Redundant Disclaimer: I do not own and am in no way affiliated with either Toyota or Ramblin' Jack Elliot.
Angers Bridge (France) - collapsed on April 15, 1850 when 478 French soldiers marched in lockstep across it causing the bridge to collapse due to excessive weight, resonance and corroded anchors. 226 of the soldiers died in the Maine river below.
Sunday Morning
Charlie's POV:
"Rise and shine sleepyhead! I'm surprised you're not up yet, you usually don't sleep in this late."
No, I usually don't get to sleep in this late. How late is it anyway? I stretch my body out and my right foot comes in contact with Pythagoras' butt causing him to shuffle to the left a little. Becoming accustomed to being awake again, I smack my lips a couple times, "Nngh, what time is it, Mom?"
"Why, my little teddy bear, it's after nine already!" My mom said as though she could hardly believe it herself. "Get up and get dressed dear, we're leaving in half an hour."
I blinked blearily at the blob that is my mother sans glasses. "Where are we going?"
"A bakery. We got a coupon in the mail the other day, so we thought we'd give it a try. Sounds good, doesn't it?"
My response was an unintelligible noise behind my hand as I stretched again that my mom doubtlessly interpreted as, 'Yay! I can't wait!'
On her way out she threw open the curtains; the weak sunlight leaking across my bed is the only reason I slept so late. Since my bed is right under the window and my curtains might as well be slutty hydrogen bonds, on the weekends the sun is usually the only alarm clock I need.
It's not even that late really. Anne has repeatedly told me that she isn't even aware of life beyond her bed prior to at least ten o'clock on the weekends. In the past I have tried to call her before ten, but rather than being greeted with a sleepy "hello" Anne answers by snarling, "You don't exist!" and then hanging up. It's a little too existential for me, especially on a weekend morning.
Hmm, it does feel nice to sleep in. It'd be even better if it happened more often than whenever a cloudy weekend morning rolls around.
I only really wake up once I get in the shower. The cuts and scrapes from my "fall" are healing nicely, but they still sting a little when the water hits them. I try to keep my hands and knees away from the direct spray; it makes for a rather awkward shower.
It was in the shower where I recalled what happened Friday morning. I had been worried the rest of Thursday and all morning Friday that Chris was somehow magically going to pull an 'A' out of his ass on the quiz and insist that we go out this weekend.
Mrs. Wyatt always gives the quiz first thing Friday morning. When everyone's finished I grade them while she teaches the next lesson. Obviously I graded Chris' first, my stomach was in knots the whole time, only relaxing when I realized there were too many mistakes for an 'A.' I smiled giddily to myself, a low chuckle or two may have even escaped my lips. I had to physically restrain myself from putting a big smiley face next to his 'C.' Maybe this so-called truce could work to my advantage 'cause now he has to ignore me for a whole week!
After my shower I threw on some jeans and a faded green t-shirt and headed downstairs. I found my mom and dad reading the newspaper around the kitchen table.
"Ah, the son also rises! Are you hungry?" My dad inquired with his newspaper at half-mast.
I shrug, "Not really, but I probably will be by the time we get there."
My mom puts down her paper and claps her hands, "Ok! Everyone ready? Cylindropuntia bigelovii?" She looks at me and I nod, she then shifts her attention to my dad, "Helianthus not so hirsutus?" She can't help but giggle a little every time she says it.
My mom thinks she's funny; she pokes fun at my dad's receding hairline fairly dad just looks exasperated and says, "Yes, dear."
One of my mom's hobbies is that she likes to give people rather unwieldy nicknames based on what plant their hair or hairstyle resembles. It seems completely antithetical to a nickname's purpose, but she doesn't appear to care. I keep my hair shaved really short ever since third grade when Nick Greene "accidentally" smeared his grape Big League Chew in my hair. Accident, my ass, it was practically atomically bonded to my hair. My mom was forced to cut the gum out leaving me with a huge bald patch in the back so, I just shaved it all off. All because I beat Nick in the Spelling Bee - sore loser.
I've never grown my hair back, simply because the maintenance is so easy. I just have to buzz my head with an electric shaver about once a month and I'm set. No brushing, nothing. It's perfect.
Before I shaved my head, we were a family of Helianthus hirsutus, which is commonly known as hairy sunflower, since we all have various shades of blonde hair. After I shaved my hair, I became known as Cylindropuntia bigelovii, or teddy bear cholla. Nauseatingly cute, huh?
We grabbed our jackets, just in case the sky decides to make good on its threat and drench the city, and piled into my dad's silver Prius. As soon as he turned the car on everyone's ears were assaulted with Ramblin' Jack Elliott's gravelly voice wailing, "Doctor, doctor, get your x-ray machine / Feels so good, just about like morphine," at an unnaturally high volume.
"Dad!"
"Oops. Sorry." My dad craned his head towards me and gave me a sheepish smile after he had turned the volume down from ear splitting to background music. My parents aren't old enough to be original hippies, but they're pretty good reproductions. They listen to folksy music, care about the environment and human rights issues and, of course, wear sandals practically everywhere.
You might think that being an accountant is an odd career choice for a neo-hippie, but as my dad says, "Not everyone can stand on a corner beating a tambourine while yelling about the world's injustices, some of us are numerically inclined. We all help in our own way." My dad's way is doing the books for a couple non-profits in town.
As an accountant, my dad absolutely abhors waiting in lines, he thinks they're a waste of both time and money. So, when we pulled into the packed parking lot behind the bakery, I knew what the routine was going to be.
"You better go inside, Charlie, and save us a place in line."
"Sure, Dad." There was no point suggesting, 'maybe there's no line, Dad.' My role in our family is that of line-holder. Mom will have to take over for me when I go to college. Maybe I could start a line-holder business at university since it'd be a shame to waste all this valuable training.
As I walk up to the bakery I can't help but notice the back wall facing the parking lot has an elaborate mural spray painted on it. It's mostly a large pattern of colorful swirls with intricate drawings embedded in them. Interesting in a weird, artsy sort of way.
I pull open the glass doors and sure enough there's a line, but it's not a bad one, just about five people in front of me. While waiting, I scan the room. The walls are painted a soft maroon color and the tables and chairs look like a mishmash of old garage sale finds. All of the tables look full so we might have a hard time finding a place to sit. The wall facing the street is composed of large picture windows looking out onto the street and the rest of the walls have interesting pictures and paintings hanging on them. And by interesting, I mean none of them depict an overly idyllic farm setting or large country chickens and cows. Overall, it evokes a welcoming, homey atmosphere. I wasn't hungry before, but now the sweet smell of freshly baked goods has tripped my hunger response and I'm trying to decide between a cinnamon roll and my old standby, a blueberry muffin. I glance up when the line moves and realize I'm next in line. I move to face the front to order when I see the spiky green hairdo of an unfortunately all-too familiar person.
"What are you doing here?!"
He clearly hadn't noticed me either judging by the look of surprise that flashed briefly across his face before transforming into blank 'customer' mode.
"I work here." He spoke to me like I was a drooling child and slowly drew a line across his maroon t-shirt pointing out the words, "Bridges Bakery" printed on it.
"My parents own it."
This was too much, even for him. "Did you send a coupon to my house just so I'd come here?" I asked accusingly.
"Uh, no . . . I haven't taken my stalking to that level yet," he shrugged, "but if you want I could give it a try."
"Right." I scoffed disbelievingly.
Chris sighed tiredly, "Look, we send coupons out to all the houses within a five mile radius of the bakery. It wasn't a crazy scheme to get you here. Besides, I got a 'C' on Friday's quiz so I'm supposed to be ignoring you."
That said he twisted around and called into the back of the store, "David, I need some help out here." Then completely ignoring me, he stepped smoothly to help the customer to my left.
Such impertinence! He thinks he can feed me some ridiculous line about his parents owning this place and then ignore me! Well, alright, they probably do. His surname is Bridges and this place is apparently Bridges Bakery; how did I not notice that before? Now that I look around again I
notice a pretty significant bridge theme in the bakery. A lot of the photographs are of bridges. Damn you, flabby, underdeveloped observation part of my brain, damn you!
Out of the corner of my eye I see my parents enter the store with my mom going right to join me in line and my dad going left to find a table. By the time my mom caught up to me, David had come out to help us.
"What can I get for you today?" he trilled as though fetching us pastries is his heart's only desire.
"Hi, sorry we just need a moment. I've never seen such a large variety of muffins." My mom informed David as she stared at all the pastries in front of us.
"We have twenty different types of muffins," he said beaming proudly, "Let me know if you have any questions."
I don't bother looking, I'm too annoyed. Besides I always get blueberry muffins anyway.
"Charlie, look," my mom nudged me, "they have a Charlie muffin."
What the fuck?! That psycho named a freakin' muffin after me?!
My mom was still prattling on, "What's in the Charlie muffin?" she asked David while I contemplated just what kind of freaky stalker had attached himself to me.
"Pineapple, coconut and macadamia nuts. It's really good."
A frickin' fruity muffin!
"Oh, Charlie you have to try it."
"What exactly makes that a Charlie muffin?" I demanded.
"I don't know you'll have to ask Chris over there," David indicated Chris with a nod of his head.
"It was his idea."
Of course it was.
I kept trying to catch the evil muffin man's eye, but he was studiously avoiding me.
We got our pastries and found Dad. He had chosen a table with a tile mosaic of . . . dun-dun-dun, a bridge on it. When we settled down I noticed the lack of honey on the table for my tea. After asking if my parents needed anything and receiving a distracted, "No, dear," I wandered up to the front and found a condiment station of sorts. I grabbed a honey pot and turned to go, when the bane of my existence emerged from a side door. That sneaky bugger tried to move past me, even though I know he saw me, but I latched onto his right arm and swung him back around to me.
Again, he seemed surprised, although this time it was probably due to my touching him more than anything else. I dropped his arm and demanded fiercely, "Did you name a goddamn muffin after me?!"
Angers Bridge seemed completely unaffected, if not a little tired, "Yeah."
"And? Aren't you sorry? Aren't you going to apologize?"
"What for?"
"For the unauthorized muffin naming, you embezzler of names, you!"
Chris just stared at me a moment before slowly asking, "You're accusing me of embezzlement because I named a muffin after you? Don't you think that's a bit over the top, even for you?"
This made me pause. Am I overreacting? No, I don't think so. "No, I have a serious grievance here. I mean, that is just bizarre-"
He sighed again before interrupting me, "Calm down, Charlie. I just did it on a stupid whim months ago. It's a really popular muffin and I'm not changing it."
Wow, someone's pissy. I didn't ask him to change it, but an apology wouldn't go amiss. An apology that I'm apparently not going to receive anytime soon. Hmm. Time to try an alternate tack.
"Those aren't even things I would want in a muffin."
"I'm sure they're not. You probably like something really boring like blueberry muffins," when I looked affronted, he just smiled widely at me for the first time, "Besides it's not about being your favorite type of muffin, it's mine." With that Chris walked away whistling a carefree tune.
Unbelievable! Out of all the stalkers in all the world, why did I get saddled with him? Maybe there's some sort of stalker exchange program and I can get a much more stable and normal model. Or, preferably, no stalker whatsoever.
"That's him," I hissed at my parents while trying to surreptitiously point out Angers Bridge as he passed by our table completely ignoring us.
"Who, who are you talking about dear?" my mom asked, putting the newspaper down and looking around.
"Him!" I all but made airplane landing signals to indicate Golden Gate, now back behind the counter.
"The guy I told you about earlier! You know, the one who's obsessed with me."
My mom looked skeptically over at Chris, "Are you sure you didn't imagine his interest in you?"
"Mom!"
"I'm just saying, I don't even think he knows that you're here . . . he does know who you are, right?"
"Mom! He's practically in love with me!"
My mom just looked at me with a small, sad smile, "I'm sure he is, teddy bear."
"Dad, a little help here?"
My dad glanced up from his pastries and coffee, and looked around perplexed for a moment, "I don't see anything out of the ordinary."
Great, just great. The one time Pittsburgh isn't attached to me like a barnacle, I look delusional. Well, isn't this a nice turn of events!
"Mom, I'm telling you he's harassing me, stalking me even! He knows where we live; he, he knows Pythagoras!"
"Are you sure? You don't look like his type. I mean," she cocked her head to the side, "his hair looks like an aloe barbadensis and I think," my mom straightened her head and squinted at Chris, "I think he's wearing jewelry in his eyebrow."
My mom beamed at me. "Of course, I think you're my handsome little man, but he looks like he might be more interested in crime than calculators."
Why won't she believe me? Normally, I can't stop people from assuming that we're dating, but my own mom won't even consider the fact that he's infatuated with me. I need evidence.
"There, right there," I stabbed near the Charlie muffin with my finger, "that's proof! That muffin that you're eating right now, that is a Charlie muffin! Chris named it after me! It's a me muffin!"
"Oh, Charlie . . ." my mom slowly shook her head from side to side.
Dammit. I'll just have to take matters into my own hands. Now, where is that sneaky double crossing rat bastard? Ah, there he is wiping down some tables at the opposite end of the store. I
marched over to the evil muffin man and stood there patiently waiting for him to notice me by tapping my right foot against the worn wooden floor.
Unbelievable! He's acting like I'm not standing less than one foot away from him. Normally I wouldn't be able to get this close to him without him mauling me in some way. I mean this is prime manhandling territory! Ultimately, I had to resort to loudly clearing my throat to get his attention.
Angers Bridge looked up with an innocently surprised look on his face, "Oh! Charlie I didn't see you there." Yeah, right. He stood up fully and dropped the rag onto the table.
"I'm not surprised. I've never seen a table top get such meticulous attention paid to it. I was expecting you to wax and buff it next."
He smirked at me, "I like to save my waxing and buffing for when we're closed - less voyeurs."
"Uh-huh," I paused and rolled my eyes, "Anyway, come over to our table and tell my parents you've been stalking me."
Chris sighed deeply, "I was afraid of this. You didn't quite understand the terms of our agreement, did you? See, I knew you liked all the attention I gave you, even though you pretended to hate it. And now you think you can just turn me on like some performing monkey, 'dance for my parents, Chris dance.' No, can do Charliehorse. I have to stick to our agreement, even if you will not." Chris snatched up the towel, turned around and started to walk away.
Unbelievable! "Hey psycho!" I called after him, perhaps a tad loudly, "The only thing this 'agreement' has given me is another headache - thanks for nothing!"
Chris never turned around, he just kept walking towards the back. Defeated, I stomped back over to our table. My mom had a concerned look on her face and my dad was buried in the newspaper my mom had been reading.
"Charlie, honey," my mom started quietly, "when you call total strangers 'psycho' it reflects poorly on you, not them."
I threw myself at my chair, "Mom! He is psycho! Unfortunately, for me, he's not a 'total stranger' he's been stalking me for about two months now! He even tells people we're dating, when we're not."
My mom was quiet for a minute, just studying me. "Charlie, sweetheart, is this your way of telling us that you are of the homosexual variety?"
Oh. My. God. What is wrong with my parents?!
My dad finally looked up from his paper, peering at me over his glasses, "Are you . . . 'coming on' to us?"
"Coming out, dad. The phrase is, 'coming out.' And, no, I'm not gay. . . . At least, I don't think I am, but even if I were gay - I wouldn't be gay for Chris Bridges." I injected the evil muffin man's name with as much disgust as I possibly could.
My mom just looked at my dad, "Maybe we should join PFLAG."
My dad nodded his head before saying "We'll check into it when we get home, dear."
When we got home, my parents did indeed, check into PFLAG. They were so concerned with "letting Charlie be Charlie," that they stopped listening to me. I am now gay, in my parents' eyes. Any protestations to the contrary, they simply view as attacks on their parenting and implore me to "open up, we love you no matter what" with sad eyes and big smiles. Great. Just great. Even when Chris is officially ignoring me, he still manages to ruin my life.
Chapter ends, rambles begin:
Helianthus hirsutus (hairy sunflower)
Cylindropuntia bigelovii (teddy bear cholla)
Aloe Barbadensis (aloe vera)
Beta'd by xanthofile - thanks so much.
Thanks to xanthofile, mandraco, WittyWings, Roseth, magalina, pfeiffer, krista-pixie, Back of Beyond and calamity jane for reading and reviewing. Yay!