Bold and Simful

“Their gardens are always so perfect, their children, their marriage, their money…if they had a dog, it would be perfect too!” Maxine Bettencourt complained to her husband Robert over breakfast. She was referring to the Mendenhalls. Ever since she and her husband had been unceremoniously ejected from Mendenhall Manor for one little remark that wouldn’t have been overheard if the harpie wasn’t eavesdropping to begin with, Maxine had been in competition with her only neighbors.

“I think our yard looks just fine, hon and our marriage is great, so are the girls. Why are you so wrapped up in this rivalry?” Robert was far more easy going, actually he was far more lazy, than his wife. “We can even get a dog if you want and I’ll train it to be perfect,’ Robert half joked to lighten the mood.

“You just don’t get it, if she can manage to be perfect, so can we,” Maxine snarled at the thought of being outdone by her neighbor.

When report card day had arrived at Mendenhall Manor, Elizabeth had gotten new clothes and Xavier a lecture. Maleena Bettencourt would be getting neither. ‘What they don’t know won’t hurt ‘em,‘ she thought as she crumbled her D filled report card.

Robert had been trying to get Catherine Mendenhall and his wife back on speaking terms for days if only to get himself off landscaping duty, so he was pleased to find Catherine standing in their entry hall. He was less pleased when he heard the conversation.

“…likelihood that Maleena will attend Hunter College has become very slim,” a lilting gloat filled Catherine’s voice and her back straightened as Maxine’s shoulders slumped forward. “The admissions officers are exceedingly vigilant about maintaining the academic reputation of the school.”

Catherine paused a moment, then seeing the confusion clearly visible on Maxine’s face, she continued smugly, “I didn’t expect that you would know about her grades. That is why I came over to tell you to encourage her to apply to a few, quite a few, safety schools.”

Catherine turned on her heel and left her neighbor standing stunned.

Upstairs in the bedroom she shared with her sister, Maleena had overheard most of the one-sided conversation below. Going to Sim State University was out of the question, it would mean being with poor people for four years, not to mention a less prestigious diploma and separation from her sister and friends.

A few nights later, exhaustion overwhelmed Maxine and she collapsed at dinner, shocking her daughter Veronica and the rest of the family.

“I know it’s late, but what’s with Mom?” Veronica asked when she finally closed her mouth.

“She’s just tired,” Robert replied, glancing in his wife’s direction with a look of sympathy. He knew that she had been trying for days to get the dean at Hunter to overlook Maleena’s last semester grades but he didn’t want to tell his daughters that they may have to go to different colleges, not when he was so sure that his wife would succeed…she always had before.

“Well, thank you Captain Obvious!” Veronica chided her father and tried to ignore her sleeping mother while the family finished dinner.

Xavier Mendenhall appeared just as Veronica was getting into bed.

“How did you get in here?” she asked, staring blankly. “It’s late, what do you want? If this is about the prom thing, I’m still not…”

“No, no,” he answered hurriedly, “I came up the back stairs, you guys really should lock your doors, but I’m here about my sister. Something is wrong with her and I thought that since you were her best friend, you might know what it was?”

“What do you mean, “wrong with her”?” Veronica asked, but images of Elizabeth being nauseous and suddenly refusing to get changed in the locker room and always taking a nap when she called her to go out, floated into her mind and a sneaking suspicion of “what was wrong” crept in.

Aloud she said, “She’s probably exhausted from studying too much, she’s freaked about getting good grades to please your dad. He is tough on her,” she added to bolster her argument.

“She’s always gotten As and she loves to study, that’s not it,” Xavier was hardly convinced but since he didn’t think he was going to get much else out of Veronica, he left the way he had come in.

Just as her brother was exiting Bendencourt Hall through the servant’s entrance, Elizabeth was wandering by the front of the house. She had been wandering around Orion Bay at night a lot lately, it helped her think and in the position she was in, she needed to do a lot of thinking.

‘Oh, the lights are still on in the dining room, I should stop. I wonder how the girls are doing,‘ Elizabeth thought wistfully, ‘Maybe Mrs. B could help…no! I have to think this through myself.‘ She shook her head as if to clear it and continued into the darkness.

Maxine rubbed the pasta sauce out of her eyes. ‘My god, what time is it?‘ she thought and immediately her mind filled with thoughts of her daughter not getting into Hunter.

She had been calling headmasters, professors and admissions personnel all week long, begging them to overlook her daughter’s faltering grades. “Senioritis”, she had called it, hoping that they would remember their own last semester of high school and the itch to get out that prevented any kind of work from being done.

She had made the long drive to the college to meet with the dean twice in the last three days, only to get a lecture about the need to “maintain high academic standards” and “self-discipline necessary to be a successful Hunter student” Blah, blah, blah.

“Robert, we need to make a large cash donation to Hunter,” Maxine stated simply. After the other night, she was through trying to schmooze these people; money would get the job done and she wouldn’t have to listen to another self-important, puffed up diatribe.

Robert looked up from the hedges that his wife had sent him out to trim in her efforts to keep up with the Mendenhalls. “Sure, how much?”

“Enough to buy off these pretentious bastards, say the cost of a new music arts building,” Maxine smirked, knowing full well that Maleena’s main interest was ballet. She never did anything without getting something in return.

“Write the check, hon,” Robert answered, knowing that she probably already had.

The taxi hadn’t even pulled away before Xavier Mendenhall parked himself at Rec Center’s bar and ordered a drink.

The bartender hesitated, thinking to card the obviously underage young man, but then realized that the kid was a Mendenhall. ‘What’s Richie Rich doing slumming it in Rigel Heights?‘ he wondered as the blender whirled.

Veronica and Maleena arrived a few minutes later and Xavier, full of beer confidence and recalling that Veronica hadn’t thrown him out of her room a few nights before, started hitting on the fairer of the sisters.

“I was watching you on the soccer field, you’re pretty good. I’m not bad myself, I used to be on the school team but I quit last year,” he started, searching for something that they had in common other than his sister.

“Uh huh,” was all Veronica said, she wasn’t sure about Xavier.

“Well, umm…did you want a drink?” Xavier asked.

“Nah, your family drinks a lot, don’t they?” Veronica pointed out.

“A lot? No, just to have a good time,” Xavier searched for something else they had in common, then hit upon Hunter. “You’re going to Hunter in the fall, aren’t you? What are you going to major in?” It may have been a weak conversation starter, but got Veronica talking about her favorite topic…herself and Xavier had no problem listening.

Eventually, just as the cab arrived to take her and her sister home, Veronica surprised Xavier with a kiss and left him standing in front of the building at a loss for words but happier than he had been in days.

Back inside, Xavier was approached by a nefarious man who offered to show him a magic trick. When the man finished the trick, Xavier realized that it was just a distraction and that his wallet was missing. ‘Crap, I can’t believe I fell for that,‘ he stormed at himself, ‘I guess that’s why we aren’t allowed down here, Dad’s going to be pissed when I get home.‘

Without money for cab fare and the girls having already gone home, Xavier began the long walk back to the safe enclave of Orion Bay.

Posted on April 30th, 2008 under Bettencourt. Tags: Bettencourt, maleena, maxine, robert, veronica, xavier. RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback.