Chapter Three

There wasn’t as much of a wait at Denny’s that everyone had thought there would be. It seemed strangely quiet, yet in a way kind of like a dream. Stacey remained still at the table everyone holding their menus quietly thinking to themselves. This couldn’t be happening, there’s no way that this is actually happening. First her one and only son; and now her fiancé. The world had a daydream affect, everything was moving slow, and it was almost like it was in a mist. She was starting to feel light headed when someone broke the air of stillness.
“So…” Marie started. “It’s a nice a day out.” She was trying to keep everyone’s mind off of the situations at hand. “Hey David, remember that one time when you got so drunk and so wasted that you passed out and got writing on your face? That was definitely a Kodak moment.” This time, she succeeded.
“Dude, nigga that was SO funny!” Rudy laughed a hardy laugh as the drinks were served. “Did you ever find out who that was?”
Everyone was laughing as each guy took a jab at who it could have been. Ricky laughed and had a glint to his eye, why hadn’t she seen it before? Now whenever she looked at him she saw Nicholas. Nicko that was. She had called him that whenever Chad wasn’t around, her baby boy Nicko. He had his daddy’s cheeks, and his nose, and his hair, she hadn’t noticed, but everyone else had. She had started to stream down tears. Ricky was now looking straight into her eyes, and almost a hint of guilt took him over. He broke the gaze and she followed suit. She cleared her throat, “When the waitress comes back, uh, just tell her that I want the usual.” With a sigh and a quick wipe of her tears she got up and went to the bathroom. Meg and Brandi exchanged looks as well as Irene and Marie. With the looks being exchanged, Meg finally got up and followed Stacey.
The rest of the table carried on trying not to think of anything negative, and trying to just make this a fun time. From the bathroom you could still hear the clattering of dishes, the laughter from customers, the tears from toddlers, and even the occasional curse of the total of the bill that a father had to pay. Although all of these sounds were still heard from the ladies room you couldn’t see Ricky’s likeness to his baby boy. And that was why she was standing with her head down over the sink, her arms stretched out clinging to the porcelain base as her strength. That was the way Meg found her when she walked in.
She walked up slowly not wanting to say anything at first. She could hear the snuffling and she could hear the thoughts of one of her very best friends. “I’m not leaving you know.” Sometimes it was amazing that Stacey and Meg and Brandi and sometimes even Irene could read each others minds. Meg and Stacey had been doing it the longest though. They used to have to at least look at each other in the eyes to know what the other one was thinking. Now it’s progressed, and all they needed to do was just feel exactly what the other one was feeling.
“I know.” It was a simple sentence that to anyone else would have seemed like she admitted it, but in reality she was saying, “Why?”.
“Because I’m you’re best friend doofus, why else would I be in a public bathroom trying to figure out what’s wrong, even though I’m pretty sure that I know what it is.”
Stacey wiped her tears and looked Meg in the face. Her face was solemn and layered thickly with questions. “So when were you gonna tell me?” Stacey looked her in the eye and knew what Meg was thinking. Her silence was asking “How did you know?”
Stacey answered with a smile, “Because I’m you’re best friend doofus, how else would I know?” Meg smiled for a moment uncomfortable, then answering.
“Is it noticeable? I mean… not even Gerry knows. I’m kind of nervous to tell him. Ya know?”
“Yea, I know. I was there once before but,” grimacing towards her friend, “I think, mine was just a tad bit more complicated then just telling my fiancé.”
“I know, I know, but how did you do it? I mean… I know how you did it, but how did you get the courage?”
“Well, to be honest, I never quite had it. I just did what had to be done, and that led me to more heartbreak than I will ever know.” There was a short silence and Stacey bounced right back up.
“But that’s where things are different with you, you’re with the one you love, and it was with the one you love. So no worries, yea?” Stacey’s voice said one thing but her eyes said another.
Rushing towards her with open arms Meg and Stacey embraced, “Babe, I know this is hard, all of it is.” Pulling Stacey to arms length so she could look her in the eyes. “But hey, you’ll pull through. You always have,” smiling a she devil smile with a hint a of a joke tucked in the corner. “And you always will, even if you don’t go about it the right way.” They both laughed which was something they both needed more than they could have guessed.
Just then Brandi burst through the door, “What are you two losers doing? This isn’t a sad convention you know,” She laughed. “No I’m just kidding our food’s ready.” Stacey walked out of the rest room first. “Hey Meg wait I have something to tell you. I wanted to tell you before I told Stacey.” Brandi was gleaming.
“Good,” Meg replied, “because I have something to tell you too.” They both looked at each other with a weird look.
“I’m having a baby!” Brandi burst at the same time Meg did. “You’re having a baby?” They were like robots saying the same thing at the same time. “I’m having a baby! Stop that!” They both laughed uncontrollably for a moment and then all of the sudden Meg stopped. “Gosh Brandi,” Meg started with a smile. “Just steal my thunder why don’t you.” And with that she fake stomped out of the room.
“But, I- I thought, ugh!” She laughed and followed Meg back out to the table and her delicious Grand Slam breakfast lunch with pancakes, eggs, and bacon.

* * * * * * *

“Don’t you think that we should ask Stacey about this before we go through with it?” The young man was not much into his twenties, a tall handsome man, his hair was black and slicked back. He wore an expensive pair of jeans and a plain white shirt that had South Pole written in curving letters across the front in a light tan. His dark green eyes were mesmerizing. His forehead was rippled with concern as he spoke with an older man over his shoulder in a laboratory. There were computers and electronic devices everywhere, there were green lights and red lights, deep beeps and high beeps, there were gizmos and gadgets. It was definitely a spy base, or at least something of the sort.
“It’s not her concern.” The elderly gentleman was scruffy and had a perfect voice matched to his face and stubble on his chin.
“Not her concern?!” The younger man burst, “But it’s her-”
“We have orders.” The elderly man spoke firmly and almost with a touch of remorse the second time he said it. “We have orders, and those orders must be carried out.” There was a short silence. “No matter what the cost.”
“Fine.” The younger man turned with a determination in his step, “Then you can count me out.” He paused at the door.
“You can’t just quit.” There was a tenderness in the elderly mans voice, he turned to face the young man. The young man turned back to the scruffy man, his grey hair was glistening under the fluorescent lighting. “You know as well as I do that you’ll be stripped of your title and your privileges before anything can be done.”
The young man’s muscles tightened under his tanned skin. “It’s not right.” He whispered quietly. “Isn’t there anything we can do? I mean if we could find just one loop hole, just one…” He trailed off.
“That’s exactly what I’ve been looking for, and it’s hopeless, Chad is a genius mad man. Maybe you could talk to him.” There was a long silence as the elderly man stared at the young man’s face contorted with pain and his eyes started drizzling with painful tears.
Through gritted teeth he said a simple sentence that would have shot through Chad’s heart had he heard it. “I stopped talking to that son of a bitch the night that he had this started.” Hm… maybe he should have heard it.

* * * * * * *

Lunch at Denny’s was something that everyone had needed. As everyone slowly started to finish their food, things seemed almost normal. Other than the fact that Chad wasn’t there and Ricky and Stacey had, at one point came to sit next to each other, were smiling and acting as if they’d been together the entire time. Nothing at this table seemed out of place. Nothing seemed to be bothering this great group of friends. At one point in the lunch JJ had called Brandi and been invited to lunch with them all. Everyone was laughing and having a great time. Stacey declared that it was all on her, which in reality meant that it was all on Chad, so no one argued.
As everyone left and Marie was once again escorted by her private body guards also known as her friends, Ricky and Stacey fell behind everyone else. Even though it was a warm day in April she was chilled completely and shivered. Ricky reached for her hand and she didn’t pull away. He looked into her eyes and in the silence they finally understood each other. Ricky wasn’t blamed for what had happened and neither was Stacey. Ricky had looked as though he wanted to say something but before he had the chance Irene called to Stacey, “Hey,” She motioned to the car while trying to balance Marie’s right side at the same time, “Do you mind opening the car? It would be easier than us breaking and entering.”
Stacey smiled and apologized, “Oops, sorry.” She hit the unlock button on her keys. She still held fast to Ricky’s hand, “I guess I should go drive everyone home huh?” She was really asking if they could all continue to be with each other for the day. There was no way she wanted to go back to that house yet.
“Why? We could all go for a swim at the house.” The house was the house where almost all the guys of California lived. Ok so that’s an exaggeration but Ricky, Rudy, Jose, David, Skeet, and now Junior and his son Junior Jr., yea I know it’s weird but hey what can I do?, were pretty much all the guys from Cali that you needed. “Hey!” Ricky shouted to everyone as they were standing around the cars about ready to get in. “To the house for a swim! And then we could have a barbecue tonight!”
Stacey laughed and rolled her eyes, “But we just ate, how can you think of food already?” His eyes gleamed as he said to her, “Simple, I’m a guy. It’s what I do.” They laughed as everyone decided that it was a great idea and that the girls would go rent some movies and buy some CD’s, and new bathing suits, while the guys went to get the food for the barbecue.

* * * * * * * *

“No no no baby no no no no don’t lie!” The girls were having a blast singing to an old Black Eyed Peas song from back in 2005. “Cause you know know know know yea you know know know know you gotta try!” The girls all laughed as they turned into the Walmart parking lot.
“We really need some new music,” Marie laughed as she got out of the car.
“Yea,” Brandi jumped out as well. “That stuffs from like forever ago.”
They all started to laugh once more. Stacey had taken over the responsibility of Marie while the others walked ahead to get a cart and to start their girl intuition for what they needed to make this barbecue a smash. They all walked in and headed towards the music section in electronics.
“Oh my gosh we should so do karaoke!” Brandi burst when she passed the karaoke CD’s. “And Stacey could give us a mini concert like old times!” Brandi saw the laughter in Stacey’s eyes and pleaded, “Oh come on Stacey, please? You know it’ll be fun.” When Brandi had no luck she looked down at the CD’s she had in her hands. If there could have been; there probably would have been a light bulb over her head, as a sparkle appeared in her eyes. “It’ll annoy the guys.” She looked hopeful at Stacey.
Stacey groaned, “Alright! Alright, I give, but only one CD.” Right after this sentence about six or seven Karaoke CD’s were thrown in the cart. Stacey gave an I-can’t-believe-this-look to no one that was looking. They all laughed and continued to throw CD after CD in the cart and then moved on to the movies. Everyone seemed to find something that was worth tossing in the cart for the honorable Chad to buy. Dramatic pause, right. They soon found themselves in the game part of the electronics and throwing games in as well. They got a manager to open the case and they just started pulling one game after another out and putting it in the cart. Stacey laughed, “Guys! We don’t even have a system for these things!”
Meg bent over and grabbed a box as well as Irene, “We do now,” Meg said with a grin. “And besides, it’s not like any of us are paying for it anyways.”
“Right,” Irene agreed. “Besides he owes to us.”
“Yea,” Now Brandi was in on it. “Especially Marie.”
“So just think of it as payback.” Marie smiled impishly.
Stacey just shook her head and laughed. Which just gave the girls all the more reason to keep throwing things into the cart, by the time they got to the swim suits each girl had thrown in a digital camera with a memory chip, DVD’s and CD’s with more than one copy, just in case one breaks, as Irene had pointed out, video games galore, controllers, a dance pad, and there was even someone that was going to ring up a big screen TV for the guys’ newer house. Not to mention the three new video game consoles they were getting and a hand held PSP with movies and games for each of them. Also, the absolutely necessary Ipod with accessories that they each grabbed. The girls also thought it necessary to stop by the shoe department and throw in every color flip-flop known to man kind, along with a few purses and “critical cosmetics”. And they had only been inside for half an hour!
When they reached the swim suits they thought that “just in case” one didn’t fit they should get two. Which, ended up turning into three, "just in case" the one that fit, because the other one didn’t, "got a stain on it". When Stacey was about to say they were ready to go pay the girls thought that they should check out the clothes. “Just in case” someone was thrown into the pool with all their clothes on. All the while Stacey was laughing and throwing in a thing or two that she had liked as well, although she didn’t go as crazy with the shopping spree as the other girls did she still found that she needed to stop them before they picked out clothes.
“Come on guys,” She said to them in an annoyed tone. “Don’t you think that wasting Chad’s money on all this other stuff at Walmart is enough?” She had made a point; all the girls put their selections back on the racks and started to walk with sad faces towards the now two carts that Stacey and Marie were manning. All that was said was from Meg, “Boo, you whore.”
There was a twinkle suddenly in Stacey’s eye, “There’s a reason that there’s an awesome clothing store next door!” With that they checked out and the bill was, well let’s just say, if Chad wasn’t paying, no one could afford it.
The girls continued their shopping spree at the small, but awesome clothing store next to Walmart, and again walked out with more than they intended. Each of them had well over ten new outfits including tops, bottoms, under wear, bras, shoes, jewelry, and purses. For each outfit, by the way, not just one of each. They laughed in the car as they sang along with the newest Pussycat Dolls album. When they got back to the house the guys were unloading all the food, which seemed like they had gone on a spree as well. It wasn’t the generic food either, it was all name brand.
Stacey seemed confused; her eyebrows were knitted into a puzzled look. “How’d you guys pay for all of that?” She suddenly had a wrenching pain in her heart. “Chad didn’t go with you guys did he?”
Ricky laughed, “No, but it was pretty damn close.” Ricky smiled at her as a familiar face appeared around the corner of the Land cruiser.
“Chazz,” Stacey gasped and rushed to hug him. “What are you doing here?”
Irene inched her way through all the bodies carrying heavy bags on the drive way. “Baby!” She threw herself upon him, and kissed him all over his face hardly scoring on his lips.
Chazz laughed, “I’m here because chief said that I should come see how things are going,” He smiled at Irene. “And because I wanted to see everyone.”
Chazz was Chad’s twin brother, although twin was hardly the relative term between the two of them. They were fraternal twins and looked nothing alike. Chad was short and dark showing his black roots, Chazz on the other hand was quite tall and tan with black hair. Chazz was always likeable by everyone, he was more of the laid back one and always seemed to have a handle on his brother, but he had nothing on Stacey when it came to his brother. Everyone brought their treasures inside and changed quickly into their bikinis and swim trunks. The stereo was moved outside as all the CD’s were placed in and put on shuffle. Good song after good song came on as everyone had fun in the sun. The guys playing water basketball and trying to drown each other, while all the couples including Chazz and Irene, JJ and Brandi, Meg and Gerry, Travis and Marie, he had arrived after a call was made and when he saw what happened to Marie him along with all the other guys, except for Chazz, made a pact to get back at him if it took everything they had, and lastly Ricky and Stacey were all flirting shamelessly. Everyone, it seemed, were completely focused, not only on having a kick ass time, but on Ricky and Stacey. They seemed so happy together that it just seemed right. It seemed like a perfect day in spring, everyone having fun, swimming, laughing, barbecuing, dancing, singing, laughing some more, eating, playing video games, laughing at how the guys lost to all the girls; even Meg, who by the way isn’t all that great at video games, and then more eating and laughing. Nothing could destroy this awesome day that started out so horrifying. Or so everyone thought.