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They'd all agreed to meet outside the movie theaters. The place was packed: it was very nearly Christmas, and so full of people milling around off work and wanting to catch the December blockbusters. It had actually been touch and go as to whether Jace was going to cancel: she'd come back from her camping trip so buttoned-up and kind of grazed and wounded-looking that Beatrix assumed she and Irelia had had a fight, or that she'd gotten herself into a fight with someone else. Both girls had proceeded to take a lot of long, hot showers, like they were trying to scrub something off.

Where Wisp was concerned, the date was the only thing she had ever had cause to live for ever (or at least it would be until it was over); she had fretted panic-strickenly about what to wear. Amazingly, she had not devolved into super-skank: Jacoba had made a few mutters about her turning up in a bikini and legwarmers. Wisp turned up in black jeans and an off-the-shoulder sweater, hair pulled back in a ponytail, feet encased in the sandshoes she'd painted herself to look like flower gardens: belted around with the Rainbow of Light brooch, looking teenage and even faintly demure (except for the fact that the off-the-shoulder sweater looked as though it had been painted on, which Jace said simply highlighted her tiny boobs).

Jace turned up in rolled-up shorts and a button-up shirt tied in a knot around her midsection, plain black top underneath. Jace did not get dressy. But, as Wisp thought enviously, Jace didn't even have to try to look cool -- she was also wearing a battered headband with teeth on top of her head, scraping the long red bits of her hair that she grew in front away from her face, and she was smoking a cigarette as they waited. She was wearing rubber-band bracelets. Wisp sighed heavily, which made her earrings (tiny strawberries!) jangle.

"What if we get stood up," she said again.

"Then I go kick Antony and Iggy's asses and we watch the movie anyway?" her sister suggested. The redhead looked as though she hadn't been sleeping much; there were dark circles under her eyes. "We could go play pool."

"I am so nervous."

"I don't know why, you retard, it's Antony and Nacho."

In the unnerving way he had, the so-named Nacho turned up in a bound around the corner as if summoned by his best friend's words. He skidded to a halt beside the girls and rocked back on his heels, looking more than a little wind-blown. He reached up in an attempt to settle his golden hair into some semblance of a style absently while he grinned at them. Despite the chill, he had somehow managed to either forget or neglect a goat; his long green scarf dangled haphazardly around his neck and set his jeans and T-shirt at distinct odds. "Hey, guys," he announced and it really was disgusting how he didn't seem even winded by his obvious sprint. "I'm not late, am I? Dad said I was gonna be late but I had to help Mrs. Kramer get her stuff in the elevator and then there was the cat and..." He shrugged. "But I'm not late, am I?"

"Hi, Wisp," Antony said. "Jace, want to stand in line with me while I get the tickets? I called ahead but it seems like I'm not the only one," he added, figuring the least he could do was to separate her and Iggy so Wisp could have a chance.

He only noticed then that she grew? Wisp had had a couple of wispy daydreams wherein the reason that Iggy never approached her was because her growing and subsequent prettiness (she hoped she was pretty) made him Too Shy To Approach. She laced her hands behind her back . "Jace took a little longer," she said, "me and Iree, we woke up the same morning, like, bam!. Hey so uh how's it been going? How is your dad? What've you been doing? Done anything lately?"

It was a relief Jace wasn't there, as she would have started making tiny shot-down-plane noises for each subsequent (and slightly redundant) question.

Iggy shook his head in answer to Wisp's questions. "Nah, things've been pretty boring," he admitted. "Dad's busy with work and I've gotta work harder at school or I can't help Evan out at the daycare. Oh, yeah. Did I tell you I was doing that? You might like it. It's fun. I help Evan and Xi out at the Liberty daycare. I play with the little kids. You like kids, right?"

"You smell like an ashtray," he told her bluntly. "It's burning my nostril hairs just sniffing it. You're probably destroying your lungs, you know." As Antony, it was his DUTY to lecture her about her stupidity, since no one else was going to, and she was obviously keeping it a secret from her mother.

"What," he went on, "is so important about being 'bad a**' in the first place?" said the son of the epitome of 'bad a**' when mad. "It seems like a bunch of posing to me."

"That's because you are about as imposing as a ham sandwich," said Jacoba, as she and Antony waited in line; it was crawling, but moving anyway, and soon they were second to go. "Seriously, you're lucky you hang with me, dillweed. Otherwise you'd probably get your a** beat like a gong. I make you so much cooler than you actually are."

When they got their tickets and ambled slowly back out -- it was fairly tactical slowness -- they found Wisp fiddling with the hem of her sweater, looking at Iggy with the wide-eyed and embarrassed awe that someone might have given Jesus or a celebrity. " -- no, I don't get cold, really," she was saying, "which is pretty cool?"

After a moment, she gave a short, embarrassed laugh: "Oh my god that's such a bad joke now that I think about it."

"Yeah, sure." Iggy grinned brightly at his friend as he stuck a hand into his back pocket. "I don't know if we'll get the really good seats 'cause it looks crowded but I guess Wisp and I can try and find something good in the middle." He pulled out a wallet and fished out a ten. Handing it over to Antony, he added, "Use this to cover whatever. I just like popcorn."