When she made a reference to the night before, he asked her if she wanted to tell him about her date with Tom.

'There was no date with Tom. There was nothing. He left, you left, I left. Big Saturday night.'

'And I suppose you think that's my fault?'

'The notion had crossed my mind.'

At that moment Trent came into the room. Jane turned her hostility on him. Sonny backed her up by explaining the issue in explicit terms. Trent didn't react well to hostility or, perhaps, to explicitness, and solved his own problem by leaving.

Sonny figured he'd done what he'd come for. He reminded Jane to keep on at Trent and left too. As he walked out the door he thought he heard Jane calling out to him—something about the fight they'd been having. He just closed the door behind him. Was that what they'd been doing, fighting? If they'd been fighting, he had no interest in fighting any more. His only reason for going over to Jane's had been the assignment, and he'd dealt with that issue as much as he could. When Sonny Morgendorffer entered into commitments, he made good on them, that was all.

He was still trying to get the taste of the whole experience out of his mouth as he walked home. Instead he got a car pulling up next to him, driven by Tom, who leaned out the window and addressed him.

'Hey, Sonny.'

'Excuse me', Sonny said. 'I have an elsewhere to be.' He kept walking.

Tom drove along beside him. 'I could give you a lift there.'

'You want to put me in the death seat of that thing?' Tom's car looked like it was on the lam from the wreckers. 'I'm walking, thanks.'

Tom stopped his car and hopped out. 'I'll walk with you for a bit.'

'What are you doing?'

'Look, I'd like to talk to you, okay?'

Sonny stopped and turned to face Tom directly.

'You seem moderately intelligent, so I'd be interested in your estimate of the probability that the conversation on which we've now embarked is the daily express service to that ever-popular destination "Sonny Morgendorffer gets beaten up again".'

'What? No! Is that what's eating you, you think I'd beat you up because … I don't know, because somehow there's some kind of twisted connection between that and my being interested in Jane? I don't beat up anybody!'

One corner of Sonny's mouth twitched.

'I didn't say that you would, did I? I asked for your objective opinion, as a contribution to a continuing research project, in a spirit of scientific curiosity.'

Sonny paused to catch his breath, and Tom waited.

'Let's look at some of the evidence, shall we? The last person who was interested in getting to know Jane beat me up, but we have to allow for the possibility that that was a coincidence. I've also been beaten up by somebody who'd just finished explaining that he didn't want to get to know Jane. For that matter, I got beaten up even more regularly before I ever met Jane. Reasons for wanting to beat up Sonny Morgendorffer, my research suggests, are not a commodity in short supply. Don't flatter yourself that I'm singling you out as something special. That's precisely my point. I don't know you, I don't need to know you, I don't want to know you.'

'Well, that doesn't change my point', said Tom. 'What I'm hoping is that Jane will want to get to know me, because I really like her and I want to get to know her. So far one of the biggest things I know about her is that she's the person who has you as her best friend. All she talks about is what Sonny said and what Sonny did.'

'So? That's a reason for you to be interested in me, not a reason for me to be interested in you. More information about you is of no value to me. Further in the spirit of scientific curiosity, would you care to estimate how many friends I've had in my life apart from Jane?'

Tom shrugged. 'That depends on whether the way you talk to me is a representative sample. It doesn't sound like the way to make friends, and yet you did make friends with Jane somehow, so I think I have inadequate data for a conclusion.'

'Fair enough.' Sonny extended his left hand, fingers spread, and gestured at it with the other. 'I can number all the friends I've had in my life on one thumb. I survived to the age of sixteen despite the absence, and then I met Jane and filled the vacancy. Thank you very much for your interest, but we are interviewing no further applicants at this time. Date Jane, don't date Jane, beat me up, don't beat me up, but don't look for a dialogue with me.'

Tom's tongue moved against his teeth. 'What if I'm not looking for a dialogue with Sonny Morgendorffer, but I am looking for a dialogue with the best friend of Jane Lane, the most important person in her life?'

Sonny's nostrils widened. 'Interesting. I knew you weren't as stupid as I look. Okay, go on.'

'I know a little about how her friendship with you affects her, but how does it affect you? If the two of you are friends, doesn't that mean you don't want to see her hurt?'

Tom paused, but Sonny's face didn't move. 'I said, go on.'

'As soon as I found out you weren't Jane's other brother, I found out that you weren't her boyfriend either, but her friend. Her best friend. You're not dating her. You're not dating anybody, not for the time being. That suits you. But close as you and Jane are, you're not two halves of one whole. It suits you not to date, but that doesn't mean it suits her not to date. That other guy you mentioned, the one who was interested in her and who beat you up, obviously she wouldn't have been interested in anybody who beat up Sonny Morgendorffer, but do you think there's a chance she could have been interested before he beat you up? What does your scientific research tell you about that?'

Sonny shrugged. 'A chance, sure. So what are you telling me? That I shouldn't stand in the way of Jane's chance for true love? I already know that, thanks. I'm not standing in the way of anything. I told you, date her or don't, and I'd tell her the same if she asked.'

'That's not my point. I'm not asking Jane Lane's best friend not to hurt her by stopping her from dating me. I'm asking Jane Lane's best friend not to hurt her by open negativity towards somebody she may be interested in. And don't tell me again that you don't hate me, you know as well as I do that that's not the point either.'

Sonny didn't hesitate. 'You're good. Okay. Civility. Even geniality. But minimal contact. Deal?'

'Deal.' Tom nodded without moving his hands from his belt and turned to walk back to his car.

'I'm still never riding in that thing', Sonny said.

'Well, that's just common sense', was Tom's parting shot.

On Monday morning, Jane arrived at Sonny's house before school with the multimedia report—without the music. Jane apologised for ever suggesting involving Trent. Sonny told her to forget about it.

Jane said, 'You're not mad?'

'I have no reason to be mad at you.'

'Does this mean we can be in the same room for a while?'

'Don't push it.'

Fortunately, the absence of Trent's music did not prevent them from getting a satisfactory grade from O'Neill, and Jane's future was saved.

Trent himself showed up unexpectedly at Sonny's house. He wanted to talk to Sonny, and invited him out for pizza. It turned out that he felt bad about what had happened, and wanted to explain. His explanation was this: 'I just couldn't get the music together.'

That was all.

When Sonny prodded him a little about the way he'd behaved, he said further that he still thought he'd get inspired eventually. Sonny tried to explain to Trent about deadlines, but they found they just had different views.

'It's too bad, Sonny', said Trent. 'I always kind of felt you understood the way I think.'

'I do, Trent. I do.'

At just that moment, Jane and Tom came up to them. It wasn't a planned encounter. They must just have come into the same place for pizza. That sort of thing happened.

'Trent, I don't care if he forgives you', Jane said. 'I'm never speaking to you again.'

Trent said, 'You just did.'

'Damn!' She turned to Sonny. 'So did he give you a plausible reason for screwing up our project?'

'From his point of view.'

'That's better than nothing … I think', said Jane. Then she asked Tom to buy her some pizza, and they went off.

Trent saw Sonny watching them go and said, 'So what do you think of him now?'

Sonny shrugged. 'What I think of Tom isn't the point. You were the one who told me that Jane can look after herself. She can make up her own mind about Tom.'

'Well, if you can be relaxed about it, that's good.' Trent stood up and excused himself, saying that he was late for a rehearsal.

'How do you know?' said Sonny. 'You don't wear a watch.'

'I'm always late. That's why I don't wear a watch. They depress me.'

'You know, Trent, somehow that makes perfect sense.'

Trent apologised again for what had happened and they farewelled each other. Sonny watched Trent out the door and then noticed that Jane and Tom had seated themselves in another booth and that Jane was waving him over.

More relaxed about things, he thought, and went over to join them. After all, if he's buying pizza, I might as well eat a slice if I get the chance.

Some dialogue from 'Jane's Addition' by Glenn Eichler