On CUTE AS A BUTTON

March 21

On CUTE AS A BUTTON

Chet stared at the tiny button on Marianne’s top and figeted with his club sandwich. She was much more mature than he remembered, and had really gotten it together, fashion wise.
“So you don’t want to get back together?” he asked Marianne.
“Aw, Chet, you’re so cute!” she said in an annoying voice, and made a few noises like she was playing the trumpet to try and lighten the mood. They were at their local Kelsey’s on Labour Day, catching up on the summer happenings. Chet hadn’t told her about Sherry, the girl he had kissed once while working at Disney World during the summer. She had ended up leaving him for a guy from the Italian Pavillion anyway, so that was all ancient history. Chet’s plan was to come home, go on this lunch date with Marianne, get back together so they would be boyfriend and girlfriend, and then proceed with their final academic year of high school. This plan was not working. In fact, it looked like Marianne was intentionally making Chet feel bad about himself.
“I’ve moved on,” she said pretentiously, “while you were at Disney World I couldn’t just wait here for you to come back, twiddling my thumbs, working at the pool and watching the View.” In fact, for June, July and half of August, that was precisely what she had done. Then, with Sally’s help, she had asked out the guy with spiky hair and a cool neck chain in the produce section at Bruno’s. Sally asked out his best friend, a video store clerk, and it turned out they were both big into theatre. The next thing they knew they were driving to Toronto and hanging out in all these cool theatre bars and seeing experimental pieces in black box venues.
“Chet, the world of the theatre is a different place. It has comedy, yes, but also heartache,” she explained to him. It felt odd to have Chet, a figure from her past life, take her to Kelsey’s like this. She was used to places like The Green Room now.
Chet thought to himself, ‘I think I know a little something about heartache,’ but didn’t say it out loud, because he didn’t want to act as annoyingly dramatic as Marianne was acting.
“So Sally and I are probably going to join the drama club, and focus on that as our primary extracurricular,” Marianne explained.
“No band?” choked Chet. Marianne played the clarinet and Chet palyed the tuba, and they had often passed notes between songs in previous years. The drama club was a dangerous place, where free expression reigned, and everyone was artistic and had inside jokes. It was a place Chet could not follow Marianne, except maybe as a techie, and even then, he would be invisible.
Marianne lifted Chet’s chin, and looked him straight in the eye. “I will always love you,” she said.
“I don’t think that’s true,” he said.
“Well it is,” she said, annoyed. She finished her salmon, and said, “this was a really good salmon,” pretending that she was totally cool with this whole conversation. Overall, it was a lot harder than she thought it was going to be, but at least she had said what she had come to say. The bill came, and she made sure to pay her half. She didn’t want Chet telling this story to President Michael French later, and finish it by saying, “and the worst part is I had to pay for her stupid salmon!”