Bold and Simful

Monday morning, Catherine Mendenhall saw her two children off to school and her husband off to work as usual and stared ahead to another day alone in the family’s large, rambling mansion once again.

Barely had she gotten to the veranda when Robert Bettencourt called her name.

“I must, sincerely apologize for my wife’s comment the other day. She never meant to offend you or your home, sometimes she speaks without thinking,” Robert fumbed for the right words to make things right with his only neighbor.

“You mean she speaks without editing her comments, so she says what she means!” Catherine refused to accept any explanation and folded her arms defensively across her chest. It was one thing to hear rumors about what people said, but it was an entirely different manner to actually overhear snide comments from a guest in your own home.

Robert left, hopeless that anything could be done to repair the relationship.

After her conversation with Robert, Catherine decided that she needed deserved a stiff drink. ‘So what if it’s early, I need to settle my nerves,‘ she reasoned. But one drink led to two, then two to three and Catherine awoke from her nap on the couch when she heard the school bus.

Checking her breath, she ran outside to greet her children.

As usual, Elizabeth had earned congratulations and very likely her father already had a reward in mind. But over her daughter’s shoulder, Catherine noticed her son hanging his head. Report card day rarely went well for Xavier and Catherine wished desperately that she could stop the lecture that she knew was coming Xavier’s way.

That very evening, the lecture began as both Catherine and Xavier had known it would. It had begun in daylight hours but managed to be rekindled every time Francis passed by his son.

By now the hour had grown late, and the lecture tedious to young Xavier who struggled to keep his mouth shut. All the questions were rhetorical, Xavier had learned that long ago but sometimes it was damn difficult not to come back with a smart-ass answer, especially when it was the same question for the fourth or fifth time.

Finally Xavier, just gave in, “You are absolutely right,” he said, scratching his neck and feigning a moment of illumination, “What’s an extra hour a day? That’s all it would really take to earn the A’s that would make you happy.” ‘and get you off my ass,‘ Xavier added silently.

“It’s not to make me happy, son,” Francis’ tone changed in light of his son’s capitulation and even though he had already won the argument, he went on to explain how academic achievement was actually all for Xavier’s benefit.

Francis arrived home from work the next afternoon, satisfied that he had finally gotten through to his progeny. He fully expected that his children were upstairs studying and was slightly preoccupied with a take-over deal that Mendenhall Enterprises was structuring, when his son’s voice caught his ear.

“Why not Maleena? You’d have a great time with me. We could rent a limo and go to Twikki Island afterward” Xavier questioned his sister’s best friend. Maleena didn’t have a date for the prom and neither did Xavier so he couldn’t see why she would turn him down.

“Well, I guess, I… uh… hadn’t planned on going, but…well, yeah, ok!” Maleena warmed to the idea, she didn’t find Xavier attractive at all but a trip to Twikki Island sounded like a great way to end the school year. “We could all go together, you, me, Veronica, Elizabeth and their dates!”

Francis came rushing through from the hallway and elbowed his way between his son and the Bettencourt girl. “Maleena, it’s time for you to go, your father just called for you.”

“I didn’t hear the phone,” Xavier responded instantly.

“Well, it did,” Francis’ tone was final. “Goodbye Maleena.”

Frustrated, Xavier stalked upstairs and Maleena and her sister Veronica left to go home and find out why their father had called for them.

After the Bettencourt girls left, the house grew quiet. Catherine was sleeping again, a bit early but she had begged off dinner claiming a headache, and when Francis went in search of his children to make sure they had completed their homework, he was pleasantly surprised to find them improving themselves with a mentally stimulating game of chess.

‘Good, good,‘ he thought to himself, ‘Elizabeth is such a good influence on Xavier and heaven knows the boy needs it. He must have inherited the Wingate genes.‘

“Good night, Father,” the children called in unison when Francis bit them good night and went off to his own room with a book from the study.

“So here’s the deal, I go with Maleena, you and Elizabeth take who ever, we all skip the prom entirely and go to our family’s beach house on Twikki Island. What do you think?” Xavier let Veronica in on his plans for prom night.

“I am not getting all dressed up to pretend to go to the prom. Who will see me on Twikki Island? How will my pic make it in the school paper if I’m not at the prom? That’s just stupid,” Veronica protested. “Here’s a better plan, we go to the prom then go to the Island.”

Elizabeth watched the debate before her. She hoped desperately that the whole plan would fall apart before she had to admit to not having a date. She was too busy studying and maintaining her scholarships to bother socializing with boys. Well there was one boy, but they had only been out a few times and he hadn’t asked her to prom yet.

“Hey, how do you plan to get the keys to the beach house?” she proposed to her brother, hoping to throw a wrench in his plan.

“You’re not even sure you can get the keys? What are we going to do, break in?” Veronica crossed her arms over her chest, “This plan gets dumber every minute.”

“Can you believe that? Like I’d get all dressed up to let no one see me,” Veronica huffed after Xavier wandered off to practice piano before his music tutor arrived.

“Yeah, pretty stupid,” Elizabeth sighed.

“Hey, what’s wrong with you lately? You haven’t been yourself, what’s up?” Veronica asked, forgetting about the prom situation and becoming concerned for her friend who lay sprawled on the sofa looking depressed and to be honest, a bit green.

“Nothing, just a flu bug, I guess,” Elizabeth hopped up and clutched her stomach, reeling as a round of nausea hit her. “You better go, Veronica, I don’t feel very well. I think I’m going to go to bed and see if I feel better in the morning.”

Veronica shut the front door quietly behind herself and sincerely hoped that her friend looked better by prom night.

Posted on April 28th, 2008 under Mendenhall. Tags: catherine, elizabeth, francis, maleena, Mendenhall, robert, veronica, xavier. RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback.