I know it's been a long time between postings of chapters. My life has been really active, with not much time for fanfiction, but I promise if you are patient I WILL finish this story. There are only a few more chapters left now. I wonder if anybody can guess how it's going to end. Enjoy this, and the next chapter, which is a continuation of this scene, which is already written and I will post pretty quickly!
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Glancing up over the top rack of Feng Shui books, Meryl could easily see into Music and Movies. She had come into Borders Books on this lazy Sunday afternoon to relax, but now she was more aggravated than she had felt all week.
David Gordon was here. That was not aggraating. That was actually quite good, because she like Gordo and was even considering inviting him to sit down in the café with her for a chai tea. But Parker McKenzie! How dare she! Did that girl never give up?
Gordo was standing in Jazz, with the headphones over his ears. At least he was trying to get the headphones over his ears, but Parker kept talking in that high nasally voice of hers, and gentleman that he was, Gordo only smiled politely and said "Excuse me," but Parker would not take a hint, and went on talking.
Meryl had heard that Gordo was put into the uncomfortable position of having to tell off Parker a couple of weeks ago, when she wouldn't stop pestering him. That girl could be a real pain! Meryl saw that there could be trouble ahead.
At last she decided she couldn't allow this to go on anymore. She snapped closed the volume of "Thirty Easy Feng Shui Cures You Can Perform Right Now," returned it to the shelf, and walked directly into Music and Movies. In a moment she was at Gordo's side, putting her hand on his arm and cooing, "Oh, David! There you are!"
Gordo looked at her, surprised. "Meryl!"
Meryl opened her eyes wide at him as she explained, "I've been looking all over for you! I found that book we were talking about, the one I wanted to show you."
Still struggling with the headphones, somewhat confused, Gordo said, "What book?"
Meryl made the big eyes again, and squeezed his arm, saying, "That book! You know, the one we were talking about. The uh…biographies of this centuries greatest Chess Masters.
"Oh hi, Parker," she added lazily, glancing in Parker's direction.
Parker practically scowled at the little redhead who had interrupted her Gordo-getting. "Oh, hi, Meryl…"
That was the end of their interaction. Meryl immediately squeezed Gordo's arm again and said, "Come on, David! Let me show you the book! I know you'll love it."
Gordo put down the headphones, shrugged at Parker and said, "Sorry. Gotta go."
As Meryl dragged Gordo out of Music and Movies, pulling him by his shirt sleeve, they could practically feel Parker fuming behind them. Meryl looked back at Gordo once, winked at him, and they both nearly burst out laughing.
By the time she got him behind the book stacks of Puzzles and Games, they both had to duck down and stifle their giggles.
"Thank you!" Gordo whispered. "How did you know?"
"Oh, Gordon, come on! The look on your face! It's obvious to everyone that you want nothing to do with Parker McKenzie! Well, obvious to everyone buy Parker McKenzie, that is."
Gordo dropped into a nearby chair and sighed heartily. "That girl is my nightmare," he proclaimed. "Do you know what she wants now? She was asking me to the Valentine Dance!"
Meryl dropped into the chair beside Gordo and gasped. "Has she no decorum? Doesn't she know you and Nicole are still officially together?"
"Well, I---"
"Really!" Meryl fumed. "No shame! No respect! Why, I oughta…."
Gordo found himself grinning. Meryl was so cute when she got angry. Her freckles, he noted, seemed to stand out even more vividly against her rosy complexion, and her green eyes shone like emeralds. Damn! Gordo thought. I've got to lay off the Shakespeare. Getting way, way too poetic…
But she was cute.
And it felt good to be grinning. And even better when Meryl gave him a shy sideways smile and asked, "…what?"
Would he tell her? He should tell her. Meryl, you look cute when you're mad. No, he couldn't say that. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't. And at this point he couldn't say the other thing he had been about to say, either, the thing about him and Nicole no longer officially being together. It wouldn't look right for him to say that with a big smile on his face. So instead he just said, "I guess you and Larry are all set for the big dance, though, huh?"
Meryl sat back and sighed. "Oh, that. Yeah. Sure."
Suddenly Meryl no longer looked angry, and she no longer looked cute. She actually looked kind of…sad. So Gordo tried to cheer her up with, "Well, it's nice, you know, that you have someone to celebrate Valentine's with. I mean, look. You could be me…"
"And have Parker McKenzie asking me to the dance?" Meryl tried to joke. "Thanks but no thanks."
Gordo laughed lightly. "No, I mean, you could be me and have….and have no one on Valentine's Day."
"Oh, Gordo!" Meryl said suddenly. "I know it must be hard with Nicole so very far away but---"
Gordo sighed. Even though he was sitting in a perfectly good chair, for some reason he felt compelled to let himself slip out of the seat. Now he was sitting on the floor, for a moment feeling unable to speak.
Meryl looked at him quizzically, then quickly slipped out of her seat also, joining him on the floor. "What is it?" she asked quietly.
Gordo looked at her. He had to say it now. He had to tell someone. This was eating him up. "It doesn't matter about Nicole anymore," he said emotionlessly. "We're not…together….anymore. Not even in a long distance kind of way. It's over."
"Oh---! Oh---!" was all Meryl could manage, feeling his pain.
"Yeah," he confirmed. "She was kind of decent about it, actually. I mean, at least she did it over the phone, not in an email. And she was dead honest. There's this other guy, I guess, this boy in the neighborhood, they've been walking back and forth to school and such, and Nicole's been kind of hoping he would…well, she didn't want to 'cheat' on me. So she figured it made more sense to break up. That way she wouldn't feel bad in case this Tommy…"
But after he said the new boy's name, he found he couldn't talk anymore. He pulled up his knees and wrapped his arms around them, taking a deep breath.
"Oh, Gordon….David…." Meryl commiserated. "I'm so…so sorry…"
Gordo tried to smile, but it was a sad smile. "No, don't be," he said. "It's okay. Really. I mean, it makes sense, doesn't it? It was inevitable. I knew it would be coming eventually. The only thing that really hurts, I guess, is that it happened so close to Valentine's Day. I mean, in just a few days, everybody around me is going to be celebrating…candy, flowers, going to the dance…."
They sat quietly for a moment, both somber. A scrawny boy came by scanning the shelves, stopped a few feet away from them and exclaimed "Oh my God! They have Mad Libs here! They have Mad Libs!" Then he ran off, yelling, "Mom! Mom!"
Gordo and Meryl looked at each other briefly and grinned a little. But only a little, then they were quiet again. Meryl was struggling with something. Something that was eating her up, something that she had been thinking for some time it might be nice to get off her chest….
"Gordon," she said, finally, "can I tell you something?"
"You can tell me anything, Mer. You know that."
"I mean, in confidence. You wouldn't tell anyone else?"
Gordo sat up straight. "I'm good, Mer."
He looked at Meryl. Something was up, he could tell. These last several weeks, he had felt highly attuned to everything that was going on with Meryl, even as he felt she was highly attuned to him. Right now, she looked like she needed a friend, so he reached out a little, and pulled on the leg of her blue jeans.
"Hey," he said. "You can tell me anything, Mer."
Meryl nodded. "I know," she said quietly.
