Flirting with Disaster

Flirting with Disaster
Chapter	27 of 127 (list of chapters)
Published	November 3, 2006 (2006-11-03)
Page count	6
Major characters	Lucy, Paulo, Mike, Tess
Minor characters	David, Abbey, Daisy
Locations	Roseville High School, Roseville Elementary School, Roseville Middle School
Collected in	Volume One, Omnibus 1
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A game of truth or dare corners Lucy into naming her first crush, and the answer isn't the boy anyone was betting on. Two flashbacks later, the whole table knows exactly how Paulo learned to flirt, and why Lucy hits him for it.

Synopsis

Lunch turns into a game of truth or dare, and Tess asks Lucy who her first crush was. Mike scoffs "Oh C'MON! You already know what she's gonna say!" Lucy blushes and confirms it.

The answer, to everyone's shock, is Paulo. Lucy takes the table back to fifth grade, when Paulo arrived as a transfer student and she spent the whole morning hiding her bright-red face. When he finally came face to face with her on the playground, both of them blushed and turned away, and then he abruptly bolted, leaving young Lucy convinced something was wrong with her. In the present she shrugs it off, figuring she dodged a bullet since he only became more of a jerk afterwards.

Paulo is devastated and insists on telling his own side. He wasn't rejecting her — she was "the prettiest girl I'd ever seen", and he simply panicked. A year later he stumbled into flirting by imitating a slick high schooler at the mall, and soon had girls all over school swooning. Then he tried his new confidence on the one girl he had built it for, and Lucy punched him in the head, screamed that he was just like all the rest, and stormed off in tears.

Lucy softens once the whole story is out, telling him he had nothing to be ashamed of because "the real you is always inside." Paulo is touched for all of a moment, then caresses her cheek with a fresh pickup line and gets flattened by an instant uppercut.

Lucy has seen enough of flirt-Paulo, thanks.

Even flat on the floor, Paulo consoles himself by needling Mike that Lucy would clearly take him first, and the two are soon brawling again.

Character dynamics

• Lucy and Paulo: Their whole routine up to now has been Paulo flirting and Lucy hitting him for it. This chapter finally unearths the history underneath. It turns out to be a mutual fifth-grade crush, a panicked flight Lucy read as rejection, and years of silence kept up out of hurt on her side and pride on his. Hearing his side softens Lucy considerably. She offers him genuine comfort, and the uppercut that follows only means flirt-Paulo is still unwelcome. The surface routine carries on, but both of them finally know the truth.
• Mike and Paulo: The standing rivalry picks up a fresh scorecard. With Lucy's confession on record, the table rules that she would take Paulo over Mike, and Tess and Daisy back it up in deadpan. Nothing deeper changes. Paulo gloats, takes a jab at Mike's "imaginary girlfriend", and the two end the chapter in their usual brawl.

Trivia & observations

• All six pages carry the same publication date, November 3, 2006, so the chapter went up in one batch rather than as a serialized run.
• Veronica's commentary reveals that everything from Paulo's flashback onward was rewritten for the Omnibus. The original version tied his flirty turn to the villains of Confrontation, a storyline link she came to find "embarrassing and cringy", so she replaced it with the current, more grounded version.
• Per Veronica, Lucy whispered her answer in the hope that nobody would catch it. "Mike just has ridiculous hearing."
• Veronica's commentary under the playground page notes that Paulo transferred in at the beginning of winter, which is why he and Daisy wear coats while cold-sensitive Mike goes without. She also points out that Daisy's fifth-grade crush on Mike, confessed in Humble Approach, can be seen sprouting in that very scene.
• Paulo mentions he came from a city called "Marashino", a rare bit of his pre-transfer background. Maraschino City turns up under both spellings across the series, and one later page manages to use both at once.
• Present-day David wanders into the middle of Lucy's flashback to give her childhood misery a thumbs up and an "Owned!"
• Paulo's parting shot coins the "imaginary girlfriend" jab at Mike. He keeps it in rotation for years afterwards.

Related chapters

• Left Behind: This is the companion backstory chapter, told from the same lunch table one release earlier. Its final scene shows the older creeps harassing Lucy on her first day of middle school, which is exactly who she means when she screams that young Paulo is "just like ALL the rest!"
• Lucy's Birthday: Released immediately after this chapter, it's one of the series' short ".1" birthday intermissions, and David's "Owned!" carries right along into it.
• Feline Festivities: David tries the exact same truth-or-dare trap on Lucy again. This time she isn't falling for it, and says so.
• Unfulfilled Fantasy: The mirror chapter. Mike named Sandy as his own first crush there, and this chapter is Lucy's counterpart reveal.
• Happy Hour: The who-would-Lucy-pick argument gets restaged years later at Rachel's party, drunk and with even less dignity.