On the Forging of Social Bonds (Street Name, Friendship)
Work. Effort. Vocation. Travail.
That was how Lisa usually preferred to use her post-meridian durations of the solar day (street name, afternoons).
Granted, that most likely wasn't how the typical high school freshman enjoyed spending their Saturdays, but it worked for her, and that was all that mattered.
She had already finished all her homework in less than twenty minutes, since it consisted almost entirely of things she'd known by heart since her diaper days (how did everyone else struggle so much with trigonometry? It was governed by the most basic of principles!). Now, she was spending a lazy afternoon trying to decipher the cure for gallbladder cancer.
She'd been studying the free tissue samples the mortuary had given her for several hours, but had made nothing close to any sort of progress, let alone the scientific breakthrough she'd been hoping for. Had getting her third PhD in human medicine been a waste of time, after all?
Maybe she needed a break. Okay, half an hour of reviewing the main concepts of quantum physics (a truly redundant but thoroughly relaxing pastime), and then back to work. Scientists didn't have too much time for trivial pursuits like leisure, after all.
Lisa was just about to pull her laminated, color-coded physics flashcards out of her desk drawer when her phone chimed with a soft, barely audible ping!
It was a text from Darcy Helmandollar:
Goin 2 the mall 2day. Wood u lik to com?
"Not now, Darcy," Lisa muttered, rolling her eyes at the text's atrocious spelling before chucking her phone across the room.
The thump of Lisa's cell phone on the green carpet made her younger sister, Lily, look up from the painting she'd been working on.
"Lisa," she said, shaking her head. "This is your fourth 'not now, Darcy' this week."
"So? My comrade knows impeccably well that my weekends are devoted to intellectual pursuits. I do not have time for inane and nugatory distractions."
Lily added a few violent streaks of purple to her painting. "You realize that friendship is a two-way street, right? She makes sacrifices for you, such as leaving you alone on the weekends. But you also have to make some effort to spend time with her."
"Yes, I acknowledge that," Lisa replied. "It is merely that I-" She paused and sighed, knowing she was in the wrong. "You are correct. It appears I have been unintentionally neglecting my one and only true social bond."
Lily gaped at her. "You didn't even notice what you were doing?"
Lisa felt a frown tug on the corners of her mouth. "I did not, no. How, despite my multitudinous degrees and PhDs, do you somehow manage to be so much more knowledgeable than me?"
Her younger sister said nothing in response, only flashing a smug smile before dipping her brush in a can of light green paint.
Lisa closed her drawer and walked over to pick her phone up off of the floor.
I would truly enjoy that, friend, she texted back.
…
Darcy Helmandollar's arrival prompted a hearty round of claps and cheers from Lisa's siblings. Well, the ones who were still residents of the Loud House, anyway.
Their over-the-top reaction caused Lisa, who was sitting on the couch perusing her medical textbook, to roll her eyes in annoyance.
"What's with all the applause?" Darcy asked after pulling open the front door.
"Because you're the only thing that's managed to get Lisa out of the house all weekend!" Lana cried, giving Darcy a firm handshake coated in gobs of motor oil.
"That alone deserves a standing ovation," her twin sister, Lola, chimed in. "Would you like one of my 'Miss Incredible' pageant sashes? A trophy? A cookie?"
"Don't crowd her," Lucy warned in her quiet, ominous-sounding voice. The oldest of the siblings still at home, she'd taken a break from her online college courses to ensure Lisa had a safe send-off. "We don't want her to change her mind."
Darcy's eyes met Lisa's. "Ready to go?" she chirped.
"Affirmative," Lisa replied. "Although…if it's all the same to you, would it be appropriate for me to finish just one more solitary chapter before we depart?"
All four of Lisa's present housemates gave her a significant glare (at least, she assumed Lucy was. It was kind of hard to tell with those dark bangs of hers).
"Message received loud and clear," Lisa grumbled as she trudged out the front door.
…
Darcy's mother drove them to the mall in a bright chartreuse minivan (Lisa had to bite her tongue to force back a comment about how the garish color nearly caused her eyes to bleed). As Darcy claimed the passenger's seat, Lisa sprawled out across the backseats, already yearning for the soft, smooth pages of her textbook. Darcy's mom cranked up the volume on the "Bubblegum Pop" radio station, prompting both the woman and her daughter to loudly sing along. Even though Lisa also knew the words to all of the hyper, upbeat tunes, none of the Helmandollars' pleas could get her to join in. She valued her reputation as a dignified, distinguished junior scientist far too much to ever get caught engaging in such shenanigans.
Besides, they were so off-key that the sound was triggering her tinnitus.
She clapped her hands over her ears and prayed for the love of E=mc² that they'd chosen the nearby mall instead of the other one that was more than an hour away.
Luckily for her eardrums, it ended up being the former. Twenty consecutive minutes of top-40 pop tunes later, Lisa was all too eager to leap out the door and leave the cheesy music behind.
Unfortunately, she had forgotten one tiny little microscopic iota of a detail about the mall.
It was always playing undignified pop music!
She groaned. This was going to be a long day.
The mall was packed. Just from her spot near the sliding glass doors, Lisa could see, hear, and smell a vendor selling french fries, a kid wailing over a popped balloon animal, a woman loudly talking on speakerphone, a posse of chatting college students in line at the froyo bar, and a couple of police officers chasing after a hamster, which Lisa hypothesized must've escaped from the pet store across the hall.
This chaotic scene would've made an absolutely awful place to do any reading, studying, lecturing, or basically anything of importance. How could anyone stand to be in here for more than a few seconds? How could anyone focus on anything when there was so dang much going on?
If it weren't for Darcy's big, bright smile, Lisa would've high-tailed it straight back out those glass doors right then and there.
"Let us simply obtain whatever unnecessary material goods you wish to acquire, and then vamoose." Lisa sincerely hoped that these plans, a strong and solid foundation in her opinion, would be approved by her notably-more-excited companion.
"Silly Lisa! Don't you have any idea how the mall works?"
"Apparently not," Lisa said as Darcy tugged on her arm, unceremoniously dragging her inside one of the fancy-schmancy clothing stores.
Another onslaught of sensory information assaulted Lisa's eyes and ears as Darcy shouldered open the door. The little ting-a-ling of the bell above the doorway that announced the girls' arrival. Fabric of every shade, color, and material, organized in a way that made no sense to her. A few employees with piercings in way more places than just the ears assisted shoppers, though it was hard to tell which sound was louder: that of their voices or that of the loud smacks of their pink bubblegum sloshing around in their gaping mouths.
Speaking of bubblegum, it was quite difficult to ignore the genre of music that played on the speakers overhead, which was, of course, yet another song about love, breakups, and hitting the road with friends–all things which Lisa had no sort of experience in whatsoever. Not that she particularly wanted to or felt any sort of need to.
Lisa's feet moved not of their own volition, but almost mechanically, doing nothing except merely following the path of the only somewhat-familiar thing in sight: her friend's bobbing, brown-haired head. Darcy guided her companion to the clearance section, which she claimed always contained hidden gems. She must've been sorely mistaken, though, because as far as Lisa's eye could see, there were only endless racks of fabric. Nothing bejeweled in sight.
Immediately, something seemed to have caught Darcy's eye. She shoved a dark green sweater approximately three inches in front of Lisa's face. "Oh my gosh! This is the one I was telling you about! The one on sale for half-off this week!"
"That does not appear to ring a metaphorical bell," Lisa confessed.
"Really? I texted you like, twenty times."
Oh. So that's what all those pings yesterday during her mid-afternoon study session had been about. Lisa plastered on an overly-wide grin, an expression she often made to hide traces of guilt.
"Ah, right. Of course. Those text messages, which I most definitely did peruse, and very carefully and thoroughly at that." She grabbed the sweater from her friend and squinted at the label. "Though I would advise against purchasing this specific article of clothing. One glance at the tag reveals to any knowledgeable consumer that this product was made in a sweatshop in Vietnam. Ergo, it is most likely morally incorrect to support this garment, as well as anyone who wears others like it"
She handed the sweater back to Darcy, who also carefully inspected the tag. "Huh. Guess you're right." She handed Lisa another sweater, a yellow one this time. "What about this one?"
"That one was most likely also made in a sweatshop, though it hails from Romania this time."
Darcy frowned. She pulled a couple more sweaters off the rack for Lisa to examine. "How about these?"
"Honduras. Indonesia. China. Brazil. Another China. Guatemala." Lisa rattled off the country of origin of each piece of clothing. "Honestly, just to play it safe, I would strongly advise against buying from any of these brands."
Darcy gritted her teeth and held up one final sweater: a horrendous hot pink and lime green monster of an article that Lisa would have had no qualms about setting ablaze with her flamethrower right in the middle of the store (Dang it. Of course the one time she left behind her pyrotechnic weapons was the one time they actually might've come in handy!).
"How about this?" she asked. "I know for a fact that this is a local brand, so there's no way you can complain about this one!"
"Yes, but it's hideously ugly," Lisa said bluntly. Darcy seemed irritated for some reason, which greatly puzzled Lisa. She was simply trying to help her friend avoid buying improper clothes. Wasn't that the whole point of asking her to come along in the first place?
"Maybe you're not a fashion kind of girl," Darcy said. "Ooh! I know a great hair salon a few levels up. Think you could do a new 'do?'"
"My hair is false," Lisa felt the need to point out. "Remember? Nuclear reaction gone wrong." She started to lift up her wig to demonstrate, but Darcy quickly put her hand on top of Lisa's, thwarting her attempt.
"Nonono! I don't need a visual, girl! I remember now." Darcy bounced awkwardly on her toes. "But I bet they'll be able to do something anyway! C'mon, let's go!"
Another drag-Lisa-through-the-mall-montage later, the girls were checking out the catalog of hairstyles in the salon's front lobby. While Darcy squealed excitedly at practically every image, all Lisa could think about was how impractical and unprofessional it would be to try to attend a formal science convention while looking like a pastel clown.
Darcy, easily noticing Lisa's less-than-thrilled expression, quickly turned the page. "What about this?" She pointed to an image of a pretty, smiling girl whose brown hair had a few subtle rainbow strands threaded through the locks framing her face. "See? Those are clip-on extensions. You just insert them into your scalp and you can have all the fun of dyed hair without any of the hassle of doing it for real! That's cool, right?"
"It looks like something my elder sibling Lana would pull out of the drainpipe." The gaudy mess of at least eleven different random colors did indeed remind Lisa of the times she'd assisted Lana in unclogging the shower drain. The problem was almost always a thick wad of multicolored hair, usually belonging to the females of the household.
Darcy shuddered. "Once again, I did not need that image in my head." She brushed her fingers along the pictures once again, giving Lisa a plaintive look in the process. Please, can you try just one fun color? I bet you'd look really, really good in seafoam green!"
"Try explaining that to the Interplanetary Council, and then we'll talk," Lisa retorted.
"Fine," Darcy pouted. "Would you at least do a manicure?"
"Have you ever tried holding a glass beaker with six-inch stick-on nails?"
"Hmmm. There must be something you're willing to try," Darcy said. She was silent for a while, perhaps thinking through her options.
She glanced out the window at the strange, chaotic parade of feet walking every which way. "Hang on. I think I see a couple of my friends out there. You don't mind if I go out to talk to them for a sec, do you?"
Lisa shrugged. She was well aware that Darcy was friends with practically everyone in their graduating class. Not that she was jealous or anything. The clever scientist had no time allotted in her solar days to maintain that many relationships even if she wanted to. Just one was more than enough for her.
"Okay, thanks, bye!" Darcy said, dashing out the door as though she'd been swept away by a category-five hurricane.
Lisa waited for her solitary companion to return, listening to the odd sounds of laughter and carefree conversation drifting in through the doorway.
She waited. And waited.
She watched the clock skip through the seconds. Then minutes.
Deep down within her scientific mind, Lisa knew that it was physically impossible for time to slow down, unless one was fooling around with a black hole. When someone said that seconds felt like days, it was merely a hyperbolic expression.
But, dang, right now, it really felt like it might be possible.
After ten minutes had passed, Lisa realized that she could no longer hear her friend's effortless-sounding chatter.
Had Darcy ditched her? And if so, why?
While her intuition, especially when it came to social bonds, wasn't nearly as strong as her elder siblings', she had the creeping suspicion that this situation was in some way her fault.
Darcy had sounded so much happier when she was with her other friends than when she was hanging out in the clothing department with Lisa. Why was that? What did those people have that she did not, aside from far inferior skills in mathematics.
You've got two Nobel Prizes in physics and one in medicine, Lisa reminded herself. Surely someone as astute as you would have the ability to decipher a simple friendship problem.
It hit her suddenly, like a ton of bricks (metaphorically speaking, of course). Holy event horizons, I have been nothing but aggravating all day!
Darcy had suggested many things for the two to do, yet Lisa had refused to budge more than an inch on anything. She remembered with twinges of guilt all the times that Darcy had been a willing volunteer for her CAT scans, lab experiments, cranial surgery procedures, and general harebrained scientific pursuits. Once, back in kindergarten, she'd even let Lisa examine her fecal matter.
Aside from a few tutoring sessions, what had Lisa really done for her?
She recalled what Lily had declared to her just this morning: "You do realize that friendship is a two-way street, right?"
Honestly, sometimes friendship to her felt less like a street and more like a parking crisis. Or a traffic jam. But that was, indisputably, beside the point, which was that today, Lisa and Darcy's relationship had been all-take and no-give, with Lisa as the primary guilty party.
I have successfully identified the problem, in theory. But now that I am at this point, what course of action is one hypothetically supposed to take? Darcy is most likely already long-gone.
This enigma prompted more than a little puzzling-over. It appeared as though friendship might actually be a more difficult pursuit than particle physics. How did everyone else do it so easily?
Was this what her peers felt like in algebra class? As though they were being constantly bombarded with difficult challenges that no matter how hard they tried, they just couldn't get?
Well, Lisa thought. When one struggles with algebra, one typically calls upon a tutor. Someone who is much more knowledgeable in the particular subject.
I believe I know exactly who to call.
She slipped into a broom closet, pulled out her cell phone, and dialed her little sister's number. Only two rings resounded before Lily picked up the call.
"Hello?"
"Salutations, younger sibling."
It was hard for Lisa to tell over the phone, but the tone of Lily's voice sounded surprised. "Lisa? Shouldn't you be hanging out with Darcy? Is something wrong?"
"Indeed. I believe I may have made…" Lisa let out a whistling sigh. "...what we in the scientific community refer to as an oopsie."
"I'm listening," Lily said, and Lisa knew immediately that she was. The youngest Loud had always been a good listener–a gift she'd had ever since infancy. Qualities like that were rare in a family of thirteen, though never unappreciated.
"I feel as though I may have done something rather inconsiderate to my companion. All day, I have not taken her wishes and feelings into account. I know that I have, in layman's terms, 'messed up,' though I am unsure what to do about it."
"It's great that you acknowledged that," Lily said. "I'm proud of you. So, you screwed something up?"
"Affirmative."
"Well then, apologize, Lisa!"
Lisa facepalmed. Of course her complex mind would miss only the most basic solutions! A common pitfall experienced by scientists, naturally.
"Thank you for your counsel, sibling. However, Darcy's whereabouts are currently unknown, so how would one go about-"
There came a rap on the door. "Lisa? Are you in there?"
"Are you sure she's gone for good?" Lily said over the phone. Though they were miles apart, Lisa could undoubtedly hear the smile in her sister's voice.
"I'll call you back later," Lisa hurriedly whispered into the phone.
"I can't wait to hear how everything goes!" Lily said just as Lisa hung up.
The knock came again, prompting Lisa to respond.
"How in Galileo's name did you infer that I was in here?" Lisa asked.
"If you're anything like your sister Lucy," Darcy replied. "Then secret dark places are the first spots I'd check."
Huh. The broom closet was pretty dusty and dark. Maybe Lisa had more family resemblance with the stoic goth than she had previously thought.
"What are you doing here?" Lisa dared to ask.
"We're here together, silly! Remember?"
"Then, why did you…?"
"I kind of got carried away chatting with my friends," Darcy confessed. "They just kept talking and talking, and before I knew it, it was twenty minutes later and I'd somehow ended up halfway across the mall with a burger and fries." She laughed. "I'll admit it, I'm not perfect!"
Lisa opened the door with a half-smile. "Neither am I."
Darcy pulled her friend into a tight hug, which the young genius returned.
"I apologize for not being very considerate of your feelings today," Lisa said once the hug had finished. "You have always been such a willing participant in my pursuits. The least I could have done was to attempt to engage in one of yours, no matter how bizarre and ludicrous I may find them."
"It's okay," Darcy said. "I shouldn't have left you alone. Malls aren't your thing, I get that. It's not very nice to leave a person alone in a place they don't feel comfortable in."
"You know," Lisa said with a mischievous grin. "Perhaps I wouldn't mind trying a manicure, just this once."
The squeal that came out of Darcy could've shattered every lightbulb in Thomas Edison's workshop. "Really? You will?"
"Affirmative. But absolutely no stick-on nails."
"I think we can work with that!" Darcy agreed.
…
A couple of hours later, a chartreuse minivan pulled into the mall's parking lot, equipped with cheesy tunes and a middle-aged woman belting them out at the top of her lungs.
It may have simply been because overexposure to the mall stereos had conditioned Lisa to be more immune to the sound, but she noticed that this time, her tinnitus bothered her a lot less.
And she may have sung along to just one girly pop song. Albeit very quietly. She did still have a formal reputation to uphold, after all.
Although, it was pretty amusing to see all her sisters' shocked-speechless reactions when she came home with polka-dotted nails, a knockoff Gucci belt, and seafoam green streaks in her hair. Lana had nearly choked on her wad of gum!
Lisa found that perhaps she could handle partaking in a few more of Darcy's excursions every now and then. They weren't completely inane and nugatory. A good scientist couldn't spend all of her time in the lab. That was unhealthy and statistically more likely to lead to unproductivity.
She'd probably need to wear gloves to her next scientific convention, though. And unclip the silly, mildly unorthodox green extensions out of her hair. Eventually. That could wait.
Was it strange to think she was actually starting to like them?
Maybe not. She was only a homo sapiens, after all.
...
A/N: Silly little confession time! Everyone in the fandom's got their opinions on The Loud House's episodes, so I guess it's appropriate for me to reveal that mine is "Friend or Faux?" from Season 2. Lisa and Darcy's relationship is one of my absolute favorites in the show. I'd even argue that their friendship is one of the best and most realistically portrayed friendships I've ever seen in a cartoon!
That's because it's so dang relatable to me and to all of the friendships I've had. Just like Lisa, I'm the type of girl who's way smarter at math than I am at friendship. It doesn't come naturally to me the way it does to most other people, and I always struggle to make and maintain friends. So, seeing this episode made me feel seen. There were multiple times when I laughed at Lisa's over-the-top attempts and thought to myself, "Hey, that's just like me!" I'd be lying if I said that I've never attempted to learn about friendship from a bunch of books, or if I said that I've never done a little "field research" on my own siblings and their friends.
Consider this oneshot a little tribute to my favorite episode. I hope that I did these two some justice. And I thought it was interesting to explore what an older Lisa and Darcy might be like. I'd like to imagine they're still really good friends, though I bet they've had a few arguments and miscommunications. A few bumps in the road, though in the end, they're both a good influence on the other.
And though I'm pretty sure none of them will ever read my fanfiction, this one goes out to all of the friends I've ever had in my life who were very different from me, even the ones I haven't interacted with in over a decade. The "Darcies" to my "Lisa," they honestly taught me a lot about friendship and life in general. I love you, girls! :)