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The two ASB members that swept through the door of Eddie’s homeroom were kids that he could probably name, if given enough time and leading hints, but did not ping on his radar as people he really knew. They were both girls, wearing variations of the same theme, mostly soft-looking red sweaters and pink accessories. They had with them a shoebox each, and wore expressions that suggested they could not fathom an activity they would rather be doing in this moment than this.
“Hi Mr. Flannery!” chirped one of the intruders. The only thing that set her apart visually was a knee brace and a big ruffly collar that made her look like a pilgrim. “Are you guys ready for candy grams?”
Eddie’s eyes drifted first to the windows, where the overcast sunrise made the snow on the ground glow uncannily blue-grey. It struck him as asinine to be this cheerful before nine, but the girls were probably on something, or at least had boyfriends they could expect Valentine’s hand stuff from after school. He looked to Ben, who was sitting towards the front and to the right of him, and tried to gauge his thoughts from just the back of his head. He seemed attentive if nothing else.
“Alright. First up is …” knee brace reached into her shoebox and withdrew a red paper half-heart with a Snickers mini taped to it. She read the back, and announced, “Andie Coogan!”
A hand came up, and the girl merrily weaved through the desks like a honeybee in a patch of red and pink tulips.
The other girl, who had hoop earrings and mild rosacea, reached into her box. “Eddie Kaspbrak?”
Eddie blinked. He had not realized until that moment that some part of him had been expecting his name to be called. “Over here.”
The folded candy gram he was handed had his and Mr. Flannery’s name written on the back, and a blue Dove chocolate taped to the front. When unfolded the inside read: LOVE YA EDDIE SPAGHETTI <3 BEVERLY .
Eddie smiled, pleased. He immediately removed and unwrapped the chocolate and popped it in his mouth, rolling the foil in his fingers into a tighter and tighter ball. The half-heart he placed on the corner of his desk, a paper badge of honor. He felt a little shitty; it hadn’t occurred to him to buy a candy gram for Beverly, or in fact anyone else. The ASB table set up outside the cafeteria intimidated him greatly, and he hoped none of those assholes had given her shit when Beverly bought five hearts and wrote boys’ names on the back of them.
More names were read, more hearts delivered. When Ben’s name was called, the girl said it with perfect neutrality, but with a blink-and-you-miss-it smile that betrayed that she found it funny. Eddie scowled at her, and watched Ben handle the thing like it was faberge.
“Richie Tozier?” called the girl with hoop earrings.
Mr. Flannery cleared his throat. “Not here, I’m afraid.”
Both Richie and Bev were skipping, preferring to drive Richie's AMC deathtrap all the way to Bangor than to waste a second on a holiday invented by greeting cards, though they must not have cared that much if Bev got him a valentine anyway. Eddie had been invited, but he'd gotten the flu back in November and his mom had kept him home way longer than was necessary, and if he missed any more days he was at serious risk of being held back a grade.
“I'll take it,” Eddie volunteered. “I'll give it to him.”
The candy gram he was handed was identical to the other one, but he was startled to find handwriting inside that was much rounder and cleaner than Beverly's. Happy Valentine's Day! It read. From Nancy .
Eddie checked the back to make sure it was really Richie's name. Who the hell was Nancy? There was a Nancy Fontaine that lived on Eddie's street, but he distinctly remembered her calling him and Richie fairies at the Farewell Freshmen dance. Was Richie getting punked?
He was thinking so hard he almost missed Richie's name being called again. This time it had a Three Musketeers taped to it, and was from a Terri. Eddie was paying a lot of attention now. Two more came, one from somebody calling themselves “Ducky” and finally the one from Bev.
Eddie stared at the amassed hearts on his desk, the chocolates still taped to them making their volume exaggerated next to Eddie's single piece of paper. He'd had no idea Richie even knew this many girls. Eddie sure didn't.
After the first bell he walked with Ben to their lockers, valentines carried in a pile on top of his notebooks. Ben had hidden his somewhere, which was probably the smart thing to do. “Do you think Richie's getting pranked?” Eddie asked.
Ben looked at the pile thoughtfully. “I've seen Richie hang out with girls,” he said. “Do they say anything weird in them?”
“Not really. When does Richie hang out with girls?”
“At lunch.” Ben shrugged. “In class. I dunno. Girls like him.”
Eddie made a noise deep in his chest, a disbelieving huh . “Girls do not like Richie.”
“Okay, most girls don't like Richie,” Ben allowed. “But he's funny, and tall, so.”
He tried to shove the thought away as he went through his classes, but the image of the hearts on his desk kept coming back to him. He'd never thought of Richie as a rival before. Was that what he was now? Sure they weren’t going after the same girl, but if they happened to be, Ben was right. Richie could be incredibly charming if he wanted to be. How could Eddie compete with that?
Without his permission his brain horrifyingly started cataloging the ways in which Richie succeeded him as a romantic prospect.
- He was better looking, with a real jawbone and eyes that didn’t take up half his face.
- His mile-a-minute routines had started to transform into a burgeoning charisma, a characteristic Eddie possessed in the negatives.
- He knew how to be a good friend almost instinctively, whereas Eddie sometimes needed to be reminded that he even had six friends.
- Tall.
Eddie chewed his sandwich morosely. Him and Bill were the only Losers that had the second lunch period, and Bill had some band thing that day that left Eddie eating alone. He would’ve liked to ask Bill about this. Bill lacked the shame that would’ve prevented him from saying things he clearly thought were profound, which meant sometimes he actually did say something insightful, even if it was embarrassing to listen to.
Done eating, Eddie marched back to his locker and considered the candy grams inside. The funny thing to do, he decided, was to eat the candy and give Richie just the paper, like taking the fives out of all his Christmas cards. Or, Hanukkah cards. Whatever it was Richie got. If he wanted the candy, Eddie reasoned, he should’ve been here to collect them himself. He grabbed them in a crushing handful and took them back to the cafeteria.
It was as he was peeling off the last chocolate (he felt bad about defacing Bev’s, but it would look weird if he didn’t commit to taking them all, like he was implying something) that he heard a wolf whistle to his left. Sure enough, he looked up to find Thomas Becker and two of his friends moseying past his table.
“My man , Kaspbrak,” Thomas said admiringly. “You finally get around with the boy’s choir?”
Thomas Becker was an objective improvement to bullies he’d faced in the past, given that he wasn’t actively homicidal, but it also meant nobody could claim self defence for kicking the shit out of him. Plus he was short , which stung. Nobody wanted to be bullied by a short guy.
Eddie held up his middle finger.
Thomas instantly spun around and grabbed his own ass. “Oh! Oh, yeah, give it to me!” he moaned. Judging by the response of the two boys trailing him, this was the funniest thing they’d ever seen.
Mercifully, they had somewhere to be, but people were still glancing his way and laughing even after they’d left. He stubbornly ate each chocolate and stayed put, reasoning it’d look way more embarrassing if he rushed off all shamefaced after that.
Inexplicably, he found himself fuming not at Thomas, (well, a little at Thomas,) but at Richie.
Fuck Richie for putting him in this situation, he thought as he chewed candy until it tasted like nothing. It was an insult to his masculinity, to their friendship, to--to a third thing. He was so mad he couldn’t think of a third thing. To the girls! Those poor girls that Richie probably would have mocked anyway, if he’d been here to receive their tokens of affection in person. What can I say, you nail ‘em one time and now they’re gagging for it , Richie would say, the sexist pig.
He considered the crumpled paper and empty wrappers on the table in front of him. With a growl, he swept them all up and stalked out of the cafeteria and away from prying eyes. He dumped the lot into the first trash can he found, and vowed not to think about it for the rest of the day. It’s not like Richie cared about this stupid holiday anyway.
“...So she goes, ‘ohh, are you out with your girlfriend?’ and I'm like yeah sure totally can I have my burger now please and, get this: free fries. On the house. Can you believe that shit?” Richie flung his arms wide, the fingers of one hand cracking against somebody's locker. “Ow. Like it's not enough for couples to be happy and in love, now they're getting free shit on top of it? What sense does that make? If anything it's the virgins who should be getting--what's the word. Reparations.”
Eddie, having gotten his AP bio book and folder, slammed his locker shut. “So did you have a good time or what.”
“Oh, total blast. We kept pretending to date but we didn't get anything else after that. Well, Bev got somebody's number, which is hilarious. Good to know nobody thinks I could hold that down.”
“Well, you couldn't,” Eddie said, way meaner than he meant to, but Richie laughed anyway.
“Oh man!” Richie said as the two of them rounded the corner. Eddie's stomach sunk when he saw those ASB dumbasses hadn't gotten around to putting away the candy gram booth. “I totally forgot about that. Did they give those out in homeroom?”
Eddie held the very tip of his tongue between his incisors. “Yes. But you didn't get any.”
“Aw, man. What about you, slugger?”
“Nope.”
Richie blew a raspberry. “Too bad.” Just outside the door to homeroom, he reached over to pinch the frontmost strands of Eddie’s hair, tugging them down until the ends tickled his nose. Eddie slowed to let him do this, crossing his eyes to watch the fuzzy silhouette of Richie’s fingers. Richie commented, “Hair’s getting long.”
Eddie made it all the way to lunch.
Bill was back, eating a slice of cheese pizza and recounting last night’s Simpsons episode. This was a service he provided to Eddie, who didn’t have cable but still wanted to know what the fuck Richie was talking about half the time. “So then his dad pulls Homer over and s-smashes one of his taillights.” Bill made an accompanying gesture. “And then Homer goes, ‘Someday honest citizens are gonna stand up to you crooked cops!’ and the cop’s like ‘Oh no, have they set a date?’”
Eddie snorted, amused more at Bill’s terrible impressions than anything else.
“S-so then…” Bill trailed off, and Eddie twisted to follow his gaze. Striding towards their table was Richie, clutching a bathroom pass and coming in hot.
“Ah, shit,” Eddie mumbled.
When Richie reached them, he grabbed the back of Eddie’s chair and yanked it back several inches, causing Eddie to let out an undignified squeak and flail to grip the edge of the table. “I just had a very interesting few periods,” Richie said, obviously trying to keep a stony expression but letting amusement bleed into his tone.
“Hey Richie,” Bill greeted, glancing between their faces. “What’s going on?”
“Well, Bill , let me tell you.” Richie shoved Eddie’s chair back into place; Eddie cringed at the impact. “So I was talking to Stan earlier, and he was telling me--not bragging, mind you, but it's Stan so he was smug--about how he got not one but five candy grams.” he held up five fingers to illustrate. “So of course I was like holy shit, right, who knew kosher pickle was in right now. And he goes ‘well, one of them was from Beverly’. Bill, did you know Beverly was into Stan?”
Bill’s eyebrows drew together. “Sh-she got one for--”
“She got one for all of us!” Richie cried. “That’s just what Stan said. So I’m thinking there must be some kind of administrative error, ‘cuz Eddie here swore on his life that neither he nor I received valentines of any kind. I gotta get to the bottom of this. So I swing by ol’ Mr. Flannery’s and he says that I got several candy grams, which had been delivered into the capable hands of the Kaspbrak Carrier Service.”
Apparently finished with this speech, Richie’s shoulders dropped, and he pushed his glasses up with a finger. “Anyway, that was bothering me so I snuck out of English to ask about it. What do you have to say for yourself?”
Eddie looked to Richie, then Bill, then the table. He grasped for something, anything to say, and the only thing he could muster was the truth. “I ate them,” he said. “And I threw them away.”
Beside Eddie, Richie was very still. After a moment, he said, “Dude.”
“What the fuck, Eddie?” asked Bill.
“You said you didn’t care about Valentine’s Day!” Eddie snapped. “You’re too hip for it, or whatever!”
The shock on Richie’s face was morphing into real hurt. “That doesn’t mean--what, you just couldn’t control yourself? Are you six years old? Oh God.” Richie clapped a hand to his head. “Nancy was acting super weird today, too. Was one of them from her?”
“Who,” Eddie breathed, “the FUCK IS NANCY?!”
“Tozier.” All three of them fell silent. A teacher Eddie didn’t recognize came up behind Richie. “Is that a bathroom pass?”
Richie looked around in bewilderment. “Is this not the bathroom?” he marveled. “I swear, my sense of direction is just terrible. Thank God you’re here to steer me right, Joe, I’d be out here for days.”
As Richie was herded out of the cafeteria, Bill and Eddie sat in silence. “Um,” Bill said. “Anyway, Ralph does so good in the play he gets over Lisa and they become friends. Did you really just eat his stuff?”
“I have to go to the library.” Eddie stood with a loud scrape of his chair, grabbed the remains of his sack lunch and tossed it in the trash.