Chapter 10: You! Shall not! Pass!

-- FOURTH OF JULY, 2005 --

“I’m just saying: the future of handheld devices is in multi-function smartphones. Look at the development so far. They’ve already started putting digital cameras into cellphones, and while the resolution isn’t that great right now, technology will improve that in a couple of years. Give it enough time, and no one will need to carry around a point and shoot camera anymore. Motorola just came out with the ROKR last Christmas to sync with iTunes, and as flash memories get denser, people will be able to store more and more music on their phones as well. So there go iPods. Blackberry’s already got mobile email. Next thing you know, they’ll be putting GPS units into phones. Before we hit 2010, you won’t even be able to BUY a phone that does nothing but send and receive calls.”

“So you’re saying I shouldn’t bother buying a GPS for my car because my phone will be able to do it?” Lynne inquired.

“In a coupla years, yeah,” I agreed. “I mean, they already have turn-by-turn directions now, but only on a limited basis. GPS, Photos, Music: all in one device. It’s the future, and rumor has it that Apple is working on some top-secret project that’s going to make it happen.”

“Apple? But don’t they just make computers and iPods? What do they know about phones?”

“Doesn’t matter. The calling thing is the easiest piece of technology to stuff into there. It’s making the operating system handle calls AND music AND all the other applications that’s important. And Apple makes the best OS’s around.”

“Dear,” Ben said to his ‘not-girlfriend’, bringing Lynne a fresh bottle of beer and setting his hand on her shoulder. “Is my poor friend talking your ear off?”

“No, not at all,” Lynne said, taking the drink from him and patting his hand on her shoulder absentmindedly. “This is actually really interesting.”

Ben shrugged. “If you say so. But I gotta warn you: Bert here still thinks they’re going to make a sequel to TRON.”

I rolled my eyes. “They ARE. Just you wait and see.”

Ben shook his head, looking amused but dismissive. He leaned down to Lynne and said, “Okay. I’m going to go check on Brandi and Dayna.”

“Sure thing,” she replied distractedly before returning her complete and undivided attention to me. “But all of that is going to take time, won’t it? I mean, you talk about my phone taking photos, but even Ben’s RAZR has pretty crappy picture quality. I bought a Canon SD-something last Christmas, and it’s twice as big as my phone.”

I shook my head. “How chunky was your first Nokia? How bad was the resolution on that weird green LCD with the black characters? Now the RAZR fits in your back pocket and has a color screen and everything, right? Technology is moving faster than you can blink.”

“I dunno. I can blink pretty fast.” And with that, Lynne literally started batting her eyelashes.

I smirked, she giggled, and then I started batting my eyelashes as fast I could, perhaps even faster than her.

So then Lynne leaned forward and tried to blink faster than me. I leaned forward and tried to blink even faster than her. And just when I started to get a headache, she giggled and shoved me lightly in the chest.

“Okay, okay, enough of that!” Lynne squawked cutely. “I’m starting to get a headache.”

“Victory!” I thrust my hands into the air.

“Okay, okay, forget the blinking contest. Staring contest.”

“What?”

“I’m serious.” Lynne smirked. “Staring contest.”

“Uhhh, well...”

“Scared you’re gonna lose?”

I snorted.

“C’mon, can’t back down on a challenge from a girl.”

“That’s sexist, and I am well aware of the power of everything female over the minds of males.” I chuckled and shook my head. “But fine, not backing down from a challenge.”

“On three.” Lynne closed her eyes. “Ready, set, go.”

I had also closed my eyes, but opened them on cue and stared straight into Lynne’s beautiful brown eyes. In the middle of a staring contest, I wasn’t about to lose myself in admiring the beauty of a girl who quite obviously was in some kind of quasi-romantic relationship with Ben. And yet, this whole evening I had been floating along a sort of giddy cloud of joy that had first bloomed inside me the first time I laid eyes on the exceptionally pretty brunette that I hadn’t seen in nearly three years.

I mean, I knew in advance that Lynne would be at this Fourth of July barbecue in Atherton. Ben had been visiting me in Fremont off and on all summer. Coming off his intensely traumatic breakup with Dawn, I knew my buddy had been hurting, and hurting badly. I had done what I could for him: provide a willing ear should he want to talk and hold up an Xbox controller should he want to destroy something.

He utilized the Xbox controller more than the willing ear, but he’d decided to talk often enough for me to know that he’d been heading over to the Stanford apartments more and more frequently. He had mentioned Lynne, and I’d perked up at the memory of the beautiful brunette, so I knew that they were hanging out.

And then of course, I knew when he stopped coming over to visit me because he had pretty much moved into Lynne’s apartment.

As the weeks went on and he continued living with Lynne, I had texted point blank: So is Lynne your girlfriend now?

He’d replied: No. We’re just friends.

I’d snickered to myself and typed back: I’ve heard that before.

The point is: I knew Lynne and Ben were “a couple”. Maybe they weren’t official, but they were obviously banging and I knew better that to get involved in all that. So even though I’d felt that giddy cloud of joy blooming inside me at the first sight of her, I’d tried to temper those feelings by telling myself, She’s taken. She’s taken. She’s taken.

And more to the point: She’s taken by BEN.

I could never compete with Ben. Never. The guy had always been better than me, that’s all. Robin ... Gwen ... Dawn...

Kim.

And now Lynne.

Some guys have all the luck.

But rather than be jealous of my buddy, I accepted it for what it was. That actually made me a lot more relaxed around Lynne, knowing she was taken. Otherwise I might’ve been nervous, with a vested interested in impressing her or something. Instead I could relax and just be me. I could crack jokes, tell stories about the future ApplePhone (‘iPhone’, maybe? Like iPod?), and generally have a good time. I laughed, a lot, especially when Lynne took one look at me and murmured with a smile, “Pecan pie...”

Neither Lynne nor her ‘not-boyfriend’ seemed to mind when I basically attached myself to her for the duration of the evening since I didn’t really know anyone else. I mean, I knew Dayna and Brandi, but they stuck together. The majority of the others seemed to be Stanford lesbians who wanted nothing to do with a straight male from Cal. Once again I was surrounded by hot chicks I didn’t know looking down on me ... all except for Lynne. In a way, it felt like absolutely no time had passed since the LAST time I’d spent a party with Lynne’s comfortable companionship.

But every now and again, like a comet orbiting the Sun, Ben would return from socializing with all the various people at the party and give his ‘not-girlfriend’ a quick kiss or a squeeze on the ass, reminding me that some things had certainly changed.