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Chapter 45

"Good idea, Jack," Rhea told him as the waitress set their pizza down and the aroma wafted up. The fiction that their relationship was platonic had died a fast and very public death at Celestial, and they'd decided early on they might as well be open about it. So they had left for lunch together. So far their involvement hadn't caused any problems.

"I think the Greeks understand pizza even better than the Italians," Rhea said. She lifted out one of the thick slices, broke the trailing ribbon of mozzarella, and put it down on her plate.

Jack did the same. The pepperoni were cooked crisp under the light sheen of olive oil, and the crust cut with a satisfying crunch. "I think so," Jack agreed. "In fact, I had a friend once with the theory that the only really American foods were things like Greek pizza, Mexican fish and chips and Polish eggrolls."

Rhea shuddered. "I don't think I'd go that far," she said.

"Well," Jack said, "he also had the theory that the federal tax system is voluntary. So you can take that with as many grains of salt as you need to." He paused and counted. "I think he should be out in about another three years."

Rhea laughed around a mushroom. "You run with some interesting company, don't you?" she asked.

"I've known some choice ones," Jack agreed. "Sometimes the wrong choice." He sprinkled crushed red pepper on his slice and took a bite—not as good as sex, but it could give drugs and rock and roll a run for the money.

Somehow Rhea was already on her second slice. "Tell me about Carol," she said as she pushed an olive towards the exact geometrical center.

He didn't really want to. It wasn't one of the high spots of his life, but then, he was the one who had mentioned the name in the first place.

"Not much to tell," he said. "You know, Myrtle Beach used to be a whole different place before the Unchaining. It wasn't a metropolis until all those Tarheels moved south over the state line. We had lots of tourists in the summer, of course, but as far as the locals were concerned, it was a small town, with all the small town cliques and social circles." He took a sip of tea, and Rhea nodded.

A pleasant-looking young man came in the door and went to the takeout counter. There was something familiar about him, Jack thought. "You have a large, half double anchovy/pineapple/garlic, half edible?" the man asked. The countergirl nodded and handed it to him at arms' length, as though she didn't want to be associated with it. Jack caught Rhea's eye and grimaced. "I'd take the Polish eggroll first," she confirmed.

"Anyway," Jack continued, "after Natsu moved, I started going out with Carol. Well, actually, she didn't really notice me at all until I fixed her car one day when it was broken down in beach traffic on 501 during a tropical storm. Then I was kind of an honorary part of her circle, and socially, they were all top dogs. She was a cheerleader; Mother and Daddy belonged to the right country club; and she rode horses. Thoroughbred-Arabian crosses, as a matter of fact. I distinctly remember that that mattered. On top of everything else, she was smart and funny. My buddies tried to tell me she was one stuck-up girl, but that wasn't ever the way I saw her act, and I didn't want to hear it."

"Hmm. I think I sense a little foreshadowing here," Rhea said.

"Well, I didn't. We were both going to Clemson, so it seemed kind of natural to continue the relationship once we got there." He stopped as the slice he had just picked up folded under the weight of too many toppings and dangled limply under the outer crust.

"That's not an omen for tonight is it?" Rhea asked, pointing.

"Well, I've never dropped my toppings yet," Jack said. He put the offending slice down and attacked it with his fork. "Carol was in the best sorority, of course, and they had lots of parties. A lot of them were formal, which I really hated, but I put on the monkey suit because it made her happy. The last one was a really big deal. She had finessed being put in charge of a big Southeast-wide dinner and dance for all the different chapters of the sorority, with a couple thousand people planned to attend. Carol got to emcee the whole thing, and she and the other organizers got to sit at the head table with their dates."

"So you were up there with a couple thousand people staring at you?" Rhea looked amused. He supposed being on display was easy for her.

"Yeah, which is pretty close to my idea of Hell, anyway," he continued. "There'd been parties in hotel rooms all day before the main event, so things started off rowdy and went downhill from there. I think each table basically got as much wine as they could drink, even before the meal. It was kind of funny seeing all these girls in evening dresses sloshed half to the gills. Carol was having her share, too.

"I was ready to go home by the time Carol was supposed to introduce the head table and start making presentations, and we still had the dance to get through afterwards. Anyway, she went up to the podium and started talking. She wasn't too focused by then, and she was making dumb jokes and dragging it out forever—I was just kind of tuning it out until she got to me."

Jack took another sip of tea. He noticed his knuckles were white and he eased his grip. He could tell Rhea had seen too. "You don't have to go on," she said gently. "I didn't know it still upset you."

He shook his head. "No, that'd be like coitus interruptus. Besides it doesn't upset me—it just makes me mad." He went on while she pondered that distinction. "The way I remember it, the exact words she said were, 'And here's my date for the evening, Jack Halloran. Would you believe I had to steal him from a slant eyed slut? And doesn't he clean up nice?'

"I felt like a ton of bricks had fallen on me. I couldn't do anything at first—I was paralyzed. Then I knew what I had to do. I stood up and said, 'Excuse me, I don't think I need to be here,' and I walked out.

"I had to go all the way across the ballroom. It was completely silent; everyone was watching me." He shuddered. "While I was walking, I realized two things: One, I'd never seen Carol talk for more than two seconds to anyone who wasn't white. Of course she was always nice; everyone she associated with was white and well-to-do. And two: She was always happiest when she'd talked me into doing something I didn't really want to do.

"By the time those doors had closed behind me, I'd looked at the whole history of our relationship without the rose-colored filter. I didn't like it, and I didn't like what it had done to me." He shrugged. "We never spoke after that. I understand I humiliated her in front of her peers, and she kind of dropped to the bottom of the sorority's pecking order after that, but I really can't say I'm sorry. You think you know someone, but do we ever really?" He decided not to mention the semesters of slashed tires and mysteriously missing mail. After all, there was never anything he could prove.

The pizza was cold when he tried the next bite. "Sorry," he said. "I guess I talked your ear off."

Rhea looked troubled. "No," she said, "I appreciate your telling me the details. In a lot of ways, it helps me get a better look at you." She pushed her pizza aside. "But I think we could both definitely use some dessert."

"Now you're talking!"

 

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Framed