Floe de Lir

Chapter 9: Richard

The cough had set in.

Two hacking coughs, nearly synchronous.

Likely passed from the lips of a boyfriend to his girlfriend, when they had lingered a little too long in the rare rain.

With Brenda's cough had come memories jetting out of Dylan faster than he could whack a baseball.

He couldn't recall which side of London they had lived in. The name of Brenda's best friend in London. Anything he had told Kelly after Brenda had left for London.

Hell, he couldn't even remember the name of the fraternity Steve would join, or which sorority Kelly had.

Nor had he a clue why Brenda had moved to London in the first place.

"I think I got you sick," said Dylan, apologetically brushing his hand over Brenda's hair. "Are they gonna let you reschedule your audition?"

Faced with a terrible case of laryngitis that had sprung up the evening following the Pigskin Prom, Brenda could only respond with swift head movements.

Their respective illnesses had lengthened the deadline Donna had imposed upon Dylan, though only to a point.

"She's going to be told, Dylan," Donna had said. "One way or the other."

"Thanks for giving me more time to tell her, Don," Dylan had replied.

"I'm not doing this for you," said Donna. "I just don't like the idea of my best friend being super sick when she's told that her boyfriend cheated on her with our best friend. She can get super sick over that in other ways."

"When exactly am I supposed to tell her?" Dylan had asked before coughing up a lung, liver, spleen, and numerous other organs.

"You said you'd do it after the Pigskin Prom."

"Which got moved. Now it's almost Halloween." Dylan paused on every other sentence to continue destroying his organs. "I can't tell her before Halloween, or it'll ruin Halloween for her. I can't tell her after Halloween, or it'll ruin her entire birth month."

"And you can't tell her in December, or it'll destroy Christmas," said Donna. "So you're gonna wait to tell her after New Year's? Valentine's? St. Patrick's Day? Easter? Cinco de Mayo? Prom? Graduation? Fourth of July card? Do you see how this can go on forever, Dylan?"

"Yeah. I do."

"Look, either you tell Brenda, have Kelly tell Brenda, or tell Brenda together. Because if you don't..."

"If I don't?" Dylan had asked, almost in a challenge.

"If you don't, then I'll do the telling," said Donna. "And it won't be to Brenda. I'm not gonna plunge the sword into her."

As it had been plunged into Donna when she had been informed of David's summer fling from Vivian Nichol-Westerly, West Beverly's head cheerleader who had been acquainted with Donna since their Play-Doh creations in Beverly Hills' fanciest daycare.

The niece of Newport Beach's wealthiest, Vivian's family fortune put Stuart Carson's bank account to shame.

Vivian embraced cotillion culture.

Dylan loathed it.

It was, perhaps, why for the entirety of their acquaintance with each other, Dylan and Vivian had never gotten along.

He could have appreciated her a little if she had greater resembled her free-spirited younger cousin Hailey Nichol, or been more like Hailey's sister Kirsten. Tall and blonde with the stature of an athlete, Kirsten Nichol had been the first older girl who had drawn Dylan's eye.