Peace That Passeth...
Chapter 2: Monday
"There's no way in heck you'll ever guess what happened yesterday."
Phoebe smiled, pleased that, for once, Helga seemed not only friendly, but genuinely happy. She sighed, smiling even more, and placed a hand on her friend's shoulder.
"Alright Helga, for the last time, what happened yesterday? You've been keeping me on the edge of my seat for five minutes now!"
Helga laughed. "Yeah, I guess I have. Sorry, Pheebs, but this is incredible! You have no idea..."
"That's right, and I won't if you don't tell me!"
"Right, right, I'm getting there. Well, I was in the park yesterday, feeling sorry for myself, right? Anyway, and I look across the lake and, lo and behold, there's Arnold sitting on a park bench, and ... yes, this is hard to believe, but he was looking at me. At me. So anyway, I was totally blown away, I mean, I haven't talked to him in like a year, so anyway... Am I going too fast?"
Phoebe's head was spinning. "You...lost me somewhere back at 'I was in the park...'."
"C'mon Pheebs, pay attention! This is important!" Helga exclaimed, taking her friend by the shoulders.
"I know, Helga. I was kidding. Go on."
"Right, anyway, so there he was, looking at me. And I was really out of it, it was so cool. And then, I look up, and voila! There he is, right in front of me. And then he asks if he can sit down. I'm like, 'Sure,' and then we started talking. But that's not even the incredible part."
"What's the incredible part?"
"I asked him to the prom. I asked him to the prom. Do you know what this means?!"
Phoebe was silent a moment. "Well, that depends. Did he say yes or no?"
"That's just the point! He said yes! We're going to the prom on Friday! Can you believe it?!"
"Wow, that's great, Helga!" Phoebe tried to exclaim, but found herself barely able to muster the enthusiasm to say it properly.
Helga was a little disappointed by the reaction she got. She frowned deeply, and she steeled herself against growing angry.
"You don't sound too happy for me," she said, trying not to tap her foot impatiently.
"I...I'm sorry, Helga. I am happy for you, it's just..."
Helga nearly kicked herself. She had forgotten about the whole thing.
"Man, I'm sorry, Phoebe. I wasn't thinking. It must not be easy for you to hear something like this right now, huh?"
"It's fine, Helga. I shouldn't be dwelling on it. It was six months ago."
Helga was silent, trying her best to think of something to say, some way of dragging the declining mood back to its feet.
"Hey, he wasn't the greatest guy in the world. You could do a lot better, you know. And besides, those long-distance relationships never work out."
Despite Helga's good intentions, that definitely wasn't the best thing to say. Phoebe started to break down, but Helga wasn't about to let that happen.
"Whoa, Pheebs, sorry, that came out all wrong. I didn't mean it like that. I mean, I know he meant a lot to you, but what I was trying to say was..."
"It's okay, Helga," she managed, reaching up to her nightstand and grabbing some tissue. "I shouldn't be such a big baby about it. I shouldn't have thought it would last. We're only in eleventh grade. I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did."
Phoebe was now sitting up in her sleeping bag, her face a dark sillouette against the relative brightness of the lamp. The clock on her nightstand read 2:34.
"You don't mean that, Phoebe. You know as well as I do that you wanted to marry the guy."
There was silence for awhile, then Phoebe reached up and switched off the lamp. Helga heard her scooting down into her sleeping bag. "Yeah," she answered finally. "Yeah, I guess I did."
...
Arnold was up and ready long before he needed to be at the bus. Normally, he would have considered this a good thing, and would have enjoyed his extra time talking with the boarders or finishing up some last minute homework assignment he'd neglected the night before. But all he could think about all morning (and all night, for that matter) was his impending date with Helga.
It was inevitable, he decided. There was no way, with him being the way he was, that he could back out. He was too sensitive. Too considerate. Too much of a chump.
"Hey, so, you all excited about the prom yet?" Arnold swung around, startled out of his mental wanderings. Grandpa. "Friday, right?"
He shrugged. "A little. I'm not too psyched. It's no big deal."
"'No big deal?!' Arnold, this is your junior prom!! I mean, it's... no, wait, you're right. It's no big deal. Never mind."
Grandpa walked into the kitchen and sat down across from Mr. Nguyen. It looked like almost all the regulars were downstairs eating. "Pass the turnips."
Arnold shook his head, wishing he had a little support. Well, maybe he would have some support, if he actually talked to someone about his little problem.
He walked casually into the kitchen and sat down next to Grandpa.
"Can I talk to you guys about something?" he asked, hanging his bag over the back of his chair. "It's kinda important."
"Sure, what's up, short man?" Grandpa asked. He leaned back in his chair and propped his feet up on the table.
"Well... here's the thing. Helga Pataki--you remember her?--she asked if I'd go to the prom with her, and I said yes."
There were blank stares all around the table. "I fail to see the problem," Susie said, looking at him with a playful smile. "It sounds weet."
Arnold sighed. This wasn't going to be easy. "No, you guys don't understand. This is Helga Pataki! I mean, nobody wants to go to the prom with Helga Pataki!"
"Oh, then it was really nice of you to say you'd go with her," Grandpa said conclusively. "Pass the turnips, for Pete's sake!"
Arnold sighed, then excused himself, grabbing his bag off the chair as he did so. They wouldn't understand. But his friends at school would... wait, would they? Well, Gerald would, in any case.
He threw his money in the collection box disgustedly and took a seat far in the back. He knew Helga would be riding, and she usually sat in the front. He wanted to be as far away from her as possible. He was clinging to the hope that maybe, just maybe, she'd forget about the whole thing.
But Helga didn't get on at her stop. 'Maybe she's got pneumonia or something,' Arnold thought, hopefully. Then he chided himself. This was childish. He just needed to talk to her, work things out, and hope that there wouldn't be any hurt feelings. But the only way he could think of to get out of this whole mess would be to lie and say he wasn't going to be able to go at all. And he wanted to go. This wasn't going to be easy.
A few stops later, he saw Helga climb on the bus with Phoebe. And just as he was about to duck his head, they made eye contact. He saw her mumble something to Phoebe, then nod and make her way to the back.
"Hey Arnold, what's up?" she asked. He did a double take. Here was Helga, wearing a green sweater and blue jeans, her hair down, with makeup on... She actually looked somewhat... attractive. He found this hard to swallow.
"Oh, hi Helga. You wanna sit?"
"Yeah, thanks. I thought you'd wanna talk about the prom."
'Boy, do I ever,' he thought, then said aloud, "Yeah, we'd better work out where we'll be going. I mean, I'm low on cash at the moment, so I hope you don't want to eat any place really fancy."
"Nah, you kidding? Wherever. I can help, too, if you want. I've got a job." This was the first he'd heard of Helga having a job. "I work at Dairy Queen, off 65. You know the place?"
"Yeah, I would see the sign everyday on the way to baseball practice," he said lamely, jealous of her good fortune. He'd been trying for months to land a decent job, with no luck.
"That's cool," she said, then the atmosphere morphed into discomfort.
Helga was fuming inside. Here she was, all the time she needed to talk to him about everything, and she was chickening out! Well, maybe she didn't have all the time she needed, but she had enough time to get started.
That had been her goal for this morning: To tell Arnold, once and for all, that she had feelings for him. But apparently it wasn't going to happen. And the next time she glanced out the window, they were at school.
The day went by, too quickly for Helga, and too slowly for Arnold. He was running out of time. He needed to get things straight with Helga, in time to--hopefully--get asked out by some other girl.
Helga was on Cloud Nine for the entirety of her day. She'd never felt better. And she liked the attention she was getting now. People were coming up to her and asking if she were new. Obviously she wasn't, so she would just smile and walk on. Guys in particular seemed interested in striking up conversations with her now, and she was happy to oblige.
...
"Helga, go clean your room! And where the heck were you last night?! You never called or anything!"
This was the sound that greeted Helga upon her arrival at home. She sighed. Only a couple more years of this.
"Fine, Bob. And go ask Miriam whether I called or not. See if you can get a straight answer."
She ran upstairs, skipping steps as she went, and threw herself into her room. This had been, by far, one of the best days of her life. She didn't want it to end, but she knew it would. She decided that she should write in her diary now, while the feelings of euphoria were still in effect.
Had the most incredible day. I borrowed some of Phoebe's clothes, put some makeup on (wasn't as bad as I thought it would be), and everybody noticed me! It was so amazing! And Arnold, I think I caught his eye, too. Man, I can't believe it! I actually feel a poem coming on, for the first time in, what, two years?
...
And Arnold stared at the wall for the remainder of the evening, his stomach tying itself up in knots, then untying, and then tying again even tighter, just to spite him. He heard a knock at his door and he nearly jumped through the roof.
"Come in," he muttered, and whether the party on the other end heard him or not, the door swung up and open. It was Phoebe.
"Oh, hi Phoebe," Arnold said, trying to sound excited to see her. "What's up?"
Phoebe sighed. "I just wanted to talk to you ... you know ... about this whole thing with Helga. The prom and everything."
"Y-yeah? What about it?" he asked, swinging his legs around and sitting at the edge of the bed.
She stood in silence, her lip quivering. "Look Arnold, I never told her. The truth, I mean."
"You never... what? The truth?"
"I told her I was dating someone long distance, that I'd visit him every weekend, you know, he lived on the other side of the city, it was too hard to get together very often. That's what I told her."
Arnold was shocked. "So you mean you lied to her. She doesn't know?"
"No, she has no idea. And ... I just wanted to make sure it stays that way."
Phoebe tried to gather up the courage to put a threatening look on her face, but she realized she was just looking desperate. She finally broke down and had to lean against the wall. Arnold was on his feet in an instant, his arm around her shoulders.
"Phoebe, whoa, slow down a second! I mean, you never explained anything to me. Why did it have to be such a secret? That was most of the reason it ended, you know."
She nodded. "I know it was. And I'm sorry. I can't possibly say it enough. I'm so sorry..."
She was sobbing at this point. "There's something you don't know. Something I can't say, because I swore I never would. But I need you to know, I never meant for it to end up this way!"
She struggled to say something more, but she couldn't, and soon found herself running from his house and out into the night.
He stood in the doorway for a long time after she left. But no amount of logic seemed to be able to make sense of the whole mess. This was just what he didn't need right now.
