Nancy Hope

Nancy Hope

"That stuff is so unsafe,"

Joshua Barnum

Nancy began her journal with: “My friends are stupid but I love them.”  It was a purple spiral about 180 pages minus a few pages already torn out.  It had ‘bio-ethics’ written in Sharpie on the cover though had only been used once before as a course notebook.  She kept a journal during high school somewhat regularly but hardly any since graduation.  Her last entry read “Off to Spain.  Steve wants to go too I know it.  I’m wishing he could come but it will be nice to finally get out of here.”  Four years after she wrote that, my friends are stupid but I love them.  The friends she wrote about had just broken up not a week earlier.  Crystal had cheated on Joshua Barnum her fiancé and they broke up, although the two had been separate incidents. She had cheated on him with someone she worked with and then Joshua proposed to her.  The timing couldn’t have been worse and she said yes.  Since then she had called it off.  My friends are stupid.

She sighed and opened a beer bottle as it whispered ‘beer’ quietly back to her.  It was great to hear that again, Nancy thought.  The brief response had something to do with Newtopia itself and not the beer.  If you brought a beer from Newtopia to Africa it would be silent upon opening except for a ‘psst’ of carbonation escaping.  Bring a beer from Africa to Newtopia and it whispers ‘beer’ ten out of ten times.  But poor Josh had more than ten beers of his own last night.  He lay naked on her bed with cologne and beer seeping out from his pores and into her small room. He looks like a big baby, Nancy decided.  His large hands formed tight fists and lay defensively over his face.  Often when Josh got drunk he took off all of his clothes.  This had been the genesis of many arguments between him and Crystal though it wasn’t why they finally broke up.  And this probably wasn’t their final breakup.  They dated two years during high school and the following summer.  In that time they broke up four times and almost had one lawsuit.  They broke up one time since Nancy had been in Spain.  And now Nancy was on a peace-making mission. To make peace you have to make war.  

The looming challenge to get her friends back together wasn’t about breaking Crystal with guilt or instilling a sense of duty since that was impossible. Her volatility was as superficial as it was predictable and that was the key.  She would assume the worst and get jealous that Nancy “finally got with Josh.”  And that fear, a fear she had always harbored against Nancy and Josh would send her back to Josh.

“Oh, what the-,” she heard and spun from her desk to look towards the incapacitated Neanderthal, “Ok. We got drunk and now I’m naked in your bed.”

“Yea and that wasn’t all we did.”  She said.

“Oh no!” Josh pained to open his eyes then covered them with his forearm almost immediately.  But that was all she could take.

“No, look.  You came here last night and we drank.  You wrestled my little brother and cried about Crystal.  We finished most of the beer by the time you started texting me your poetry for Crystal.”

“Why did I text you?”

“No idea but it might have had to do with you locking yourself in my bathroom.”

He sighed and said dully, “But no sex”.

His eyes were still shut but his hands were moving back and forth on the bed.  Nancy knew that feeling, that touch.  The top blanket which Josh lay on was an amber synthetic fur that felt better than- “Sex” Nancy scolded and swiveled back towards the desk, “There is no way, especially since we never did anything even when you had broken up with Crystal all those times.”  Her plan was only just beginning. “But she doesn’t have to know that yet,” Nancy said peeking over shoulder.

“Where are your parents?” Josh asked ignoring her suggestion.

“My mom is at work and my dad is sitting on his ass in the living room,” she answered.

“Good I can make a proper escape after I take a shower.”

“You don’t remember talking to them?”

“What?”

“My parents.”

“Hell no, when did this happen?” Josh managed his legs through his blue and black boxer briefs then fell back onto her bed.

“You and my dad talked for close to an hour about Northern Europe and America.  And you promised to make my mom cookies today. But that’s a good thing because my whole family thinks we hooked up and that means my sister does.  And if she thinks that so will the neighborhood.” But I love them.   She let that sink in for the half naked boy sitting up on her bed.  She never liked her sister’s prowess at spreading rumors but this time it would work to her benefit. “And don’t even try and take a shower, Steve broke the can this morning.”

“That stuff is so unsafe,” Josh commented.  The unfortunate fact that the blue cleaning liquid was also an explosive was a bi-annual tragedy at the Rodriguez-Sabotcka residence.  The highly volatile material that was used to clean toilets was neutralized by the pneumonia in urine and therefore was usually flushed without consequence in most residences.  But if the blue liquid was flushed without being neutralize it’s particles would become excited and explode often irreparably damaging the poor porcelain pot.  “Why didn’t he just piss?” Josh asked, “Crystal will think…what?”

“That is if you want her back. Look, in Spain I fell in love,” She rolled closer to Josh at which he open his eyes from something between concern and interest.  “He was tall and fun and laughed when I laughed.  He was all I needed.”  Nancy thought she would make it interesting since it wasn’t true, completely.  “We did all sorts of things I never thought I would do.  Maybe it was Spain, maybe it was him but when his girlfriend came running back I was destroyed.” Josh stared silently. “You wanna know what she did, to get him back? She didn’t write him poems or buy him a tool set.  She went and joined the army.”

Josh snorted, “So you think I should join the army.  Newtopia doesn’t even have a standing military.”

“No, no. Look,” Nancy rolled back and folded her legs without breaking eye contact, “This girl she joined the army but everyone thought she would join the students in the streets.  She did the opposite Josh.  And that’s how she got her boyfriend back.”