The Tribuo - 8. part II, chapter 1

PART II

ANDREW

October - November

- I -

“Oh, come on, Andrew! Tell me!”

“I just did!”

“You so didn’t! I know there’s gotta be someone! I mean, you wrote a love poem, for crying out loud!”

“So? It was just pure inspiration, that’s all.”

“Inspiration my ass! Tell me, Frey! Who was your inspiration?”

“Well, if you have to know…”

“Hell yeah, I do!”

“I was looking for pictures of Number Six, and there was a really awesome one, so…”

“Number six?! You wrote a freaking love poem for number six?! Frey, what is wrong with you?!”

“Ugh, DeeDee, you are impossible… Not number six… Number Six! You know… BSG?”

“BSG? What the hell is BSG?!”

“Jesus, DeeDee, do you even know me?! Battlestar Galactica! The blonde cylon? She is, like, beyond hot!!”

“Oh God, Frey… Are you telling me that you wrote a love poem for a chick in a TV show?!”

“Yeah. She’s been giving me wet dreams ever since the first season.”

“Jesus, Andrew…”

“Oh, shut up. Seriously, stop giggling!”

“I can’t… Oh my God… I am sorry, I can’t…”

“Ugh… If you won’t stop giggling, I am going to hang up!”

“Okay, okay… Woooo…. Okay, done!”

“Thank you. Now, back to math. DeeDee, if you will keep pestering me about the whole test thing again, I will murder you!”

“Oh, don’t be like that! I let you cheat off me in English, didn’t I?”

“Once, yeah… But this is, like, the seventh time!”

“Andrew, please!! I suck at math and you know it! Please? Pretty-pretty please? With a cherry on top?!”

“Oh, Jesus… Fine… I am gritting my teeth right now, just so you know.”

“Oh, I love you, Frey, I really do!”

“Uh huh… I love you too.”

“Oh, crap!”

“What?”

“Caleb needs the phone. He’s been glaring at me for the last half an hour. I gotta go.”

“Why won’t he just get a cell phone like the rest of the world?!”

“Because my brother doesn’t believe in spending money on monthly bills.”

“Doesn’t the normal phone come with monthly bills as well?”

“Yeah, but he is not the one who has to pay them. As long as it comes out of my parents’ pocket, he is fine with it.”

“Okay, fine then. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Bye, Andrew.”

“Bye, DeeDee.”

I hung up the phone and felt somewhat guilty. Usually I don't lie to DeeDee; we’ve been best friends since fifth grade, and we told each other everything. But this was different. I mean, Number Six was hot, and she really gave me wet dreams, but I didn’t write the poem for her. DeeDee wasn’t even supposed to see the damn poem, it was safely hidden in my math book. She was digging through it a couple of days ago, trying to see if I wrote any notes in the book or something, and of course, she found that stupid poem. She’s been bugging me with it ever since. “Who is it for? Tell me, Andrew! You are in love, aren’t you?”

Ugh… I considered telling her, but then thought -- no way. If I did, I’d never hear the end of it from her. If she even suspected that I’ve been drooling over Ellie for the last couple of months, she’d think I was a traitor or something. I mean, we were in 'We Hate Ellie' club since fifth grade. DeeDee wouldn't call her anything but 'Miss Righteous.' I used to be in the same boat with her. Ellie was one of those girls who would always do their homework and extra assignments; she would always come to classes at least ten minutes earlier; she would always walk with straight back (slouching was like a sin to her), and she never said a single swear word since I’ve known her.

DeeDee couldn’t stand her. She was driving me up the wall as well, with all her goodness, and righteousness, and all her straight A’s. But then a couple of months ago -- right when the school started, in fact -- I see her walking into the classroom with her books and whatnot, and all of a sudden, I feel like something whacked me on the head. I never breathed a word of it to DeeDee, knowing that she would probably put cyanide in my Coke if she found out. So tonight, after she kept bugging me on the phone with her endless “Tell me, Andrew! Who is she? Tell me!!” I felt beyond trapped, and then I glanced on my laptop’s wallpaper and immediately said, “Number Six.”

It worked. I shrugged and put the phone into the cradle. Whatever. So, I lied to DeeDee, big deal. I am going to let her cheat off me on the math test; we are even.

“Andrew!!” my mother yelled from downstairs and I winced. Good God, the woman could scream. “Come down! The dinner is ready!!”

I went downstairs and she immediately sent me to the bathroom to wash my hands. I squinted my eyes at her.

“You know,” I said thoughtfully. “I did wash my hands when I came home from school, and I haven’t left the house since… What exactly do you think I was doing in my room if you need me to wash my hands again?”

She shrugged indifferently.

“You never know,” she said. “Just wash your hands, will you?”

I hemmed, but went into the bathroom anyway. My hands were clean, but I knew that my mother wouldn’t let me eat until I washed them. She was weird when it came to hands and germs. She couldn't care less if she had spiderwebs on the ceiling or dog hair all over the floor (which we did; webs and hair were like old family friends by now), but when it came to hands, she would all but make me wear latex gloves every time I came anywhere near garbage. Weird.

I came out of the bathroom and sniffed the air. Smelled okay. My mother was never into cooking, but if she did cook once in a while, it came out surprisingly good.

“What are we having?” I asked.

“Rice and chicken,” she replied, and I nodded with approval. Her rice was good.

She looked at me briefly.

“Don’t give any food to the dogs,” she warned me and I sighed.

“I won’t.”

I would, and she knew that. We had two dogs in our house. One German Shepherd and one Saint Bernard. The St. Bernard didn’t shed too much, but he drooled like no other. The shepherd didn’t drool, but the amount of hair coming off that dog could easily fill three decent size mattresses. I was so used to all the drooling and the hair that I didn’t even notice it anymore. St. Bernard was my mother’s dog, and the German Shepherd was mine. By my mother’s and mine, I mean that I got to name the shepherd, and she named the St. Bernard. When it came to walking those dogs, they were both mine. I didn’t mind. I liked walking them.

Shepherd’s name was O’Neill (yup, Stargate SG-1), and St. Bernard was known as Morpheus. My mother had an obsession with The Matrix that bordered on unhealthy. Seriously, the woman would mouth every single word before the characters said it. Any characters, not just the main ones. DeeDee would always ask me how in hell it was possible for my mother and me to be almost friends. I would just shrug. I guess it would be less puzzling for her if my mother and I couldn’t stand each other -- that was an expected thing, right? But it wasn’t my case.

Ever since I was a kid, my mother would treat me as an equal, without all the high-pitched squealing voice crap, and all of that “Ooohhh, aren’t you a cute little boy!! Who is my bunny?!” nonsense. She would use a phrase 'Go away and leave me alone' quite often, but never in an annoyed way. She taught me how to read when I was two. She said later that it took me out of her hair. I could sit in my room and read for hours when she was doing whatever the hell she liked to do.

I never cared for the fact that I didn’t know my father. Mom said that he fled the minute he found out she was pregnant. She was pissed off enough to burn all his pictures, so I didn’t have a clue what the man even looked like. I didn’t care. I always felt at extreme ease around my mother. Sure, she would give me countless time-outs when I was six or so, but she would never spank me or anything. The only physical violence she would resort to was a thump on the head. She called them 'brain dusters.' I hated them. The woman could thump good. She would still do it occasionally, and I still winced every time her finger would pop in the middle of my forehead.

We were eating, and we both firmly believed in the fact that food was beyond sacred, so you shut up until you were done. Plus, the whole thing with pieces of food falling out of your mouth when you talk with your mouthful, was somewhat disgusting. So, we didn’t say a single word until we were done eating.

“Your turn to do the dishes,” my mother said finally, after she pushed her plate away.

I sighed.

“I know. How’s Paul?”

Paul was my mother’s boyfriend for the last three or so years. When she told me that she was seeing someone, she had that really tense, uncertain look in her eyes that almost screamed, “Please, don’t freak out!!” I never did. Paul was cool enough. He made my mother happy, and he never tried to act like he was my best bud whenever he came over. He’d just say, 'Hey,' shake my hand, and that was it.

“He is good,” my mother nodded. “We might go away for the weekend.”

“Cool,” I got up and started making coffee.

“Don’t smoke in the house,” she said immediately, and I rolled my eyes.

“I never do, and you know that.”

“I wish you’d quit,” she sighed. “It’ll kill you eventually, you know. And that will make me sad.”

I snorted.

“I don’t smoke enough to kill me. It’s not like I am a chain smoker. When a pack of cigarettes can last you for two weeks, it’s hardly a lethal dosage.”

“I guess,” she sighed again. “I just like the whole idea of a healthy child, call me crazy.”

“Crazy,” I nodded in agreement.

“Is DeeDee coming over tonight?”

I shrugged and pushed the Start button on the coffeemaker.

“She might. I know that she’ll be getting her answers from me tomorrow on the test.”

“One of those days, you both will get caught, and I will have to deal with you in the house when you’ll be suspended,” she grumbled and I laughed.

“We won’t get caught. We are pros by now, believe me.”

I almost told her about Ellie, but at the last minute, I bit my tongue. I knew that she wouldn't start cracking up or anything stupid like that. She wasn’t one of those parents who smirked at you the minute you even mentioned love. “You are way too young to even know what love is,” they would say, and you just wanna throw something at them. “You need to study and put all that nonsense out of your head. Wait until you are firmly on your feet…” Yada, yada, yada… I hate people like that. Thank God, my mother wasn’t one of them. The only time she actually did crack up when I mentioned love, was when I said that I would never marry anyone but Cindy Crawford. I think I was nine or so. The only thing she said then was, “Uh huh.”

She never freaked out at the idea of her son having sex. Her biggest beef though, was the fear that I would be stupid enough to get someone pregnant. I guess it was my father’s fault. She almost made me swear on the Bible when I was fourteen, that I would never be dumb enough to do the whole 'unprotected' thing. Well, I suppose disease catching was also the issue. I agreed, and promised, and swore, and that was the end of it. I kept my promise up until this point, and I was pretty sure I’d keep it in the future.

So yeah, I don’t know why the hell I didn’t tell her about Ellie. It was like all of a sudden, I was embarrassed or something, which was weird. I never got embarrassed with my mother. Not even when she walked in on me in the bathroom once, when I was… Oh, never mind. Let’s just say, I started believing in the powers of door locks ever since that day.