normalsville – season 01

episode 01 – secrets in the wind...

act 03 - have a little faith.

It's 15 seconds after 5:00 pm, and Jacob is angrier than hell. He needs to go about... 15 seconds ago, but he can't because the person who is supposed to work the next shift isn't here yet, and so, he has to continue working.

He's going to be late. He's going to get behind.

She's coming back in a few days, and he wants to be ready for her. He wants to be there when she gets back, and he wants to make things absolutely and completely perfect for her arrival, and he can't do that if he's...

"Jacob!" comes a yell from in front of the little window that looked out into the main part of The Joint, "You awake in there?"

His head snaps back to attention, "Uh... yeah. I'm here."

"I need a hamburger 15 seconds ago," she yells at him.

"Coming right up," he says noting the irony.

He bends down to the little mini freezer where they always keep a large quantity of frozen patties so that they aren't continually making trips back to the big giant freezer in the back. He opens the door and a blast of cold air washes over his face.

"God it's freezing in here."

Jacob smiled, "That's why they call it a freezer, and not a 'warmer'."

"Shu-up," she said in mock valley girl, pushing him lightly.

It was about six months ago, and they were both in the giant freezer, digging through all kinds of boxes full of all kinds of various food-like items, desperately trying to find the bags of fries that were just delivered. The stupid, stupid delivery people always stacked them somewhere at the bottom of the giant food pile whenever they made a delivery, and that, naturally, sucked, because that meant who ever was working at The Joint on that day would be forced to dig in the freezing cold.

Today, Jacob and Faith had drawn the short straw. Although in Jacob's case, that straw was admittedly taller than Faith's. You know, in the non-perverted sense.

See... and this was no secret to many, many people (who, sadly, did not include Faith)... Jacob was desperately in love with the girl he had to share the freezer with. He had been ever since they were little kids in grade one, and she was the smartest girl in the class, often taking it upon herself to correct the teacher's grammar and spelling, while simultaneously refusing to partake in all of the things she thought there was no point in doing.

"Faith, it's time for finger painting!" the teacher would tell her, being altogether way too excited about a whole bunch of overactive children running madly around the classroom, hands smeared with red and blue and yellow paint and heads hopped up on whatever sugary snack their parents had packed them for snack time, "Don't you want to come and join us?"

Whenever posed with a question like this... one the teacher really should have known the answer to before she had even asked it... Faith always replied in the same way: she'd blink twice, sigh with disappointment, and tilt her neck so that her eyes could gaze up at the square tiled ceiling. The teacher would then make a poor imitation of Faith's utterly disappointed sigh, and turn her attention towards the other kids, most of which had probably commenced with painting each other with their hands. Most, meaning not Jacob.

See, even back then, before cooties had become a figment of an overactive imagination... Jacob knew there was something about Faith: something desperately perfect, wonderfully cryptic and immeasurably unique. Now naturally, he had no clue what those words meant at the time, but over the years, he would grow to learn them, as well as the much greater feeling they were a part of.

"I found them!" she cried out. Her voice reached Jacob with a muffled tone. She was sandwiched in between two large mountains of boxes, which, after some moving, Jacob fell witness to.

"Where?" he asked.

She used her right arm (the one closest to the pile of fry bags) to point at them.

"Right there!" she exclaimed.

Jacob was unable to see this bit of directional instruction, as her body was blocking his view of both her pointing finger, and the pile of fries.

"I can't see where you're pointing. Can you get them yourself?"

She attempted to shuffle towards the bags, "Nope."

"Can you get out at all?"

Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle.

"Nope."

"And I thought you were supposed to be the smart one," he said coyly, walking forward.

He grabbed her slightly warm hand and began to pull.

"I am the smart one," she told him, "But that doesn't mean I'm perfe—whoa!!!"

She popped out of the little section, surprising Jacob to the point that when her body fell onto his, he fell to the ground. Faith landed on top of him, and soon, pushed herself up, hands on either side of Jacob's head.

She looked him in the eye, and he looked at her.

"Wow," she muttered.

Jacob's heart skipped a beat as a few long moments passed.

"How sickeningly Hollywood is this?" she complained, pushing herself upwards.

Jacob blinked, still on the cold and frosty floor, " Um... what?"

She moved to a standing position and smiled, "Oh, you know, the whole situation. It just seemed to scream of all those moments in those teen movies where the girl 'accidentally' falls on top of the boy or the boy 'accidentally' falls on top of the girl, and then there's some stupid, cookie cutter moment where they look into each other's eyes and then they either kiss and profess their undying love for one another, or someone or something ruins the moment entirely, you know?"

Jacob smiled the most sincere smile he could muster, "Oh right. That. Could you help me up?"

"Sure," she offered her hand to him.

He grabbed it. In the cold, it was still sort of warm...

"What the hell are you doing down there, trying to freeze the store out?" his boss yells, peering her face from through the little window.

"Huh? Oh, no, sorry," Jacob apologized, pealing a patty off of the little wax separator sheet, "I got lost there for a second."

"Well, find your way back and get moving," she says curtly, "I've got an order for another burger and some fries."

"Coming right up," he mutters, grabbing another frozen patty.

He stands upwards and walks over to the hamburger grill, tossing the two burgers onto the steaming surface.

"Ow! That's hot."

"Well, there is a reason why they call it hot grill and not cold grill."

She made a face and stuck her tongue out at him in defiance.

"It's not my fault you keep walking right into those," Jacob told her, "And besides, you should know better than to put your hand on the grill by now. You've seen how it cooks meat."

"First of all, it was only my thumb, and second... shu-up," she stated defiantly.

"You know, if you keep on using those, you're going to run out of them."

"What are you talking about?" she asked him, "You can never have enough 'shu-up'."

"You can too."

"No, you can't," she explained to him, "Besides. You should know by now that I'm always right, and I always win, so there's no point in arguing with me."

"Other than to drive you absolutely crazy."

She shook her head, "Sorry. Already there."

He shook his head, smiling all the while as he began to stare at the bubbling grease that was causing the now cooking burgers to pop and sizzle.

Even back then, he knew that he was going to miss what they had: the harmless little teasing that his friends liked to call the sickest thing a guy has ever done, even though he knows he isn't going to get any, and the crazy, manic conversations that often veered from the outright inane, to the downright staid. Case in point:

"So... you sure you have to leave?" Jacob asked, gently flipping a burger.

Faith sat down on a nearby (absolutely horrible looking, straight from an obviously very ugly point in history) olive-green chair and let out a somewhat sedate sigh.

"I don't know. Maybe," she told him, "Sometimes it seems like the right thing to do and everything, but then I look in the mirror and I think... this is me you know? Then I start to worry about what it'll mean if I actually go through with it, and actually get fixed to the way I used to be and... I don't know. It's confusing."

"But as of right now, you're still going, right?" Jacob asked her, flipping over the other burger.

"Yeah. Yes, I'm still going right now," she told him.

"So... if you don't know if you really want to go through it now... why did you say you were going to in the first place?"

"I think the burgers are done," she said to him.

"Faith, don't do this," Jacob said to her, "You do this every time I ask you about this. We talk about everything else... what's different about this?"

"I said I think the burgers are done, Jacob," a voice snaps from the front, "And where are those fries?"

"Oh jeeze," he mutters, "Sorry I'm just... sorry, I was just day dreaming a little."

"Well stop it," the boss tells him, "You're still on duty until Jason gets here, and these orders aren't stopping anytime soon. I need you to cook up some chicken fingers while you're over by the deep fryer. Think you can handle that?"

"Yes," Jacob mutters sullenly.

He walks over to the deep fryer.

He didn't know when it happened. He really should've known, because it was so, so obvious when you stopped and looked at it long enough, but still the fact remained. He didn't know when it happened.

He just knew that one day, he saw them by the deep fryer. And she was acting different. She wasn't acting like she normally acted, around him, around her sister, or around anyone, anyone else.

It stopped him dead cold. It instantly took his stomach and wrenched it in a million different directions at once. It took his heart, and jumped on it so many times that it ceased to feel anymore, a shell of what it used to be and feel.

It utterly destroyed his mind.

He turned away quickly. His mind began to work quickly.

When did this happen. When did she start liking someone else? It couldn't have been for too long, could it have? No. Certainly not. Maybe a couple months? Or less? Probably less, because, he reasoned, he wasn't that out of tune with his friend. Or so he desperately, desperately hoped.

No. It had to be fairly recent. Like in the last few months or so.

Oh jeeze... this was horrible. This was the worst thing that could possibly happen. And she was going to leave tomorrow. Tomorrow! How do you just learn something like this and deal with it in a day? You can't, you just can't. It's impossible. You can't just... have this huge emotional talk they day before you get separated, and you can't just stew over this for... what would it be... six weeks? Six weeks. Wow. Oh God, wow.

You've got to talk to her about this tonight, his mind told him.

But then again, you can't ask about how she likes him without giving her some kind of semblance of your feelings for her, can you? No, no, it'd be obvious. It'd be too obvious, and it would seem like a desperately horrible attempt to grab her and take her away from him, even though... even though...

He slowly turned back to look at them... at her...

"God," he whispered to himself, "She looks so happy..."

No. No, he can't, he won't talk to her about this. It'll be a secret discovery he'll keep to himself, because... well, if she wanted him to know, she would've told him, and if he wanted her to know that he knew... that would just mean he was jealous, and if he was jealous... God, as much as he hated to admit it, if she ever though he was being jealous, or anything that remotely resembled jealousy... he would never have a chance. Hell, he wouldn't want the chance if it would make her unhappy... so...

"Jacob!"

He's filled two of the three baskets with fries and chicken fingers, and he lowers it.

"Don't worry," he mutters, "It's coming... it's coming..."

He just continues to do his job. Even though it hurts to know that somewhere in her mind, she's thinking of him. Even though she's thinking of Jason, of all people. Even though he hates that he's thinking about them both... all the while secretly falling apart inside.

end act 03