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It was simply a gorgeous day; even Rose admitted it, though she had to admit it in the most cynical way possible. She had waved a lazy hand at the few wisps of cloud in the otherwise clear blue sky and remarked on how the weathermen had once again proven themselves woefully uninformed with the forecast of rain that the kids had childishly disregarded in the first place. It seemed all the powers that be were concentrating on giving Dave the perfect day.
The picnic blanket stretched over the grass several feet in each direction. John had made a joke about how Jade must have swiped her grandfather’s quilt or something; only Dave had laughed, and it was a languid laugh, the kind one makes when they are simply too pleased with themselves and life to take anything seriously.
--
Dave had been on food duty, and he had gone all out for this picnic. It was a chance for all of them to have fun and be kids again, and he wasn’t going to disappoint. He had swiped some money from Bro’s dresser while he was passed out, and then Dave had enlisted John’s help in a trek to the local supermarket.
John had made a beeline for the chips and pretzels, while Dave lingered by the frozen food section, debating what Rose would go for. He remembered her eating pieces of coconut once, and that was one of the only times he had seen her eat without utensils. Rose without utensils was a savage, and he had almost fallen out the window laughing. It was so different from how she usually presented herself, all cool and composed, that Dave felt his heart jump a little even though there was coconut on her lip. Dave left the frozen food aisle and made a beeline for the fruit.
Dave knew Jade had demanded candy be put on the list that he hadn’t actually gotten around to making (why he had been given this task he wasn’t entirely sure). Sweet candy. He took a king-size pack of gummy animals, grinning at the overenthusiastic flavors listed on the back that were punctuated with three exclamation points each. (Electrifying Lemon! Impeccable Cherry! Ice Cold Blueberry Chill!) Jade would be ecstatic; it was as if the candy had been made with her in mind.
He met John back at the register and his jaw dropped. John had a shopping cart piled high with…yogurt.
“John I know you got some homosexual feelings, but this ain’t how you sort them out.”
Dave gestured at the stacks of dairy, and idly noticed that every single one of them was strawberry. Obviously that had some special meaning and John was now winking painfully hard at him like it was one of their inside jokes. Dave shrugged and started placing them on the conveyor belt. Worst came to worst, they could always just abscond from the store and leave the grocery bags on the counter.
Dave realized on his way to meet them at the park the next day that he hadn’t bought any actual food, so he stopped for a bucket of fried chicken.
--
Rose was rubbing hard at her eyes, trying to wipe away her tears. She had been doubled over with laughter at one of Jade’s comments about a nearby male jogger in what Dave could only identify as class-act booty shorts when Dave had gotten down on one knee and presented her with the whole coconut. Now she was laughing harder.
“What do you expect me to do with this?”
“Eat it.” Dave said simply. When she shook her head and gasped for breath, Jade joined in the laughter. John was scarfing down the yogurt at lightning speed. It took both Rose and Jade several minutes to get the message across to Dave. A whole coconut was inedible, and there was no way to open it.
Dave begged to differ, as he told them with a flourish. He took the coconut from Rose’s hands, and he aimed for the tree behind them. He threw underhanded, and heard an ominous knock that did not resemble bark on coconut. There was a strangled scream.
Turning around, he made a face. He had hit the jogger, and said jogger was cradling his knee, having dropped to the ground like a stone. Ouch.
Dave considered going over there to retrieve the coconut, but Rose advised him against it, still laughing. After all, a couple of adequately beautiful girls were now attending to the jogger and his goddamned booty shorts.
John and Jade both ate fast. After a while, they even started feeding each other, John jamming the chicken into Jade’s mouth. Rose tilted her head and watched “the wild adolescents” in startled fascination, but Dave had to avert his eyes. He daintily nibbled on his drumstick.
John disappeared and came back with a Frisbee. He claimed to have found it under a tree, but Dave knew he had brought it from home. No one was going to call him on it.
Jade stood up and joined John in his game against himself, and soon the two had a fiercely competitive game that managed to employ chicken bones and acorns as weapons. It was good that they had moved away from the blanket, and Dave took a couple photos.
--
“Just us.” Rose sighed, lying on her back and turning to face him.
The ludicrous polka dots under her short white dress somehow matched, because Rose could do even that effortlessly. Dave always felt like an idiot around her, but she seemed to like his company anyways. He stilled cringed at the memory of her birthday rap. He had rhymed Rose with not prose, or arose, or bestows, or anything literary or high-falutin’ (another word he so gainfully employed). Instead he had used the delightful favorite decompose. Taken in context, it made a hell of a lot more sense, given that she had once trashed John’s house doing something…he didn’t recall what, but nevertheless, it was quite the spectacle. Rose had clapped politely at the end, and requested the lyrics written in his handwriting on her wall. So in the end she apparently enjoyed it, or she was just messing with him.
Either way, her mother had made great virgin daiquiris, and an equally great yet not so subtle hint as to what Dave should do with Rose’s virginity.
He didn’t know if she had painted over them in the time elapsed since they had last been young enough to play together at each other’s houses.
“Nothing wrong with that. I like you.”
“I like you too.” Rose said, and he liked how she didn’t mince her words or launch into a full on campaign about what he could possibly mean by like. She just accepted it at face value, for she wasn’t in a psychoanalytical frame of mind today. She didn’t mind even if he did mean something more.
He abandoned subtlety.
“We go together, Rose.” Dave grinned at her, poking at the overstuffed fruit basket Jade had put together with far too much excitement. (She had usurped his position as food overlord, but luckily for her, Dave was a forgiving man.)
“Like apples and pears.” Apples and pears appeared to be the only fruit in the basket, but there were different colors. Dave plucked a green apple from the mix and bit into it. It was crisp and clean and tart. He swallowed. Dave smiled at her, and Rose’s eyes widened.
“What.” He was too relaxed to go up at the end of the word, so it became a sentence.
“You have apple stuck in your teeth.”
“And you have apple stuck up your-”
She rolled a little ways towards him until their faces were a millimeter apart.
“Bare your teeth.”
“If you like it rough…” Dave laughed, and he obliged. She pushed herself up onto one elbow, concentrating. She reached her hand into his mouth, and she pulled out the bit of apple that had indeed gotten wedged in between a canine and another tooth. She dropped it back into the basket.
“You’re a nasty girl, Lalonde.”
“You’re a little boy, Strider.” Rose laughed, right before she kissed him.
--
Her hands slid up to cup his cheeks, her smooth fingers tracing little whorls on his face as she kissed him deeper. He slung an arm around her waist and moved them up so they were sitting. He could see John stopping dead and the Frisbee hitting him in the glasses out of the corner of his eyes.
Dave hitched a little breath when she pulled back.
"I love you." he muttered, and she slid off his shades. The world was suddenly a hell of a lot brighter, and Rose was a lot closer. She smelled like lilacs, and she tasted like the sky. Jade and John were openly staring at them, but he didn't care. Rose Lalonde was kissing Dave Strider, and that made more sense than second-grade math.
But then reality came knocking, as it always does when dreams get good.
--
Dave woke up with his shirt plastered to his chest, forehead slick with sweat. He panted for a few minutes, trying to grasp the last few remnants of his dream. A few memories swam up in his brain, still fogged up with sleep. Rose eating coconut with her hands. Rose with her hands on his cheeks and her lips on his. John and Jade throwing a Frisbee. Jade laughing. A bucket of fried chicken.
Of course it was a dream, Dave thought. In real life, Rose didn’t eat coconut like a crazy woman. In real life, Jade’s laughs had barking in them. In real life, there wasn’t any time to hang out and play Frisbee. In real life, buckets meant sex, not being a kid.
In real life, Rose liked alien girls, not Dave. In real life, she would be too busy psychoanalyzing him to consider the possibilities them being together could hold. And he knew why.
In real life, Rose was his sister.
Dave put his sunglasses on to hide the shadows under his eyes, and set out to go find the purple-eyed girl he loved and wake her up from her drunken stupor, because that was what brothers did.