3/10
In being a convert to thinking outside the box, I join Ducky and Alex to this week's GSA meeting. Usually I can't, just because of work scheduling, but today things worked in our favor, and I go with them.
I meet all their GSA friends. Alex has been making Ducky go for about a month, and now he doesn't have to force him at all. And I go willingly.
Even if Alex is spouting his "outside-the-box" propaganda the entire time.
"So," Ducky says as we walk down the hall toward the meeting, "what are your plans for today? Because you're not working, right?"
"Nope. Isabel has me booked for more wedding plans," I reply.
"Wedding plans? I thought they were having a long engagement?"
I nod. "They are, but she's decided on a style for her dress three times in the past three months. And the theme of the wedding has changed about five times. Once she gets all of that together, then they can actually plan for the wedding. But at this rate, she'll be thirty when they get married."
Ducky laughs. "I don't think so."
"Me either. But it seems that way sometimes. I figure once she finds something she loves, she'll stick to it."
"How's what's-his-name handling this?"
"Simon? I don't know."
"Do you like him?"
"He's okay."
"He's going to be your brother-in-law, I hope he's more than okay."
"Well, Isabel thinks so."
Ducky laughs again. "I guess that's what's important."
"Yup." I nod.
We meet Alex at the door of the empty classroom.
"Look! We're thinking outside the box!" I say.
"I'm glad!" he says. He's smiling.
The meeting is all right, afterward is more fun. Ducky, Alex, and a couple people they know, Kevin Donahue (whom I'm familiar with), Macon Rhodes, and Fran Neal.
Macon's straight, rather cute, black hair in his face, green eyes, and I get the feeling Ducky is trying to set me up. Fran is what narrow-minded idiots think of as a waste. She's drop dead gorgeous, blonde hair, blue eyes, perfect body. And she's 100 lesbian.
"Check it out!" Kevin says, grabbing Ducky by the hand and dragging him outside.
"Do you think there still may be something there?" I ask Alex. He's smiling as he watches them.
"I dunno. It's a tough call. But Kevin seems totally convinced that Ducky isn't over Justin."
"How much truth is there to that?" I ask.
"I'd say about thirty percent truth? I don't know if he's over him or not, but I think he'd like to be. And probably would like to be with Kevin."
"They'd make a cute couple."
Alex nods.
"What about you?" I ask. "Anyone special?"
"Nahhh, I'm not dating. My shrink doesn't recommend it. Handling rejection and all of that."
We walked out into the parking lot where Kevin is showing Ducky his new car. It's white, probably about ten years old. Kevin's already added a plastic rainbow lei to the review mirror, and a rainbow sticker on the bumper.
"Oh, yeah, they are so cute," Fran says. "If I could find something like that, I'd be one happy girl."
"Hey, Amalia!"
I turn. Justin is running up toward me. I grin.
"Hey!"
"What are you up to?" he asks.
I motion around me, trying to be vague about Ducky talking to Kevin. "Just hanging out. On your way to practice?"
He nods. "Sort of dreading it."
"Things bad?" I ask.
"Tense," he replies. "Rico's pissed because I'm doing the play and I'm busy with that, that's where I just came from, and there's the usual bickering. And Maggie-"
He stops dead.
"Something happen with Maggie?" She hadn't mentioned anything happening with Justin. But I hadn't talked to her much, I'd been spending so much time with Ducky and Alex and catching up on my mountains of homework. And she's been hanging out with a bunch of juniors from the Inner Vistas.
"No, well... not with the band. It's just..." He stammers for a good thirty seconds. "Maggie and I just aren't really friends anymore."
He leaves it at that, and since he seems so uncomfortable with the subject, I don't push.
"But the CD came out today," he says.
I gasp. "OH MY GOD! THAT'S RIGHT! I completely forgot! I have to get it."
"I've got like three copies in my car. Rainah gave us copies yesterday. Come on." Justin looks around. Alex and Fran are standing there. "Come on," he repeats.
However, I'm the only one who goes out to his car with him. Justin puts it into the CD player. It's AMAZING. It's just what I heard them playing in the studio, but BETTER.
"This is fantastic!" I exclaim.
"I know!" he says. "This morning, I mailed one out to my Dad and to my brother." He hands me a CD case. "Just for you."
I look at the cover. It's the beach shot that I liked so much with the word VANISH across the front. I feel tears welling up in my eyes. I MISS being part of the band. I miss that. But then there's the fact that I'm actually getting decent grades. I've had dinner with my family. I don't feel like I'm being stretched out like bubblegum.
As much as I miss the band, even with their fighting, I'm glad I'm not their manager anymore.
"I've got to go," Justin says. "Rico's on my ass as it is. I don't need him getting on me for being late."
"We should hang out," I say.
He nods. "Yeah, we should. You hanging out with Ducky a lot?"
It's strange to hear Justin calling Ducky "Ducky" because he never does. Or at least he never did. I don't comment about that, I just nod. "Yeah, we work together at the bookstore. I went to my first ever GSA meeting today."
"I went to those. I still would, I think, but I'm just so busy. Band, and now the play. I'm hanging out with Dawn a lot lately."
I raise my eyebrows. That seems like a weird combination. As far as I knew, Justin and Dawn have hardly spoken to each other. Again, I keep my mouth closed, which twice in one conversation must be like some Amalia record.
I hear Alex shouting for me. They're getting ready to leave.
Justin and I say good-bye. I run across the parking lot and jump in the backseat of Ducky's car. He's following Kevin to the mall.
"I saw you talking to Justin," Ducky says lightly.
"Yeah, Vanish's CD came out today. He gave me a copy." I wave the CD case.
"If I had a CD player in here, we could play it," Ducky says.
"You should save up for one," Alex replies.
"I'm too busy saving up for a paint job."
"Oh. " Alex shakes his head. "I can't believe I forgot."
"You forgot? The reason you have to slide in across the driver's seat to get into the car? I hope you didn't think that was permanent."
Alex puts his head in his hands. "Sorry, man."
Ducky takes a hand off the wheel and pats Alex's shoulder. "It's okay." Ducky's eyes flash back at me in the review. He's pulling a tough balance between treating Alex normally, and making sure to stay sensitive to him.
Alex is totally aware that Ducky is doing this. But it's like part of their relationship to know exactly what the other one is thinking, but let then let the other one believe that they're totally clueless. And they both know that they do this. It's interesting to watch. It sort of makes me the odd one out, but Ducky and Alex are pretty much all I've got for friends right now.
And I don't really mind.
My hand's cramping. I'm going to go get a snack.
Later, 3/10
We arrive at the mall and no one can agree on where to eat, so we settle on the food court. We all get food and push together two tables.
"How do you do that?" I ask Fran. She has like a two and half meals from China Wok.
"Good genes," she replies. "I know someday it will go away and what I eat will land on my hips, so I'm going to eat everything I can until then."
I laugh. I like Fran.
Alex tips his chair back onto its back two legs. "I have an announcement. Our school is full of the the most idiot assholes. Present company excluded."
"What happened?" Kevin asks.
"Since I've come back to Vista, I've dealt with whispers behind my back. I'm the crazy freak who tried to off himself-"
I see Ducky flinch.
"-but now there's a new development. I had some guy come up to me today and ask me, ask me right to my face, what's the best way to kill himself?"
Whenever Alex gets onto the subject of his attempted suicide, which isn't often, but when it happens, he always talks about it in a sense of joking. I know well enough that it's like a defense mechanism. If he can joke about it, he doesn't have to face it. I understand that. But I hate the look on Ducky's face when it happens.
"Oh my god," Fran says.
"What did you say to him?" Macon asks.
"I told him to ask someone who succeeded. He gave me an awfully funny look, and here's the punchline. He then grins, says 'Thanks!' and walks away. I have never come across an idiot like that before." Alex takes a bite of his Arby's sandwich.
"Idiot," Kevin says under his breath.
Ducky busies himself with his burger.
The subject changes and Ducky becomes part of the conversation again.
We finish our food.
"I should get going," I say. "Isabel is expecting me home at some point."
"I'll take you," Ducky says. He stands up. Alex stands up too.
We say good-bye to everyone and walk out of the mall. Well, we're mostly out of the mall when Ducky explodes. In a Ducky sort of way that isn't actually exploding because he doesn't do that.
"How can you do that?" Ducky asks.
"What?" Alex replies.
"Talk about... talk about that like it's nothing. Like it's a joke."
"That? It? Oh, you mean that time I tried to kill myself." Alex shakes his head. "Why can't you just talk about it like a normal person?"
"Why can't you take it seriously?"
"I take it seriously! Why do you think I was gone for a year? Because I had to take it seriously. But I'm not going to break and cry every time the subject is brought up. I have to find some way to deal with it. The subject comes up. Sometimes I bring it up and sometimes it just happens. I quit my job here at the mall for you so I could deal with my life, and I thank you, but you can't run my life, Ducky. You can't do it all for me."
"You wouldn't even have a life if it wasn't for me!"
Alex stares at him. He's not the only one. Lots of people are staring now.
"I know," Alex says. "Every day I know. But am I going to have to repay for that every day? I don't know what you want me to do. Just tell me."
"Uhhh, guys?" I say. "We should go."
They both sort of snap out of it and remember that I'm there.
It's also part of the Ducky-Alex relationship to not talk about things until they blow up in their faces. But they always make up in the end. I sometimes get that referee feeling I had with the band, but they don't put me in the middle like the band did.
Maybe I'm just a born referee.
Ducky drops Alex off first. They say a pleasant sounding good-bye. I climb over into the front seat.
"Hey," I say.
"Hey," he replies. "Sorry about that."
I shrug. "You guys have a lot of history and sometimes that needs to be sorted out."
He nods. "That just drives me up the wall. And it's not like I think he owes me something... I just don't want him taking it so lightly."
I don't say anything. Ducky doesn't say anything else. We really don't need to. I may not have the same sort of psychic connection with Ducky that Alex has, but I know him well enough to know when he doesn't want to talk.
Which is most of the time. But he's really bummed out, because he's not asking how I'm doing, the usual Ducky way of not talking about himself.
He drops me off and I go inside.
"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?" Isabel looks frantic. She might be a little concerned for me, since it's after five, but I can see piles of bridal magazines, fabric samples, and photo album of cake pictures sitting on the kitchen table. No wonder she's frazzled.
"I went out to the GSA meeting with Ducky and Alex. And then we went out to eat."
"Can you help me?" She looks sort of helpless, so I nod.
We start weeding through the magazines. Isabel holds fabric up at me.
"That's like yellow," I say, wrinkling my nose.
"It's off-white," Isabel says. "Well, "bone.""
"Bone? Ew."
"I guess I really don't want an off-white dress anyway. Even if-" She cuts off and darts her eyes at me and then back at the fabric.
"Oh, yes, Isabel, you're the last virgin bride."
She laughs. "Okay, okay. Sometimes I forget that you're old enough for such talk. So, uh, those guys you hang out with. Anything there?"
"Anything?"
"Maybe you're not old enough. Boyfriends. Either of them?"
My love life isn't something I really discuss with Isabel, but she's aware that Brendan and I broke up back in December. However, she's totally clueless about Alex and Ducky.
"No, no, no," I say. "Not even close. How are things with Simon?"
"Good," she replies. "Amalia?"
"Hmm?" I'm drooling over this chocolate wedding cake that's decorated with real flowers.
"What do you think of Simon?"
I look up. "I don't really know him."
"Yeah... you should have come with us over Christmas. It was fun."
"How much time am I going to be spending with Simon's parents? They'll be your in-laws."
Isabel shrugs. "Is it a total crime for me to want my sister to get to know my future husband?" She pauses. "Husband. Amalia, do you think I'm running into this too quickly?"
"I can't really say. I don't really know Simon or much about your relationship."
"I'm only twenty-one, here. I haven't even finished college. Why aren't we happy just being together as we are? Why do we have to get married? That just makes things so much harder!"
She continues to ramble. I just let her go. If she cancels the engagement, that's less fabric samples. But then that also means a possibly depressed Isabel and that's never a good thing.
"Is is possible to postpone the engagement and just be boyfriend and girlfriend again?" I ask. "Or do you just have to snap in two?"
Isabel gives me a startled look. "Postponing the engagement doesn't always mean people break up. It's like saying every fight ends up in a break up. That's not how it works. People fight because they care. It takes a lot more than just one act to break people up."
I go upstairs and do homework. But I can't really concentrate. It makes me think of Brendan. We never fought, not really. Did that mean we didn't care? Or did it just mean that we were too involved with ourselves?
And I think about Ducky and Alex. They are the prime example of fighting because you care. And they never "break up." I don't know if I've ever been that kind of friend.
Maybe I'm just a referee.
