Chapter 23: The Best Form Of Serendipity Is Car Sex
((Playlist: Days Like Masquerades by The Academy Is...))
Sophie flopped down on her sofa after Jackson dropped her off at her house. "Hello to you too," Amy commented as she walked by the living room.
"Oh, hey." Sophie buried her face in the cushion and flipped on the TV.
"Someone's looking a little tired. And blushy," Amy added with a smirk. "Have you and your Punk Romeo been doing something fun?"
Sophie sat up. "We're doing the school talent show and wrote a whole new song today," she said.
Amy nearly dropped her mug of tea. "The talent show? That's probably one of the most dangerous things you can do at that school, besides maybe selling crack cocaine."
"But there's a prize this year besides the imminent fear of injury," Sophie continued with a mystic air. "$500."
"Damn." Amy raised her eyebrows. "Well, that would cover your hospital bill- granted you have insurance, that is."
Sophie hurled a pillow at her sister. "Geez, Amy, I'm not gonna die!"
"No, you won't die. You'll just break your entire leg or get really bad whiplash or dislocate your shoulder or something," Amy sighed. "Seriously though, that show is cursed. You and your boyfriend be careful out there."
"Oh, come on," Sophie said. "What's the worst that could happen to us? Anyone who's done the show in the past has lived to tell the tale."
Amy sat down beside her sister on the couch, nursing a bowl of popcorn and a bottle of mountain dew. "Let's see - you could stab yourself with your own drum sticks. Punk Rock Romeo could take a guitar pick to the eye, and I don't think you want to date a guy with an eyepatch."
Sophie took a handful of popcorn. "With all the other kids entering this, I'm sure someone else will take the brunt of the curse." She popped a piece in her mouth. "Probably a freshman."
Amy rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "For your sake, I hope so. Is anyone else you know in the show?"
"Lys is going to be MC. Mikayla is doing... a poetry reading? Beatboxing? I don't know, but she's doing something. And i think Jonah is playing a clarinet thing."
Amy made the sign of the cross over her chest. "Bless your souls. May you rest in peace."
Sophie poked her. "Do you think mom and dad would object to me missing dinner tomorrow so the band could pull a double rehearsal?"
"No, but I do."
"Why?"
"How could you forget?" Amy held a hand to her chest, feigning offense. "My lovely fiancee is coming for dinner tomorrow, and I demand that you meet her."
"Right, I forgot!" Sophie stole some more popcorn. "I look forward to meeting my new sister-in-law."
Amy smiled wanly. "At least someone's excited."
"Are mom and dad-"
Before she could finish, their mother walked in the room. "Hi, sweetie. Glad you're home. How was lacrosse practice with Lys?"
"Err-" Sophie cleared her throat awkwardly, "Actually, I was at-"
She was interrupted again, this time, by her phone's ringtone. She pulled it out of her pocket. Lys.
"Sorry, give me a sec," she muttered, walking up to her room before answering.
"Lys? What's up?"
"SOPHIE! Thank god! I'm having a life crisis over here!"
"Does it have anything to do with lacrosse?"
"Right. I kinda told your mom you joined the lacrosse team so you could sneak over to my house and help me with my crisis," Lys explained.
Sophie furrowed her brow. "Lys, I'm your best friend, not some back-alley creeper. I don't have to sneak over to your house."
Lys paused. "Now that I think of it, I may have overreacted in that aspect."
"So what's the crisis?"
"It's too important to say on the phone! You have to get your butt here right now!" She exclaimed.
Sophie sighed. "Okay, okay. I'll be there in a few minutes."
"Whew. Thanks, girl." Lys hung up.
Sophie walked downstairs. "I have to go over to Lys's for... uh, lacrosse practice," she said quickly before running out the front door.
Lys answered her door after only one knock. She grabbed Sophie and yanked her inside in one swift movement. Lys took Sophie by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. "Sophie, I have a crisis."
"No kidding. What is it?"
"I'm having a code red life crisis here. Call Life Alert." Lys said as she drug Sophie up the stairs to her room, "You're not going to believe this when you see it."
"And it's not related to lacrosse, is it?" Sophie sighed.
"No, of course not. Lacrosse is going just fine; my teammates love me, we're on a winning streak, and I'm probably gonna be team captain next year."
Sophie sat down on the bed. "Does it have to do with Jonah?"
Lys whirled on her heels. "Jonah? Why, what's going on? What did you hear?"
"It's just-" Sophie cut herself off when she saw the look of confusion in her friend's eyes, "-nothing. I just got that impression."
"We can talk about boys later," Lys said with a wave of her hand. "For now, let's talk about this."
She held out a crumpled up note to Sophie. "I found this tucked under the windshield wiper of my car, but it's addressed to you."
Sophie took it in her hand, smoothing out the note, but most of it was smudged and indecipherable. "What the heck is this, Lys?"
She shrugged, "I don't know. It was a little more readable before I crumpled it up and stuffed it in my pocket, but I think it was one of Jackson's psycho ex-girlfriends."
Sophie raised her eyebrows. "Jackson has a psycho ex?"
"Apparently. It said something like 'I was the first girl in the band' and 'you'll regret the day you met him'. Creepy psycho things like that."
"The 'first girl in the band'?" She scowled. "The only other girl in the band is Jackson's cousin."
"Trust me, this was definitely from an ex."
Sophie scowled, remembering the band muttering something on initiation night about another person who'd been initiated, but clearly wasn't in the band anymore.
"Who is she? Did the paper say?" Sophie squinted at the smudged handwriting.
"Maddie, I think," Lys said. "And man, did she sound angry and crazy. Like, 'rip out your eyeballs and feed them to wolves' angry and crazy."
"Do you know her? Does she go to our school?" Sophie rambled a little.
Lys sat down on her bed. "I don't know anyone named Maddie. Maybe she goes to a city school."
Sophie sat too. "What am I supposed to do?" Her eyes widened. "What if she starts, like, stalking us or something? This is pretty stalkerish." She waved the crumpled paper.
Lys looked seriously at Sophie. "You need to guard your man! I'm not saying Jackson will break if off with you in favor of this crazy chick," she added quickly, "but if this Maddie is actually as nuts as she came off in the letter, I feel like she could easily murder him or cut his brake lines or something."
Sophie raised her eyebrows. "Geez. She is really is a psycho ex. But how am I supposed to 'guard my man?' I only have one class with Jackson and I'm with him for a few hours after school, and that's it."
"Okay, maybe he has to guard himself a bit too," Lys admitted. "But if Maddie ever shows her face, you gotta be assertive. Get in this hoe's face and be like, 'HOE. Step off my MAN!'"
"But what if she shows her face and has like - oh, i don't know - a glock?" Sophie's eyes widened.
"That's the part where you slap the gun out of her hands and say 'hoe, I'm calling the cops on your psycho butt!'" She shrugged, "or you timidly negotiate until she puts the gun away and then call the cops. Whatever ends without you getting shot. Assuming she has a gun, anyway."
Sophie flopped over on Lys's bed, burying her face in the flowery bedspread. "Why the heck does this have to happen? I finally get a boyfriend and now I'm getting vaguely threatening letters."
Lys sat down beside her and started braiding her hair. "Soph, I might not believe in God, but I know you do. Maybe He's testing your faith or something - doesn't that happen in the Bible a lot? You know, like with Lazarus and Saul and Donald Trump's presidential campaign?"
"Lys, your 'I only go to church twice a year' side is showing," Sophie chuckled a little. "But I don't think so. How is my faith in God tested by psychopathic Maddie possibly hanging me from a ceiling fan by my toes?"
"Maybe He's not testing your faith in Him. Maybe he's testing your faith in love."
"Great. I absolutely need a higher being to be my relationship counselor."
"No, you don't," Lys smiled. "You have me for that."
She sat up. "Thanks, Lys. I might give you a hard time, but you really do give good advice. At least, you try to."
Lys finished braiding her hair and secured it with a tie. "Great, so here's some more advice," she said, grabbing her friend by the shoulders. "If you see this hoe anywhere, you tell her to back the hell off. Jackson likes you, not this sociopathic creep, and don't let her make you think otherwise."
Sophie gave a determined nod. "She better back off my man," she agreed.
Lys patted her on the head. "That's the spirit! You'll be fine, I have faith in you."
Sophie squinted at her friend. "Did you really sign me up the lacrosse team?"
"Nope. I'm pretty sure you hate exercise. And flying balls," she added.
"You know there's a chess club, right? I could have 'joined' that," she pointed out.
Lys sighed. "Soph, everyone knows I would never voluntarily sign up for extra math. Let alone drag you with me."
"Chess isn't really-"
"Shh." Lys put her hand gently on Sophie's mouth. "Don't question my ethics."
Sophie pushed Lys's hand away with a grin. "So, how's the talent show coming?"
"Well, I have some pretty aca-mazing puns," she said. "How was that? I'm saying that before a freshmen acapella group goes on."
"Very punny. What else you got?"
"Uh, that's it so far," she said sheepishly. "It's not easy coming up with puns off the top of your head. They sort of just happen, y'know?"
"Come up with your puns fast. Isn't the show in two weeks or something?"
"Two and a half weeks, but who's counting?" Lys said with a shrug. "By the way, I don't know if this is a dealbreaker, but your band might not be allowed on stage."
If she were drinking something, Sophie would have spit it out. "What?"
"Well, it's nothing personal." She poked Sophie in the shoulder. "I love you guys and all, but your band is called The Missionary Position. It's not exactly school appropriate."
Sophie winced. "Darn. You're right."
"I mean, I'd love to make all kinds of sex jokes and make all the freshmen squirm in their chairs, but then I'd get disqualified too."
"You're not even in the show- you can't get disqualified," Sophie pointed out.
"Okay, let me rephrase that - I'd get fired."
"Can you get fired if you aren't being paid?"
Lys threw her hands in the air. "Stop questioning my logic!"
"Alright," Sophie said at last, "I'll ask Jackson about temporarily changing the name of the band."
Lys grinned. "Thanks, Soph. Speaking of the band, how's the song writing going? Have you eliminated the strippers and sexual innuendos?"
"Actually, we wrote it today. It's pretty good."
"That was fast," she said, surprised. "I thought your band had trouble writing clean songs."
"They do. I don't," Sophie smiled smugly.
"How clean is this song, though?" Lys asked. "Are we talking Kidz Bop, or...?"
"More like the Backstreet Boys," Sophie said. "There's romance, but nothing more than kissing."
Lys nodded in approval. "I can work a pun into that."
Sophie stood up. "Well, thanks for the advice and the braid, but I have to get home before my parents begin to think I actually did join the lacrosse team."
"Anytime." Lys gave her a salute as Sophie left.
As soon as Sophie walked in the door, she almost walked right into her dad. "Oh, good, you're home just in time. Dinner's ready."
"Oh, cool." Sophie kicked off her shoes and sat next to her sister at the table. They said a grace, and dug into the chicken and biscuits her mom had made.
"So I just want to put it out there that I did not join the lacrosse team," Sophie began.
"I figured you didn't. I assumed Lys was just fooling around as usual," her mother told her as she passed around a bowl of mashed potatoes.
Sophie's mother looked up at her after a minute. "So, is there anything you've been meaning to tell your father?"
"Tell me what?" Her dad asked.
Ugh. I completely forgot, Sophie thought with dread. She sighed quietly and said, "um, I kind of have a boyfriend."
"Oh, really?" Her father looked a little surprised. "Who is he?"
"His name's Jackson. He's the guy I was doing that project in music class with, remember?"
Her father nodded. "Is he nice?"
"Yeah, he's really nice," Sophie gushed. Amy gave Sophie an amused smirk out of the corner of her eye.
Her father forked some potatoes onto his plate. "When are you bringing him over so we can meet him?"
"Oh, um..." Sophie paused. "I don't know. I'll ask him later."
The table was quiet for a moment as everyone ate. Then Any spoke up: "speaking of meeting significant others, Finley and her parents are coming over for dinner tomorrow."
Her mother froze with a forkful of chicken halfway to her mouth, like someone had pressed a real-life pause button. "Yes, I forgot you told us something like that," she said, setting the chicken down.
"Are her parents..." her father gestured vaguely, "...well, you know."
"Vegan? No, feel free to make as much meat as you want."
Sophie stifled a laugh as both her parents gave Amy a 'that's not what we meant and you know it' look.
"Oh, come on," Amy said, keeping her tone light, "her parents are straight, so the four of you can have fun discussing whatever it is straight parents with gay kids talk about."
As a nice change of pace, her parents seemed to accept the fact of tomorrow's dinner, instead of trying to argue against it. Sophie chewed her chicken thoughtfully. Amy's right. Mom and dad are kind of coming to terms with it. I think.
"What time are they coming?" Her mother asked.
"Finley said they'll be here around six."
Her parents nodded, giving a minimally committal answer of having dinner ready by then before silence reigned over the table again. Sophie took a sip of iced tea. "I can't wait to meet your fiancée," she said. "She sounds like a wonderful person."
Amy gave a wan smile. "And I can't wait to introduce you. You'll get along well, I can tell."