Gold to Airy Thinness Beat

Chapter Three

Bucky's date was a classic example of his type, all legs and curves with a tiny waist, bouncy hair and flawlessly applied makeup. Not that Stephanie was bitter because she wasn't. She already knew the amount of male attention she drew was somewhere between slim and Bucky, who counted only insofar as he was male, and had come to terms with it. Still, she had felt reasonably well put together, right up until Bucky's date, whose name Stephanie refused to remember, showed up. Now she felt downright frumpy. Her hair was still short and ragged from having cut it herself with somewhat blunt scissors; she wore no makeup as it was an expense she couldn't afford, and her off-the-rack dress fit poorly in comparison to the other girl's dress, which clung to her figure in all the right ways as if it had been custom made for her body. It probably had been.

She didn't usually care about Bucky's dates but couldn't help feeling resentment toward this one. When Bucky had made the date he hadn't realized he'd be receiving his orders. Had he known Stephanie had no doubt he'd have cancelled the date to spend the evening with her. As it was, he hadn't known and then, in the rush of getting things done, they'd both forgotten until it was too late to cancel. Stephanie knew it wasn't the other girl's fault but she couldn't help but feel the girl was horning in on what, by all rights, should have been her night with her best friend. Every time the girl acted like Stephanie was the unwanted third wheel, which was often, or tried to monopolize Bucky's attention it grated on Stephanie's nerves to the point she wanted to snap that Bucky had been her friend since childhood and she didn't appreciate a near stranger acting like she had the slightest right to him. It was petty and unfair but it had been a long day and Stephanie was looking at saying good-bye to her best friend and then a long period of constant worry over whether he was alright or not, all of which made it difficult to feel charitable or try to see it from the other woman's point of view.

It was possible Bucky felt the same, at least in part, as he spent more time on trying to see every single exhibit or demonstration rather than on his date. Every so often he would turn to Stephanie to ensure she was having a good time, drawing a smile from her and a glare from his date. She kept clinging to his arm and telling him how heroic and brave he was heading off to war. Bucky played it up as he always did but Stephanie saw the way he ran from place to play like a kid at Christmas and knew it belayed the calm indifference with which he'd been treating being shipped out.

Stephanie began to tire after a bit but kept it hidden, slipping into the charade with the ease of long practice. She'd always hated worrying her family, or Bucky, and hated even more being the weak link, the one dragging the others back with her energy running out far before theirs did. She'd gotten good at pretending she was merely engrossed in something, her steps lagging from interest and not fatigue. She did the same now, trailing along slowly behind the others, pretending to be carefully studying something every time Bucky looked back to check on her.

He was the only one who checked to make sure she was still there, the guy he'd gotten as her date was far more interested in Bucky's date than he was in Stephanie. He was a non-descript banker named Doug with short blond hair and an ill-fitting suit, whose disappointment upon meeting Stephanie had been matched only by Stephanie's absolute indifference to him. She wasn't interested in dating and, even if she had been, Doug was not her type. She always found herself attracted to tall, solidly built brunettes. Personality wise, she'd never settle for anything less than a man who didn't mind her being headstrong and independent and who supported her desire to get out, see the world and make a difference. As guys like that were few and far between, from what she'd seen anyway, it seemed her best bet would be to stay single, which she was perfectly fine with. Better single and happy than married and miserable as her husband tried to shove her into whatever box he, and society, believed she belonged in.