#stave

He already slid onto a stool in front of her, “How’s your shift going?”

“Oh, I’m swamped,” she said gesturing to all the cleared tables. “What are you doing here?”

“Thought you could use some company. You mentioned Tuesday nights were slow,” he said.

“It’s Pizza Parlor, their two for Tuesday pizzas, and five dollar bucket of beer are just too good of deals,” she said, shaking her head woefully.

He snorted.

The last week had been good. He had been good. He said he was letting Stacy go and he was. They were just friends. And as friends they had been spending time together as Stacy got ready for her audition.

Lucy had been coaching her to loosen up, which was shockingly difficult for her. Dustin had been helping her with some of the technical aspects in trade for more guitar lessons. As for himself, Steve was serving as the audience. 

It had been good, fun even. Nights Stacy wasn’t working and her mother wasn’t home, he’d come over, usually with Dustin or Lucy, and he’d watch her practice. Sometimes commenting or putting in his opinion on something for her set, but mostly he got to lean back and listen to her voice, as she came to life, shedding off all the graham cracker armor she usually wore.

She wasn’t wearing much in the way of armor now.

“Seriously what brought you here?”

“Just needed some air,” he said hoping she wouldn’t probe deeper, while at the same time hoping for the exact opposite.

“Yeah?” she asked. There was a tone of doubt in her voice.

He fidgeted in his seat.

“I got my last letter back, from my safety,” he said finally.

“And?” she asked.

He didn’t want to say it, so he shook his head.

“Oh Bambi… I’m so sorry.”

He scrubbed his hand over his face, “Yeah.”

“That just sucks.”

“I just… I feel like this whole year has been a nonstop kick in the teeth. First Nancy, then the… you know everything in November, loosing the championship, again, and now…”

“Not the senior year you expected it would be?”

He almost laughed at the understatement, “No, not really.”

He put his head in his hands. He could feel her eyes on him.

Why the hell did he come here? He could have waited; called Stacy when she was done with work, or tell her at school tomorrow.

He wasn’t lying when he said he needed some air. He hadn’t thought about coming here, outside of fact he knew Stacy would be here, and she wouldn’t pity him. But maybe he was wrong, because she wasn’t saying anything.

Finally, he looked up.

She was looking at him. Her eyes were concerned, but her red brows pinched together, and her mouth pressed into a thin line. Her thinking face.

“Help me marry these ketch-up bottles?” she asked, picking up the bottle in front of him.

He shrugged and helped her gather the bottles from all the tables and setting them on the counter. They worked with him in silence for a few minutes. It was a mindless task. Just something they could do with their hands.

“Expectations…” she said under her breath.

“Huh?” he looked over at her.

"Sorry I was just thinking. Expectations. How you expect your life to go. Do you think there is a difference between hope and expectation?”

“I honestly never thought about it.”

“I have, a lot more these days actually, and I think expectations just queue you up for failure.”

“I don’t get it,” he said.  

“I think I’m kind of pessimistic. I don’t think things work out. For a long time I’ve just sort of expected the worst so I just stopped trying… I didn’t have any hope, you get me?”

He started to nod then shook his head, “But if you expect good things and then good things happen, what’s the problem?”

“I think you are satisfied but not happy,” she said.

“Those are the same thing,” he said.

“No, they’re not,” she said setting down a ketchup bottle.

He gestured for her to elaborate.

“Expectation is something you are extremely sure is going to happen, you rely on it happening so when it does happen you just think that’s life going as it should, and when it doesn’t it’s a huge disappointment. Hope on the other hand is a leap of faith. I’m not one hundred percent sure this will happen like it does in my imagination but that’s not going to stop me from trying. And if it does work out, you’re over the moon, but if it doesn’t work out yeah, it sucks but it’s not the end of the world. Does that make sense?”

He made a so-so gesture with his hand.

“What I’m really driving at is that you had this idea – this expectation - of where your life would go. You expected college, knowing exactly what your major would be, getting a super-hot girlfriend who is writting a pulitzer prize winning novel”

“What?” he laughed.

“I don’t know, you like hot smart girls.”

“How do you know that?”

“Uh you dated Nancy. Hot, smart, clearly in charge, and you weren’t intimidated.”

He snorted again.

He hadn’t really thought about it all that much, but yeah. He liked a smart girl, or at least a girl who was smart enough to see through his bullshit, someone who would give him a little push back when he needed it.

Kind of exactly like Stacy.

"Also, you know there is Lucy. You got a type,” she said with a shrug.

He blinked, “What are you talking about?”

“Lucy, you know about ye high, blonde, great boobs if you can ever get her out of a sweater, loves her friends, 3.5gpa.”

“I’m not into Lucy,” he said quickly.

“You’re not?” she asked raising an eyebrow.

"God no!” he couldn’t believe she was even asking.

“Kind of a strong reaction.”

“Look me and Lucy, no. Just no.”

Stacy crossed her arms, “What the hell is wrong with her?”

“Nothing!” he said.

“Isn’t she pretty?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t she sweet?”

“Yes, but she’s like cake she doesn’t have any—” graham cracker-y crunch “—bite to her. I don’t like her like that. She’s like a sister or really close cousin. We are just friends.”

“Uh-huh,” she said in an unconvinced tone.

“We are friends,” he repeated, emphasizing friends.

“Okay, okay. I just noticed you guys spend a lot of time together,” she said.

“I spend a lot of time with you,” he said.

“Yeah but…”

“But what?”

“Nothing.”

“What?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Just tell me!”

“Look I know Lucy likes someone. And she won’t tell me. Which is very un-Lucy like. I know it’s not Jonathan. So, I thought maybe it might be you.”

He baulked a little, because he absolutely knew who Lucy liked. A certain freak who she spent every other Friday evening playing dungeons and dragons. One who happened to be a drug dealer that stank of BO and pot and was Stacy’s ex.

“It’s not me,” he said. “And why wouldn’t she tell you if she liked me?”

Stacy let out a breath, “I don’t know.”

Something in her tone told him that her reasoning made her think she knew. He had to quickly smother the spark of hope that flared in his chest, the one that shined out in big bright letters ‘SHE LIKES YOU AND DIDN’T WANT TO UPSET LUCY THAT’S WHY YOU DIDN’T KISS!’

He wasn’t going to do that. He had already decided that he and Stacy weren’t getting together. They would be actual real friends. His feelings would be platonic again, some time, soon hopefully.

 "What was I talking about before?” she asked.

“How I should be happy that I got rejected from all my schools?” he said.

“That wasn’t what I was saying,” she said.

“It kind of sounded like it.”

"I was just saying, you had an expectation. It sucks that it didn’t work out the way you wanted it to, and you could fall into a deep well of disappointment fantasizing about all the what-could-have-beens, but I think you’re going to be okay. Graduating isn’t the end. It’s the beginning of adulthood. And you are the most stupidly hopeful person I know.”

“Thanks?”

“I do mean that as a compliment, I’ve never once seen you go ‘No I can’t do that,’ or give up completely. You are the most try, try and try again, person I know. If there was anyone who is the embodiment of getting back up on the horse, it’s you. You are flexible, I have never seen someone recover as quickly as you do.” She leaned her hip on the counter and looked away from him to the front doors. “It’s okay for things to suck, but just don’t wallow in it to much is all I’m saying. You’ll figure it out. Don’t have any set expectations, just a little hope that things will work out.”

“How do you know?”

“I don’t know,” she sighed, “But I believe in you. You’ll be alright.”

Steve felt like he may have glimpsed something a truth that Stacy believed in. Maybe no one, not his parents, not his teachers not even the President of the United States, knew what they were doing. Maybe they were all just stumbling around in the dark navigating by touch and trying not to get hurt too badly.

“What if I get lost?” he asked. It was almost a nonsense question. The kind a little kid asks. If it had been anyone else he would have been embarased saying it, but Stacy seemed like she knew exactly what he meant.  

“That’s what your friends are for,” she said and grabbed a rag out of the bucket to wipe down the bottles.

He looked at her, “That actually does kind of make me feel better.”

“I do what I can.”

“So, what should I do then?”

“Well… what makes you happy?”

He paused considering for a moment, “...sex.”

She coughed out surprised laugh, he laughed along with her.

He leaned back in his chair and shook his head once they both quieted down, “I guess I’ll have to think about what that is.”

“Once you figure it out let me know. Maybe I can help you,” she said.

He watched her continue to wipe down the ketchup bottles. Never in his life did he imagine this would happen, sitting up at a counter, getting life advice from Stacy Romero of all people. But he had always wanted friends. People to talk to. People who would listen. There were only a handful of moments he would describe as a conscious choice to make that happen, but he did do it.

The final rejection letter sucked, it really sucked, but strangely he didn’t feel sad about it right now. He actually felt kind of at peace with it.

For a moment world seemed to be in some kind of soft focus. It was just him and Stacy. It was the feeling knowing that this memory would be something that would sustain him. Something warm and soft that he could hold tight to his chest when life got to be too much.

Stacy standing behind the counter in her apron talking with him, a smile tugging at her lips, her red hair piled on top of her head, with a few curls trying to escape.

She glanced at him, “What?”

“Nothing. You’re a good friend. I’m really glad I know you.”

She swallowed, “You’re a good friend too.”

“Can you promise me something?”

She set down the bottle she was holding, “What?”

“After I graduate, promise we’ll still be friends. Even if we move state we’ll still call, hangout when we can.”

She held out her hand, “Promise.”

He took it, and they shook on it.

A tension in his chest released. This was what he wanted. A friend that would always be there.  

Stacy’s audition rolled around the next week.

Just like the valentines day dance audition they were being held at the gym.

He came to support her, with Lucy and Dustin, but to his surprise Nancy and Jonathan were there too with their little brothers. He still said hi to them in the halls, but he hadn’t done any kind of social hang with them in a while.

It was surprisingly easy to slide in with everyone.

Even Jonathan who wasn’t his biggest fan, nudged him, “Stacy told me you helped her prep for her audition.”

"A little, I mostly just sat around and pretended to be the audience.”

“Still, it was cool of you to help her out,” he said like it almost pained him to say it, “I think it meant a lot to her.”

It clearly did if she mentioned it to Jonathan.

“Yeah, well you know, she’s a good friend, she means a lot to me,” Steve said.

Jonathan nodded, and leaned back. That was all the conversation they were going to have he guessed.

Stacy did her audition without a hitch, seeming a lot more relaxed than she did at her first one. Though her face did turn beet red when she finished and their whole group whooped and hollered for her like she had played The Garden.

That earned them a glare from Mrs. Darby and they all made their way out silently after that.

“Was I alright?” Stacy asked.

“You were great!” Lucy said, almost jumping on her to give her a hug.

“If they don’t pick you, they’re idiots,” Jonathan said patting her shoulder.

“Seriously you nailed it,” Nancy said, giving her a smile.

Stacy looked to Steve, like she was waiting for him to confirm everything they were saying was true, not just the babble of supportive friends.

He smiled at her, “You were awesome, very punk rock.”

“Well, we’ll see what they decide,” she said.

“Things will work out Stace, just have a little hope,” he said. “You guys want to get some food?”

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