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 Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2012 2:50 pm
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“This is it?”
Paris looked out the passenger side window at the large white stone façade that rose before them, checking the number on the door to make sure it was the right address before he went back to staring.
It wasn’t so bad. Not as big as he’d imagined it would be. From the few warnings Chris had given him ahead of time, Paris had been expecting a mansion, but from the outside Chris’s grandparents’ house didn’t look like what he would expect a mansion to look like, more compact than sprawling, though much taller than a normal suburban house. Then again, he’d never really been in a mansion, though he often wondered if Chris’s parents’ house in Destiny City could be considered one. The Gallos’ house was very likely the biggest house he’d ever been in, and this one didn’t look too much bigger in comparison.
Of course, he was only seeing the front, which looked very clean and well-kept and picturesque, and less old and industrial looking than some other parts of the city. He supposed his opinion of it would likely change as soon as he set foot inside.
With a sigh, Paris unlatched his seat-belt, ready to get out and stretch his legs after a long day of sitting in the car. He might have been a little wary about meeting Chris’s grandparents and spending a few days in a house he’d never been to before in a city he’d never seen—and it might have been his idea to drive in the first place—but now that he was here he would very much like to be someplace where he didn’t feel so cramped and confined, and he was willing to put up with anything so long as it meant there was a nice, warm bed waiting for him.
“They’re not asleep or anything, are they?” he wondered, looking at the clock which read 9 PM. They were arriving a little later in the evening than they’d anticipated, but then terrible traffic tended to do that.
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Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2012 7:16 pm
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They were finally there.
Chris felt like he could finally breathe again, now that they were off the road and out of the car. He didn't mind driving, for the most part, but he knew he tended to get stressed out rather easily, and he didn't like when he snapped at Paris, especially for no reason.
"They won't be asleep," he reassured him, trying not to sound as wary as he felt. He popped the trunk so they could pull out the suitcases from the back of his car, hauling one bag over his shoulder and setting the other to wheel along the ground. "They're usually at events and city meetings until around ten or eleven, so they'll be up still." It helped that his mother kept calling and trying to find out just how much longer it would take for them to get there.
"Don't... don't freak out, okay?" he warned once more, doing whatever he could to try and prepare Paris for something he's probably had very little experience with. His grandparents were socialites, for lack of a better word, and they lived up to the status that was expected of them.
He couldn't even reach out a hand to knock on the door when it unlatched from the inside and his mother stood before them, beaming down at them in joyous relief. "You've made it! Thank goodness, I was getting so worried, Pumpkin," she fussed, reaching around him to try and grab hold of Paris's hand to pull him inside.
If the outside looked ordinary, it was nothing from what was inside the foyer. A dark wood stained banister, elegantly carved into a design unique to the house greeted them not far from the entrance. The floor was covered with thick carpets of finely detailed designs, and above them was a crystal chandelier, casting glimmers of light around the room. The wallpaper was old, but the design was classic in a way that didn't make it seem outdated. In fact, Chris was pretty sure such styles were coming back into fashion. Art covered almost every inch of reachable wall space, each piece in large frames, and tables and pedestals lined the walls, holding vases and small statues.
Despite its look from the outside, it was quite large inside.
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Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2012 6:29 pm
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Chris’s continued warnings didn’t help Paris’s nerves at all.
He tried not to let his nervousness get the best of him. It wasn’t like him to be nervous, though he had to admit Chris’s family had a way of making him feel a little on edge. Not Chris’s immediate family, since Momma had always been welcoming and Beau was nice and Peter was something of a friend—as much a friend as an almost twelve-year-old could be to someone who was almost nineteen—but the extended family, the aunts and uncles and grandparents, tended to cause Paris a fair bit of stress no matter how much he tried to ignore them and act natural when he was around them.
He’d already been told the paternal grandparents weren’t anything like Momma’s side of the family, but preparing himself to meet them, when he’d never really known either set of his grandparents and didn’t even know what grandparents were supposed to be like, was a difficult feat.
Paris stared around the foyer when he was pulled inside by Momma , her exuberance as constant as always. She kissed his cheeks and petted his hair while he gaped and tried to stop his eyes from widening so much.
“Entrance hall” seemed more appropriate than “foyer,” honestly, but what did he knew about these things?
“We… there was some traffic…” he mumbled. “Um… sorry… I can help with the bags, Chris.”
He didn’t know how to describe this place. It probably didn’t help that he didn’t have the most extensive vocabulary, but at the moment the only words he could think of were “sweet Jesus ******** had he gotten himself into?
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Posted: Sat Nov 24, 2012 7:04 pm
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"Mom, don't smother him," he requested, not amused at all that Paris was being fussed over already. They'd only just got there and he could tell that Paris was getting a bit overwhelmed.
Chris shook his head, denying Paris's offer to help with the bags. There was no need since they really hadn't brought too much. "I'll get the last ones... We'll just take the elevator," he told him, hoping that it would relieve some of Paris's sudden stress.
"Christopher, is that you?" his grandmother's voice came from the drawing room nearby, along with another noise Chris only recognized now as Peter's whining. She was an older woman, but still looked in good health, and with a sharpness to her bright blue eyes that contrasted to the gentle warmth of his mother's. She was critical where Claire was not, but she was much kinder than she appeared. It just took a little to get used to her.
"Nana," he greeted with a weak smile, moving over to give her a hug, but she apparently had no interest in him at the moment, seeing as she ducked out of his reach and went straight for Paris. "Uh... this is my boyfriend, Paris," he introduced, although she knew quite well who he was, and was silenced with a curt wave of her hand.
"He looks even skinnier in person," she observed as she reached out to take hold of Paris's shoulders, squeezing his arms as if to see if there was any muscle or just all skin and bone, before turning him around in her hands, looking him over. She wasn't that tall, maybe a little taller than Paris, but not by much. Still, it wasn't likely for him to escape easily.
Chris could only watch in horror and hope that Paris wasn't too traumatized.
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Posted: Thu Nov 29, 2012 12:12 pm
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“E-Elevator…?” Paris issued a weak mumble.
There was no time for a response. Not two seconds after, an older woman was striding across the foyer at a speed Paris would not have expected from someone who was as old as he’d been told Chris’s grandmother was. He had no choice but to stand there and let her maneuver him however she wished. He could have tried to pull away, but he was in her house and it seemed rude to do so, and to be honest he was a little too startled to do anything but stand there and let it happen.
She touched his arms, lifted them up at an angle, turned him around with her hands squeezing at his shoulders and touched his back, his sides, his waist, his hips. Paris wasn’t unused to being examined so thoroughly. It was not uncommon for any of his ballet instructors to stare at him critically or to touch him and guide him into the proper positions, but Chris’s grandmother wasn’t one of his ballet instructors—she was Chris’s grandmother, and she lived in a huge house that must be worth a fortune and he really sort of wanted her to like him.
“Nice long legs. Long, graceful neck. Look at your waist, is that natural? Decent hips, not curvy, except…” she commented, like she actually knew what she was talking about. “You could probably afford to lose some here,” she added, and actually touched his backside.
Paris gave a start and twisted around to stare at her, utterly aghast.
Chris’s grandmother ignored it. “You’ll dance for me, of course,” she continued without interruption.
“I… I’m sorry?”
“Dance,” she said. It wasn’t a suggestion, or a question. “You will dance for me. The Esmeralda variation you danced in October. The video on Christopher’s phone didn’t do it justice, I’m sure.”
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Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2012 9:20 am
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"Nana...” he moaned in slight distress as his grandmother continued to poke and prod at Paris, only to insist on him dancing. “We just got here... it’s late... He’s tired.”
“Oh nonsense,” she said with a small scoff in her voice. “You’re both young. You have no excuse,” she said with a small wave of her hand, as if dismissing his complaints. “Come, there will be enough space in the dining room. She said as she took hold of Paris’s arm and began to lead him towards the room in question.
Chris could only stand back and sputter in surprise.
By that time, Peter had cautiously made his way out into the foyer to see what was going on, although he scowled at his grandmother and called after Paris, “Don’t trust anything she says! She’s a liar!”
“Peter!” his mother gasped, sounding upset and suddenly frazzled as if she couldn’t believe that her Sweetpea was saying something so accusatory.
“She is!!” he insisted, pointing in his grandmother’s direction. “She says she doesn’t know how to use a tablet but she has one, herself!” It was only a matter of time before he caught her for what she really was. A big, effing liar.
As his mother now fussed over Peter and Paris was dragged off by his grandmother, Chris could only follow and try to save him. “He doesn’t have his pointe shoes,” he said, trying to figure out a way to get him out of this if Paris didn’t want to do it. “He hasn’t had time to warm up.”
Chris felt like he was just throwing out one lame excuse after another, but... he was trying, right?
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Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2012 10:58 am
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“I have my pointe shoes in one of my bags,” Paris mumbled quietly, obediently following after Chris’s grandmother. He was feeling so out of sorts that he couldn’t even muster up much of a “hello” for Peter, merely looked at him with a bit of a panicked look on his face and tried to figure out what he was supposed to do about the situation he now found himself in.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to dance for her. There wasn’t ever a time in which he didn’t want to dance, especially for someone who seemed pretty interested in seeing it in person. It wasn’t even that he was tired or hadn’t properly warmed up all day—though Chris’s concern and his attempts to get him out of it really were rather sweet. It was that he had no idea what this woman wanted from him. Clearly she meant to judge him, but what else beyond that? Did she already not like him? Was this how he was supposed to prove himself?
“I told your mother to have him bring them,” Chris’s grandmother explained. She held her head up arrogantly, but she didn’t seem particularly mean.
She just knew what she wanted and expected to get it.
Even so, Paris might have been warned ahead of time that Chris’s grandmother would want him to dance for her, but he hadn’t been expecting it as soon as they’d gotten there. He was expecting the usual introductions, a tour of the house—which he couldn’t even take in properly when he was so busy worrying about what sort of impression he was making—maybe a bit of brief conversation about school and his own family, before heading up to bed and dancing for her some other time.
Like tomorrow, when he’d rested and had the chance to get used to everything.
Instead, he took one of his bags from Chris and began to dig through it quickly, shoving stuff around to try and find his pointe shoes. “Can you find my iPod?” he asked. “I need the music. I’ll have to warm up a little first, but it should be okay. I won’t waste time changing. Shoot, I forgot which bag I threw the tambourine in. Can you dig through my stuff for it?”
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Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2012 5:54 am
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Well, he’d tried, right? That was all that he could do. Chris watched in slight distress as Paris was pulled around to the dining room, and then consented to dancing. He grumbled to himself and muttered quiet apologies to his boyfriend as he rifled through their pile of bags to find Paris’s purse, knowing his iPod would be in there.
“You don’t have to do this...” he told him as he pulled out some of the several pairs of shoes Paris had brought, putting them to the side so he could continue sifting through everything. He felt bad that this was the first thing he was being made to do, and not being allowed to rest, but his grandmother usually got what she wanted, and if she wanted Paris to dance, well...
”It’s in this one,” Peter said grumpily, not minding helping out if it meant a moment away from the rest of the family. He had one of their bags in his hand and shook it, letting them hear why he was pretty certain the tambourine was inside.
“She’s a bully and a liar,” he repeated his previous complaints, grumbling under his breath so his mother wouldn’t fuss at him again. “She pretends not to know things, but she really does. Or she pretends she can’t do something, but then she can. You watch your back, Paris. You watch it...” he told him, giving him a critical eye.
“Peter, go away!” Chris snapped, taking the bag from his little brother and shooing him to another room. “Jeez... we barely even get here and he’s already pissing me off,” he grumbled under his breath, his irrational frustration with his sibling peaking suddenly with his very presence. He wished he was more patient with Peter, but something about the little brat got on his very last nerve, always.
Peter gave Chris a disgusted look, as if he’d only just noticed him and realized there was a horrible smell at the same time. “Jeez, who pissed in your corn flakes. I’m just helping Paris. Not you.”
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Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2012 7:40 am
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“You can both help me by knocking it off,” Paris said. He didn’t sound particularly angry or frustrated, but the bickering wasn’t going to help him at all, and it was best to just head it off right now rather than allow it to continue.
Hastily, he pulled his hair up out of his face. It wasn’t the perfect ballerina bun he wore on stage and frequently during practice and rehearsals, as it remained a bit loose and floppy, but it would suffice for now. His bangs he didn’t bother with for the time being, just let them fall naturally over his forehead like they did when he was in class. Gelling them back didn’t seem as important when he wasn’t performing, though with the way Chris’s grandmother kept staring at him expectantly… he began to wonder if he should pin them back anyway.
Paris fumbled with his bags in his nervousness, taking the one Peter had grabbed and shaken to unzip it and dig his tambourine out of it. Then he riffled through his shoes and found his pointes while Chris continued searching for his iPod, plopping himself down on the floor to yank his boots off, slip his pointes on, and tie the ribbons quickly but proficiently.
He wasted very little time, stretched only as much as he needed to before he was moving around the dining room to find the appropriate amount of space. It was a large room, filled with the same kind of expensive looking furniture and decorations he’d seen in the few other parts of the house he’d managed to view so far, but he seemed to see it as if from a distance. It was there and not there, only important in how it might affect his performance. Everything else about it he left to worry about for another time.
“Um… this isn’t going to be perfect,” he said, nervously rattling the be-ribboned tambourine he clasped in his right hand.
“Yes, yes, go on,” Chris’s grandmother said.
Paris hesitated, looked between Chris’s grandmother and Chris and Peter and Momma, who smiled as sweetly as always and hand her hands clasped by her face in a girlishly expectant fashion. Taking a deep breath, Paris waited until Chris had plugged his iPod in and found the correct track of music before settling down.
Somehow he managed to smile as he began to dance.
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Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2012 6:56 pm
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”He was better on stage,” Peter pointed out as Paris danced, his arms crossed over his chest as he watched, not all that interested in ballet, but from what he could see, Paris did it rather well. It was like he couldn’t look away.
His grandmother nodded in agreement. “Beautiful,” was all she said for the duration of the impromptu performance. Or more like a forced performance. Because Nana had to have everything she wanted right then and there and left no room for other people to get what they want.
Peter shot her a sour look and ducked out from her line of sight, not wanting to get pulled at and cuddled or whatever the hell she wanted to do to him. Torture was a more accurate way of describing it, anyway.
Chris had nothing to say, but instead watched intently, feeling guilty for having missed the dance when Paris had actually prepared for it. This, he was sure was just as good, but there was always the setting of a stage and the costume and lighting that made the act just a bit more magical.
Thoughts like that weirded Chris out, of course... because he was definitely not the romantic sort, yet he could see how others may find the poeticness of the ballet rather charming. For him, his only interest had been for Paris, but he was definitely learning to appreciate the hard work going into these things.
He waited until Paris was done before stepping forward to meet him and hand him a bottle of water and Peter whooped and clapped behind them, joined in by the claps of those who had also joined the audience. “That was great,” he said with a small smile, and then stepping aside as Nana approached them.
She gave Paris a scrutinizing look up and down, before the faintest hint of a smile twitched on her lips. “You’ll do,” she said vaguely, prompting Chris to sputter a “Nana!” in exasperation. What the hell did that mean??
But Nana didn’t seem to want to explain, and gave them a small nod and said her good nights, clearly with the intention of turning in now.
”Craaazy...” Peter mumbled, jabbing Paris in the side with his elbow. “Seriously, watch out for her... Not right in the head. She’s gotta be, like... a million years old, anyway.”
Just saying.
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Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:43 am
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It was easy to forget that he had an audience once he got into it. Not that he totally forgot, because it wasn’t as if he couldn’t see them there or even hear a few of their comments back and forth, but the dance and the music had a way of taking him off of one plane and planting his feet firmly on another. Whatever nerves or jitters he had before it began faded away. Paris was not entirely unaccustomed to a bit of stage fright, particularly in this sort of lighting, or in this sort of company, with his host whom he’d never met before critiquing him so closely, but it was never so terrible that it prevented him from performing.
Smiling lightly, Paris popped back up onto his feet and took the bottle of water from Chris once he was done, his breathing a bit labored. He’d managed to calm down by the time the dance was through, but the confusion and mild discomfort were quick to return when Chris’s grandmother turned on her heel to leave with only a “you’ll do” and a “good night.”
“That… that’s it?” he wondered, staring wide-eyed at Chris and Momma and Peter since he could no longer voice his question to Chris’s grandmother.
What the hell was that even supposed to mean, “you’ll do”? So he was just alright? He was sufficient? He wasn’t amazing or sensational or… something more than “you’ll do”?
He deflated somewhat, his shoulders slumping in a sudden case of disappointment.
“Don’t you worry, Precious,” Momma said, gliding closer to take his face in her hands and shower him with kisses. “She wouldn’t have said anything at all if she didn’t like you.”
It wasn’t as reassuring as Momma probably meant it to be, but Paris nodded and tried to regain some of his composure despite any lingering insecurities. He let Momma coddle and pet him for a few moments longer, before sidling over to Chris for the sort of coddling and petting he liked best.
“Come upstairs,” Momma said once she’d slid her fingers through Paris’s hair one last time and given Chris the kiss in greeting to his cheek she’d neglected to bestow upon him earlier. “You must be so exhausted. Traveling all day. Pumpkin, hurry and get your bags. Sweet Pea, it’s past your bed time.”
Overwhelmed, Paris just let himself be guided and ushered around instead of arguing or offering up anything else. With the Gallos, it was always easier that way.
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