Little Baby Pines

There was a pulsating pain in Kim’s right hand. “Nice try, Kimmie-roo. That fly is on speed or something. It is super fast. You are no match.” Heather laughed at Kim’s attempt to squash the pesky fly. Kim’s left eye twitched. She wished that she had caught the fly so she could shove it down Heather’s throat. Even though things were going well for Kim in her life, Heather still managed to knock her down as many pegs as she could.

But Kim took it in stride, as she always managed to do. Kim shook out her hand. “Heather, you should be glad I didn’t kill the fly. I would have put it in your lemonade.” The pledge kneeling by Heather’s side eyed the lemonade in Heather’s hand, then quietly looked down. “Dude, where is Mindy? Amanda K., do you know where Mindy is?” The pledge looked up when she heard her own name.

“Look back down, pledge.” The lemonade was pushed into Amanda K.’s face. “Kim, you need to fuck off and don’t undermine me in front of my pledges. You know that they are given the silent treatment this week for making us look pathetic at the touch-football game against Gamma Beta Pi. So go smoke a cigarette and look edgy somewhere. Get your lesbian on with some Mindy look-a-like somewhere. I don’t care. Just get away. Your face is making me wish there was a fat kid in here with cake so I can take the cake, eat it, throw it up on his face, and kick him in the jaw. And his pain will be because of you.”

“Does she sound like Sue Sylvester to you or am I going crazy?” Kim smiled at Amanda K. then walked out of the living room. It was the afternoon. Jonathan would be getting out of practice around that time. Kim was supposed to hang out with Mindy and then spend the rest of the day with Jon, but she wasn’t able to find Mindy all morning. The girl was already gone when Kim woke up at 9 that morning. Lately she hadn’t seen Mindy for more than 10 minutes. Her best friend had gone AWOL and she didn’t know why. Maybe Sully was back in town and that is where Mindy had gone. Kim remembered Mindy saying something about Sully recently that didn’t involve him being L.A. What it was, she could not remember for the life of her because she was distracted by watching Jon’s game on the TV. When she turned back to Mindy to ask her to repeat what she said, she was gone.

Kim kicked the front porch, walking in circles thinking. She was smoking less because of Jon. The cut back was recent and she was starting to crave cigarettes since there was a restriction on them. Jon didn’t mind her smoking, as long as it wasn’t around him and he didn’t have to smell it. His body is a temple. Kim thought she didn’t mind cutting back on cigarettes. That was before she realized how often she smoked. Right now she would be smoking. So she grabbed a hidden pack in the tire swing and smoked a cigarette while sitting against the tall oak tree in the front yard.

Cigarettes always seemed to help her thinking. Whenever she was working on an essay or story for school she would be smoking. It cleared the incessant thoughts and made way for the ones ready to jump to the page. While sitting there smoking she came up with a short rap. Raps made her think about Sully. Thinking about Sully made her sad and angry at herself. She pulled out her phone and called him again. It went to voice mail after 2 seconds. “Hello? Did it just go to voice mail after 2 seconds? That means you are ignoring my call. Okay. Fine. Dude, you and I need to talk. Are you in Chicago yet? Sorry if you think I ignored you or whatever when you were in Cali. It just wasn’t appropriate to talk about that over the phone. If you are in Chicago we should meet up.We should talk about it? Maybe? Have you seen Mindy? God, this message is going on forever. Do I get a warning beep when it is too long? No? This is Kim. Call me back, Sully. Please?”

Her eyes were growing heavy. One thing about being an English major meant that she was constantly thinking. She would read a book and then think about the imagery, allegories, and deeper meaning of the text. Quitting DJing freed up a lot of her time. She was able to write essays quicker and then spend her free time with Jon. She found herself aching to be around him. She loved herself when she was around him.

The cell phone began to buzz and ring. The girl quickly slid her finger across and spoke into it. “Hello?” She was expecting to hear Sullivan on the other end. Instead she heard Patrick.

“Oh hey lover! It’s just me, your beefy boyfriend Jonny.” Patrick tried to make his voice sound like Jon’s. He ended sounding froggy and doofy to Kim. “I just got out of practice so let’s go sex each other up. Kissy kissy—Jonny! Get off! I am talking to your girlfriend—Anyway, let’s have crazy sex later. How many positions have we done so far? Just missionary, right, since I am a boring guy in the sack. I bet that—”

“Patrick!” Jon’s voice was in the background. From Kim’s end, she couldn’t tell that Jon tackled Patrick to the ground and was now sitting on his chest. “Stay still, doofus.” With one hand, he pushed Patrick’s face into the ground. With the other he held his cell phone to his ear. “Hey Kimmy. Retard and I grabbed lunch at Street Deli and took it back to my place. The retard took my phone and decided to call you when my back was turned. So what are you up to? Are you with Mindy?”

Patrick tried to move from underneath Jon’s weight. “Tell Mindy I want to make out with her broken nose!”

A flick to the ear shut Patrick up. Jon got off of Patrick and sat at the island in his kitchen. “Sorry. So how are you and Mindy?”

“I am sad to report that I am not with that lovely girl. She has gone AWOL. I even tried asking Heater for help, but you know Heater.”

“Yeah, she is one cranky girl. I can’t believe she sprayed me with the hose. The bitch is crazy.”

“Ain’t that the truth.” Kim rested her head against the tree. Its bark was brittle. Some pieces broke off into her hair. “Since my best friend is missing, may I hang out with you and your best friend?”

Jon’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, please do. But sweetie, don’t call Kaner my best friend. It will inflate his ego.” Jon then lowered his voice. “And that makes me look incredibly pathetic for having that guy as my best friend.”

“Bitch! You should be so lucky to have me as your best friend! I am drinking that last Goose Island beer. Fuck you.”

---------------
The bar was dimly lit and sparsely filled. It was midday, so the lack of patrons was understandable. In a booth towards the back of the bar a girl was fidgeting. Her leg was jiggling and her eyes kept nervously ticking towards the door whenever it opened. She touched everything on the table multiple times. Picking up her beer. Adjusting the coaster. Pushing the plate of green chili cheese fries away from her. Pulling it closer to her. Picking up the stand up card with a list of available beer. Ripping up napkins. Mindy was unsettled. She felt like a ball of nerves being played with by a kitten. Slowly unraveling.

The door opened and the person she was waiting for finally came in. He was sharply dressed. He wore a red plaid button up shirt, a cream Member’s Only jacket, and slim fitting stone washed jeans. Kim always liked seeing Sully. Not just because she has had a crush on him since she met him, but also because he always looked great when he went out. His outer appearance couldn’t help but remind her of Kim. Kim always dressed to impress when she went out.

Sully took off his aviator sunglasses. “Hey Mindy,” he said when he approached her booth. “What are you drinking? I’ll get two.” He left and came back a few minutes with two bottles of Pabst. Water droplets trailed down the icy necks. “Here you go, gorgeous. Thank you for meeting me.”

“Yeah, of course. Like I would say no.” Her cheeks were turning a pale pink shade. She played with her hair, messing it up in front of her face only to tuck it under the red wool beret she was wearing. “So what is up? I haven’t seen you since we went out to dinner last night. I thought you were trying to avoid me since we…you know…did the deed…after dinner.” Mindy bit down on her lower lip and looked down at her lip. She had all these feelings and emotions inside of her and never felt capable of expressing them. The girl was constantly on needles. She was never at peace. The only time she used to feel at ease was alone with Kim. Since Kim slept with Sully, Mindy didn’t have long moments of alone time with Kim. Kim went from Sully to Jon in no time at all. Mindy was left behind. Mindy hadn’t been able to feel ‘normal’ in a long time. She thought that being with Sully would fill that void, or just being with someone that knew her name.

Sully’s hand stretched across the table and took her hand into his warm one. “Aw, Mindy. Don’t think like that. You are my girl.” He leaned over the table and kissed her near the corner of her mouth. “Did you miss me?”

“Of course I did.” Mindy looked at their hands and smiled softly. She picked at the fries that were still slightly warm. Cheese spilled off the fry like honey from a broken jar. She bit down on the end of the fry. Mindy was excited that Sully actually showed up. She thought that he just wanted to use her like Kim used him. Turned out he didn’t.

Sully interlaced his fingers with hers. “So what did you do today?”

“I went to the chem lab and worked on my reheating coil. I am making progress but it is still taking time.”

“Have you seen her?” His vocal tone had change. Mindy looked up at him with a spark in her eyes. His words weren’t dripping with venom. They were cold with a tinge of sadness.

The spark left her eyes when he looked up at her. She looked away abashed. “I haven’t seen her in a couple of days. She is doing her own thing.”

“With that boyfriend you told me about?” Sullivan slinked lower in the booth, separating his hand from Mindy. He crossed his arms over his chest. “I can’t believe that bitch. She is a fucking bitch. She was with him when she was still with me, wasn’t she?” A throaty scoff leapt from his lips. “I am sorry, Mindy, but she is a shitty friend. I knew she was kind of a bitch, but I never knew she was this cold and selfish. Whatever. She ditched you for her boyfriend. Now you can ditch her for yours.” Sullivan took both of her hands in his.

The feel of his skin against Mindy’s made her heart race. Mindy has never had a boyfriend while in college. The last one she had was in high school and he was less than note worthy. Mindy was always too busy with school to be bothered by a relationship. No one asked her to go out on dates. They figured she was too busy burying her nose in an engineering book.

“So who this boyfriend of hers, anyway?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Mindy said softly. The girl knew. She didn’t have the heart to tell Sully. “I haven’t met him.” A complete lie. She had met and hung out with Jon and Kim on multiple occasions. Enough occasions for the two to exchange numbers in case one of them needed to get a hold of Kim or find out her whereabouts. “It’s Kim, Sully. You have been in town for almost two weeks now and she hasn’t bothered finding you.”

“She called and left a message. She wants to meet up with me. Talk about what happened in person, I guess.” The two looked down at their hands. “I am going to call her back to set up a time and place. I need to let her know how much damage she caused. How much of a stupid fucking bitch she is.”

Mindy shifted uncomfortably in the booth. “Oh. Okay.”