a/n: Another nonsensical story by moi. This was hell to write, but I just had to base something loosely off of Lisa See's Peony in Love. Fantastic beautiful book, beautiful author as well. Her book Snow Flower and the Secret Fan was just as good. And yes...I'm advertising for her.
Anyways...this thing doesn't make a whole lot of sense, so just ignore the bad stuff and blame it on the experimental element of it. I'll bet anyone can tell that I'm a Simon/Jeanette shipper. Go ahead and hold it against me, I probably deserve it.
Peony in Love belongs to Lisa See, and the Chipmunks/Chipettes belong to Bagdasarian productions.
"It's just for fun, Simon." Jeanette said, trying to coax him to take the hardcover book from her hands.
The two freshmen were outside of their high school waiting for their siblings, prompt as usual grabbing their supplies from their lockers in order to complete homework from their advanced classes. Flurries of students hurried around them, but were paid no attention as the 'intellectuals', as they were called, conversed.
Simon sighed, looking at the book with much uncertainty. Lately it was rare that he read any type of literature that wasn't scientific text from school. There was a time when it was normal for him to have his nose touching the page of some novel or novella by some ambiguous author, but since he began studying for his SAT's it seemed like he didn't have time for anything, let alone some light reading.
"I don't really have time for fun lately." He said, his voice not living up to his intention of sounding benevolent.
As a child he had always seen her shyness and her intense reservation about nearly everything to be just another part of her personality. She was that way towards everyone. Almost never speaking unless she was spoken to, keeping her voice soft spoken and docile, careful about the creases of her delicate face not to fold and reveal any large amounts of emotion.
Although she was careful, as he grew up he began to see through her barriers of delicateness and found that underneath was raging emotion that begged to get out, but her strong mind refused them to. When speaking to Jeanette he was always polite and direct, but nothing more. He took her occasional avoidance of him as nothing but coincidental, as well as the sparse eye contact that she made with him containing an emerald gaze of something he could never quite put his finger on.
Jeanette was a peculiar creature.
Abruptly pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his small button nose, Simon looked down at the hardcover book in her hands once more.
Peony in Love, by Lisa See.
It sounded quite idealistic, or at least the title gave off the vibe. His eyebrows knitted together, he gently took the book from her hands and looked at the inner fold of the cover containing the synopsis. Soon in the corner of his eye he saw his brothers and Jeanette's sisters emerging from the building, all of them chattering away in the forms of Eleanor talking about her latest cooking creation to Theodore or Alvin arguing with Brittney about the 'pure suckage' of her audition for the latest theatrical event.
Taking their cue, Simon and Jeanette took their respective positions besides their siblings, but still walked next to each other as the two trios made their way home. Simon opened up to the first page of the book, taking no notice to Jeanette's satisfaction that he had taken an interest in it. The six of them walked, the one in blue looking downward the entire time as he read the first few pages in a matter of minutes. He was always a fast reader, and ultimately multitasked; walking and reading was of no difficulty. After his rather pointless argument with Brittney had ended, Alvin looked over to his tall brother and (what a surprise) saw his nose deep within the crease of yet another book. Normally he wouldn't have cared, but what was held in Simon's hands didn't look like another textbook about isosceles triangles.
"What kind of garbage are you reading now?" Alvin said as he wrenched the book from Simon's hands.
He raised his eyebrow as he read the title.
"Doesn't look like math this time, eh?" The smirk on Alvin's face was merciless as always.
"Your perception is amazing, Alvin." Simon said, taking the book back and tucking it safely under his arm.
"Isn't it though? I didn't know you were one for romance, bro."
'Of course this isn't mine, someone just gave it to me,' was one option to counter his bother's taunting. But after giving a side glance to his female counter part and seeing the subdued annoyance on her face, he decided to say nothing.
When they came to the divide in which the Chipmunks and Chipettes went their separate ways, the group split. But not before Jeanette called after the bespectacled boy, reminding him of the literature under his arm.
"You will remember to read that, wont you? I'd like it back soon." She said, the tiniest smile gracing her pretty mouth.
Simon nodded, and continued follow his brothers.
A studious young man, he studied nearly everything and was quick to get his hands on new material. The first chapter of Peony in Love immediately drew him in, but he was keen on not letting that fact become vocally be evident. He knew little about Chinese culture, but already his fascination for its portrayal in this book was at a high point.
Jeanette and Simon shared many things: academic achievement, a passion for learning, and an intelligence that to others came off as snooty was almost a secret language between them. As Simon trekked upstairs to his room which he still shared with his brothers, he found his obligation to study for his tests to be a lot less endearing than starting a new chapter in his book. He cast aside his algebra and his history studies, sat cross legged on his blue clad bed with his back against the headboard and opened up to chapter two.
Simon became suddenly absorbed into the world of seventeenth century patriarchal China, where the men were scholarly and the women were as well, but were restrained with strange and often oppressive cultural boundaries: they were not allowed to smile with their teeth, they were not allowed to look strangers in the eyes, they were not allowed to be alone with a member of the opposite sex who was not related to them. They could not journey outside their pavilion, and they had to undergo the rather horrific ordeal of having their foot bound so that they would have tiny feet or "golden lilies" when they were older so they'd be more marriageable.
They were not even allowed to view plays or any sort of theatrics without being behind a large screen so the men would not sense their presence in any way.
Described so beautifully, he could not bring himself to hate the cultural differences, but only wonder in harsh curiosity and feel occasional rushes of gratitude that things were not like that where he lived.
In amidst the world that this novel had taken him, he couldn't help but jokingly curse Jeanette for giving him such a lividly fascinating story to read. He had tests to study for, shedid too. And here she was, forcing yet another distraction into his life to keep him from the high marks he was adept to receiving. The people around him told him that his efforts were pointless; that he'd get good grades whether he studied or not.
He could not bring himself to trust their romanticized comments.
The main character had fallen in love with a stranger that she had spied at a presentation of an opera called The Peony Pavilion, a program about a lovesick maiden at her villa behind a screen since they didn't allow women to sit among the men. For three nights strait they met in secret. The catch? She was already betrothed. All she had to look forward to was a loveless marriage in which she would fulfill her duty of bearing sons and staying in the household where she would be unheard and unimportant. She wasted away in her room, writing sonnets and prose about her mismatched situation. No nourishment, mental or physical, she starved in her room, afflicted with the worst case of lovesickness. The girl wept for her loss of hope.
It was strange to Simon how intense the main character's love was for this person whose name she didn't even know. Lately he was a boy buried behind algebraic functions and Latin medical terms. The reminder of a human's passion made his stomach feel uneasy. He closed the book abruptly and breathed in deeply, taking off his glasses to massage his eyes. That was enough of that for tonight. He lay on his blue quilted bed, visions of embroidered silk slippers and angsty calligraphic text seeping through the inside of his eyelids.
His mind had skimmed over the question a number of times that day: Why had Jeanette given it to him? It wasn't extraordinary for them to exchange reading material, but never had she given him a book of such…genuine infatuation.
He felt emotions; hard ones, but women had a certain je ne sais quoi for conveying them in the most beautiful of ways, even when those emotions brought suffering. He didn't understand it entirely; he wasn't sure if he wanted to, but he liked it.
"Simon?"
He jumped at the sound of a high pitched voice sounding his name through the door.
"Y-yes Theodore?" He said shakily.
"Dinner's ready!"
The turquoise dressed youngster flitted away from the door and downstairs in an elated fashion, and Simon knew it could only mean that it was his younger brother who had prepared dinner that night. Not that he was complaining; Theodore was a masterful cook. He went to join his family and he was the last one to the table. Grabbing a chair next to Alvin who was already half done with his first helping, Simon helped himself to two piping hot vegetable crepes sitting on a large platter in the middle of the dinner table.
"Y'know…" Alvin began with his mouth full. "These things are pretty good for that veggie stuff you always make, Theo."
Theodore giggled uncertainly. "Um...thanks. I think."
"Alvin…" Dave sighed, "Please don't talk with your mouth full. We all get sprayed with crumbs when you do."
"Sorry." Alvin said, a few crumbs spewing from his mouth and landing on Simon's impeccable blue shoulder.
Simon rolled his eyes in disgust and continued eating in silence, remnants of Peony in Love still floating around certain recesses of his brain.
But Lord…this was some good food.
"You guys should have heard the song that Brittney pitched to me the other day." Alvin said, pointing his fork at the members of his family as he spoke.
"It sounded like a cow being electrocuted then getting eaten by a group of angry cannibals."
"Alvin!" Dave nearly shouted, his face contorted in disgust and shock.
Theodore gasped and the imagery took hold of his rather fragile mind.
Simon, however, nonchalantly kept eating, chuckling as he swallowed another bite of food.
"The only thing I can criticize Brittney of is confiding her ideas to a two dimensional troll like you."
"It's because she knows no one else wants to hear her talentless garbage." Alvin said dismissively.
"Alright boys, that's enough. No more talking. Let's just finish our meal in peace." Dave said firmly after smacking his hand onto the edge of the table like a gavel.
Simon and Alvin complied, but finished their meals giving each other occasional withering glances.
After dinner the three of them retreated to their room to do their homework. Theodore sat on his bed writing an essay while Simon and Alvin prepared to do the same, but instead their banter from dinner escalated once again into yet another full blown argument. Theodore's face twisted in concentration as he tried to block out his brothers' quarrel. Ever since the two of them hit adolescence they had been at each other's throats for what seemed like forever. When they were younger they fought, oh sure. Sibling rivalry or…something.
But now…
Theodore could easily hear the passionate anger resonating from each of them. It must be hard for Dave to deal with two teens who brawled about nearly everything.
"Yet another supper ruined by your reliable ability to belittle everyone you know. I hope you're proud of yourself, Alvin."
"I was just expressing my opinion," Alvin retaliated, his dark blue eyes now flashing with the fire of irritation. "No one said you had to agree with me."
"Is your opinion of everyone squalid and disreputable? Because that's what it seems like these days. God Alvin, you're insufferable." Simon sneered.
"It's not my fault that Brittney always talks to me about the stuff she writes, and it's not my fault that she's bad at what she does!"
"You know very well none of that is true. And even amongst your obvious feelings for her you still find ways to insult her! When are you going to realize what's right in front of your nose?!" Simon said, his voice rising steadily in volume.
"I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm sorry if I'm not as smart as you at everything. The rest of us normal folk kind of have to figure stuff out on our own if you haven't noticed!"
"Lord…" Simon said, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose tightly.
Stupid,stupid Alvin. He loved his brother, he really did. But God did he want to beat some sense into him.
"So what is it that's right in front of my nose, huh Simon? What did I miss that you're…wonderfully gifted brain caught onto? Tell me Simon, I'm all ears-"
"Brittney is in love with you!"
It was very eerie how quickly the anger and ego disappeared from Alvin's face. Even Theodore, who was trying his hardest to ignore their fight, looked up from his textbooks.
"You put on this gigantic front to hide your feelings from her but you didn't realize, not even after allthe clues and signs, that she feels the same exact way." Simon said steadfastly, breathing hard through his nose.
Alvin still could not find his voice. He just stared at his blue clad brother as if he grew a third eye. Simon sighed again, and sat down on the edge of his bed. Once again their argument left him breathless, and although it happened nearly every time it was a strenuous task to get the upper hand on Alvin. At least now it was something meaningful. Alvin loved Brittney, Brittney loved Alvin. Even an emotionally dense boy like him could see the truth in that equation.
"How dare you say those things about Brittney, Alvin…"
Simon rolled lied down on his bed with his back facing his brothers.
"…especially when they're not even true."
A dingy, disgusting silence fell upon the room, and it was possible that no one even blinked in the duration of tension.
"…I know that she loves me."
Simon turned to his brother, still standing in the middle of the room. It was so soft it was close to a whisper and he almost didn't catch it.
"Then why do you act that way towards her, Alvin?"
Alvin said nothing and just shook his head, plopping himself down on the edge of his bed in front of his older brother. They stared at each other for a few long seconds, dark blue to steel, until finally Alvin said:
"You do the same thing to Jeanette, you know."
Simon's brows pinched together, almost erupting once more, but quickly calmed himself to keep the newly created civility.
"I can always see it in her eyes how much she likes you." Alvin said, giving a lopsided smile.
"Apparently." Simon said. "But at least I treat Jeanette with the respect she deserves."
The smile left Alvin's face, but it was a quiet agreement of his brother's statement. Simon was inwardly relieved at their unspoken truce; getting something through his brother's thick head was extremely difficult, but it could be done. And once it happened it was almost strange at what a thoughtful person Alvin would become all of a sudden. Sure he couldn't convey his emotions like the lovesick maidens in Peony in Love, but a poignant Alvin was better than a tyrannically egotistical one.
"So, Jeanette gave you this book, eh?" Alvin said, nodding to the book on Simon's nightstand, and conveniently changing the subject.
"Yes." Simon replied simply, his eyes watching carefully as his brother picked up the hardcover copy of his already beloved story.
"Sounds romantic." Alvin said, glancing up impishly at Simon as he read a few words on the page that was bookmarked.
"It is." Simon said shamelessly. "You want to partake?"
Alvin laughed. "No thanks, bro. In case you haven't noticed that stuff's not my thing."
"Naturally." Simon smirked and set the book back on the nightstand.
It was evident that Theodore felt alleviated that the two had stopped fighting, just like always. They fought what seemed like endlessly, but today's fight had been about something…well, relevant. Nothing was resolved, but at least throwing it out there was a start, even if it had been done violently.
Alvin and Simon got out of their school clothes finally and dressed in their sleep attire. Climbing into bed, Alvin reached over to turn off their light. Simon thought about stopping him so he could once again indulge in the hardcover that even now faced him tauntingly with the silhouette of a woman with a rice paper umbrella, but fatigue and the thought of another day at school told him to sleep instead.
So he laid his head down on his large pillow, his mind drifting to the fight. As the breathing of his sleeping siblings wore on he found himself immersed in him and Alvin's current trouble with a certain two members of the opposite gender.
Alvin insulted Brittney, but she wouldn't stop talking to him about her ideas, wouldn't stop trying to convince him that they were good and that they weren't garbage. While he, on the other hand opposed Jeanette's feelings disguised as politeness, a near stonewall companionship lacking genuine warmth.
Same problem. Different ways of dealing.
He thought it would be a crude assumption to make, but if it was so obvious that even Alvin could point it out, then there was a big chance it was true. He didn't wantto be hurting Jeanette like that. She was a gorgeous girl with a terrific brain, and they had some amazing conversations about various things. It was just difficult to accept that someone felt that way about him. In his opinion, there were many other people she could have. Why him anyways?
Of course there was always the question of whether he felt the same.
Simon knew he should; she was pretty, smart, a childhood friend…and besides, she was a Chipette. Naturally they would go together, right?
Rolling over on his side, he allowed his eyes to close and his zealously intellectual mind to shut down for a little bit.
A large concentration of cotton and down feathers pelted his face the coming morning.
"Simon, get up!"
Simon's eyes snapped open and sat strait to the sound of both of his brothers' voices.
"We're going to be late for school."
Alvin and Theodore rushed for the bathroom, but Simon had to resist falling back down onto his bed. He was probably going to be held accountable for this morning; out of the three of them he found it the most difficult to rise at such a ridiculous hour. He looked at the clock on his bedside table.
Theywere going to be late for school.
And they always walked. Not a good factor in this equation.
Simon rose from bed, dressed, brushed his teeth and combed his sparse chipmunk hair all in less than seven minutes. He tied on his sneakers and grabbed his book bag, and went to follow his brothers out the bedroom door and down the stairs, but stopped to grab Peony in Love off of his nightstand before he left. Dave ushered them out the door without any breakfast and already a block down the sidewalk Theodore's plump stomach began to growl. Normally the three of them would walk with the Chipettes to school, but they had slept in so late that they had gone ahead without them.
No matter, Simon thought. Jeanette had first period calculus with him.
His attendance was a touchy issue with him; he couldn't remember the last time he had been late to a class. While it wasn't as big a deal with his brothers, he gathered his supplies from his locker at lightning speed and made it to class barely a second before the tardy bell rang. Sighing in contentment, he looked to his right side where Jeanette's seat was. Her curtain of dark brown hair hid her face as she already pouring over her calculus book, but she brushed it aside when she heard him sit down. The exchange of expressions was a routine each morning: she would smile warily, while he would simply nod in polite acknowledgment.
This morning, however, Simon allowed the corners of his mouth to softly turn upward into a small smile. She quivered one in response but looked quickly to the front of the room at the blackboard, the tiniest shade of pink tinting her high cheekbones. Simon could only do the same, but his mind did not suddenly revert back to paying attention to what was being taught by his teacher. Instead his mind drifted to whether or not she looked better in her newly purchased contacts or in her characterized thick round glasses not that dissimilar to those that he refused to give up.
The teacher left the room, leaving the assignment up on the board. Whispered conversations immediately broke out at the lack of authority's presence, and Simon and Jeanette were no different.
"What took you so long, Simon?" She asked.
"I slept in rather late. The mornings are…not my best ally." Simon yawned to prove his point.
"When how do you manage to get here nearly a half hour before everyone else?" Jeanette said, giving the smallest of smirks.
Simon grinned and shrugged. He was beginning to realize just how rare it was that he smiled like this around her by looking at her reaction to each expression he made that wasn't full of indifference.
"So…" Jeanette said, eyeing her novel peeking out of Simon's bag.
"What do you think of it so far?"
Simon reached down and pulled it from his bag.
"I normally don't read these kinds of things." He said, gazing at the cover and thinking about reading it later at lunch.
"But…I like it very much."
"Good." Jeanette said, the emeralds on her face sparkling as she rested her chin on the palm of her hand. "How far are you?"
"Its gotten to the point of her starving herself and she just sits in her room and writes about how much pain she's going through that she cant marry the one she loves." Simon said. It was hard to keep the patronizing tone out of that sentence.
"Ahh…" Jeanette said knowingly, ignoring the sarcastic flare in Simon's voice. "A particularly difficult part for me to read. I liked to tell myself that I'd be stronger than that and deal with my fate with graciousness."
"Why would she put so much faith in a few meetings of a single stranger, though? Why even get her hopes up with something that she knows could never be factored into the plans made in her life?"
Jeanette stared into the air, pondering an answer.
"Because she's in love, Simon."
Her sentence dared him to think that love was always rational. It also made him wonder if maybe there wasn't a similarity between the main character and his beloved female companion.
The teacher entered the room once more in a flash, hands on his hips.
"I leave the room for a few minutes and look what happens. Get your knowledge-starved behinds back to work before I start giving out detentions."
Sighing at the discontinuation of their discussion, Simon and Jeanette turned back to their desks and worked on their math problems.
As usual, the both of them were done in record time.
Soon it came to lunch. Their beloved hour and fifteen minute long lunch. Simon didn't eat, not physically at least. But he was shoveling Peony in Love into his brain by the chapters. The main character discovered that the man she was betrothed to was the man she was in love with the entire time. By that time however she was already wasting away, a few breaths away from dying. Twists and turns, horrific depictions of raids and battles, the blush inducing sections of the main character's ghost watching and noting 'clouds and rain', another way of saying intercourse he figured out, of the one she loved with another woman.
Simon sat at his familiar lunch table with his back against one of the walls with no one to converse with except for the hardcover novel. His already quick reading was becoming steadily faster as he was drawn into finishing it before the next bell rang.
He had never thought about females, to be honest. He saw them as he saw males, really; just other people with a few blatant differences.Peony in Love made him grasp that they were actually very astounding in their efforts to make the best of everything even when the situation seemed hopeless and dreary. Men hated feeling useless; they hated feeling like they were no good, that they were…helpless. In the book's setting, the women were pushed into the helplessness, the worthlessness, the throne of insignificance to the point where stillborn baby girls were thrown to the wild dogs that roamed Chinese province's streets.
Just as he was on the last page, Jeanette found him.
"Goodness, you're almost finished!" She exclaimed.
Simon said nothing, but things of all sorts were written on his face. He closed the book with a soft thud.
"…"
"Finished?" Jeanette said, smiling slightly at his speechlessness.
"Wow." Was all he managed to say.
"That's all I thought when I finished it too." She said.
"…Jeanette, do you sometimes feel like the women in this?"
Jeanette's smile disappeared and was replaced with a troubled expression.
"Yes. I do."
He was unresponsive. Indifferent. That was just how he was sometimes.
But not unsympathetic.
And he had grown into someone who didn't like to beat around the bush. If his fight with Alvin the previous night had told him one thing, it was not to follow in anyone's footsteps; especially Alvin's.
"Do you have feelings for me?" He asked quickly.
-Woa. He sure didn't expect such a rush of wanting to run and hide.
Jeanette was now looking down, her face the color of a red fire engine. She didn't even look like she could breathe. And when she looked back up at him she couldn't even meet his eyes.
"I guess you finally found out why I gave you the stupid thing…" She said, making a noise between a laugh and a non-intensive sob.
She was quite the sly fox. Simon had come to learn from this novel that women were hardly ever straightforward.
"But you're too smart for dumb things like that, right Simon?"
He said nothing to that.
"Let's go outside." He suggested. The noisiness of the cafeteria was starting to get to him.
They left the school and went outside to the front entrance steps.
"So…tell me what's on your mind, Jeanette."
She didn't say a thing.
"Just say what you want. I won't care."
"But that's just it, Simon!" She said desperately. "You won't care."
"I will now, if you give me a chance." He offered.
"That book reminded me of us. I just feel like a ghost watching the story of your life from afar, and I can't do anything about it." She explained, still unable bringing her gaze to meet his.
God. Was he so self absorbed that he didn't realize what was under those quiet layers of his female friend?
"And…you probably don't even feel the same way about me." She nearly scoffed.
"I think you're gorgeous." He blurted out.
It was peculiar that he told her she was gorgeous instead of telling her that he felt the same way about her. Did that mean he didn't?
Not likely.
"You don't have to do that, Simon. I'm content with just being friends with you. I wont guilt trip you into telling me things that aren't true."
Jeanette smiled sadly, staring out at the front yard of their high school. Simon's stare burned the back of her head, but she resisted. He had to do something. Anything.
So he braved the storm and brushed his lips against her rouge colored cheeks.
"You're anything but a ghost in my life."