Lunch With a Dream Girl

Steven sat across the lunch table from Brigitte trying the best he could to cover up the stretched out bits of his sweater, which involved folding his arms across his chest and gripping his shoulders. He brought his lunch in a brown paper bag, but it remained unopened and sitting on the table on front of him. He was gazing at Brigitte, who was without a doubt the most fascinating girl that he had ever seen.

She had such jet black hair and pure blue eyes that she could have been cut out of a classic Disney film. She was daintily pecking at a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich that she held gingerly with her two hands, and she rapidly chewed every bit of as though she were a chipmunk. She also had been drinking a syrupy red liquid out of a translucent plastic container, which she insisted was a pint of blood that she swiped from the county hospital that morning. She put down the sandwich and picked up the cup, which was then half-full, and she gently swirled it with her wrist as though it were expensive cognac.

“If I don't drink a cup of this everyday for lunch, I could die,” Brigitte explained in a grave tone. She carefully brought the cup up to her lips, took a sip, and then swooshed it in her mouth for a few seconds before swallowing. “This isn't my favorite flavor, though. This is Type O. Albeit very well aged.” A droplet of the syrup the size of a pin-head remained on the side of her mouth, which she gracefully lapped up with a tongue that had been stained deeply red.

Of course, Steven knew very well that wasn't really blood. It was a novelty drink that they sold at the local grocery store. He hadn't the foggiest idea what was possessing Brigitte to drink that stuff, and furthermore, pretending that it was actual blood, but he couldn't deny that she looked devastatingly gorgeous when she licked the side of her mouth like that.

“How can you tell the difference between the types of blood?” Steven asked out of genuine curiosity. He then let out a goofy chuckle that he immediately regretted.

“Type O has a fruity flavor to it,” she responded almost too quickly, still with a stone-cold serious expression. “Though I personally prefer Type B with its robust, oaky aftertaste.”

She then flashed Steven a quick smile, which revealed teeth that were stained purely pink. However, Steven wasn't paying so much attention to her pink teeth as he was to her eyes that lit up angelically every time she smiled. Steven also took a millisecond to study those cute dimples that formed on her cheeks, which were smoother and softer than a marshmallow. It was a ravishing sight, and seeing it close up like that and, moreover, directed at him proved to be so powerful that he lost his breath and gulped.

“What's with your arms, anyway?” Brigitte asked, picking up that sandwich again to resume pecking at it.

“Er, what do you mean?” Steven responded, awkwardly shifting the grip he had on his shoulders.

“You look like you're fixing to be put in a casket or something,” she said. “Is that some new fad I'm not aware of? It's awesome, if it is.”

Steven felt hot blood rush to his face. He could feel himself start to sweat.

“Um, no,” he said nervously gulping. “It's just that there was... something that happened to my sweater.”

“What?” Brigitte said quickly, taking another bite of her sandwich, and looking at him curiously.

“Well,” Steven said, shifting his eyes around the room.

He knew that the longer he waited to answer that, the more that it would arouse Brigitte's curiosity, and the more it aroused Brigitte's curiosity, the more hilarious mangled sweater breasts would probably seem to her. Thus, Steven had no choice but to take a deep breath and let his hands slowly slide down his chest to reveal his shame. As he did so, he looked into Brigitte's eyes worriedly, fearing what her reaction might be to them.

“It was Mr. Render who did this to me,” he admitted sheepishly. “He didn't like the book reports our class was giving, so he grabbed my sweater and stretched it like this.”

“You sit in the front row, center, don't you?” she said quickly.

Steven nodded, amazed that she guessed it so precisely.

“Thought so,” Brigitte said. “I sit there seventh period. I brought a vase with me a few weeks ago that I made in pottery class. It was smooth, symmetrical, and it was pure black just like my hair. It had a perfectly round base except for at the bottom, which was flat so that it stood perfectly straight on my desk. I was gazing at it imagining how exquisite it would look on my bookshelf at home next to my knitting trophies, and the next thing I knew, Mr. Render was looking down on me like a beetle-browed tree branch. He yelled at me, saying he'd seen a million vases just like it and then picked it up off my desk, danced with it for awhile, and chucked it out the window.” She took another tiny bite of her sandwich and took a few seconds to quickly chew it and swallow. “I went to him after class to complain, but he said he doesn't accept halfhearted effort in his class. It doesn't matter if the effort was actually for his class or not.”

Steven smiled, and felt a little better after hearing that anecdote. He took another moment to gaze into Brigitte's eyes, basking in their warmth. He desperately wished he could live in that warmth forever, frozen in time.

“Anyway, now to the matter at hand,” Brigitte said taking on a stern, businesslike tone in her speech that shook Steven out of that daze. “What was that important financial matter that you wanted to talk to me about?” She gave Steven a hard, studied look, anticipating the answer.

Steven panicked. He had forgotten.

That was an awful thing to forget, too, because that was the very reason he called the meeting. If he mucked it up, he would hardly be justified in calling future meetings with her, and he wouldn't know what he would do with himself if that happened. The night before, he played out how he was going to answer that question in his mind so many times in his head that he was positive he was prepared enough to answer it flawlessly. However, when the moment had finally arrived, his mind was blanker than a blank piece of paper. Brigitte's hard look back at him was growing more worrisome the longer he remained silent. He had to come up with something to justify himself and quickly.

“Well ... I,” the flustered Steven said with broken words, “... wanted to tell you... I've been enjoying the Glitter Club so far this year.”

Brigitte squinted her eyes at him rather tiredly and gave him a tentative nod.

“I am glad to hear that, Steven, especially seeing that you're the only boy in the club,” she said with a bored smirk. She took another sip of her blood-drink. “But you know, you could have waited to tell me that at the meeting.”

Steven clenched his teeth.

“No, no, there was something else,” he said quickly with his voice cracking and hiccuping.

“Yes,” she said, peering at him quite harshly with her eyebrows raised.

Ugh!, Steven thought to himself. What was it? He closed his eyes desperately trying to remember what he had been telling himself to say all this time. He was the treasurer. His job was to make sure the club didn't run out of glitter funds.

Then in a flash, he remembered.

“We don't have enough money in the budget for silver, red, green, gold, purple and multicolor glitter for our meeting Thursday,” Steven said speedily and sounding a little out of breath. “So I thought maybe instead of buying multicolor glitter, we could try mixing the other colors together.”

Brigitte squinted her eyes, tilted her head, furrowed her eyebrows at Steven for awhile. He feared that look meant that she was wising up to him—that she knew that he had manufactured the meeting all along. But only after a few seconds of such uncertainty, her eyes brightened, and she nodded her head jovially with approval.

“I like it,” she said, playfully jabbing Steven's shoulder with her fist. Then she added with a cowboy accent: “That's some mighty fine thinking there, pardner. I reckon you've done the Glitter Club proud.”

“Thanks,” Steven said, blushing. Brigitte only had a fingerful of sandwich left, which she popped in her mouth and rapidly chewed. As she was doing this, she directed her attention toward Steven's paper lunch bag that had remained untouched.

“You know, Steven,” Brigitte said. “One of the reasons this is called a 'lunch meeting' is because it's lunch. You've performed swimmingly with the 'meeting' part, but you'd better get on with that 'lunch,' unless you think this hour is going to last forever.” She took a final sip of that blood-drink and then looked upon Steven jokily and whispered: “Besides, it's been killing me to see what you have stashed in there. I'm beginning to think it's narcotics. Or jelly beans. … I hope it's jelly beans.”

One reason Steven had been hesitating to open the lunch bag was that he felt too nervous in front of Brigitte to start eating. The other reason—one that he didn't start fearing until the second he actually sat down across the table from her—was that he also happened to pack a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich in his lunch. He didn't want Brigitte to think he did that on purpose just to gain her approval.

...Only he did actually do that on purpose. Brigitte had a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich for lunch everyday; Steven had known that for months. She also always had that blood-drink with her, but he had tried it a few weeks ago, and it tasted like overly sweetened cough syrup that had been sitting on the shelf at the store for roughly five decades. Instead of the blood-drink, Steven had decided to bring carrot sticks and a pint of bottled water. He hoped that would indicate to Brigitte that he lived a healthy lifestyle. At the same time, however, he worried that bringing water and carrot sticks might have been a mistake; he didn't want Brigitte to think that he was some kind of hoity-toity health freak. However, seeing that Brigitte was inquiring about the contents of his lunch bag, he knew that was just going to have to open the bag, reveal its contents, and surrender to destiny.

Brigitte eagerly studied Steven's every move as he reached inside that paper bag anticipate the things inside as though it were Christmas. He rustled around in there for a few seconds before revealing the peanut butter sandwich.

“Ooo, I just had one of those!” Brigitte said to him playfully.

Steven blushed in a pang of fear. Oh no, she was on to him.

“It's a popular sandwich,” Steven responded uneasily.

“And for good reason,” she returned to him with a grin. “So, let's see what else you've got? I must say, the suspense is killing me.”

Steven reached in his bag again and pulled out the resealable bag of carrot sticks.

“Oh, may I?” Brigitte said pointing to it.

As Steven nodded and mouthed the words be my guest, Brigitte grabbed the bag of carrot sticks from him, opened it, and took one out.

“Look! Who's this?” she exclaimed, putting the carrot in her mouth as though it were a cigar. She then raised her chin and her eyebrows, turned her head from side-to-side, and made incoherent gurgling noises. That was a pretty spot-on impersonation of that walrus-esque vice principal except didn't really move his head about like that.

Steven smiled and laughed through his nose, snorting a bit. Brigitte then held the carrot and pretended to tap away the ashes with her pinky, which prompted Steven to laugh once more through his nose.

Steven reached in his bag for a third time, then with more confidence, to reveal that pint of bottled water.

“Water,” Brigitte said, continuing to puff away at that carrot. She talked out of the side of her mouth. “You know you get that stuff for free out of the drinking fountain.” Steven wanted to explain to her it didn't taste nearly as mildewy as the school's tap water, but he was thwarted by a green-eyed tomboy named Patricia who was just happening to pass by them haphazardly interrupting their conversation.

“Hey Brigitte! Are you pumped for the first annual Monsters in a Box party this weekend?” she yelled out at her, still walking.

“You know it!” Brigitte responded with a wide, eager grin and clapping incessantly. She stopped pretending that carrot was a cigar and bit down on it.

“Yeah!” Patricia said continuing to walk away while pumping her fist in the air, and banging her head up and down like a heavy metal star.

“Woo!” Brigitte returned with her mouth full of carrot. She also pumped her fist in the air, but she abstained from the head-banging.

She then turned back to Steven.

“Are you going to the party?” Brigitte asked tilting her head inquisitively. She took another bite of the carrot.

“I wasn't planning on it,” Steven responded rather sulkily. He was never invited to those sorts of things even when he wasn't the new guy in town.

“You should go. We do it every year. High school students get together privately and celebrate one week before the Vampire Festival. It's kind of a Locksburg tradition,” Brigitte said. She took the last bite of that carrot stick and then licked her lips with a smack. “We're having ours at Brenda's house this year. You know where that is, right?”

“Um, I think so,” Steven said untruthfully. He knew who Brenda was, however. The first time he met her, he thought she was flirting with him only to discover that she had a rather severe facial tick.

“There won't be booze there or anything,” Brigitte continued. “Just sugar and rock 'n' roll.” She shrugged and added: “We're all a bunch of nerds, really.”

“It sounds like fun,” Steven said, trying to hide how stoked he was that Brigitte was asking him to go somewhere with her, and moreover, that she referred to herself as a nerd.

“Well, I have to go,” Brigitte said, getting up from her chair. “I enjoyed having lunch with you. I'll see you at Glitter Club tomorrow night sans the multicolor glitter!”

Then she smiled. It was that smile. Steven decided he would thereafter refer to it as the smile that would launch a thousand ships. And he would spend the rest of the week seeing to it that each of those ships had names.