It's a Wonderful Life
A/N Shadow gets co-authorship creds for the scene on the bus. And a long overdue shoutout goes to where I snag all of the dialog. If you're reading this, a million thanks!
---
GravityBoy: I need the key back.
BLACKWIDOW-4-U: I'll…….have it tomorrow
GravityBoy: I need it tonight.
BLACKWIDOW-4-U: Why?
GravityBoy: I'm supposed to help Lischak clean the room. She wants me there by 7 but she might be a few minutes late, so she expects me to be there and start.
BLACKWIDOW-4-U: Why didn't you get it from me earlier today?
GravityBoy: I….forgot.
BLACKWIDOW-4-U: Liar.
GravityBoy: Excuse me?
BLACKWIDOW-4-U: You purposefully didn't get it so you'd have an excuse to see me.
GravityBoy: Did it work?
BLACKWIDOW-4-U: I'll meet you at the park in 20.
---
He was leaning against a tree, watching me and grinning like a fool when I approached him. I smothered my own grin and pulled the key out of my pocket. Silently, I handed it to him.
"Do you have to get back right away?" he asked.
I shook my head. "Mom is out. Probably at a bar. She'll come home in a couple hours, completely smashed."
His face fell and I regretted telling him. The concern and pity in his eyes made my stomach clench. I hated it when he got that look. But it was gone as soon as it appeared, and instead of saying anything, he reached for me, drew me to him, and kissed me eagerly. Chills shivered down my spine as I sensed his hunger and fervor. This was so much better than complaining about my mother.
I sighed and pulled away, smiling. "So, the storage room will be occupied tomorrow."
"No," His hands ran along my back, up to my shoulders where he began massaging my muscles. "I told Lischak I needed to be done because I was tutoring a student before school. We'll be done by 8:00. School starts at 9:00, so anytime you wanna show after 8:00…."
"Ha! Like I'd get out of bed that early. Be glad I get here twenty minutes before the first bell, dude."
Luke shrugged and grinned. "I had to try."
I raised an eyebrow. "You're getting kind of greedy with the make out time, buddy."
"Are you complaining?" he asked before he leaned in and kissed me.
Nooooo, it wasn't a complaint, really. Of course I liked being with him. Too much, I sometimes thought. Luke and I had been…whatever it was we've been doing…for several months, and the whole idea still seemed crazy sometimes. Like it couldn't possibly be me doing these things.
Still, with his lips on mine and the feel of his hair in my fingers, I couldn't think of a reason why I'd want it any other way.
---
"Stop the capitalist pigs! Down with neo-facism!"
I watched the boy, barely past puberty, attempt to hand the fliers to the drones that passed him on their way to school. He stood just beyond the school's property line, outside of Price's tyrannical jurisdiction.
"Hey," I called as I approached him. "What's this?"
"An anarchist meeting. Come and learn how our government oppresses and manipulates the people for its own self-interests."
I took a flier from him and studied it as I continued towards the school.
"What a loser," Judith said, coming up beside me. "Who would plan an anarchy meeting for a Friday night?"
I shot her a dirty look. "Dude, social injustice is something that happens around the clock. It doesn't take a break, and neither can we if we really want to change things."
"Yeah, but Friday is date night! Time to let loose and kick back with your honey." She waggled her eyebrows.
I frowned at her. "What's that…"
"I gotta go find JoJo. She's supposed to be learning how to juggle."
I watched as she ran ahead towards the school. The sum of those two together equaled complete and total insanity.
I saw them later on my way to the biology closet. Joan, once again, was moaning about the drama in her life that is Rove.
"I don't need a fancy date," she whined. "I mean, we're fine the way we are."
"Yeah, real fine," Judith replied. "You thought me and Adam were hooking up."
I turned and faced them as we continued walking. Heh. She had a point.
"Right. Occasionally, not so fine," Joan admitted, "but... What if he looks across the table and realizes that I'm not worth it?"
There it was, the whole problem with dating. What was that he told me? A chemical goes off that eliminates reason, and we turn into drones who attempt to produce society's picture of the perfect couple. It was crazy.
"Could happen," I commented. "The whole dating ritual is barbaric. It's all about compromise, the slow death of self."
Joan shot me a dirty look. "Way to make my first date special, Grace."
And yet, even knowing that didn't prevent it from happening. What was with relationships turning everyone into nothing more than a mush-brained, neurotic, illogical, puddle of goo?
"I'm going to have to start another women's movement. The first one obviously didn't take," I lamented, taking off to find the culprit of my own sad state of irrationality.
---
I opened the door and saw him sitting on the floor with his legs stretched in front of him and a textbook in his lap.
"Is the coast clear?" I whispered.
He shut his book, laid it by his side, and smiled up at me. "Yup. Just been studying before you decided to make an appearance."
I smirked at him, and decided to have a little fun. "Well, I can see you're busy, so I won't interrupt…"
I made a move towards the door but he caught my hand and yanked me towards him. The force of pulling me down made me stumble in an effort to not fall, but his long legs were in my way and I tripped and landed on his legs anyway. He looked at me, wide-eyed and apologetic, but then I let out a small laugh and he dissolved into a wide grin.
"Well, that's one way to get you here," He murmured, pulling me towards him. "Comfortable?"
I nodded and leaned towards him, settling my hands loosely at his sides. He smiled a little uncertainly, which caused my stomach to drop with pleasure. After all this time and he still looked at me shyly every once in a while.
He brought his lips to mine and smiled against them before he kissed me in earnest. I kissed him back, taking in the texture of his lips and the feel of his hands at my side. Yeah, this was definitely something I could get used to.
I was turning into Girardi. The female one who should have her head examined.
"Mmm," I broke our kiss. "Your sister needs help. Again."
"Why?" Luke kissed me again.
"She and Rove are planning some fancy schmancy date." He kissed me again. "They are so seriously twisted, dude. "
"Why do you care if Joan and Adam go on a date?" His lips met mine.
"Because," I said against him and nudged him away, "they're just mindlessly following these random sociological constructs."
"Well," He kissed me before continuing. "I was going to ask you out. Tonight." He smiled and gave a short, nervous laugh.
A date? As in picking me up and going somewhere together and walking me home? A tingling, unfamiliar sensation bubbled inside of me.
"Who do you think you're twisting tongues with, dude"
He held a flier in front of him. "Schlock festival at the aero. The all-time worst films-- Plan 9, Robot Monster, Catwoman From the Moon. I mean. These are serious classics."
I could imagine it now; a theater full of people, laughing and snickering at the lame movies. It sounded like it could be a blast. Unfortunately…
"I have a meeting tonight," I told him, pulling out a flier of my own.
Luke took it and read. "Anarchists unite" He looked up at me. "Isn't that contradictory?"
For a genius, he really….wasn't. "Anarchy is about shedding false conceptions, so it is not at all contradictory, brain drain. Maybe if you came, you'd be less politically dense."
"Well, anarchists should have an appreciation for the chaotic ineptitude of schlock cinema. It's the very definition of anarchy."
OK, that was going too far. Using ideology for personal gain was bad enough in the Beltway. To use it as a negotiating mechanism in our relationship was inexcusable.
"Don't twist political philosophy to manipulate me into a date."
He furrowed his brow. "Well, isn't that what you're doing? Trying to get me to your meeting?"
OK, time to go. I reached out, grabbed is jaw, brought him closer, and said, "Find new lips, creep."
I scrambled up and opened the door as he protested. "Come on, grace. We're supposed to, uh, 'harmonize our divergent agendas.'" I turned and waved at him, amused at his animated persistence. "You can see the strings on the flying saucers."
---
The bus smelled of sweat and cigarettes as it carried me towards my meeting. A few teenagers were in the back, yelling and roughhousing and one couple was doing things Luke and I didn't even do behind closed doors.
I kept my eyes forward to prevent keep myself from staring at the exhibition. As I slouched in my seat I thought about the meeting I was headed to. The idea of sitting around and listening to people tell me what I already knew was wrong with the system sounded less appealing than it did that morning. It's not like they ever came up with a plan. They just talked about it so they'd feel virtuous. It really was a stupid way to spend a Friday night.
A woman in her sixties with a blond blob and granny glasses perched on the end of her nose kept catching my gaze. It was always fun playing this game with obnoxious strangers: they'd stare at you and you pretend not to notice until you finally look at them and then they glance away. Except this lady never looked away. She kept right on staring, turning her lips upwards into a hint of a smile and holding my gaze as if she knew me. It was things like this that made me detest the bus.
Finally, having had enough, I did the unthinkable. "Can I help you?" I asked.
"Do you like it?" She asked gesturing to the thing in her lap. "It's a sweater I'm knitting."
"Yeah, sure." Why had I talked to this person, and why couldn't I tell her off like I did with everyone else?
I looked at the sweater, a muted, deep blue and a de-saturated green. The colors, one soothing and subtle, the other vivid and audacious, gave the sweater a comfortable, inviting look. I studied her hands as they worked, and noticed that on the needle, there were two separate colors of yarn. It was by her hooking and pulling that the two threads formed their complimentary pattern.
She looked at me again. "It's pretty, isn't it? It's amazing what you can do with two separate, seemingly different things. With a little effort and patience, a unique and beautiful pattern arises."
I nodded, not sure why she had told me all of that, and less sure why it struck me. I turned and faced the window and watched the city night pass us by. Although she was now intently focused on her knitting, the image of her eyes burned in my mind. Piercing, yet warm and full of kindness, they reminded me of another pair that brought me solace.
The bus pulled to a stop, and the lady gathered her stuff and stood. She looked at me one last time, smiled, and said, "Well, dear, this is our stop."
My eyes narrowed at her term of endearment, and the completely motherly tone she took with me. Then I looked out the window and noticed we were near the theater. My lips twitched upwards, and I got up and left the bus.
Judith was right. Friday night is date night.
---
After procuring my popcorn with a guy with blue hair and a red face (the face was from acne), I let myself into the theater where I was greeted with chants of cornball lines and oddly shaped heads. I stood next to the door and let my eyes readjust while I took in the freaks I was going to spend my evening with. Only a bunch of geek head gamers would think this was the place to be on a Friday night.
I thought that finding my own geek head was going to be difficult, until I spotted his profile near the back. "Girardi," I tapped him on the shoulder, but he looked at me and I realized that it wasn't him, just someone that looked like him.
Man that was scary.
With all the crazy costumes and masks, how in the world was I ever gonna find him? I grabbed the mask of a kid, swearing that if that was him under there, the whole thing was off. It wasn't though, so my pride and his neck were saved.
"Girardi!" I whispered, and continued to scan the crowd. I turned to the middle section and stood, face to face with the last person I ever wanted to see.
"Missing someone, Marge?"
I glared at Friedman as he stood there and smugly ate his popcorn. There wasn't a way out of this; he'd heard me calling for Luke, and of course he would use it first chance he got. Refusing to wilt under his stare, I asked, "Where is he?"
Friedman smirked, a ridiculous site in the helmet. "What was that?" He asked, in feigned innocence.
"Don't play dumb, scumball, where's Girardi?"
He shrugged. "We came together, but when we were standing in line, he all of a sudden took off." Friedman broke into a wide, knowing smile. "He went looking for you, didn't he? There's hope for brainy types yet."
"Ha! Him, yes, you, no."
"Sure," he said. He slid out of the row and made his way to the exit.
"The helmet is lame!" I hissed as he passed.
He turned and smirked at me. "It's Luke's!"
I despised him.
I stood in the aisle as I tried to decide what to do. I had spent nearly eight bucks to get in, and didn't feel like going home. I turned to find that there were hubcaps on strings on the screen. Eight dollars for hubcaps on strings! Two seconds of watching the movie revealed terrible acting, and the room inside the round spaceship was perfectly square.
I had to see this.
I sat in Friedman's row, and when he returned with a new bucket of popcorn he wisely said nothing about my being there. Instead he sat next to me and we watched the movie in silence.
--
The movies really were horrible. Cheesy music with cheesy writing and cheesy special effects. Movies like this should have never been made.
"This is totally inept, dude," I said to Friedman during the second movie. "It makes stupid look stupid."
"I know." He agreed. "And yet it endures. An evolutionary marvel."
"I'm so on board," I said, as I watched the robot monster get blown away.
"Yes," I heard Friedman say after a minute. I looked at him.
"What?"
"I can see it now. You and Luke."
I rolled my eyes. "You know, if you give us up, you'll never have kids."
"Yeah. I got that."
Friedman's being almost congenial to me felt very strange after being at each other's throats for years.
"Grace?" I looked over and saw Luke with a quizzical expression. "I went to the anarchy meeting looking for you."
"I came here for the movies," I told him as I stood up.
"Yeah?" he asked with a small smile.
I nodded, and happened to glance down at his feet, which were clad in only socks.
"What happened to your shoes?"
"They were made by kids in Central America." I looked at him as I tried to figure out the relevance. "I burned them," he told me.
I could just picture that scene. He would innocently walk into a meeting looking for me and be met with people angrily demanding that he burn his shoes, accusing him of supporting slave labor. The poor guy probably thought he was lucky to get out alive.
I moved down as he stepped past Friedman, and when he came to me I leaned forward to kiss him. I think I surprised him a little, kissing him like that in front of everyone. But I didn't care, he finally made it, and I was glad to see him.
Apparently some dude in the back felt differently, though, because he called out to us. "Hey, lovebirds, sitdown!"
I glared into the blackness behind us, but the source of the comment couldn't be seen. They were all creeps, though, for hooting and hollering at us. So I tossed my popcorn at them before we sat down.
His hand found its way into mine as we sat there and watched the rest of the movie. I noticed he looked at me sideways, as if he was trying to gauge my reaction. I pretended to keep my attention on the screen, but I instinctively squeezed his hand a little. We spent the rest of the time like that as we traded comments and joked over the final film.
---
We left the theater a couple hours later, laughing over the lines, arguing over which one was the lamest. Friedman and Luke fell into reciting every line from Catwoman From the Moon while I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and turned it on. It beeped that there was a message for me, and I figured it was my father. I didn't want to talk to him then, not after a night of having fun for once, but I decided I should see what time he called, anyway. Looking at the caller ID, I realized that it wasn't my father after all.
It was Rove.
Frowning, I checked my voice mail. Adam doesn't call me that often, and tonight he was supposed to be on his date with Joan. I walked away from the guys a bit so I could hear.
"Grace," he sounded more upset than I had heard him in a long time. "Grace, something's happened. Judith was stabbed, and it's bad. She might not make it, and Ja—Jane's at the hospital with her, and I couldn't stay there, and…it's bad and…I thought you'd wanna know…"
Stunned I turned towards my companions as they continued bantering. Luke noticed my expression immediately and stopped short.
"Grace?" He came over and laid a hand on my shoulder. "What's wrong? Is…is it your…"
"No," I said, wanting to reassure him and keep him from saying too much in front of Friedman.
Friedman. I couldn't take my eyes off of him. I had dismissed his obsession over Judith, saying that memorizing Hamlet was a stupid idea and he needed to let it go. But he had done it, and now I had to tell him that she was in the hospital fighting for her life.
"It…That was Rove—" I began.
"Joan!" Luke exclaimed.
"No!" I said forcefully. I needed him to be calm so I could say what I needed to. He needed to be strong. "It's…Judith." Friedman's eyes grew wide. "She was stabbed. That's all Adam said. She's in the hospital. It looks bad," I finished in a whisper.
Friedman turned sheet-white, and his eyes flicked between Luke and I, as though he was lost, and was looking at us for the answers. I looked up at Luke, whose hand was still comfortingly on my shoulder.
"If there was a stabbing my dad will know about it. We can go to my house and see if…see if there is any news."
The three of us set off towards the Girardis', too stunned and worried to speak.
---
Luke opened the front door. "Hello??"
His dad was in the kitchen on the phone. "We got the name of the people she was with, we'll question them and find out who did this.……book them for murder one…." He walked into the dining room and saw us. "I gotta go…..yeah…….talk to you later." He hung up the phone.
"Dad?" Luke asked.
"Luke." Mr. Girardi walked over to us. "Kids…I….I'm so sorry. Judith died about forty five minutes ago."
A stifled moan came from beside me, and I was vaguely aware that Friedman rushed out the door. Luke and I followed him silently. Friedman's back was to us and his shoulders silently shook. My own eyes burned, and I looked over and saw Luke struggling to keep his composure. After a while, Friedman's shoulders stilled and he sat down on the porch where Luke and I joined him.
Time froze and raced by as we waited for Joan and her mom to get there. When they arrived, I got up and went to her.
"Sucks," was the only think I could think of to say.
"Yeah," she agreed.
Luke and Friedman joined us on the sidewalk, and the four of us tried to make sense of what happened.
"I could've done the play for her tonight," Friedman said. "I should've just asked her."
"Are you saying it's your fault?" Joan asked. "Is that what you're saying, Friedman, what, do you think you're god?" She got angrier with every word.
"I just meant if I would have asked—" He started.
"How about me, huh? Maybe if I hadn't gone on that stupid date-- maybe I killed her!"
What was with the blaming game? Getting angry with Friedman was stupid.
"Dude, chill," I told her.
"Why?! Why should I chill?!" Joan yelled.
I didn't have an answer for that. Nothing made sense, so why should we try to remain calm and level-headed when each of us felt like hitting something?
Luke looked at his sister, took a step forward and put a hand on her shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Joan," he whispered. Her face crumpled as he awkwardly pulled her into a hug. Joan wrapped her arms around him for a second before nodding and slowly walking to the porch.
My phone rang and I pulled it out of my pocket. It was my house.
"I gotta…" My eyes met Luke's, and comprehension filled his. He nodded and sat down next to Joan.
I stepped up on the porch and answered the call. "Hello?" I closed my eyes and hoped there wasn't some crisis. Not tonight.
"Grace?" My dad asked. "Where are you?"
I sighed. "I'm at Joan's, dad. Is something wrong?"
"No, nothing is wrong. We just got home and didn't know where you were. Will you be home soon?"
"I dunno. An hour or so."
"OK, well, have fun."
Right.
"You know what I hate?" I asked as I joined the Girardis on the steps. "Monday morning, there's gonna be all these memorials and flowers and stupid ass teddy bears."
"Yeah." Joan agreed. "From a bunch of people who didn't even know her."
"She told me she collected Pez dispensers," Luke informed us.
He looked at Joan and offered a small smile. Leave it to him to point out in his completely random way that Judith knew more people than we realized.
Adam came up then, and Joan went to meet him. I didn't pay much attention until Joan yelled at him and pushed him. I stood, ready to intervene if I had to and I guess Luke had the same thought because he stood up too. Adam seemed able to calm her down though, and as they spoke quietly, Friedman began to recite Hamlet.
"Doubt thou the stars are fire;
doubt that the sun doth move;
doubt truth to be a liar;
but never doubt I love.
O dear Ophelia,
I have not art to reckon my groans;
but that I love thee best,
o most best...
believe it. Adieu."
In that last few hours Friedman had gone from being a complete moron to almost decent, and now he was totally crushed. It was almost too much to bear. Not even he deserved this. No one did.
"Just give it up. Hold hands or something," Friedman said. He came and grabbed Luke's arm and then mine Luke's fingers wrapped around mine and before I knew it, Friedman pulled us into a three-way hug,
Instinctively, I wrapped my arm around Friedman and squeezed the tiniest bit. It felt weird to hug Friedman, of all people, especially in front of everybody. What was worse was I was having a hard time keeping it together.
"Ok, this is just weird," I said as I pulled on his arm. He let go of us and smiled uncomfortably. I tried to discreetly wipe my tears away, but Luke looked over and smiled and squeezed my hand.
We stood there for a while, and I wondered why this had to happen. It took me a while to warm up to Judith, but I had. And she brought something out in Friedman that I never knew existed. Joan was a little nuttier, a little more reckless around Judith, but it was evident that their bond was strong. Luke and Adam were deeply shaken, each trying to come to terms with it in their own way. It didn't make sense.
Why?
---
"I gotta get going," I said a while later. We had moved into the living room. Joan and Adam were on the couch, Friedman was in the chair and I sat on the piano bench. Luke stood on Kevin's ramp, leaning against the railing.
He looked over at me.
"Let me walk you home," he said, quietly.
"No, you ought to stay here," I told him, nodding toward Friedman.
"Then let Kevin drive you home."
This conversation was getting dangerously revealing, but Joan and Adam seemed oblivious to anything around them.
I shook my head. "I want to walk. It short, and…" I needed time to myself, before I got home. He must have gotten that, though, because he didn't press it.
I said goodbye to Joan, who was still out of it, and Luke followed me onto the porch.
"Crazy how everything can change so quickly," he commented.
"Yeah."
We stood there for a while in silence, lost in our own memories of Judith. I remembered the night of the party, of finding her passed out on her living room floor with hundreds of people around her. She could have died that night, but didn't. The irony of her dying a few short months later could only be the cosmos' idea of a cruel joke.
"You going to be ok?" he asked pulling me out of my thoughts.
I nodded. "Yeah, it's just…We weren't close like your sister, but still….it's weird to think I talked to her just this morning."
He nodded, and we walked to the top of the stairs. I turned toward him and briefly wished that I could tell him how I felt. If I was freer, more open with my feelings, I'd have told him how grateful I was to know him, to have him in my life. Instead, I shrugged my shoulders and looked up at him.
"I'll see you later," I said.
He nodded and held my gaze before he leaned down and kissed me lightly. "Good night, Grace," he whispered.
As I walked home that night, I pulled my jacket tightly around me to ward off the biting November air.
Life sucked.