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Post by Hanna Squalor on Jul 1, 2007 11:14:49 GMT -5
"What is it that you think you need to talk about. We are very busy people." Esme pointed out.
"You always were. I wanted to tell you that they came past our home. They are looking for the sugar bowl too. I just thought I would tell you, since you yourself hold it so dear."
"Well yes. It is mine after all."
"One would say that it was once but now-"
"It was mine, and still is. No matter what Beatrice says was the greater good. It's mine, it's part of a set." Esme was bitter about that. To this day in a study upstairs there was an incomplete set of silver tea things, all with pink stones decorating their surfaces.
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Post by Jenny on Jul 1, 2007 11:54:08 GMT -5
'When something starts out belonging to you--'
'And gets stolen,' Esme interrupted. 'Technically, it's still yours, isn't it? Just because somebody took it doesn't mean it doesn't rightly belong to you anymore.'
'But if someone stole it to make things better--'
'Then they should have told me that.' Esmé snapped.
There was an uncomfdortable silence.
'Beatrice stole nothing from you, Esmé.' the woman said quietly.
'Of course she did. We've established that. I certainly have.'
The older woman coughed. 'What if the person who stole from you wasn't Beatrice, after all? What if your dear friend did nothing but defend you?'
Esmé was angry now, and Jerome was sheepishly trying to take the phone away before his wife said something awful into it.
'Well, that wasn't the case!'
'Lemony took it.'
Overcrowded, anry and frustrated by what she convinced herself was utter ignorance, Esmé shoved the phone at her husband and threw herself back against the pillows.
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Post by Hanna Squalor on Jul 1, 2007 22:18:48 GMT -5
Somtimes Esme just liked to have a good scream into a cusion. Jerome liked it because that meant she wasn't yelling at him. He took the phone. "I'm sure if this is important she will call you back later." he hung it up and patted Esme's back as if she were explosive.
He dare not ask what was wrong. Learned that the hard way. Instead he played the other card. "Want some ice cream?"
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Post by Jenny on Jul 3, 2007 14:29:10 GMT -5
She glared over her shoulder at him for a moment, but couldn't bear to do anything more after seeing the way he hesitated, smiling at her trustingly.
'No,' she said, but he'd already retrieved it for her, in a small bowl on the table in front of her, waiting.
She was staring up at the ceiling when he looked back at her.
He was desperate to ask what the call had been about, but didn't.
'Do you think you should call her back?'
'No.'
Her reply came too quickly for her to have meant it.
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Post by Hanna Squalor on Jul 4, 2007 16:26:29 GMT -5
Esme ate her ice cream. She looked at it with all the focus she could. Jerome rubbed her knee. "Darling..."
"Yes?"
"Was I a bad person? Or just blind?" she asked.
"You should read my book." he laughed.
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Post by Jenny on Jul 5, 2007 15:01:37 GMT -5
She frowned. 'I don't want to read your book. I certainly don't want to read your impressions of Cynthia and Daniel in a club.'
Jerome laughed before he could help it, and then at her glare patted her arm reassuringly.
'I don't think you were ever a bad person.' he said.
'No,' she said quietly. 'But other people do.'
He hauled himself up onto the sofa beside her. 'Like who?'
'The Baudelaires.'
Again, a laugh escaped him. 'Well,' he grinned. 'That is rather understandable.'
'Kit's daughter will.'
'True. Because the Baudelaire's will tell her.'
'Justice-bloody-Strauss thinks I'm the devil incarnate.'
Jerome was laughing heartedly now, as Charles re-entered the room.
'What are we laughing about?' he nosed.
'Whether I'm a bad person or just...stupid.'
'...Is there an option for both?'
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Post by Hanna Squalor on Jul 5, 2007 16:24:55 GMT -5
Esme flicked ice cream at him. "Jerk." she said with a laugh as he wiped it off his face.
"Well I personally think that Olaf swayed you when you were a teenager. The only fault of yours was to not get out a long time ago." Charles tutted, serving a tray of tea.
"I was under a lot of pressure. I couldn't live out on the street." Esme defended.
"You lived with me for years. You could have left him then." Jerome suggested.
"Well I was Under a lot of surveillance and threat..." Esme tried. It was true. Olaf was just a player in a much bigger game.
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Post by Jenny on Jul 8, 2007 4:54:38 GMT -5
'These sound a lot like excuses to me, I must say,' Charles interjected, met immediately with a stony glare.
'They aren't,' she insisted. 'I would have gotten out if I could have.'
'Liar,' Charles accused. 'You never would have left, not with money and fame-- infamy-- on the table. You couldn't have left the promises, or the people that made them to you. It's called Stockholm Syndrome. Or greed.'
'No,' she insisted, almost angry. 'Wouldn't it have been easier for me to stay with Jerome? Don't you think, if it was my choice, I could have stayed in a luxurious apartment with a man who regularly made me pancakes?'
'No, I don't.' Charles said. 'You loved Olaf, and the adventure more than you would ever love the safe life and the safe husband that came with it.'
'That's not fair,' she snapped. 'And what do you know about it anyway? We'd barely met until a few weeks ago, after it was all over anyway.'
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Post by Hanna Squalor on Jul 9, 2007 20:08:38 GMT -5
"We may have met weeks ago. But I've read his book!" Charles hollard.
"His book is biased. Sorry honey." She added.
She and Charles stood face to face now.
"Well you could have. Olaf tricked you. You made no decisions. He tricked you. You loved Jerome. But you loved Olaf more." Charles said quietly. "Otherwise you would have never left the note." He added.
"What?"
"The note! The Note! the note you left when you left town with Olaf. If you really hadn't cared you would never have taken the time to leave a good bye note."
"I didn't leave a note." Esme said, confusion in her eyes.
"You didn't?" Jerome suddenly asked.
"No." Esme was being honest.
"You mean the note isn't from you?" He sounded hurt.
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Post by Jenny on Jul 10, 2007 15:13:45 GMT -5
She thought of lying, but knew she couldn't, couldn't take it back after such rampant insistance.
She coughed. 'Well...no. Why, what did it say?'
Charles answered for Jerome, quickly. 'It said--'
Jerome interrupted immediately. 'Charles never actually saw the note, I might add. It said something about how you wished you could stay longer, wished things could have been different.'
'Was it from the Brat--um, Baudelaires?' she enquired.
Jerome laughed. 'No. It had your name at the end. Besides, it had no 'we' in it. It was definitely from you.'
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Post by Hanna Squalor on Jul 11, 2007 11:15:38 GMT -5
"Well.....Olaf might have..... you know, incase he ever needed to use you again." Esme answered. "Sorry." she added quietly.
"Well..I suppose I can just throw it away then..." Jerome said, thinking out loud.
"You kept it?" Charles and Esme said in unison.
"Why?" Esme asked. She felt bad that Olaf would do that, and Jerome would have believed it.
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Post by Jenny on Jul 11, 2007 15:39:43 GMT -5
Jerome flushed down to the collar of his shirt. 'It was the only thing you lefdt me. Aside from the clothes, and they weren't any great reminders of you, not to me. I thought you might come back, if I could find you from it.'
Her eyes were sad, suddenly.
'You never would have,' she said quietly.
He folded his arms. 'I know.' he said after a moment.
She looked own suspiciously. 'What did Olaf write? What did he say?'
Jerome didn't find it funny, but Esmé and Charles could feel a slight smile creeping on. It was a bit sick Olaf could write her feelings for her towards her own husband. She hoped he hadn't said anything too embarassing.
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Post by Hanna Squalor on Jul 13, 2007 9:33:00 GMT -5
"You wrote that...HE wrote that you loved me but you were needed else where and that you would always love and adore me. He said...that no one had ever made you feel.....quite so... "
"So what?" They both asked.
"Filled. Happy." Jerome said. Esme and charles were hiding the giggles. "It wasn't mean that way you-"
"Did he use the word filled?"
"....no...."
"You lie." Charles laughed.
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Post by Jenny on Jul 13, 2007 11:45:45 GMT -5
Esme was trying to contain her giggles unsucessfully. Jerome did look quite genuinely upset that she hadn't left him any note when she left.
'I'm sorry he wrote that,' she said, trying sincerity, but it all came out strained and threaded with quiet little laughs.
'So am I.'
A thought struck her. 'Is that why you forgave me so readily? Because you thought I left you an apology note?'
He nodded. 'Well, partly. And you were wearing lettuce at the time.'
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Post by Hanna Squalor on Jul 14, 2007 13:04:38 GMT -5
"Well wait here, I'll go put on some produce and then you can forgive me again." She when to leave but he stopped her.
"We're out of lettuce, and I need the baby carrots and broccoli for supper." Jerome laughed now.
"I could stand to not eat vegetables off of Esme." Charles went off to finish his cleaning.
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