Fic: Affinity (4/?)
This story keeps expanding. I estimated 20 parts but it may very well end up double that number, a scary thought when you consider how long it will take to finish at the rate of one part per week.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
PART FOUR
Of course Mrs. Garrett was waiting for them in the cafeteria.
On the drive over they'd joked about running into Mr. Parker, the old headmaster, but on some level Dorothy really did expect to see the ghosts of their school days. She'd been in Peekskill less than an hour and already she was flooded with memories. Both Natalie and Blair were laughing and carrying on like schoolgirls, so she knew she wasn't the only one. In the back of her mind, Dorothy was a little glad that Eastland was closed for Thanksgiving week; otherwise they were sure to have drawn stares. Tisha's presence was the only thing keeping them from regressing completely. It was hard to feel 12 years old when your daughter (almost that age herself) was at your side.
Eastland had changed over the years, but the cafeteria was almost the same as she remembered. And when Mrs. Garrett came out of the kitchen, it was 1980 all over again.
"I knew you'd all find your way here," the older woman said after a group hug.
"Can you believe it?" Natalie said. "This place is exactly the same."
"Except they got rid of the payphone," Blair pointed out.
"And the candy machine costs a lot more."
"And that couch is slightly less repulsive," Dorothy said, remembering the plaid monstrosity that used to dominate the lounge area.
"Our couch was lovely at the time," Mrs. Garrett protested, but she was grinning. She looked good for a woman in her seventies. Dorothy was pretty sure the curly red hair under the former dietician's hat was a wig, but as her own dye job attested, she was all for alterations in the name of style. In fact, of the five people in the room, only Tisha sported the same hair colour she'd been born with. She had been examining the candy machines, but now she came over to join them.
"Tisha," Mrs. Garrett breathed, reaching out to cup the girl's cheeks. "I haven't seen you since you were a little baby."
Tisha gamely accepted yet another kiss on the cheek. "Hi, Mrs. Garrett."
"She's even more beautiful than her pictures," the older woman said.
Dorothy knew she was beaming with pride but didn't care. My girl is beautiful. No harm in everybody recognizing, right? She loved how her former roommates showered her daughter with affection, like the way Blair was just now putting her hands on Tisha's shoulders, standing behind her with a proud smile of her own. This was exactly why Tisha had been looking forward to this trip -- a chance to be doted on by the aunts. She hadn't seen them in person very many times, but she talked to them on the phone when Dorothy did, and recently Dorothy had started letting her send emails as well.
Mrs. Garrett's memory was obviously still in good shape, because she asked Tisha about the Halloween party she'd mentioned in her last message. While they talked, Dorothy wandered into the kitchen, which had been updated a lot more than the dining room. The appliances were all shiny stainless steel now, and there was a microwave oven that would have come in very handy back in the day when they were scrambling to get dinner ready because they'd spent too much time talking, or wisecracking, or mooning over boys. But the room had a sterile feel to it. All the little homey touches Mrs. Garrett had added when they were living there were gone. Makes sense. Nobody lives here anymore, not since we moved to town in '83.
Natalie came in. "Oh, this brings me back. I'm getting dishpan hands just walking into this room."
"Me too."
"Did you know Jo once swore she'd never do dishes once she was married?" Natalie ran a hand over the countertop beside the sink.
"Bet she had to eat those words. 'Cause there's no way Blair does 'em." Dorothy snickered, then cocked a thumb toward the doorway and dropped her voice. "Hey, is she ticked about her not being here?"
Natalie's expression was noncommittal. "She did just tell Mrs. Garrett not to get her knickers in a twist about it."
"So she's not thrilled."
"Who could blame her? I'm totally bummed."
Dorothy leaned against a counter and watched as Natalie opened the massive fridge, inspected the contents, poked her nose into various cupboards. Natalie had always been a little closer to Jo than Dorothy had been -- she wasn't sure whether it was the age difference or a personality thing -- but she was disappointed as well. Jo was an integral part of her memories of this place and being here without any of the old gang wouldn't have felt quite right. "But hey, Jo was the last to show up once before, and that turned out okay."
Natalie pretended to be dubious. "She threatened to punch my lights out the day we met."
"Because you made fun of her clothes." Dorothy hadn't been there but she'd heard the story a million times.
"No, Blair made fun of her clothes."
"But you laughed."
Natalie inclined her head, conceding the point. Dorothy recalled how Jo had been that day, cautiously friendly to anyone who was nice to her but savagely aggressive to anyone who wasn't. Locking horns with Blair right away. Wowing them all with fake IDs and hotwiring skills. Getting them all thrown in jail. Okay, that wasn't all her fault, but we certainly blamed her at the time. That was when little Tootie had gone from the "friendly" category to the "cowering in fear" category. In hindsight she knew Jo had had every right to be angry when the other three girls ganged up on her, accusing her of instigating the whole disaster. Tempers had been short thanks to the hours spent in Peekskill's police station, followed by Mrs. Garrett reading them the riot act.
And we were just kids, scared kids whose lives had been turned upside down. Of course we wanted to blame someone, and who else but the new girl? Never mind that it was my idea to go to a bar, my idea to rush in when the cop pissed Blair off, and oh, let's not forget, my idea to pour beer on his head. Come to think of it, why didn't Jo pummel me?
"What a day that was, huh? Speaking of which..." Natalie's gaze slid up to the ceiling. "I think it's time we had a look at our old room. What do you think?"
They collected the others and headed single-file up the stairs, Mrs. Garrett leading -- just like she had the first time they'd made the trip. At the rear, Tisha reached for Dorothy's hand. "How come we're allowed up here?"
"Alumni privilege," Blair said. "Plus I used to own the place."
"You owned the cafeteria?"
"No, sweetie. The whole school."
Before Tisha could ask for the story behind that, they were in the second-floor hallway. Here, too, the picture frames and knicknacks that had made the building feel more like a house were gone. Dorothy knew the bedrooms had been converted back to storage rooms once Mrs. Garrett had quit, but she guessed the bathroom had kept its original function. All three doors were closed. Ta-da! Dorothy heard in her mind as Mrs. Garrett opened the right-hand door and flipped on the light.
"You used to live here?" Tisha said, staring at the clutter of furniture, boxes and loose odds and ends.
Mrs. Garrett chuckled. "That's exactly the same tone your mom used when she saw it for the first time."
Natalie broke away from the group and began picking her way across the floor, quickly joined by Tisha. "Where were the bunk beds?"
"Right over there."
"Where did Aunt Jo and Aunt Blair sleep?"
"Up against this wall here. And as far apart as possible." Natalie glanced at Blair with one eyebrow cocked teasingly. Blair put on a suitably long-suffering expression. Pulling Tisha to the window, Natalie began to point out the sites of various campus shenanigans.
Mrs. Garrett inclined her head toward the girl. "She seems to be getting a kick out of this -- seeing where her mom went to school."
Dorothy nodded. "Thank God. Otherwise it wouldn't be a very fun trip for her. She loves to hear stories about when we were kids. I'm enjoying it while it lasts." At Mrs. Garrett's confused expression, Dorothy smiled. "The day is coming when she'll want nothing to do with me. Come on, Mrs. Garrett, don't give me that look. Once she's a teenager, everything I say will be wrong, everything I do will be lame -- you know it will."
She was seeing signs of that difficult stage already. Tisha's grades had slipped big time this year and the sitter reported she was spending a lot of time alone in her room lately, talking back when Angela tried to get her to invite friends over or play board games. Whenever Dorothy tried to discuss it with her (being as she was an ardent follower of the Edna Garrett Talk Out Your Problems System), Tisha just clammed up.
And talking is supposed to be what I do best, Dorothy thought dryly, sending a mental dart in the direction of Los Angeles and her narrow-minded producer, Don. He'd said that to her a few days ago, during an argument over whether or not the powers that were would let her take a leave of absence from hosting Wake Up With Dorothy. Obviously my formidable skills don't extend beyond the soundstage, or I would have been able to talk him into letting me go.
Mrs. Garrett batted her eyelashes facetiously. "Well, if she takes after you, I'm sure she'll be a perfect angel."
"Yeah, right," Blair said.
"You know, this would be a lot more fun for her if there were other kids around," Mrs. Garrett said in a meaningful tone.
Dorothy and Blair raised their eyebrows at her, then each other.
"Don't look at me," Blair said. "Jo says the thought of dealing with miniature versions of me gives her hives. I'm afraid it's up to Natalie to add to this family."
At the sound of her name, the journalist turned. "What, and give up bouncing from one war zone to another?"
"One boyfriend to another," Dorothy muttered in an aside that earned her a mock glare. Blair covered a snicker with her hand.
"Nope, for now I'm happy just being an aunt." Natalie tugged on one of Tisha's pigtails and grinned at her.
They went back to exploring, moving gingerly in the cramped space. There hadn't been much room to walk around that first night, either, Dorothy remembered -- but once the bickering had petered out, four tired girls had shoved a few things aside to create a space just large enough to lay out sleeping bags. When the light had been switched off, they'd all lain there silently, like they were waiting for someone to come in and tell them it was all a mistake and they could go on back to the dorms and their nice, comfy beds. But the quiet hadn't lasted long.
"Geez, Blair, would you shove over? Your leg is touching mine."
"There's no more room! I'm practically squished under the door as it is!"
Huffing, Jo had made a big production of rolling over so that her back was to the blonde, and Dorothy had wondered what the big deal was. Natalie's leg had been touching hers through the sleeping bags, too, but she hadn't minded. In fact it had been kind of nice. She remembered thinking that if she had to spend the night in a storage room, with the spectre of servitude in the cafeteria and who knew what other punishments looming before her, at least her soul sister was there with her.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
PART FOUR
Of course Mrs. Garrett was waiting for them in the cafeteria.
On the drive over they'd joked about running into Mr. Parker, the old headmaster, but on some level Dorothy really did expect to see the ghosts of their school days. She'd been in Peekskill less than an hour and already she was flooded with memories. Both Natalie and Blair were laughing and carrying on like schoolgirls, so she knew she wasn't the only one. In the back of her mind, Dorothy was a little glad that Eastland was closed for Thanksgiving week; otherwise they were sure to have drawn stares. Tisha's presence was the only thing keeping them from regressing completely. It was hard to feel 12 years old when your daughter (almost that age herself) was at your side.
Eastland had changed over the years, but the cafeteria was almost the same as she remembered. And when Mrs. Garrett came out of the kitchen, it was 1980 all over again.
"I knew you'd all find your way here," the older woman said after a group hug.
"Can you believe it?" Natalie said. "This place is exactly the same."
"Except they got rid of the payphone," Blair pointed out.
"And the candy machine costs a lot more."
"And that couch is slightly less repulsive," Dorothy said, remembering the plaid monstrosity that used to dominate the lounge area.
"Our couch was lovely at the time," Mrs. Garrett protested, but she was grinning. She looked good for a woman in her seventies. Dorothy was pretty sure the curly red hair under the former dietician's hat was a wig, but as her own dye job attested, she was all for alterations in the name of style. In fact, of the five people in the room, only Tisha sported the same hair colour she'd been born with. She had been examining the candy machines, but now she came over to join them.
"Tisha," Mrs. Garrett breathed, reaching out to cup the girl's cheeks. "I haven't seen you since you were a little baby."
Tisha gamely accepted yet another kiss on the cheek. "Hi, Mrs. Garrett."
"She's even more beautiful than her pictures," the older woman said.
Dorothy knew she was beaming with pride but didn't care. My girl is beautiful. No harm in everybody recognizing, right? She loved how her former roommates showered her daughter with affection, like the way Blair was just now putting her hands on Tisha's shoulders, standing behind her with a proud smile of her own. This was exactly why Tisha had been looking forward to this trip -- a chance to be doted on by the aunts. She hadn't seen them in person very many times, but she talked to them on the phone when Dorothy did, and recently Dorothy had started letting her send emails as well.
Mrs. Garrett's memory was obviously still in good shape, because she asked Tisha about the Halloween party she'd mentioned in her last message. While they talked, Dorothy wandered into the kitchen, which had been updated a lot more than the dining room. The appliances were all shiny stainless steel now, and there was a microwave oven that would have come in very handy back in the day when they were scrambling to get dinner ready because they'd spent too much time talking, or wisecracking, or mooning over boys. But the room had a sterile feel to it. All the little homey touches Mrs. Garrett had added when they were living there were gone. Makes sense. Nobody lives here anymore, not since we moved to town in '83.
Natalie came in. "Oh, this brings me back. I'm getting dishpan hands just walking into this room."
"Me too."
"Did you know Jo once swore she'd never do dishes once she was married?" Natalie ran a hand over the countertop beside the sink.
"Bet she had to eat those words. 'Cause there's no way Blair does 'em." Dorothy snickered, then cocked a thumb toward the doorway and dropped her voice. "Hey, is she ticked about her not being here?"
Natalie's expression was noncommittal. "She did just tell Mrs. Garrett not to get her knickers in a twist about it."
"So she's not thrilled."
"Who could blame her? I'm totally bummed."
Dorothy leaned against a counter and watched as Natalie opened the massive fridge, inspected the contents, poked her nose into various cupboards. Natalie had always been a little closer to Jo than Dorothy had been -- she wasn't sure whether it was the age difference or a personality thing -- but she was disappointed as well. Jo was an integral part of her memories of this place and being here without any of the old gang wouldn't have felt quite right. "But hey, Jo was the last to show up once before, and that turned out okay."
Natalie pretended to be dubious. "She threatened to punch my lights out the day we met."
"Because you made fun of her clothes." Dorothy hadn't been there but she'd heard the story a million times.
"No, Blair made fun of her clothes."
"But you laughed."
Natalie inclined her head, conceding the point. Dorothy recalled how Jo had been that day, cautiously friendly to anyone who was nice to her but savagely aggressive to anyone who wasn't. Locking horns with Blair right away. Wowing them all with fake IDs and hotwiring skills. Getting them all thrown in jail. Okay, that wasn't all her fault, but we certainly blamed her at the time. That was when little Tootie had gone from the "friendly" category to the "cowering in fear" category. In hindsight she knew Jo had had every right to be angry when the other three girls ganged up on her, accusing her of instigating the whole disaster. Tempers had been short thanks to the hours spent in Peekskill's police station, followed by Mrs. Garrett reading them the riot act.
And we were just kids, scared kids whose lives had been turned upside down. Of course we wanted to blame someone, and who else but the new girl? Never mind that it was my idea to go to a bar, my idea to rush in when the cop pissed Blair off, and oh, let's not forget, my idea to pour beer on his head. Come to think of it, why didn't Jo pummel me?
"What a day that was, huh? Speaking of which..." Natalie's gaze slid up to the ceiling. "I think it's time we had a look at our old room. What do you think?"
They collected the others and headed single-file up the stairs, Mrs. Garrett leading -- just like she had the first time they'd made the trip. At the rear, Tisha reached for Dorothy's hand. "How come we're allowed up here?"
"Alumni privilege," Blair said. "Plus I used to own the place."
"You owned the cafeteria?"
"No, sweetie. The whole school."
Before Tisha could ask for the story behind that, they were in the second-floor hallway. Here, too, the picture frames and knicknacks that had made the building feel more like a house were gone. Dorothy knew the bedrooms had been converted back to storage rooms once Mrs. Garrett had quit, but she guessed the bathroom had kept its original function. All three doors were closed. Ta-da! Dorothy heard in her mind as Mrs. Garrett opened the right-hand door and flipped on the light.
"You used to live here?" Tisha said, staring at the clutter of furniture, boxes and loose odds and ends.
Mrs. Garrett chuckled. "That's exactly the same tone your mom used when she saw it for the first time."
Natalie broke away from the group and began picking her way across the floor, quickly joined by Tisha. "Where were the bunk beds?"
"Right over there."
"Where did Aunt Jo and Aunt Blair sleep?"
"Up against this wall here. And as far apart as possible." Natalie glanced at Blair with one eyebrow cocked teasingly. Blair put on a suitably long-suffering expression. Pulling Tisha to the window, Natalie began to point out the sites of various campus shenanigans.
Mrs. Garrett inclined her head toward the girl. "She seems to be getting a kick out of this -- seeing where her mom went to school."
Dorothy nodded. "Thank God. Otherwise it wouldn't be a very fun trip for her. She loves to hear stories about when we were kids. I'm enjoying it while it lasts." At Mrs. Garrett's confused expression, Dorothy smiled. "The day is coming when she'll want nothing to do with me. Come on, Mrs. Garrett, don't give me that look. Once she's a teenager, everything I say will be wrong, everything I do will be lame -- you know it will."
She was seeing signs of that difficult stage already. Tisha's grades had slipped big time this year and the sitter reported she was spending a lot of time alone in her room lately, talking back when Angela tried to get her to invite friends over or play board games. Whenever Dorothy tried to discuss it with her (being as she was an ardent follower of the Edna Garrett Talk Out Your Problems System), Tisha just clammed up.
And talking is supposed to be what I do best, Dorothy thought dryly, sending a mental dart in the direction of Los Angeles and her narrow-minded producer, Don. He'd said that to her a few days ago, during an argument over whether or not the powers that were would let her take a leave of absence from hosting Wake Up With Dorothy. Obviously my formidable skills don't extend beyond the soundstage, or I would have been able to talk him into letting me go.
Mrs. Garrett batted her eyelashes facetiously. "Well, if she takes after you, I'm sure she'll be a perfect angel."
"Yeah, right," Blair said.
"You know, this would be a lot more fun for her if there were other kids around," Mrs. Garrett said in a meaningful tone.
Dorothy and Blair raised their eyebrows at her, then each other.
"Don't look at me," Blair said. "Jo says the thought of dealing with miniature versions of me gives her hives. I'm afraid it's up to Natalie to add to this family."
At the sound of her name, the journalist turned. "What, and give up bouncing from one war zone to another?"
"One boyfriend to another," Dorothy muttered in an aside that earned her a mock glare. Blair covered a snicker with her hand.
"Nope, for now I'm happy just being an aunt." Natalie tugged on one of Tisha's pigtails and grinned at her.
They went back to exploring, moving gingerly in the cramped space. There hadn't been much room to walk around that first night, either, Dorothy remembered -- but once the bickering had petered out, four tired girls had shoved a few things aside to create a space just large enough to lay out sleeping bags. When the light had been switched off, they'd all lain there silently, like they were waiting for someone to come in and tell them it was all a mistake and they could go on back to the dorms and their nice, comfy beds. But the quiet hadn't lasted long.
"Geez, Blair, would you shove over? Your leg is touching mine."
"There's no more room! I'm practically squished under the door as it is!"
Huffing, Jo had made a big production of rolling over so that her back was to the blonde, and Dorothy had wondered what the big deal was. Natalie's leg had been touching hers through the sleeping bags, too, but she hadn't minded. In fact it had been kind of nice. She remembered thinking that if she had to spend the night in a storage room, with the spectre of servitude in the cafeteria and who knew what other punishments looming before her, at least her soul sister was there with her.