NaNoWriMo -- Day 18

Our double date was not off to a very good start.  Christina was totally sweet and kind, like I knew she would be, but Lizzy was a real piece of work, if you'll excuse me saying so.  I kept shooting Zach glances, hoping he would say something to her, just ask her to calm down a little, but the most he would do was look back at me and shrug.  I guess I couldn't blame him.  Neither of us had expected this to go particularly well, and Christina had been warned.

The worst part was that Lizzy wasn't acting like an outright, obvious bitch.  It was smaller things she did.  Like she'd sneer at Christina, or if Christina commented on something she'd say, "Okay" and then immediately change the subject to something else.  I wasn't sure how Christina managed to stay so calm.  Afterwards she told me she was used to Bridget getting snooty with her like that at times, which made me wonder if Zach had a type, but I decided to let that go.  In fact, I decided to let it all go because of what happened near the middle of the meal.

Lizzy was continuing to be her quietly aggressive snippy little self, when there was a brief lull in the conversation and Christina chose to say directly to Lizzy, "You know, Lizzy, there's something that's been on my mind."

My mind went immediately to, "Oh geeze, she's going to speak her mind," and I reached for Christina's hand under the table to give it a squeeze for courage, but before I could find it, I instead hear Christina say:

"I really think you should have won that beauty pageant last year.  You clearly knew what you were doing a lot more than I did.  The way you walked across the stage was stunning, and my musical skills are laughable compared to yours.  You answered the questions the judges asked like a pro, too.  I really don't know how anyone could have given you second place."

My jaw nearly hit the floor.  I glanced over at Zach, whose eyes were wide in amazement.  Christina sounded genuine, like she was really trying to smooth things over, but would Lizzy take it that way?  My eyes darted back to Lizzy and a wave of relief swept over me when I saw the smile on her face.  I think she was too shocked to do anything else.  I'm pretty sure no one, other than maybe Zach, had ever talked to her quite like that before.

"I...I appreciate that very much," Lizzy stammered.  "It... it's so nice to be recognized, to..."  I think I even saw a tear in her eye.  "That's all I really wanted."

Christina smiled.  "I know," she said.  "And it sucks that they made me steal that from you and I'm sorry."

Lizzy just smiled even more.  "Don't be sorry," she said.  "I should be sorry.  I knew you were my biggest competition from the moment I saw you.  If anyone deserved to beat me, it was you.  Now if it had been anyone else..."

"It couldn't have been," Christina said, and the two girls laughed.

Now at this point, I was pretty certain Christina had just chosen to do whatever it was going to take to win Lizzy over, because I don't think she would ever feed someone's ego like that unless she felt she really had to.  I felt a little bad that she had felt she had to, but I realized, too, that it was brilliant, and though a part of me hated that she sold out like that, another part of me really loved her for being willing to do so.

Afterwards, Zach asked me, "Dude, did you put her up to that?"

I just laughed and beamed as I said, "No, man, she chose to do that all on her own."

Zach glanced around nervously and then whispered to me, "Want to trade?"

I shook my head and laughed again.  "Not in a million years," I said.

"Darn," Zach said playfully as he snapped his fingers.  Then he patted me on the back and said, "Thanks."