On BOX OF CHOCOLATES

February 11, 2009

On BOX OF CHOCOLATES

It was on his fourteenth birthday that Chet found himself in a Quebec City chocolatier store, by himself, looking over rows and rows of different chocolates. He was wearing a Washington Capitals cap and a Vancouver Canucks hockey jersey, and baggy jeans. Perched on his cap were sunglasses he had just bought that, when he put them on, made him look like a bug.
Chet was confused. He liked chocolate, a lot, but he knew mostly about Mr. Bigs, and Glosette Raisins, and Kinder Eggs, and Mars Bars. He was looking at truffles, lots of different kinds of expensive truffles. If it was up to him, Chet would have bought the cheapest kind of chocolate in the store, and save his money for other purchases. But Chet wasn’t buying chocolates for himself. He was buying chocolates for Marianne Goldstein.
Marianne and Chet were both on their class’s grade eight trip to Quebec, a rite of passage for all graduates of Greenmeadow Junior High School. The class of 54 students was staying in a tastefully appointed Best Western on the Rue de la Couronne, and Chet was staying with some boys on the top floor, and Marianne with a bunch of girls on the bottom floor. On the first night, Chet, and Michael French, another unpopular boy, found out they were staying in a room with two double beds along with Allan and Derek Brock, twin boys who were very popular. Allan and Derek had immediately claimed a double bed each for themselves and their slutty girlfriends, and they had all recently started smoking. The room reeked of cigarette smoke and sexuality, so Michael and Chet hung out in the lobby most of the time. Michael and Chet had decided to use their free time to go shopping today, and after listening to a few too many World of Warcraft stories, Chet decided to ditch Michael for a short time and get something for Marianne, who had been avoiding him the entire trip.
Even though Marianne had been avoiding him, probably in a last ditch attempt to rehabilitate her image with the popular girls, Chet had a feeling that Marianne would remember his birthday and embarrass him with a present. So Chet decided to act pre-emptively and embarrass her with a present that might be interpreted as a romantic gesture. He had planned on just grabbing a box of chocolates, and didn’t really realize how many options he would have. He thought back to one of the random pretentious comments Marianne had said this year: “Mmmm…. If I’m going to have chocolate, I have to have truffles. Everything else tastes like shit to me.”
Chet threw up a little in his mouth. Marianne had changed this year, and started wearing weird, colourful, attention-grabbing outfits, and making weird statements about truffles, cars, jewelry, and God knew what else. It was like she had started taking advice from a crazy person, or got a subscribtion to Shallow Teen Magazine. It didn’t seem to do her any good socially either, having created mostly confusion.
Chet took a deep breath, bought a box of truffles with a blue ribbon on it, and walked out of the store.