FIC: Audrey Hepburn Gets the Clues (Fandom: Veronica Mars)
Audrey Hepburn Gets the Clues
by Shaye
SUMMARY: Why did these 09'ers insist on inflicting their angst on her, anyway?
DISCLAIMER: Rob Thomas is one crazy bastard. I like that in a man.
RATING: PG-13
SPOILERS: Through 2.22
NOTES: Written for Kath (whom I assume is crankygrrl) in the Thelma & Louise Do Outer Space Gal-Pal Ficathon. Thanks to Thea for beta, in the middle of her chaos.
RANDOM: About 3000 words. Inspired by a heat wave which is thankfully long since over.
+++
The air conditioner finally gave up the ghost on the fifth day. The temperature was in the hundreds and local radio stations had started playing such 70's classics as "Heat Wave" and "Rescue Me."
Normally, under such circumstances, Veronica would have given the office a not-so-fond farewell and gone home to lie prostrate on the couch with a fan blowing directly in her face. But she had five hundred faxes to send out today, and their rickety old fax machine only held ten programmed numbers at a time.
Veronica passed the time sprawled in her desk chair while she waited for the fax queue to clear. She would have lain on the floor, but it took too much effort to get up every few minutes and dial. She'd just about mustered the energy to track a drop of sweat sliding down her back when she heard footsteps in the hall. Loud footsteps that sounded like they might belong to a large draught animal. A Clydesdale, for instance.
The door opened, a voice preceding it into the room. "God, how can you stand it in here?"
Veronica gave the chair a desultory spin and faced the door in time to see Gia Goodman clomp into the office wearing wooden platform sandals and a pink halter minidress.
So not a Clydesdale then.
"It's official, this must be hell." Veronica slumped farther into the chair.
Gia tottered over to the couch and flopped onto it, limbs having apparently turned to jelly in the heat. It might be possible. Maybe they'd do an episode of Mythbusters about it. "I'm serious," Gia said, "don't you have air conditioning?"
"What did I ever do to you, huh?" Veronica asked, looking vaguely skyward.
"Geez, I'm not being that bitchy," Gia said, face assuming an expression that looked suspiciously like a pout.
"I mean," Veronica sighed, "aside from bugging the confessional?"
"Has the heat really fried your brain?" Gia asked, frowning.
"And then there was the whole 'judge not, lest ye be judged' thing, but I'm pretty sure in a contest of mortal sins, I'd come out looking like the Virgin Mary compared to Aaron Echolls."
"Veronica!" Having gotten Veronica's attention, Gia continued, "You were talking to yourself, right? This is another one of those things that makes you so...so..."
Veronica raised one sweaty brow while she waited. Charitably, she attributed the slowness of this particular thought process to the heat.
"Special," Gia finished, beaming.
Veronica had to look away at Gia's utter lack of shame. "I was expecting something like 'unsociable' or 'outcast-tastic.'"
"Yeah," Gia said, clomping over to look down into Veronica's face. "About that." She bit her lip and her shoulders got tense in such a blatant display of nerves that Veronica wondered if maybe Gia wasn't a secret evil genius playing the long con on all of them.
"Yes?" Veronica put on her expectant face.
But just when it seemed they were going somewhere interesting, Gia dropped the nervous act and whined. "Seriously, don't you have air conditioning?"
Veronica frowned. "What is this 'air conditioning' of which you speak? I would know of these wonders from your world."
"Veronica."
"It's broken, our apartment doesn't have it, and I can't leave the office. I have faxes to send." Veronica held up the dog-eared, highlighted and coffee-stained fax list that was scribbled all over in Kendall's handwriting. She was surprised the woman didn't dot her i's with little hearts.
On second thought, she was a lot more surprised that Kendall didn't turn all of her s's into dollar signs.
"Perfect!" Gia pushed her sweaty bangs off her forehead. "We can go back to my house. There's a fax machine with a dedicated line in d-- In the office."
Veronica flinched. There were so many reasons why she didn't want to go back to the Goodman house, she didn't even know where to begin. She was fairly certain that not even Gia could be that oblivious.
Then Gia delivered the sucker punch.
"We have central air conditioning."
Veronica whimpered.
"The thermostat's set at a constant 72."
Veronica may, according to certain interpretations, have moaned. Just a little.
Gia's lips twisted in triumph, and Veronica knew there was no going back. Gia could be surprisingly persistent at times, latching on like a fashionable, over-enthused cocker spaniel and refusing to let go until she got what she wanted. She had that fragile puppy psyche, too, which was damnably effective on Veronica Mars, mocker of all she surveyed.
"Fine," she sighed, "you got me." Veronica gathered the papers she needed and stuffed them in her bag, then listlessly followed Gia out to the street. It was too hot to get excited about anything, even the prospect of lowering her core body temperature back to something approaching normal.
Gia led Veronica straight past the LeBaron to a grayish SUV, alarm chirping. Veronica stopped, suddenly dizzy. The heat rising off the pavement didn't help. Gia looked back at Veronica, made a face.
"It's my -- was my dad's. My Fiat's vintage, it doesn't have air conditioning."
Veronica swallowed hard. She took a deep breath, struggling against the heaviness of the heat against her chest. Gia was watching her, eyes worried. Veronica squared her shoulders and opened the passenger side door.
"Yeah," she said as they climbed inside, "the A/C in my 'vintage' LeBaron's been broken for years."
Gia smiled briefly, eyes slanting toward Veronica. She started the car and the cool air roared to life. Veronica fell back against the seat in bliss. "Oh, thank God."
+++
It turned out that the Goodman's fax could be programmed with a hundred numbers at a time. Veronica spent fifteen minutes punching in numbers, set the machine to print a report on any faxes that didn't go through the first time, and got the hell out of Woody's office.
Gia was waiting with big bowls of raspberry sherbet. "I made snacks," she said, spooning a petite scoop into her mouth, and chased it with the fresh raspberries she'd sprinkled on top. Veronica felt bad suddenly, bad for disliking Gia, for thinking her dumb and mostly useless. Granted, Gia's skill set wasn't one that would be seeing much mileage in the life of Veronica Mars, but for all she knew, Gia could be California's answer to Martha Stewart, with tofu skewers instead of egg cups, and Santa Barbara rather than the Hamptons.
She could picture the articles now, all about matching your outfit to your thank-you pastries, for that extra touch that says 'I care.' At least she was considerate, in her own way -- that wasn't something that could often be said of 09'ers.
"Want to be my trophy wife?" Veronica asked, dropping gratefully into a chair at the dining table.
To her utter surprise, Gia's face crumbled, and she started to sob.
Veronica stared at her, openmouthed, wondering how the hell she'd been blind-sided by this again. This was lacking the public venue and the lingering remains of seething hatred, but Veronica had pretty much played this out with Logan already, a year and a half ago. Why did these 09'ers insist on inflicting their angst on her, anyway?
Veronica moved around the table to sit next to Gia, awkwardly wrapping an arm around her bony shoulders. Gia didn't react, kept curled in on herself.
After what seemed like years, Gia appeared to have cried herself out, sniffling and wiping her face with her napkin. "I'm sorry, I just..."
"Don't worry about it," Veronica said. "Have some more ice cream."
They ate in silence for some time. Veronica could hear the fax machine still dialing away from down the hall, then the whirs and chirps that signaled the fax going through. The machine went quiet, and Veronica went back to the office to set the last batch of numbers.
When she came back, Gia was still sitting at the table, face swollen and a little red, dark circles evident under her eyes where all of her makeup washed away. "How did you deal with it, anyway?"
"What?"
"I only have like four hundred MySpace friends now," Gia said, as if that was an explanation.
"I'm sorry, Gia, you're going to have to --"
"Nobody talks to me any more. Nobody from Neptune, not even anybody from my old school. Like, all of the people who dropped me were people who found out about my dad. It turns out nobody wants to hang out with you if your dad fucks little boys."
Veronica looked at the ceiling. She was in no way equipped to deal with this. "Oh, God."
"Dick told me about your Dad, like a million years ago when we were dating. About how he went after Jake Kane and everybody totally shunned you for what your dad did. How did you deal with it? I mean, how could you stand it when nobody talked to you at parties or at the beach or anywhere?"
"I stopped going to parties," Veronica said quietly. She was torn between sorrow and anger, a pure clean rage that Gia could in any way equate Woody with Keith.
"See, that's what I mean! You, you just don't care what anybody thinks about you. And I can't do that, every time I go somewhere it gets to me. Come on, Veronica." Gia looked at her with big pleading eyes. "Teach me to be like you."
Veronica winced. "Gia. I'm a sleuth, not a life coach."
"Whatever, that's not what I'm asking. Just...I need to know what to say. You always seem to know what to say."
Veronica shook her head, speaking carefully. "I...can't help you."
Gia gave her a look like she'd just kicked a baby Shetland pony. "This is still about our dads, isn't it? You hate me, too. You're just like the rest of them."
"No! It's...it's not that." Veronica pinched the bridge of her nose. There was nothing she could tell Gia that would be adequate, not without revealing more than she was prepared to give.
Veronica's phone rang. "Ah, I've got to get that. It could be my, um." As she rummaged through her bag for the phone, Gia frowned and reached across the table for Veronica's melting bowl of sherbet. She ate an enormous spoonful, somehow managing to project an aura that was less "spoiled princess doesn't get what she wants" and more "Audrey Hepburn gets the munchies."
"Uh, hello?" Veronica moved back down the hall, having neglected to check the caller ID.
"Please tell me you own a black wig," said Mac. Veronica nearly pulled the phone away from her ear and looked at it in astonishment. She hadn't talked to Mac since that night, and while that wasn't exactly how Veronica would have expected it to play out, she couldn't necessarily say she blamed her.
"Uh...why? This isn't some ploy to get me to play your twin sister, is it?" The long pause on the other end of the line was answer enough. "Seriously?"
"I admit nothing," Mac said.
"Well, my black wig makes me look like Go-Go Yubari."
"And that's a bad thing...why?"
"I'm just saying, if you need someone to be your sister, it's not gonna fool anybody."
Mac made a frustrated noise, and Veronica turned in time to catch a glimpse of Gia, slumped against the table with her chin in her hand. "Wait -- how badly do you need help?"
"I'll beg if I have to," Mac said, "but I really don't think I should have to."
"Bad enough to get help from Gia Goodman?" Veronica asked quietly.
"She's capable of helping?"
"Yes or no?"
Mac didn't say anything for a long time, but when she finally answered, her voice was firm. "Yes. Provided she can tell the difference between a circuit board and a surf board, or can at least be taught."
"Well, we won't know until we find out."
"God help me, I'm never gonna get my money back, am I?"
"My office in fifteen?"
"Don't make me regret this."
Before Veronica could clarify that she made no promises, the line went dead. Veronica stuffed her phone back in her bag and flashed a manic smile at Gia. "So, how about you put on some black clothes and some more eyeliner, and we'll get started on that protégé thing?"
Gia looked torn between ecstasy and doubt. The hesitation evidently won out.
"Black clothes? In weather like this?"
Veronica spread her hands. "Hey, you wanna play the game, you gotta know the rules."
+++
Six hours later, Veronica threw open the door to the apartment, grimy, sweaty, and covered in paint ball stains. That had totally not gone the way she'd planned.
Dad had evidently made it home from his info-gathering trip to Barstow some time earlier -- his trip to Barstow in the comfort of his climate-controlled vehicle -- because he looked freshly showered and positively relaxed. She glared at him from the doorway as he sat at the bar with a slice of cold pizza halfway to his mouth, the fan blowing directly in his face.
He set down the pizza, trying and failing miserably not to look amused. "So. Honey. How was your day?"
Veronica slammed the door and dumped her bag on the floor. "Well," she said, false cheer ringing in her voice, "I sent five hundred faxes from the bowels of hell, and then I sold my soul for central air."
"Aw." Dad reached toward her, then hesitated, probably looking for a place that wasn't covered in orange and green goop. He finally settled for patting her on the top of her head, and wiping his hand on a paper towel afterward. "You weren't using your soul anyway, were you?"
"Not since I lost it in that fiddling showdown in Macon."
He sat smiling at her for another few seconds, then finally wrinkled his nose in disgust and said, "Go take a shower. You can tell me all about it over ice cream afterwards."
Veronica retreated to the sanctuary of a cold shower. She ended up having to wash her hair twice, and even still there were faint green stains left over in places. She bet Gia and Mac didn't have this problem.
On second thought, Mac probably wished she had this problem.
Dad did have ice cream waiting when she was done, as promised. Rocky Road with chocolate syrup and whipped cream, thankfully. Gia's offer of raspberry sherbet was nice and all, but frozen-heart-attack-in-a-bowl was more Veronica's speed.
Veronica fell upon her ice cream like a wolf might attack a wayward sheep.
"So really, what happened to you?" Dad asked.
"It seems," she answered, licking her spoon, "that I've acquired an apprentice."
"An apprentice? In what, snooping and petty misdemeanors?"
"You're not wrong. Gia Goodman sort of hired me to be her friend."
Dad frowned. "Are you sure you want to get involved in that?"
Veronica sighed. "Weird as the whole mess is, I kind of feel bad for her. She's lost all of her friends, and she just kind of wanders around like this lost puppy looking for someone to feed it table scraps."
"And you have the table scraps."
"Technically, she has the central A/C."
"Ah. It all becomes clear." Dad finished the last bit of crust on his second slice of pizza and started in on his ice cream.
"I was going to turn her down," Veronica said, "but then Mac called needing someone to pretend to be her sister..."
"Mac called you?"
"Yeah. She did. And don't ask me how she's handling it, because I have no idea."
"What," Dad said, "you didn't have a heart-to-heart? I know how good you are at those."
"You are so much less funny than you think you are," Veronica said, laughing in spite of herself. She scraped the sides of her bowl for the last of the chocolate syrup. "Between the three of us, I think the only safe topics of conversation were Brad and Angelina, and all the features on the new Apple MacBooks."
"That must have been a confusing conversation."
"Well, it certainly didn't help Gia get her computer terminology right. You know, I thought Gia would be useless on a case, but it's like she has her own vapid brand of Jedi mind trick. I wouldn't exactly say she's indispensable. But she didn't even scream too much when we got caught in the middle of Geeks Gone Wild." Veronica, finished with her ice cream, shook the can of Reddi-Whip and squirted a fluffy stream directly into her mouth.
"And that was when you got hit with the paint balls?" Dad raised a brow at her.
"It's a long story."
"But it ends with 'and then you got hit with the paint balls.'" He was trying not to laugh again.
"I...yeah." Veronica rinsed her dishes and left them in the sink. "And the weird thing is, I don't really regret it. I mean, sure, I could have lived without the war games, but..."
"Honey." Dad came up behind her and, now that she was grime-free, enveloped her in a huge hug. She buried her face in his shoulder and squeezed. "Okay, I'm still going to need those ribs in the morning, you know," he complained. Veronica grinned up at him and eased her grip, but only a little.
"I know that, aside from Wallace, you haven't really had many friends since Lilly died."
"Dad." She gave him one final squeeze and stepped away. "Can we postpone this conversation? For, say, ever?"
He smiled at her, soft and sad. "Yeah, okay."
Her phone rang, then, and when she saw who was on the caller ID, she started for her bedroom. "I'm just gonna..."
"If that's Logan," Dad called after her, "I want it on record that I'd rather you hang around those girls, even if you do come home covered in paint balls!"
Veronica laughed at him, and shook her head, closing the door behind her.
--
end
by Shaye
SUMMARY: Why did these 09'ers insist on inflicting their angst on her, anyway?
DISCLAIMER: Rob Thomas is one crazy bastard. I like that in a man.
RATING: PG-13
SPOILERS: Through 2.22
NOTES: Written for Kath (whom I assume is crankygrrl) in the Thelma & Louise Do Outer Space Gal-Pal Ficathon. Thanks to Thea for beta, in the middle of her chaos.
RANDOM: About 3000 words. Inspired by a heat wave which is thankfully long since over.
+++
The air conditioner finally gave up the ghost on the fifth day. The temperature was in the hundreds and local radio stations had started playing such 70's classics as "Heat Wave" and "Rescue Me."
Normally, under such circumstances, Veronica would have given the office a not-so-fond farewell and gone home to lie prostrate on the couch with a fan blowing directly in her face. But she had five hundred faxes to send out today, and their rickety old fax machine only held ten programmed numbers at a time.
Veronica passed the time sprawled in her desk chair while she waited for the fax queue to clear. She would have lain on the floor, but it took too much effort to get up every few minutes and dial. She'd just about mustered the energy to track a drop of sweat sliding down her back when she heard footsteps in the hall. Loud footsteps that sounded like they might belong to a large draught animal. A Clydesdale, for instance.
The door opened, a voice preceding it into the room. "God, how can you stand it in here?"
Veronica gave the chair a desultory spin and faced the door in time to see Gia Goodman clomp into the office wearing wooden platform sandals and a pink halter minidress.
So not a Clydesdale then.
"It's official, this must be hell." Veronica slumped farther into the chair.
Gia tottered over to the couch and flopped onto it, limbs having apparently turned to jelly in the heat. It might be possible. Maybe they'd do an episode of Mythbusters about it. "I'm serious," Gia said, "don't you have air conditioning?"
"What did I ever do to you, huh?" Veronica asked, looking vaguely skyward.
"Geez, I'm not being that bitchy," Gia said, face assuming an expression that looked suspiciously like a pout.
"I mean," Veronica sighed, "aside from bugging the confessional?"
"Has the heat really fried your brain?" Gia asked, frowning.
"And then there was the whole 'judge not, lest ye be judged' thing, but I'm pretty sure in a contest of mortal sins, I'd come out looking like the Virgin Mary compared to Aaron Echolls."
"Veronica!" Having gotten Veronica's attention, Gia continued, "You were talking to yourself, right? This is another one of those things that makes you so...so..."
Veronica raised one sweaty brow while she waited. Charitably, she attributed the slowness of this particular thought process to the heat.
"Special," Gia finished, beaming.
Veronica had to look away at Gia's utter lack of shame. "I was expecting something like 'unsociable' or 'outcast-tastic.'"
"Yeah," Gia said, clomping over to look down into Veronica's face. "About that." She bit her lip and her shoulders got tense in such a blatant display of nerves that Veronica wondered if maybe Gia wasn't a secret evil genius playing the long con on all of them.
"Yes?" Veronica put on her expectant face.
But just when it seemed they were going somewhere interesting, Gia dropped the nervous act and whined. "Seriously, don't you have air conditioning?"
Veronica frowned. "What is this 'air conditioning' of which you speak? I would know of these wonders from your world."
"Veronica."
"It's broken, our apartment doesn't have it, and I can't leave the office. I have faxes to send." Veronica held up the dog-eared, highlighted and coffee-stained fax list that was scribbled all over in Kendall's handwriting. She was surprised the woman didn't dot her i's with little hearts.
On second thought, she was a lot more surprised that Kendall didn't turn all of her s's into dollar signs.
"Perfect!" Gia pushed her sweaty bangs off her forehead. "We can go back to my house. There's a fax machine with a dedicated line in d-- In the office."
Veronica flinched. There were so many reasons why she didn't want to go back to the Goodman house, she didn't even know where to begin. She was fairly certain that not even Gia could be that oblivious.
Then Gia delivered the sucker punch.
"We have central air conditioning."
Veronica whimpered.
"The thermostat's set at a constant 72."
Veronica may, according to certain interpretations, have moaned. Just a little.
Gia's lips twisted in triumph, and Veronica knew there was no going back. Gia could be surprisingly persistent at times, latching on like a fashionable, over-enthused cocker spaniel and refusing to let go until she got what she wanted. She had that fragile puppy psyche, too, which was damnably effective on Veronica Mars, mocker of all she surveyed.
"Fine," she sighed, "you got me." Veronica gathered the papers she needed and stuffed them in her bag, then listlessly followed Gia out to the street. It was too hot to get excited about anything, even the prospect of lowering her core body temperature back to something approaching normal.
Gia led Veronica straight past the LeBaron to a grayish SUV, alarm chirping. Veronica stopped, suddenly dizzy. The heat rising off the pavement didn't help. Gia looked back at Veronica, made a face.
"It's my -- was my dad's. My Fiat's vintage, it doesn't have air conditioning."
Veronica swallowed hard. She took a deep breath, struggling against the heaviness of the heat against her chest. Gia was watching her, eyes worried. Veronica squared her shoulders and opened the passenger side door.
"Yeah," she said as they climbed inside, "the A/C in my 'vintage' LeBaron's been broken for years."
Gia smiled briefly, eyes slanting toward Veronica. She started the car and the cool air roared to life. Veronica fell back against the seat in bliss. "Oh, thank God."
+++
It turned out that the Goodman's fax could be programmed with a hundred numbers at a time. Veronica spent fifteen minutes punching in numbers, set the machine to print a report on any faxes that didn't go through the first time, and got the hell out of Woody's office.
Gia was waiting with big bowls of raspberry sherbet. "I made snacks," she said, spooning a petite scoop into her mouth, and chased it with the fresh raspberries she'd sprinkled on top. Veronica felt bad suddenly, bad for disliking Gia, for thinking her dumb and mostly useless. Granted, Gia's skill set wasn't one that would be seeing much mileage in the life of Veronica Mars, but for all she knew, Gia could be California's answer to Martha Stewart, with tofu skewers instead of egg cups, and Santa Barbara rather than the Hamptons.
She could picture the articles now, all about matching your outfit to your thank-you pastries, for that extra touch that says 'I care.' At least she was considerate, in her own way -- that wasn't something that could often be said of 09'ers.
"Want to be my trophy wife?" Veronica asked, dropping gratefully into a chair at the dining table.
To her utter surprise, Gia's face crumbled, and she started to sob.
Veronica stared at her, openmouthed, wondering how the hell she'd been blind-sided by this again. This was lacking the public venue and the lingering remains of seething hatred, but Veronica had pretty much played this out with Logan already, a year and a half ago. Why did these 09'ers insist on inflicting their angst on her, anyway?
Veronica moved around the table to sit next to Gia, awkwardly wrapping an arm around her bony shoulders. Gia didn't react, kept curled in on herself.
After what seemed like years, Gia appeared to have cried herself out, sniffling and wiping her face with her napkin. "I'm sorry, I just..."
"Don't worry about it," Veronica said. "Have some more ice cream."
They ate in silence for some time. Veronica could hear the fax machine still dialing away from down the hall, then the whirs and chirps that signaled the fax going through. The machine went quiet, and Veronica went back to the office to set the last batch of numbers.
When she came back, Gia was still sitting at the table, face swollen and a little red, dark circles evident under her eyes where all of her makeup washed away. "How did you deal with it, anyway?"
"What?"
"I only have like four hundred MySpace friends now," Gia said, as if that was an explanation.
"I'm sorry, Gia, you're going to have to --"
"Nobody talks to me any more. Nobody from Neptune, not even anybody from my old school. Like, all of the people who dropped me were people who found out about my dad. It turns out nobody wants to hang out with you if your dad fucks little boys."
Veronica looked at the ceiling. She was in no way equipped to deal with this. "Oh, God."
"Dick told me about your Dad, like a million years ago when we were dating. About how he went after Jake Kane and everybody totally shunned you for what your dad did. How did you deal with it? I mean, how could you stand it when nobody talked to you at parties or at the beach or anywhere?"
"I stopped going to parties," Veronica said quietly. She was torn between sorrow and anger, a pure clean rage that Gia could in any way equate Woody with Keith.
"See, that's what I mean! You, you just don't care what anybody thinks about you. And I can't do that, every time I go somewhere it gets to me. Come on, Veronica." Gia looked at her with big pleading eyes. "Teach me to be like you."
Veronica winced. "Gia. I'm a sleuth, not a life coach."
"Whatever, that's not what I'm asking. Just...I need to know what to say. You always seem to know what to say."
Veronica shook her head, speaking carefully. "I...can't help you."
Gia gave her a look like she'd just kicked a baby Shetland pony. "This is still about our dads, isn't it? You hate me, too. You're just like the rest of them."
"No! It's...it's not that." Veronica pinched the bridge of her nose. There was nothing she could tell Gia that would be adequate, not without revealing more than she was prepared to give.
Veronica's phone rang. "Ah, I've got to get that. It could be my, um." As she rummaged through her bag for the phone, Gia frowned and reached across the table for Veronica's melting bowl of sherbet. She ate an enormous spoonful, somehow managing to project an aura that was less "spoiled princess doesn't get what she wants" and more "Audrey Hepburn gets the munchies."
"Uh, hello?" Veronica moved back down the hall, having neglected to check the caller ID.
"Please tell me you own a black wig," said Mac. Veronica nearly pulled the phone away from her ear and looked at it in astonishment. She hadn't talked to Mac since that night, and while that wasn't exactly how Veronica would have expected it to play out, she couldn't necessarily say she blamed her.
"Uh...why? This isn't some ploy to get me to play your twin sister, is it?" The long pause on the other end of the line was answer enough. "Seriously?"
"I admit nothing," Mac said.
"Well, my black wig makes me look like Go-Go Yubari."
"And that's a bad thing...why?"
"I'm just saying, if you need someone to be your sister, it's not gonna fool anybody."
Mac made a frustrated noise, and Veronica turned in time to catch a glimpse of Gia, slumped against the table with her chin in her hand. "Wait -- how badly do you need help?"
"I'll beg if I have to," Mac said, "but I really don't think I should have to."
"Bad enough to get help from Gia Goodman?" Veronica asked quietly.
"She's capable of helping?"
"Yes or no?"
Mac didn't say anything for a long time, but when she finally answered, her voice was firm. "Yes. Provided she can tell the difference between a circuit board and a surf board, or can at least be taught."
"Well, we won't know until we find out."
"God help me, I'm never gonna get my money back, am I?"
"My office in fifteen?"
"Don't make me regret this."
Before Veronica could clarify that she made no promises, the line went dead. Veronica stuffed her phone back in her bag and flashed a manic smile at Gia. "So, how about you put on some black clothes and some more eyeliner, and we'll get started on that protégé thing?"
Gia looked torn between ecstasy and doubt. The hesitation evidently won out.
"Black clothes? In weather like this?"
Veronica spread her hands. "Hey, you wanna play the game, you gotta know the rules."
+++
Six hours later, Veronica threw open the door to the apartment, grimy, sweaty, and covered in paint ball stains. That had totally not gone the way she'd planned.
Dad had evidently made it home from his info-gathering trip to Barstow some time earlier -- his trip to Barstow in the comfort of his climate-controlled vehicle -- because he looked freshly showered and positively relaxed. She glared at him from the doorway as he sat at the bar with a slice of cold pizza halfway to his mouth, the fan blowing directly in his face.
He set down the pizza, trying and failing miserably not to look amused. "So. Honey. How was your day?"
Veronica slammed the door and dumped her bag on the floor. "Well," she said, false cheer ringing in her voice, "I sent five hundred faxes from the bowels of hell, and then I sold my soul for central air."
"Aw." Dad reached toward her, then hesitated, probably looking for a place that wasn't covered in orange and green goop. He finally settled for patting her on the top of her head, and wiping his hand on a paper towel afterward. "You weren't using your soul anyway, were you?"
"Not since I lost it in that fiddling showdown in Macon."
He sat smiling at her for another few seconds, then finally wrinkled his nose in disgust and said, "Go take a shower. You can tell me all about it over ice cream afterwards."
Veronica retreated to the sanctuary of a cold shower. She ended up having to wash her hair twice, and even still there were faint green stains left over in places. She bet Gia and Mac didn't have this problem.
On second thought, Mac probably wished she had this problem.
Dad did have ice cream waiting when she was done, as promised. Rocky Road with chocolate syrup and whipped cream, thankfully. Gia's offer of raspberry sherbet was nice and all, but frozen-heart-attack-in-a-bowl was more Veronica's speed.
Veronica fell upon her ice cream like a wolf might attack a wayward sheep.
"So really, what happened to you?" Dad asked.
"It seems," she answered, licking her spoon, "that I've acquired an apprentice."
"An apprentice? In what, snooping and petty misdemeanors?"
"You're not wrong. Gia Goodman sort of hired me to be her friend."
Dad frowned. "Are you sure you want to get involved in that?"
Veronica sighed. "Weird as the whole mess is, I kind of feel bad for her. She's lost all of her friends, and she just kind of wanders around like this lost puppy looking for someone to feed it table scraps."
"And you have the table scraps."
"Technically, she has the central A/C."
"Ah. It all becomes clear." Dad finished the last bit of crust on his second slice of pizza and started in on his ice cream.
"I was going to turn her down," Veronica said, "but then Mac called needing someone to pretend to be her sister..."
"Mac called you?"
"Yeah. She did. And don't ask me how she's handling it, because I have no idea."
"What," Dad said, "you didn't have a heart-to-heart? I know how good you are at those."
"You are so much less funny than you think you are," Veronica said, laughing in spite of herself. She scraped the sides of her bowl for the last of the chocolate syrup. "Between the three of us, I think the only safe topics of conversation were Brad and Angelina, and all the features on the new Apple MacBooks."
"That must have been a confusing conversation."
"Well, it certainly didn't help Gia get her computer terminology right. You know, I thought Gia would be useless on a case, but it's like she has her own vapid brand of Jedi mind trick. I wouldn't exactly say she's indispensable. But she didn't even scream too much when we got caught in the middle of Geeks Gone Wild." Veronica, finished with her ice cream, shook the can of Reddi-Whip and squirted a fluffy stream directly into her mouth.
"And that was when you got hit with the paint balls?" Dad raised a brow at her.
"It's a long story."
"But it ends with 'and then you got hit with the paint balls.'" He was trying not to laugh again.
"I...yeah." Veronica rinsed her dishes and left them in the sink. "And the weird thing is, I don't really regret it. I mean, sure, I could have lived without the war games, but..."
"Honey." Dad came up behind her and, now that she was grime-free, enveloped her in a huge hug. She buried her face in his shoulder and squeezed. "Okay, I'm still going to need those ribs in the morning, you know," he complained. Veronica grinned up at him and eased her grip, but only a little.
"I know that, aside from Wallace, you haven't really had many friends since Lilly died."
"Dad." She gave him one final squeeze and stepped away. "Can we postpone this conversation? For, say, ever?"
He smiled at her, soft and sad. "Yeah, okay."
Her phone rang, then, and when she saw who was on the caller ID, she started for her bedroom. "I'm just gonna..."
"If that's Logan," Dad called after her, "I want it on record that I'd rather you hang around those girls, even if you do come home covered in paint balls!"
Veronica laughed at him, and shook her head, closing the door behind her.
--
end