The Beautiful Girl and the History Class

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Okay, this is going to freak you out.

Last night I had an extended dream about Girl Person (readers other than Jestor may need a backgrounder). This was peculiar in its own right because I haven't seen her in six weeks and haven't talked to her in months. But anyways, there she was. We were part of a group, except not an everyday life group (my dreams have no connection with reality), but part of some group on a trek going somewhere. I believe it was something involving a reality show. Well, everyone was getting slowly peeved with her, and I was too but I tried defending her mostly. My memories of the dream are sadly depleted - it was a very strange, detailed one, though, originally. Eventually she revealed that she was secretly some sort of French princess heir person, and that seemed to be the primary reason she was so resented. At one point there was a loud confrontation where I yelled at all the people who were criticizing her and then, just when she was feeling a little confident, I yelled at her too, pointing and repeating "Liar! Liar!" (Not sure why.) Eventually we arrived at our destination and some big black guy in the group (this is odd because I don't really know many black people - rural Texas is bad about diversity) was grabbing her and appearing to choke her or something, but I left the room to attend to something else. When I came back she'd been killed. So I figured, "there was no avoiding it, blah blah", pretty amazingly unsentimental, and then went off to do the final selection of whoever for the winner of this reality show. (Don't remember what the show was.) And a few hours later one of my other friends and I decided we ought to tell the police. Sometime afterwards I woke up.

Obviously most of this dream makes no sense. Most of mine don't (since I was little. This includes the one where I killed a vampire with a lawn ornament, the one where I was going to see an opera but was in the wrong city, and the one where a car bomb went off that was so small I jumped over it). But, on reflection, the part of the dream which was most puzzling at the time, is now the least. That would be the fact that Girl Person was hiding that she was actually some sort of heir to be a French princess.

Of course, when I write it down it creates a much different impression from the one in my head. This was not a glamorous thing in the dream for some reason, but it was enough that it ticked everyone off. I don't think anything should be read into it at all.

Except that obviously - as I've actually remarked before - there are a couple interesting parallels between Girl Person and Melody's own psychology/workings. At least my subconscious certainly thinks so.

EDIT. A quote from Le Ran's advice to me on G.P. is scarily applicable to Nick:

PS to previous post : excepted if she is exceptionnaly, incredibly attractive, in what case you are hopelessly bound to a life of pointless suffering.

 

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The note has one of two three word phrases:

It is over

or

I love you

I guess Melody would have trouble telling Nick, to his face, either of those. She wants to keep Nick as a friend and does not know how he'd take the news. A note is what Nick would do, too, if his brain worked that fast.

 

[Estonianzulu]

And we've learned two things today. 1. Nick is in way over his head and needs to get out now and 2. Hajji has some weird dreams.

 

[J. Passepartout]

I've had weirder dreams. Like the one about the lepers and vampires that I keep mentioning to my friends.

 

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That was pretty hilarious Hajji. I read your link post for background. As to the dream, keep it up with the crazy adventures. Especially when closet french princesses are involved. You and Nick can form a support group somewhere down the line. As to Girl Person, I'm sure you've done this already- but walk away. If she's self-diagnosing now you don't even want to know how messed up she's going to be once she hits college. Even if she's really hot it won't be worth it. I speak from experience.

 

[Jestor]

Hajji Giray I: How delightful! You're not the only one who has bizzare dreams, though. I think it has something to do with the artistic temperment, or something sufficiently snobby as all that. And yes, highly attractive women + mental instability = bad. A fellow named Dick Diver could tell you that (F. Scott Fitzgerald Tender Is The Night, a novel I've yet to finish, though I've started it about 25 times).

Chief Ragusa: Interesting theories as always.

Estonianzulu: This is the thread where you can learn lots of things all in one update!

J. Passepartout: Weird dreams for all!

JimboIX: You have a crazy/beautiful girl story too? Nice! I can't say I have a crazy/beautiful girl story... I have a druggie/beautiful story and a model/beautiful story, but that's about it.

Hmm, it seems we've hit the 10,000 view milestone. Guess that means I should update as promised.

 

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Well done on the 10,000 views.

Takes a good story.

 

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That's exactly what it means of course. You left us with a cliffhanger and you should accept that we need constant updates. Seriously though, this is a great AAR and keep up the good work. You write brilliantly.
I had three years of crazy, yes. High School girlfriend I broke up with first semester of college. She retaliated by sleeping with one of my best friends (on my birthday), which got me so worked up I concluded the only logical thing to do would be to take her back and fight him. Which I did until sophomore year in college or so. Felt great after the break up finally stuck. Even better when I met someone not crazy and married them.
I think as a general rule anytime you have to put x/beautiful in front of the description, things are probably going to end badly. But a model? You humble us all, surely.

 

[Jestor]

I pick up pancakes, drowned in syrup and butter, along with three sausage links and a tall glass of orange juice at the student union cafeteria.

It isn't after until I eat and feel my brain start to wake up from the joyous reception of food that I finally unfold the squared note and begin reading that gorgeous calligraphy from the other morning.

"Nick,

I love you.

But I can't. I can't love you.

I can't become pretty Mrs. Duncan on Sycamore Street with the two kids and the dog, living a common life. I'm too used to -my- life, my world, to ever be happy in yours.

You're a small town kind of boy, Nick. Your life is one of ordinary things, ordinary people. Diner breakfasts, Friday night fish frys, the big yearly vacation to Vegas, summer and winter fishing, slo-pitch softball on Saturday night with your friends from your favorite bar.

Football Sundays, Super Bowl parties of nachos and beers, spring and summer baseball games, finding out how Sally's doing at school, worrying about the next mortgage payment, helping Sam to realize it's okay to be just another guy.

And that's right and good for -you-, Nick, but not for me.

Not when my life is one of big cities, majestic mountains, frequent flying, benefit balls, show openings, film festivals, horse races, ballets, operas, orchestras and the now and then rock concert.

Vegas, with its gauche middle-class sleaziness and the noveau riche, its used and tired strippers, loud noises and profane bigness and flashy lights has nothing on the quiet elegance of Monte Carlo, where the clientele is truly respectable and noble, not like Joe Bob in the ugly Hawaiian shirt and his paunchy wife playing at the low-limit blackjack tables.

Our suppers are prepared by the best in the world of cuisine, our palates so refined that we can barely stomach the food that you and yours like. We do not tell our children that it is okay to be ordinary, but bring them up as what they are, the newest generation in a long line of leadership, wealth, civility and the highest standards in noblesse oblige.

And even if I could handle it, even if I could stand the lower existence out of love for you, I would not be able to stand you only being alive for a third of your life.

That is the saddest thing about a common life, Nick. Men and women are dead for eight hours a day, slaving away at some job that means nothing in the larger scheme of things and give them little, if any pleasure. Then for another eight hours, they sleep, leaving just a third of the day that is theirs. A third of the day to be truly alive and yourself.

Do you think I could just sit by and watch while the man I love is dead to me for two-thirds of his entire life, to be only alive for that small slice of time? I couldn't and I won't.

I know you are too proud to accept my family's money, so that you could become one of us and by that I mean one of the leisure class, who have all but the sleeping hours as our own, to do with it as we please. And I do not blame you for this, for I understand it.

It is a pity that you were not born in a higher station, my love, for sometimes I see in you flashes of the kind of traits that mark a great man.

But things are the way they are, so let us now part ways, while the memories are still happy. Let it be as a sweet dream, sweeter for its shortness, and always remember one another fondly.

Forever yours in a dream,
Melody Anne Suchet

P.S.-It would be rude of me to rescind the invitation to my father's holiday party, so if you still wish to come in December, please do so. You will receive the invitation in November."

My heart rises with the most dizzying kind of glee when I read those first three words, but it falls, tumbles to the bottom of my stomach as I read on.

By the end, I see a ring of Melodys around my heart, laughing cooly as they swing their flaming swords one by one, slashing and burning my newly tender, newly loving organ.

My body flushes hot with the sensation of fire in my stomach, then cold from the stark horror of what's happening.

I start shaking.

This can't be real. Oh God, this can't be real. Why? Why, why, why , why?

I don't even know I'm crying until a group of my brothers come by and ask me what's wrong.

"Just get me back to the house", I whisper, "And for God's sake, don't let anybody see me. I have... my reputation..."

Drake's one of them. He nods and quickly orders a four person phalanx around me, my own version of the de Semur Four.

I don't see anything that's around me, though I do feel a hat being placed on my hat, no doubt to shield me from being spotted.

The whole world's a blur as I sob and shiver under my guard, but somehow I make it to the house without falling, even though I feel faint right about now.

Drake and the other three stay with me, helping me up the stairs to the second floor, where I can hear some country song playing from Paul's room at the end of the hall.

You can run you can hide never let it inside
Keep living your life in the dark
But sooner or later that gentle persuader
Is gonna catch up with your heart
Make you a dreamer, believer
Believer in love

It's the ultimate irony and the final breaking straw. I send the others away, telling them I'll be all right. Drake looks like he wants to argue, but changes his mind and herds everyone off.

I lock the door and don't come out for the rest of the day.

 

[J. Passepartout]

I normallu like rich people but this is where I sympathize with those who think there is something immoral about the 'leisured' classes.

 

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That’s…awful. Is she a member of the inner party or something?

 

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I think it comes down to how badly Nick wants it. She loves him. If he tries enough..it's just a question of how much he's willing to give. Good thing his brothers were there to pick him up- for his reputation- the little aside tells us a lot about him.

 

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YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO TALK TO HIM ABOUT IT.

JERK.

Sorry. I kind of have feelings about this. It's better to talk. Not that Nick would be able to hold his own.

JimboIX - thanks sir, yes, it's all over, as a matter of fact, I am not entirely sure she's on this continent anymore. And I really don't care. There's so much better in life.

Oh, and Girl Person wasn't really that beautiful ... kind of cute, I suppose, but she was not even the fifth-prettiest female in my inner circle, when she was in it. (Now isn't THAT a teaser. ) So I guess she was merely crazy/fascinating. Or something.

 

[Jestor]

Chief Ragusa: Thank you.

JimboIX: Thanks for the high praise. Fascinating story about the crazy/beautiful girl. I'd have flipped out if I found out one of my best friends slept with my girlfriend on my birthday. In fact, I'd be so furious I'd banish both of them from my life. How did you and that friend turn out in the end?

The model/beautiful thing was the old case of a high school upperclassman bored with the stupidity of high school boys and admiring the maturity and intellectual sophistication of a college man. Needless to say, the escapist fantasy I provided her ended shortly before she went to college and broke up with me to find her own college boy. That was one hell of a rough breakup, let me tell you, because I honestly thought she was it. Our minds and interests were similiar enough to make a go of it, yet different enough that we found one another refreshing. But I was just an escape for her, a temporary fling she admitted herself she didn't really love in the end.

We still chat about once every 6 months or so, but it's more me telling her what's going on with my life than anything else.

The druggie/beautiful girl was my first girlfriend and we loved each other, genuinely, I believe, but she was with her own psychotic, fat, feminazi drug-addicted girlfriend and she broke up with me 4 days before my 20th birthday, saying that while she loved me, she wasn't the right girl for me. That I was destined for something great and that by being with her, I would be throwing all that away and she didn't want that.

She was right, I think. I haven't heard from her in a couple years, but the last time I saw her, she was even more gorgeous than ever. She'd dropped the deranged girlfriend like I knew she would eventually and was engaged to a man that she seemed happy with.

J. Passepartout: I wouldn't say it's immoral. More that Melody's moral code operates differently than most people's.

Fulcrumvale: Inner Party? I don't know the reference. Care to enlighten me?

JimboIX: What do you think the aside tells us about Nick? As for how this is going to, I'll admit, I don't know. A week ago I had the ending more or less figured out, but now I'm going back and re-thinking things. It'll be a while before I do the next story update, as I have to puzzle out where I'm going with it from here.

Hajji Giray I: Melody gives you a cool, sophisticated look of contempt. On a serious note, you'll be glad to get rid of the girl even though things might be a bit gloomy for a while. It helps that she wasn't all that attractive relatively speaking, because you know there's more beautiful out there and one of them is bound to have a personality you like.

Oh and obligatory pst.pix.pls of the other four

 

[Incognitia]

Took me a few hours to catch up with this, heh.

I'm enjoying both the alt-hist of the lectures, and puzzling over the link between what Nick has been "studying" both in and out of the lecture theatre.

As to the note...well, we all know that can't be it between him and Melody, and my speculations are running as to where they go from here...

 

[LeonTrotsky]

Melody sure is ignorant of the ways of us commoners. We can love all the more intensely, 'cos we only have a third of the day to do it in

 

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The inner party was the top 2% of the population in 1984 that ran everything and intentionally kept everyone ignorant (and under constant surveillance by the secret police) in order to maintain their own power; they were based on the soviet bureaucracy. Their callousness towards the plebs (proles) seems eerily and disturbingly similar to that of melody.

 

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The aside is an insight into pre-Melody, pre-Love Nick. Nick is proud, he's the kind of guy who doesn't cry in public because he cares what people think, and he cares what they think because he needs the validation perhaps. He also has cultivated a reputation of being the kind of guy who ought to be admired.
Well, in his defense she was my once and future rather than current girlfriend at the time. Anyway, she broke up with him to get back together with me (because I was retarded) after I confronted him. We see each other now and then through our mutual best friend- before the whole thing with my ex we had been a trio since junior high, and now it's an awkward him being best friends with both of us thing but us not being close anymore. We're polite now when we see each other, I think we both understand she was more to blame. I regret losing it on him now, she deserved it a lot more than him and I'm sure she instigated the whole thing to get back at me. I wish we were still friends, but you can't take some things back. She's doing modeling now (amateur) and making the circuit of eurotrash boyfriends, French, German, etc. I think he still talks to her but I don't, just hear about it here and there.
I guess the best way to look at yours is at least you've got the memories- and no one can take away dating someone that hot when you're sixty, rough break up or no.

 

[Specialist290]

Wow. Powerful scene there, Jestor. I'm not the psychoanalyst that most of the other readers evidently are , but still, something strikes me about that scene. On one level, Melody does appear to be pretty callous by doing this, but on another, you could say that she knew exactly what Nick's reaction would be and that she couldn't stand to see him fall apart in public like that--although I do wonder how different it would have been if she had told him face-to-face. I also wonder how hard it was for her to write that...

Of course, I have to sympathize w/ Nick a bit more than Melody, simply because, in his shoes, I'd probably be just as devastated.

At any rate, though, this is a fantastic story.

 

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Talk about conflicted. Both in one letter -the 'i love you - but it's impossible- but do still come to the party'. I liked the 'it would be rude not to still invite you' and I can not make up my mind whether you'll abandon the Hollywood cliche, have Nick pick up hisbow and fill Melody full of arrows or have love triumphing as it's good for the box office and sequels.

Melody would certainly expect a reaction from Nick. I note her initals M.A,S spell Mas the spanish for more.He should write her a note, a note of thanks./ Thans to her he's a better man, one who unfderstands the hurt and pain he's causedgirls he previously dropped in the same callous manner. He's ready, now , for a real relationship. That, to him, he's pleased she felt him alive for eight hours of the time time they spent together for she came alive for but a rew minutes to him. He will of course attend the party tosee what superficialities the idle rich utter. How the fact of their inherited wealth demonsrrates their innate superiority. Were her father possessed of such superiority, he would never have married Melody's mother. That he's proud of the love his father and mother have built over the years despite the struggles they endured. Few people are born in astation, most prefere to be delivered inhospital orat home. Melody's class has built a wall to cut themselves off from the rest of society, Melody had built one to cut herself off even from them,why else would she be slumming it in this college and not living it up at one of the elite places of education

To chose to live life in a prison is sad, to calously discard someone willing to walk through life with you is even sadder. To love is to live the impossible drean. The de Semurs wold have been told it was impossible to become Kings of Italy. King Yves won victory after impossible victory. He never gave up. Nick will not give up on the woman he loves.