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When Lucy becomes rich from being a psychologist, the first thing she’s going to buy is a car. A fancy one, with leather seats, and the newest radio system. Something that she can flaunt.
Truly, deep down, she just wants something that moves on wheels. It would be appreciated if it’s better than the hunk of junk her family drives, but she is in no position to complain.
That doesn’t mean she won’t.
The passenger door of Schroeder’s shiny, sleek SUV slams haphazardly and Lucy’s cacophonous voice fills the morning air, slipping into the vehicle. “Why did they have three kids if they refuse to buy more than one car? It’s not like we can’t afford it, I snooped through the cabinet they throw the taxes and bills in, so I know they’re only doing this to torture us!”
Schroeder sighs, still a little asleep. An alarm does a lot more damage when you’re up scribbling songs until two in the morning. He sarcastically drawls, “If your family bought a second car then I wouldn’t get to wake up before the sun does to drop you off at a protest.”
“Correction: to join me in the protest.”
Having reversed out her driveway and onto the road already, Schroeder couldn’t snap his head towards hers to let his incredulous gaze inspect her for too long, but he makes sure she catches his wide eyes enough so that she knows he does not approve of this decision.
“No, no, no, no, no. You did not say ‘Schroeder, can you come protest with me,’ you said ‘Schroeder, can you drop me off somewhere.’ I am not standing outside until noon. It’s gonna rain today, Lucy!” He doesn’t take his eyes off the street ahead of him, and despite this, he can still feel how Lucy rolls her eyes and lets his words in one ear, out the other.
Schroeder remembers the last one Lucy dragged him to. He doesn’t remember the cause, nor the result of the activism, but what sure was ingrained in his mind were the blisters on his feet and the runny nose he got from the cool autumn chill. Lucy’s off her rocker if she thinks he would do that again. He missed Beethoven week on the radio because of that!
“If you’re not going to come with me, then you can’t complain again when I kiss you goodbye.” Lucy emphasizes. You would think he’d be used to it. Alas, small affections from Lucy in even a (semi) platonic manner wind up to be too much for grouchy musicians.
All she hears from her left is residual grumbles on how she’s so unfair, cruel and unreasonable. Words slew that completely fly through her, unimpactful and in vain. Schroeder never means his bellyaching.
Soon after, they arrive to the field of Lucy’s civil activism. Hazard lights of Schroeder’s car ignite and the vehicle slows to a stop in front of the sidewalk. With her sign and other essentials in hand, Lucy turns to Schroeder to beam a smile filled with gratitude and to bid him farewell in the way Lucy always does.
“Thank you, Schroeder,” Lucy sings. She leans in to let the gloss on her lips brush against his cheek, an action that faces her with a grimace. “I’ll be down the street in the afternoon, whenever you’re free.”
Rubbing the sticky makeup off his face, Schroeder replies, “I shouldn’t be later than 12:30. Good luck.”
A wave goodbye, then her assured frame gets smaller and smaller in the distance.
— — —
The door to a lively, pastel cafe swings open and allows the cool spring breeze to sway wisps of Lucy’s hair away from her face. She doesn’t have to look too far before seeing Schroeder’s car parked a little further down the road and soon enough, she makes her way towards it. She lets out a soft grunt as she sits down then immediately leans over the console to press her lips against his cheek as a greeting.
Despite it being routine, Schroeder still brushes her away from further affection. Undeterred, Lucy just buckles her belt and watches him start the car with her beam still rooted.
“Let’s go to the baseball field,” Lucy says.
“Can’t,” Schroeder replies, “I gotta go to the mechanic so you’re getting dropped home.”
After sharing this with her, Schroeders takes note of Lucy’s furrowed eyebrows and responds to it with a nod of his head towards the top right of his windshield. There is a large crack that begins in the corner which then spans out into thinner lines across the windshield. So much so that Lucy questions how she didn’t notice it as soon as she sat down. She moves closer to better inspect it and a sharp brake has her head almost cracking the same way as the window. With a hand to stabilize herself against the dashboard, she turns to Schroeder, whose eyes remain ahead.
“Careful,” Lucy grumbles. “What has your piano so out of tune?”
“Sorry,” he mumbles. Following the lack of any explanation from Schroeder and Lucy’s pointed go on, then look, he continues. “People on the phone said they’ll need the car all weekend for maintenance and I have a recital on Saturday.”
“That’s what you get for ignoring good ol’ Elise all these years.” Lucy lets her hand graze the door like it was Snoopy under her hand right now.
“Lucy, I’m serious! I have no way to get there on time.”
“Oh, quit your whining. My parents are carpooling to the city on Saturday. I'll ask Linus if I can take the car.” She leans into his space while he keeps his gaze on the road and smiles. “I can drop you off.”
Schroeder can’t help the half-smile and sigh of relief. He forgot that was a perfectly viable option. She alleviated his worries rather quickly. “Thank you, Lucille. You know you’re a lifesaver.”
“True, I do know.”
— — —
A blaring succession of honks ring out in the neighbourhood as Lucy waits in the driver’s seat for Schroeder to leave his house for his recital. She is doing him a great favour and here he is dilly-dallying. He is going to be late to his own concert. She suddenly hears a huff next to her from an out of breath Schroeder who is bumbling about with his sheet music as he quickly takes his seat in her family car.
“Took you long enough,” Lucy says as she backs out of his driveway.
“Yeah, yeah, just drive to the community center.” He’s quick to quip, still fully immersed in reorganizing his papers. With a light giggle at her companion’s dishevelled state, she drives to bring the two of them to their destination on time.
By the time they pull up to the curb of the center, Schroeder is relatively put together. Papers aligned, and flyaways tamed, he takes a deep breath and stares out the window to the doors of the recital. He… he feels prepared, maybe? His stomach isn’t fluttering nervously, but a gnawing bite is digging its teeth into Schroeder’s shoulders, one that keeps him in his seat. Yelling at him, reminding him that he’s missing something. That he won’t succeed if he barges straight in with no ritual. With no routine.
He can’t care to think much deeper into it, he is only getting more and more tardy. Soon they will start without him and he’s the main star. So, he turns from the window to Lucy’s smiling face in the driver's seat, thanks her for her help, and leans in to bid her goodbye. On her lips.
“See ya’ in a couple hours, Luce, thanks again,” Schroeder says casually after the bombshell he just did against Lucy’s lips.
Then he leaves.
Lucy stares at the now empty passenger seat, mouth ajar and speechless for the first time probably ever. He just left. Outside her door, he is striding towards his concert with shoulders back and confident steps. As if he didn’t just kiss her for the first time. On her lips. On her lips. Absolute blockhead. What is she supposed to do now, just drive off?! Lucy runs her tongue over her lips, and the act makes her angry enough to start the engine and speed off. Who does that?
Schroeder on the other hand is pleasantly walking across the cement trail that leads to the community center. He gets all the way to the door, his hand even grazing the handle, before his lips tingle with happiness and he questions why he’s wearing a smile on his face. It falls slowly as he becomes more conscious. Did he just…?
Oh, god, he did.
How has this happened? It’s not like Lucy ever kissed him on the lips when she said hello or goodbye, it’s never been more than a barely there brush of lips against his cheek. What could have possibly driven him to move to her mouth, why did he kiss her goodbye at all, let alone on her lips?
He can hear the echoes of speakers inside the center, a mic reverberating voices announcing the approaching start of the show. With a renewed jump in his step, Schroeder speeds through the double doors to the backstage entrance where he is quickly jostled and manhandled into position to start his performance.
— — —
To say he botched his recital is an understatement, even considering Botched Schroeder is still the best of the best. His mind wasn’t on the keys and that meant he didn’t evoque the emotion he wished to with his performance. So, yeah, he didn’t miss a note and remained as steady as ever, but that does not mean he is happy with how he did.
Schroeder keeps his gaze at his scuffed black dress shoes as he walks to the exit, to where he knows Lucy is waiting for him. If he keeps criticizing his playing, it will leave him less time to worry about how to approach her. That one transition from Beethoven to Brahms was way too abrupt, and honestly he probably should’ve replaced the Mozart piece with Rachmaninoff as well as moving the Tchaikovsky later in the succession.
He sees the van Pelt family car lying in wait along the curb. With Lucy, whose eyes remain on her twiddling fingers in her lap, in the front seat. The old and peeling family stickers on the back windshield caught the light of the late afternoon sun, depicting Linus and Lucy as the kids they are not and Rerun in the baby stroller he has long grown out of. Even with Schroeder’s itty bitty, leisured steps, he still finds himself standing directly in front of the passenger door. Not yet opening it, though.
Lucy notices and unlocks the door, but doesn’t move further to allow him in, letting him take his time. Schroeder lets that silence sit in between them for a beat, really fighting the urge to turn around and run back into the theatre. He doesn’t, though, and instead takes a deep breath before pulling the door open wide.
Once it closes, the silence suddenly becomes much louder. Now that no distracting outside noises were infiltrating Schroeder’s focus, he was acutely aware of the swallow grating his throat, the rough feel of the seat against his back and Lucy’s stillness in the corner of his eye.
He wishes she stayed still, but she’s Lucy van Pelt and Schroeder never expected her to remain stagnant for too long. Despite that, when she turns to face him, he freezes. With his eyes ahead, refusing to make contact.
“So…,” Lucy whispers, “we should probably talk about… that.”
“...Yeah.” And yet neither of them say anything.
Schroeder attempts to will his voice into speaking, but he always did communicate better with music and such was getting disgustingly evident with each awkward side glance or restless fidget. Not that Lucy was making it any better either, though. Her own finger tangled so intrinsically in her curls that you would think her vain with how much focus is being put on her hair and nothing else around her. And in Schroeder’s defense, Lucy’s presence, more so its effect on him, combined with unadulterated panic will evidently lead a simple boy to the most rash decisions. He just gets so… riled up when he’s with Lucy, in the best ways possible.
Which is why Schroeder finds himself blurting, “why’d you kiss me back that was so weird.”
As foolish as it was to say, at least it brought back the volume of the car.
“Are you blaming me right now?!” Lucy shrieks, utterly appalled with her mouth hanging open and eyebrows furrowed deeper than any canal.
“I mean, I’m just saying—” Schroeder couldn’t get much out before more of Lucy’s outraged sputters cut him off, barely even making sense this time. Though that doesn’t matter very much because Schroeder too stops making sense in an effort to defend not only his out of pocket kiss goodbye, but also his notion of ‘talking about it’ being to accuse her of being the weird one. Voices overlap each other in the small civic, arms flailing definingly in each other’s faces, and if either of them had enough care to look outside, they’d see the concerned judgement of many. They don’t have enough care, however, and were much more prioritized with convincing the other if Lucy did or did not actually kiss back.
While defending her dignity, chewing Schroeder out for letting their first kiss be that, and shaming him for trying to turn the whole thing on her, Lucy distantly thinks to herself, NONE of this would’ve happened if I had my own car.
How true that was can only be determined by whichever comes first, Lucy getting a car or their next kiss. I’d bet my money on the car.