Interlude
Interlude – Dinner (Among Other Things)
“I believe you,” Reese said, slotting her declaration forcefully into the silence left while Yuri gathered her thoughts. “Stop picking at split ends you don’t have,” she continued. “I mean it, chicka, relax. I believe you.”
Equal parts chagrined and surprised, Yuri dropped the strands of black hair she’d been worrying at with shaky fingers. “Sorry,” she muttered. “This is… it’s pretty hard for me.”
Reese nodded, pushing her lone tuft of hair behind her ear. “Yeah, I can see that,” she said, “and that’s pro’lly the biggest reason I don’t think you’re yankin’ my chain. Don’t get me wrong, what you’ve been telling me is pretty out there, but I don’t think you’re lying to me. Doesn’t leave me any choice but to go ahead and trust that you’re telling me the truth as you see it.”
“I could always quote Shakespeare at you,” Yuri offered, trying her best to smile even though she knew it wouldn’t reach her eyes.
“I think you’ve done enough talking for now, chicka,” Reese said. “It’s almost five o’clock. I vote we take a break, get some food, and then maybe I’ll tell you a little bit about what’s been going on with me for a bit.” She stood, stretched, and offered Yuri a hand. “C’mon.”
Yuri accepted Reese’s aid, leaning against her as she got to her feet. “I’m not really hungry,” she said.
“Well, I’m making you eat anyway,” Reese replied. She grabbed a wallet and set of keys off a shelf near the door, as well as a black pack of clove cigarettes and a lighter. “You look like you haven’t had a good meal in years, sweetie.” She shoved everything into one of the many pockets of her low-slung cargo pants. “I’m taking you to Ledo, and that’s that. I’ll help you pull your bike in.”
Once Yuri’s bike rested safely against the wall near the window, Reese shoved Yuri out the door. “So, I have another confession to make,” she said sheepishly as she locked the door behind them.
“What’s that?” Despite herself, Yuri had resumed picking at the ends of a few stray strands of hair.
Reese fished around in her pocket until she produced the lighter she’d palmed and a cigarette. “You’re doing it again, stop it,” she snapped, cupping the lighter with one hand and flicking it with the other.
Again, Yuri dropped the hair between her fingers. “Sorry. It’s… bad habit, yeah. Hey, when did you start smoking?”
Reese inhaled deeply, causing the cherry at the end of the cigarette to flare. “Mmm, about six months,” she said. Smoke chased her words, swirling through the air and away on a breeze. “I was stressed, it was there. Not much of an excuse, I guess.”
Yuri made ‘gimme’ motions with one hand and took a long drag off the cigarette once Reese passed it to her. “Six months, huh? Yeah, sounds about right.” She passed the clove back and leaned against the white plastic railing that guarded the wooden walkway to the second story apartments.
“So you, too,” Reese said, bumping her shoulder against Yuri’s as she leaned on the railing next to her. She held the clove in a ham-fisted grip as she let her arms dangle over the side. “I wanna ask you what happened,” she continued, “’cause it seems like things were pretty cool at first, but I told you that we were gonna let you have a break.”
“It’ll take me a while to get it all out,” Yuri said. She cast her eyes downward, studying their hands in the warm light of the early evening. She saw Reese bump her arm more than she felt it, and she gratefully accepted the cigarette that had been offered. “I know I didn’t make this up, but telling you about it, I feel like it’s made up. It’s like these things didn’t happen, like they didn’t happen to me. Sometimes, even when it’s only me, I just keep having to tell myself, ‘This is real. These things happened.’ But it’s hard.”
She heard Reese fishing out and lighting another clove. “Life’s weird,” Reese declared with a puff of smoke. “I mean, we just never know what’s gonna happen, who it’s gonna happen to.”
They stood together, shoulder to shoulder in silence, for a few minutes, periodically ashing over the railing and failing to blow smoke rings into the distance.
*
It took less than ten minutes for them to drive to Ledo Pizza in Reese’s tiny Toyota. Once they’d seated themselves and placed drink orders, Reese dragged Yuri outside with a paper menu and lit up another clove cigarette. After inhaling deeply, she passed it to Yuri. “This was the ‘peace offering’ Lexi made me. This was way back, though, before I moved out, like right after he and Matt started their thing.”
Yuri took a long drag off the clove, holding the smoke in as long as she could stand before exhaling. Her hand shook as she passed it back, leaving a smudge of ash on the toe of Reese’s green Converse shoe. “So how did that go?” she asked, her voice thankfully much steadier than her hand.
Reese snorted. “‘Awkward’ doesn’t even begin to cover it. It felt like he was some skeevy dude trying to audition for the part of my dad or something. It was kind of awful, but it makes me snicker when I think about it now.” She shrugged and pushed her hair behind her ear again. “When he offered to take me out to lunch again, I figured, ‘What the hell, why not?’ It was free food, y’know, stupid as that is.”
“Free food is a good motivator,” Yuri said. “You guys wouldn’t be living in the apartment if it hadn’t been for pizza. I can’t blame you for taking advantage of a couple of free meals.”
“Free meals TINSTAAFL aside,” Reese said.
“All things considered, I think TINSTAAFL totally applies,” Yuri said, lips quirking up in a sardonic smirk. “I mean, you have to share a bathroom with him now; I’ve seen his hair products.”
“Well, yeah, I know that now,” said Reese with a chuckle. “But anyway, yeah, it was really weird at first. Like I said, almost skeevy. After the second one, he asked me for a third, and I started getting to know him.” She paused to take another drag, and passed he cigarette to her friend. “We just kept going like that, I think he musta blown like, a hundred dollars on lunch for me over a couple of weeks. I started talking to him, in between stuffing my face.”
Yuri scooted closer, leaning her forehead against Reese’s bare shoulder. The smoke from the cigarette laced through her fingers, and she noted that it was significantly shorter than she felt it had any right to be. She took the last vicious drag from it and dropped it to the concrete at their feet. Her friend crushed it beneath one heel, grinding to be sure there was no spark left.
“So, I started telling him about me and Mom for some reason,” Reese continued, draping an arm around Yuri’s shoulders and leading her back inside to their table. “I dunno, I guess I felt like after all the money he threw at my stomach I owed him something. Not that he ever acted like it, I just felt bad not talking to him since he was buyin’ me food. And so we’re sitting in the food court at St. Charles Town Center mall, and I’m spilling my guts and suddenly I just start bawlin’, y’know?”
They reclaimed their booth and sat down simultaneously, Yuri tucking both of her feet underneath herself, and Reese splaying her legs out under the table. Their waitress drifted back to their table and set out their drinks and some silverware. “What can I getcha?” she asked in a thick southern drawl. When Yuri gave her the briefest of nods, Reese rattled off their orders: baked cheese fries, a Caesar salad, two strombolis, and a single plate of lasagna. The waitress scribbled a few scrawls onto the pad that dangled loosely from her hands and sauntered off without another word.
Despite herself, Yuri couldn’t help smiling. A feeling of relief washed over her, and a knot in the pit of her stomach loosened; she squared her shoulders and sat a little straighter. “I guess it’s a good sign that after all this time, you can still order for the both of us when we get food. So, anyway, you were spilling your guts and started bawling?”
“Right,” Reese continued, “in the middle of the food court! And so he just gets up and just hugs me and pats my hair till I stop, ’cause this was back when Mom wouldn’t let me shave it. That was the first time I felt like maybe someone other than you gave a rat’s ass about how I felt, and it was the first time I got a good whiff of how he smelled.” The hints of a wistful smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as she talked, and Yuri felt a stab of empathy with her friend. “He smelled like cloves and Old Spice.
“Anyway, after that, we had a little truce going. Or maybe a ‘time share,’ I dunno.” Reese shrugged and toyed with the straw in her Coke. “It was weird. I’d have Matt all to myself for a couple of days out of the week, then Lexi’d have him the rest of the time, and usually once or twice a week he’d get lunch or dinner for me. Sometimes it was just fast food, y’know, and sometimes he’d drive me down to someplace like Red Lobster, but most of the time, he’d give me a ride home after school or something and just make food.”
Yuri pulled her drink closer and began chewing on the straw while Reese talked. “Was it any good? The food he made, I mean?” she asked around her straw, hoping to encourage her friend to keep going.
“Oh, hell yeah,” Reese said, nodding emphatically enough that her hair fell back into her eyes. She grumbled and pushed it back behind her ear. “I haven’t made Lexi cook for you, have I? It’s insane. I don’t know why he’s in a band, he should be training to be a five star chef or something. Anyway, he was just so nice to me that I couldn’t keep hating him. Eventually, I was hanging out with him almost as much as I was hanging out with Matt. Then one day, you remember, the day Mom ‘kicked me out,’” Reese emphasized the phrase with air quotes and a sneer, “I was feeling really low, and he was there and… well…” She trailed off, averting her eyes and blushing.
Sensing where Reese had been taking the conversation, Yuri frowned, put her drink back on the table, and reached across to pat one of Reese’s hands. “I’m not judging you,” she stated firmly. “I promise you I won’t judge you or think badly of you or anything. Hey, look at me, c’mon. We’ve been friends for years, I’m not gonna think worse of you for telling me this.” She smirked. “You’d have to tell me you were a post-op Saddam Hussein before I’d start to question why I’m your friend.”
Reese snickered, trying to hide her embarrassment behind one hand; Yuri let her. “Some days I wonder about you, chicka. But that’s why we love each other, I guess.”
“Yeah,” Yuri said, patting Reese’s hand again. “So… what happened after that?”
“I pretended it didn’t happen for a little bit,” Reese said. Her fingers returned to toying with her straw. “I felt horrible. It lasted all of, like, two days. Finally I broke down and told Matt what happened.” She scowled, and Yuri patted her hand again. “Those were probably the worst days of my life. I always looked down on those so-called ‘best friends’ who went and messed around with their friend’s gal, y’know? And there I was, I’d just gone and done it.”
“I’d thought you were miserable because you were crashing on Lexi’s couch,” Yuri said. “I had no idea. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay, chicka,” said Reese, her expression brightening just a little. Yuri squeezed her hand across the table, and Reese squeezed back. “I was afraid of what you’d think, ’cause you know how I feel. And it worked out in the end. After day two, I couldn’t take it anymore, I cornered Matt after school and spilled my guts and begged him to forgive me. And that jackass just laughed! I mean, yeah, looking back on it now it’s kinda funny, but at the time it was just too much, and I practically beat him within an inch of his everlovin’ life.” She chuckled a little, and Yuri leaned back and resumed chewing on her straw.
“Well, okay, you know I’m not that type,” Reese admitted, “but I did sock him good on the arm a couple of times.” She shrugged. “The rest is just really boring and awkward. But that’s how it happened.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you,” Yuri said with as much sincerity as she could put into her voice. It was true, she regretted being too wrapped up in her own problems to be a better friend.
“It was my own damn fault,” said Reese with another shrug. “I could’ve said something, but I didn’t. Can’t really blame you for that.” She grinned. “Hey, lighten up, here comes food.”
Sure enough, their indolent waitress returned bearing a large tray with their order on it. With little more than a lazy, “Here ya go, hon,” she shifted their plates from her tray to the table and sauntered off. Reese’s grin grew wider, and she made a production of breathing deeply of the steamy vapors wafting up from their meals. Yuri grinned, too, as she watched Reese start tearing apart a stromboli across from her.
Yuri began picking at the cheese fries, humming thoughtfully to herself. “This is good,” she declared, though she wasn’t entirely sure if she was referring to the fries or something else entirely.
“Yup,” agreed Reese around a mouthful of lasagna.
*
They returned to the apartment with a pair of take-home boxes, sated and cheerful. Once the leftovers had been safely tucked away in the refrigerator, Reese pulled Yuri down onto a beanbag chair with her and hugged her fiercely. Bemused, Yuri returned the hug as best she could from her awkward position in Reese’s lap.
“You feelin’ better, chicka?” Reese asked.
“Yeah,” Yuri said. “Yeah, I am. Thanks.”
Chapter Nine – Chapter Ten
Tags: Chapters, Reese Cooper, Yuri Kitazawa
April 5, 2009 12:01 AM 
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By Klaas, May 24, 2009 @ 11:04 AM
I see that there has been no new chapter for quite some time. Too bad, as I’d love to see where this is going. Will check back from time to time.
By S. Gates, May 24, 2009 @ 12:27 PM
Yeah. My personal life kind of took priority. Once I get moved and settled (sometime in mid-June), I will hopefully be able to resume regular updates. :)
By Klaas, May 31, 2009 @ 10:43 AM
Well, patience I have in great amounts… Take whatever time you need :)
By daymon, July 9, 2009 @ 6:14 PM
At least Yuri is getting along with her friend. And not thrown into a mental hospital.