Bold and Simful

The sun had barely risen when Catherine confronted her husband in the foyer of their home, “Where the hell do you think you’re sneaking off to?” she demanded, still clad in her robe.

“I don’t sneak, not in my own house,” Francis shot his wife a grin. When she had returned from rehab and reinstalled herself despite his desire for a divorce, he wasn’t able to do much about it but aging had somehow changed his perspective. He just didn’t care anymore. The whole world knew about his affair now, if business partners were going to abandon their contracts, so be it. The daughter he had thought so perfect to become the head of the family, now had a glaring teenager-sized flaw but he had another chance to fix that now.

“You can’t leave me here to deal with all of this by myself,” Catherine was near hysterical and freezing too, winter was lasting way too long. Just last night she had discovered that her husband’s mistress had given birth to their child and her own daughter’s baby’s father had popped up at the Winter Fete attached at the lips to Veronica Bettencourt.

“Sorry, hon. My plane awaits,” Francis smirked and slide the taxi door shut on his still screaming wife. ‘Peace, at last,‘ he settled back into the seat.

Catherine had opened the flower shop the day after the Winter Fete even though she felt more like pushing up daisies rather than selling them, but she would be doing that soon enough so today she got to work and tried to take her mind off her family’s indiscretions.

“Shh, for god’s sake keep it down,” Maxine hissed, “Anyway, call the Gibsons and make the offer before the paper comes out. Lydia will be at school, so she won’t see it until 1 at least. Offer for both kids, Brenda will never pass that up. You’ll have to pay tuition for two but Lydia will be out of Zee’s reach. Why do you think he’s shown up again?”

“I don’t know. Elizabeth never told me who…but I have to admit, I didn’t ask,” Catherine hung her head. She had been in a different place then, she was ashamed to admit her failure as a parent.

“No matter,” Maxine said softly, feeling for her former rival, now friend, “What matters is that you get Lydia away while you figure out what his true intentions are. It will be one less problem to deal with.”

While her mother was plotting, Elizabeth lay staring at the phone debating whether or not to call Zee. She hadn’t seen him since that one night and had never tried to contact him afterward.

She had been conscious enough, even as a teenager, that Bay girls don’t date townies, much less do they get pregnant by them. Her mother had helped her keep the secret and no one had ever known, until last night. (Actually, Elizabeth is wrong here, almost everyone knew, but we’ll let her have her moment.)

“You want advice from me?” Xavier screamed. “After all you’ve done. Do you know we barely had enough for a nursery thanks to you? I know it was you who told everyone not to hire me, did you think that would make me come crawling back?”

Elizabeth started to retreat, her brother had never yelled at her, but changed her mind, “If you would have made better choices, we wouldn’t have had to try to fix your life.”

“Better choices? You’re a joke,” Xavier was disgusted. “You have no idea what makes people happy, that’s why your so miserable. Just get out, I have work to do.”

Late that night, Elizabeth called Zee. Xavier had been right, she didn’t know why he was so happy to live in a crumbling mansion, or why Maleena seemed so content to have that small house in the Heights while she, her father and her mother had everything but were so damn miserable.

‘Maybe they all know something I don’t,’ Elizabeth began to doubt her father for the first time in her life.

“Hi, Zee? It’s Elizabeth…Hello? Hello?”

Once again, Elizabeth wasn’t exactly right.

Her father had been miserable, he just hadn’t realized it until the birth of his new daughter. To celebrate and as an apology for ignoring her during her pregnancy, Francis had whisked his mistress off to his beach house on Twikki Island. Baby Delilah was left home with a nanny to give mom a break.

Francis had been feeling old and decrepit, dreaming of yawning graves and black robed skeletons, but the birth of Delilah changed all that. He saw a chance to try again, to do it right this time and to do that, he realized he would have to change. Over the next three days, he did.

The couple returned to the cold of Rigel Heights. Shelly feared that Francis’ heart would freeze all over again, that the guy she had seen on the beach was just a sun stroke illusion, but she had no reason for concern.

“I’ll be back soon, Shel. Don’t worry,” Francis said tenderly, holding her hand until the taxi driver’s honking became insistent.

Francis arrived home just as Zee and Elizabeth were leaving for their first date. After days of persistent phone calls, Elizabeth had finally convinced him to go out for dinner, just as friends, so they could figure out what they should so about Lydia.

Elizabeth knew Lydia had gone to college, her mother had bought her time to deal with the situation, but she knew something needed to be done. She just wasn’t sure what that something was.

“Pleasure to meet you, young man,” Francis shook Zee’s hand hard, normally a test of manhood, but this time genuine with enthusiasm.

Everyone was surprised, no one more so than Zee who had feared meeting Elizabeth’s father. Catherine realized from the slight sunburn on her husband’s nose where he had gone and thought that was the best thing he could have done, he always came back from Twikki with a new attitude, but usually it never lasted long.

Elizabeth’s date, she was now calling it a date, went extremely well. She had forgotten what it was like to have fun but Zee brought that all back.

Even Mrs. Crumplebottom couldn’t put a damper on her spirits and as she stared in amazement at how hard the old woman could hit, she realized exactly why Xavier was so happy to live in that crumbing mansion.

“So this is it, Francis?” Catherine’s eyes narrowed. When her husband had left with a suitcase again, she knew he wasn’t going to Twikki.

“This is it, Catherine,” Francis didn’t want this confrontation. He was willing to give up the house and Elizabeth in exchange for some peace and quite in his golden years, in exchange for finally being happy.

“You couldn’t have waited 2 more hours until we reached our golden anniversary, could you? That was all I wanted in life and you couldn’t even give me that,” Catherine, who had been holding the glass for some time, finally raised it to her lips.

——-
Notes: Maxine is out of time, she is actually an elder but that picture was laying around and it fit perfectly with the story.

Old age and a great vacation seem to have mellowed Francis. While on the island, he talked to anyone and everyone, something different for this socially maladjusted work-a-holic. Catherine is now all about earning business stars and getting badges, so these two flip flopped personalities.

Elizabeth fell in love with Zee, so we’ll have to see how that goes and poor Xavier’s baby Francis Xavier Mendenhall III didn’t make it in to the update as I had hoped, it just didn’t make sense, but at least he got a mention.

 

Posted on August 29th, 2008 under Mendenhall, Orion Bay. Tags: catherine, elizabeth, francis, Mendenhall, shelly, twikki island, zee. RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback.