Page 14 of All That Glitters

Chapter ten

The Great Debbie Intervention

“I think my brain just melted and leaked out my ear,” Debbie groaned as she trudged into her apartment, her shoulders slumped under the weight of an oversized backpack.

She let it drop to the floor with a heavy thud.

With midterms finally over, she could ditch that thing for at least a couple months.

Veronica looked over from the couch, where she had a pizza slice in one hand while flipping through TV channels with the other. “Rough day at the salt mines?”

“You have no idea,” Debbie sighed, kicking off her shoes and flexing her cramped toes.

She shuffled over to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and stared blankly into its depths, as if the answers to life’s questions might be found between the orange juice and leftover Chinese takeout.

Finding nothing interesting, she closed it and walked over to the small answering machine on the end table.

Its red light blinked with saved messages.

“Any calls for me?” she asked.

Veronica smiled, taking a slow, deliberate bite of her pizza while maintaining eye contact. It was a smile that said she knew something hilarious that Debbie might not find so amusing.

“There might be two messages for you on there,” Veronica said.

“Tony?” Debbie said, trying to sound neutral, but failing miserably.

“Nope. His friends. Jeff and Matt.”

Debbie shot her a puzzled look. “Why would they call?”

Veronica shrugged as if she had no idea, but her broadening grin gave her away. “Guess you’ll have to play the messages to find out.”

“You’re being weird tonight,” Debbie said, eyeing her roommate oddly.

“Trust me,” Veronica said. “It’s about to get a lot weirder.”

Debbie pressed the play button on the machine, and Matt’s voice came on.

‘Hi Debbie, it’s Tony’s friend, Matt. We met at graduation. Listen, if Jeff calls, just delete his message. I think he has rabies or something. Anyway, I was wondering if you might want to go out sometime. I’ll try you later.’

A sharp beep, and then Jeff’s voice, a whole different brand of chaotic energy, crackled to life.

‘Hey, Debbie. This is Jeff, Tony’s buddy. I’m the guy who’s gonna be an attorney. So, I’m calling to see if you wanna go out. Tony mentioned you’re not very sophisticated, so I thought maybe we could catch the monster truck show or something. Oh, and if Matt calls, just ignore him.’

Veronica burst out laughing, nearly choking on her pizza. “Told ya!” she managed between coughs. “It’s like watching two tomcats fight over a piece of catnip.”

Debbie just stared at the silent machine, a look of utter bewilderment on her face. The exhaustion and brain fog from midterms had been replaced with one furious thought — ‘not sophisticated.’

Debbie stormed over to the couch and plopped down. She snatched the bag of chips off the coffee table and shoved a handful into her mouth.

“Do you think anyone would miss Tony if I just killed him?” she mumbled through a mouthful of chips.

“Now, roomie,” Veronica said, watching her with growing amusement. “That wouldn’t be very sophisticated of you now, would it.”

“Bite me,” Debbie shot back.

Veronica cracked up even harder. The frown on Debbie’s face as she contemplated ways to kill Tony was too comical to take seriously.

Just then, the phone rang. Veronica walked over and picked it up, still fighting to control her giggles.

“Veronica and Debbie’s phone sex hotline,” she answered. There was a brief pause as she listened to the caller. “Oh, hey, Tony.” Her eyes lit up with mischief as she glanced at Debbie. “Would that be the unsophisticated Debbie you’re looking for?”

Debbie’s head whipped around. “Is it him?” she asked, her eyes wide with fury.

Veronica nodded as a wicked grin spread across her face.

Debbie sprang from the couch like a charging rhino in a university sweatshirt. “Tell him he’s dead!”

“Better start running, Tony,” Veronica said into the receiver. This was already way better than anything on TV.

Debbie snatched the receiver from her hand and unloaded on her soon-to-be-deceased best friend in a long tirade of expletives. When she finished, she didn’t wait for his response. She slammed the phone down and stomped back to the couch.

“Not sophisticated, my ass,” she muttered, plopping down and grabbing another fistful of chips, crunching them with renewed vigor.

Veronica watched her for a moment, her amusement fading. “Don’t you think maybe you’re overreacting a little?”

Debbie chewed furiously. “Nope. I thought I was very composed and ladylike,” she said as several crumbs sprayed from her mouth.

“Right...” Veronica said, “if that lady was a drunk Marine in a bar fight.”

Debbie took a deep breath, the fury in her shoulders seeming to deflate as suddenly as it had appeared. “Okay,” she finally said. “Maybe that was a little overboard.”

“Ya think?”

“Alright. It was a lot overboard. It’s just that sometimes he can be so frustrating.”

“Sometimes?”

“Okay,” Debbie conceded, grabbing another handful of chips. “All the time.”

Veronica watched her for a moment. “So, what’s really going on here, roomie? Because I’m sensing some major subtext.”

“Like what?” Debbie asked, eyeing her suspiciously.

“Like maybe you’ve got a thing for Tony.”

Debbie nearly spat out her chips. “Did you miss the part about me wanting to kill him?”

“It’s all part of the subtext,” Veronica said, reaching for another slice of pizza. “So what is it, roomie? You like him?”

Debbie stared at the television, her expression unreadable. She hated how easily Veronica could see through her after only a few months of knowing each other. “No,” she said, with absolutely zero conviction.

Veronica continued watching her, knowing that eventually Debbie was going to break.

“Stop looking at me that way,” Debbie said, grabbing a throw pillow and holding it up to block her face.

“What way?” Veronica said, gently pushing down the throw pillow.

“That way,” Debbie said, pointing at Veronica.

“Oh. You mean my BS meter way.”

“Yes!”

“Not until I hear you say it.”

Debbie groaned and took a deep breath. “Okay, fine. You win. Yes, I have a thing for Tony.” The admission felt both terrifying and like a massive relief.

Veronica squealed. “I knew it! So why aren’t you guys going out?”

“Because he still thinks of me as the klutzy little grade school girl he used to tease.”

“As opposed to the klutzy college graduate he teases now?” Veronica teased.

Debbie shot her a frown. “Not helping.”

Veronica gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “I’m sorry. Go on.”

Debbie took a breath. “That’s pretty much it. He doesn’t see me. He just sees goofy, klutzy Deb. The friend who’s good for a laugh, who’ll help him with his script, who’ll always be there when he needs someone to talk to at three in the morning.”

“But not someone he’d date,” Veronica finished for her.

“Exactly. I’ve been friend-zoned since puberty.”

“So change that,” Veronica said.

Debbie let out a long, frustrated sigh. “I don’t know how!”

Veronica gave her a long, appraising look, her eyes scanning Debbie from head to toe — the faded university sweatshirt with its barely legible logo, the comfortable but shapeless jeans worn thin at the knees, the hair pulled back in a messy ponytail that hadn’t seen a brush since early that morning.

It was the outfit of someone who prioritized comfort over appearance and did nothing to suggest ‘romantic interest.’

“Well,” Veronica said. “For starters, nothing about this outfit screams ‘ravage me now.’” She gestured at Debbie’s attire with her pizza slice.

“It screams, ‘I own three cats, and my Friday nights are for laundry.’ We need to change the packaging. Get him to see you as a woman, not just the buddy he’s known forever. ”

Debbie looked down at her comfortable, familiar clothes. “Like how drastic are we talking about?”

“Nothing major,” Veronica assured her. “Just enough to break the pattern. Get him to see you as a woman, and not just his perpetual sidekick.” She leaned back and folded her arms. “I have an idea.”

Debbie looked at her warily. “Uht oh.”

Veronica shook her head. “No uht ohs. Have you tried flirting with him?”

Debbie thought about. “I’m not positive, but I think we might have flirted a tiny bit when we were in La Jolla.”

“Really? What happened?”

Debbie bit her lip. “I think I blushed and looked away.”

“Aw, roomie,” Veronica said, giving Debbie’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Why’d you do that?”

“I don’t know. It felt weird.”

“Like weird in a bad way?”

Debbie shook her head. “Like weird in, I didn’t know what to do.”

“You’ve never flirted before?”

“I don’t think so.”

Veronica sat back and nodded. “Okay. You and I are gonna change that.”

“Change it how?”

“A little thing I’m calling Flirting 101 for Clueless Roomies. Your classes begin tomorrow.”