Where Did the Time Go? : Part XLII
Ron sat at his computer, trying to concentrate. He wasn't having a very good time of it. He had everything he needed. The material was fresh in his mind, he knew what he wanted to write about, his notes were sitting beside him on the desk and Wade had installed the latest version of the word processor her used.
Even with all that he just sat there staring at a blank piece of electronic 'paper.'
It wasn't so much there was too much on his mind. He'd learned to deal with juggling many things, 'compartmentalizing' as Kim called it. Of course there was a major Trig test on Friday, a history test on Thursday, the Prom was just over two weeks away and the "Senior Vestiture" ceremony was that week as well. That was the day when they would officially put on their graduation robes for the first time, in preparation for graduation in exactly one month. The time everyone said would be the best time his life was slipping away faster and faster, making him wonder where it was all going.
No, that was not what was distracting him. It was the bodaciously hot redhead in black low-rider jeans and a shimmering, spaghetti strap purple crop top stretched out on his bed reading a thick book that had all his attention.
It was strange. They could study together. They could read together. They could even work on projects together. Almost everything involving school work they could do together and he loved that. Except for one little thing. When it came to writing Ron had to be absolutely and totally alone. It had nothing to do with embarrassment over his passable skills doing so, it was simply a quirk he had developed, one he never recognized until he actually knuckled down and got serious about his school work. To write effectively he had to have the door closed, the blinds drawn and everything quiet except for outside sounds.
This was why he still had trouble with essay questions during tests.
Trying his best to come up with an opening line, he put his hands on the keyboard. He had come a long way from the days he used his father's hand-me-down black and white computer. Wade had outfitted him with state-of-the-art hardware (at least it was when he installed it – five minutes later it was obsolete!) He had a wireless laser mouse, a wireless 'comfort' style split keyboard, a trackball and even a digital drawing pad. However, none of that stuff was any good unless you could actually get your fingers to start entering stuff.
He glanced over at Kim, who was propped up on a stack of pillows. She never looked more beautiful and that had nothing to do with the 'hottie' outfit she wore that day (well, that did help – a lot.) It was the expression on her face. She wasn't smiling or scowling or frowning. She just seemed to be perfectly at peace. It was a lot like what she looked like when she was asleep, only with her eyes open, the glittering green visible as it tracked along the text she was busy studying.
Those beautiful orbs looked up from her book and looked right at him. "Ain't working, is it?"
"Sorry, KP. I just can't forget you're right over there." He clicked off the program, letting his wallpaper come back up. He rotated it from time to time but it was still set on the picture Kim's brothers had sent out of her covered in moisturizer. "Paper's not due until Friday anyway, guess I'll work on it after I drop you off tonight."
"Don't wait too long. Wouldn't want 'old Ron' resurfacing again."
"You'd love me anyway." He leaned on the back of his chair, leering at her. Kim closed her book and craned her neck, brushing her hair back with her fingers, almost causing Ron's tongue to roll out of his mouth.
There was a quiet knock on his bedroom door. "Are you two decent?" Ron's mother called.
"No, Mom, we're naked!" He shouted just before getting beaned with a small pillow.
The door opened and Jean surveyed the room, looking from Ron at his desk to Kim sitting on the bed with a book. "Either the two of you are getting too fast for an old woman to catch or you were actually studying." She grinned at the teens. Sitting down on the edge of his chest of drawers the smile slowly faded.
"I'm afraid I've got some bad news, Ron." She looked right at him, meeting his eyes.
He looked down below her crossed arms at the slight roundness forming at her waist, then back up at him.
"No, Catherine Jean is just fine. I'm talking about your father's tuxedo. I know you had your heart set on wearing it again this year, but I just took out the stitching in the hem. I'm afraid it's already been let out as much as possible. My big man." She added softly, smiling again.
"Aw, man. I wanted to start a tradition."
Kim got up and put her hands on his shoulders. "There's always that black tux Joe gave you." She whispered softly. "It did look a far sight better on you anyway. You did look spankin at that dog show with it."
Jean shook her head. "No dice. It'd be easy enough to get more black pants for it, but there's no way to let out the jacket enough. Looks like we've got some tux shopping to do."
"You know what that means?" Kim sing-songed, giving his shoulders a squeeze.
"Uh, uh. No way, forget it. You're not going to play dress-up with me KP. The Ron-man dresses for himself." He held up his index finger and placed his other hand over his heart.
"Ron, please don't take this the wrong way, but when it comes to fashion, you are utterly clueless."
"I do okay." He pleaded.
"Son, you wear the same outfit almost every day, and when you don't you wear sweatshirts or bowling shirts and I'll be the first to admit, that baby-blue tux was out of style when your father bought it originally."
Kim pulled his mop of hair back off of his forehead. "Maybe you can get something more hip and you can fix up your hair. You gotta admit, even your black tux was a little 'old school.'"
He just waved his hands in front of him. "No, I've made up my mind. If I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it on my own."
Both Mrs. Stoppable and the potential future Mrs. Stoppable looked each other in the eye, before said ocular organs rolled upwards.
"He just won't listen to reason, Monique. What am I going to do?" Kim slumped against the counter at Club Banana as her friend finished ringing up some customers.
"Kim, don't stress about it. Look at it this way, Ron isn't the same weird little guy he was this time last year. No matter how you remember that night now, he rolled up at the Prom in an outfit that would have had people laughing at him for days if he hadn't shown up holding hands with you. I mean laughing at him, not with him. Cruelly."
"That's what I'm afraid of, Mon. I just went by the formal wear store and there are still tuxes that, well, you'd have to be a rock star or an athlete to pull off. I'm just worried he's going to show up in some mustard yellow zoot suit and embarrass me."
Monique bagged the rest of the clothes and stepped from around the counter. "Here's this trust issue again, Kim. Yeah, I'll kick his butt myself if he rolls in something like that. Pale blonde boys just don't belong in those threads. Then again, so what if he does rent something like that. What're you gonna do, dump him? Cause if you are, I call dibs, Felix or no."
"Mon, we're talking about me being angry with him, not dumping him. This Prom is special, even more so than last year. It's our one-year anniversary you know. Well, Saturday after is, but the Prom counts."
"Uh huh. What is it with you two and anniversaries? You celebrate the day you met, the first time you kissed. Bet we'll know for sure when you two finally go all the way cause one year later you'll celebrate that." She grinned smugly at her friend.
Kim rolled her eyes. "So not. It's just fun doing stuff like that…and those dates are important but right now this is the big one."
"Yeah. Tell you what I'm seeing, you want to be in control and he's not letting you."
"Puh-lease, Mon. I do not have to be in control."
"Then let him pick out a tux himself. Besides, the guys working at the formal wear place are smart, they're not going to let him do anything really stupid, unless he insists."
"Oh, he'd insist I bet. I just think he should go in something nice, something modern."
"Something that suits you." Monique retorted. "Sounds a lot like your natural Kimness starting to bubble to the top again."
"Well I am Kim." She snarled back.
She pulled a tiny, hot pink dress off the rack and held it up to Kim. "Bet you haven't even considered what you're going to wear, have you?"
Kim smiled softly. "Oh, that's set in stone. Just hope it still fits."
Monique eyed her up and down. "Girlfriend, your bony butt hasn't grown a centimeter in the last year." She pointed to her top. "Now, that part might even fit just a little better this time around."
She tried looking down at her chest. "Really?"
Cocking her head, Monique continued. "Maybe. I'm thinking half a cup size at most. Anyway, I don't think that's a good idea."
"Why not. I don't care about the scorched hem and even if I did, shorter dresses are in this year. It wouldn't take anything to cut the burned part out."
"Not what I'm talking about, Kim. If Ron was going to wear his Dad's tux again, I wouldn't say a word, but since he can't that means you've got to come up with something else yourself."
"Why, it's a perfectly good dress…and it was expensive. I had to do a ton of babysitting to pay for it."
"That's not the point. Ron didn't pick out that dress." She pointed at the dressing rooms for emphasis.
"No, I did. What's that got to do with anything?"
Monique shook her head slowly. "You may have picked it off the rack, but that was with a whole lot of other dresses and let me tell you, some of them were just plain awful. In the end, it wasn't you that picked it…do I need to go on?"
"What are you…oh." She realized what Monique was dancing around then. Her friend knew better than to mention that name, that one most hated name.
Erik.
"You should buy that dress." He said, just as he came in. Would it have even mattered if she still had the poofy nightmare Monique said to pull off and throw away?
"You're right, and Ron was standing not ten feet away from me when that happened. Oh, I'm an idiot." She put her forehead in her palm.
"No you're not, you have the sense to hang around with me to keep you from making those kinds of mistakes. Now, I'm not letting you get away so easily as Ron did from you." She thrust the little pink dress right into Kim's hands. It was literally even smaller than her black dress, and backless to boot.
"Okay, that is a great big 'not!' I want something a little more elegant, a little more grown up. Something a little more Breakfast at Tiffany's instead of looking like a junior high girl in a 'take me now' outfit."
Monique held out her hands, using them to frame Kim. "I definitely see the Possible possibilities." She started giggling when Kim groaned. She pulled a flowing red dress covered in glittering sequins from the rack.
"No, too Jessica Rabbit and I don't think barely half a cup size is going to come close to helping me pull off that look." Kim said, eyeing the gaudy dress. "I want something that says hottie and elegance, all at the same time."
"Hmmm. More grown up you say?" She pulled one more dress from the rack.
"Now that I'm going to try on." Kim's eyes lit up as it was passed to her hands.
Ron eyed the dusty old store as if it were some trap set by one of their old adversaries. He was certain some nasty spider was going to drop down for a dark nook any moment and bite him. The whole place looked like something time had forgotten.
It certainly wasn't the formal wear store at Middleton Mall. Ron may have been successful forbidding Kim and his mother from helping him pick out his Prom tux but Gene Stoppable was a whole other ball of wax.
Oh, he wasn't stupid. He wasn't the one who was going to be helping his son with his decision. He knew better. Jean teased him for several years when she first saw that powder blue monstrosity hanging in his closet. He thought it was the greatest thing in the world back when he bought it, only to leave it hanging in its bag when he didn't find a date. Why he hadn't thrown it away in all those years, he didn't have a clue. He wasn't even aware that Jean had given it to Ron for a mission and hadn't dreamed he would actually wear it to his Junior Prom.
For a moment, Ron thought he was alone in the store with his father. That was until he detected movement from one of the many dusty alcoves. The man moved as if he were floating above the old, thin, faded carpet, looking more like a background character from one of those boy wizard movies than something found in the real world.
"Son, this is Solomon Horowitz. He's probably the best old world tailor still in business here in Middleton."
"Pleased to meet you, young man." His accent spoke of European origins, sounding much like his maternal grandparents, though his was somewhat thicker.
Ron shook his hand, which was far stronger than it seemed. He was actually afraid he would crush such a fragile looking appendage without realizing it.
"So, Eugene, what brings you in here today?" He leaned toward his customer, clasping his hands together over his breast.
"My son is going to his Senior Prom in a couple weeks and he can't fit into my old tux any more, so he needs a new one."
Solomon circled the youth a couple times. "I am surprised you simply did not wish to rent something from the mall." There was just a touch of bitterness in his voice. From the looks of the shop, he wasn't getting too much of that sort of business.
"I believe it's better to support people like you, Mr. Horowitz, just like my father did."
"You do not know how much I appreciate your words, Eugene. Your father was a fine man. So, youngster, what would you like?"
Ron considered a moment. "Well, you see, I'm taking someone really special with me, so I don't want to screw this up. I want something modern, classy and grown up."
"You paint with broad strokes, young man." He took off his jacket and set it aside, rolling up his sleeves. Neither Stoppable had to ask about the number tattooed on his forearm. "Usually, when I have a customer your age they want something…something shall we say, odd?"
"I'm done with odd. Like I said, I want something that makes a statement, something that says I'm not just a weird little boy any more, something that says I'm a man."
The old man took out a tape measure and started directing Ron how to stand so he could take some preliminary measurements. "Are you telling me you trust my judgment when it comes to what you are aiming for?"
"My Dad trusts you, so I suppose I can too."
Solomon nodded. "Most of the time people just tell me they want such and such a style and such and such color."
"Honestly, sir, I don't have a clue about fashion. Last year at the Junior Prom I went in a powder blue tux from the seventies and sneakers. Kim deserves way better than that, but I haven't got the foggiest notion what to tell you. Well, I can tell you I don't want a white jacket and black pants."
"Good, because you are far to fair skinned and fair haired to pull those colors off anyway. Now, later on when you need a wedding tux, then I think a nice white cummerbund and tie would go quite nicely with your yarmulke, but I think something a little more fashion forward is in order here." He held up a small sketch pad, showing a remarkable likeness of Ron wearing what he had in mind.
Both their eyes lit up when they saw it.
"That's perfect!" Ron blurted out.
"Do you have any idea what color dress your 'Kim' is going to be wearing?" He pulled a bundle of colored pencils out of his box of tools.
"Blue, definitely blue. Shimmering sky blue." He said confidently.
Solomon smiled and pulled a pencil out of the bundle.
Kim poked her head in the door as Monique drove off. Both the cars were home, making it very likely the rest of the family was there getting ready for dinner. She had spent two days shopping with Monique before she made a final decision and the results were in a long plastic hanger bag. Still, she didn't want to chance exposing it to the Tweebs, lest the spoil it before she could even wear it.
Her parents were clearly in the kitchen, but there was no sign of her brothers. She looked up the stairs, listening intently. Finally she picked up their voices coming from outside. Moments later there was a sharp whooshing sound as the launched something from the pad out back.
That was her chance. She made a break for the stairs, taking two steps at a time. She made it to her bedroom in seconds flat, quickly heading for her closet.
The dress was going to be a surprise. There was no need to hide it from her parents. It was sexy but not dirty sexy. It was the picture of pure elegance. The problem was that Ron was in her room so much it seemed he lived there. If this wasn't the night he usually ate dinner with them he would probably be there right then either playing on her computer or trying to sneak a kiss.
The only solution was the one part of her bedroom he couldn't get into (save the second drawer of her nightstand though he knew what was in there.) Pushing her clothes aside she opened her super suit vault, hanging the dress there, bag and all.
That done she turned around and noticed what was sitting on her bed.
There was a package sitting there, wrapped in shiny sky blue paper and bound with a slightly darker blue ribbon. Astride the package was a single rose. There wasn't a note but she smiled anyway, assuming they were from Ron. She picked up the rose, holding it under her nose for a second before setting it on her nightstand. Then, carefully, she unwrapped the package.
There was a CD inside. The cover was simple, with only the artist's name on it; somebody named 'Esteban.' That confused her since she had never heard of him before. Slowly she started wondering if this present was from Ron after all. He knew she wasn't that big on music.
Just to be on the safe side, she scanned the disk for virii before she started the digital jukebox on her computer. What sounded like a run-of-the-mill singer with a high tenor voice was singing love songs in Spanish. She looked at the liner notes, though they weren't very revealing. If the titles had been in Latin or French they might have made some sense to her. As it was she'd have to wait to see Ron in the morning. He spoke a little Spanish.
The song sounded sweet, if a little too much so. She looked at the title again and wondered what it meant.
Mi Zorro Azul.
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