Survival Of The Fittest

((Sandra Dyer continued from Is it bright on Planet Cool?))

Mini golf.

A.K.A. not real golf.

Mini golf was a game, not a sport, see?

Which is why, despite being at a place whose main attraction was mini golf, that's not what Sandra was here for. It's what her family was here for, but not her. She'd made it plainly clear that she wouldn't be participating in their mini golf rounds, opting instead for the driving range. And given how Michael played mini golf, she was going to be here for a while.

Though to be fair, driving ranges weren't exactly real golf either but...

Well, can't win 'em all.

Sandra shrugged mentally. She could justify it by saying practicing on the driving range was better practice for real golf than putting the ball past an animatronic dragon.

Her parents had given her some money so that she could buy some golf balls.

She'd gone through a bucket before a break, and was currently in line at the ice cream hut, trying to figure out what to buy.

((Cristóbal Morales Pregame Start))

Well, this was awkward.

Officially, Cristo, his mother, and Dominic were at Mannie's for "family fun time". In theory. In reality, these outings usually ended up feeling more like "Cristo is a third wheel" time, where he tried to fade into the background while Mom and Dominic made doe eyes at each other. He didn't hold it against them, of course, it was just... so very, very uncomfortable. Plus they always looked guilty whenever they inevitably remembered he was standing there and he had to keep reassuring them it was okay, only for the cycle to start all over again.

So awkward.

He'd taken preemptive action this time to avoid all that, telling them that he wanted to go to the batting cages and they should just enjoy their golf game. His swing could always use some work, anyway. There were the usual attempts to include him, but he'd made his escape fairly easily. He'd decided to indulge his sweet tooth before setting himself up at the cages, slipping into the ice cream line just behind a familiar girl. Wasn't she the one who spent a lot of time with Irene? Sandy?

No, Sandy didn't sound right. Cristo frowned as he studied the back of her head, trying to dredge the right name up from his memory.

Of course, Sandra wouldn't know that she was being stared at from behind, being too busy trying to figure out what flavor of ice cream she wanted to buy. There were many good flavors, which had surprised Sandra the first time she came here.

Well, she'd have a bit time to work it out still, right?

"Next? What would you like?" said the guy at the counter, his voice loud and clear but his face betraying his relative disinterest.

So apparently the line in front of her wasn't as long as she thought.

"Uh... I'll have..." she said, drawing out the sentence as long as she could.

"The... mint chocolate ch- no, wait, the cookies and cream!"

Sandra had just about blurted the second half of that sentence. It was probably a huge show of willpower that the guy behind the counter didn't such any reaction.

"One cookies and cream, then, coming up," he replied, before getting it all ready.

Sandra, meanwhile, had adopted a bit of a sheepish pose while she waited.

"Here you are," the guy said, handing her the cone.

Sandra laid the money in her hand onto the counter—exact change—before taking the cone.

Well, on the plus side, no one heard that awkward exchange that knew who she was, at least.

She turned, her eyes meeting those of a familiar face.

Crap.

Cristóbal took a surprised step back as the girl made her haphazard selection and turned, not wanting to end up with her ice cream all over his shirt. That would have been just great, wouldn't it, running into someone from school and ending up covered in their food without even exchanging greetings. Then he'd have had to wander all around the park with ice cream all over him until he found Mom and Dominic and they'd have to stop their game just to take him home so he could change and everyone would be looking at him and...

Oh. Oh God. Going out in public was always such a mistake. Why did he do this to himself?

He became aware that he and the girl had been giving each other nearly identical deer-in-headlights looks for a few long moments now, and he coughed awkwardly. "Hi... Sandy?"

Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

"Oh, hey, uh... Cr... um, Cristo, right?"

He'd called her Sandy. Which, um, well, it wasn't wrong, technically, she guessed? But it was a weird pet name that almost nobody used. Well, used seriously, anyway.

"Well, it's Sandra, actually. But, uh, close enough, I guess?"

And cue awkward silence. Sandra didn't really have anything to follow that up with. What could you talk about with someone who you only kinda sorta know, without talking about the weather? This isn't a water cooler... though...

Sandra took a quick glance behind her. Ice cream shop was kind of like a water cooler, right? You know, except minus water, also plus ice cream... yeah, maybe not.

"What brings you here?"

Eh... good enough.

Sandra. Right, okay. Not as wrong as he could have been, and she didn't seem bothered, so that was good. She called him Cristo instead of his full name, so he didn't have to feel too bad about technically calling her by a nickname, right?

He nodded, taking another small step back from her just to be sure he was safely out of range of any ice cream spills. "Yeah, that's right. Um, I'm here with my mom and her boyfriend. Or, well, they're over there playing golf, but I was going to go over to the batting cages. Work on my swing since baseball season's coming up and all."

He half-crossed his arms, grasping his elbow in lieu of anything else to do with his hands. "Uh, what about you?"

"Oh, me?" she said, before taking some ice cream into her mouth, "I'm here with my family too, but mini golf is for casuals so I didn't join 'em."

Her free hand pointed in the direction of the driving range.

"Besides, the driving range is better for practicing real golf, so I decided to take my time with that instead," she said emphasizing it with a shrug.

"After I'm done with this, I'll probably go through one more bucket of golf balls. But baseball huh? I'm in softball myself, but... maybe I'll drop by as well if I have time today."

She went to get another of lick her ice cream, but...

Okay, so you know sometimes when you're eating ice cream and the thing melts in such a way that the force of your tongue causes a large piece of it to shift forward, which then causes gravity to pull that large chunk of ice cream down toward the Earth until it hits the ground?

Yeah.

"...Great."

Cristóbal couldn't help but wince as Sandra's ice cream went plummeting to the ground. It was a good thing he'd stepped back from her when he did, or that would be all over his pants. Wandering the course until he located his mom and Dominic with ice cream on the front of his pants would have been way worse than with it on his shirt. A few little blots of ice cream still ended up on his shoes, but that was barely worth thinking about compared to the crisis that could have been.

It was hard to breathe a true sigh of relief with Sandra looking so dejectedly at her fallen snack, though. Cristo squeezed his elbow and glanced up at the ice cream stand's menu. It wasn't very much for a single scoop cone...

"You know, I haven't bought anything yet. I mean, that is... would you, uh, would you like another ice cream? I have some extra money..." His voice had all but completely trailed off by the end, but he expected that Sandra got his point.

Sandra's eyes shot up toward Cristo as she processed what he'd just said.

"Huh? Well, I mean..."

Okay wait. He was offering to buy her another ice cream? On the one hand, that just didn't sit well with her. It was nobody's fault that it was hers that this happened...

But on the other hand, ice cream. Still, she didn't want to take advantage of his kindness like this.

"I mean I still..."

have some cash left, is what she was about to say, but then she did some quick math in her head. Money for ice cream meant not enough money for golf balls. And Sandra wasn't going to sit around doing nothing waiting for her family to come back.

"Uh, that is, if you don't mind? It's not a big deal for me either way."

That was a total lie. Ice cream is always a big deal.

Cristo nodded. "I don't mind." Sandra didn't seem to think his offer was too out of bounds, and he'd feel bad if her day out was brought down by some accident when he could do something about it. She was nice, or at least not unpleasant, so his immediate instinct to escape from the conversation as quickly as possible had eased off somewhat.

"What flavor did you want?" He hadn't been paying attention to her ice cream beyond trying to avoid getting it all over himself, so he had no clue what flavor it had actually been. Come to think of it, what flavor did he want today? Normally he went for strawberry, but plain vanilla also sounded good and refreshing on a warm day like this. And then there were the more novel flavors, and the sherbets...

Decisions, decisions.

Cristóbal bought Sandra some ice cream and did something else with the rest of his day.

((Cristóbal Morales continued in I could live in the world just like a stranger))