Summer New Girl Episode 3 - Chocolate Covered Raisins
(Written by Sophie; Edited by Sophie R & Ilea)
"Hey guys, Cece's gonna come to the movies with us tonight."
Schmidt darts out of his room dressed in a low-cut wife-beater and sweats. He looks like he's just arisen from a terrible afternoon nap, but his expression is crossed with fatigue and excitement.
"Cece's coming?"
Nick hovers his spoon over his bowl of Cheerios.
"That's what she just said, Schmidt."
"I was clarifying, Nicholas."
Jess smirks and continues tapping away at the keys on her phone.
"Well, to clarify, Cece is coming."
"Better pick out a tux, Schmidt." Nick teases. He looks to Jess for approval and is met by a playful giggle. Schmidt rolls his eyes and disappears behind his door, escaping the impending romance-fest that's about to ensue before him.
"Sickening, sickening behaviour." He mumbles bitterly.
"What's his problem?" Nick gets up from his seat and throws the bowl into the sink, quavering the water and making it splash up and drench his shirt. Jess starts and turns abruptly to inspect the damage. She bites the inside of her cheeks to stop herself from laughing.
"I'm gonna go change."
"We ready to go?" Winston asks, tossing the keys between his hands.
"Winston, chill. Sit down and watch the game with me." Nick says casually, nursing a beer between his thighs.
"I can't man, you know how I am about getting a spot."
"Okay honestly, relax, it's been twenty years, let it go. Besides, it's not like we're going to some huge concert in the Staples Centre. It's a movie theatre."
"Hey, what are you guys talking about?" Jess asks as she saunters out of her room, dressed in a red and white argyle sweater and black shorts. She takes a seat beside Nick and is quickly followed behind by Cece, who'd turned up twenty minutes ago.
"Winston's worried about getting a seat in the theatre in case the same thing happens from when we were eight."
"What happened when you were eight?"
"Gather ye' round, children, a story is about to be told!" Nick projects throughout the loft in an old-timey Englishman voice. "Winston, would you be our storyteller?" Jess and Cece look at each other with confused expressions and lean back in their spots almost simultaneously.
Winston groans and inches slowly towards the couch, sitting on the end with the keys still jingling in his hands.
"When we were eight, Pap-Pap took us to see The Silence of the Lambs."
Jess raises her eyebrows. "They let eight year olds in to see that?"
Nick nods.
"We got there like two minutes before it started because Nick insisted on getting the extra-large popcorn, and then decided he didn't want it no more and he wanted nachos." Winston continues.
"Best damn nachos I've ever had."
"Anyway, it turns out that the theatre it was playing in could only hold thirty people and apparently a lot of people wanted to see this one specific movie, so we had to sit right up front where no one else was, and we were literally like four or five inches away from all the corpses and death."
Nick shakes his head and takes a gulp of his beer before intervening.
"For the record, I suggested we go at a later time."
"Yeah but we already bought the food, idiot." Winston snaps, pointing the sharp edge of the key at him.
"So, in short, Winston's a wuss who can't handle mediocre gore movies and he can't sit up front in movie theatres. He used to call me at like, four in the morning because he was scared of being skinned alive, and somehow, my being on the other end of the line prevented that."
"Aw, that's adorable Winston." Jess coos, placing her hand above her heart.
"Shut up, okay, can we just leave?"
Schmidt emerges from his room, dressed in slacks and a dress shirt, making each of them turn in disbelief and chagrin.
"Schmidt, what are you wearing?" Cece asks.
"Oh, what, these?" He smiles, gesturing to his pants. "Just a little taster of the new CK range. They accentuate the thigh muscles, can you tell?"
"Oh, yeah Schmidt." Nick says sarcastically, pointing towards him. "They also accentuate the fact that you're a moron."
"Jealousy, Nicholas?"
"Oh, it's most definitely not." He frowns.
"So what are we talking about?"
Schmidt shuffles his way past the pairs of legs to squeeze himself in between Jess and Cece, turning to glance at Cece adoringly.
"We were, uh, talking about Winston's fear of first row seats in movie theatres." She says, trying to restrain herself from reaching out and pushing him away from her.
"That is not the point." Winston defends.
"Anyone else got a movie story to tell?" Jess asks, looking around, smiling widely. She doesn't like to admit it, but seeing Winston get all flustered is more than amusing.
"Okay, so since no one wants to confess, I guess I'll go. It all started when Cece had her first slumber party for her eleventh birthday."
"Oh jeez." Cece groans, throwing her head in her hands. Jess ignores her and proceeds excitedly.
"She and a bunch of other girls were all going on about this movie that they'd all seen, but I had never heard of."
"It's Dirty Dancing." Nick says flatly. Jess furrows her brow and stares at him. "How did you know?"
He shrugs. "Because it's you, Jess, that's why."
"Well can I finish the story?"
Winston makes a cut-throat action with his hands directed at Nick, but Nick just grins and shakes his head willingly, encouraging Jess to continue.
"Great! Okay, so we watched the movie and all the girls were singing apart from me, and then the next day when I had gotten home, I watched it again and again until I knew the songs off by heart and could join in."
"Jess that is single-handedly, the most depressing thing I've heard all week." Schmidt sighs, leaning closer and closer in to Cece.
"So basically, that's where my obsession started. You can all throw things at Cece now." Jess finishes, playfully slapping her best friend on the shoulder.
"I am so very sorry I put you guys through all those several hour screenings of a great movie." Cece smiles, clasping her hands together.
"You should be." Nick mumbles, tipping the last few drops of beer from the bottle into his mouth.
"Okay, guys, we really need to get going." Winston says, pointing frantically towards the door.
"Schmidt didn't get to tell his story though."
"Me?" Schmidt smiles a cocky smile and half-shrugs. "I don't know guys, I lack embarrassing stories if I'm being honest."
Nick scoffs. "Shut up, dummy."
"I don't know what that means." Schmidt says.
"When you and Elizabeth saw Finding Nemo?"
Schmidt's expression suddenly gets very serious.
"Oo-hoo I wan't to hear this." Cece laughs sitting diagonally in his direction.
"Nick you promised not to bring that up."
"Too late buddy." He says mischievously, wrapping an arm around Jess.
Schmidt bows his head and runs a hand through his hair before sitting up straight and placing both hands on his knees. "Okay, I'll tell you." He sighs. "Elizabeth and I had been dating for a year or so and we both found ourselves alone in her room while her roommate was out. We decided to go all out with this movie date we were having, so Elizabeth got microwave popcorn, ramen, chocolate covered raisins. It practically drained us of any money we had that week. How times have changed." Schmidt grins, running a finger along the crease in his pants.
"Schmidt, seriously, jar." Nick says, sickened.
"What? Under which possible circumstances?"
"Under the circumstances that you're a douche." He fires back, reaching from behind and passing the jar to him. Schmidt grumbles and fishes in his pocket for a dollar.
"I only have fifties." He sighs.
"Just for that, you're gonna put two fifties in." Jess smiles, patting him on the back. Nick looks over at her and winks.
"That's my girl."
She bats her eyelashes innocently and crosses her legs, dangling her shoe on her toes.
"Okay, so what's so terrible about chocolate covered raisins and finding Nemo?" Cece chimes in.
"Oh those were fine" Schmidt nods. "Except the DVD wouldn't work because Elizabeth had gotten it from some skeevy guy down the hall who's room always smelled like wet cement and smoke. Very distasteful, the man probably never encountered Armani in his life. So to compensate, I put on my best fish face and ran around the room pretending to be a fish."
Jess and Cece look at each other and snicker, placing their hands over their mouths.
"That's oddly romantic, Schmidt." Cece giggles, clearing her throat of lingering laughter.
"That it was. That it was."
"That's not it though, right Schmidt?" Winston asks, slightly more relaxed than he was.
"I have no idea what you're talking about, that's totally it."
Nick scoffs. "Fine, I'll tell them." He looks around and points to Schmidt. "That Casa-Nova right there was running around like a fish, with a mouthful of popcorn. I got a call while I was." He air quotes. "Studying."
Winston nods in approval.
"That Schmidt was in the emergency room because he had a, to quote the doctor, 'Foreign object lodged in his windpipe. This idiot actually managed to almost die by pretending to be a damn fish eating chocolate freakin' raisins. How great is that?"
He laughs almost a little too loudly, while the rest of the group smile awkwardly and force laughter. Jess leans over to him in his state of pure euphoria and laughter and places a hand on his shoulder.
"It's funny, Nick, but- um- it's not that funny."
"What are you talking about Jess? It's freakin' hilarious! Just imagine a really fat Schmidt choking and wriggling around on the floor."
Cece scrunches up her face. "That's kinda morbid."
"Guys please, I'm losing it here." Winston half-shouts, balling his hands into fists. "I thought the object of me telling you the reason why I can't be late is so we're not late, not so we can share childhood memories."
"Okay, Winston, we're coming." Jess says reassuringly, picking herself up from the couch.
"Before we leave." Schmidt begins. "We need to lay out the ground rules. Couples do not sit together." He looks back and forth between Nick and Jess.
"What are you, a nun?"
"It's in our best interest that we all get to enjoy the movie, Nicholas. The last thing I need to hear during the tense scenes is a whole lot of slobbering and slurping in my ear."
"We're not dogs, Schmidt." Jess says, moving closer to Nick.
"I beg to differ, must we relive last week's events?"
"Schmidt I'm begging you to shut up."
Cece walks over to Schmidt, lowering her head.
"Schmidt, if I sit beside you, will that help?" She adjusts the strap on her bag and looks him in the eye, her lips curled slightly upwards.
"Uh y-yeah, that's cool, let's do that." He nods, forced casually. Cece shakes her head and widens her eyes. "So go ahead and shut up."
He doesn't utter another word for the better half of two minutes. Winston is already waiting at the open door, tapping his foot impatiently. Nick takes hold of Jess' hand and leads her out towards the door, smiling down at her, and she up to him.
"I think we should make this more about the group instead of us." She whispers up to him, biting her lower lip gently.
"I agree. We can make up for it tonight."
Jess blushes and tightens her grip on his hand. They join the other three at the door.
"You gonna order chocolate raisins, Schmidt?" He teases, poking a finger into Schmidt's abdomen."
"Watch it."
Winston locks the door behind them and they start off down the corridor making their way to the elevator. There's a silence that lingers as they wait for the elevator, a particular silence between Nick and Jess. The familiar 'Ding' of the elevator breaks it for a brief moment.
"Hey." Jess says, looking into space. They all turn to her questioningly. "Did we decide on a movie to see?"
They pause, and they groan as they come to a realization, and just as the elevator doors open, they're tearing back down to the loft.
"Why don't we just decide when we get there?" Winston mumbles, as their voices become faint from the distance. The door clicks open and shuts behind them, the elevator doors still waiting for them.