Characters in this story are property of
Archie Comics. No money is being made from this story, no
infringement is intended.
********
Betty Cooper was sunning herself at the beach. Pointedly, she was
alone.
The place where she lay on a beach blanket was isolated enough from the
rest of the crowd to be hers and hers alone, and she appreciated
that. She wore a red bikini, the kind of suit that would have
Archie’s eyes glued to her, possibly until Veronica Lodge showed up in
something even more daring.
That was the way it’d gone for years. Archie, bouncing like a
tennis ball between the two of them. Ever since junior high, ever
since boys and girls reached the age in which the opposite sex became
something other than an object to which to make rude noises. Then
there was Cheryl Blossom, the girl who’d given both her and Veronica
competition for a long time. But...
...well, there they were. All of them, all the gang, had
graduated Riverdale High School the week before. Archie, Betty,
Veronica, Reggie, Jughead, Moose, Midge, Big Ethyl, Dilton Doiley,
Cheryl and her brother Jason. Even Sabrina Spellman, who’d gone
to another school but came to their grad party to see them again.
They’d turned the tassels on their mortarboards, accepted their
diplomas, gotten their class rings turned around, marched off stage,
gone to the party, whooped it up, and then stayed out till way late in
the morning, reminescing, doing their American Graffiti bit. Then
it was time to go. To go home and crash.
To go home and, in some of their cases, cry.
Betty knew she had. Archie had sat between her and
Veronica. Reggie, driving, had been seated next to Cheryl, who
was seated next to Jug. The backseat arrangement seemed
symbolic. Reggie seemed to be getting along fine with
Cheryl. And Jughead seemed to be getting along fine with a bag of
burgers from Wendy’s. Dilton, Moose, Midge, Sabrina, Jason, and
Ethel had taken Moose’s car. All of them had gone to the beach,
not far from where Betty was lying right now. They’d thrown a
football back and forth, drained a 3-liter bottle of Coke, and
talked. Lord, how they’d talked.
“I’m going to State,” said Veronica, matter-of-factly, sitting on the
hood of Reggie’s car. “Daddy’s paying my way, of course.”
“Hmm, tried for a scholarship, Ronnie?”, Archie had asked.
“Don’t be stupid, Archiekins. Getting a scholarship would defeat
the whole purpose of the thing. Daddy’s supposed to pay for my
education.”
“And pay and pay and pay for it,” said Reggie. “Well...what the
hey. I’m going out of state.”
Betty had looked at him. “Where to, Reg? I thought
you were gonna stay with the rest of us.”
The boy with the incredibly well-kept black-hair leaned back against
the side of the car. “That was the plan, Betty. But it
kinda got shafted. My uncle pulled some strings and got me
admitted to Texas A and M. That’s where he and my Dad went.
Since he’s paying the bills...” Reggie looked out into space,
folding his arms. “...that’s where I’m going too, it looks like,”
he finished.
“Oh.” Moose had said the word, but it could have come from any of
them. “D-uh, Reg, does that mean...”
Dilton, sitting on the trunk of Moose’s car in his T-shirt, shorts,
tennis shoes, and ever-present glasses, had said, “It means, Moose,
that the Old Guard is breaking up. That we shall, at summer’s
end, say goodbye to Riverdale, and...though it pain me to say it...to
each other.”
It took Moose only a few minutes to work through Dilton’s
statement. That was because his friend had taken pains to make it
as simple as he could, which, for Doiley, was an effort indeed.
When understanding came, Moose’s face broke like that of a little kid
watching the death scene in Bambi. “You’re all going away,” he
said. “We’re all going away!”
The big guy looked as though he was holding himself back from
crying. “Aw, Moosie,” Midge had said, and hugged her man
tightly. On impulse, Betty added a hug of her own. She’d
always liked the big lug, who was the size of any two average football
players and almost as bright as one of them.
“It’ll be okay, Moose,” Betty had said. “Remember, you’re getting
a football scholarship to State U, too. Remember?”
“Yeah,” said Moose, contemplatively. “Gee, that’s right.
I’ll get to see you, Veronica!”
Resignedly, Ronnie said, “Yes, I guess you will, Moose.
Sometimes.”
Sabrina, a freckle-faced gamin whose hair was so blonde as to be almost
white, put aside the chicken salad she’d been eating and stood
up. “I have to admit, even though I haven’t been around as much
as I should have lately, I’m going to miss you guys, too. They’ve
accepted me at the University of Massachusets in Salem. I’ll be
leaving in a few weeks. But I’ll miss you all. Even you,
Jug.” She reached out and gave him a playful hug. Jughead’s
eyes flew up to half-mast and it was all he could do to get his current
bite of burger to keep going the right way. The rest of the crew
had laughed.
“Bree, we’ll miss you, too,” Betty had said, not mentioning the fact
that weird and suspicious stuff seemed to happen whenever Sabrina was
around. “What’ll you be studying in Salem? Cigarette
manufacturing?”
Sabrina made a face. “History. Early American. I’m
going to be a teacher, I hope. You, Betty?”
Nodding, Betty had said, “Education degree. I’m going to teach
elementary ed. Not your kind of thing, but I think I can do it
well.”
Sabrina had smiled. “I know you will,” she said, and put her arms
around Betty. “I’ll give you my address when I get there,
Blondie. And you’d better write.”
“Believe it, Bree,” Betty had said. “Believe it.”
It was Jughead who had the next verse. “This is cruel,” he said.
Archie had turned to his old sidekick. “What, Jug? Heck, I
know it hurts. But it’s not cruel. Separation is, well,
natural.”
Jughead shook his head, under his ever-present beanie. “Not from
where I’m sittin’, Arch. Look. The five of us have been
together since grade school. You, me, Reggie, Betty, and
Ronnie. Not like the rest aren’t part of the gang, too, but I’m
just sayin’. We’ve been twelve years together. I
remember...I remember all those times, Arch.”
“Yeah, Jug, I remember them, too,” Archie had said, softly.
“All the exploring we used to do together,” Jug continued. “You
and me and your dog, Spotty. Betty and Reggie and Ronnie,
too. All of those adventures. That crazy guy, Mad Doctor
Doom.”
A chill had gone through Betty at the mention of that name. The
man who called himself Mad Doctor Doom had been a genuine,
dyed-in-the-wool mad scientist. As kids, the five of them who
formed the original gang had crossed his path once, helped foil him and
get him back to the asylum, and then kept crossing his path again and
again. Thankfully, he got moved out of state when the lot of them
were in junior high, and they hadn’t seen or heard of him in over five
years. Betty hoped it would be a lifetime.
But she, too, remembered how much fun they’d had, how many improbable
adventures. By contrast, high school was almost normal.
Almost.
“Yeah, sweetie, you told me about ‘em,” Big Ethyl had said, squeezing
Jughead’s hand. “Even though they’re hard to believe.”
“Twelve years,” Jughead had repeated. “That’s...a lotta history.”
Silence.
Midge had finally made the next remark. “Everything’s history,
Jug. Everything changes. Phases end. This
one...well...it’s just about to end, too.” She paused.
“Whether we like it or not.”
“And I don’t,” Moose rumbled.
“We have no choice, Moose,” Dilton had said. “The door behind us
closes, the door ahead of us opens.”
“I can hold any door shut or closed!”
“Not this one, old friend. Not this one.”
Moose had cogitated on that, and had said nothing.
It was getting to the point at which Betty mentally compared it to a
term from an old Doonesbury strip she’d read. She was about to
yell, “Bummer alert!”. Thankfully, Reggie did a save.
“Hey. Hey, Arch. You remember the band?”
Archie had looked up. “What? Oh, the Archies?” He
grinned, sheepishly. “Like I could ever forget, Reg.”
Betty had smiled. The five of the Original Gang had formed a
garage band a couple of years back, and turned out to have enough
talent to cut a record, “Sugar Sugar”, which became a local hit.
A big time record mogul heard it, or one of his talent scouts heard it,
which amounted to the same thing. They’d managed to make a
national hit out of that one, and had a few more in a short string
before life intervened and they’d had to stop making music. They
couldn’t tour, anyway, what with school and all. The Partridge
Family, they weren’t.
“Well, y’know, we didn’t exactly bring any instruments with us,” Reg
had said, casually. “But in case there’s any blues around here
that need blowin’ away, we’ve still got a capella.”
“You mean, just singing,” said Archie. “It’s been awhile,
Reg. I feel like that was in another world, now.”
“Oh, shut up,” said Reggie. “With you, it’s a new world every
morning. Come on, Carrot Top. ‘Sugar...ah, honey honey...’”
“Reg, stop it,” said Archie. “I don’t feel like it.”
“You are my candy, girl...and you got me wantin’ you.”
All turned to the direction the voice had come from. Moose was
the one who had sung the line. “I did get it right, didn’t I?”
“You got it perfect, Moose!” Reggie was on his feet. “Come
on, now, everybody. Imagine the bouncing ball. Then follow
it. Ahhhh...ready? You too, Dilton, Sabrina, Midge,
Ethyl. You know the words, and if you don’t, they’re easy to pick
up. They’re not exactly Dylan. Ready? Now, ahhhh...”
Archie had stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Wait a
minute, Reg. Aren’t you forgetting who leads this band?
Ah-one-anna-two...”
“Sugar...ah, honey, honey...”
The lot of them united as if it was a year and a half ago and nothing
had ever changed since then. The harmony, thanks to the add-on
folks, wasn’t perfect, but it didn’t have to be. And when Betty
bleated out her trademarked line, “I can make life so sweet!”, she felt
a rush of nostalgia so strong she could barely continue. But she
did. So did the others.
They went on for another few songs...”Bang-Shang-A-Lang,” and the best
of their repertoire, “Who’s Your Baby?”. Archie and Reggie hit
hard on that risque line, “And if ya had enough, hey, wouldja gimme
some?” But the fun part about it was, they didn’t hit it as hard
as Dilton Doiley, who was, in his secret life, a kareoke superstar.
They managed a few more songs, mostly album cuts, a few contemporary
ones. Then Ronnie had yawned and said, “Well, what’s next?
I mean, we’re just about sung out...”
“And tired out,” Big Ethyl had mumbled, lying face down on the hood of
Moose’s car.
“Well, I don’t know,” Archie had admitted. “But there is one I
heard just recently and I kinda liked it. Off an Elvis Costello
album.”
“Elvis Costello?” Sabrina had said. “Since when are you into him?”
“He ain’t bad, on some things. Uh...” Archie had looked at
Betty. “Would you mind if I sang it, Bet?”
“Mind?” Betty had been puzzled. “Why should I mind, Arch?”
“Because the name of the song is ‘Veronica’.”
“Oh.” Betty had hoped she could keep her face from falling to
basement level. “Oh. Well, that’s fine by me, Archie.
Really, it’s fine. Go ahead.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Go ahead.”
And he had. Archie sang the song solo, including the line, “You
can call me anything you want, but my name is Veronica.” Ronnie’s
eyes had lit up at that one. Betty had remained silent.
Afterward, the crew had given him a round of applause; he had, indeed,
done well by the song. Even Betty clapped for him.
Veronica Lodge snuggled up against Archie and kissed him on the
cheek. He put an arm around her, but looked at Betty with some
concern. For her part, Betty hoped she had maintained a poker
face, even though she never played poker.
And awhile after that, the group of them piled into the cars, went to
their homes, and most of them had breakfast and then slept.
It had been a week since then. Betty hadn’t seen Archie since
that night, hadn’t tried to see him, really. She lay on the
beach, alone, and wondered. It was probable that she was reading
too much into it. Blazes, it was just a song. If there’d
been one called “Betty”, he probably would have sung it to her.
And maybe she should have gone over and embraced him, too.
But there was no song called “Betty”, as far as she knew. Just as
she knew there was no real social competition for Veronica, as far as
Betty Cooper went. Sure, Archie had been attracted to both of
them. But which of them could offer him more in life? The
middle-class family she came from, or the wealthy clan of the Lodges?
There was nothing more to be said about it. She had suspected for
all too long that this was the way it would end. Just like Dilton
had said, the door closed behind you, the door opened in front of you,
and all you could do was go through it. No choice, really.
Except in some things. You could, for example, choose sunglasses
when you went out to the beach. And you could go to a relatively
deserted part of it. You could also lie with your face on the
blanket.
All of those things would make it harder for people to tell if you were
about to shed tears, or not.
Of course, from that position, it was also harder—in fact,
impossible—for Betty Cooper to see the car which pulled up to a stop on
a bluff high above the beach. It was a dark car, with tinted
windows. The driver got out, though it looked like it would have
taken a couple of crowbars and some grease to fit his huge body behind
the wheel. He wore a hat and trenchcoat, and he took a pair of
binoculars out of the pocket of the coat. With those, he looked
in the direction of the beach.
Then he said, “I see her, sir. Do you want me to intercept?”
From the back seat of the car, a man holding a gold-tipped cane and
dressed in clothing that, if anything, was more concealing than the
driver’s, made his pronouncement.
“Not yet, Gross,” said Mad Doctor Doom. “Not yet.”
