THE GHOST IN YOU - IT [2]

chapter four

Jaime scowls at Richie as Bill pipes up, "What kind of music do you produce?"

"Oh, just alternative rock. Indie stuff. Nothing terribly exciting. No avant-garde experimental shit."

"Do you write songs for people? Like, a ghost-writer?" Beverly asks, visibly intrigued. She'd always been a huge music fan, Jaime remembers now.

She inhales deeply. All eyes are on her, but these are her friends, she remembers. Their stares are comforting, lacking judgement. "You guys know that Britney Spears song called Circus?"

Richie blows beer out of his nostrils. "You kinky bitch!" Laughter ensues.

"Wow, Jay, I didn't... take you for the exhibitionist type." Ben says between laughs. She cracks a sheepish smile.

"I didn't expect her label to want it to be a fucking single! Imagine my surprise when I turned on the radio and heard my own horny symphony."

"Please, someone, put that on Jay's fucking tombstone." Richie says.

When the laughter dies down again, Jaime turns to Mike. "Anyway, is Stan coming?"

Her question gave the entire group pause. She could just hear everyone's thoughts; "Oh, right, Stan the Man. Forgot about the lad." Jaime had felt the same only a few minutes earlier. She had known someone was missing. Someone that she had shared a milkshake with after returning from New York in the summer of '89. Someone who had truly never wronged her.

"No, no." Richie says before Mike can even open his mouth. "Stanley Urine is a fucking pussy. He's not gonna show."

Jaime throws a balled up napkin at him. He dodges it smoothly. "Says you!"

"Was I not the one to basically perform surgery on Ben after Bowers cut him up? That's right!" Eddie exclaims.

"Bowers..." Jaime mumbles suddenly. Victor's former best friend, and the reason she had been ostracized from Bill, Stan, Richie, and Eddie in elementary school. She had enabled them to be bullied by her older brother and his pack of goons for years, unable to do anything. Victor ignored her at the time, hosting some superiority complex that caused him to follow imaginary rules such as, 'I Will Not Show Any Affection Or Compassion To My Younger Sibling' and Jaime's personal favorite, 'I Will Turn The Other Cheek When My Supposed Best Friend Attempts To Sexually Abuse My Little Sister In Broad Daylight'. But she was over it. Probably. Can you get over something you just remembered thirty seconds ago?

"Speaking of that, how's Victor?" Bill asks politely, as if by obligation. Or just sheer desire to shift the subject.

Jaime smiles at the mention of her older brother. "Vic's good. I'm happy to inform that I cleaned him up that summer, and he has not bullied a single person since. As far as my knowledge goes at least. Oh, his daughter, my niece, got suspended from school for slapping a girl who was making fun of her. So, not sure how to speak for his offspring. But he himself is great."

"Wait," Beverly says. "Wasn't he like, kinda horrible? Am I forgetting something?"

"That's an understatement."

Jaime was getting really exhausted of scowling at Richie. "He was, but he redeemed himself after you left. We all went to a movie and he paid. It was nice." A fond smile cracks over her face as she stares at the white tablecloth covered in crumbs.

"That was, you know, kinda nice of him." Eddie murmurs.

"You patched me up that one day, Eds." His head snaps towards Jaime's direction. "You and Rich found me." She chuckles nervously and runs a hand through her brown locks. "I was almost a goner, there."