Fandom: Popular

Series: Three Times Table

Title: Old Friends - Sam

Author: Carla

Email: cmfloresfd@yahoo.com

*** The rest remains unchanged and can be found in the first part. ***

It’s 6:45 and I’m starving but of course since Brooke isn’t here we can’t eat yet. It’s one of the few ways Mom and Mike are able to feel that they have some control over Brooke’s eating disorder. It’s subtle really, we never out right say we held dinner for her but since dinner is ready to serve at 6:30 most nights she knows we do. Brooke in turn makes it a point to never be later than 7:00 or she calls. She calls fairly often now that she’s spending even more time with April.

Finally at five minutes to seven Goldilocks comes traipsing through the door and we sit down to eat. Brooke’s chattering with Mom about some outfit she bought with Nicole that afternoon while Mike’s chewing his overdone steak like a cow chews it’s cud. God but sometimes I despair of my family. I know melodramatic but still…I guess it’s just that the whole ‘blandness’ of it all... I want excitement, nothing ‘dramatic’ just intellectual conversation. In fact it’s one of the reasons I personally kind of like having April join us for dinner. She and Mike provide a different kind of conversation to listen in on, one that is more interesting than the latest styles or cheerleading or any of the other asinine things Brooke and my mother talk about. Mostly they talk about music and oddly enough Tom Leykus.

"Sam honey could you pass the salt please?"

I pass Mom the salt and return to contemplating an earlier encounter with Nicole in the Zapruder offices yesterday afternoon in light of her appearance at lunch today. That and the shopping trip must mean that Hawk and Dove have reconciled. Though she hadn’t said so directly Nicole had more or less confessed to a longstanding attraction to Brooke. She’d come to ask me if I’d known and when I’d said yes she expressed surprise at my discretion. At any rate Satan must have decided to swallow her pride and make her apologies to Brooke. I’m dying to know what was said. I wonder if April came up in the conversation at all? I wonder if she told Brooke the truth, did Brooke guess or is she still in denial? I know April shared her thoughts on the whole Nicole ‘thing’ with Brooke, only I had actual basis for my conclusion and April had what amounted to a hunch. Either way it’s the same, we both told Brooke that Nicole was, on some level, in love with her.

Across from me Brooke is flashing me a grin while simultaneously kicking me under the table. When I scowl at her she mouths ‘later’ so I guess I’ll be finding out the dirt after all.

Sure enough as soon as Mom and Mike leave us in the kitchen to clean up Brooke’s starts talking. If she’s not careful she’s going to start hyperventilating any minute now. As it is the words are flying out of her mouth so fast I may have to trank her just to get her to slow down enough so that I can understand more than every third word out of her. It’s probably a good idea to get her calmed down before she breaks a plate too. Her hands are really trembling.

"Breathe Brooke. And slowly exhale. Again, inhale and exhale. Inhale and…exhale." I rub her back in small circles continuing to murmur inhale and exhale till she finally calms.

"Thanks", Brooke grins sheepishly.

"No prob." I pick up a dish and begin to rinse it off, "I’ll rinse you load."

"Okay"

While we clean up she gives me a brief overview of what transpired with Satan at lunch and after school. She still hasn’t said though if Nicole said anything about liking her. I wonder if…no wait what was that.

"What was that?"

"You heard me. C’mon Nic said she spoke to you."

"She did."

"So that’s why you said she was in love with me right?" Brooke sounds almost hopeful.

"Not just that."

"What else then?"

"It’s also the way she looks at you when she thinks no one is watching. It’s almost like… like she’s drinking you in." I’m thinking of one afternoon in particular last summer when Nic and Brooke spent the day just sunning by the pool and Nicole’s eyes never left Brooke.

"Does she?"

"Does she what? Does she love you? Yeah she does. Is she in love with you? I think so as much as she is capable of."

"What did she say to you exactly."

"I can’t say." Brooke begins to protest and I offer a hasty explanation. "I promised. You know I keep my word."

"I know," Brooke sighs. She hops up onto the island counter and runs her hands through her hair. "I saw it today… that look you were just talking about."

"And?"

"I don’t know."

I fill the dishwasher’s dispenser, close it and press the button to start the dishwasher. Then I get two spoons and the unopened rum raisin ice cream. Brooke slides off the counter to get the desert bowls from the cabinet and we go out to sit by the pool.

"You know we could just eat straight out of the container."

"That’s gross Sam. I don’t where your mouth’s been."

"I don’t even want to think about where your’ has been," I smirk and begin spooning ice cream into a bowl. Unless Brooke has failed to tell me otherwise she and April haven’t gotten any further than the proverbial second base.

"I kissed Nicole this afternoon," Brooke says in a slightly embarrassed whisper.

I wasn’t expecting that. Talk about a conversation stopper.

"I don’t even no why I did it really. It’s just I knew it would make her happy and we agreed that it was just one time."

"You know that look we were talking about just now. I’ve seen it before." One of the perks of being Brooke’s sister / confidant is guilt tripping her. Brooke arches her eyebrow silently questioning.

"When you look at April," I answer.