THE FIRST TIME
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR - SARÀ PERCHÉ TI AMO (MAYBE, IT'S BECAUSE I LOVE YOU)
"Che confusione, sarà perché ti amo
(What a mess, maybe it's because i love you)
È un'emozione che cresce piano piano
(It's an emotion that grows slowly)
Stringimi forte e stammi più vicino
(Hold me tight and pull me closer)
Se ci sto bene, sarà perché ti amo
(If I'm okay with it, it's because i love you)
Lo canto al ritmo del dolce tuo respiro
(I sing to the rhythm of your sweet breath)
È primavera, sarà perché ti amo
(It's spring, maybe it's because I love you)
Cade una stella, ma dimmi dove siamo
(A star falls, but tell me where we are)
Che te ne frega, sarà perché ti amo
(Who cares? Maybe it's because I love you?""
RICCHI E POVERI (From the album "E Penso a Te" (1981))
A/N: Just a quick author's note here. Seeing as I used an old Italian song as my inspiration for this chapter, I had to use Google translate to translate the lyrics into English, so if there are any Italian speakers among my fanbase, who laughed their butts off at what could have been a terrible translation, blame Google's bots, not me!
There were few things in Pacey's life, that could make him feel like he was a "Big Man" and most of the time, what the world was telling him was the complete opposite: That he was born to become one of those nobodies, who stumble through life from one paycheck to the next and with no hope of becoming more than that, bar some miracle happening like him winning the lottery or something akin to it. In time, it had become something that he'd simply become used to and when the other townspeople (adults, in particular) either talked or were obviously looking down on him, it didn't bother him too much, seeing as he had to (in some ways) agree with their assessment of him. He was just Pacey Witter, son of the rather unpopular chief of police, child of divorce and had, worst of all, (ever since around when his teens began) been someone who didn't believe that he had it in him to do more than the average Joe, who deals with life's trials and tribulations in the best ways that he could, although it was rarely in the entirely correct ways.
But then, there was her, Joey Potter. The only one, who truly believed that he could become more than even he thought that he could be and for this, he felt an internal need to spoil her and make her smile, that could perhaps only be countered with how she felt the same way about him. It was almost like an unexplained phenomenon to him, why seeing her looking happy, whenever something nice happened to and for her, made him feel even better inside, than he would have if it had happened to himself. All that he could chuck it down to was that it had to be love of the most unfiltered and pure kind, where there isn't anything that you won't do for one another, thanks to the sheer power of that love.
This morning though, as he was helping Grams with shopping for Jen's surprise birthday dinner that evening, there was a rather simple reason why he was feeling like he was at least an inch taller than usual, and it wasn't just the feelgood factor over how he was helping a sweet, elderly lady with carrying her groceries home, like a good boy scout always should.
"There's something different about you today, Pacey Witter" Grams remarked, while she was looking carefully through the bananas at the supermarket to make sure, that she only got the tastiest ones for what was undoubtedly her granddaughter's favorite dessert, Grams' famous banana split with homemade vanilla ice cream, strawberry infused whipped cream and a chocolate chip/split nut sprinkle.
"Why, Mrs. Ryan, I don't know what you mean!" he quipped in reply to the nothing short of wonderful lady, who'd first taken Jen in and if that wasn't enough, was also going above and beyond in how she'd taken their friend Abby in and showered her with kindness as well.
"I've seen it many times before in young men like yourself. It's called pride and there's no use in hiding it!" Grams smilingly told him, in her often seen and heard dry-witted kind of way.
"Me, proud?" he joked in return. "What would a summer school attending, going nowhere in life kind of guy like me have to be proud over?"
"I'm sure that you'll find out that plenty of people, who became very successful later in life thought those same negative things about themselves, that you do at this time of your life. Either way, you must have been doing some things right, or I doubt it if that Potter girl would be so infatuated with you. Even if prefer to keep my opinions about one element of her family in particular to myself, she clearly has good eye for people, that girl and she always has. Don't think that I'm not very grateful to her either, for how she invited my granddaughter in with open arms and so quickly helped her to feel at home here" Grams told him from the heart, before finally deciding that she'd found a perfect batch of bananas (or close enough to it) and they could move onto finding the next items on their (rather long) shopping list.
"I wouldn't call it welcoming someone in with open arms, as much as giving them a tiny opening that Jen ripped open, just by being her extremely lovable self. Just between us, before the two of them became friends, Dawson and I had a long-running bet going on whether Joey would find another girl to be as close with, as she is with your granddaughter, before high school came to an end and there's no way, I could be happier to have been proven wrong. Joey needs Jen in her life, just as much as Jen needs Joey, don't think that it only goes one way" he explained to Grams, who'd already moved onto the vegetable section of the rather small supermarket, they were shopping in.
"What about yourself and the lovely, albeit somewhat tomboyish, young Miss Josephine Potter? Do you plan on staying together after high school comes to an end?"
"I certainly hope so. I mean, I know that I want us to stay together forever, I just don't know for sure what her plans are yet and how, if it is even possible, that I can be included in them. It's probably no surprise to you, that I'm not exactly what you can call a straight A student".
"And she is?"
"Let's be honest here. Logically, a girl like her, with everything that she has going for her and her whole glorious future ahead of her, shouldn't want to have anything to do with an outcast of a guy like me, who's feeling far too pleased with himself, whenever he gets anything above a C minus in school. She just still does for some reason, that I'm not always entirely sure why is. If what I'm saying here isn't making much sense, you'll have to pardon me, Mrs. Ryan! When a girl gets into your head, like Joey has gotten into mine, it be can hard to find the right words to express exactly how you feel at any given moment!"
"I know exactly how you feel, Mr. Witter. There really isn't a greater feeling on God's great earth, than being in love, is there?" Grams asked him with a kind smile, that he returned with one in kind of his own.
"If there is, then I've never been told about it. Although, I have to admit that for once having a reason to feel proud of myself isn't the worst feeling in the world either!"
"And what reason may that be, pray tell?"
"That's strictly between myself and the almighty one himself!" he quickly replied and while it wasn't a sound that you often heard, hearing Grams laugh heartily at his response gave him no choice, then to laugh along with her.
If he had told Grams that the reason why he was so proud of himself, was that he was keeping his stunningly beautiful and incredibly sexy high school girlfriend almost overly satisfied with him between the sheets, she probably wouldn't have found it nearly as funny. Which just again proves, how it isn't everything that goes on, that an elderly and pretty religious lady should hear about! Even when they're as wise and kind-hearted, as Grams was.
Summer vacations represented a strange phenomenon to Jack. Every year, just around the middle of March, he would begin to get school-tired and for the next three months, he would daydream about all of the things that he was planning on doing, once the big day came and his vacation began. Then, once it did, it would only take a week or two, until he began running out of ideas concerning things to do with his time and by the time his vacation was over, he'd long since become tired of having nothing to wake up to every day and would start longing for some structure in his days again. Perhaps, this was why he'd gladly volunteered to keep Jen busy for the afternoon, while her other friends got the birthday dinner (as Abby had said that they had to call it, since Jen had told her expressly in private that she didn't want to have a party, or a big deal made out of it) and he'd already agreed with her a few days before, that she should bring some of her CD's over for a friendly game of "What is This Song Actually About?". Seeing as Andie didn't have much to do either, she more or less invited herself to play along with them.
"Okay, so what's your guess?" Jen asked both himself and his sister, after she'd just subjected them to the bubble-grunge musical stylings (as Jen called it) of the band Veruca Salt and their (to Jack's ears, blissfully short song) song "Seether".
"Ehm ..." was all that came out of his mouth, while he was thinking of something positive to say about a song, that he would no doubt have forgotten all about the existence of, less than a minute after this conversation had come to an end.
"It sounds to me like she's singing about inner rage and not having an outlet for it" Andie, in her best expert analysis, chipped in with.
"What are your thoughts, Jack?" Jen asked him and moments later, he found himself uncomfortably being stared down on by both his twin sister and his ex-girlfriend, almost like if he was back at school, it was Mr. Peterson's class and he'd forgotten to do his homework.
"And don't just say "Ehm", like you've done to practically every other song, we've listened to, Jack. "Ehm" isn't an answer and it never will be!" Andie scolded him.
"I, ehm ..." he began, before quickly catching himself in saying the one word, he shouldn't have said. "I agree with your analysis, Andie. It's clearly about inner rage" he nervously got out, hoping that it would be enough for the two girls to let him off the hook.
"And which particular parts of the lyrics to the song told you that, Jack?" Andie inquisitively asked him and in doing so was asking him the one thing, he hadn't wanted her to!
"Ehm ..." he began again, this time with no clue how he was going to get out of this pickle, he'd put himself in!
"Relax, Jack! We're just messing with you! Anyway, Andie was probably correct, so you got lucky this time!" Jen reassured him, just before Andie jumped to her feet, looking as perky and excited, as she ever had.
"It's my turn now and I know just the song to play for you guys! I'll back in a jiffy!" Andie cheerily told them, before leaving him alone in his room with the girl, he'd only a few weeks before still been dating.
"Was she correct?" he quietly asked Jen, when Andie was out of earshot.
"Beats me! Those lyrics are kind of strange, if you ask me. I have heard some people say though, that it's all one big metaphor for lesbian sex and what she's really singing about is her girlfriend's ... you know what!" a giggling Jen responded, and he couldn't help himself from sharing a chuckle with her.
"Thanks a million for not sharing that info with Andie, or she would have spent at least the next week analyzing that song to the bone, just to see if it was true or not, while I would have been more or less forced to listen in on it!" he told a smiling Jen, who on top of being the day's secret birthday girl, was also clearly completely in the dark, when it came to plans made in her honor for later on in the day.
"You're welcome. How are things holding up here, with your dad back and everything?"
"It's awkward, to say the least. I don't think that my dad's "If we don't talk about it, it won't exist strategy" is working all that well either, when it comes to Andie's or my mom's mental health. Then again, what can I do about it, when it's his house and practically everything that I own, technically belongs to him?" he rhetorically asked Jen, who looked sympathetic with him.
"You don't need to explain it to a girl, who was pretty much forced to watch the marriage of her parents slowly and painfully disintegrate up close, before she caught the lucky break of a lifetime and thankfully, soon found herself in some far saner surroundings to be living her life and growing up in. Being a part of a family just sucks sometimes, but then again, we wouldn't want to be without them either, would we?" Jen sweetly asked him, while they shared an understanding smile.
"Amen to that! I should give you ample warning though, since you brought up the topic of family, that Andie only owns six CD's. Two of them are Partridge Family CD's, that they gave her for free at the store, when we bought her stereo system and which I'm pretty sure, haven't seen the inside of that CD player, since her first day of owning it. One is the worst out of the Spice Girls CD's, the one from after the red-haired girl had left the group and they clearly by then, were only still keeping the machine going to wring the last dollars and cents out of it. Then, she has an honestly dreadful compilation of the "best" songs from the 80's, that doesn't have any of the songs that it would make sense to have on a compilation like that on it, and instead just has a whole bunch of terribly produced filler songs by bands and singers that never came close to going anywhere, singing dreadful songs that absolutely nobody, except for perhaps themselves, remembers anymore and with good reason, too" he dryly explained to Jen, who shivered at the mere mention of those songs and artists.
"And the last one?" she asked him, looking as unhopeful as can be, when it came to his possible answers.
"It's the extended single version of "Macarena", that I'm still pretty sure that my older brother Tim gave her as a hidden and slick way to make my life miserable, back when we were around ten or so! I'll let you pick for yourself, which of those incredibly refined and intellectual musical choices sound least appealing to you!" he joked to Jen, who only had a shaking of the head left over for his sister's, honestly slightly embarrassing and rather appalling CD collection.
So, maybe all Jack was a master at, was keeping Jen well entertained, he thought to himself. Then again, there are surely far worse things in this world, that you can have as your hidden talent.
After having done his part to make sure that Jen got a birthday "Celebration" (seeing as they were strictly forbidden from using the word "Party", all of her friends had secretly begun to come up with other names for it), that hopefully would be to her liking, Pacey found himself having several hours to kill. And, what better way could there possibly be for him to do so, than hang out with his number one sweetheart, who'd (for once) graciously been given most of the afternoon and all of the evening off from work, so that she could help to set up for the "Big Party" (as Joey had, not entirely truthfully, told her sister, brother-in-law and dad that it would be and that her help would be desperately needed with the preparations for it) and more than anything, celebrate the best female friend that she'd ever had in style.
What her family members didn't know of course, was that not only was Grams more than on top of things, when it came to all of the "Hootenanny" preparations, she also had the help part more than covered in the form of Abby and (the very recently returned from holiday) Melissa, both of whom were eager enough for at least two or three, when it came to wanting to do something nice for their friend, who when push comes to shove was one of the main reasons, why those two outsider girls had ever discovered their true, romantic feelings for one another. Something, you could in all likelihood say about himself and Joey too, and made him wonder to himself on occasion, if Jen was simply born with some kind of extra sense, when it came to having a feel for which combinations would make for perfect partners with each other. When it came to everyone, except for herself of course, but that was a different story!
None of this was anything that either Pacey or Joey were thinking about though, while they were using his boat as a nice escape from the swarm of tourists, who had practically occupied their usually quiet town and aside for driving many of the locals out of their minds (except for those, who were making plenty of moolah off them, it goes without saying), were also making private time like this a hard thing to come by for a pair of young lovers, who would have preferred to spend every second of every day together, if they could.
"Pacey, we have to keep this PG! I don't want another kid to nearly get his first glimpse of a pair of teenage boobies, thanks to him catching us going at it like a pair of horned out spider monkeys!" Joey gasped to him, while she was lying on the cot in his steering house, and he was kissing her soft and smooth belly.
"Are spider monkeys generally hornier, than all other kinds of monkeys are?" he jokingly asked her, which did break the romantic mood a little, still in this case that wasn't the worst thing, considering that they could hear people walking around on the pier, less than ten feet from where they were lying. In any case, his question got a cute laugh out of Joey, and he could never get enough of hearing that sweet sound, no matter how many times that he'd heard it.
"Honestly, I sincerely have to doubt it! Monkeys really are "Love the one, you're with" sort of creatures, aren't they?" she grinningly asked him, before she sat up and pulled her t-shirt back in place, putting an end to this most welcome, but far too short, break away from the realities of what summertime was like in the small coastal town, they called home.
"I'm not like that. There's only one girl, that I'm in love with and I don't want to make love with anyone, except for her" he told Joey in the most romantic way, he had it in him to and the smile that he got back, told him that it had probably come off, like he'd intended it.
"Haven't you seen any nature documentaries? What monkeys do can't really be called making love, now can it?"
"I guess not. It's what I want to do to you, though" he said to Joey, who still and in spite of all of the things, they'd already done, got a bit shy (which was quite adorable to him) whenever the subject of carnal activities of the most naked kind was brought up in conversation.
"You mean, when we're a little older, than we are now, right?" she nervously asked him back, making him feel the need to give her a reassuring kiss, that she gladly accepted.
"Look, Joey" he continued. "You should already know that the last thing, I'd ever want to do is to put pressure on you to perhaps do something, you don't feel ready for, if it's just to keep me happy. What we're doing now, exploring a little more every time, finding out what works for us and doesn't work and all of that, it's the most exciting and erotic experience, I'll probably ever get to experience, and no one knows that better, than I do. All I'm saying here is that when you feel ready someday in the future, even if it isn't until a year or two from now, I'm not the kind of guy who would go looking elsewhere, for what he isn't getting at home. I love you far too much, for that to ever happen" he told his wonderful and gorgeous girlfriend, who was looking like she was savoring every word, that came out of his mouth.
"I love you too, Pacey and I will be ready someday, it isn't like that. You won't have to wait two years for it to happen between us either, I'm pretty sure of that much!" she reassured him and gave him a quick kiss, probably just to show how much she appreciated what he'd confided to her.
"That's nice to know. You know, I was talking to Bodie after work yesterday and he happened to mention that Bessie is only a week or two away at the most, from getting the go-ahead to come back to work" he began, while his beloved sweetheart was quickly beginning to fill in the blanks on her own.
"And, you're thinking that it's time we took advantage of this mythical thing that I've read about somewhere, called being young and free, and actually begin to start enjoying this summer, instead of spending eighty to ninety percent of our waking hours either in summer school, or at the Ice House, serving food and drinks to loud-mouth tourists, whom I've already, and I'm sure that you have too, had more than my fill of for this year and the next nineteen thousand, two hundred and forty-six of them, combined?" she sarcastically asked him back and in doing so, was basically voicing his own thoughts out loud.
"Something like that. Do you think that if we, and by that I of course mean you, since I barely know the man beyond having had to ask him a few times, if he knew which order was for which table and saying "Hi" and "Bye" to him at work a handful of days a week, asked your dad nicely, he would give both of us a long weekend off?"
"I'm sure that could be arranged, considering how hard that I've been busting my butt to fill in for Bessie at the restaurant so far this summer. Do you have any ideas for what we could do, that preferably takes us at least twenty miles away from Capeside for a day or two? You know that I usually love living here, but with how it is around here these days, it's making taking a solitary trip to the center of the North Pole sound like heaven on earth right now!"
"I'm right there with you! Have you ever tried sailing from here over to Martha's Vineyard? It isn't all that far from here, plus it's a beautiful little trip, where we could spend some alone time and while we're there, maybe we could find a B&B or something like that, to stay at for the weekend?" he suggested and waited with excitement, while she thought his suggestion over.
"It sounds nice on paper, but won't Martha's Vineyard be just as overflowing with obnoxious and annoying tourists, as it is here?" she asked, bringing up a logical point.
"It probably will be, but you're forgetting one extremely important thing: Up there, we'll be the obnoxious and annoying tourists, who pay to bug all of the locals, until they're at their wit's ends and make them wish, they'd chosen somewhere else to call home, at least for these few months out of the year!" he (somewhat truthfully) quipped at her and from the pleased look on Joey's face, he already knew what her answer would be, before the first word came out of her pretty mouth.
"You had me at "Annoying", Pacey! I'll talk to my dad about it tomorrow and I'm sure that it won't be the slightest problem, once my sister is literally back on her feet again. Anyway, we should think about getting going, or we'll be late for Jen's par ..."
"You almost said "The No-No Word" again!"
"Why can't we just call it, what is it? It's a flipping birthday party, so why do we have to call it anything else than that?" an annoyed Joey scoffed.
"I'm torn between whether to call it A: "An understated box social, that could be bordering on entering into hootenanny territory, although I have to doubt that it will go that far". B: "A gathering of like-minded individuals in Jen's honor, complete with music that she for most part won't like, but plenty of excellently tasting food, that she no doubt will" or my own personal favorite, C: "The all-time biggest collection of teenage misfits in Capeside's history, all joined together under one roof, to celebrate one hell of a girl that it's physically impossible not to like, when you get to know her, and for reasons, that she would prefer if we didn't talk about". What do you think?"
"That all of those self-penned titles of yours need to be severely shortened! Do we have everything that we need?" she asked him, just prior to them kissing one final time, before the rules of the outside world came into effect again and told them, that any overly grand showing of affection in a town like theirs, usually led to rumors of one kind or another beginning to run rampant.
After having spent nearly his entire afternoon and early part of the evening keeping Jen entertained, Jack's "work" for the day was done and all he had to do was get himself, Andie and Jen transported from his parents' house and over to Jen's grandmother's house, where a minor feast was awaiting her. A call to their local taxi service (whose proud motto, as it was written on the side of the cabs, was: We'll get you anywhere and on time, as long as you can pay for it!) later, and they were soon on their way. It wouldn't be many moments after they'd arrived however, before Jen began getting suspicious and it started in earnest, when she noticed an expensive looking Audi that Jack couldn't remember having seen before, parked right behind Jen's grandmother's old Buick in their driveway.
"What's going on, you guys?" Jen asked himself and Andie, right after he'd paid off the taxi driver, who'd driven off instantly.
"Nothing!" Andie tried very innocently arguing her case, although it was a feeble attempt at best.
"Then why is my mom's car suddenly and inexplicably parked outside of my grandmother's house, when I've talked to her a total of zero times over the past ten months?" Jen accusingly asked the twins, who nodded in agreement that telling the truth was the only way to go.
"Grams and Abby have been planning a sweet sixteen party for you for months now. I wasn't supposed to say anything, since they said that you didn't want to have a party ..." he began explaining, while Jen rolled her eyes in the most annoyed way possible at him.
"They're right, I didn't, and do you know why? Because my sixth sense was telling me that this would happen!" Jen exasperatedly got out, as her skin color simultaneously turned redder in its hue.
"She's still your mom, Jen. You'll have to talk to her again eventually, won't you?" Andie tried asking Jen, who was still looking torn over what to do next.
"You two don't know my mom, like I do. I just know that the first thing she'll do is send me some vaguely hidden remark, about how I've put on a few pounds, since I moved here, before she begins reminding me of every little thing, that I did wrong, while I was still living with her. It's simply what she does and there's no use in arguing with her, because she'll still see me as the biggest letdown of her entire life, no matter what I do. In other and much fewer words, I can't win with her, or my dad and that's the reason why I've had enough of trying to gain their respect. Do you understand where I'm coming from now?" Jen emotionally asked them and if Jack had been the kind of guy, who can pull the right response to anything out of his pocket, like it was as natural as breathing (something, that his older brother Tim had been born with a huge knack for), he would have fed her his best line about how someone needs to take the first step, or how forgiveness is the only way to inner peace. Instead, he just stood there feeling like a fool, for having no clue how to respond.
"Look, Grams and Abby did all of this work in getting your friends gathered here to celebrate you, simply because they love you and like us, they want you to enjoy and remember this special day in your life, for all of the right reasons to. If nothing else, can't you at least go in there for their sakes and try to see, if you can't enjoy yourself, even if your mom is here and you don't want to talk to her?" Andie imploringly asked Jen and after a moment or two of Jen debating internally with herself, they got a small nod for her and were soon leading her up towards the door to her grandmother's house.
END OF CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
