“Dating Advice, Drama, and Dance” (79.18) (Marmalade)

I shouldn't have been at all wary approaching my friends' table at the dance, but with the Downside situation, Kalei and I were at least a little on alert each time we saw them. It'd put an unfortunate silent rift between our group, but I hoped after we took care of this Blade thing, Kalei would come clean and we could all get back to normal. Kalei and I sat down across from Zeta, Oka, and Lillia.

Lillia's expression looked...calculating to say the least. Not that the others were stupid or anything, but Lillia was the smartest person at the table by my estimates, so I figured she had our whole business figured out entirely already, but still graciously waited for Kalei to say something. Still, I could feel the weight of her glances our way, clearly thinking about what we were up to.

Countering my wariness, I did feel a little rush of excitement when I saw the sign Oka made for her and Zeta's little pretend dating advice service thing.

"Hey there! Do you want some tips from ZetOka Dating Inc.?" Oka asked.

"Heh, maybe we could use some advice," I said.

Did I? I wonder what they'd say. Would they tell me and Kalei we need to go out? What would I even say to that?

"Hmmm...I think we're good, actually," Kalei said, then winked at me.

"You're probably right," I couldn't help but beam.

Holy...could this day get any better? Here I was getting ready to confess, or at least debating if I should, or if I should just kiss Kalei even, but what if was Kalei going to ask me out instead?

Oka relaxed. "Sounds good, I could use a breather, the last talk got kind of serious. Not in a bad way!"

"I think we all had a good talk," Zeta said. "But I like talking identity schtuffs, so."

"Identity schtuffs," Oka repeated.

"Uh huh," Zeta said confidently, sitting up straight and puffing her chest out.

After the two went back and forth saying 'stuff' like that, they told us a bit about that chat, not giving much away but I kind of pieced together it was about Michi, and suddenly wished I could be there too. One drawback to my secret hero schtuffs with Kalei was missing out on my gender and general gay talks with Zeta, which were generally really affirming (and when they weren't, it was just nice to have people who got me and my journey).

We didn't jump right into another one of those kinds of talks though, the good vibes all around led us to more normal and mundane conversations.

"I'm telling you," Zeta said. "Think of the top foods that also are big in restaurants and food chains. Pizza. Tacos. Fries. Burgers. Hot Dogs. What's missing from that lineup?"

"Uh...nothing?" Kalei said. "Wait, maybe some Jecruible classics? And not the weird stuff my mom pretended we eat to try and prank you, like the good stuff."

"Maybe, yes! But I'm thinking another one is missing from the big market food chains," Zeta said. "You know what I'm thinking? Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches." She smacked the table and leaned back like she just dropped a million dollar idea. "Perfection, sure, but what if you take that perfection and make it...perfecter?"

"How would you even do that?" I asked.

"Elevated peanut butter sandwiches," Zeta said.

"You're gonna have to explain this one a bit, love," Oka said.

"I certainly can," Zeta said. "There has to be a step PB&J's can take to go to the next level and reach the heights that burgers and pizza do. Imagine going to the drive thru—"

"You can't drive," Kalei said.

"I can drive a little, shut up!" Zeta said. "Imagine ordering an Elevated Peanut Butter Sandwich. A treat like no other."

Kalei snorted. Now this was a sort of conversation we all needed, too. Zeta was getting really fired up about this.

"PB&J's you can make in like a minute, why would you bother going to a fast food place to get them?" I said.

"Because they're not simple PB&J's! These are elevated!" Zeta said.

"What does that mean, like they're taller? Higher up?" Kalei said.

"I'm thinking we get some property, and on the right we have ZetOka Dating Inc.," Oka said. "And on the left, Elevated Peanut Butter Sandwich Emporium."

"That doesn't answer the question though, how are they elevated?" Lillia asked.

"I...we're working on that!" Zeta said.

I didn't want to roast Zeta too much, given the growing distance between Kalei and I and the others, and Zeta being my closest fellow trans girl friend at school, but she was kind of setting herself up for it with this peanut butter thing. And then again a few minutes later when a peppy old hit came over the speakers.

"Oh, I love this song!" Zeta said, then started singing along. "You think you're hot, ready or not, I say we go, ready to roll," she elbowed Oka when she said the hot line, and Oka giggled. It was cute, but loving this song was wild to me, and thankfully Kalei shared the same opinion.

"Pfft, I'm surprised you know this one," Kalei said.

"Huh?" Zeta said, eyes widening in confusion. "Why?"

"It's so dirty," I laughed. "I'm surprised they're even playing this."

"What? It's not dirty? What?" Zeta said.

"Girl." I said.

"What?" Zeta said. "It's a classic hit! It comes on the classic hit station!"

I had to really contort my face not to burst out laughing. I almost wanted to be the one to tell her, but Kalei beat me to it.

"That part after the chorus where the deep voice guy talks," Kalei said. "Here, it's coming up." She pointed upwards as a deep voice began a spoken word part after a combo of a psychedelic guitar solo and a techno beat.

"Salacious...hot dog eating contest..."

"What's wrong with that?" Zeta asked.

"Zeta, think about that line for like more than zero seconds and get back to us," I said.

Her expression started to falter, like she was just told her pizza she'd been waiting hours for wasn't being delivered.

"And the other deep voice part, the wiener slurping salad, what do you think that is?" Kalei said.

Zeta slouched a bit more each moment the song played, gears turning in her head. "I thought that was like...a salad with hot dog bits in it...it's not...about something like that..."

"It absolutely is," Kalei said.

"I've never heard this before," Oka said. "But, um, to be clear, they're singing about something inappropriate, aren't they?"

"They are, yes," Lillia said. "CEO Pop Funk Pop's one hit wonder is about exactly what you think it is."

"Going from talking PB&J's to BJs, huh," Kalei said.

I burst out laughing then, practically collapsing in my arms on the table as Zeta grabbed her head.

"No! You ruined it! You ruined a great song!" Zeta said.

"I wouldn't say a great song," Kalei said.

"Or even a good one, really," I added, lifting my head up.

Zeta pouted and crossed her arms.

"Zates, it's all good, I didn't know it until Kai pointed it out at a meet," Kalei said. "She said it mid-game too, I couldn't focus for the rest of it."

"OK..." Zeta said. "Now that I'm listening again, a lot of the other weird lyrics are making sense now too...it's kinda really sexist, isn't it...?"

"We've all heard a classic pop song that ends up being gross and weird, it happens," I said. "Hell, we're probably all at least a little gross and weird ourselves, so like, whatever, you know?"

"You're not gross and weird," Kalei said, coming to my defense so fast I wasn't sure how to process it, especially as she was coming to my defense against my own words about myself.

"I mean like, cool gross and weird," I said.

"What's the difference between cool gross and weird and uncool gross and weird?" Oka asked.

"I think how we do things is cool," I surmised. "And like...this song is uncool."

"Hm." Oka said, not completely understanding but willing to follow.

We then started sorting random pop culture things into cool or uncool gross/weird and figured out the parameters a bit better. Something old that propped up boring patriarchal stuff was more the uncool, and our more gay business was cool. Once we'd sorted a bunch of stuff, we had a clearer picture.

"Hey, this kind of ended up an identity chat, too," Zeta said, grinning.

"Yeah, it did," I said, realizing how badly I needed to have a talk like this. Even if we were just sorting terrible songs from awesome ones, we were still kind of affirming ourselves. "It's...neat."

"Hm?" Oka said. "Didn't quite hear that."

"I just said it's neat," I said, feeling all my warm and fuzzy feelings at once with my crush by my side and dear friends around me. "You're all awesome."

"Aww!" Zeta said. "You're awesome too, Marmalade."

She held her hand up for a high five, which ended up having all of us high five each other. My friends were total dorks, and I wouldn't have it any other way.