beat city.
Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
Cameron. Sloane. Unconventional breakfasts and unsold records.
I need help. Really.
(Title comes from the song by the Flowerpot Men.)
Simone Adamley is class valedictorian. Her speech lasts nine minutes and twenty-one seconds, and she pauses only six times to take breaths in between. She uses the word "observationally" fourteen times.
Through it all, Cameron worries at the fraying left sleeve of his robe, lips pinched tight. Ferris is two rows ahead of him, in between Bronson, Katherine, and Bullock, Shawn.
The applause is defeaning when his best friend smiles big at Rooney, all teeth and charm, accepting his diploma.
Cameron - he doesn't get any death threats via eye contact when it's his turn to walk across the auditorium stage. He doesn't get the same roar of the crowd, either.
Both are fine with him.
---
( Grape popsicles taste fine, this summer, melting down his throat with stickysweet hesitancy. Ferris supplies him with plenty, all "on the house" from the Shop Rite down the block.
The bridge of his nose burns easily, so liberally applied sunblock is good, too. Sloane helps out with that. )
---
He lays flat on his back and counts the cracks on the plaster of his ceiling, stopping when he gets to ninety-two.
He swallows thickly. His tongue tastes dry and bitter. Like chalk.
He's not busy dying, anymore. But he's not really living, either.
There's no longer any school for him to stay home sick from - not until September, anyway, and by then, things will be much different than just high school - but he decides it's the thought that counts, and that today would be far better spent in bed than on the beach or at the mall.
His phone wakes him for the second time at 10:32 a.m.
He gropes for the receiver blindly; neglecting, for once, to let the machine do the dirty work for him.
"No, Ferris," he says. "Not today. Whatever it is - whatever you're suggesting - no. Just, no."
The voice on the other end of the line is faintly amused.
"Actually," Sloane says, "I was hoping you'd have some suggestions. I'm fresh out."
---
(He remembers watching the two of them, last fall, leaning on grass-stained elbows in the backyard, Ferris's hand crawling slyly over the material of Sloane's t-shirt, just over her belly. They didn't know he was looking. He thinks Ferris probably wouldn't care, even if he did know.)
---
They're in the food court, Sloane eating a melting pistachio cone, legs tucked beneath her, when Cameron looks up after several long moments of staring doubtfully at his Coke. The chairs on either side of them are empty.
"This feels wrong," he says slowly. Sloane tilts her head, mouth twisting into a frown.
"I've had ice cream for breakfast tons of times," she says. "It's not a big deal."
"No, I-- I mean, it's just. Well. I've graduated, right? I'm done with high school, finally, right?"
She blinks. "Yeah. So?"
"So-- I don't feel any different. I mean, it's like nothing even happened. Nothing's changed at all. Shit, I--" he stops, lifting his palm to his forehead, groaning low in his throat. "I don't even know what I mean."
Sloane laughs. "Cameron, what were you expecting? Confetti? Fireworks? A giant parade, or something?"
She pauses, here, and he knows they're both thinking of the same day back in March (of an idiot and an oddity and a friend all rolled into one, hair smoothed into a mock pompadour as he manages to whip a crowd into a collective frenzy while they can only watch and gape and hold hands, all at a distance), but then she shrugs and that thought's broken, severed cleanly as breaking a pair of chopsticks in half, and then she adds, a bit more uncertainly, "It's not supposed to be like that. I don't think so, anyway."
She's wearing fresh, summery colors - a plain turquoise t-shirt loose over white bermuda shorts - but her expression now mirrors his own cloudy one, deep in thought and more than a little worried, even. (There are twelve miniature charms, each shaped like a different Zodiac sign, dangling from the long silver chain she's wearing.)
"You know what?" she says, loudly, startling him out of his thoughts. "Who cares?" She crumples up what's left of her cone, tossing it into a nearby trash can, before impulsively stretching her hand out to his. "High school is dead for you, now. C'mon. Let's see what else we can scare up in this place."
He smiles for the first time that morning.
---
Sloane spends twenty minutes trying on the most ridiculous hats she can find at Macy's. It's not until she finds a flourescent orange porkpie and slides it onto an unprotesting Cameron's head ("It's so you, Cam.") that she complains about forgetting to bring her Polaroid. He stares at himself in the wall-length antique mirror.
His reflection is pale and milky; enough to remind him of old cheese. She laughs when he tells her this.
"I think we've all resembled an expired dairy product at one point in our lives."
"Not Ferris," he argues, and it's true. Faking aside, his best friend has never looked like death a day in his whole life. (Must be metaphorical, he thinks.) "Ferris is-- he's--"
"Ferris," she finishes.
It's hard to form a counterpoint to that.
Ferris is on vacation at Ocean City with his parents and sister starting this afternoon. Ordinarily, he'd be out with them right now, procrastinating until the last minute - a practiced routine before family functions - but the situation's changed. (He's packing his suitcase.) He and Jeanie formed a strange new bond mid-semester. (She goes by "Shawna" now.) It started with her saving his hide from Rooney; it continued with him snagging reservations at Chez Luis for her and her new boyfriend, drug pusher Garth Volbeck, the following week.
It's an odd world.
Sloane, cackling, clamps her newest prize - a pinstriped boater accented with peacock feathers - onto her own head, linking her arm through Cameron's.
"Amazing," she proclaims. "Who buys this stuff? I want to know. I honestly want to know." Chin lifted, her expression one of mock haughtiness, she admires their absurd reflections. Her bare arm is warm against his.
---
Bodies crash - rough, heavy, brutal - against one another.
In minute detail.
On the big-screen TV on prominent display at Sears.
Sloane watches with fixed fascination. Cameron likes watching hockey; he's not so big on playing it.
("Why not?" she demands. "Give me one good reason."
He'll give several reasons. He'll give two-hundred and six, starting with his skull.)
---
( "Everything is fixable," Ferris often says. Although Cameron disagrees, he appreciates the sentiment. )
---
(And Ferris-)
Ferris comes up only one more time, that afternoon; something Cameron feels both guilty and grateful for.
(They're passing the used record store, and an album by some guy named Eddie Cochran is propped up in the window, and Sloane murmurs, "I should get that for him," not needing to clarify who him is, but they pass the store up, they head for the cookie stand that's giving out free peanut butter samples, instead, and they don't go back before they leave.)
---
The men's fragrance counter on the third floor doesn't appreciate their business.
Sloane declares that rank expensive shit like this must be the reason why men as rich as her stepfather have such difficulty snaring women, and earns herself an angry glare from a passing businessman. They burst into snickers not two seconds after he's gone.
It's another way to pass time, just a goof, although a certain number in a slanting jade bottle - "Cool Eucalyptus" - unexpectedly grows on him. He holds his wrist out to her for inspection. After a quick sniff, her nose wrinkles - and oh, gross, it smells like cough drops, she tells him.
He shrugs. That's why he likes it.
---
(She comes close to having ice cream for lunch, too. Luckily, he's able to steer her towards the new hibachi place, instead, and they take turns sampling each other's entrees. He only burns himself twice.)
---
They're in the parking lot, him pocket-fishing for keys, when she blurts: "Can I ask a favor?"
(He'd probably give her his kidneys if she asked.)
"Sure," he replies, instead.
"Sign my yearbook," she says. "You never did on the last day of classes. You owe me, y'know." He grins.
"I thought you said high school was dead for me."
"Well, it's not for me, yet. So shut up and sign." She smiles. "Please?"
Sliding the yearbook out of her oversized purse, she moves to the driver's door, keys and driving and home momentarily forgotten. She hands him a bright purple pen and he leans close, his messy scrawl slowly filling up almost half a page. His picture doesn't even look like him, he decides, frowning. It's more like - like a caricature, or a mask of himself, maybe someone he used to be, eyes blank and mouth half-curved into what might be called a smile by the photographer's tentative coaching. It's probably too late to ask for a retake.
She stands on her toes, trying to read over his shoulder. "Hey, c'mon. Are you willing your stereo to me, or something?"
"Funny."
She squeezes his shoulder, making a face at him. His pulse thuds dully in his ears.
"You have doctor's handwriting," she informs him. "Completely illegible. You're a disgrace."
He pretends to be insulted, shrugging hugely as he slides the book and pen back into her hands. "Huh. Guess you'll never know what I wrote you, then."
"Cameron!"
Her voice is plaintive, angry, teasing all at once (-- a trick probably learned from Ferris). He bites his lip.
Pauses.
(Shit.)
"I... can translate for you." He waits another heartbeat. "If you want."
She raises an eyebrow. Crosses her arms, tilting her head. Smiles in that soft, elegant way that makes him feel glad and lost simultaneously.
(Shitshitshit.)
"Well?"
He freezes at her voice, then stops himself, straightening his posture. Exhales sharply. Imagines invisible hands applying pressure to his lungs. Because he's about to do something pretty fucking stupid.
A sudden, coherent thought: I will not sit idly by.
(Another, even more clear: Shit. Shitshitshitshit.)
When he gently grasps her arms, bending his head awkwardly to find her lips, her hand stops at her throat. The pen scrapes at her neck. She closes her eyes.
She doesn't push him away, either.
---
(It's a start.)
Cameron. Sloane. Unconventional breakfasts and unsold records.
I need help. Really.
(Title comes from the song by the Flowerpot Men.)
Simone Adamley is class valedictorian. Her speech lasts nine minutes and twenty-one seconds, and she pauses only six times to take breaths in between. She uses the word "observationally" fourteen times.
Through it all, Cameron worries at the fraying left sleeve of his robe, lips pinched tight. Ferris is two rows ahead of him, in between Bronson, Katherine, and Bullock, Shawn.
The applause is defeaning when his best friend smiles big at Rooney, all teeth and charm, accepting his diploma.
Cameron - he doesn't get any death threats via eye contact when it's his turn to walk across the auditorium stage. He doesn't get the same roar of the crowd, either.
Both are fine with him.
---
( Grape popsicles taste fine, this summer, melting down his throat with stickysweet hesitancy. Ferris supplies him with plenty, all "on the house" from the Shop Rite down the block.
The bridge of his nose burns easily, so liberally applied sunblock is good, too. Sloane helps out with that. )
---
He lays flat on his back and counts the cracks on the plaster of his ceiling, stopping when he gets to ninety-two.
He swallows thickly. His tongue tastes dry and bitter. Like chalk.
He's not busy dying, anymore. But he's not really living, either.
There's no longer any school for him to stay home sick from - not until September, anyway, and by then, things will be much different than just high school - but he decides it's the thought that counts, and that today would be far better spent in bed than on the beach or at the mall.
His phone wakes him for the second time at 10:32 a.m.
He gropes for the receiver blindly; neglecting, for once, to let the machine do the dirty work for him.
"No, Ferris," he says. "Not today. Whatever it is - whatever you're suggesting - no. Just, no."
The voice on the other end of the line is faintly amused.
"Actually," Sloane says, "I was hoping you'd have some suggestions. I'm fresh out."
---
(He remembers watching the two of them, last fall, leaning on grass-stained elbows in the backyard, Ferris's hand crawling slyly over the material of Sloane's t-shirt, just over her belly. They didn't know he was looking. He thinks Ferris probably wouldn't care, even if he did know.)
---
They're in the food court, Sloane eating a melting pistachio cone, legs tucked beneath her, when Cameron looks up after several long moments of staring doubtfully at his Coke. The chairs on either side of them are empty.
"This feels wrong," he says slowly. Sloane tilts her head, mouth twisting into a frown.
"I've had ice cream for breakfast tons of times," she says. "It's not a big deal."
"No, I-- I mean, it's just. Well. I've graduated, right? I'm done with high school, finally, right?"
She blinks. "Yeah. So?"
"So-- I don't feel any different. I mean, it's like nothing even happened. Nothing's changed at all. Shit, I--" he stops, lifting his palm to his forehead, groaning low in his throat. "I don't even know what I mean."
Sloane laughs. "Cameron, what were you expecting? Confetti? Fireworks? A giant parade, or something?"
She pauses, here, and he knows they're both thinking of the same day back in March (of an idiot and an oddity and a friend all rolled into one, hair smoothed into a mock pompadour as he manages to whip a crowd into a collective frenzy while they can only watch and gape and hold hands, all at a distance), but then she shrugs and that thought's broken, severed cleanly as breaking a pair of chopsticks in half, and then she adds, a bit more uncertainly, "It's not supposed to be like that. I don't think so, anyway."
She's wearing fresh, summery colors - a plain turquoise t-shirt loose over white bermuda shorts - but her expression now mirrors his own cloudy one, deep in thought and more than a little worried, even. (There are twelve miniature charms, each shaped like a different Zodiac sign, dangling from the long silver chain she's wearing.)
"You know what?" she says, loudly, startling him out of his thoughts. "Who cares?" She crumples up what's left of her cone, tossing it into a nearby trash can, before impulsively stretching her hand out to his. "High school is dead for you, now. C'mon. Let's see what else we can scare up in this place."
He smiles for the first time that morning.
---
Sloane spends twenty minutes trying on the most ridiculous hats she can find at Macy's. It's not until she finds a flourescent orange porkpie and slides it onto an unprotesting Cameron's head ("It's so you, Cam.") that she complains about forgetting to bring her Polaroid. He stares at himself in the wall-length antique mirror.
His reflection is pale and milky; enough to remind him of old cheese. She laughs when he tells her this.
"I think we've all resembled an expired dairy product at one point in our lives."
"Not Ferris," he argues, and it's true. Faking aside, his best friend has never looked like death a day in his whole life. (Must be metaphorical, he thinks.) "Ferris is-- he's--"
"Ferris," she finishes.
It's hard to form a counterpoint to that.
Ferris is on vacation at Ocean City with his parents and sister starting this afternoon. Ordinarily, he'd be out with them right now, procrastinating until the last minute - a practiced routine before family functions - but the situation's changed. (He's packing his suitcase.) He and Jeanie formed a strange new bond mid-semester. (She goes by "Shawna" now.) It started with her saving his hide from Rooney; it continued with him snagging reservations at Chez Luis for her and her new boyfriend, drug pusher Garth Volbeck, the following week.
It's an odd world.
Sloane, cackling, clamps her newest prize - a pinstriped boater accented with peacock feathers - onto her own head, linking her arm through Cameron's.
"Amazing," she proclaims. "Who buys this stuff? I want to know. I honestly want to know." Chin lifted, her expression one of mock haughtiness, she admires their absurd reflections. Her bare arm is warm against his.
---
Bodies crash - rough, heavy, brutal - against one another.
In minute detail.
On the big-screen TV on prominent display at Sears.
Sloane watches with fixed fascination. Cameron likes watching hockey; he's not so big on playing it.
("Why not?" she demands. "Give me one good reason."
He'll give several reasons. He'll give two-hundred and six, starting with his skull.)
---
( "Everything is fixable," Ferris often says. Although Cameron disagrees, he appreciates the sentiment. )
---
(And Ferris-)
Ferris comes up only one more time, that afternoon; something Cameron feels both guilty and grateful for.
(They're passing the used record store, and an album by some guy named Eddie Cochran is propped up in the window, and Sloane murmurs, "I should get that for him," not needing to clarify who him is, but they pass the store up, they head for the cookie stand that's giving out free peanut butter samples, instead, and they don't go back before they leave.)
---
The men's fragrance counter on the third floor doesn't appreciate their business.
Sloane declares that rank expensive shit like this must be the reason why men as rich as her stepfather have such difficulty snaring women, and earns herself an angry glare from a passing businessman. They burst into snickers not two seconds after he's gone.
It's another way to pass time, just a goof, although a certain number in a slanting jade bottle - "Cool Eucalyptus" - unexpectedly grows on him. He holds his wrist out to her for inspection. After a quick sniff, her nose wrinkles - and oh, gross, it smells like cough drops, she tells him.
He shrugs. That's why he likes it.
---
(She comes close to having ice cream for lunch, too. Luckily, he's able to steer her towards the new hibachi place, instead, and they take turns sampling each other's entrees. He only burns himself twice.)
---
They're in the parking lot, him pocket-fishing for keys, when she blurts: "Can I ask a favor?"
(He'd probably give her his kidneys if she asked.)
"Sure," he replies, instead.
"Sign my yearbook," she says. "You never did on the last day of classes. You owe me, y'know." He grins.
"I thought you said high school was dead for me."
"Well, it's not for me, yet. So shut up and sign." She smiles. "Please?"
Sliding the yearbook out of her oversized purse, she moves to the driver's door, keys and driving and home momentarily forgotten. She hands him a bright purple pen and he leans close, his messy scrawl slowly filling up almost half a page. His picture doesn't even look like him, he decides, frowning. It's more like - like a caricature, or a mask of himself, maybe someone he used to be, eyes blank and mouth half-curved into what might be called a smile by the photographer's tentative coaching. It's probably too late to ask for a retake.
She stands on her toes, trying to read over his shoulder. "Hey, c'mon. Are you willing your stereo to me, or something?"
"Funny."
She squeezes his shoulder, making a face at him. His pulse thuds dully in his ears.
"You have doctor's handwriting," she informs him. "Completely illegible. You're a disgrace."
He pretends to be insulted, shrugging hugely as he slides the book and pen back into her hands. "Huh. Guess you'll never know what I wrote you, then."
"Cameron!"
Her voice is plaintive, angry, teasing all at once (-- a trick probably learned from Ferris). He bites his lip.
Pauses.
(Shit.)
"I... can translate for you." He waits another heartbeat. "If you want."
She raises an eyebrow. Crosses her arms, tilting her head. Smiles in that soft, elegant way that makes him feel glad and lost simultaneously.
(Shitshitshit.)
"Well?"
He freezes at her voice, then stops himself, straightening his posture. Exhales sharply. Imagines invisible hands applying pressure to his lungs. Because he's about to do something pretty fucking stupid.
A sudden, coherent thought: I will not sit idly by.
(Another, even more clear: Shit. Shitshitshitshit.)
When he gently grasps her arms, bending his head awkwardly to find her lips, her hand stops at her throat. The pen scrapes at her neck. She closes her eyes.
She doesn't push him away, either.
---
(It's a start.)