The Busboy part II

Tuesday, 14 April 1981

“Cy, can I tell you something?” Tracy asked as they she slid into a booth across from him at Casa Cancun, a little Mexican restaurant on King Street in Hampton.

“Sure, Tracy.”

“Hanging out with you and working on these book reports doesn’t suck.”

“Wow... ringing endorsement,” Cy responded with a laugh.

“No, Cy, I mean I expected it to not be any fun at all. I did not think that I would go through school one day, spending all of it looking forward to hanging out with my friend Cy and working on a book report.”

“I guess that is a good thing, then.”

“It is. And my Lit teacher is quite surprised in the increase in my grades. Ninety-nine on the last one. I’m almost at an A for the semester. And I haven’t forgotten our deal.”

“The book tonight is The Hobbit, isn’t it? Did you read it?” he asked.

“Yep, The Hobbit. I read it, but I had a hard time with some of the names. I’m also not picking out underlying themes as easily as I did with the Ayn Rand novels.”

“Well, Tolkien was more of a storyteller. Rand set out to make a political statement, I think, and weaved a story around the statement. Tolkien, if you ask me, set out to make a great story and any themes inside are just because of the time and environment in which he wrote.”

“I see that, and I think you are right about Tolkien being more of a storyteller, but I did pick up on something I think is buried in the manuscript. Bilbo starts out as a mild-mannered, maybe even timid, Hobbit. He wanted to stay home and read a good book, but when circumstances force him out into a dangerous world, he rises to be a hero. Looking at history, I see it was written between World War One and World War Two. It could be both a celebration of the ‘ordinary heroes of the first war and a warning to those that would be pressed to heroism in the coming war… which I think many in England knew was coming eventually.”

“Dang, Girl. I’m impressed. That is some deep thought right there. But what if I told you that Tolkien hated the whole ‘literary theme’ business and just thought a good story should be about a good story?”

“I wouldn’t disagree. Like I said, I think it is a product of the times. He’d witnessed a war twenty years earlier and anyone that chose to look could have seen another coming.”

Cy felt a certain pride. The first time he’d agreed to help her, it was just so that he could sit across from her and pretend it was a date. He’d thought up the stuff about social standing when she called him on his motives. But things had changed. He still didn’t think he had any kind of real shot at romance with her, but the nature of their relationship had changed.

The main change was at work. They usually worked two or three shifts together each week. And whenever she was working, she made sure that the other waiters and waitresses tipped out the busboys. Not just him, but any of them. But she would make comments to the staff she was friends with about how hard their support staff was working. She’d also taken to openly flirting with him at work on occasion. And some of the other waitresses picked up on it and flirted with him, too. He’d seemingly become more popular with the girls at work. Nobody knew about their “Book Report Dinners” though.

As usual, after a few hours of work she had a workable outline and they’d had vigorous discussion about the book. They’d also talked about a lot of other things… other classes at school, what they planned on doing over the summer and then when they graduated.

This time, when he walked her to the door, she gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. He wanted to jump up and kick his heels together walking back to the car but thought that would come off wrong.

Friday, 1 May 1981

Tracy got home from school to find the last person she expected to see, Alex King… Adonis as he was called at the restaurant. He’d moved away six months before and was a completely unexpected visitor at Tracy’s.

“I’m in town for a couple of days and I thought it would be great if we could go out. What do you think?” he asked her.

“Sure, I guess. Just here for the weekend, huh?” she said after a momentary hesitation.

“Well, yeah… kind of. My parents and I flew in this morning. They are house hunting. It looks like we are getting transferred back here in a couple of months. And I missed you.”

“I guess we can go out and get some dinner.”

For the first time she really started thinking about Cy. She hadn’t thought about them as really “dating” before, but when Alex asked her to go out, her first thought was, “but I’m seeing someone.” That kind of shocked her. She wasn’t expecting it.

Alex left and was going to come back and pick her up at seven.

They ended up at Darryl’s. It was far from her choice. She would have preferred almost anywhere else. She and Cy weren’t in anything like an “exclusive relationship,” heck, not even a relationship, except that he helped her with homework. But, sure enough, he was working. It seemed more awkward to her than it did to him. He stopped by the table, saw Alex and shook his hand and asked him how he was doing.

When she got home, Alex pressed for a kiss at the door. She gave him a hug and went inside.

***

“Hey, Mom?”

“What’s up, Tracy?”

“Can I ask you about a boy?”

“Always, Sugar. Are you kind of digging this Alex guy,” she asked, then added, with a knowing smile, “or do you have Cy on your mind?”

“I’ve been thinking about Cy all evening. He isn’t my ‘type’ at all, though.”

“What do you like about him?”

“He treats me like a queen, but even more, when he talks to me, he is complimentary without being condescending about it. Like the other night, I told him my insight into the themes of the book I was working on. He told me that was really deep thought, but I didn’t feel like he is talking down to me, but more like he was saying it out of genuine respect.”

“That’s a big deal. Finding a man that will be supportive is important. But what do you mean about ‘your type’?” her mom told her.

“You saw how hot Alex was? I always thought he was my type.”

“He’s awfully cute. But how does he make you feel?”

“Like the center of attention. Every head turned when we walked into the room. It felt good.”

“But were you the center of HIS attention? Or just everyone else?”

“I don’t know.”

“Compare how you feel when you are with Cy and when you were with Alex?” Tracy’s mom asked her.

“I get what you are saying now. When I was with Alex, everyone looked at us, but I don’t know where his attention was. When I am with Cy, I am where his attention is. He listens to me and wants what’s best for me.

Tuesday, 5 May 1981

Cy pulled up to Tracy’s house. He trotted up the sidewalk. He had decided that he really didn’t want to make her showing up with Alex into a big deal. Heck, they had only been out a couple of times and the expectations were set at homework, nothing more, he thought to himself. He knocked on the door and Tracy’s mom answered.

“Hi, Cy, she’ll be down in a moment. Come on in and have a seat,” she said.

“Thank you, Mrs. Tapper.”

He followed her into the house. And sat down in the living room.

“So, what book are you working on tonight?”

“Gulliver’s Travels. I had to read that one again. I hadn’t read it in a few years. But it’s cool. I knocked it out over the weekend.”

“You know, Cy, she really appreciates you helping her. Not only have her grades shot up in Literature, which she hated before, but she has started to really enjoy it. And I really think it has increased her confidence. And she’s always so happy when she gets home.”

“Cool, thanks. I’m having fun, too.”

Tracy came into the room. Cy thought she looked fantastic. She was wearing a skirt, which he’d never seen her in outside of the work uniform. She walked over and dropped down next to him on the couch.

“Hey, Cy. Sorry I wasn’t ready to go. But I’m ready when you are, now.”

“Great. Want to go to Jack’s Family Restaurant?”

“Sure, let’s go.”

They headed out, and as if nothing had changed, he made sure to get her door, which Alex didn’t do. When they got to the restaurant, he once again hurried around to get the car door. He held the door for her going into the restaurant, too.

As they slid into the booth, she found herself looking more forward to this than she was to the time she’d just spent with Alex. They made a little small talk, then ordered their dinner. Cy got right down to the book. More like Rand, Swift had set out to write a politically themed work. Of course, that was where the similarities ended. They spent the next few hours talking about the stories. When she got into it, Tracy had been surprised at how different the story had been to the movies and cartoons.

She appreciated that he didn’t bring up her date with Alex a couple of nights before. Part of her wanted to talk about it, though. But she was having so much fun just being with him. He was so easy for her to talk with… and he really made her feel valuable, not just pretty.

When he got her home, once again, he walked her to the door. She gave him a hug. Before he could turn to leave, she gave him a quick kiss on the lips, and hugged him again.

***

“Mom?” she said after she closed the door.

“Yeah, Tracy, what’s up?”

“I just wanted to talk…”

“How was the date,” her mom asked.

“It was good. And so comfortable. Instead of the book report, doing a compare and contrast between these two boys would be an assignment I need to do.”

“We’ll, let’s grab some ice cream and talk about it.”

They sat in the kitchen eating ice cream from their own little pint containers until almost two in the morning. Tracy’s biggest disappointment was that she didn’t talk to Cy about her going out with Alex. She wanted to, but she didn’t know how to start that chat.

I hope you enjoyed this enough to visit the last part, linked below.

This, along with part I and part III are a full short story from my book Who, What, When, Why? part of the Dixon-Prince series. The date format is inherited from those books. If you enjoy the story, I'd love for you to check out the other stories in the book.

If you haven't read part I, here is the link, below.