The GEEKs

34. competitiveness, entitlement, and wine for tea

"How's it going, kids?" Lizzy purrs sweetly, as she always does.

"Howdy," Stone, who's leaning on the counter, lifts one hand in a wave.

"Hi, guys," I walk up to him behind Lizzy.

"The usual for you two, ladies?" Jeff asks us after he puts two cups on the counter and calls a Jordan.

"Yeah," Lizzy's the one to answer. "Thanks, Jeff!"

"No problem."

"How's the morning been?" I ask but instead of Jeff answering, Stone butts in.

"Pretty rough, thanks for asking," he looks at me and Lizzy. "Jeff won't stop talking about Mudhoney and how we should start a cover band."

"Shut up, you dork," Jeff laughs and sends a paper cup flying at Stone's head while steaming a pitcher of milk with his other hand.

Eva walks out from the staff room, tying her apron, at the exact moment to watch that unfold and laughs. "If this doesn't happen for three consecutive days, I get worried. Oh, before I forget... Have you two heard about Pet Samatary on the eighth?"

"What about it?" Stone inquires and I answer instead of Eva:

"Kat has a bunch of tickets for the premier screening. I think it's one of her UW friends who works for a movie theater," I add an explanation. "So she's been rallying people to go see that together."

"On the eighth? This is in the evening, I'm assuming?" Jeff asks for clarification and Eva takes over to explain the details to him.

"You know," I turn to Stone, "you should really be pestering Kat if you miss your friends. She's on the phone with Mark all the time," I say and he flashes me an intrigued, wide-eyed half-smile before his face returns to its resting expression.

"How come?"

"Who could say, Stone? Kat and Mark are very strange people, it could be literally anything," Lizzy answers with an impatient shrug and then turns to me. "So what should I do about...you know what??"

"You know what?" I cackle. "Since when are you embarrassed to talk about this in front of people?"

"About Aunt Flow?" Stone asks with a hushed voice and a supposedly understanding look.

"No! About Jerry, you weirdo," Lizzy gives him a deeply disturbed stare while I laugh.

"Ah, right, boy problems..." Stone nods slowly, once again pretending to understand what's going on, and once again cracking me up.

"So she's embarrassed to talk about boys in front of a bunch of people, so what?" Jeff, who's been telling Eva all about his morning shift up until now, tries to help Lizzy out who – contrary to what he thinks – does not need any help. She's bursting to talk about Jerry. And honestly, I don't know him that well, I don't know if he's capable of the same level bullshit that Mike is – I don't think so, but I don't know – but I just really, really want Lizzy to stop whining about him. If Kat's on the end of spectrum where you have to employ medieval torture methods to get her to say anything about how she really feels, then Lizzy's the exact opposite of that – you have to threaten torture to make her shut up.

"Oh, you don't understand," I tell him. "Lizzy is shameless."

"Am not!"

"Out of the four of us, Lizzy is definitely the most shameless one," Eva nods her head.

"What? Nu-uh!" Lizzy protests.

"What do you mean, nu-uh?" I laugh at her pout. "I've heard you ask Steve if he can tell you're not wearing a bra..."