Pelican Bluff - Chapters 1-2 Arc 1

Chapter One

         “You’re spying on me, aren’t you?” Lily asked, addressing the gray-blue eyes searing a hole into her back. She had quite the penchant for throwing out accusations and praying they stuck. Of course her conjectures this time were dead on, as Fisher had, in fact, been spying on her all morning.
         “What gave me away?” He asked, collapsing against her locker as she shut the door. One of these days he was going to break her fingers doing that.
         “The cologne. I hate to use my stellar wit so early in the morning, but you smell like a fish, Fish.”
         Noted, he decided, taking her books after raising one arm and giving its pit a good sniff.
         “So, my darling best friend, what have I done to garner your double-o-seven treatment?” Lily questioned as they rounded the corner into European History, the most hellish class in the hellish Pelican Bluff High.
         “Do you remember that promise you made to me when we were seven?”
         “That I’d marry you if your beloved Georgie ever sorely rejected you?” She said, naturally referring to their mutual, ill-advised backup plan. Even though things had fallen through miserably with their presumptive soul mates - Georgie and Duncan - she hardly thought he’d hold her to a contract born of Kool-Aid withdrawal on a hot, summer day.
         “No, the one you made about helping me become a man when I turned sixteen.”
         Lily thought for a moment. Was he saying what she thought he was saying? She wasn’t the most attentive friend in the world, but surely she’d recall agreeing to help him do what his terminology suggested. Arching an eyebrow, she slipped into her desk and wondered if she had blacked out an imperative conversation with him, or if he was just assuming her floozy repute also applied to him.
         Chances were either response would get him a sturdy slap on the arm, deserved or not.
         “Oh come on!” He gaped at her in disbelief. She could remember the marriage pact but not the one thing central to his survival as a single teenage male? “The Krespy Kollins Game Hour?”
         Ah. The hour of each week she gave him she’d never be able to get back. Fisher was either plopped down on her bed forcing her to watch every Sunday night, or on the phone giving her a detailed play-by-play, detergent commercials and all. Lily loved cheese-TV as much as the next pejorative girl, but when it was shoved down her throat by her obsessed (but well-meaning) best friend, it became annoying.
         Very annoying.
         “So, you drive down to the studio, put in an application, and then wait by the phone. I fail to see what you need me for.” She paused. “Or why this merits you stalking me.”
         “Krespy doesn’t merit it,” he began, and almost as if her ears were burning, Penny the Pigtails came bouncing into the room. “She does.”
         “Lily!” Penny shrieked, absent-mindedly hugging her newfound friend. At least the intrusion wasn’t anything Lily had brought upon herself in a conscious capacity. Everyone in the drama club had a freshman prospective drama student to mentor, which basically meant holding their hand for one full week and telling them that if they help the drama classes meet their quota somehow it’ll save them from being tormented relentlessly by the headache-inducing seniors. Lily’s Penny took the Play-a-Pal Program a little too literally, and Fisher’s Brian had chosen a fantastic week sign his commitment letter . . . and then get mono.
         “Hey,” Lily weaseled out of her clutches. “You don’t have this class, do you?”
         Penny shook her head, the strawberry blonde pigtails flapping the sides of her face. “No. I just wanted to make sure you didn’t need me to sharpen your pencils or something.” She smiled, and Fisher wondered if his own overachiever streak presented itself so shrilly.
         Lily raised her pencil. Mechanical. Not that it mattered, since all three of them knew it was just an excuse for Penny to bat her eyelashes at Fisher.
         “I’m good.” Lily’s words faded into the buzzing of the warning bell. “Don’t be late for first period!”
         “See you at lunch!” She chimed, again bouncing through the doorway.
         Fisher laid his head down on his desk, defeated.
         “Three more days, Sweetie. You‘ll live.” Lily gave his arm a gentle rub as their teacher - a poor man’s contemporary take on Napoleon - shuffled into the room and began sourly spitting out names as if they had some sort of order to them.
         “…Lily Crest…”
         She looked around and absorbed the sea of blank faces whose names had been called before hers. “Yes?” She interrupted, volunteering herself as a champion for the confused.
         Mr. Sneed snarled. “You’re all exempt from my final exam.” It was almost as if it disgusted him that so many people were passing his class. Then again, word around the streets was that he found reprimanding students orgasmic. He continued on, checking off most everyone in the room, save for an unsurprisingly absent Duncan.

         Along the shores of Pelican Bluff is where they could have found him, sitting by the rocks and letting the waves crash gently around his massive feet. Duncan liked it there, the only place dead on the bluff line where he wasn’t on the good side of the bluff or the bad side, he was simply there. Of course, if he spent more of his time on the good side, it wouldn’t make him agonize over his eternal placement on the bad side so much. But, the Universe dealt him a mighty ugly hand, and he was cursed to live among the mud-ruddy underlings.
         “Small world, isn’t it?” A voice asked from just down the sand. Turning his head he saw a woman’s body silhouetted against the sun. Not that he needed to see her. She had a very distinctively pure voice, a voice that could only belong to Georgie.
         “Shouldn’t you be off dissecting something?” He quipped. Rarely a day went by without him finding some way of goading her about her love of science. The same was true with her over his love of classic literature. What was good for the goose, and all.
         Duncan motioned for the most comfortable rock nearest him he saw. Obligingly, she dropped her beach bag and sat, making sure to keep her almost-sheer sarong tightly wrapped around her slender, sun-kissed legs.
         “Would you believe me if I said I’m playing hooky?”
         “You? Miss ‘My GPA’s Higher Than Your IQ?’ Hardly.”
         Georgie slipped her feet from her sandals and let them play by Duncan’s in the white water. At first, it tickled, but that sensation was squelched when he playfully ran his foot over hers. He’d only meant it as a playful gesture, but for a moment an erroneous thought was fostered in the back of Georgie’s mind.
         “My mother’s away for the week, some news conference in Washington she just has to attend, and --”
         “And, you’re avoiding Fisher.”
         “And I’m avoiding Fisher.”
         It amazed her. Once the four of them had been an inseparable circle, and now they were more of a cluster joined together by Pelican Bluff and a bunch of feelings none of them knew how to sort out. In that moment, Georgie envied Duncan for managing to have something amicable with Lily.
         “I don’t get it,” he said after a moment of the most awkward and satisfying silence either of them had experienced in quite a while. “You and Fisher are the quintessential Romeo and Juliet that every unsettlingly small town has. Your parents sat down and planned your wedding to him the day you were born, for God’s sake.”
         Which, he realized as soon as he semi-bitterly spat out that piece of snide common knowledge, is precisely the reason the two cannot coexist in a functional relationship.
         She stood and brushed a few specks of stray sand away from her body. And, there she was before him, the wholesome image of the girl next door, down to her chestnut brown hair and her soft, doe eyes. It was an added bonus that she was forbidden property, if not because she already bore his buddy’s stamp of virginal ownership, then because she came from the good side of the bluff. No ruddiness anywhere on that never-ending body of hers.
         Georgie sighed and let the early morning air waft off the sea and fill her lungs. She went there almost everyday after school, but by then it was packed with scantily clad girls her age volleying things and jiggling while the guys she should have been interested in all salivated from the sidelines. In the mornings it was quiet, a peaceful place no one could bother her the few times she worked up the nerve to steal away. And, even though she had company this time, it was commiserating company, which made it more than welcome.
         “I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but when you strip us down, Fisher and I are essentially the same person.” From the corner of her eye she saw Duncan raise his finger as if to profess something profound, while a smart-aleck comment dribbled from the corner of his mouth. “Which doesn’t mean I’m anatomically endowed with male parts, mind you.”
         “I can tell that much,” Duncan chirped from his vantage point of staring straight up at her.
         She wouldn’t show him, but under the maze of hair flowing around her face in the breeze, she was smiling.
         “I guess it’s sort of like you and Lily. You’re both, also, the same people. Two horndogs who’d sooner slit your wrists than utter the word ‘abstinence.’”
         It went a little deeper than that, he thought, but let her continue, since it was obvious no one in the castle paid her much mind when she tried to blow off her Fisher steam. Then again, if she kept letting her claws come out, he wouldn’t be responsible if he had to pull her down onto the sand and tickle her until she was happy Georgie again.
         “Don’t you ever miss the time before we were in high school? Back when it wasn’t Fisher and Georgie or Duncan and Lily, and it was just us?”
         “Yeah. Everything was so uncomplicated. All I had to worry about was slapping Fisher when he’d start reciting Emily Dickenson--”
         “And all I had to worry about was slapping you when you slapped him.”
         “And all Lily had to worry about was slapping you when you slapped me.” He grinned. Even as a boy he enjoyed catfights. Only in adulthood was his attraction to them intensified by adding mud to the battlegrounds. “I guess things never were really simple, huh?”
         Georgie shook her head. “So, you never told me why you’re here, Dunk.”
         He fished around in the pocket of his jeans for a moment, extracted a brochure and then handed it to her. Looking it over, she saw all she had to in bold print: Loomis Grey Seminar.
         “When’s this?”
         “Six weeks, just after we let out for summer break.”
         She had read a few of Loomis’ books, but Duncan could almost recite them verbatim. He was the closest thing to a superhero Duncan had, and given his upbringing that didn’t surprise Georgie. Loomis liked to write of financially unstable, unkempt-appearing boys who grow up to be multimillionaires and always manage to get the girl. With the way his fingers snaked through and tousled his curly, black hair every five minutes or so, and the way he wore his button-down shirt half-tucked and open at the chest, he had the unkempt image down pat.
         That, too, made Georgie smile.
         “Hope you have fun?” She didn’t quite know what to say. How could spending the summer in a class with his favorite writer have him down and out on the beach?
         “I’m not going. Even if I could afford it, I’d have to pass Satan Sneed’s class to qualify. I neither have the money nor the hope of impressing that tiny, little man.”
         “How bad is your grade?”
         “Right now? Teetering on the edge of flunk-oblivion. He stopped me in the hall the other day to bask in the glow of getting to watch me sweat my way through his final exam. Unless I absolutely ace that and find some way of earning enough money for the seminar, I can kiss it goodbye.”
         Georgie thought for a moment, then thought a moment longer after that. Their little impromptu encounter on the beach hadn’t been so bad. Sans the little foot rub, he hadn’t kicked her or bitten her once. Perhaps - just perhaps - she could stand being alone with him long enough to help him.
         Since she liked having so much academic power over him and all.
         “I’ll tutor you!” She proclaimed after a third moment of debating the prospect in her head. Duncan only looked at her in complete and utter disbelief. “I mean it!”
         “Georgette, I’m not sure if anyone told you, but you and I don’t exactly get along the best of any two people on this great planet. Today was a fluke. You do understand that, don’t you?”
         “Of course I do. You can’t stand me and I can’t stand you. But I’m definitely smarter than you are, and I have the highest grade of any student to ever survive Sneed. You need me!” This time she let him see the toothy, goofy smile that commandeered her face.
         And he let her see his, as well.

Chapter Two

         “They’ll call,” Lily coaxed Fisher as they lay on his bed. He’d plugged in a VHS of vintage Krespy after school, and now that it was almost at its end, his whimpering escalated.
         “I could so see me doing well on the show. You know if anyone could master the Whacky Wheel of Horror, it’d be me!”
         You’ve had practice spinning a gigantic wheel then running through Pelican Bluff being chased by an even more gigantic automaton monster? She wanted to ask, but instead threw a handful of popcorn into her mouth and chased it down with a sip of his Coke.
         “Knock knock,” Fisher’s mother exclaimed throwing the door open. Good thing neither Fisher nor Lily was in the process of doing anything sordid, as she had a habit of barging in uninvited and barely announced. Luna Gibson’s heart swelled with pride when she saw her little boy and his best friend lounging on his bed and watching G-rated Krespy Kollins. Apparently watching one’s teenage son suffer through his adolescent years in a room with a juvenile aquarium theme was the latest fad in productive parenting.
         Whatever the case, she carried in her arms a load of fresh towels, which she promptly delivered to his adjoining bathroom.
         “Hi, Mrs. Gibson.” Lily cooed, dropping the remote onto the nightstand.
         “Hi sweetie.” Luna was half-way out the door when she remembered, “Oh, Duncan’s here, Fisher. Would you like me to send him up, or would that be weird?”
         Both sets of eyes fell on Lily, mid-popcorn chewing.
         “I’m fine.”
         A moment later Luna’s suffocating presence had been replaced by Duncan’s. He entered, completely expecting to see Lily and Fisher laying next to one another on his The Little Mermaid pillows, but was surprised when a minute pang of envy didn’t rupture in his belly like usual. Masterfully, he hid his lack of revulsion by suavely lowering himself into the crab-shaped chair by the television. Anyone would look cranky sitting in a plastic crab chair.
         “You know, something dawned on me while my little Nissan pickup was heaving and lurching down Main Street,” Duncan waxed enlightened. “The four of us never spend any time together anymore. And, by ‘four of us,’ I mean the two of you, myself and the ever-ubiquitous Georgie.”
         Quizzical looks abounded.
         “Seriously, it’s got her vexed.”
         And, remained.
         “Since when do you and Georgie talk about anything remotely substantial?” Fisher scoffed, his words laced with supreme jealousy. He failed to realize that the rule of teenage boys was similar to that of junkyard dogs: just because one has left his invisible mark on a piece of hot property did not mean the others of his kind would always catch the scent and leave it be.
         Not that anyone believed a man with as much bravado as Duncan could ever turn the head of a dainty girl like Georgie.
         “I saw her today down by the beach. Which is really irrelevant and doesn’t apply itself to the context of the topic. Let’s readdress this--”
         “You’re starting to sound like you’re a politician,” Lily offered.
         “And everyone knows I’m not nearly as honest as a politician. . .” Duncan’s voice trailed off, as if he expected his ex to throw herself on that live bomb of a comment. When she didn’t, he reclaimed his senses and threw out an opportunity for a bit of semi-gauche hanging out.
         “I don’t know,” Fisher finished off his Coke then cast the empty bottle aside. “Georgie isn’t exactly on my bandwagon as of late.”
         “And she’s never on my bandwagon,” Lilly jeered.
         “So, I don’t see how this could possibly work.”
         The words Duncan had been waiting to hear! The entire drive over he had spent outlining the perfect plot in his mind. A surefire way for Georgie to be happy their chaotic circle once again was complete. Why he really cared about her happiness confused him, but he was willing to chalk that one up to his lack of a love life - sans Lily - and move on.
         “The four of us being around each other successfully hinges on you, Fisher, not bringing up how you and the illustrious Georgette are meant to be.”
         Impossible! Fisher restraining his moody urge to reiterate his undying love for Georgie would be like Old Faithful being unfaithful. Still, the thought of him doing something that would intentionally take that bright smile of hers and turn it into a pout made his stomach turn, and he shrugged his submissive shrug of agreement.
         “Good!” Duncan leapt up, fished his keys out of his pocket and headed for the door. “I will tell her that we have unanimously agreed to spend Saturday at her house, by the pool.”
         When would he be seeing her? Both befuddled friends wondered, simultaneously reaching into the suddenly empty bag of popcorn.
         Grabbing the remote from the nightstand, Fisher rewound the tape in the VCR. It wouldn’t kill Lily to watch it again. After all, it was the plight of friendship to suffer alongside the deliriously insipid.
         Cringing, she pulled the covers up to her chin and prayed the VHS gods would choose that moment to snip vintage Krespy’s thread of life.

         A few miles away, atop the great pelican-shaped bluff from which their town was named, sat a house. It was possibly the finest piece of architecture to ever visit Pelican Bluff and was undoubtedly the envy of everyone who laid eyes on it.
         Naturally, this house belonged to Georgie.
         As she sat on its veranda, sipping lemonade, her father strolled through, reading his paper and not really noticing her as she watched down the driveway. Only when she sighed and let her head rest on her fist did he look up, and even then he did not speak. At times it was as if thought her to be some boarder and not his sixteen-year-old daughter. He was out of sight by the time she saw her guest’s truck steaming on the horizon.
         Five minutes later Duncan was sitting by her on the swing, history textbook weighing down his lap.
         “So, what’s your weakness, Duncan Roberts?” She asked, playfully reading the almost-illegibly scribbled name on the inside flap of his book.
         “Pretty brunettes.”
         Georgie snorted, then moved the book between them. “How about if we start with the formation of England?”
         “Fine by me, but before we get started I have good news for you.”
         “You’re moving away after your semester upstate?”
         The deliberateness of her elation was enough to harvest a whopping guffaw from him. “No. I was thinking about what you said earlier today, about the four musketeers never hanging out and so I talked to Fish and Lily--”
         “You didn’t!” She shrieked, half-disappointed and half-touched.
         “Calm down!” He motioned with his hands for her to breathe in and breathe out as he continued. “Fisher has agreed to put aside his petty infatuation with you in the name of our good friendship for one day only - this Saturday by your pool.”
         “Why my pool?”
         “Because neither Fisher’s house, nor Lily’s, nor my little sardine can I call home has one. And you, my fragile flower of a tutor, don’t have the balls to go into the public pool.”
         With a “humph,” she returned her attention to Italy and had almost found a good starting place when the door to the veranda swung open, revealing her father’s disgruntled figure. He crooked his finger, and like a harmless puppy, Georgie obeyed.
         As his daughter stepped inside, Frank shut the door behind her, watching a clueless Duncan reading through the blinds. He whispered, “What is that young man doing here?”
         “I’m helping him prepare for his history final.”
         “Is that all?”
         Georgie was in disbelief. She could have tattooed every inch of her body, pierced everything else and he wouldn’t have paid her a bit of mind. But, let her bring someone home for somewhat altruistic intents and purposes and he almost had a heart attack.
         “Of course that’s all. Duncan used to come here all the time as a kid. What’s the problem?”
         Frank sighed. “There’s no problem. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t trying to involve yourself with him on a serious level.”
         “Just friends, dad. I promise.”
         Frank wanted to believe her, and even if she couldn’t see that twinkle in her eyes, he could see it. And it scared him to death. “That’ll be all,” he mumbled and she left him in the dark foyer to saunter into the parlor and lick his wounds while calling for reinforcement.
         "Room 706,” he demanded into the mouthpiece the minute the receptionist at Claudia’s hotel answered. A second later he was connected to his exhausted wife.
         “Hello?”
         “Honey it’s me. Are you busy?” He tried to settle his tone, but it wasn’t working.
         “No,” Claudia’s voice was hesitant on the line. “What’s wrong?”
         Frank groaned. How did he explain what was wrong to his wife without himself looking like a total ass? “It’s Georgie. She’s outside now with Laney Roberts’ boy, Duncan. I’m probably overreacting, but she’s behaving oddly with him. What do you think I should do?”
         There was a pause as Claudia tried to both process her daughter being interested in anyone related to Laney Roberts and wolf down the rest of her room service lobster. “Well, they’ve always been friends. You know we’d never keep her from being friends with someone from his area. But, if you see them doing anything even remotely romantic, then I’d advise you to put a stop to it immediately. We don’t need her lowering herself just because she’s hit a rough spot with Fisher.”
         Frank again slipped over to the window, keeping out of their sight. He’d get an eyeful if he stood there long enough.
         “Yes! That’s right! Finally, we’re getting somewhere!” Georgie promptly threw her arms open and embraced him in an emphatic hug.
         Duncan found he liked the feel of Georgie’s body thrown spontaneously against his. His hands resting at the small of her back, her chest rising and falling against his. It was an unsavory glimpse into the rewards he could reap if he were anyone other than himself.
         Georgie blinked as she looked into his eyes. Piercing. Damn him. She’d have to pull away, if only she could make her arms understand that.
         “It’s getting late,” Duncan said, casting his eyes towards the setting sun.
         “You just got here.” Her words were unnervingly and confusingly beseeching.
         “No,” he pulled himself away from her in a manner not unassociated with cutting off one of his limbs. “I really should get going. Mom’s wanting me to work on her car. I’ll see you at school, okay?”
         His amorous counterpart nodded understandingly and handed him his book. “See you at school.”
         Firmly situated between his steering wheel and the back of his tattered bench seat, he considered getting out, running up to her as she sat there swinging, and giving her the most ardent kiss anyone had ever given her in her life. Snap out of it. She’s your best friend’s girl and way too good for you.
         And, with those thoughts he revved his engine, yanked the machine into gear and sped away, leaving Georgie to watch the sunset and wonder if maybe - just maybe - there could be a place in her life for a man like Duncan Roberts.




****Please see "Pelican Bluff - Chapters 3-4 Arc 1" for the completion of the first story arc****