Laughing Fate Read online

  “Well for starters I went to the beach with out gassing up." Puck winced at the accusing glare Perri sent her.

  "I told you!”

  "I know, I know....it gets worse. I saw Potter and his gang surfing at the cove. No big deal. As I was getting out of the water I saw Potter completely spaz out over a seagull! Did you know he was afraid of them? I didn’t. So I mocked him just a little, I couldn’t help myself. Then I walked over to my car and it wouldn’t start and I was just so mad! So I started beating my jeep up with a very small twig I saw laying nearby. It was a very ‘Falty Towers’ moment. So Potter and his gang come up and Mr. Macho says something I didn’t quite like so I threatened to kill him.... Oh God! I’m a crazy stupid person!

  He must think I’m insane! So anyways I threaten him and he offers me a ride home which naturally got me mad, so I started walking home. The big stupid oaf wouldn’t back down and he again offered to take me home and I refused, so the stupid idiot went to get his car to take me home...stubborn son of.......so anyways he almost ran me over and I dodged and fell and that is how it all happened. Oh god, I’m a loser." Puck had her head in her hands and she was moaning from embarrassment.

  "Oh my!" Perri said trying to take this all in. She knew that Puck had a temper...but she sounded like she had gone insane.

  "Puck why do you care so much what he thinks?"

  "Who?" she asked, trying to play it cool, but she was not successful.

  "Potter you idiot! Why do you care so much?" Puck was picking at something on her comforter. She looked as if she was seconds away from crying, which terrified Perri. Puck never cried.

  "Cause, he’s popular and all macho and a surfer...and I just want him to respect me. To notice me, I didn’t want him to ignore me. But now he thinks I’m insane!"

  "Puck do you like him?" asked Perri carefully. One had to be very careful when discussing such matters with Puck. Too much concern or interest would kill anything she did feel for Potter. Boy, did she have a weird, emotionally stunted sister!

  “No... I don’t believe in love. Well....that’s not true. I believe that some people find true love. Like you will and like mom and dad. And like our brothers and their wives. But I don’t believe in love for me. So no, I don’t like Potter. I really don’t think I could ever let myself fall in love because it’s just not for me. Why waste the time?"

  "Why not, you would make a great wife! You are kind, and giving, and respectful, and loyal, and never ever boring! Why wouldn’t you find love? You’re just not looking for it. If you did I’m sure you would find someone."

  "No. I am not doing that! I don’t need a man to be happy."

  "But don’t you want a family? You love kids, you’re great with them. What are you going to do with your life?" Perri sounded so incredulous, and well she should.

  A life without kids and family, a laughing husband were all daunting to Puck. It was not the future she wanted. She just felt that it was wrong for her to search out love. A tiny bit of her hoped that one day a man would be willing to force her to love him, but for the most part...Puck was content with her life. She didn’t want others feeling sorry for her or setting her up with people. If love was in her future so be it.

  She just couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d had her chance at true love and that she’d lost. Plain and simple. She’d always believed that everyone had one soul mate. Well, she’d had that and it didn’t work out. Puck felt broken, like there was something inside of her that made her impossible to love.

  Feeling her eyes tear up, Puck pushed Perri out of the bed and laughed as best as she could. "Enough of this drivel. Let’s go do."

  "But Puck, you’re still supposed to be resting!" Perri argued.

  "To HELL with resting! I’m fine. Really! Let’s go do." With that said, Puck walked out the door, pulling Perri along with her. Still feeling woozy and half dead, she convinced Perri to take her out for a movie. ‘Maybe afterwards she could convince Perri to do something a little more daring’, Puck thought with a grin.

  ****

  Puck stood outside screaming, "Are you coming or not you yeller bellied pansy girl? Chicky La La! Come out and Pla-ay!!!" Inwardly wincing at the sound of her own voice, for she still had a mother of a headache, Puck ran outside and continued taunting Perri at the top of her lungs.

  "...come on out you hamster lover! You eater of chicken Poo! You drunk pigeon! You little mustard licking booger flicking coward! Come out and Dooooo!" She was walking backwards as she screamed all of that and more. Not looking behind her, she was scared quiet when she ran into a solid person.

  "Holy mother of George!" She exclaimed as she turned around. Standing before her was a very amused Potter. He had his arms around her to hold her steady. Completely caught by surprise, Puck gazed up at him with wide happy eyes.

  There was still some mischief in her eyes from her obnoxious taunting, but for the most part the happiness was at seeing him, Potter realized. He was suddenly very glad he had decided to come by after all. Perri had scared the living day lights out of him with all that commitment talk. But after a few days of pretending like that bazaar day never happened, he realized that Perri was just being a meddling little sister. That’s what they did, so Potter should just ignore anything she said and not let her scare him away.

  Puck’s eyes abruptly emptied of all emotion when she blinked once, looked down at his hands still holding her and back up at his face. Oh crap! There was fire in her eyes. Obviously reality had returned to Puck. Potter very wisely let go of her arms, absently rubbing the spot on his stomach where she had last hit him. She saw that gesture and laughed, the evil wench. Smiling up at him again she asked what he was doing here. Remembering the fire in her eyes, Potter considered carefully what to say to the tempestuous young lady before him.

  "Well I left before I had said good bye to you. And I thought it would just be too rude if I left like that." There that was smooth. Not a commitment, or any statement of interest. It was Polite. Very smooth.

  Puck stared up at him and frowned. How stupid could he be? Who left and then came back days later just to say goodbye? What a moron. “Really?" she asked with as little emotion as possible.

  Uh oh. She was mad. Stupid, Stupid man! What to say now? Damn it, there was nothing he could say. Panicking, Potter felt himself start to hyperventilate. He hadn’t gotten over his fear of her. The only thing that had changed was that he couldn’t stop thinking about her and he knew that she wasn’t always a warrior, sometimes she was cute and cuddly ...but mostly she was still scary, still crazy, and still had death in her eyes ninety percent of the time.

  Holy cow. What to do?? She stepped closer, scorn in her eye. SHE WAS MOVING IN FOR THE KILL! Holy Crap he really was a goner this time! Taking two steps back Potter stammered about a curiosity over her health and general well being and also that he really didn’t want to die today and maybe he’d just pop on in and say hi to Perri.

  Puck watched the wuss walk away into the house. What a tweaker! She had almost forgotten how nervous and scared he was of everything and then he goes and tweaks out for no reason! Weird. Shaking her head she threw one last taunt at him (She had to have the last word), "Kah!" Needless to say the stupid man stumbled and almost fell in the doorway. Poor stupid man.

  Shaking her head again she continued to throw taunts at her sister. For some reason Perri didn’t want to do anything. So Puck had taken it upon herself to taunt her sister out of the house. This was the last day of her sick days after all! She yelled at the top of her lungs, she screamed taunts, and threw small objects at windows and was as annoying as she could be...which she could be quite annoying when called for.

  She had honed the art down with two older brothers. She could proudly say that she had driven both of her big macho brothers to tears of frustration with just her skills of tormentation. Of course then they had beaten her up and hanged her over the stairway with a piece of rope...but Perri wouldn’t do that. At least Puck didn’t think Perri woul
d do that, she lacked the upper body strength to pull it off.

  Potter walked into the house looking around for Perri. Not that he really wanted to talk to her, but right now he really didn’t want to talk to Puck. She was in a dangerous mood. You could see the restless energy rolling off of her. She had been cooped up in a house way too long and now she was ready to blow.

  Potter should have thought it through a little better when he decided to stop by. Right now she was about a ten on the scary factor. He could still hear Puck screaming and yelling from the inside of their house with the door closed. He didn’t think she’d stop till she got what she wanted. Whatever that was.

  He saw Perri crouching under a window. Weird. She was holding a pot full of water with ice cubes in it. She waved at him to stay out of sight and poured green food coloring in the pot. "What are you doing?" He asked as he watched her mix the water and dye together.

  "Puck wants to play so I’m gonna play." She said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. These Berri girls were crazy.

  "Is she feeling good enough to do that?" Potter asked, envisioning Puck getting pneumonia from the ice water. Perri looked at him as if he was dumber than dirt.

  "Do you hear her? She’s fine." Perri mumbled something under her breath but Potter didn’t quite get it. He thought he heard some derogatory remark about his person though.

  At just that moment Puck walked under that window, unsuspecting, and yelled some very creative insults. Perri popped up from her crouched position and dumped the water on her from the second story of their town house and then ducked out of sight. Perri was slumped against the wall giggling up a storm. Meanwhile, Puck was outside sputtering at the shock of the cold and standing stiff to decrease the shock of wet clothes. Momentarily at a loss for words Puck just stared up at the window. And then it happened.

  Puck screamed a battle cry when she saw her green splotchy skin and ran into the house. Perri panicked and with a shrill scream, ran for the bathroom. Puck was right on her heals, but Perri reached the bathroom with just a second to spare and slammed the door in Puck’s face.

  Potter winced at all of their freaking screams, how could just two girls be so loud? Potter was at quite a loss. Anyways, Perri shut the bathroom door; Puck slammed into it and tried to get it open. Perri finally got it locked and then Puck started banging and screaming even louder than before. Potter was meanwhile trying to inch out of the way when Puck picked up his smell.

  "YOU!" she accused as she whirled around. "Did you know that she was going to do this?" There was definitely death in her eyes, voice, body language...and oh yeah the knife she had in her hand. Where had she gotten that?!

  "Umm well you see...well...no? Ummm you see...I ...well she...yea I saw her...but I didn’t ...I wouldn’t...really!" Potter stammered.

  "Oh you’re bloody useless," Puck exclaimed and then turned her back on Potter, much to his relief.

  “Perri, I’m going into your room! I’m going to destroy it!!!!" Puck shouted.

  "Go ahead! I don’t care! You know your favorite perfume? It’s down the sink!!!!" screamed Perri.

  "OH!!! That’s it!!!!" Puck stormed away and headed towards Perri’s room.

  What followed for the next hour or so was something truly terrifying for Potter. He had never seen so much chaos in his life. It all seemed somewhat unreal; could anyone ever be that crazy to completely destroy their house to get back at one another?

  Apparently, the Berri sisters could be that crazy. There was much screaming and cussing, some wrestling and much damage and cries of outrage. Instead of being sensible about the fight like a guy would (you hit me, I hit you- we’re even) the two sisters kept escalating it.

  One would throw a favorite dress outside. The other retaliated by burning a favorite pair of shoes, it didn’t surprise Potter that it was Puck who decided fire was the answer. They bit, they kicked, they turned the house upside down, and they actually broke a piece of furniture. And through it all Potter just sat on the couch looking thru old albums of pictures.

  Well, to be truthful, first he cowered; but then when he realized that he wasn’t involved in the fight, he just sat down and out of boredom started to look through old pictures. Puck had sure looked cute as a kid. She had been a sweet looking child with wild hair, shining eyes, and a mischievous grin. He hadn’t remembered such things of her. Oh he remembered the rumors of her various mishaps and misadventures...and her petty crimes, but he couldn’t recall a single thing about Puck herself. He didn’t know who had been her friends or what she’d feared and dreamed about as a child.

  Maybe even then he had been scared of her. He couldn’t remember. Maybe that’s what Puck had meant about being invisible. They had both grown up in this town. They knew each other, but had never spoken. Mostly because they didn’t hang with the same people, but still he should have memories of her as a child. Sunny cove wasn’t such a big town that there was an excuse. Up until that fateful day when he had ran her over, she’d been the weird aggressive girl who body boarded occasionally at the beach and did crazy things.

  It was funny how your opinion about a person could change in a matter of hours. Now Potter caught himself thinking about her way too much. Although, his concern about her was understandable, he had run her over after all. He could probably file it away as guilt if he wanted to, but Potter knew it was more than that. He liked her crazy ways. He liked that he never knew what would come out of her mouth or what she’d do at any given moment. And he wanted to be her friend. It was as simple as that.

  Standing up to move out of their way, Potter stared at a picture that had fallen out of the album. The girls were holding each other by the hair and stumbling around the room as they screamed and kicked and yanked. Clearing his throat to get their attention he asked, "Who’s this guy? I don’t remember him."

  He turned the picture over and read the note scribed in pen: Hey sexy mamma! Remember this trip? You look so hot! I just wanted to let you know that though we’re miles apart I still keep you close in my heart! I know that it’s hard to do things together, but I want you to know that no matter what happens and no matter how many years go by you will still always be my BFFL!

  No one can replace you Puck! You’re way too unique and I thank god for your beautiful friendship. You will always surpass any of my best friends. I just wanted you to know that I love you and always will. Of course Kyle loves you too! Anyways in memories of our grand adventure and crazy ways I give this picture to you, Beautiful! Love you always and forevers my crazy BFFL, Drea.

  The girls paused, mid yank, and stared at the picture. Puck’s face, which had been alive with emotion a second before, drained of all color and expression. She stared at the picture, lost in her own world for a moment and then slowly let go of Perri’s hair. Perri leaned in for a closer look, curious.

  Plucking it out of Potter’s hand, Perri held it closer, squinting at the picture. "That’s you, Puck. I don’t recognize the other people in it though. Who are they?"

  The picture was of a younger Puck, around seventeen. In it, she was smiling wide and gazing at a boy who looked, in Potter’s humble opinion, like a punk. He had black hair that was spiked and was wearing a pair of swim trunks. He was smiling back at Puck, with his arm around her. Was that a hickey on his neck??? Next to them was a girl with long honey colored hair and a curvaceous body. She was smiling wide at the camera, with her arm looped thru Puck’s arm. They looked like good friends, but Potter couldn’t remember ever seeing these people before.

  "That’s Drea and Kyle." Puck said softly staring at the picture. She looked sad and wistful as she stared at it. "I met them when I was fifteen on one of my adventures. They lived thirty miles from here, we just instantly clicked. We became best friends from the first and after that we would hang out every chance we got. That picture was taken a few years later in California. We drove down to Ruth Lake in Kyle’s camero. It was a fun trip."

  Puck was relating facts calmly, but Potter could s
ee that she was holding back emotion by the way she was standing so stiff. Her face was carefully controlled, but her eyes had a slight shine to them. Perri was still fascinated with the picture and couldn’t see how shaken Puck was at seeing this picture.

  "Did mom know you were friends with them? Why didn’t you ever talk about them? Were you dating him? He’s cute," Perri shot off as she inspected the picture carefully. She gasped, looked at it closer and then stared at Puck opened mouth.

  "Mom and Dad didn’t ever know about them. They were a little bit wild. The things we did, I couldn’t usually talk about with my blabber mouthed sister. And yes..." Puck took a deep breath, "I suppose you could say I was dating him. We were together for three years."

  Perri nodded absently at that, still staring fixedly at the younger Puck. Curious Potter leaned closer. His stomach was feeling sour at the thought of these people having been part of Puck’s past. Three years was a long time to date someone. Why hadn’t he heard about any of this?

  The seventeen year old Puck was wearing a white tank top over a flowered bikini top that hit a little above her belly button and a pair of cut off shorts. Her hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail, a few strands falling on her face. She looked so young and carefree. His memories of her weren’t matching with this picture. He remembered an aggressive girl with a small circle of friends, but mostly she was a loner. She definitely wasn’t that friendly and she never looked so laid back. Usually she was doing one stupid stunt after another. Not to mention her tough girl attitude.

  He looked closer and saw what Perri was staring at. His jaw dropped and he stared from Puck to the picture. Noticing finally that they were staring at her, she asked what was wrong. She was still holding herself stiff and now she was looking alarmed. She grabbed the picture from them, stared at it, grimaced and set it carefully down.

  Perri and Potter were staring at her, questions in their eyes. Puck lowered her eyes, breathed deeply and then asked, "Um did you see the..." Two heads nodded at her. In the picture twinkling in the sunlight had been a small belly button ring. "Well then yes, I had a belly button ring."