Enchilada Ed

6.

"Did everyone get the group message?" Emily looked around the lunch table expectantly, "I only heard back from Phil and Katie."

"I don't do group messages." Gina examined her reflection in her compact mirror, then reached for a lipstick in her book-bag's front pocket. "Like, what are we, the Borg? Resistance is futile-"

"It's a text message, Gina," Emily rolled her eyes. "It's not like we're asking for your PIN number."

"And anyway," Phil added, "Aren't you communists supposed to like the collective?"

"Janey Mac," Gina applied a fresh coat of black lipstick, "I'm not a communist. Communism is dead." She smacked her lips and snapped shut her compact mirror. "I'm apolitical."

"What's with the Che obsession then?" Phil asked.

"Che has cultural meaning." Gina over-enunciated the word cultural. "Politics are irrelevant. The only significant wars are fought culturally these days."

"Look, whatever." Emily prepared to add an event to her phone's calendar, "I just need to know if you're willing to go to laser tag Friday?"

"I can do," Gina popped open a Jello chocolate pudding container, "But only if I get to be on the same team as Ed."

"Well, Ed?" Emily looked to Ed.

Ed was watching Audra at the salad bar on the other side of the cafeteria. There she was, by the arugula. Going for the olives, Romaine lettuce, some crotons. Skipping the parsley. And back at it again with the olives. It was just like her to like olives, Ed thought, she was sophisticated enough to like olives. It was probably a French thing. French girls probably all like olives. Ed stopped himself. Better not stereotype. This French-thing is starting to sound a bit like a fetish. Dear lord, Ed certainly didn't want to fetishize. His mom would murder him. Still, everything Audra seemed to do was somehow more romantic than anybody else he had ever met. Ed knew that couldn't possibly have been true, and yet he felt that it was.

"Any day now, Edward." Emily tapped the bottom edge of her phone case on the tabletop.

"Hmmm?" Ed blinked.

"Can. You. Do. Laser. Tag?" Emily asked.

"Oh. Yeah." Had Ed's secret love for Audra been discovered? Could the lunch table tell he admired her appreciation of olives?

"Would you be willing to be on the same team as Gina?" Emily asked.

"We're planning on doing teams?" Ed asked.

"It might be more fun," Phil explained, "and with Katie coming there will be six of us, so that's a big enough group."

Ed considered the possibility. He could be on Audra's team, and maybe protect her from enemy fire. He could jump in front of her like a human shield. It would be chivalrous. Wait, wait, wait. Would he get in trouble for that? Maybe Audra wanted to die in a blaze of glory and go to Valhalla, like a Viking warrior. He might take that away from her, just as he thought he was he was being helpful. Ed's head ached.

"Okay Gina." Emily said definitively, "You've got Ed and Katie on your team, and me and Phil and Audra will be the other."

"My boy, Ed. You'll be such a good meat shield, when the time comes," Gina placed a hand on Ed's knee and whispered "Sweet baby lamb, led off to slaughter" into his ear.

"What the hell?" The short hairs on Ed's neck rose and prickled. "Stop being so creepy."

"What's creepy?" Audra arrived back at the lunch table and sat down across from Ed, "Did I miss something scary?" her dark eyes enlarged with excitement, "I love scary stories."