Chapter 13: Awkward
"That was weird wasn't it?" Bev asks, licking her ice cream cone as the trio walks away from Scoops Ahoy to try and find their friends.
"Extremely," Eddie agrees.
"Dude has something to hide," Richie nods.
"At least he didn't call the cops on you," Beverly says. "Do you have any form of self-control?"
"Who needs that?" Richie scoffs, as a bunch of the jazzercise girls go by and he begins to stare at them again.
"People who actually want to get somewhere in life," Eddie mutters rolling his eyes.
"So, where do you think the others are?" the redhead asks.
"Ten bucks says that Ben's in the bookstore," the trash-mouth says. "But I want to see this arcade. Hope to god that it's better and has Street Fighter."
"You can go find it yourself, I'm not dragging you out of there if they don't have it," Eddie insists.
"Let security handle your tantrum."
Richie departs from the group to find the arcade while Eddie and Beverly go towards Waldenbooks. Sure enough, Ben, Bill, and Stan are all browsing the shelves within the place. Ben already has his nose in a book and has found a spot to read.
"Anything good?" Bev asks.
"You have no idea," Ben says, his eyes alit with excitement. He's sitting on the floor in the corner of the bookstore with a stack of books next to him. "There's a whole section dedicated to just history!"
Beverly smiles and then finds Bill browsing the Horror section.
"Don't you think we've seen enough horror for one lifetime?" she asks, licking her cone.
Bill's ears turn red as he pulls out a book about a killer dog. "T-There's no limit to th-this genre. With Crime, eventually, every story is w-written, same with F-Fantasy, but with Horror, there's no limit to what people will find horrifying."
"What about Romance?" Beverly smirks, lifting an eyebrow cheekily.
Bill's ears go even redder than before, and the colour spreads to his cheeks. He gazes at her blue eyes as she licks her vanilla cone with a broad smile on her face.
Ben looks up from his book and his stomach turns, watching Beverly flirt with Bill. It broke his heart to watch this interaction occur right within earshot of him. He bit his lip to avoid crying or screaming out in frustration. Yes, she knew that he'd written the poem, but it didn't seem to change that they were just friends. Clearly, she liked Bill more and having to accept this reality was harder than he ever imagined. He keeps thinking that he should focus his affections on someone who appreciates a love of poetry because pining for Bev was getting him nowhere.
He sighs and goes back to reading, pretending not to show that he'd seen everything.
"R-Romance... is a complicated one..." Bill tries to explain, but words were failing him completely. He didn't want to insult her favourite genre, but Romance novels tend to get into generic and cheesy plots a lot quicker than Fantasy books.
"I'm just kidding," she laughs, pleased that she's still able to make the boys stammer. "I'm more Fantasy than Romance, but Horror is always one for a good scare."
"W-Well, Stan's in the Science-Fiction section if y-you want something different."
"Where's Richie by the way?' Stan asks, poking his head from behind a bookshelf.
"Where do you think?" Eddie groans. He's browsing through the Science-Fiction section while nibbling on his cone. "Does anyone know if Dune is any good? What about The Martian Chronicles?"
"You seriously think your mom is going to let you read any of that stuff?" Stan asks.
"No, but sometimes I like to pretend that I will buy them, just imagine her reaction... She says I can't read Lord of the Rings because she's afraid I'll start practicing witchcraft and I can't read The Hobbit because the dragon is a serpent and the serpent is the sign of the devil."
"My dad has a similar philosophy," Stan nods. "Anything that has magic in it is expressly forbidden in his house. It's like books suddenly become the root of all evil."
"Isn't that more for video games and movies now?" Bev asks.
"Don't you dare speak ill of such things," Richie says, walking into the bookstore. "I figured you nerds would be in here."
"Why aren't you playing Street Fighter?" Beverly asks, rolling her eyes at his "nerd" insult.
"The damn place didn't have it," the trash-mouth mutters. He has an urge to kick the nearest bookshelf. "How hard is it to get a decent game console that involves racially insensitive characters fighting one another?"
"Probably not hard," Stan says.
"So, is anything remotely good in this place?" the bespectacled kid asks.
"S-Some good stuff," Bill admits. He hands his friend a book.
"Who the hell wants to read a book about a killer car?" Richie asks.
"How about a haunted hotel?" Beverly suggests.
"Why not Frankenstein? Or Dracula? Didn't you used to love those classic horror monsters?" Stan asks.
"Yeah, until they kept making those crappy sequels. Like the Ghost of Frankenstein or Son of the Wolf Man, who the hell cares if the hairy ape has a son, show some blood for god's sake!"
"Beats what we've been through," Beverly mutters quietly to herself.
"You kids going to buy anything?" the clerk behind the counter calls.
...
"So..." Stan says after they walk out of the bookstore. "What should we do now?"
"A-Anyone up for a movie?" Bill asks.
"I'm going to look in some of the stores," Beverly says. "If you'd care to join me."
The guys all look in various directions, clearly not thrilled at the idea.
"That's what I thought," she smirks. Sometimes being the only girl in the group had its perks. When you want alone time, you get it. "We'll meet back here in an hour."
She then walks towards JC Penny and out of the guy's sight, leaving them standing in the middle of the mall.
"I think malls are discriminatory," Richie says randomly as they try to act cool while figuring out what to do next.
"Why would you say that?" Bill asks.
"For a chick, it's easy to go off and do stuff; trying on shit and whatnot, but for guys, we don't get that."
"You're crazy," Eddie rolls his eyes.
"There has to be a conspiracy behind it," he utters, louder than he anticipated.
…
Beverly stands in front of one of the mirrors at JC Penny, trying on a blue-coloured hat. It matched nicely with her red hair but still made her look ridiculous. She'd spent all her money on ice cream so it's not like she could afford it. She smiles at her reflection anyways, enjoying the way it looked and even posed slightly like a model from a fashion magazine.
While being the only girl in the Loser's Club did allow her to escape all the testosterone and awkward glances from the boys, it did get pretty lonely after a while. Beverly wants to have some girlfriends her own age, the idea of trying on clothes for an hour seemed like so much fun. She watches other teenaged girls in the store joke around and poses with neon sunglasses over their eyes. There's even a mother having her young daughter try on a dress for some occasion.
"Mommy, I don't like the sash," the little girl complained. "And the collar is itchy."
"It's okay sweetie, we still have a few more to try on."
Bev swallows heavily and fights back any tears, wishing that she'd done shopping like this with her mom. She never even got that chance; the loss of her mother likely led her father down the path of what he'd done to her.
She jumps suddenly when a familiar face walks into the store. Fiery red hair and freckles just like her; Max, the girl from school and the arcade earlier in the day. She's not alone either, she's with another girl about their age... whom Bev had seen before too but was having trouble placing the face.
The girls were giggling with each other before going towards one of the racks of clothes. When the mystery girl turns towards the mirror, Beverly realizes that it's the girl they saw standing the forest next to the school when all that shit went down their first day. It was almost like she controlled whatever happened and the bullies seemed to be afraid of her because they ran like hell once they noticed her. Her heart skipped a beat, wondering what this girl could do... Bev was also a little nervous when Max looked her way too. It was clear that the redhead did not like her new classmate, why that was remained to be seen, she just didn't want the girls to start rumours about her like back in Derry.
Bev puts the hat back where she found it and grabs a pair of sunglasses. She decides to pretend not to notice the girls and just keeps staring at her reflection. She watches as the girls whisper to one another after having spotted the redhead from Derry. The female member of the Loser's club could not be sure if they were talking about her, but she suspected they were.
The skinny preteen goes to a rack of clothes and begins looking through them, trying not to be noticed. She finds an ugly paisley shirt before a voice startles her.
"Nice shades,"
Bev looks up to see the mystery girl standing nearby, apparently wanting to talk to her.
"Thanks," she says. "Do you want to try them?"
She takes them off and hands them to the girl. She figured that's all the brown-haired girl wanted and begins to search on the clothing racks again.
"You're from Derry, right?"
Beverly locks eyes with the girl again, her stomach turning because she's worried that this girl might do something to humiliate her.
"Yeah, I'm from Derry."
There's another long pause.
"Is it nice?" the girl asks again.
The redhead examines the girl carefully and realizes that she's almost as shy as she was. She's twitching slightly and looks down at her shoes a lot. It's clear to Bev that she doesn't talk to people that much. It's slightly comforting to the one from Derry that it wasn't just her that was making things awkward.
"Not really, it's a really small town with a lot of farms. It doesn't even have a mall,"
"No mall?" the girl repeats.
"No mall," Bev smiles. She decides to cut right to the chase. "Are you just trying to make small talk?"
"Small talk?"
"Yeah, like are you trying to start a conversation?"
The girl's eyes go wide, but then she nods before looking at her shoes.
"Sort of,"
"It's okay, I'm not exactly great at keeping a conversation going. Is this awkward for you?"
The girl nods.
"I'm Beverly by the way," she introduces herself.
"El,"
"El? That's a neat name, is it short for something?"
The girl's eyes go wide, that is until Max walks up to them. Her blue eyes seem a bit annoyed when she sees who her best friend is talking to.
"Come on El, let's go find the idiots," she shoots Beverly a stone-cold glare before trying to grab her friend's wrist.
Despite looking sad to end their conversation, El turns to follow Max.
"I guess I'll see you around," Bev calls after them as they disappear into the crowded mall.
Her heart drops a bit in disappointment. The girl seemed nice; trying to make new friends, but the chance to get to know each other passed and with a glare from Max.
Bev decides to go browse another store before going to find the boys, wondering how many more times she'd run into Max and El again.
A/N: Please follow and review