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 Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 11:09 am
Emily pulled into the driveway and turned off the engine, but instead of pulling the keys out of the ignition and getting out, she let her head fall forward to rest on the center of the steering wheel. She felt uncomfortably like her brain had been put through a blender, and her shoulders and back ached. In the space of three short hours, she'd been yelled at by five customers for bringing them the wrong thing, hit on by three collage idiots with only a teaspoon of wit between them, and lectured by her pimple covered supervisor, Annette. That had been the last straw, the lecture. She'd come back with a verbose string of cruel but accurate observations that had effectively reduced Annette to tears, after which point she'd been demoted for the day and sent to lift boxes of books.
The bright side to all this was that she was really much too tired to be annoyed at the world anymore.
Slowly she forced herself to lift her head, then gave herself a pat on the back. Next the keys out of the ignition. Good job, Emily, that's the ticket. Baby steps. She got gingerly out of the car, wincing involuntarily as she straightened, shut the door behind her, then paused, warily eying the front door. She glanced down at herself, still wearing her crumb-covered Utopia apron, then looked back up at the door. There was no way she could go in that way. Shaking her head tiredly, she made her way toward the garage, simultaneously opening her purse to dig out the wireless device that opened it.
The door opened with only the soft hum of machinery, not with the squeaks and groans of laboring gears Emily was used to, but in her numb haze she had somehow managed to drop her purse, and she was too busy gathering up the spilled contents to be impressed. Finally she straightened, zipping her purse back up, then froze, an expression of exhausted disbelief making it's way across her face. Surely her day wasn't really this bad.
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Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 1:47 pm
Madeline's ears perked up. Someone was playing along. She grinned, and continued to sing and play. She tapped her foot along with the song.
None of her sisters played guitar. So it was a brother. Not Alyek, he would've come in and told her to shut up by now. She set her guitar aside, and opened the door.
She poked her head out and looked at her brother.
"'Ello." She blinked, but smiled. "You must be..." She looked up, thinking. "Markus? Is that right?"
It was now that she'd given up annoying her brothers. Except Dominic. Dominic was a p***k... hey! That rhymed! She should make more little rhymes... if only the guys had more rhymable names.
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Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 6:21 pm
Hearing the garage door open, Alyekzander still did not immediately turn. He was busy putting the final touches on his painting and did not want to be interrupted. He heard something drop, but it was no concern of his. It was only the quiet after that made him finally turn. He had not heard any footsteps leaving the garage, which he had expected. What he absolutely had not expected was to see Emilie staring at him as though he were a blond, paint spattered nightmare she'd thought she had outrun.
Alyekzander clenched his teeth and frowned very slightly. He could not puzzle out how she came home covered in the crumbs and utter defeat of customer service and still saw him as an unbearable nuisance. He turned back to the painting and, to his horror, finally realized why the girl he was painting seemed familiar. No, he insisted silently to himself. The resemblance was minuscule, surely below notice. So the hair was the same and the girl was reading. There were differences. Like...
"I have given Madeline your book for safekeeping." Alyekzander said aloud as he stared at the girl in the painting, brush poised as though he might make a difference if he did not find one soon. "I believe she has retired to her room to complete her school work."
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Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 6:53 pm
Emily shook her head dumbly. His words buzzed through her head without making more than an ounce of sense. “Thank you,” she said, her voice soft as ash. The sound of it jolted her slightly; she sounded like she was about to pass out. Just the thought of that was enough to force the return of some composure. “It would have been ruined.” That was better. She sounded tired, still, but not on the verge of collapse.
She’d also said enough that she could leave the room politely. Moving with the deliberateness of someone who knows she is tired and sore enough to trip over her own feet if she doesn’t carefully consider everything she does, she made her way over to the door into the house, pulled it open, and slipped inside.
It wasn’t until she stumbled into her bedroom some minutes later, not bothering to shut the door behind her, and collapsed on her bed that she realized there had been a girl in the painting he’d been working on. A rather familiar girl. Fortunately for Alyekzander, Emily didn’t spend much time in front of mirrors, and she drifted off long before she could put a name to the face.
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Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 10:57 am
Mark was far gone in the song, that it took him a full minute to realize the other person had stopped playing. He looked bewildered at the girl in front of him, and tried to place her. He plodded through his pathetic knowledge of his sisters. Cecelia was the eldest, so this was clearly not she. That had proably been the one chatting outside his room. Neither was she Naomi, the youngest.
So, she was either Adrienne, Emilie, or Madeline. Emilie had long, dark curls, so that ruled her out. Not wanting to appear as ill-informed as he was, he picked one of those two names at random. "Yes, you're right, Adr-uh-Madeline? Sorry, I haven't got you all straight yet. I suppose you're having a similar problem with getting to know me and my brothers, huh? You can call me Mark, by the way. You're a pretty good musician. Do you play anything besides the guitar?"
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Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 11:37 am
Once again, a unknown amount of time had passed, and she was now at a point were she pretty much let her hand and inner parts of the mind do the work, and she let her already ADD-like mind wander to other concerns.
For one, what of this dinner? Surely they wouldn't have to dress up all fancy shmancy, right? It wouldn't be the best way to start a first impression of the total situation of the merging-families that was too much like the Brady Bunch to even imagine. She hoped not; she DEARLY hoped there would be no dressing up, and that just like with every other normal family in existance it would be kept casual and hopefully on a happy and familiar note. That, and mainly because she knew of what horror this would bring, what her mother suggest she wear that she knew Naomi dreaded and cringed at with even just the slighest mention of it's existance.
It was currently mocking her right now in the closet; still in the one box she refused to unpack. She could only guess at how long it would take mother to realize that it was left all folded in the box and to realize that Naomi left it packed on purpose. She could only hold it back for so much longer; it was almost haunting.
This sounded very silly, especially when it was just a dress. A simple article of clothing worn to cover the body for reasons not needed to be said.
But it was no normal dress; no no no. It would give the wearer the normal age appearance, minus mabye 4 years, give or take a year. It was a bright red, and there were more frills than stitches in that thing, Naomi could promise you that. It was almost little-princess like, with the length reaching to just below the knee. It was red at the short-sleeved sleeves, torso, and down the sides of the dress, the middle being a bright white with some sort of gold sparkly pattern going all about the dress. Was it cute at one point? Probably; she's had it for awhile now. It even had to have a little matching ribbon to put in her hair. God, why did she have to have it out of all people?
Did her siblings still think it pretty? Somewhat, but more on a mockery sense (but they felt her pain of the hatred of such a combination of fabric). But Naomi really hated it the past year or so. There were better dresses that she had that she liked much better. Besides, everytime she wore the cursed thing, someone would think she was much younger than 15. Heck, one idiot thought she was 10 and had offered her a lollipop! Her mom loved it with a passion, which was the only reason Naomi hadn't secretly burned it at a stake. That woman would get all squealy-like every time a occasion for it was possible. Of course, Naomi had "lost it" quite a few times, so she was usually spared the issue of haveing to be seen in public in that thing.
Naomi sighed; she really hoped it was gonna be casual.
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Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 12:46 pm
She nodded, annoyed slightly that it took so long for him to see her. "Yeah, its Madeline. And Mom gave me a picture of you guys, so I took the liberty of learning your names." She smiled.
She looked at him. "I can play a little bit of piano, but only lullabies. My neighbor had one, but my family didn't." She smiled.
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Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 2:40 pm
Oh, good. She had been entirely too exhausted to work up a proper glare. Her representation in paint was doing a fine enough job, Alyekzander thought. He spoke softly to said image, wielding his paint brush menacingly. "Do not give me that look, miss. I have created you and I can just as easily destroy you." Then he thinks, chewing on the end of his brush. He sets that brush down, reaches for a much finer one and chews on it as well. Then he finally leans in to concentrate on a few small details.
His few changes complete, he straightens and grins at the now smiling girl in the image. "I knew we could reach a compromise. Now, let's get you inside." Alyekzander carefully picked up the painting to slip back into the house. He rather liked how it had turned out; it was much too fine to go back in the closet. There was no chance he would hang it in the hall. He much preferred not to show off his paintings. As much as he knew it was ridiculous to paint for only himself to see, he always did precisely that without fail. His paintings only left his possession when he came to hate them and subsequently gave them away. So the painting would have to hang in his room.
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Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 8:13 pm
"You have one now. I mean, you live here, so you may as well use the one in the music room. I could even teach you myself...if you wanted. I started learning when I was about five, and mastered the guitar and my voice when I got into high school. I took up a bunch of other instuments too. I think we have a harp in there, but I stopped taking lessons after about a month, because my brothers called me a sissy when I played. We also have..." his brow furrowed in concentration.
"Hmm...A flute, a tuba and a violin. I keep my guitars in my room." He didn't like talking about the violin, but knew she'd see it in its stand, and he'd have to talk about it more if she asked about it. His mother had loved to hear him play the violin, and when she was sick, she'd often request concerts in her room. He hadn't touched it since she died. He couldn't bear to give it away, but he didn't want it in his room either. So, month after month, it stayed untouched in the music room.
"Do you...want to see the music room now?" He gave her a lopsided grin. He knew he was being a little pushy, but he honestly wanted to get to know his new sisters. And he was quite excited to find that one of them was a musician, like him.
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Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 4:41 am
Okay, so, writing a paper wasn't the greatest thing for Cecelia to do. It's not that she didn't like the play, Macbeth was good, it's just, well, there were alot of distractions.
Cecelia decided it was time to call it quits, for now, so she slipped out of bedroom, and started walking down the hallway. She heard Naomi in her room, and decided to go see her. Cecelia gave a faint tap on her door, before opening it and walking in.
As soon as she saw the dress Naomi was holding up, Cecelia wrinkled her nose up and made puking noises. "Sorry, it's just, it makes you look so young, which would be great for a 50 year old, but not you." She said, as-a-matter-of-factly.
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Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 12:15 pm
"I've been playing guitar since I was thirteen. I started piano about a year ago when the kid I was babysitting dragged me to the piano..." She grinned. "And yeah! I'd like to see it!" She went back into her room to get her shoes, because if she wore socks she'd want to skid. She came back out, falling flat on her face because she was trying to walk and put her shoe on at the same time.
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Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 12:46 pm
Markus tried valliantly not to laugh, but he couldn't help the grin his face now bore. "Here, let me help you up," he offered like the gentleman he was raised to be. "I see that, like me, your grace is all in your fingertips," he chuckled good humouredly. Not like one ridiculing another, but like one sharing a laugh with a friend at a good joke.
Trusting that she was alright, he began walking toward the music room. As he has taken his shoes off when he entered the house (he was obsessed by Japanese culture and adhered to their customs as though he'd been born and raised in Tokyo), he wore only socks on his feet. As they reached the slick floors of the West Wing, he could control his impulses no longer, and slid and skidded along the hallway.
"Pardon my behavior, Miss Madeline. It's been too long since this house felt cheery enough for me to do that," he said as he held the door open for her. His visits to the music room had been few and far in between since his mother took ill, but, just like always, opening that door felt like he was finally home. "Tadaima," he whispered under his breath. He was careful to ignore the Stradivarius locked away in its case.
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Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 12:52 pm
She got up, and followed him. She laughed, and grinned. "I did that earlier! One of your brothers yelled at me for singing and skidding!" She stepped in, grinning. She loved to read manga, maybe he was the one who put the manga in the library. She had to thank him for that.
She looked around, grinning. "Wow." She whispered, and went over to look at the various instruments.
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Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:09 pm
"I'd wager the one who fussed at you was Alykzander. If I've told him once, I've told him a hundred times to lighten up. You needn't worry about what he said; he scolds me too, and I'm his older brother." His pleasant smile stayed in place as he crossed to the piano. He played a few stray notes, then began a Chopin piece that he liked, stopping after the tenth measure. "So, do you see something you like?" He asked, observing the awed Madeline.
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Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:22 pm
"Yeah it was!" She grinned at him, and looked around. "I like them all." She sat down next to him, and formed a fist. This she used to play a quick song on a few black keys.
After that was done she put her hands on her lap, and looked at him, still grinning. This guy was nice! Much nicer than Alyekzander... but hey, even he got a bit nicer after a bit. But Markus was nice from the start... maybe he'd turn out to be an evil step-brother or something.
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