Author's Note: Howdy, all! Wow. Okay, I have been working on this story for about three months now, and it was originally intended to be a one chapter songfic…and it sort of spiraled out of control. ("It's aliiiiiive! It's aliiiiiiiiiiiiiive!" Okay, that's enough of that.) Anyway, I decided to break it up into parts, because it's twenty-five pages long and that's a little ridiculous for one chapter, so it is now in five already-written parts. If you like this, I'll post some more.
I gave it a rating of R because, to quote Dave Barry (a GENIUS! Oh, I love that man…) "This is not a book for youngsters…because some of the characters use Adult Language. I did not necessarily want the characters to use this type of language; some of them just went ahead and did. That's how some characters are." Plus, later on there's a sex scene…it's far from graphic, but it's there. So just as a warning now…there is profanity. There are sexual situations. Even Phoebe curses. If you think that's OOC, you've never seen a woman on her wedding day, and plus that's just my take on Phoebe (which will become clearer if I ever finish my little vignette on her in "Before Woman"). Anyway, enjoy!
Disclaimer: Hey Arnold! is not mine. Phoebe is not mine, and Lila is not mine, and Arnold is not mine, and Sid is not mine, and Helga is not mine, and Gerald is not mine…you get the picture.
Crazy For You
[1]
"Delayed?" Phoebe Hyerdahl shrieked at a decibel no one who knew her would have thought possible. "What do you mean, delayed?"
"Phoebe, calm down."
"Why didn't anyone tell me this sooner? I can't believe she called you three hours ago and you didn't tell me until now!"
"We thought she would be here by now." The taller, redheaded woman, wearing what appeared to be miles of twisted chiffon, ushered Phoebe to a chair and pushed a brimming champagne flute into her hand. "Drink this."
"I don't want it," Phoebe said, taking the glass and promptly downing half. She set the remainder down on the vanity a little harder than she had intended, and two miniscule drops flung themselves onto the gleaming expanse of her white skirt. She screamed again.
"Perfect! Just perfect!" she thundered, making a surprising amount of sound for such a small person. "I'm getting married in"—she grabbed Lila's wrist—"forty seven and a half minutes, the flowers aren't set up, Gerald's senile great-grandmother is lost somewhere in New York City, my maid of honor is being held over in Denver, Colorado, on account of a fucking blizzard, in May, and now my six thousand dollar original Vera Wang wedding dress is RUINED!!!"
The last word shook the crystal chandelier above their heads. Lila could hear the triple exclamation point on the sentence. "Phoebe…" she began.
The door opened and a young man with a rather strangely shaped head that did not detract from his good looks peeked in. "Uh…is everything alright?" Seeing that Phoebe's eyes were nearly bugging, he directed the question elsewhere. "Lila?"
The redhead smiled tiredly at him, looking rather pretty despite the fact that her salmon pink bridesmaid's dress clashed repulsively with her hair. "Getting there, Arnold. Would you be a dear and get me some club soda?"
"Gotcha." Arnold ducked out the door. Lila led a somewhat frozen Phoebe to the chair in front of the vanity and seated her forcibly.
"Phoebe," she began, "if a tornado came along and whipped the entire wedding party away, and you had to get married in a burlap sack in the middle of an empty lot somewhere, Gerald would still love you with every last little neutron and quark in that oversized body of his. And he would still marry you. And he probably wouldn't even notice that anything had changed until he got the wedding photos back."
A tiny smile snuck its way onto Phoebe's face. "Well…"
Arnold opened the door again, knocking on the frame gently. "I come bearing seltzer," he announced.
"Thanks, Arnold." Lila took the glass from him, and, dabbing napkin in the club soda, began to work on the barely-visible yellow spots in Phoebe's skirt. Arnold put a comforting hand on Phoebe's shoulder and made his report.
"I put Rhonda to work directing the florists—you know she'll do a good job, and Nadine'll keep her from getting too out of hand. Stinky found Nana Johansen sitting very contently at the Goldberg/Horowitz wedding in the synagogue two blocks over and brought her back here, and Timberly has been put in charge of her. Gerald is very excited and eager, to the point of almost—not quite, but almost—losing his cool. And you, my dear Phoebe, are very, very beautiful." He dropped a light kiss one her forehead as he finished, and Phoebe exhaled for the first time in ten minutes.
"Oh, that's such a relief. Thank you, Arnold. That's two things taken care of."
"Three," Lila declared, holding up her napkin triumphantly. "It's as good as new."
"Now all we need is a maid of honor," Phoebe concluded, looking anxious again.
Rhonda stuck her head in the door. "Helga's here!" Trailing flowers, she vanished.
Phoebe's face lit up. "I thought she was in Denver!"
"Looks like she made it after all," Lila replied.
Neither girl was looking at Arnold, who had blanched and then reddened at Helga's name. "Um…I should go check on…um…Nana Johansen. Yeah. See you later!" Before either woman could say anything, he was gone.
Lila and Phoebe exchanged glances. "They never…had anything, did they?" Lila asked.
Phoebe shook her head. "Helga had her thing for him—you knew about that—but they haven't seen each other in years, since…since graduation. I've only seen Helga a couple of times myself since college."
"In three years?"
Phoebe shrugged, ducking her head. "Well, you know—she's been busy."
Lila's reply was cut off by the door flinging back on its hinges to crash into the wall. Helga G. Pataki stood there, a stunning blonde in a tailored black business suit that showed off her killer legs. Her pale gold locks were swept neatly back into a simple French twist, with not a hair out of place; her makeup was flawless; her suit and matching shoes were designer imports from Italy and the latest fashion. It was no wonder tabloids all over the world reported that men were shooting themselves in the streets for her sake.
Right now, she didn't look like she cared. "Pheebs, I'm here!" she declared, running to her best friend, who rose to greet her. They hugged, careful not to wrinkle Phoebe's gown.
Phoebe's eyed were bright. "Oh, Helga, I'm so glad you made it!"
Helga looked like she was holding back a few tears herself. "Wouldn't miss it, babe. Wouldn't miss it." She pulled back, holding Phoebe at arms length. "My God, Pheebs, you look stunning."
Phoebe blushed. "I do not."
"Hey," Helga admonished, wagging a finger in Phoebe's face. "Have I ever lied to you?"
"Well…"
"Don't answer that." Now Helga acknowledged Lila. "Hey, Little Miss Perfect, how are you?"
Lila smiled. Helga had a name for everyone. "Not bad." The two exchanged an awkward hug. "How's Hollywood?"
Helga rolled her eyes. "Decadent. Sleazy. A moral stinkbomb." She grinned. "So I fit right in, naturally."
"Naturally." Lila pointed to the armoire in the corner. "Your dress is in there. I'm going to go…uh…check on the flowers. Bye." She waggled her neatly manicured fingers at them and slipped out the door.
Phoebe beamed, knowing Lila was giving the best friends a moment to themselves. It was the first time the panic receded fully from her brown eyes. "So how is my best friend, the big time Hollywood director?"
Helga shook her head as she opened the closet door. "Oh, no. Don't you be calling me that. I'm still just the bully on the playground here. That's how I like it. That way I'm not forced to do any 'favors.'"
"What do you mean?"
The blonde hung the dress in its protective black bag on the inside of the closet door and started to unzip it as she explained. "Like getting people parts, jobs, autographs…stuff like that. Like to get here I had to convince this millionaire to let me borrow his plane and fly in a blizzard, but I promised to let his daughter meet Josh Hartnett—who's cute, but kind of an airheaded pretty boy. We bonded over unibrows at a cocktail party once. And I had to promise the pilot a walk-on in my next movie to get him to fly in that weather. But I'm here." She smiled at Phoebe, then took her first look at her dress.
"Pink?"
Phoebe set her chin stubbornly. "Come on, you used to love pink."
Helga looked back at the dress, one eyebrow raised disdainfully. "I know, but…pink?" She glanced at Phoebe, who was still staring her down. "Only for you, Pheebs," she relented. "Only for you."
Phoebe's gaze shifted to the clock, and panic flooded her face again. "Omigod! You only have thirty-two minutes!"
"Pheebs…"
"But your hair isn't ready, and your makeup isn't done, and…"
Helga shrugged. "No sweat. Now. Watch and learn."
In one graceful movement, she dumped her purse out on the vanity counter. Tubes of makeup rolled everywhere. She glanced up at the mirror.
"Okay, let's see…" She swept on some eye shadow, rimmed her eyes with brown eyeliner, and added another coat of mascara to her impossibly long lashes. A bit of blush with an enormous brush defined her high, elegant cheekbones; a touch of deep rose lipstick completed the job.
"How'd I do?" she asked Phoebe, who was watching her anxiously. "Two and a half minutes? Not bad."
Phoebe handed her a tissue. "Blot, and t-zone."
"Oh, yeah." Helga blotted her lips, and ran the enormous brush over her forehead, nose, and chin. "Thanks. Now the dress."
Throwing the black bag on the floor, Helga shook out the dress and unzipped the back, getting it ready to throw on. She stripped off her jacket, skirt, and shirt while Phoebe took them and hung them up on spare hangers in the closet. Suddenly Helga's face fell.
"Shoes!" she cried. Phoebe shook her head with a smile and held up a pair of pink sandals.
"Six and a half, right?" Helga nodded. "You always did have tiny feet."
Helga grinned at the sandals as she struggled into the dress, stepping into it from the top. "Ah, four inch heels. You know me so well, Phoebe Hyerdahl."
Phoebe grinned right back. "Of course. We figured there was no risk of you towering over anyone, since you're walking down the aisle with Arnold."
The color receded rapidly from Helga's face. "Arnold?"
Phoebe shrugged, pretending not to notice Helga's reaction. "Yeah, he's like, gargantuan. Gerald's taller, but that's mostly hair." She glanced back at her best friend, who still wore a look on her face like she had been slapped—as if anyone had the guts to slap Helga Pataki. Well, besides Phoebe.
"What's wrong, Helga?" she asked innocently.
The mask slipped back on. "Wrong? Nothing's wrong. Haven't seen him in years, that's all. How is the old Football Head?"
"He's fine," Phoebe replied, averting her eyes as Helga slipped off her bra, which wouldn't have looked very good with the strapless dress. Helga's sense of modesty was not exactly overdeveloped. She was about to offer to zip up the dress, since Helga seemed to be having some trouble with it, when the door opened and Sid barged in.
"Phoebe, Gerald wants to know if—" His voice cut off abruptly as he caught sight of Helga, who quickly folded her arms over her bare chest and directed her trademark scowl at the intruder. Sid didn't notice, his eyes fixed on the portion of her now blocked by her arms. "Uh…"
"Sid, you do realize that if you don't leave this room immediately, I will have you whacked, right?" Helga said coldly.
"Right! Uh, sorry…uh…" Still staring, Sid stumbled backwards out of the room, closing the door as an afterthought.
Helga blew a strand of hair out of her eyes, clearly irritated. Not that no one had ever seen her breasts before, or that she particularly cared about maintaining any illusion of virginity, but she knew Sid would be obnoxious about this later. "Perfect. There's the icing on the cake I was waiting for," she muttered to Phoebe. "Can you zip me up?"
"Sure." She did, thinking that Helga didn't seem all too upset about Sid's intrusion. In a way, she thought that Helga was grateful to have an excuse to change the subject. Even after all these years, she still can't talk about Arnold, she thought sadly, knowing that her friend needed desperately to unblock her emotional constipation where a certain football-headed someone was concerned.
Phoebe had no idea that Helga had already unburdened herself to someone.
Arnold.
* * * * * * *
They met in the antechamber the wedding party was supposed to wait in. Arnold, never comfortable in a suit at the best of times, was positively schvitzing now, anxiously awaiting Helga's appearance. He hoped she looked awful. He hope that after her hectic flight, her hair was in disarray, and there were bags under her eyes big enough to pack for a week in Paris in, and the dress didn't fit that well and looked horrible with her skin tone or her hair, or…or something.
Four minutes before the ceremony was supposed to start, the door to the antechamber opened, and Helga and Phoebe rushed in.
Damn.
She looked great.
No, she looked more than great. She looked phenomenal. Once again, Helga's ability to handle herself in a crisis and still come off looking like she'd just stepped off of the cover of Vogue left him virtually speechless. Her gown was lighter than the Pepto-Bismol pink of the other bridesmaids, the color of a blushing, nearly white rose. It made her flawless skin look like fresh cream, like the porcelain of a priceless doll. The gown was strapless, exposing the elegant lines of her neck and shoulders. That, coupled with the way the gown hugged her very sensual body, brought a slight flush to his cheeks that he hoped no one noticed. He remembered all too well the things that body could do, and how that skin felt, and he didn't want to think of it now. Thinking of it every night was enough.
She glanced at him, and that was worse. Unlike the other bridesmaids, who'd left their hair down and placed a wreath of pink flowers on their heads like tiaras, the maid of honor was given the privilege of wearing hers up, with the flowers entwined in the complicated knot at the back of her head. This not only saved Helga from looking like the flower girl (who was Jamie-O's insanely adorable four-year-old daughter), but it highlighted the smooth planes of her cheeks and forehead, while the soft rosebuds and sweat peas twined in her sunshine locks brought out an answering blush in her cheeks. Her mouth was a bow tied around a titillating secret.
Arnold leaned against the nearest wall in what he hoped was a casual manner, but more to keep himself from stumbling than anything else. Good God, it wasn't fair. Why did she have to look so good? She'd been the one in the wrong, not him. Shouldn't she be looking like something the cat had dragged in? Wasn't there any justice in this world?
Well, he wasn't about to go over to her. She could just come to him when it was their turn to walk down the aisle. He didn't care if he was acting like a pouting three-year-old…it was his turn to, wasn't it?
He watched as she hugged Phoebe quickly, nodded greeting to Rhonda, Jamie-O, and the others, and walked over to him. He kept his eyes hooded lazily, knowing that they would be too easy to read otherwise.
"Hello, Arnold," she said, looking up at him. He felt a small surge of triumph at being taller than her, when all through their childhood and most of their adolescence she had towered over him. God, he was being a child.
"What, no Football Head?" he asked. "Hair Boy? Arnoldo?"
Her mask of courtesy disappeared at the bitter tone of his voice. "Grow up, Arnold. I don't want to do this any more than you do."
"Then why did you even bother coming?" he demanded, hating the immaturity she brought out of him.
Helga replied in a very fast, very low whisper, through tightly clenched, perfect teeth. "Because Phoebe is my best friend, and Gerald is…here also…and if you ruin Phoebe's wedding I swear to God I'll kick your ass, so suck it up and play nice, okay?"
Arnold glared at her, wishing he could pack that much venom into a single sentence. "Fine."
"Good." Immediately, Helga's façade came up again. "Now, we're on. Give me your arm."
Arnold realized then that he had been hearing the organ for some time and ignoring it. Trying to suppress another wave of appreciation for Helga's ability to multitask, he offered his arm. Helga took it, and he noticed with some pleasure—okay, a lot of pleasure—that her hand was trembling slightly, and her elbow's grip was tighter than usual.
The doors were opened for them, and they set off down the aisle. Heads turned as they made their progress, and Arnold caught admiring glances which he assumed, half-correctly, were all for Helga. A little old lady halfway down the aisle clued him in on the truth, as she whispered none too softly to her companion, "What an adorable couple."
Arnold kept his face stoic, but felt Helga's fingers tighten on his wrist, and he knew she had heard it too. He wouldn't have been surprised if she had smiled; she had a highly cultivated appreciation for the ironic. He lifted his head higher, but the woman's words had cut him to the quick, and inside he was biting his tongue to keep his face composed. Glancing at Helga, he wondered how it was that she could look so calm and serenely lovely, how she managed to walk like her feet weren't touching the floor.
He supposed he loved her still.
They reached the altar, and Arnold took his place beside Gerald, whose face was distorted with the effort of displaying panic and elation at the same time. He smiled reassuringly at Gerald, then turned to watch the rest of the wedding party enter, avoiding Helga's eyes.
* * * * * * *
He supposed it was all his fault. Helga would have made it out that way, at least. But he did ask for the assignment.
He was working for the New York Times. Which was a prestigious enough thing to say in casual conversation at a cocktail party, but the reality was somewhat less exciting. He wanted to uncover sordid business practices in elephantine corporations, ferreting out Justice with his lethal mightier-than-the-sword pen, or Dell laptop, as the case might be. But he was put to work covering things like school board elections—or worse, writing up obituaries and engagement announcements. The engagement announcements were the worst, especially after Elizabeth left him.
He'd met Elizabeth at Columbia. She'd been a perky redheaded pre-med who he'd bumped into on the famous steps that dominated any image of the campus. They were expansive, white and gleaming, stretching across the Athenian figure of the library that sat at the summit. It was the October of their junior year, a particularly brisk October, and the wind had whipped her papers out of her hands. Gallant as always, he'd attempted to pick them up, running up and down the steps like an idiot as he gathered her things.
But she'd appreciated the effort, and wound up being the one to ask him, to coffee, while he tried to work up the nerve. They'd bonded, and were soon inseparable, living together their senior year. After five years of dating, while he slogged along at the Times and she worked her way through med school, he'd gotten into the habit of wandering into Tiffany's on his lunch break and looking over the engagement rings.
Something always stopped him just as he was about to make a purchase, though. Did he really love her? Really? He wasn't sure. The point turned out to be moot, though, because just as he decided that it was now or never, Elizabeth announced that she was leaving him for some tanned, musclebound skiing instructor named Lars.
Lars. Who the hell was named Lars anyway?
So he was lonely, and betrayed, and on top of it, the work at the Times was getting worse and worse. And then, quite suddenly, it got better. When the top feature writer on the staff drove his SUV deliberately into the editor-in-chief's three-day-old Porsche, he was fired so fast you could practically see the scorch marks on his employee parking spot. Everyone got shifted up a notch, and Arnold suddenly found himself writing a feature on some blind eight-year-old cello virtuoso. Which was when he discovered he could write features, and write them well.
Surprisingly, the editor, who was usually about as perceptive as Mr. Magoo, realized Arnold's talent too. Soon he was writing feature after feature, interviewing interesting and semi-famous people, tracking down all the aspects of offbeat and colorful stories. He actually got fan mail. Well, one letter, and it was from a subject's grandmother in Toledo, but it was exciting. He didn't even know they got the Times in Toledo.
He was working on a feature about a goldfish breeder when another journalist, a scrawny, vulgar-looking guy named Mark, stood by his desk, his ever-present mug of coffee in one hand, and a pencil which Arnold was sure he never used in the other.
"You know who got the interview yet?" Mark asked in his reedy voice.
"Interview?" Arnold replied, eyebrows knit as he typed away at his lead.
"The interview everyone's fighting over. The one in L.A."
Now Arnold paused in his typing and looked up. "With who?"
Mark threw back his head and laughed. Arnold winced. "Oh, come on, Arnold. You can't be that oblivious. Everyone's been talking about it for weeks. A chance to go to L.A. and interview a damn fine woman…"
"Who?" Arnold repeated, growing tired of this game.
Mark let the name drop off his tongue and sit in the air like a big, fat land mine. "Helga G. Pataki."
Arnold's eyes widened. "Helga?"
Mark grinned—this was the reaction he'd been aiming for. Well, sort of. "Yeah. What, are you on some first-name basis with her?"
Arnold chuckled. "Well, yeah…I grew up with her."
Now it was Mark's turn to gape. "You're shitting me."
"Nope."
"You're shitting me."
"Unh-unh."
"Helga Pataki? The director?" Arnold nodded. "Fuck off!"
"I've known her since I was three," Arnold clarified, smiling fondly at the memory. "We went to pre-school through high school together. God, she was a little bitch. A great kid. But a bitch."
Mark snorted. "Was she always as hot as she is now?"
Arnold laughed. "Hardly. She was an ugly little thing."
"You're shitting me."
Arnold raised an eyebrow. "What does that even mean?"
Mark shrugged. "Yeah, well, who cares? She's hot now."
"She makes good movies."
"Fuck her movies. She's hot."
Arnold pondered. "I don't even know what she looks like now. I've seen a bunch of her movies, but…"
"Look her up, dude."
"Dude?" But Arnold clicked on the little Internet Explorer icon at the bottom of his screen and typed Helga's name into a search engine.
His search brought up a number of sites, and a picture of her. He clicked on it to enlarge, studying it. Finally he looked back up at Mark.
"Yeah, she's hot."
"Told you," Mark replied, looking satisfied.
Arnold looked at the picture again. Helga had been attractive in high school, but she hadn't looked like this. The picture showed her standing next to Kevin Spacey and Michelle Pheiffer, who had been in her last movie, Ruby. She was pointing to something off camera, squinting in the sunlight behind thin wire frames. Her blond hair was pulled into a ponytail, with some loose wisps tucked behind her ears, and she wore a white tank top and low-slung jeans that showed a strip of flat, pale tummy. The glasses made her eyes hard to see, as did the grainy resolution of the picture, but Arnold remembered them. They were blue, and had been strangely haunting even when Helga had been at her ugliest and meanest—especially then, as if to tell you that the ugly, mean side she was showing was not, and could never be, all of her.
"So, you gonna try for the interview? Free trip to L.A., man," Mark was saying. It snapped Arnold out of his reverie. He shrugged.
"Nah, I don't think so. After all," he grinned, "my best friend is engaged to her best friend. I can get her number anytime."
"Fuck you," Mark growled good-naturedly. "I gotta get back to work." He laughed at the facetiousness of the remark. "See you around."
"See ya."
Arnold turned his attention back to his computer screen, intending to finish his article, but his eyes snagged on the picture of Helga. He stared at her. Yeah, she was hot. No, she was beautiful. And hot.
He clicked off of Internet Explorer. Well, he'd always seen potential in the girl, especially after she hit puberty and tweezed that eyebrow. She'd actually been very pretty in high school, now that he remembered, with a sort of…sylphlike grace.
Oh, well. She probably barely remembered him. It was even worse to go barging into an interview expecting recognition than it was to go with no ties from the past. And if she did remember him, it would be vaguely, as some kid she hated. And California was probably overcrowded and rainy this time of year, so there was no point in even heading out that way.
No, he was better off here, writing about his goldfish. He was content. He was happy. Why push it?
Three minutes later, Arnold was standing in front of his editor's desk, pleading for the chance to fly to California and interview Helga G. Pataki, the bane of his fourth-grade existence.
Whatdja think? Lemme know! -PI