Under A Paper Moon

Geneveive’s POV

“This is pretty good pizza” I comment reaching for another slice. We’re all sitting round the table chatting, eating hot slices of freshly cooked, wood-oven baked pizza and drinking beer. Or the guys are drinking beer, Ava and I are sharing a bottle of wine.
“Glad you like it” Alex says flashing me a smile. “I made them all by myself.” he adds.
“I thought you just cooked them” I respond.
“Where-ever did you hear that?” he asks.
“From a very reliable source that shall remain nameless” I say.
“Ahh, so Jack told you that he made them did he?” he asks.
“No, I asked him if they were home made or store bought and he told me that Ava made the bases and the sauce and that he helped her put the toppings on. I do know that you cooked them though, something about not trusting the others with your precious pizza oven” I say.
Ava bursts out laughing at the stunned expression on Alex’s face, “Gene I love you! There aren’t many people who can render him speechless, but you my friend have just achieved that and what more, you made it look easy.” she says.
“I grew up with three older brothers who were always trying to trick me into doing their chores for them, I learnt at a young age how to get information out of one of them to use against the other and subsequently trick them into doing my chores” I say.
“Sounds like what I did to get out of cleaning the black-board in the second grade” Jack says.
“How’d you do that?” I ask.
“I sometimes over-heard things members of certain groups said about other members of the same group and used that knowledge to my advantage” he says.
“You were eavesdropping on people when you were 8 years old?” Ava asks.
“Not eavesdropping no, they knew I was there, they just didn’t think it mattered if they said stuff around me…I wasn’t real popular in the first few years of school didn’t have many friends, so I was kinda invisible to the popular kids, which meant they said stuff around me without thinking that I might actually use it against them at a later date.” he says.
“Well I guess they under-estimated you then didn’t they?” I ask.
“Yep, they thought that because I was smaller than them and sucked at sports that I was stupid, but I was just kinda uncoordinated till I was ten, but I could read all the Postman Pat books by the time I was four.” he says.
“Postman Pat huh? You were a fan of him? Did you watch the TV show?” I ask.
“I might have watched it a couple times.” he says.
“Might have watched it? Really? That’s what you’re going with?” Ava asks raising her eyebrows at him, he shrugs in response and she turns to me “Gene, there’s something you need to know about your boyfriend” she says.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Come with me, there’s something you should see” she says standing up from the table and gesturing for me to follow her. “and no you guys can’t come…this is a girls only field trip” she adds.
“But babe, I wanna come with you” Alex says.
“Sorry, girls only, you’ll just have to wait till we get back” she says leaning down and kissing his cheek.
“Don’t stay away too long ok?” he says.
“I cant promise anything, maybe Gene and I will find a nice girly movie to watch and leave you guys here for a few hours:” she says.
“If that happens I might just have to come and steal Gen-gen from you” Jack says.
“You had her for like an hour already, it’s my turn now” she retorts “and besides…we’re gonna be talking about make-up and clothes, you don’t wanna interrupt that do you?” I ask.
“Fuck no, I don’t wanna be subjected to a whole bunch of girl talk! You two take all the time you need!” he says.
“Aww thanks Jacky-bee” Ava says patting him on the head before linking her arm through mine and leading me out of the dining room.

“So what was it that you wanted to show me?” I ask once Ava and I have left the dining room and are out of earshot of the guys.
“Nothing, I just wanted to get you away from them so I can grill you about your little conversation with Jack” she says.
“And what would you do if I didn’t want to disclose that information?” I ask keeping my expression neutral.
“But Geneeeee you HAVE to tell me!” she says. “it’s like your duty as a girl to tell me what he said, it’s a rule of feminism!” she adds.
“How’s that?” I ask.
“Cause you’re like by best girl friend! And girl friends tell each other these things” she says.
“I’m your best girl friend?” I ask.
“Yeah, I mean I know we haven’t known each other very long..but well I kinda don’t have maybe girl friends, never have I’m kinda a tomboy so I always had more guy friends even growing up…probably why I can deal with going on tour with the guys” she says. “and you’re cool, you don’t act like a total fan girl around them, which if you hadn’t picked up on it is one of my pet peeves”
“Wait what? You don’t like the fan girls throwing themselves at the guys? No! I never would have guessed” I joke.
“Shut-up” she respond poking her tongue out at me.
“Ok, but if I shut-up how am I supposed to tell you about what happened with Jack?” I ask with a smirk.
“Ok I take it back! You can speak! Tell me what happened!” she says.
“We talked, he asked me out, I said yes and he’s taking me to Rocco’s Capriccio” I say. “Somehow he knew I liked the place…you wouldn’t happen to have had something to do with that would you?” I ask narrowing my eyes at her.
“I might have mentioned that you like the place.” she says. “but I didn’t tell him to take you there, he came up with that all by himself” she adds.
“Yeah he said you and Alex are fans of it, and you took him there once.” I respond.
“It’s one of our favourite restaurants, where we had our first proper date” she explains.
“Hmm so this place is quite important in the ATL family history books then isn’t it?” I say.
“Yeah, it is. Alex and I love it because it’s small and they are very big on keeping reporters out, they get a few high profile customers coming in.” she says.
“Yeah, I never really thought about why they had that rule but now I know. And they’ve just introduced a ‘phones off’ policy as well so people cant use the cameras on their phones to take photos either” I say.
“They have? That’s great! So many phones have cameras in them now, and some of them are pretty good. I mean most people who go there wouldn’t take a photo of other diners but there are the occasional few who try” she says.
“I hate it when I read articles about a celebrity and it talks about a ‘friend” of the person giving info to the press, friends shouldn’t be gossiping to magazines for their firteen minutes of fame. Its just not cool to rat out your friend like that” I say.
“That’s how I feel, the number of so called ‘friends’ that have been told things in confidence by the guys that have then gone out and blabbed to the tabloids is just ridiculous. And the worst part is they think we won’t find out, but we always do.” She says. “and some of them have the nerve to come back and act like nothing happened, like they haven’t completely betrayed the guys trust”
“Well I will never do that, not for any amount of money. If the guys tell me something no matter how trivial it seems I wont be telling any reporters” I say.