Author: DocPaul
Disclaimer: M&M belong to someone else, but I treat them better.
Summary: Maria and Kyle find they have a lot in common. This is nice
and short.
Rating: G
“Hi.”
Kyle looked up and smiled as Maria joined him at the table. “Hey.” Looking around, Kyle frowned. “Where's your uglier and grumpier half?”
Maria smiled at that. “Sorry, look's like it's going to be just you and me.”
“I can deal. Hey,” Kyle looked stealthily around the school cafeteria, “think you could pretend you’re interested in me or something?”
Maria looked around at the other students eating and talking. “Okay, why?”
“Well, you know...having me in a clinch with Michael Guerin’s girlfriend will up my stock with both the other guys and the girls too!”
Maria sat back and looked Kyle up and down. “Okay. What's her name?”
Studying Maria, Kyle didn’t like the look in her eyes, a sort of quietness that was uncharacteristic of her. Moving forward, Kyle rested his elbow on the table and cupped the side of his face. “Trudy Wilson.”
Kyle watched as Maria discreetly looked over at the table with the “popular” girls who had once been Isabel’s clique and saw that tall, blond Trudy was indeed watching them. Moving in closer, so he could talk lower and more intimately, Kyle appreciated the bonus hits to his reputation. Maria never really saw herself the way other people saw her, but since her very real relationship with the cold, aloof badboy known as Michael Guerin, Maria was becoming a sort of high school legend. It didn’t hurt that she was considered a total hottie. Over the last year so much had changed in her appearance, and she was seriously doing some major damage in the school lust fund!
“Okay, clue me in. I thought you've already dated Trudy Wilson.” Kyle watched as Maria removed her sandwich and a few other items from the lunch bag. He smiled when she pushed a HoHo over to him. She reached into her bag and pulled out two Snapples, one for him and one for her.
“I did! I did, but...” Kyle moved in even more lowering his voice, “word is she has a new tattoo!” Maria laughed at that, but never got the chance to ask where it was located, since Kyle continued, “So where is Guerin? He seems more absent than usual.”
“More than likely he’s sacked out. Since he took the job at Meta-Chem, it’s hard for him to really get much sleep, what with juggling school, the CrashDown, and now Meta-Chem too.” That same quietness came over her again, and Kyle couldn’t help but notice that Maria hadn’t added herself to the list of things Michael was juggling.
“You know...I never knew raising children would be so difficult.” Maria looked at him in confusion. “I mean, you having to raise Michael, and me having to raise...”
“Your dad?” Maria asked, as Kyle just nodded his head. Maria smiled-actually smiled. “Okay, you tell me your horror story and I’ll tell you mine.”
“B.O.”
“Pardon? B.O?”
“He stinks! All he does is watch T.V. in his favorite chair all day, or sleep. He doesn’t look for a job or even clean the house. The creditors are calling non-stop, and I don’t think he’s showered in a week.”
“Wow! I knew that he and Mom stopped going out, but I just assumed he was busy with a new job. You think it was the stinking thing that made them cool it?”
“No,” Kyle paused to think about it. “Okay, maybe. Anyway, that’s why I took the garage job after school. You know, just to keep us in food and stuff.”
“Sounds like Michael. He had to take another job to help pay his utilities and food.” Maria looked at Kyle and frowned. “You don’t like the job?”
Kyle polished off his sandwich, and grabbed the HoHo that Maria had given him. She had started doing that earlier in the school year, and he wasn’t sure why she never forgot to bring him one. But he appreciated her doing it. “Hate it.”
Maria just nodded. “So what did you do about the B.O?”
Kyle laughed hard. “Oh I was real sneaky. I was waiting while he was fixing himself some hotwings, and I turned his lounger over and put all those stickable air fresheners under his chair. At first I attached them to his body, but he kept knocking them off when he would turn over or scratch. I’m planning to have the chair fumigated next week.”
“Wow, you’re good! I took me months of wracking my brains to figure out how to get Michael to bathe.” Maria watched as Kyle’s face became animated.
“Hey, you know, I’ve noticed a certain amount of cleanliness about him that was missing before. OK! You’ve gotta share the wealth.”
“Oh, it was so obvious! I felt so stupid, because I should’ve thought of it sooner.” Maria finished her sandwich and wiped her fingers.
“Maria.”
“Oh, right. Well, I started taking baths with him. Worked like a charm. At first I had to take a lot of baths, but after a while, he sort of developed his own routine.” Kyle groaned under his breath. If Maria DeLuca ever offered to shower with him, he wouldn’t say no.
“Hey, maybe I could try that...” Kyle realized what he was saying and looked over at a laughing Maria. “Maybe not.” Maria dug out another Snapple from her bag and offered it to Kyle. “So what’s with all the Snapple?”
“Oh, with Michael's new job at Meta-Chem, it seems that there’s a large supply of readily available Snapple there.”
“Sweet! So they let him take it home, or take whatever he wants?”
“Technically, no. They fired him for theft.” Kyle stopped drinking and looked over at Maria.
“You’re joking? Right?”
“No, but he got his job back, and returned the Snapple. Now he actually just buys the stuff.” Maria took another swallow of her Diet Peach Snapple.
“He returned it?” Kyle looked at Maria closely. “That doesn’t sound like Michael. Did you make him take it back?”
Maria looked over at Kyle sharply. “No, I did not. I told him that stealing the Snapple and costing everyone else their job was wrong, but fixing it was his own decision.”
“Right.” Kyle gazed at the girl, giving her credit for something he couldn’t do with his own father. Their respective charges were struggling-Michael with honesty, integrity, and friendship and Jim with waking up from depression and trying to stop being a deadbeat dad.
“No, really, I didn’t. He realized that even though he needed the job, that his co-workers needed it more. I mean, Michael has the money from the CrashDown and Meta-Chem, but some of his shift workers are supporting their entire family on just Meta-Chem.
“Aw, another small step for man, and a large leap from keeping Michael out of prison.”
“He'd just use his powers to get out anyway.” Maria paused. “So is it really getting bad?”
Kyle nodded. It could be much worse. “Actually, Dad did get off his can, and found something he wanted to do.”
“Really? What is that? A job?”
“No. He formed a band, and they're playing in this low-brow country bar across town. They call themselves the Kit Shickers.”
Maria choked on her drink and laughed out loud. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No,” Kyle smiled wryly and lifted his hands. “I swear, as Buddha’s my witness. He’s singing and playing in a band. They get a percentage of the door money.”
Looking at him closely, Maria’s voice became quieter. “You okay with that?”
Kyle rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, as his face screwed up into a grimace that suddenly cleared. “At first, no. I was really upset, but I promised to go watch him, and it was hard. I was afraid that he was going to fail, that it would be bad.”
“But it wasn’t?” Maria smiled as a smile moved across Kyle’s face.
“No. It was good. He was good, and he looked...happy.” Kyle cleared up all his trash and put it inside his empty bag. “I forgot sometimes how hard he had to work after my mom left. There wasn’t much laughter and he was Sheriff. It was tough. Everyone expected things of him, both me and the town. So it was like getting to see him living a lost dream, and that was nice. I was proud that he was that brave to try.”
“I know my mom gave up a lot of things to raise me alone. It was hard, and I’m not even sure what sacrifices she had to make, but I’m sure there were lots of them.” Maria looked out over the room at people laughing and talking. “It always seems that certain people are the ones who sacrifice and others are the ones that need. Do you think dreams are really lost or do they just change into newer dreams? Do they sit in our subconscious taunting us about choices we made, or do they disappear over time?”
“I don’t know.” Kyle frowned at Maria, worrying about how silent she was again. How sad she appeared. “So what’s up with you? Do you want to talk about it?” Kyle watched as she struggled to hide her thoughts, to think of something else to say.
“No, really, I’m fine.” Maria looked up at him when he snorted. “No really. It’s just things are so different and everything's been so hard lately.”
“Hard? How?”
“Well, first Michael’s finances went south. Even though he was emancipated over the last few years, he was still receiving the monthly checks from the state. Emancipation just meant that he no longer needed a foster home, and he was able to manage his own money. They were still sending him support checks up until he turned eighteen. Once his birthday came, all of a sudden the checks stopped, and he wasn't getting the food subsidy anymore, and his rent went up.”
“So once working at the CrashDown was enough, now...”
“It’s not.” Maria leaned forward on her arms. “The Meta-Chem job is though. If he could just learn to manage his money.”
Kyle nodded in agreement. Money. It always came down to money. “You two still fighting over it?”
“Not really. When it happened, I offered to help him pay the bills because I’m practically living at the apartment with him. He said no, that he could handle it. Somehow, I’ve ended up paying anyway. Personally I don’t mind the bills for the apartment, but when he takes me out to dinner and passes off the check on me...I get angry.”
Kyle looked at her and agreed. “The ' real man' pays, right?”
“No. It's the whole, 'I’m tapped so maybe we shouldn’t be eating out' concept. It’s about making right choices. Instead of ambushing me at the restaurant after the fact, it would be nice if he just said that he was tapped and maybe we should stay home. Then I have the option of offering to pay, or staying home with him. But no! Instead every time we go out I have to be sure to carry emergency cash, a credit card, my checkbook, and maybe even an ATM card.” Maria picked up her garbage. “It’s hard to pay his energy bill when I’m looking at a big screen TV. But, we need electricity to keep the Snapple cold.”
“Oh. I love that television!”
“Too bad. He returned it.” Maria laughed at Kyle’s crestfallen expression. “The thing is that Michael never had anything before. Hank took all the money, and barely bothered to take care of him. So right now, Michael is making up for ten years of childhood spending and he’s having fun doing it.”
Kyle looked at her and realized she was diverting from what was really bothering her. “Okay, so despite getting momentarily pissed at times, you seem to understand what’s going on with Michael, so why do sad?”
“I’m not sad...well not really.”
“Maria?” Kyle knew better. It was hard to miss the lack of the usual Maria sparkle.
Maria just looked down at her hands that were twisting the brown bag of garbage in it. “I guess I’m just...lonely.”
Kyle sat up straighter at that, and looked at the table where they were sitting. It was a look into the not so distant past. Once this table would’ve been filled with all eight of them, eating, arguing, and talking about everything from aliens to the latest ballgame stats. Suddenly the table was quiet, and Maria was left alone.
“Where’s Liz?” Maria just shrugged. Right, probably off clandestinely meeting Max. Michael was either sleeping or working. Isabel was at Community College, and Tess and Alex were...
“Liz is out chasing Max in some scheme. I understand why it’s important to Max, but they scare me. They both do.” Kyle just watched her silently as she tore a piece of brown paper bag off the side and began shredding it into small pieces. “Liz has been my best friend for as long as I can remember, and right now, she’s like a stranger to me. It’s like she’s been so angry, every since Alex...”
Both Kyle and Maria looked away. Both were having a hard time accepting the events of last Spring. “I thought she was dealing with everything better than usual.” Kyle asked quietly.
“Not really. She’s mad at the world, and she's taking it out on everyone but the person she should be taking it out on.”
“Max.”
“Yeah.” Maria smiled wryly. “You know what I really miss?”
“What?” Kyle was almost afraid to ask.
“Alex.” Kyle didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t get Alex out of his head either. Or out of his dreams. “He always knew the right thing to say or do. He would’ve taken care of Liz, found a way to bring her back from this place she’s living. Make her not so angry.”
Kyle looked at Maria, and realized that Maria was carrying guilt over not being enough, not being Alex. She felt powerless to help because her own sorrow was holding her down. “Maria, it’s not your fault...”
“I’m just worried, okay?” Maria looked at her watch seeing how much time they had left before next hour. “I’m afraid that I’m losing Liz, too. I’m afraid that something bad is going to happen to her. And with Michael so busy...” Maria’s voice just trailed off.
Kyle looked at her thoughtfully. “What would Alex do?” Maria looked at him pondering the question. “If he was here, what do you think he would do?”
Maria smiled. “He would make a list, something funny and useless.”
Kyle laughed. He’d forgotten Alex’s lists. “Well, you know what Buddha says,” Kyle laughed even harder at the expression on Maria’s face as she rolled her eyes. “Buddha says that sometimes only the mockingbird hears the rustling of the leaves.”
“That makes no sense!” Kyle just nodded his head yes. “Okay!” Maria moved her hands about in wild gestures. “Translate it, Buddha Boy! I swear, if you shave your head, and start wearing a diaper...”
“It means we should make a list.” Kyle reached into his bag and pulled out a sheet of paper and a pen. “So what sounds worthy of Alex?”
Maria smiled. Kyle ignored the obvious moisture in her eyes. He decided to help her out. “How about...ways to tell your significant other that they smell!”
“Great! We’re experts. Put the stickup air fresheners at the top of the list.”
“We have to add the taking a bath with them, because even though it may not be feasible for every situation, it was a stroke of genius.”
“Thank you.” Maria moved forward to help him with the list.
“Hey, Maria?” She looked up at him. “Would you, you know...say if I started to smell really bad...take a bath...”
“In your dreams, Buddha Boy!”
“I thought it was worth a shot.” Kyle smiled and looked down at the list. “How about giving them a flyswatter or bug-off spray...?”