{ Chapter Six: Less Than Five Calories in a Diet Can Suffice }
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JANICE HAS BEEN GOING TO AN ALL-GIRLS SCHOOL FOR PRACTICALLY her whole life. Her father had never been picky about her hanging out with males or anything of those sorts, always trusting his daughter to be more level-headed and intelligent than most girls her age. This helped in making her grow up a little more than half the children her age.
Even though she was the youngest, she's the peace mediator in friendships with her brothers, making sure that only one black eye resulted before she broke it off (but never on her brother's face; she was the only one who could break their noses).
Unfortunately, as many have probably concluded from the arrival of Aunt Maria, Janice's father faced a lot of pressure from his extensive family -- what to do, what not to do, what he can and can't do.
Janice understands the amount of sacrifice her dad must've done to get her into the family in the first place, and she never questions the things that her father does, so if it means that she'll be the guinea pig to her grandmother twice removed and so forth, fine. Didn't mean she had to like it.
She saw more, she observed more, she learned more because of this. She never doubted her instincts, and these subtle things made her less blind than the people around her. Meaning she knew better than to mess with the drama of gossip and teasing that happened around her.
She made sure she never had an opinion, unless it was for the benefit of others, because yes, screw her over, but not the girl who can barely carry her books to the next room. Cut off her hair with safety scissors, but don't you dare touch the dreadlocks of the African-American girl down the hall.
Because of that attitude, Janice got into a lot of crap. Sometimes literally. Her brother's call her Plain Jane, but they didn't doubt that their sister could whip them all the way to Russia if she wanted to. She's a force to be reckoned with, you could say, but all Janice would tell you would be that she is a good judge of character. If you looked like someone who wanted help, she'd help. If you looked like you needed to be thrown out the window, she'll hold it open.
Luckily for James, he still had three hours for her to decide whether he was going out the mall in a car or an ambulance.
Really, there wasn't any pressure at all.
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IF THERE WAS ANYTHING TO LIGHTEN A MOOD, the fresh aroma of delicious food delicacies was always a pretty amazing option to consider. Janice strolled in with her sights set on the Baskin Robin's at the far corner, already making her way through the pleasantly half busy cafeteria, but James reached out and tapped her on the shoulder.
She turned, a little confused on why he'd hesitated. "Is something the matter?"
He shook his head. "No, but I actually wanted to get something to eat, too. I have a bad feeling ice cream isn't going to cut it for me."
She scrunched up her nose. "Are you against ice cream? Because if so, I think we really need to start heading our different ways." She gave a dramatic sigh, "I knew this was too good to be true."
James rolled his eyes at her theatrical opinion. "I know it's hard to get wrapped around the fact that I'm a God-- okay, stop giving me that look, you know it's true. But I'm going to get a salad and come back."
"A salad?" out of all the things that went through her head, she's conjured a three-layered pizza, hamburger, two bottles of pepsi and a healthy sub on the side combo. And now this guy's telling her he's going for leafs and vegetables?
"Yeah," he said. "That's the thing where you put lettuce and that white dressing thing. Believe it or not, people eat it."
"I bet they add sarcasm to that meal," she said. "Okay, I'll find a booth."
"No, you get the ice cream," he said, before he handed her a crisp twenty. "I'll just go and try and get something from New York Fries. Whoever get's their meal first, just get a seat and the other will try and find them. Deal?"
"Deal," Janice said, before rushing off to get in line. Thankfully, it wasn't long before her order came in, and since there weren't a lot of people lounging in the area, she'd easily located a spot for her and James to sit.
Licking her mint chocolate, she clucks her tongue on the roof of her mouth as she thinks about how quickly the day had progressed. Seriously, one minute she walks into the mall distraught and hopeless and now she's having ice cream cones and salads with a guy she only just met.
It could be worse, she told herself, your boss could've been hairy and ugly and your job could've been to clean the public bathrooms. She shuddered at the atrocities partnered with the thought; she lived with four males who apparently only know how to use urinals at home. The last thing she needed was to do it for most of the population of Ohio and then some.
Partially finished her cone, she looks up to see James looking around for her. She catches his eye and beckons him over, his salad on a tray, along with two bottles of water. He slides in on the chair opposite of her. "Hey. God, I didn't realize how hungry I was until I had the order in my hand."
"I'm surprised that you could live off of that." She gestured to the little black, see-through box in his hands.
"What do you have against my meal, anyways?" he said, plowing down with his plastic fork.
"I have three brothers. If they had to eat a salad, they'd probably order something that use five lettuces, ten tomatoes and a whole lot of whatever they have in stock."
"I guess you could say I get filled up easily," he said. "And I didn't realize you had three brothers. I knew you had one, but three? Should I be scared?"
"Petrified," she said.
"Thanks for the reassuring consolidation."
"That's what I'm here for," she said cheerfully. "What about you? Got any siblings?"
"I have a sister named Kori," he told her through the bites of his salad. "She used to be all sweet and cute when she was a baby. Now she's a huge pain in the ass when it comes boys and everything."
"How old is your sister?"
"Not dating material yet!"
Janice nodded, as if she expected this. "It starts off young. How much older are you from her?"
"You mean how much older am I from you?" he teases, and she blows on the hair that falls in her mouth. "I'm a year older, I'm almost 19, though."
"You're almost the same age as my oldest brother, Karlo. Then comes the twins, who're your age and then there's me."
"Which one was the one who ditched you?" he asks, and James couldn't understand why he was so curious about this particular red head, but he was enthralled and it didn't seem like this intense curiosity was going to be fading anytime soon.
"Karlo," she said. "But he had a good reason. He does this autocar dealership with my dad and it kind of snuck up on him."
"Sounds like your family and you are close," he remarks, noticing how defensive she is about her brother.
She shrugs, "Only some of them. And only when they're not trying to bait me into turning the world into an apocalypse or leave me stranded in malls by myself, we're pretty tight. What about you?"
"My sister's fine when she's not bugging me about getting her free things from the store I work at."
"How old is she again?"
"... 14."
Janice giggles. "I don't even want to ask why she'd want things from your store. But I have to ask, you're really young to be a manager, now that I think about it. Are you finished school, then?"
He shakes his head to her question. "Senior year before I'm off." He scratched the back of his head, trying to disperse the red flush as he tried to explain. "My uncle kind of owns the store company around here and he offered me the position. I couldn't very well say no."
"I think being a pervert just runs in your family, then."
"Hey!" he flicked a cucumber at her as she laughed. "Take that back. I am a gentleman. I am a very manly gentleman."
"You're manager of an underwear shop, James. What makes you think that gives you credibility?"
He grumbles, but there's hardly a speck of protest. "Okay, so maybe girls want me to give them comments. What's a guy to do if someone beautiful tell's them what they think of themselves? Tell them they're gorgeous!"
"Yes. You watch them strip out because of the good soul you are," Janice said, somehow keeping a straight-face.
Then they catch each other's gazes and break out laughing. "Honestly, you make it sound like a charity, giving out free adulation to flatter these girls." Janice confesses, once her laughter subsides. She takes the last bite of her cone, sneaking a napkin from James's tray and wiping the leftover trails of melted cream from her sticky fingers.
James frowns. "I don't mean it to be. I think everyone needs to be complimented once and a while, you know. Like, I think you're absolutely gorgeous and I'm super happy that you decided I wasn't a complete loser and left me in the car to wallow in my misery."
Janice freezes at the compliment, before she clears her throat a couple times, struck by how sincere James sounded. "Uh. Wow. You're really blunt, you know that?"
"Gentleman, Janice. Gentleman."
"Don't guys usually have a really hard time talking about their feelings?" she said, skeptical on why this guy seemed to mismatch almost all the stereotypes she'd ever placed on the male species.
"I'm an open book," he replied honestly. "And it seems unfair that I have to stop talking about what I think or restrict myself from showcasing what I feel just because something as stupid as society tells me to. There isn't any stipulation against me wanting to sob my eyes out if I drop my pizza by accident, alright."
"Pizza trauma," she agrees. "Wouldn't want something like that to ever get in the way."
James feels a smile tugging at his mouth, and the revelation that a particular girl could be the purpose because of it made him want to smile even more sedulously. "But I wasn't kidding, Janice. Thanks for keeping me company."
"You're very welcome," she perked. "Now let's terminate this before I actually do start bawling my eyes out. I have a better thing to do."
Piqued with interest, he raises an eyebrow. "Meaning?"
"What would you say about a game of murder, theft and badass ninja moves?"
James quirked a smirk. "What would you say?"
"Hell to the yeah."
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JANICE IS NOT ASHAMED IN THE SLIGHTEST TO BE CALLED A GAMER. Not a girl gamer. Not a girl who played games. Not a gamer who is, in fact, a girl. No, she's just a gamer. Because in the world of digital, pixilated and incredible out of this world (this figure of speech can be applied quite literally in instances) graphics, she was just another player behind a screen and with the same weapon every other person had -- a controller, a determination and a helluva impressive competitive streak.
That, and she just really liked blowing things -- people, houses, horses -- up.
How's that for feminine, Aunt Maria?
"Okay, you're wicked at this." James admits once he get's killed at Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare once more.
They were standing in a huge video game store, EB Games, and since the workers were too busy manhandling some whiny pubescent boy who wanted a new GTA V (Janice scoffed, since the kid looked like he was 9) and a really frantic mother who wanted to get something for her son's birthday, they didn't pay heed to the two teenagers hounding over the gaming console at the side.
She gives him a look. "Honestly, as much as I want to say I know I am, I'm pretty sure you're just really terrible."
James grunted, watching his player getting killed for the twentieth time in an hour. "I really want to argue. But I can't. That's pretty upsetting."
Janice let's her teeth show as she throws him a bare smile. James notices that her teeth are a little crooked and that some of her incisors were a little sharper than the others (if she was a vampire, a lot of things would be cleared up, to be honest), but James can't help but think that it's pretty gorgeous.
"If I knew how horrible you were, I would've done universal instead of manual play," she teased him, and he huffed, putting the controller on the side, realizing his only stupid weapon of choice was to pick it up. "Let me finish this one game and then we'll go."
And this game ended up being just a little longer than he anticipated. Only when they were out of the store and sitting on the couches stationed in front of the store did James pipe up.
"This one game," James muttered, crossing his arms afterwards, "happened to be twenty minutes long. Did you really need to be that good at this?"
"Hey, the guy was so awed by my skill he didn't even complain about me beating his high score," Janice told him, "and it's not my fault you underestimated my absolute talent. I'm still waiting for an apology."
"Me?" James spun on her, incredulous, "my eyes are bleeding; pretty much legitimately!"
"You've seen skin on places people don't usually ever want to even envision, you'll live." Janice countered.
"I-I--"
Janice pats James on the back. "Don't worry. From tomorrow onwards, I'll be sharing in your horrible, horrible sights."
James chuckles, almost forgetting that he'd only just met Janice three hours ago, obliterating that he was not on a date, but a really friendly, less pity, kind of meet-up, and it was nice. It was more than nice. It was more than Canadian stereotype nice. It was... insightful.
"Don't forget your shift tomorrow," he reminded her. "I'll have you do the best job ever."
"Don't tell me now before I end up ditching you," she said, before looking at the golden watch around her wrist. "Crap, hey, my brother should be downstairs by now. I think this where I say thank you for the incredible ice cream--"
"--and fries, soda and chicken sandwich we had, too." James adds, but standing up with Janice as they went to the escalator going down.
"... yeah, that, too. Look, it was super awesome of you to stay like you did and I'm glad we got to hang out. You have my phone number if you need anything."
"I'm pretty sure I gave you my phone number..."
"I added mine in there when I was talking to Karlo," Janice told him, hiding her embarrassment by a smirk she caught quickly from him. James raises an eyebrow at the exuding nonchalance Janice was portraying (if he only knew), but remained silent. Once Janice caught sight of her brother standing in the lobby, she can't help but feel the heart in her drop.
"I guess I'll see you tomorrow," James said.
"Don't give my shift to anyone if I'm a couple minutes late!" she told him, already on the way out.
But she wasn't worried; and for once, she didn't have reason otherwise.
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