Bold and Simful

“I really don’t know who the Voice is, Randal.  I wish I did,” Maxine answered, her voice growing tight.  The Voice had attacked her too, back when she and Robert first arrived in Orion Bay and, though Maxine had taken etiquette classes to learn how to act, she never forgot the burning desire to sock the old biddy one.

“Mrs. Bettencourt, poor Monica is so upset.  I just don’t know what to do,” Randal was at wits end.  Monica was pregnant, just as the Voice had surmised, and he didn’t want her mental state to affect the baby. “I have to find out who would do this kind of thing.”

“Please, it’s Maxine,” Maxine was already beginning to feel old, there was no need for adults to call her Mrs., “You could always call the paper and ask who the Voice is…”

“I have, they claim that they don’t know either.” Randal interrupted, “I tried to throw money at them, but they won’t budge, they say the column is emailed in and that they’ve never met the author.”

Maxine thought a moment, hesitating to offer her husband’s questionable services, but he had been so much help to Catherine and he did get that promotion recently, she plunged ahead, “Talk to Robert, I bet he can help ferret out the identity of the Voice.  You can wait here for him if you like, but I was just on my way out.”

Maxine arrived at the Gibson family home in Rigel Heights bearing gifts for L.C. “I hope she likes it,” Maxine worried, watching as Lydia played with her new toy. Jacob sat on the couch with his nose in a book as usual, seemingly oblivious to the screeching noises his sister was producing.

“Oh, I’m sure she will,” Brenda countered.  She had seen the violin in the store window and knew that it wasn’t cheap, this brought Maxine’s tally to 1 violin, 1 redecorated bedroom, and 2 admissions to Orion Bay academy…Catherine Mendenhall was lagging seriously behind.

“Tell Mrs. Bettencourt how good you are doing in school,” Brenda insisted when everyone sat down for lunch.

“It’s how well,” Jacob spoke up, “how well you are doing in school and she got a B anyway, that’s not doing well or doing good for that matter,” the ladies at the table ignored him.  Jacob was getting used to that, it didn’t really bother him since he wasn’t very social anyway, he preferred the company of books or the stars to that of people.  He was looking forward to his birthday just so he could move one step closer to college, one step closer to being surrounded by people of his own intelligence.

The Turner-Veronica romance, begun in college and left in college, had been rekindled at the Winfield wedding.  A few dates and they found themselves in bed together, a familiar place but this time it wouldn’t end as it had before.

‘Wow, she took that badly,’ Turner wasn’t sure what to say or do.  He had changed a lot in the few weeks since graduation, carnal pleasures were no longer of interest to him, even if they were with Veronica Bettencourt.  He had started a new path in life and had avoided all of his college friends in favor of meditation and yoga, until now and look how this was going.

“You could have told me you were a monk!” Veronica was understandably upset at having been led along.

“I’m not a monk, I’m a Buddhist and I thought the outfit might have been a clue,” Turner hated fighting, he had avoided it all through college even when Monica and Veronica had decided to swap boyfriends, namely him and Randal, just for the fun of it.

“I thought you just had bad fashion sense but FINE, a Buddhist monk then. Whatever! You could have mentioned it before we go in bed,” Veronica wasn’t softened by Turner’s obvious discomfort,

“on the bed,” Turner corrected under his breath.

“What did you say?” Luckily a shrill sound broke the air and allowed Turner to escape the situation.

Arriving at the source of the screeching, Veronica casually asked, “What did you burn for dinner, mom?”

She wasn’t surprised that her mother had started another fire, everyone knew that Maxine couldn’t cook. Why the woman continued attempting to play chef was beyond Calista Pons, who had been called to the Manor no less than 4 times already, it was becoming a running joke down at the station.

“Honey, of course you’re beautiful, I’m sure it didn’t have anything to do with you,” Maxine comforted over  charred lobster dinner. “People change and Turner is walking a different…” Maxine went on philosophically but whatever the tribulation was, Robert was unaware of it.

He was busy pondering the identity of the Voice.  Randal had caught up with him earlier and told him how upset Monica was by the article.  Robert hadn’t read the article, he didn’t like gossip mongering but obviously some people did or the paper wouldn’t continue to print it.

He had heard what was in it though and it was unnerving how much the Voice knew, ‘they have to be an insider, someone who was at the wedding,‘ he mentally reviewed the guest list, ‘someone who isn’t mentioned in the article because why would the Voice take shots at themselves? Unless to throw me off the track…‘

Yep, Robert was officially on the case.

“Whatcha doin’, hun?” Robert had gotten up in the middle of the night to go the bathroom, that was happening more and more often lately, he was starting to think that he was getting old.

“Reading the Society Voice, there isn’t a single word about me,” Veronica lamented, “I was one of the most stylish people at the wedding, probably the most fashionable. There’s nothing about Maleena either, though it wouldn’t have been nice, she looks washed out in pink…someone should tell her.  Practically the whole thing is about the Mendenhalls.”

“Don’t read that trash…Let me see,” Robert said sitting down and opening the paper.  “For research purposes,” he added quickly. “Hmmm…Monica’s pregnant?”

“So the Voice says,” Veronica admitted, “but did you notice, no mention of me? I’ve already done commercials and I voiced Big Fuzz the Cat, how much more famous do you need to be? What, I don’t get a quote until I’m a blockbuster director or something?”

“I don’t know why you’d want a mention,” Robert wondered, “you women confuse me. You want to be in the article if you’re not and you don’t want to be if you are.”

“Really, Daddy, You just don’t get it,” Veronica excused herself to get ready, it was her day off and she wanted to get a new formal dress for the next party.

“Mom, what are you doing? We’re supposed to go shopping,” Veronica stomped her feet like a two year old, arousing Maxine from her daily meditation.

“Two minutes, sweetie.  Go call the cab,” Maxine’s voice sounded far away.  Meditation had done wonders for her, it allowed her to handle everything with an ease that those around her found graceful.  Sure, she was annoyed when Monica showed up and reminded her that she hadn’t been Robert’s first love, but she meditated and it all went away.  There was the time Robert bought a restaurant without telling her, but she meditated and it all went away.  There was…but she had meditated and it all went away.

Right now, she was trying to meditate Felicity Drysdale away.

“I hate to cut this short, but I need to stop by the Gibson’s this afternoon,” Maxine patted her daughter’s arm.

“Mom, don’t you think they are taking advantage of you?  I mean, how much can you give one family?” Veronica had thought this for a while, it did seem strange that her mother was taking care of a child that wasn’t related to them at all, especially now that they did have a baby in the family, “What about Alexa Veronica?  Shouldn’t you be helping your own grandchild?”

“No, no, the Gibson just need a hand right now and Maleena and Jodie are doing fine,” Maxine protested, “Besides, Brenda said she had some big news to tell me.”

“Fine, but I think they are taking advantage,” Veronica held her ground, “oh, can you leave me some money before you go?”

It  was obvious what Brenda’s big news was and Maxine wasn’t thrilled.  She had given the money for the overdue bills, but she couldn’t imagine why you would get pregnant again when you could barely afford the kids you had and, not that it was Brenda’s fault, but twins no less?!

Veronica’s words rang in her ears and images of doling out more gifts and more favors and more overdue bills ran like a slideshow in her mind.  ‘This has to stop, I have to tell Catherine or Elizabeth and let them take care of their own,‘ she determined.

But just as Maxine was making that determination, a few blocks away, Robert was handing over the deed to Court’s Cafe to his star chef and Brenda’s husband, Jay Gibson, wrapped up all nice a pretty with a big red bow.

——

Note: When I wrote the character sketch for Maxine months ago, I wrote that Maxine had taken etiquette classes because of a rather scathing remark about her in a society column written by a rather catty matron.  Then promptly forgot about it, I found it again just before I wrote this while I was updating the pages around here.  I love it when an (unplanned) plan comes together

 

Posted on August 8th, 2008 under Bettencourt, Orion Bay. Tags: Bettencourt, brenda, gibson, jay, lydia, maxine, robert, veronica. RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback.