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Tuck In A Show -*- Copyright 2002 by Ellen Hayes.

Any resemblance between the writings in this work, and any actual
persons or places, living or dead, are purely coincidental, except when
used for satirical purposes.

This work contains adult situations, adult language, adult concepts, and
possibly sex.  If you are legally not allowed to read materials
containing such things, then you will be breaking the law by reading
this.  I am not responsible.
Continuing to read this document, or storing it or reproducing it
in any format means that you explicitly affirm that you are legally
allowed to possess and read such materials in your city, county/parish,
state, and country.

All rights reserved.  See the bottom for distribution rights.


Tuck In A Show


***
06:53 3 Sep

     "You look like shit," Jill mentioned, sounding concerned.
     "I feel like shit," I admitted.  "Fucking nightmares."

***
06:59 3 Sep

     Shannon carefully didn't smirk at me as she came in, and so I knew
that she had had something to do with the keying of my car.
     If I could just get some proof...

***
08:02 3 Sep

     "What the h-"
     "You are to GO to the PRINCIPAL'S office, Eugene!" Mrs. Vangormer
hissed.  "Now!"
     "Omerta," Mike said quietly, and Dan and George made handsigns for
luck, as I packed up my stuff and left.
     "But I didn't even do anything," I sighed to myself as I trotted
through the halls and the latecomers.

***
08:05 3 Sep

     "Just wait there, please," the secretary said to me, and pointed at
the Group W Bench.

***
08:18 3 Sep

     I had gotten agitated until I remembered that I had study hall now
instead of a real class.  Then I just stayed agitated, because the
longer it took, as people came in and out, the longer it looked like
this was going to take, and thus the worse trouble I was in.  Or,
something like that.  In any case, it wasn't good.
     "Eugene?"  *Oh shit.*  "Go on in to Mister Dobson's office."  *Oh,
great steaming hunks of shit.*  She was smiling, too.  They did that
when the hammer was going to fall on you big time.

***
08:19 3 Sep

     "Ah, Eugene," Dobson said with a smile.  I stifled a whimper.
     "Shut the door," he added as he sat down, and I did moan a bit then
as I turned around and shut the door.  "Sit down," he ordered.
     I sat, slinging my bags into my lap on reflex.  Besides, the laptop
was still cuffed to my left hand.
     "We're having a Field Day on the nineteeth," he said, "and while in
previous years it's been a, hmm, purely athletic event, I was thinking
that this year we should give more of an opportunity to the, hmm, less
athletically inclined students, to shine as well."
     "I'm not expelled?!" I gasped as I got what he was talking about,
and then slapped my hands over my mouth.  Well, that's what I was trying
to do.  What I actually did, was slap one hand over my mouth, yanked the
laptop up with the other arm, which dislodged my pack, which fell and
smashed my foot, and as I yelped in pain I tried to pull my foot loose
and stand up, and I'd forgotten the laptop again and it got tangled in
the chair, and I thrashed for about half a second and then was sitting
abruptly on the floor next to the chair, with my laptop clutched firmly
and very painfully against my chest.
     "Aaaaauuuggghhhh!"  Then I found out I'd smashed my tailbone.

***
08:24 3 Sep

     I limped painfully and slowly out of the office area, and the brats
still waiting on the Group W Bench got even quieter as I left.
     "Karina?" called the secretary, and I heard a yelp of fear.

***
08:28 3 Sep

     "What happened to you?"
     "Dobson's in a VERY bad mood today," I told the teacher as I gave
him my note.  His eyes got wide.

***
10:44 3 Sep

     "Hey, guess what?" I asked rhetorically.
     "You've found god and you're going into a monastery," Mike guessed.
     "No!  Dolt!  Dobson..."  With a second thought, I waved him closer.
"Dobson," I said quietly, "asked me to come up with some events for
Field Day this year, stuff that isn't purely athletic.  And said you
guys should help me."
     "No sh..."  I nodded.  "Oh, man...  And we have gaming today."
     "Gaming, or this?"
     "Uh...  Call after school, we'll get everyone together to work on
it at my house.  Play now."
     "What, now?  What about class?"  Mike waved his hand in the air to
indicate what he thought of government class versus gaming.

***
11:32 3 Sep

     "Hey Val!" Sabrina called, and so I looked over at her, wondering
why she was yelling since I was right next to her.
     "Don't do that," she muttered under her breath as she elbowed me,
and waved at some freshthing who was coming over towards us.  "How'd you
do?" she asked the other girl.
     "Oh, okay," the girl said, and looked at us.
     "Kids, this is Valerie, uh..."
     "Faciszewski," the girl said tiredly, like she'd repeated the name
a million times already.  And she was so young...  She looked, in fact,
almost too young to be in high school.
     I stuck out my hand to her and said, "Eeeyooo-gene Tucker," which
made her smile a bit.  "But I go by Tucker or Tuck."  Amanda mumbled
something and then shrieked at Mike for hitting her, so I was glad I
hadn't heard what it was.
     "This is MY little sister, and she was sort of worried about her
French class," Sabrina explained.
     "Did okay," Valerie shrugged as she looked down and sort of hunched
over, which combined with the fact she was smaller than me already made
her very small indeed.
     "And this is Mike, Tuck's bud," Sabrina said, and we all made nice
at each other.

***
11:33 3 Sep

     "Seems like you're not the only-"
     "Shut up, Mike."
     "-In town any more," he finished.  "How's it feel to have
competition?"
     "Shut the FUCK up, Mike.  Besides," I said, and then signed,
<T-R-A-V-I-S,> at him, which did actually shut him up.  "She can't
compete there," I smirked.

***
11:35 3 Sep

     And as if I'd summoned her by mentioning Friday, Julia came over
and waved a pair of tickets at me.  "Got 'em," she smiled.
     "So I CAN bring a date this time?" I teased.
     "Oh god no!" she said like she was shocked.  "Not to THIS!"
     Pause.
     "B-"
     She started chuckling at me, and I realized I'd been had.

***
11:37 3 Sep

     "Okay, Tuck, call me tonight when you're at work," Mike ordered.
"Otherwise, let's play, huh?"
     There was general assent, and I sighed and saved the notes file I
had been working on.

***
11:42 3 Sep

     "...And then," Mike said calmly, "the wall explodes."
     That blew our minds, and it took us too long to react, because when
we started yelling stuff at Mike, Mike was yelling stuff back at us,
about grenades and automatic weapons fire - silver 7.62mm belted! - and
stuff, and I knew this was what he'd had in mind with all those damned
extra points, I just knew it.

***
12:19 3 Sep

     "Oh, shit, oh, shit," I found myself mumbling again.
     "At least we managed to blow the cairn before they took it," George
commented, but he was shaken up too.  I'd say this was dirty pool on
Mike's part, but he HAD let us take all the arms dealer contacts and so
on that we'd asked for...
     And now we were paying for it.

***
12:24 3 Sep

     "Mister Tucker?" Mr. Ortega asked me as I came into class.  "How
are you doing your homework?"
     "Huh?"
     He waved a vaguely familiar looking printed sheet at me, and I got
it.  "Oh!  Laptop, using LaTeX."
     After a few moments, he asked, "What?"

***
12:26 3 Sep

     "See?" I said as I showed him what the equation he'd just tested me
with would look like.  "It's just easier to read that way, and I don't
have to worry so much about losing it or something."
     "How do you work the equations out?"
     "Uh, like on the homework?  Just like I did, uh..."  I pulled up
last night's homework file and showed him.  "See, there's all the steps
I used."
     "Hmmm," he said, frowning.  "Can you show me after school how you
do this?"
     "Uh, not really, I have to work and I have to leave school right
away...  Um, how about, uh, tomorrow lunch?"  Since we'd played today,
the leeches would be playing tomorrow, and I could get out of that.
     He indicated that lunch would be acceptable, and then seemed to
notice that it was past time for class to start.

***
14:06 3 Sep

     I was going to have to get my car door repainted or something.
This was depressing, just looking at it.

***
15:07 3 Sep

     "I hate girls!" Ricky announced as he piled into the car.
     I decided not to say anything at all.  Instead, I just pulled out
slowly and turned the cheap radio to something decent.

***
15:11 3 Sep

     "You didn't pick on other kids when you were a girl, did you?" he
asked me suddenly.
     When I was sure I wasn't going to laugh, or choke, I managed to
say, truthfully, "Uh, only when they picked on me first.  Why?"
     "I just, I just wondered," he lied.

***
15:25 3 Sep

     "Hello?"
     "Hey, Mike, you home yet?"
     "Nah, I got run over by a truck on the way."
     "Bummer."
     "Yeah.  Anyway, about that Field Day thing...  The guys are here,
stand by for multimode."  I pulled the phone away from my ear and waited
for the scream.

***
16:02 3 Sep

     "Hello?" Pam said, and everyone yelled greeting things at her.
"Wow, hold on a sec..."
     "I think the phones are gonna melt," I mentioned.
     "ESS7," Mike said confidently.
     "It's a lump of shit," I announced.
     "What's a lump of shit?" Sabrina asked.
     "ESS7, jeez," George snorted.
     "Sabrina?" I asked.  "Pam?"  Someone giggled.
     "How many people we got in this net anyway?" Dan asked.
     "Roll call!" Mike announced.

***
17:07 3 Sep

     "Okay, and-"  Xclock told me something I didn't like.  "Oh, hell, I
gotta go feed the baby and start dinner.  So-"
     I had to wait for everyone to finish laughing.
     "Just you guys wait," I said when it had died down, "until you meet
a real woman who isn't going to put up with doing all the housework and
a job too."
     "Ho ho ho!" Julia agreed.
     "Me an' Kim are gonna get us a housewife," Mike said proudly.

***
17:49 3 Sep

     "Have anything planned for this weekend?" Miz Parker asked as she
watched me cook.
     "Yeah, we're going out to do something Thursday, and then Friday
night we sort of got invited to a play, going with a friend of mine and
her date," I said.
     "What play?"
     "Uh, Shakespeare something..."  I thought about it.  "'Much Ado
About Nothing'," I finally remembered.
     "Ohhhh," she chuckled.
     "Good?"
     "All of Shakespeare is good," she said, "but I really like the
comedies.  And yes, that one's VERY good."
     I guess it was the food in front of me that made me think of it,
but I realized that we were not going to have time to make it to dinner
first, if the play started at nine, because we'd have to be there at
eight thirty to get parking, and earlier would be better...  Which meant
that I'd have to either grab some fast food - which was almost always
greasy and therefore pseudo-magnetically attracted to nice clothes - or
have him eat beforehand and I'd just skip.  Which made me sigh.

***
17:51 3 Sep

     "Why," Miz Parker asked, "don't you ask him to come over and eat
with us?"
     "Do WHAT?"
     "Well," she sort of smiled, "you ARE cooking, and it IS a
tremendous help," and she really smiled at that, with a hint of apology
in her face, "and...  I don't see any reason he couldn't come over and
have a nice dinner with us before the play.  Since you're cooking
already."
     "Well, but," I protested.
     "Well, if you don't want to..." she said.
     "Well..."  Damnit.  It almost made sense.
     "So you'll bring him?" she pressed.
     "Uh, so, so what do I fix?" I asked.
     She snorted into her hands.  "Um, Valerie, I think he'll be happy
with anything you've fixed so far."
     That was probably true, but it didn't help.
     Which reminded me-  "Which reminds me, do you have an apron?"

***
18:09 3 Sep

     "You think you can get all this stuff by Friday?" I asked,
nervously looking over the list again.  "And you think it'll be enough?
Travis eats like a pig."
     Miz Parker snorted and almost tripped over herself.  "Um, I think
it should be..."

***
21:09 3 Sep

     Something mail-like pinballed its way through the maze of systems,
and when it finally stopped I opened it.  It was mail, and it was from
Mike, which looked good, so I entered my passphrase and decoded it. "Got
it, printed it, looks good, I'll drop the list off at the office
tomorrow before homeroom," he'd written.
     "Great," I said to myself.

***
21:18 3 Sep

     "Hey, uh," Travis said nervously, "can I ask, uh, sort of ask a
favor of you?"
     "Uhhhhh, what?" I asked back, making sure my bedroom door was shut
for the dozenth time.
     "Um...  We were gonna go out Friday, right?"
     "Yeah?"  We'd just finished discussing that...  I took my other
hand and wiped down the hair on the back of my neck.
     "Well, my friends are kind of like your friends, I guess," and he
sort of laughed, nervously.
     "You want me to assassinate all of them for you?  It'll cost ya."
     He laughed for real at that.

***
21:20 3 Sep

     "You don't think, I mean..."  Going over and spending time with
them and their girlfriends tomorrow evening just seemed like a horrible
idea for some reason.
     "Naw, they're okay, really," he said.  "And I'll be there, right,
so you don't have to worry about anything happening.  Just, you know, if
they say something rude to you or anything, just tell me, okay?"
     That was assuming I'd go, which I didn't really want to.  On the
other hand, I couldn't think of a really good reason to tell him no.
Not one that sounded reasonable and didn't involve my personal fears.
     "Come on, Val, please?" he rumbled softly at me, and my brain
melted.

***
02:47 4 Sep

     Well, that was fun, getting sledgehammered to death by a high
school basketball team.  Not.

***
03:08 4 Sep

     "Well, like Kathy said, I ought to be stretching and stuff," I
sighed, and got down on the floor and started.  I really had been
neglecting my physical fitness for a long time, and a lot of it hurt.

***
06:02 4 Sep

     "Whups."  Playing music could apparently be absorbing enough that I
had almost forgotten I had to go to school today.
     I went over and told the Macinclock to shut up, and then went to go
check on my appointment dates.
     "Great, one per week after this.  I fucking hate my life," I sighed
to myself.  Then went to get ready.

***
07:39 4 Sep

     A sudden thought just struck me, as I was working on Jill, and then
my mind started racing, because if that laptop ever got stolen like it
had in the dream it was gonna be hell to try and get it back, UNLESS I
could find out where it was, and it DID have a Windoze partition on it,
so if I modified Lilo a bit so it would default to the OS of the Damned,
then I could fix something up - well, a few things up - and it'd look
normal but it would be passworded so if-
     The rap on my head brought me back to the real world.  "Hellllooo?"
Jill asked rhetorically.  "Earth to Tuck?"
     "No sweat," I said to myself.
     "What?"
     "Uh...  Nothing, I guess.  Had a vision."
     "You need to do something about those nightmares-"
     "Not a hallucination, I was thinking of some programming I have to
do all of a sudden."
     Her eyebrows went way down.  "What kind of programming?"
     "Uh, something for the laptop, in case it gets, uh, lost."
     "L-"
     "Or something."
     *Maybe a modified MBR...  Set it up, hrm.  If it gets formatted...*
     "Tuck!"
     "What?  Oh, sorry."

***
10:51 4 Sep

     Having a quiz in government this morning was hellaciously sadistic,
especially since I was having problems suspending the programming
process.  I'd already gotten tripped twice in the halls for not paying
attention to my surroundings.

***
12:03 4 Sep

     "Hmmm," said Mr. Ortega, but it sounded a lot like the sort of
'hmmm' that would allow me to keep using the laptop for class notes and
homework.  "And how much does all this cost?"
     "Heheheheh, the software is completely free!  Except you have to
spend some time learning it; it's not Windoze," I admitted.
     "I think I can handle that," he said.  "I used to do programming in
FORTRAN."
     "On what?"
     "IBM 360," he said with his mouth while the rest of his face said,
'What does a kid like you know about this old stuff?'
     "FORTRAN is awful for anything but bare math; C's better-  Anyway,
that's not the point; the point is, this is an already developed
application, you don't have to program it."  I pointed at the reference
manual.  "You just learn the typesetting language, and it starts pouring
out of your fingers, completely legibly and store-ably and reproduce-
ably and all that."
     "You're not... passing your homework around, are you?" he asked.
     "No," I stated firmly.  "Besides, wouldn't you catch on when all
the pages were identically printed?"
     "Not if they just recopied the problems in their own handwriting,"
he said.
     "Why would anyone go to the trouble of doing that?  Writing it
out's the hard part.  Jeez, it's just calculus!"
     He blinked at me, and coughed a bit.

***
12:58 4 Sep

     I caught myself intoning, "The code must flow," as I typed
frantically and managed to keep up with the lecture and diagrams pretty
well today.  I did manage to shut myself up before I got too many
strange looks, though.

***
13:11 4 Sep

     "Hey, uh, Tuck," asked some senior in my calc class as I was
leaving.
     "Yeah?" I asked, keeping my scan going in case he was distracting
me to set me up for something.
     "Uh, hey, dude, how ya doin'?" he asked, and grinned.
     #Click.#  "No," I said plainly, "you are not getting my calc
homework to cheat off of."
     "Hey, man, I wasn't even thinking of that!" he protested.
     "Yeah, right," I snorted, and left.

***
14:19 4 Sep

     One of the new dresses, maybe...  *I wish I'd remembered to ask
what we were doing, damnit,* I sighed at myself.
     Well, the black one looked good enough for just about anything
short of Marciano's, and I could stuff a shirt and shortalls and my Keds
into my pack, in case they wanted to do something like go jogging or
something.

***
15:38 4 Sep

     The rain was picking up again, and Ricky was starting to get decent
at juggling, at least three balls worth.  He could keep it going for
twenty or thirty throws.  I'd have to get him a set for his birthday or
Christmas; he'd like that.
     Stella, meanwhile, was beginning to enjoy walking about, which was
a Bad Thing, since the entire house was not made out of foam rubber, but
we were managing to avoid major injury.  Barely.

***
17:17 4 Sep

     Whee hah, feeding the baby who would rather be jogging.  I was
tempted to just stuff everything into her cheeks and let her suck it out
when she felt like eating, but that might make her jowly later on.

***
17:39 4 Sep

     "He said he'd love to," I told Miz Parker as we watched Ricky
juggle, "and he'd be here at seven."
     "Great!"

***
18:57 4 Sep

     The knocking at the door startled me and Miz Parker both, but when
I said it was probably Travis, she relaxed and Ricky ran off to go let
him in.
     "I, uh, guess I'm going early tonight," I sighed, and handed Stella
to her mom just in time to see Travis come into the kitchen, and stop,
and sniff.  And smile.

***
19:05 4 Sep

     After we got done kissing hello, I leaned against his truck and
asked, "So what ARE we doing tonight?"
     "Oh, nothing, just hanging around my place, having some pizza,
talking and stuff," he said.
     "You know, whatever," said a voice from Travis' truck, and
practically into my ear.  I told Travis I hadn't known anyone was there,
and that I was annoyed, by screaming, but I managed to catch my heart
and swallow it again before it could escape into the bushes.

***
19:26 4 Sep

     "Hey!  Vicki!" Bobby said enthusiastically to me.
     "Valerie," I sighed.

***
19:37 4 Sep

     I hadn't relaxed at Travis' place for some reason - I don't know
why I was nervous, hanging around all these guys who knew I'd just spent
part of the weekend naked in bed with Travis, haha - and when I'd
requested some alcohol, I'd gotten a small glass of bourbon and coke and
a long shoulder rub from Travis, which was really interfering with my
ability to talk.  The rub, not the booze.

***
19:58 4 Sep

     I guess it wasn't that bad.  Maybe it was the booze, hitting early.
At least the guys hadn't said anything nasty to me. Maybe it was the
three girls there.  Jessie, the girl who had been dating Bobby the last
time I saw either of them, was still dating Bobby for some reason, and
she'd been friendly to me, chatting to me about clothes and school and
cars and Princess Diana and stuff as the guys discussed pro football and
school athletics and school and cars and Princess Diana and stuff.
     "So," Jessie said, and motioned us closer, and continued quietly,
"I heard you and Travis had something special planned last weekend?"
And smiled at me.
     Maybe it was that the guys were afraid of Travis beating them, and
the girls weren't.
     "Yeah," I admitted with a sigh.
     "That was you?" Megan asked, a bit wide-eyed.
     "Were you really here all weekend?" Anne almost choked.
     "Oh god," I moaned.  "I need another drink."
     The knocking at the door almost caused me to piss myself, but the
guys hooted, "Pizza!" and got up en masse.

***
20:19 4 Sep

     Luckily, the arrival of food had indefinitely delayed any
discussion I was going to have about Travis and me and Labor Day, and I
was glad for it.  I was also drinking a lot slower now, since I ought to
make this one last.

***
20:47 4 Sep

     "You wanna WHAT?"
     "Aw, come on, Val!" Travis enticed.  "Just a friendly little game
of poker!"
     "For money?!"  That was like a friendly knife fight.  "How much?"
     "Oh, just quarters-"
     "No!  Absolutely NOT!" I protested.
     "Awww!"  "Come on-"  "It's just-"
     "Look," I said, "if you guys want to play for stakes like that,
fine, you can, but I don't want anything to do with it."
     "But if you don't play for real money, it's not real," Anne said.
And I'd thought she was the one sane cheerleader in the entire world.
     "No!" I said, more firmly.  "That's too high for a friendly game."
     "How high is okay?" this one big dude - well, they were all big
dudes, but he was near the edge of the local first-sigma - asked me.
     "Pennies."

***
20:51 4 Sep

     We'd settled on nickels, which was way higher than I liked but
survivable, and I thought that Travis would stop any fights before they
got out of hand too.  With nickel stakes, the fights might be stoppable.
     "Okay, so," Travis said to me, "watch how I do this, okay?"
     I watched, a little confused, as he clumsily attempted to shuffle a
single deck of cards.  *Is this a big scam?* I wondered.

***
20:58 4 Sep

     Apparently, my resistance to playing for real money, and my
willingness to fold when my hand sucked, had been taken as evidence that
I didn't play at all, or even know how it went.  Which meant that
everyone was being very careful to explain things to me as we all
played.
     It took me a while to figure that out.
     And they weren't playing anything but straight-up Hoyle five card
draw, except they didn't even apparently know there were other kinds.
     I suppose it was cruel and shameful of me, but I played along.

***
21:09 4 Sep

     I'd contemplated keeping up the innocent act, even passing on my
first turn at dealing, and seeing how much I could suck out of them
before they caught on, but the shoes I had on weren't good for running,
the stakes weren't high enough to be worth the risk, and Travis was my
boyfriend and I'd rather get things from him other than money.
     Besides, five card draw was getting boring.
     So, when the deck came around to me again and Anne dropped out to
get drinks, I smiled at the offers to shuffle for me, and showed them
how to shuffle cards.
     Zzzzzt!  Ffffffft, zzzzzzt!  Ffffffft, zzzzzzt!  Fffffft...
     They were all now looking at me.
     "You guys ever play seven card stud?" I asked as I slung the deck
over to Travis to cut.

***
21:12 4 Sep

     "Full house, kings high, sorry," I smiled as I flipped my hole
cards over, and raked in the biggest pot of the night, almost three
dollars worth.
     They were quiet.
     "And this is why I didn't want to play for real money," I
mentioned.  "If this had been quarters, you'd be REALLY upset."
     Things might have gotten unpleasant, then, if Megan hadn't busted
out laughing and hitting her boyfriend - I think - and pointing at
everyone and laughing harder.

***
21:49 4 Sep

     I'd been elected permanent dealer, over my protests, and so I'd
been shuffling cards all night, it seemed like, and my hands were
starting to hurt.  And I'd broken everyone at least once, passing change
back out in exchange for IOU's that I would never ever attempt to
collect on.
     On the other hand, they were smiling and joking and stuff again,
which was an immense relief.  I think I'd burned off all the ethanol in
the first ten minutes from nervous tension.  And, they'd learned at
least three more games that fell into the poker category, which was a
relief, since five card draw got boring with amateurs.
     Megan was still smiling a lot, though, and grinning at me, kind of
reminding me of Jill.

***
22:00 4 Sep

     "Noooo!  I gotta go home!" I protested.  "I have a curfew!"
     "Come on, I'll walk you out," Travis said as he got up.

***
22:09 4 Sep

     I could see a couple of people outside his front door watching us,
or kissing, or something, but I didn't much care.  I was much too busy
doing some kissing myself.
     "So, tomorrow night, be dressed nice, right?" I reminded him during
a pause.

***
03:32 5 Sep

     "Ah ah ah ah ah ah," I gasped, scanning frantically to make sure
that no one had followed me into my room from the casino I'd been
trapped in.
     The parallels were obvious, but that didn't really ease the memory
of getting beaten with chairs.

***
06:58 5 Sep

     "And Field Day in two weeks!" Jill said eagerly.
     "Oh, fuck," I sighed.  "I think I'm having a cold that day."
     "Aw, Val, come on, it'll be fun!"
     "Bah," Kim voted.
     "Who asked you, Grumpy?"

***
07:52 5 Sep

     "Stupid test," Jill grumbled as we left.
     "At least you studied," I reminded her.
     "Hoooooo boy," Kim sighed.  "That was a lot harder than I thought
it would be."
     "At least it wasn't an essay test," I mentioned.
     "I LIKE essay tests!" Kim reminded me.
     "Yer a perv!"
     "That's why you love me, and not her," Jill smirked, and we all
laughed, which got us some strange looks.

***
08:11 5 Sep

     "Hey, Tuck," George said as we were leaving, "Remember you're OURS
this weekend, man."
     "Okay okay..." I sighed, and resolved to get Mike to mention the
date I had tonight so I wouldn't have to argue directly.

***
11:32 5 Sep

     "You want TWO CD's for this ONE little favor?!" I complained.
     "Yes," Mike nodded and half-smiled, like he was being perfectly
reasonable.  "Because you want ME to explain it to GEORGE."
     "Uhhhhhhhhhh," I groaned in pain.

***
12:19 5 Sep

     Mike dinged the play bell, and I hadn't been so relieved in a long
time.  We'd already lost two of our contacts when the Black Spirals or
the cops (or both; I wasn't sure the cops weren't influenced) had shown
up unexpectedly, and now we were having to bail out of L.A. entirely.
And I for one had no idea where to go.

***
15:11 5 Sep

     "What's with the nice dress?" Ricky asked as he jerked a thumb back
to indicate the LBD that was hanging in the back seat area, currently
doing double duty as a sunshade for Stella.
     "Travis and I are going out to a play tonight, so I have to look
nice," I told him.
     "Oh and he's coming over for dinner, right?"
     "Yeah," I admitted, starting to worry about what to fix.  *Wait, I
decided that already-*
     "Can he stay and hang out?"
     "Uh, Ricky?  Didn't I just mention we were going to a play?"
     "Awwwww come on!" he protested.

***
15:29 5 Sep

     Ricky bailed out like the car was on fire, as he usually did, but I
was pretty close behind him considering I had to unpack Stella too.  I
did not have a whole lot of time today, and I had to get cracking.
     Luckily, inspection showed a few minutes later that Miz or Mister
Parker had gotten everything on the list, plus an apron from somewhere,
and so I was all set on that front.
     Until I went completely blank.

***
15:53 5 Sep

     It was still sunny enough to go swimming, and I had to work off
some of the tension I was feeling.  I'd never really cooked a big dinner
for a date before, and this was making me nastily tense.  Luckily, Ricky
still owed me around a hundred dollars in favors, so he was playing with
Stella in the water as I swam laps underwater and reviewed everything I
could think of about cooking.  And burned off tons of nervous energy.
     "Jeez, are you on swim team?" Ricky asked at one point when I was
catching my breath in the shallow end.
     "Hah, no."
     "You should be!"
     "Nooo," I grinned.  "Believe me, swimmers in high school go a lot
faster than me.  I can just hold my breath a long time."
     "No kidding!"

***
16:40 5 Sep

     Ricky was now apparently trying to drown himself by holding himself
underwater, but I'd convinced him he wanted to do it at the shallow end
of the pool without trying to swim too, since that would make it easier
for me to grab him and start CPR if he didn't come up.
     Of course, having to check on him every couple of minutes wasn't
helping my stress levels any.  I'd swear he did that on purpose if I
hadn't known he wasn't devious enough yet to think of it.
     "ABBBBaaagahahhrrrr," Stella squealed, turning it into a dribble of
spit.
     "Shut UP," I mentioned idly as I checked out the window for the
hundreth time.  Not dead yet-
     "Noh."
     Pause.
     "WHAT?" I shrieked accidentally.
     "Ahahahahahah!" she laughed maniacally.

***
17:22 5 Sep

     "Okay," I told myself.  "First stage done."
     *What the hell is next?!*
     "Shut up!  Uh...  Still wet from swimming," or at least my hair was
a bit damp, "shower.  Oh sh-"  I had the baby and Ricky and no backup.

***
17:25 5 Sep

     "Whyyyy-"
     I picked Ricky up by the arms and hauled him up to my eye level.
"Ricky," I smiled, as he gulped.  "Remember all that money you owe me?
Well, this is a way to pay off some more of it."
     "How much?"
     That sounded way too much like Brian.  Or me, come to think of it.
"Ten dollars," I said hastily, because I was over a barrel-
     "Twenty."
     "NNnnnng," I grunted as I lifted him higher and prepared to throw
his little mercantile ass into the pool as a warning.
     "OKAY OKAY TEN!" he screamed, just in time, so I put him down.
     "We'll call it fifteen, okay?" I said, and tried to put a pleasant
expression on my face.
     "Why are you going crazy?" he asked fearfully.
     I opened my mouth, then shut it.  Then opened it again to say,
"Ricky, you don't get it now, but in six years or so, you will.  When
you're dating someone, you want them to think good things about you, and
messing up a dinner or something makes you feel like five kinds of fool,
so-"
     "There's different kinds?"

***
17:41 5 Sep

     I checked my watch as soon as I turned off the water, and found out
I was over time and I had to get back into the kitchen IMMEDIATELY.  "Oh
SH-"
     Ricky had not picked his toys out of the tub, and neither had I,
and thus I almost got assassinated by a small rubber fish, as I moved a
little too quickly, stepped on the damned thing, and fell out of the
tub, causing myself an immense amount of pain in the process.
     As I lay there on the bathroom floor, writhing in pain, I hoped
like hell that I hadn't said anything loud enough for either of them to
hear-
     "Valerie?" called Miz Parker.
     I yelped.  I wasn't looking my best, what with no makeup, wet hair,
being draped over the edge of the bathtub writhing in pain, and my tits
on the counter.
     "Are you okay?" she called, and jiggled the knob.
     *Oh FUCK!*  "YES!" I screamed as loud as I could.  "I just
tripped!" I lied.  "I'm fine!" I also lied.  "Is Ricky still watching
Stella?"
     "Well, I've got her now," she said faintly, over the silent roar of
pain from my shins, knees, and tits.
     "Thank god," I said to myself, and relaxed a tiny bit, which hurt.
"Oh shi-" I said when I remembered I had to get into that stupid kitchen
immediately.

***
17:46 5 Sep

     Nothing lost, even though I was a lot later than I wanted; thank
Buddha and Vesta and a few other Powers.  I'd had to change back into my
shortalls and stuff, and I was still wet, but I'd dry out in a while and
then change, thus minimizing my nice clothes' exposure to food.
     "And she said, 'No', clear as day!"
     "Ohhhhh," Miz Parker chuckled.  "She just started doing that!"
     "You could have warned me!" I protested.  "I almost died!"

***
18:09 5 Sep

     The doorbell rang and I accidentally yelped.
     "How about I get that," Miz Parker suggested as she got up, "and
you go finish changing?"
     "Ahuh!" I agreed, but had to stand there like an idiot for several
seconds before I realized where the bathroom was and where the rest of
my stuff was.

***
18:24 5 Sep

     I do not know why Ricky had parked one of his Micro Racers near the
top of the stairs, and I wasn't really thinking about it as I heard
Travis' voice and realized he was WAY early.  "Travis!" I protested from
the stairs, figuring that since I could hear him he could hear me, "you
weren't supposed to be here until-"
     Foot, meet Micro Racer.  Micro Racer, meet Foot.
     Tucker, meet stair risers.
     When things stopped rattling, the first thing that fell into my
brain and out my mouth was an enraged, "RICKKYYYYYYY!"
     "Are you okay?!" Travis got out first as I wriggled frantically and
managed to get myself supine on the stairs, head down, which was just
about the complete opposite of how I wanted to be.
     "Oh, I'm having a WONDERFUL day!" I smiled.  "You look great."
Even upside down, he did.

***
18:28 5 Sep

     I had somehow - all and sundry gods, saints, buddhas, demigods,
avatars, spirits, and angels of luck and chance be praised - managed to
avoid both blowing out a tit and doing any more damage to my clothes
beyond shredding both stockings, but I had three spares in my pack.
     Travis looked a lot better than me, because his semi-calm worry in
a long sleeved white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, dark gray pants,
and - no lie - a set of old-fashioned buttoning suspenders, also in dark
gray, just looked immensely classical and practical and cool.
     I had a feeling I looked like I'd just escaped from Arkham Asylum.
     "I'm fine!" I lied energetically.  "I just need to change
stockings.  And no you can't watch," I smiled.

***
18:39 5 Sep

     "Ricky, please go set the table for five?"
     "But I-"
     I just shrieked wordlessly for a few seconds, and when I stopped he
was gone and a few seconds after that I could hear plates clanking.
     Miz Parker and Travis looked worried.
     "I'm having a stressful day," I admitted.

***
19:02 5 Sep

     "Uhhhhgh!" Ricky complained when he saw Travis, who had dressed up
further for dinner.  "You have to wear a TIE?"
     He didn't mention the high heels that were already starting to make
my feet hurt, or the makeup, or the hair stuff, or the bloody stockings,
or anything.  I was about ready to go back to a suit myself right now.

***
19:05 5 Sep

     When Travis looked at me and said, "It's great!" I slumped in my
chair and almost pissed myself in relief.
     "You should see the WEIRD stuff she fixes!" Ricky mentioned.
     "Nnngg," I said as I consciously clamped my jaw shut and grabbed at
the chair seat, that being preferable in a long term sense to screaming
curses as I leapt over the table and shredded him, in front of his
parents and my boyfriend.  It hurt, though.  A lot.

***
19:48 5 Sep

     "Oh god oh god oh god oh god..." I mumbled into Travis' chest as we
stood on the porch.
     "We don't have to go to the play," he offered.
     "We are GOING-" I stated firmly as my head snapped up, "to the-  Oh
SH-"  I dropped to my knees and started scrabbling in my pack for the
tickets, which I hadn't seen in at least twenty-four hours.  An
hours-long search finally produced them, and I sighed in immense relief.
Then I became aware that my knees hurt, like I'd just scraped them on-
"Oh no."

***
19:52 5 Sep

     "The STORE?"
     "BecauseIneedsomenewpantyhose!" I hissed at him in lieu of
screaming.  And I REALLY wanted to scream.

***
20:07 5 Sep

     "Where's the bathroom?" I asked the cashier.
     "Uh, well," he said, dragging this out as long as demonically
possible.  "We don't really have one for customers..."
     I had a fairly vivid hallucination of an anime-style buzz-claw
attack shredding his little acned face and body into a slow-motion spray
of hamburger, but I'd already eaten and I didn't have time.

***
20:39 5 Sep

     "Oh, hey," Julia said as she turned around.  "Val, this is-"
     "Where is the bathroom?" I hissed.
     "What's up your ass?" Julia asked, looking shocked.
     "Hey," said Julia's date as he pointed at my legs, "your hose is-"
     "Shutup!"

***
20:43 5 Sep

     "Thank you and wel-"
     "Where is the ladies' room?" I demanded.
     "You're being hysterical," Julia mentioned.
     "Whereisthebathroom?!"  The ticket girl pointed and I think I
levitated that way on sheer tension.

***
20:45 5 Sep

     I had to bang my head into the wall of the stall for a while,
because if I screwed up and ripped these while putting them on, I was
simply going to flash supercritical and detonate.  So I had to be calm.

***
20:47 5 Sep

     "Okay, okay, I'm fine," I lied to myself in the bathroom mirror.
"I have good pantyhose, everything is okay."
     I felt like a bowstring.
     And if that woman next to me didn't stop looking at me like I was
insane, I was going to snap.

***
20:53 5 Sep

     Travis had grabbed me as soon as I came out of the bathroom, by the
neck, and proceeded to strangle me.  Then he moved outwards, pushing me
face-first against the wall as he crumbled my bones, and then he kneaded
downwards.
     "She make noises like that in bed too?" Julia asked.
     "Uh, no," Travis admitted, sounding embarrassed, "not usually."  I
vowed to kill Julia as soon as I congealed, which hopefully would be
Monday sometime.
     It did feel IMMENSELY good.

***
20:57 5 Sep

     "Better?" Julia asked.
     "Uhhuh," I smiled as Travis held me upright.
     "Good," she said slowly.  "Dirk, my little spastic friend here is
Valerie, and her masseuse is Travis.  Guys, this is Dirk, my escort for
the evening."
     They said hellos; I mumbled and smiled.
     "Please observe that Valerie's pantyhose is ABsolutely perfect,"
Julia mentioned, and as Dirk and Travis chuckled, I vowed again to kill
her as soon as I could stand up by myself.

***
21:07 5 Sep

     They'd actually done introductions of the players, and while I
probably wasn't going to remember all the names, I did at least have
SOME clue who was who at this point.
     "They should do that in every play," I mentioned.
     "Shhh!" Julia complained as she elbowed me.

***
21:11 5 Sep

     Don Pedro squinted and leaned forward, then said, "I think this is
your daughter," while looking at the messenger, who was quite male.  Don
Pedro tipped his hat, and now the messenger looked quite bewildered.
Benedick and Claudio grabbed the Don and aimed him at the two women.
"Ah!" mentioned Don Pedro, and smiled and lifted his hat again.
     Leonato stated, "Her mother hath many times told me so," as Don
Pedro handed Hero - what a weird name for a girl, even an Italian one -
the bundle of flowers he'd been carrying.
     "Tha-  Tha-  Tha-  Schhtz!" Hero convulsed.  And again.  And a
third time.  On the fourth, Beatrice yanked the flowers away and handed
them to the messenger.  "Dankyoum'lo-o-o-" Hero stuttered out and six
large handkerchiefs came out from various males.  She grabbed blindly at
one and exploded into it.
     And Don Pedro smiled and tipped his hat to the messenger again.
     "Were you in doubt, sir, that you asked her?" Benedick said.
     We hadn't stopped laughing yet.

***
21:23 5 Sep

     Beatrice replied, "What should I do with him?  Dress him in my
apparel and make him my waiting-gentlewoman?"
     We weren't the only ones laughing, but I was probably the only one
that got Julia's elbow in my side.

***
21:38 5 Sep

     "In every good thing," Benedick answered.
     "Nay," Beatrice contradicted, "if they lead to any ill, I will
leave them at the next turning."
     A loud, "Sccchtz!" came from the left side, where Hero had wandered
off with Don Pedro.
     "NOT THE FLOWER GARDENS!" all the cast yelled in that direction.
     "Schhhtz!"
     "Sorry!" came Don Pedro's voice quavering back.

***
22:37 5 Sep

     After singing the dirge, Claudio put the big mess of flowers on top
of Hero, who was laying on the altar or whatever it was they put dead
people on in Italian churches.
     "Oh no," I whimpered, and put one hand over my mouth and used the
other to block Julia's elbow.
     "Now unto thy bones goodnight!" Claudio intoned, as all the men's
heads bowed.  Hero took the opportunity to surreptitiously shove the
flowers off, but Don Pedro reached down and put them back up.  "Yearly
will I do this rite!"
     You could just barely hear a faint stifled whimper.

***
22:39 5 Sep

     "Good morrow, masters: each his several way," said Claudio sadly.
     Don Pedro answered, "Come, let us hence, and put on other weeds;
and then to Leonato's we will go."
     As they all turned away from the altar, Hero finally lost it and
spazzed up into a sitting position with a painful, "AaaCHHHTZZZ!" and
just barely managing to catch the flowers as they flew off.  Just as
fast, she slammed herself back down, as Friar Francis eeped.
     They all snapped back towards the altar just in time to see Hero
laying peacefully dead on the altar, hands wrapped around the flowers.
     They turned back around, slowly, looking perturbed, and Don Pedro
said, "What, did you hear that?"
     "Alas, my lord," Friar Francis said boldly, "when the king taketh
ill the entirety of the realm be wracked with chill and the churches all
the pious fill, yet as my poor altar boy, my sister's spawn, do have the
ague, there be none to give the slightest breath of succor..."
     Don Pedro snapped his fingers, and Claudio sighed deeply, dug in
his purse,  and handed Friar Francis another few ducats.
     Hero spasmed again, this time torquing sideways, and Friar Francis
dropped the coins, but Don Pedro bent down quickly to pick them up, and
handed them to Claudio.
     Claudio grinned as the Don turned away, but a "Hrrrmph!" from the
Friar made him stretch his arm out and drop the coins, right into the
waiting hands of the Friar, who made them disappear.  Then Claudio wiped
at the back of his neck with a puzzled expression.
     "I say, is it raining?  In the church?"
     "Oh, well," Friar Francis improvised hastily, almost glancing at
Hero, as Don Pedro looked up uncertainly at the ceiling, "as you know,
my lord, the rains this year have done much for the farmers and vintners
but alas, my thatch roof doth not prosper nearly as well in the wetness
as the fields and vines, and so when it rains as it did this morning,
a heavenly weeping no doubt for the fallen Hero-"
     Don Pedro snapped his fingers and Claudio winced, then reached into
his pouch again - with the same hand he'd wiped his neck - and pulled
out some more ducats, which the Friar grabbed without thinking and then
stared at in horror.
     "And Hymen now with luckier issue speed's than this for whom we
rendered up this woe," Claudio said, and he left with the Don.
     As the lights went off, there was an "AaaaSHUUTSZ!" in the
darkness, followed quickly by a slap noise and a whiny, "Ow!"

***
23:28 5 Sep

     What Travis hadn't done with a massage, the play had done to my
brain, because it was funny as hell once my ears adapted to the
language, and I had laughed so hard my makeup was ruined.  I had a
feeling that they'd taken a few liberties with the script, though, since
I hadn't ever heard any rumors of a collaboration between the Marx
Brothers and Bacon.  Either of them.
     "They really took some liberties with the play," Julia mentioned,
shaking her head.
     "Yeah, but it was FUNNY!" I countered.
     Some woman passed by, trailing a cloud of tear gas, and I sneezed.
     "What, did you hear that?" Dirk said, and we all broke up.

***
23:34 5 Sep

     As Julia turned away from the sink, I flicked a bit of water at
her.
     "I say, is it raining?" she shot off loudly as she looked up and
wiped her neck, and all the women in the bathroom cracked up.

***


"EVERYONE knows Roger Bacon wrote Shakespeare!" - ehayes


Distribution:
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+ ==[--------   Ellen Hayes   @>--,--'---      ellen@barkingduck.net +
PGP DH/DSS keyfing: 33D4 156A AE39 53E2 0313  6714 2878 56A8 61B0 9CDC
+ http://www.barkingduck.net/ehayes -=[1990]=- vicki .sig virus 11.4 +


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