Variations on a(n Historical) Theme - Part One: "Change"

- Wherein the reader is given an exposition of Alex and his circumstances.

'He ground his gears shifting into first like he normally did. The noise and the car's physical reaction made him click his teeth and curse internally. He supposed that he was getting better with the gearshift and clutch, but going into his second week of manual transmission was aggravating. Between school having just ended for the summer, having just moved home, and the continual fights with his girlfriend, the car seemed like just the cherry on top of Alex Ashbourne's perfect start of summer.

In fact, he wouldn't be grinding his gears through suburban Flint, Michigan at this moment if it weren't for the incessant phone calls. Apparently he was incapable of doing anything right in his girlfriend's eyes. He wasn't supposed to have even looked for a job this summer, less yet found one and accepted the position: he was supposed to be on call twenty-four hours a day to come running. He hated that, that his life paled in comparison with that of some girl he guessed he knew pretty well but wasn't entirely sure he wanted to continue being serious about. He sighed as he pulled into her driveway, took a deep breath as he got out of the car. Composure was key.

That was a statement he'd heard somewhere, probably years ago in high school. He doubted that what he thought it meant was even true: nobody seemed to really care how composed you were, they just kind of went on their own way and ran ragged over you if you gave them half the chance. Or maybe that was the Hobbes, still fresh in his mind from the just-finished semester, telling him that everyone was being as deceitful about his or her feelings as he was trying to be. Alex took the walk to the front door at a slow gait. Sometimes every second he wasted was worth the wait.

“Where have you been?”

She, of course, was waiting. She had no patience for his issues; no sympathy for his schoolwork, no will to understand his clinical depression, a willful ignorance of his money troubles.

“What do you mean, 'where have I been?'”

“I called you like twenty minutes ago. Where have you been?”

“Well, it's a ten minute drive and my family likes to talk to me as I leave the house, and the new car.”

“Oh, whatever. Learn how to drive, moron.”

He sighed. This was, unfortunately, usual. Next she'd demand he go get food or something, like he had the money to, and then when he was saying he didn't have money he'd get blamed for never being capable – future tense, mind you – of supporting a family. That conversation made him want to scream. If he wasn't expected to be with her every waking moment of his life, he could get a job and pay for food and then finish school and get a career. Not that she bothered to examine his pitiful life.

“Go get me some food.” He'd called it.

“Don't have any money.”

“Oh, whatever! That's just an excuse. You'll go out with your friends tonight and buy food or rent a movie or something. Don't tell me you don't have any money.”
“Well, I'll start having some money in a couple weeks.”

She was appalled. Huffing, she tried to forge a cogent sentence. Had he actually gone and underhanded her on the job front?

“I told you not to get a job.”

“And I told you I didn't care what you said about it.”

“That's it!” she screeched. “We're through!”

“Okay,” he said solemnly and turned away to return to his car.

“And I've been sleeping with Gerald for the past three weeks!”

He nodded, frowning, as he walked away. “I figured as much. See you around.”

“You can't just walk away from me like that!” she continued screeching. He did, though, and climbed into his car. And then, as she threw sticks and rocks from the yard at him as he stoically pulled out of her driveway, he drove off.

---

“Fucking Gerry?” George laughed, his teeth glinting from behind his full beard.

“Yeah, I guess. Or that's what she yelled at me, anyway. So I just left,” Alex agreed, sipping from a bottle of cola.

“Man, you should be drinking right now,” George said between swigs of beer. “You just got broken up with and found out there's another guy.”

Alex just shrugged. “Too expensive. Broke my last five on the Coke.”

“At least the job's starting in a few weeks, though, right?”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “At least.”

“Plus you can start playing the field again, now. How about that friend of yours up at school?”

“Amanda?” Alex asked, raising his eyebrows. After George nodded, he continued: “Kind of moved into the sister zone. That'd be pretty awkward to start pursuing.”

“Well, let's list off what you need in a girl, see where it gets us.”

“Hold on,” Alex was wary. “So I've been single for all of three hours and we're already on the hunt again?”

George shrugged: “Why not?”

“Because it's been an eighth of a day.”

“And it'll have been a sixth of a day in forty-five minutes; what's your point?”

“Shouldn't I wait?” Alex wondered aloud. His emotional attachment had been thoroughly destroyed over the past month or so, but wasn't there some sort of time restriction or something?

“Listen, you aren't taking some broad home with you tonight. Oh, thank you, honey.” George traded his empty beer bottle for a fresh one the cocktail waitress had brought him. She looked at Alex and cocked an eyebrow – she was attractive enough, but he didn't return the gaze and she moved on. “I'm talking a list: what you want in a significant other.”

“Well, I guess I'd like it if she were pretty tall,” Alex said wistfully, sipping from the Coke again.

“Okay, there we go: pretty and tall. That's two,” George glazed over the distinctions between 'pretty tall' and 'pretty, tall' while leaning over the small table, procured a mechanical pencil from his pocket and began scribbling on a napkin. “What else? Any hair preferences? Other build preferences?”

“Blonde, maybe with curls. I don't know.” Alex hadn't actually thought through this scenario.

“All right: tall, pretty, curly blonde. You like the artistic type don't you?” George was tapping the napkin with the pencil. He wrote the word 'artsy' on the list before Alex could even respond. “This last one was artistic, though. Any particular differences you want?”

“No more graphic design; I don't want to look through edited photographs and be expected to see a difference anymore,” Alex grimaced. “Seriously, I spent like half an hour looking at two pictures of the same damn bee. The filter had been tweaked on one of them. I couldn't tell the difference. There was screaming involved.”

“So what? Music, then? I know you look down on poetry; maybe someone with a shared penchant for prose?”

“Yes, definitely musically inclined. I could take or leave the other two; most people hate writing.”

“Tall, pretty, blonde, curls, artsy, musician,” George muttered, still tapping the napkin. “How about real personality?”

“I'd like for a girl to be both interested and nice to me. That'd be a change of pace worth paying attention to.”

“Okay, but are we talking like candy-store sweet, or more like bakery sweet?”

“Is that like the difference between Hungry Jack-hungry and GI-Joe-beefed-up-after-a-hard-day's-work-in-the-chopper-hungry?”

George actually looked up. “I'm not sure I follow.”

“That was my point. What's the difference between the two?”

“Well, candy-store sweet is the kind where you think you're liable to become diabetic. Bakery sweet is... I don't know; mellower?” George shrugged.

“Is this even a known distinction, or are you just making this up as we go?”

“Little of this, little of that.”

“Well, I'm too cynical for candy-store sweetness, I think,” Alex suggested broodily.

“Yeah, probably. Okay, baker's chocolate is on the list. Any preference in age or sibling number differentiation?”

“Well, legal would be nice, and no; she could have ten siblings, and be any of them numerically.”

“So, then: tall, pretty, blonde, curly, artsy, musical, bakery-style, of-age, smart, puts up with a complete nerd.”

“Thank you,” Alex said, bowing deeply and then bringing the Coke to his lips, “for adding those last two. Ass.”

“Okay. I think I have the perfect girl for you.”

Alex choked on his soda. “Wait, you what?”

“I know who you should date next,” George said simply, sitting back in the chair and taking another swig of beer.

“And might I be amongst those knowing who she is?”

“I'm sure you know of her. I'll see if she's interested in meeting you, but we'll have to take a road trip to pull this off. Be ready to leave in the next day or two.” With that, George stood up, put money down for his drinks, patted Alex on the shoulder, and walked out of the bar.

Alex just sat in his chair, shocked. He knew he was getting into trouble somehow, but he also guessed he'd go along with the plan – for a while, at least. After all, George was his friend, and a road trip surely couldn't mean leaving Michigan. Maybe he'd even have some fun before work started. Maybe he'd even meet a nice girl.'