A New
Beginning
Chapter 15: Control Over the Game
(Un) Important babbling-notes from Cimmy: Still no spell-check, please don’t laugh at my grammar. Long chapter, eat something before you start reading. But not while you’re reading, the keyboard might get ruined. Okay, I’m done.
Hey, Mary, this chapter is dedicated to you, because you asked for me to post it. Me be lazy. And Kristine, I hope you had fun at the 4th of July. Noone’s going to smack Guy’s ass, because he can’t help being a jerk sometimes. Okay, NOW I’m done.
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No one argued with me for the next couple of days. It was seven boring days from Christmas Eve to New Years Eve. Instead of describing my cold, and all the sneezing I provided with, I’ll describe something else.
Guy told me that he’s proposing on this Eve instead, because he chickened out the last time. “Everything has to be perfect,” he said to me, but I know that he just didn’t have enough courage.
Jen was annoying, and she was really being a kiss-ass towards everyone but me. She’s trying to win my friends over to her side. She can have them, as long as I can keep Adam.
Charlie was freaking out two days ago because he got the stupid idea of his mother being pregnant. I don’t know where he gets his crazy fits, but this one was the strangest one since he thought Bombay was his biological uncle.
Adam called to tell us all that the snowstorm had forced the people in Minneapolis to stay inside all Christmas. His sister Lauren broke her arm when she was doing a play in school. She’s six years old and Adam couldn’t stop talking about her starring role in ‘Cinderella’.
Portman’s only apperance during the week was when he stole back the Playstation with a courageous move. After that, no one has seen him at all. Once in a while his voice could be heard, screaming at some character from Tekken 2.
Connie was out having snowball fights with Russ and Dwayne. The TV kind of broke.
Jesse was selected to climb up on the roof to fix the antenna after Dwayne couldn’t take it no more. When he fell down, Fred had to climb. Jesse is currently lying on the couch, being pampered by a guilt-strucken Charlie.
Fred did sadly enough not fall down, but he’s now Dawyne’s hero for fixing the TV.
Today is the big day. It’s the last day of 2002, the last day of Guy’s life as a free man, the last day of my cold, and the second to last day before we go home. As a tribute to this day, as the ‘last day’, we’re having a ‘catastrophy marathon’ on TV. ‘Armageddon’, ‘Deep Impact’, ‘Pearl Harbour’, ‘Independence Day’ and ‘Dogma’.
I was still in bed while the rest of the squad were out rolling around in the snow. Okay, so I don’t exactly know what they were doing, but they could’ve been out playing in the snow, right?
Connie on the other hand were NOT rolling around in snow. She was busy occuping my bed, watching Ricki Lake in syndication. I’m sick and she’s placing herself across my legs to watch talkshows? Not fair.
Anyway, it was her idea to watch catastrophy movies. I sneezed and she took that as an agreement. It’s not so bad, she usually comes up with a lot crazier stuff than that.
I dragged myself downstairs, leaving Connie to yell at the TV. She’s quite loud when you think about it. Not the kind of princess people mistake her for, but she’s never been. Why give people the satisfaction of being right when you can play with their heads? Connie is my hero, because she’s not the stereotyped little girl everybody thinks she is. I think I am, though.
Dwayne was sitting on his usual spot on the couch, flipping through the channels, waiting for the rest of the guys to show up. I sat down next to him and leaned my head against the head-rest. “Where’s Gina?” I asked.
“You mean Corinne?” he answered.
Well, there’s about twenty guys on the team. I can’t possibly keep all their girlfriends apart, can I? Charlie can, but he’s Charlie. And I was right about the fact that he did have his girlfriend with him on this trip, right? Give me some credit!
“Yeah, were is she?”
“Back in Boston, probably.”
Okay, so give me no credit then.
“Sorry. I thought she was here.”
“She’s not,” Dwayne said. “But thank you for asking.” He sounded like a train had just run over him. Great, our moods were just at the same level.
“Wanna talk about it?” I asked. I have to ask that question, even though it sounds like taken right out of a teen-show. I’m offering to listen to other people’s problems, because I’m the co-captain. But not for long.
“About what?”
“About Corinne, or whatever it is that makes you so fond of the TV.” My intuition as the captain tells me that he’s having some sort of problem. Maybe I should have psychology as major instead of journalism? No wait, my major is ‘too lazy to care’...
“I’m not having a problem,” he told me and stared at me. My intuition isn’t what it used to be. He’s telling the truth, because not ever have I experienced a day were Dwayne finds something too difficult to handle. He’s problem free and happy most of the time, even if his head is among the clouds most of the time.
“Sorry. I’m just trying to come in handy. You sure you don’t have a problem? I can give you a problem, and then solve it for you,” I offered, knowing how much I was babbling. Dwayne rolled his eyes and gave me the remote. When you think about it, it was actually quite a gesture he did.
Until yesterday, my mind had been filled with thoughts about my up-coming life as a failure. Yes, I know you’re tired of me ranting about that, so I won’t say it no more. It’s a new year, so why live in the past and worry about the future? I’ve decided to just handle the presence and everything that comes with that. It’s my new year resolution. That, and to not smoke and drink ever again. Don’t laugh.
Charlie and Dwayne ran off to look at the fireworks Russ and Guy had been out buying. What is it with guys and explosives? Fred got like that everytime he sniffed dynamite close by. Can’t they just watch the damn fireworks at midnight like normal people do? No, they have to touch and look and smell at the stuff as well.
Portman was outside the window, making an igloo. Maybe he was tired of charing room with Russ or something? I watched him work for a while, puzzled about him not throwing himself at the fireworks. But he probably hadn’t seen them yet, no one bothered to tell him because they all thought he was busy with the Playstation.
Connie came jumping out on the porch. She had her matching scarf and mittens on, plus ear-muffs and brown boots. She looked like a snow-bunny. If you haven’t seen a snow-bunny, I can just say that they look adorable. Yuck. I couldn’t look like that even if I asked Snow-Barbie for help. You know, that doll with the skiing-equipment and a pink outfit...? Never mind.
“What’s up?” Connie asked. Portman just put his hand up and shushed her.
“I’m concentrating on making this right,” he announced. “It’s quite an arty thing to do, this igloo thing.”
“‘Arty’ thing?” Connie laughed. “Have you been reading a dictionary?”
“Yeah!” he exclaimed with a grin. There was a couple of seconds of silence, leaving me the chance to open a new can of Coke. “Alright, don’t sulk. You can help.”
Connie made a little skip-thing and took some snow in her hand. I’ve never seen anyone get so happy just to be part of an igloo-building team. I watched them play around for a while. Portman kept trying to kill her by shoving snow into her face, but Connie wouldn’t take it. Snow where flying all over, so I closed the window to keep the snow from ruining the food. They are so childish.
Dwayne came back in followed by Jen. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that he liked the attention he got from that fairly beautiful woman. Her impact have shoved him off course. This should be interesting.
“I can help you carry that,” I heard Jen say.
“That’s fine, I’ll take it.”
“Of course, you’re such a strong guy. Why should I question your ability to carry that heavy... hammer?”
Wow, she’s really giving everything she’s got on this. She’s trying to sweet-talk Dwayne. What a difficult task to do...
Jen and Dwayne disappeared out again, Jen yapping about how much she admired guys who worked out. I felt like throwing up. Connie and Portman on the other hand, hadn’t sweet-talked each other at all. They were still throwing snow, and the poor igloo was once and for all destroyed. Three minutes later they were rolling down the hill behind the house.
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“I can’t remember the last time we did this,” Charlie announced, making everyone pay attention to something else but the TV.
“The last time we did what?” Connie answered with her mouth full of chocolate.
“Spent time together without arguing,” he went on.
“Don’t worry, it’s only six o’ clock yet. We still have time to fight,” Portman replied monotonously. I don’t even think he knows what he’s talking about.
My cold was gone, but some people had stolen it from me. Connie was one of those people. Maybe it was because of me, or that rolling down the snowy hill earlier today. Hard to tell.
“Could you get the napkins?” Connie sniffed at me. I nodded and went out into the kitchen. She was kind enough to bug me during my cold, so I should repay her by fetching napkins.
I decided to look through the fridge again, in case something had been overlooked by the others. When I closed the door, Charlie was on the other side of it. I made a startled noise and took a step backwards. Crap, what would he want to talk about?
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” I said slowly. “Unless you want me to be doing anything. I think I’ll go and check how the chicken’s doing in the oven.”
“Wait,” he said pointedly. “I want to say something.”
Oh, God.
“You know how we used to fight all the time?” he said without waiting for me to respond. “That was bad, right?”
“I guess.”
“And how you used to compare me to Fred all the time?”
“Yeah...”
Charlie put his finger on my shoulder. “This is my compassion. Where’s yours?”
I laughed. “ I guess I don’t have any. Sorry.”
“It’s okay. You’re a better captain then a girlfriend. At least according to my standards. You’re entertaining in your own sort of way, but I rather be your friend then your personal assistant.”
“I... I actually don’t know what to say,” I admitted. “You’re too grown-up for me. I’m not a charity case, and I don’t like to be treated like one.”
“Of course you do. But you don’t want me to treat you like one. You want someone else, and I don’t blame you. I’m too experienced for you, darling.”
“This coming from the guy who’s willing to give the impression of collecting girlfriends, but still hasn’t slept with more then four girls in his entire life-spam?” I shot back. The truth is more fun to use against someone then a lie can ever be.
Charlie blushed for a few seconds. Charlie never gets embarrased over anything, but I made him blush. Only that is a victory for my new life-style. “Let’s make a deal. You don’t tell Coach Bombay about my failures, and I won’t tell anyone about your secrets.”
“It’s not true,” he muttered.
“Of course it is,” I smiled. “It’s only fair. You know the people I’ve slept with, so why shouldn’t I know about your adventures?”
“How the hell did you find that out?”
“It’s like the time I figured out how much you were driving without having a license. I’m the assistant captain, and I know things about people they rather see hidden in the back of a cave. I plan on being the assistant captain for a long perioid of time too, so you can kiss that suspension goodbye, Conway. But it was nice of you to waste two months of your life on me. I owe you a favor for that.”
“Tell Dwayne to skip that movie about those guys in the rain, fighting over money, and we’re even,” Charlie whined. “Heroes are measured by their actions.”
“I so didn’t understand that,” I said and went out into the living-room with the napkins and a lot of weight lifted off my shoulders.
I fell right into a huge discussion between the rest of the Ducks.
“When you fall off a horse, you should get right back on it again,” Portman explained patiently.
“Forget it, we’re not playing truth or dare ever again, you got that?” Guy complained. For a person planning to propose, he’s awfully busy eating popcorn. He’s so going to die if he chicken out this time as well.
“Everytime we play that stupid game, someone gets mad or sad. And people always end up yelling at each other for some strange reason,” Connie sniffed with a voice reminding me about Kermit the Frog. She’s having a cold.
I realized that everyone was looking at me. What did I do?! “It’s not just me!” I exclaimed. “I never yell without reasons.”
“Like the time you were arguing with yourself and no one could figure out who you were mad with, so we all just assumed it was Fred who was the target?” Charlie asked. “When in reality it was Guy?”
Guy stood up. “What did I do?” he said with the same tone I used two seconds ago.
“Does anyone actually knows what she’s going on about at times like those?” Portman muttered. “Because I never understood it.”
I gave him my most evil eye. “Maybe you weren’t in on the secret, Dean.”
“Hey, don’t call me that!”
Connie sniffed dramatically. “And this time we didn’t even have to play the game. Just mentioning it made us go nuts.”
“She started it!” Guy and Portman said at the same time, pointing at me. Kindergarten time had just begun at the Mighty Duck Camp. I put my hands on my hips and pouted. While the three of us started the usual bickering, the others begun talking loudly about their own business. Like usual.
Charlie got up on the table. “Shut up! Cut that out! Stop with the choking!” he yelled and stomped his foot. He took that from me, I often stomped my foot when I was mad. I still do, but not as much.
“I’m still mad about the fact that she’s stealing the spotlight from me,” Portman whined, talking about me. Moi? Would I...?
“I’m not the one ruining truth and dare all the time!” I shouted. “I don’t start all the fights, and I’m not the source of evil!”
Charlie stared at me. “Are you sure?”
“Are we talking again?” I asked.
“Okay, so you didn’t actually start ALL the fights we had, but you were close,” Guy tried to medle. Wow, could someone make him a negotiator? Obviously he wasn’t even done, because he just went on without realizing how quiet he should be. “You know, back in high-school you were the source of lots of arguments, but you were never evil. Except from that time when you framed Nish and Fred for cheating, while blaming it on Julie. That was sort of evil.”
Fred gave up a short laugh, making everyone look at him while I was fuming with rage. “What? I thought that was pretty clever,” Fred explained.
“Yeah, I bet that’s why you kept arguing about that for weeks. All you did was yell at her, and she yelled back.”
“The part where Julie got blamed was still the high-light,” Fred muttered, totally disregarding that there were people in the room liking the poor goalie. When are those two ever going to accept each other? If Julie was here, she would’ve kicked ass. They used to be really entertaining to watch when they began bitching.
Since no one took Julie’s side this time, Fred’s comment slipped away into nothingness. If any other goalie had been in the room, hell would’ve broken lose. They all stick together, just like the defensemen and the forwards. I wonder why the captains don’t get the same fan-club as the rest?
“Hey, we didn’t fight all the time!” Fred objected.
“Of course you did! You fought about everything. What to eat, what to drink, where to sleep or what to do,” Connie spoke up, still with the Kermit-voice. “Could you just stop arguing about how you argued? I’m tired.”
Connie used to follow Fred around like I followed Guy around. I don’t know why, she’s older then him, so what’s the deal? Is he that irresistable, huh? No, he’s not. I went out with him for five and a half years, and I can definitely say that he’s not all that dreamy. He was good in bed, though.
Guy was always jealous of Fred for ‘having the best relationship’ so they had their fights over Connie. I probably would’ve been offended by that if it hadn’t been for Adam. He used to drive Fred crazy, because Fred always got ideas into his head that I was cheating on him with Adam. Hello, it’s Adam Banks we’re talking about! He’s practically a virgin! Anyway, while my boyfriend were fighting about another guy’s girlfriend, I always hung out with Adam. I always wondered where Guy got his crazy idea of us having a ‘great relationship’. Is he mental?
Plus, then there were Luis, causing Fred’s head to spin whenever his named was mentioned. Not my fault, Moreau got that war to begin when she pretended to like Luis to make Guy jealous. My boyfriend wasn’t enough, clearly. That was back at our first year at Lincoln. Over the past years, Fred still hasn’t accepted Luis, and he’s still mad about the whole Adam-thing. He’s friends with Adam, it’s me he’s holding responsible. He’s annoying.
“Go to bed,” Guy bitched back. Someone’s getting cold feet.
“It’s New Year! I can’t sleep now!” Connie replied.
“Why? You slept through Chanukka.”
“I’m not jewish,” she pointed out and sniffed again. It was beginning to get really annoying, but so was the whole situation. “You slept through my birthday.”
“That was Fred,” Guy muttered. “But thanks for having such high thoughts about me.”
Connie shrugged. “It was Fred?”
I couldn’t help but put my nose into where it surely didn’t belong. “That makes more sense, he used to do stuff like that.”
“At least I remembered your birthday. That was pure hell, since you refused to tell me when it was. I had to steal your passport to figure it out! It’s bad karma. You have bad karma,” Fred told me.
“Why’s that?” I growled.
“For starters, you never share.”
“You’re an alcoholic!”
“Me? How ‘bout you? How can you be drunk at Jesus’s birthday?”
“You were drunk on mine!”
“Hey, that was years ago, and I went through borth therapy and treatment for that,” he shouted. I accidentally stumbled over his soft spot. He’s kind of touchy when it comes to his alcohol-problem. It was just like old days again, we yelling at each other in front of a large audience. “Plus, I never drank at your birthday after that, did I?”
“No, you just drove into a car in high-speed, knocking me senseless,” I frowned. Look, I’m not the only bad guy in the crowd, right? I gazed at Jen. She had NOT heard that background-story about Fred, because she was looking all pale and surprised. I was delighted, Jen’s out of the picture now, right?
“I happen to know that!” Fred exclaimed. “And you, you didn’t just knock ME senseless, you actually beat me up several times. You were violent, and I think I deserve some credit for not hitting back even once.”
Okay, back to being the bad guy. “I said I was sorry! I got suspended because of you, I took the blame for everything that went wrong with the alcohol, and the drugs and all that. Shut up!”
“You took the blame? I received an academic probation because of you!”
“You want it back? I have several just laying around in my room! I won’t mind one more. I want the whole collection.”
Fred muttered something under his breath. “This is just... Är det så illa? I mean... Gee, I thought... Why am I talking to you? Lämna mig ifred!” he went on. It’s a bad sign when he begins mixing languages in his speech. I do it too, but only when I’m drunk or upset.
“Could you two stop with the screaming? It’s hurting my ears,” Portman interrupted and put his hand on my shoulder. “You’re both one of a kind, driving us all insane with your yapping. So, you had a drinking problem? Big deal, you don’t have it anymore, do you?”
“Nej. I mean, no,” Fred mumbled, avoiding my eyes.
“And you, you’re not taking drugs anymore, are you?”
“No.”
“So what’s the big fucking deal? Stop nagging!”
“Fine,” I replied and slapped my hand into Fred’s stomach. He made a gasping sound that only I heard and then he rolled his eyes. He never made an effort to hit back when I was being impossible. So maybe he wasn’t a dream, but he was the perfect boyfriend for me.
“Wasn’t that a great ending of a fight?” Charlie said. “We should all thank God that she didn’t threw any furniture.”
“Shut up.”
The funny thing is, he actually shut up.
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I did not make any more fuss over the next couple of hours. Actually, I did not do anything in particular at all for the next few weeks, but why skip ahead?
Guy sulked for a couple of minutes, then he spent his following moments to be nervous. Poor bastard.
Charlie seemed relieved that no one else began fighting. It was completely calm, everyone was being friendly, keeping the conversations below an R-rating. Charlie is always pleased when he can keep control over us all. Good for him.
Jesse complained about his sprained ankle, and told Charlie to get him some food. Charlie is still his servant. I want to fall down the roof too!
Russ kept bugging the hell out of Connie for some reason. They talked about something that tasted like soap. Why do I always miss the beginning of that conversation?
Portman was on the phone with his sister for a long time, keeping the line busy. He didn’t cause any trouble at all for a long time. His poor sister had to listen to all the stupid comments instead. That girl deserves some sort of scholarship or something.
Connie were on the other side of the that stupid conversation. Sniffing and snoring, that was her evening.
Dwayne and Jesse fought over the remote for a while. Then they settled for some movie I’ve never seen before. Like I cared.
Jen was moping the first couple of hours. Around ten, she dragged Fred out on the porch. They were yelling. I was pleased.
You know how New Year is: food, fireworks, alcohol, kisses (if you’re lucky) and sleep. It was pretty much like that. Things didn’t heat up until a few mintues after the ball dropped. It was chaos.
“I think it’s a great firework,” Portman said, still holding the phone to his ear. “You should see it, sis.”
“Who’s paying the phone-bill?” I asked.
Portman shook his head. “Not me, that’s for sure.”
Adam called me on my cell, saying that I should patch things up with Fred. I decided to let him know that I broke up with Charlie. Or got dumped by, whatever. He said a lot of things after that, I didn’t bother paying attention. Then he wanted to talk to his other friends; Charlie, I figured.
It all happened at once. I saw how Guy was trying to get his stupid question out of his mouth, I saw Jen being pissed, I saw Portman wave with the phone and I felt some weird wibe go through my whole body.
“There’s another call!” Portman barked. “Hurry up and take it, I’m on the phone.”
“I know,” Fred said. He put one hand over his ear to be able to hear over the noise from the fireworks. I couldn’t stop staring at him. He didn’t look all that happy.
“There’s something I want to ask you,” Guy stuttered. Just say it already!
I closed my eyes and waited for the seconds to pass by. I didn’t open them again for a while. I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to get them completely opened up again. I’ve never been so sure that something bad was going to happen as I was at that moment.
“Maybe my foot needs to be amputated? I can’t feel it any longer!”
“What do you mean you’re going back to Yale?”
“Is there more beer in the fridge?”
“My Dad had another heart-attack three hours ago, he just died at the hospital in Washington.”
“Connie, will you marry me?”
Good for you, Guy.
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