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Post by Jenny on May 27, 2009 3:32:43 GMT -5
Fernald lay a hook on the edge of Esmé's sleeve as a sort of comfort. He was sorry now for ever forcing her to mention something she hadn't wanted to--there had to be a reason, after all, that she'd left out such a substantial section of her life and experiences, though it was not the reason he'd at first speculated.
Esmé sniffed once, and then looked up to see Emma standing, frozen, in the doorway.
"Thank you for getting my root beer for me, darling," she said, as if the whole scene had not just occured. Klaus Baudelaire was still sitting stiff and shocked in his seat, his dark eyes wide. But nobody else moved. Emma had known her mother long enough to know when she was upset, no matter how she tried to hide it, and she could see now that her mother had been on the verge of tears. She turned furiously towards Mr Baudelaire, who she'd so liked until very recently.
"She's ill," Emma said furiously. "My stepfather won't be pleased to hear you've upset her!"
Klaus didn't look like that frightened him much--since when had Jerome Squalor been a frightening figure?--but he did feel a little indignant. He had only asked a simple question, after all, and he had no way of knowing that this woman had such a softer side.
"Emma, stop it," said her mother. "Don't talk to Mr Baudelaire like that."
"But--!"
"We were just talking, Em," she said, Fernald sitting uselessly by her side. "You shouldn't jump to such conclusions."
Emma didn't feel it was particualrly fair that she be so strictly reprimanded for sticking up for her mother, and she handed Esmé the root beer and then stubbornly folded her arms over her chest to sulk.
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Post by Emma “Emmz” Squalor on May 27, 2009 12:13:35 GMT -5
“Thank you, sweetheart,” Esmé said, and unscrewed the cap of her root beer. Motioning with her hand to the bottle of cold medicine on the nightstand, she added: “Would you be a dear and measure out a teaspoon of medicine for me?” Though she didn’t say a word, Emma did as her mother requested. Afterward, she handed Esmé the tiny plastic measuring cup containing the medicine. “What were you talking about while I was gone?” Emma asked, as Esmé pinched her nose before tossing down the red liquid. Before answering her daughter’s question, the financial advisor took a large gulp of root beer. “Nothing,” Esmé said. “It isn’t important.” “If it isn’t important, then why were you crying?” “I wasn’t—” Fernald could tell by the words being exchanged between Esmé and Emma that their conversation was headed for a downfall. “Emma,” the hook-handed man said. “Would you go downstairs and tell Faust that it’s time for bed? She was in the game room with Sunny and Beatrice the last time I saw her.” Emma looked as though she wasn’t quite ready to leave her mother, but Esmé nodded encouragingly. “Go and do as Mr. Widdershins asks,” she said. “But—” Emma started. “I’ll be fine.” Emma didn’t appear as though she completely agreed with that statement, but didn’t want to make a scene in front of Mr. Widdershins and Mr. Baudelaire. And so, going against all of her better judgments, Emma left the room. *** To cheer herself up, Emma decided to take the stairs— though it wasn’t in the usual way one would expect another to take the stairs. Remembering all her stepfather had taught her, she positioned herself at the top of the railing. Though the distance wasn’t as far down as that of the spiral staircase at 667 Dark Avenue, it was far enough. Gripping the wooden surface tightly with her hands, Emma made sure that her feet were close together and then began the swift descent to the bottom. From the staircase she could see the front desk, along with the two front doors. Just before she reached the bottom, they swung open to reveal Jerome. Emma practically stumbled off the banister in her attempt to reach her stepfather, who smiled and waved to her.
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Post by Jenny on May 27, 2009 14:25:24 GMT -5
"Hello, Emma," said Jerome, even as his stepdaughter ungracefully tumbled from the banister and landed on her knees. He had a couple of bags with him that he hadn't since he'd left, and Emma noticed her mother's antibiotics in his left hand.
"Mother was upset," she blurted, an then regretted it when she saw Jerome's face fall. But he needed to know, and she hated to think that Esmé might ot mention it if she thought it too silly. "But she wouldn't tell me why. She didn't look cross with Mr Widdershins or Mr Baudelaire, but she must have been, otherwise what reason could she have for crying?"
Jerome cursed himself for thinking everything was going to be fine while he was out.
"Alright," he said tiredly, as if he really wished for a moment either that people could keep their words to themselves or that his wife could become a little thicker skinned. "I'll go up now and check on her. You can go and spend some more time with your friends if you like."
It was already dark, but Emma didn't mention that. She nodded, kissed her stepfather on one of his chubby cheeks while no-one was looking (she was a teenager, after all, and that wasn't cool) and then turned to find Beatrice and Sunny.
"Em, wait," Jerome called before she could dash off. He set his bags down, and then reached for one of them specifically. It was baby pink and had come from the In Boutique, and Emma grinned. "You know I don't have a clue about clothes, so I haven't tried to pick something," he said. "But you deserved something nice for being such a good help all weekend when sometimes you could have been with your friends."
Emma didn't bother telling him it had been no trouble. She took the bag she was being offered and broke the seal holding the top.
"Now, you don't even have to tell me if you don't like it," he said. "Because I didn't pay for it with my credit card, and I've asked for them to put the reciept inside. That way, if you like, you can go back with your mother and choose something nicer."
But Emma was no longer listening. She brought out from inside the various levels of gift wrap a box, and inside that light pink box she found a beautiful long aqua blue necklace that matched her eyes in the light.
The very prospect tahts he might have wated to take it back was far from her mind, and she rushed forwards to give her stepfather a big hug (not caring who was watching that time), and grinned up at him.
"Thank you!" she cried, and then gave him a kiss on both cheeks and scurried away.
~
Jerome had forced himself to take the stairs, thinking it was the first step to losing a few stone, and so by the time he arrived at the door to his and his wife's suite he was panting, red and out of breath, and so when he lay a hand on the door he was forced to pause a moment.
And he heard voices conversing from within. "But it had been years since I'd seen Bertrand by then," his wife was saying. "And so it shouldn't have hurt, but it did. I'd been such good friends with them both at least that not to invite me to their wedding I felt was a little...nasty of them both. But I suppose by then your mother and I had experienced our own difficulties getting along with each other.
And the very afternoon I heard about that, I found out I was pregnant. At first I was delighted--I knew I was only quite young, but I always thought deep down that I could be a mother, and one I knew for sure I really warmed to the idea. I suppose I wanted more than anything to give my child maybe something I had eventually been deprived when I was eleven.
And, as I'm sure you can imagine, Olaf was less than delighted with the idea. I'd known it wouldn't be his idea of a dream come true, but I'd been foolish enough to hope that he'd humour me and allow me to keep the child as long as I kept it out of his way and it didn't interfere with his questionable social life. But I had no such luck--Olaf was immediately very, very adamant that the best thing to do was to "get rid of it." And thoug I tried my best to convince him, tried my best to insist, in the end I had no power over that man, and in reality at the time I felt as though the idea of doing anything that he didn't want me to do was frightening and unwise. And the moment he showed event he first signs of lashing out, I gave in. I know it must sound terrible now to you, knowing that when you met me I could have afforded to look after a hundred children independent of Olaf, but my only excuse is that I'd been taught for years that I was nothing without him, right from when he agreed to adopt me through to the incident in the Hotel Denouement years later.
And so I did as he said. I went and had the abortion he wanted me to have, and then I came home and I sobbed and sobbed. Olaf had celeverly engineered it so that by the time I arrived back from the clinic he'd be gone for three weeks with his troupe, so that he wouldn't have to deal with me. And though, at the time, I couldn't have invisioned a worse situation--I was alone, I was severely depressed and I didn't have any way I could see of getting out--I realize now that no matter how terrible it was, I was provided with the opportunity to escape the situation in the form of Fernald Widdershins."
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Post by Emma “Emmz” Squalor on May 27, 2009 15:25:58 GMT -5
[Jerome’s gift to Emma was so lovely, and the most perfect fatherly gesture. ] Jerome remembered back to the previous year when Esmé had first revealed the truth of her abortion to him. It was just before Olaf had kidnapped her, and she had felt so sad and guilty over something that people do all the time. Jerome longed to burst through the door and comfort his wife. But he worried if he did, then she would halt her discussion and perhaps not even care to finish it even after the two of them were alone together. Perhaps it would be best to simply wait. “I was working part-time at Mulctuary Money Management,” Esmé continued, “and the rest of the time I was attending business school. Fernald had recently gotten a job at a local supermarket, and so we decided to use our finances to escape to Britain. “Because my job was only part-time, and because Olaf forced me to hand over half of my pay to him every week, Fernald and I both knew it would be a long time before we had enough. And so I did the only thing I could: I lied to Olaf, giving him not half but ten percent of what I earned on a weekly basis. “I stored the money in a hole inside the mattress of my old bedroom. Since I was Olaf’s girlfriend, I had no use for my old bedroom, and no one ever went in there anyway. It was drafty— especially in the wintertime, due to a broken window and busted radiator. “Six months passed before Fernald and I had enough money to make our getaway. Even now, twenty-four years later, I remember every detail so, so clearly. He’d promised to wait for me in the tower behind Olaf’s house— Olaf had told me he would be away until the following morning, which gave Fernald and me the perfect opportunity. Grabbing my suitcase, I left the house for what I thought would be the final time and made my way to the backyard. “When I arrived at the tower, I pushed open the door and made my way up the stairs. When I arrived at the top, there was Fernald— along with Olaf and Flacutono. “I screamed, and Olaf ordered Flacutono to grab me. I tumbled down the stairs trying to escape, and twisted my ankle. From behind me, I could hear Fernald yelling at Flacutono not to hurt me, followed by what I expect was Olaf striking Fernald. Flacutono dragged me back up the stairs by my hair and then threw me to the floor so that Olaf could tie my wrists to a chair. “The next thing I knew, he was ordering Flacutono to take Fernald outside to the car and wait. As soon as I heard the door of the tower slam, I knew at once that my chances of escaping with Fernald were lost. “From behind his back, I watched as Olaf drew out a pair of hedge trimmers. I screamed, and struggled to loosen my wrists from the chair. But he hardly noticed— or seemed not to —and instead moved forward. He snatched me up by the hair, and seconds later I felt the pressure of the hedge trimmers moving through it. Blinded by tears, I fell to the floor the moment he sliced through the final few strands of my once long hair. “‘No man will ever look at you the same way again,’” he hissed, and tossed what was left of my hair on top of me. ‘Now that you’re ugly.’“He left with Flacutono and Fernald after that, leaving me to suffer and shiver through the night all alone. I didn’t have any human contact until the following night, when Tocuna and Flo— or as you once knew them, the two white-faced woman—came to give me dinner. When I asked them about Fernald, they merely shook their heads before shuffling back out the door.”
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Post by Jenny on May 31, 2009 5:22:48 GMT -5
Jerome's forehead rested against the door as he listened, his breathing strictly regulated so that nobody on the other side would hear him. He longed more than anything to burst in and throw his arms around his wife, but he knew too well that his appearance would mean that nobody would ever know the conclusion to the story.
For a moment he didn't hear anything, and though he couldn't see it, his wife had laid her hand over Fernald's forearm just before his hook began, and comfortingly squeezed. Then Fernald cleared his throat, and for the first time began to tell some of the story from his side.
"I think I was unconscious for a lot of the drive out to the Finite Forest," Fernald said hoarsely. "I don't remember any of it, at least, until Olaf was pulling up somewhere at a break in the trees. I could see that Olaf and Flacutono were in the front of the car, and I could see that they were discussing something, but I couldn't hear anything until I heard the doors either side of me open, and one of them dragged me out of the backseat of Olaf's car. I was still dizzy, but I remember being convinced that they were going to kill me, and beginning to attempt to fight back like I had done in the tower, even if it was to no avail. It all happened too quickly for me to think about it in too much depth, but I remember being angry that I hadn't thought our escape through well enough. I had no idea what had happened to Esmé after Flacutono had taken me out to the car--I was only aware that I'd heard her scream before we'd set off--and I couldn't help but hate myself for slipping up somewhere so that Olaf was able to guess our plans."
Esmé couldn't stop herself from interrupting. "But it wasn't you," she said. "You didn't slip up, remember? Olaf found the money in the mattress and put the pieces together. I was the one keeping it there, not you."
Fernald said nothing, but it was clear that whatever Esmé had to say was not going to change his view over which one of them was to blame.
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Post by Emma “Emmz” Squalor on May 31, 2009 13:18:41 GMT -5
“I had no idea that the two of you had endured something so traumatic,” Klaus admitted. “I suppose that it never occurred to my sisters or me, because we’d always seen you as nothing but…” He stopped, realizing how uncouth the remainder of his words would come off sounding.
“Villains,” Esmé finished, and Klaus looked shamefully away. “No, Mr. Baudelaire. You’re absolutely correct in your assumption. Even though the experiences of Fernald and I matched those of you and your siblings, it doesn’t change the fact that we were villains ourselves.”
“That fire transformed us all,” Klaus said. “Not just you and Fernald, but my sisters and me. We were never quite the same afterward— it was as if our souls had been burned along with those who had perished.”
A knock at the door interrupted him, and Esmé’s eyes snapped toward it. “That’s probably Jerome,” she said, and grinned as if the miserable conversation had never taken place. “Come in.”
The door pushed forward, revealing the pink-faced, slightly worn out billionaire. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” he said.
“Not at all.”
Jerome turned to smile at the two men. “Thank you, for sacrificing your evening to stay with my wife.”
“It was our pleasure, Jerome,” Fernald assured him. “You know that you never have to worry about requesting assistance from me— all you have to do is ask for it.”
“If you don’t need anything else,” Klaus added, “then I suppose I’ll leave.”
Esmé was just about to assure him that he didn’t need to do that, but then Fernald spoke up.
“I’m going back to my room,” he said, “to see if Faust has turned up yet. If not, then I’d like to go fetch her before it gets too late.”
“Alright,” Esmé said, and only now remembered that she was still holding tightly to the hook-handed man’s arm. She let go, hoping that Jerome hadn’t noticed.
Fernald patted Esmé’s shoulder, and then headed for the door with Klaus. On their way out, they each smiled at Jerome.
“I missed you,” Esmé said, as her husband closed the door. “Was there a long line at the pharmacy?”
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Post by Jenny on May 31, 2009 14:47:04 GMT -5
It worried Jerome a little that his wife was so capable suddenly of turning off her emotions after telling such a heartwrenching story, and turn back towards him as if nothing at all had happened in the room before he'd supposedly returned. Jerome would have frowned at seeing that his wife's hand had been gripping Fernald Widdershins' arm, but after they'd had to explain that story to Klaus he didn't blame her for it.
"The traffic was fairly bad," he admitted. "But there was next to nobody in the pharmacy."
His wife nodded, and he laid the medicine he'd gotten her on their bedside table before kissing her on her (warm) forehead. "I think I'm going to start packing all of our things," he said. "We're leaving tomorrow, and everything's still scattered all around the room. I'd better tell Emma--"
"--I already told Emma to pack," Esmé said. "She wants to go out on the lake tomorrow with Beatrice, and I said there'd be time as long as she packed beforehand."
Then she turned her gaze towards her hands. "I know I don't like Kit Snicket much," she said. "And I know I never will. But I can'r help but feel it's a shame I haven't gotten to know eveyone better, particularly Fiona and Sunny and Beatrice, because I didn't wrong them too badly years ago, although I doubt Fiona has fond memories of me. I know Klaus and Violet mustn't think much of me, but from talking to Klaus I realize that he at least does not hold as much of a grudge against me as I would have thought."
She knew that this as much as everything else was a reflection on his character. Klaus and Violet Baudelaire had always been noble--even if sometimes the line had been forced to blur during their hardship--and they still were, which explained why they of all people had immediately believed in Esmé's and Fernald's capability to change.
~
Colette had just shut the door behind Faust--finally allowing her to find Emma--when five minutes aftwerwards her husband appeared with their daughter dragging her feet behind him.
"What are you doing?" Colette asked. "I told Faust she as allowed to go and find Emma now."
Fernald looked back at her like she had three heads. "Lette," he said. "It's basically dark out. I'm not going to let Faust out when it's dark and she can't see anything, especially with the pond and the lake and the road outside."
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Post by Emma “Emmz” Squalor on May 31, 2009 16:28:41 GMT -5
“Faust,” Colette said. “You told me that Emma was somewhere inside the hotel.”
“I said I thought she might be,” Faust corrected her mother firmly. “But Daddy dragged to me back upstairs before I could get a real good look around.”
“That’s because it’s late, sweetheart,” Fernald explained patiently to his daughter. “And it’s time you were in bed.”
“But I’m not tired.”
“You’ve been awake since five-thirty this morning,” Colette reminded Faust. “You’ll sleep well tonight.”
Faust knew there was no way she was going to force her parents to change their minds. With her head drooped, she turned and shuffled away toward the door that led into her attached bedroom.
“She’s growing up fast,” Colette said with a smile. “She wants to do all the things children Emma’s age do. Pretty soon Faust is going to be begging us to let her wear makeup to school.”
Fernald couldn’t help but shudder at the thought. Faust was going to be twelve the following year, which would take her one step closer to her teenage years. He was hoping she might be like Esmé had been at that age: soft-spoken and polite. Colette had been more or less the same way, but shy and reserved, and unwilling to involve herself in conversation unless asked. Fernald himself had been nothing short of a problem child, having disobeyed his parents on several occasions and even broken into a few houses. Of course, his transition from public to boarding school had changed all that, and he quickly straightened out.
There was no telling who Faust would grow up to be like, and secretly both of her parents were hoping for her to develop into her own person.
“We have a few more years until we need to start worrying about that,” Fernald said, and wrapped his arms around his wife. “Let’s not worry about it until the time comes, alright?”
“She can’t stay our little girl forever, you know,” Colette pointed out. “She’s a tomboy now, but what are you going to do the day she becomes interested in boys?”
Fernald just shrugged. He really didn’t want to be thinking about any of this, let alone discussing it.
“Leave it alone, ‘Lette,” he said gently. “For now, let’s just leave well enough alone.”
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Post by Jenny on Jun 1, 2009 11:16:27 GMT -5
He always seemed to want to ignore things. Colette knew her husband only abruptly ended conversations when he was finding the topic of them upsetting or when he felt he had something to hide from her, but lately she hadn't been sure which was which half of the time. Colette, who often found that discussing problems was the best way to fix them--often found her husband's insistence on silence nothing short of irritating.
"Well, we're going to have to talk about it one day, Fernald," she said, and folded her arms over her chest, and then stretched to see if they would stretch around her without her having to dislocate any of her joints. Luckily they wouldn't. "You know I hate it when you just stop talking."
"I just don't want to talk about it anymore," Fernald patiently responded. "It's not going to happen tomorrow, Colette. We have years yet."
Colette huffed. "You think that now," she said, and turned away. "But I recall you saying something similar about the bills, and look how that's gotten?"
The corners of Fernald's dark eyes flinched. "Colette," he said. "You've got a new job. It's not a problem anymore. If we combine what we get paid now, we can afford whatever we want, within reason."
"I'm a cashier, Fernald," Colette reminded, and went to curl up near the window where the last rays of the Sun were fading outside. "I'm not running the bank. I'm probably earning less than you are, especially because I'm new and I can't work that stupid computer. They're probably going to pay me peanuts at the end of the month." She sighed, and when her husband failed to reply, moved on. "But it isn't that," she said, and it wasn't. Fernald spent enough nights unable to sleep for worry of how they were going to pay their bills, and he didn't need to be made to feel worse about it. "It's just that every time there's an issue, you avoid it. You avoid talking about Faust growing up, you avoid talking about paying the bills, you avoided talking yesterday about why Faust throwing one of her tantrums upset you so much."
Fernald shrugged, his large shoulders coming up to rest near his ears. He was frowning. "That's because I didn't want to talk about it," he said gruffly. "It wasn't important, Colette."
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Post by Emma “Emmz” Squalor on Jun 1, 2009 12:18:42 GMT -5
In all her fourteen years, Emma Squalor had never regretted her decision to grow her fingernails long like her mother’s. But as the young actresses’ fingers slipped for the third time from around the pool stick in her hands, she realized that looking fashionable wasn’t everything.
“What’s wrong?” Beatrice asked.
“I can’t seem to hold the stick,” Emma replied, exasperated. “It keeps slipping.”
“Did you wash your hands after dinner?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe it’s your nails,” Sunny said. She eyed Emma’s long fingernails, which were painted cotton-candy pink. “If you cut them, then it would probably be a lot easier for you to hold the stick.”
The very idea that anyone would suggest to Emma that she cut her nails was so abysmal that it caused her to drop the stick onto the table. The instrument fell with a loud clatter against the wooden edge, and she smiled nervously as she turned to her friends.
“There’s no way I’m ever going to be doing that,” she said stubbornly. She held up her hands, as if doing so would help emphasize her point.
“You could scratch someone’s eyes out with those,” Beatrice pointed out.
“Yeah, like Davey Foxworth. I wouldn’t mind scratching that little cakesniffer’s eyes out the next time he calls me ‘Eyebrow’.”
“Davey likes you. I’ll bet that’s why he’s always teasing you.”
“Oh, Beatrice, don’t be absurd,” Emma said. “He’s just an obnoxious little twerp like all the boys at Prufrock Prep.”
“Maybe,” replied Beatrice. “But that doesn’t mean he isn’t interested in you.”
Rolling her eyes, Emma seated herself on the edge of the pool table. “Even if he is, I’d never be interested in the likes of him. His parents are members of the same country club as my grandmother and uncle, who’ve both described the Foxworths as nothing more than ‘upper class snobs’. Besides, I’ve already got my eye on someone.”
“Oh?” Sunny asked.
“And who might he be?” inquired Beatrice.
Emma blushed, and then swung herself down from the pool table. She twirled, her long ebony hair swinging in unison with the necklace Jerome had given her.
“Walter Dali,” Emma said, her grin broadening at the revelation of her sweetheart’s name.
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Post by Jenny on Jun 1, 2009 14:59:40 GMT -5
Beatrice's rosebud mouth fell open. "I know him!" she cried, as though Emma did not already know this. Her sweetness was her charm, and for once Emma didn't feel the need to point out that she'd stated the obvious. "Do you really like Walter Dali?"
She had tried not to, but Emma had seen her turn up her nose just a little when she imagined Walter. She pretended not to notice, and she really didn't mind all that much--Walter Dali was no oil painting, and that wasn't why she liked him. He had always been her childhood sweetheart, and she liked him most for his kindness and wit, not for his round glasses and slightly long face. When she had told her mother that these were the reasons she liked him and not for any other, Esmé had promptly burst into tears and reminded her of how proud she was of her little girl "Who is far more grown up than her mother ever was!"
"Yes," Emma replied. "Walter Dali. I've known him since I was a toddler, since we both first joined the same nursery. His parents and mine were good friends, and so we spent a lot of time together when we were little."
"Well, does he know you've got a crush on him?" Beatrice asked, and Sunny looked at them like they were very immature indeed. Obviously being fifteen was very different to being fourteen. "Or does he just think you're friends?"
"I don't know yet," Emma answered honestly. "But it doesn't really matter. We've been very good friends for years and years, and I certainly don't mind it staying that way."
~
Faust let out a frustrated sigh, and forcibly pressed the palms of her hands against her bedroom door to open it. Her parents were arguing-- again-- and she didn't think she could put up with it another minute longer.
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Post by Emma “Emmz” Squalor on Jun 1, 2009 17:13:44 GMT -5
“Honestly, Fernald,” Colette said. “You and your avoidance of key issues are no different from Jerome Squalor and his dislike of arguing.”
“Don’t be silly, Colette,” said her husband. “I’m nothing like Jerome Squalor.”
“In looks, perhaps. But when it comes to character, the two of you could pass for twins.”
“I fail to see how—”
The sound of Faust’s bedroom door opening snapped the Widdershins out of their discussion (or argument, rather). They turned to see their eleven-year-old daughter staring back at them with wide, questioning eyes, at which point their own settled once more on one another.
“You were fighting again,” Faust asserted. “Weren’t you?”
“Of course not, darling,” Colette answered quickly. “We were just talking.”
“But I could hear you all the way inside my bedroom, even with the door closed.”
“Then our voices must have carried,” Fernald stressed. “The two rooms are attached.”
But Faust would hear none of it. “Were you fighting about me?” she asked.
Fernald and Colette exchanged another look, their faces falling. This wasn’t the first time Faust had asked them this question, as she always seemed to think of herself as the cause of her parents’ arguments. Even though that was rarely the case, it didn’t stop the little girl from worrying that they would get a divorce and it would be all her fault.
“There’s this boy in my class,” Faust began meekly. “Billy McGuiness. His parents started fighting, and now they’re getting a divorce.” As she spoke, Faust began to unconsciously pick once more at the skin around her fingernails. “Mommy, Daddy: are you gonna get a divorce like Billy’s parents?”
It took Colette and Fernald a moment or two to grasp the significance of what Faust was saying. True, the Widdershins did argue on occasion, but that didn’t mean their arguments were grounds for any eventual divorce.
Or were they perhaps arguing more often than they realized?
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Post by Jenny on Jun 5, 2009 9:04:15 GMT -5
"No," answered Fernald quickly, but then he looked at his wife wringing her hands together. She was considering it--perhaps not the process itself, but considering whether they needed to seperate. He couldn't have thought of anything more ridiculous, and it hurt him to think that Colette had though, even for a second, that it might be a good idea. "Faust, of course we aren't. Your mother and I have to have discussions about things sometimes, and sometimes we might end up arguing. But that doesn't mean we love each other any less, or that either of us love you any less, or that we're going to ever seperate because sometimes we have our arguments."
Colette nodded, but she still seemed to be thinking something over, and that in itself worried Fernald immensely. "Everyone has some arguments, Faust," she told her daughter. "Sometimes you have to argue. It's part of what makes relationships successful sometimes."
"I've never seen Mr and Mrs Squalor arguing," Faust argued. "And nobody ever told me that having arguments all the time was a good thing."
Of course Mr and Mrs Squalor don't argue, Colette thought, and thought back to Jerome's dislike of arguing and Esmé's constant worry of upsetting him. Colette had never thought that the perfect way to be, but yet again, Esmé never seemed to have anything she wanted to argue with her husband over. They didn't even have to think about the bills or their house, or ever worry about the security of their jobs (especially as Jerome didn't have one, and Esmé was well respected within hers), or worry about whether Emma would be able to cope with her schoolwork and other children teasing her. But now, as she looked down at her hands, for the first time Colette really did have to wonder whether that was the best way to be. It was clear that Jerome and Esmé didn't need any help from anybody, let alone a divorce of all things. And if she and Fernald were so different from them, then did that mean that they did need more help than they thought?
Faust was still staring up at them, waiting on an answer.
"We're not getting a divorce," Fernald said after a moment, repeating it as if to make it a fact, as if to make sure he had convinced Faust, Colette and himself. "So you don't worry about it any more, Faust. We're not. And that's the end of it."
Once again he had ended a discussion before it had really begun, and avoided everything that needed to be discussed. Colette had hoped he'd done it for Faust's benefit, but once their daughter had left them again he still had no intention of speaking on the subject.
Colette had never considered it before, but Fernald's reluctance to face up to problems and her fear that one day he'd leave her for any number of reasons were problems that really were causing their marriage difficulty. Somehow, they had always thought they could carry on with their own faults and never pay a price for it.
"Fernald," she said, folding her arms over her chest and dragging over a chair to sit in front of him to make sure he couldn't ignore her. "We're going to talk about this."
"About what?" he answered vaguely. "We haven't anything to talk about, Lette. We aren't getting a divorce. Everyone has arguments. There's nothing wrong with us."
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Post by Emma “Emmz” Squalor on Jun 6, 2009 13:09:18 GMT -5
There was no way Colette could ignore the developing pattern between her husband’s stubbornness and that of her best friend. But it was getting late, and the contortionist really had no desire to carry on a conversation that had the potential of lasting through the night. “Fine,” Colette said at last. “We’ll leave it for now, Fernald. But we are going to discuss this. Whether you want to, or not.” Fernald didn’t answer. He simply lowered his eyes, and clicked his hooks together tensely. *** The following morning, Emma was up with the sun. She had packed all of her things the night before, just to save herself from having to give up her boat ride with Beatrice. The two girls had planned to meet in the lobby at seven, and Emma didn’t want to be late. After throwing on a clean dress and her trademark pair of stiletto boots, she went immediately to her parents’ room to let them know where she would be. Jerome and Esmé had slept with the door unlocked, just in case Emma had needed them sometime during the night. Placing her small hand around the knob, Emma turned it and quietly pushed open the door. From her place in the doorway, she could see the sleeping figures of her parents in the four-poster bed. Remembering that her mother was ill, Emma crept around to the left side of the bed where her stepfather was. Lowering her face to his ear, she whispered: “Jerome, I’m going out to the pond with Beatrice now. We’ll be back before breakfast.” Jerome murmured something inaudible, followed by a sleepy “Mm… alright, Em. Have fun,” before rolling over and burying his face in his wife’s shoulder. “I love you,” Emma said, and then left the room just as noiselessly as she had entered. *** Emma was pleased to find Beatrice waiting for her in the lobby, and was even more grateful that Faust hadn’t decided to tag along. As much as Emma enjoyed the presence of her younger friend, there were times in which she preferred to spend time alone with those her own age. By the time Faust reached fourteen or fifteen, Emma supposed the two of them would have more in common. But until that time came, Emma would continue to see Faust as nothing more than a younger sibling. “I hope you weren’t waiting long,” Emma said. “Nope,” Beatrice answered. “I got here only about five minutes before you did.” “I was just telling my stepfather where I’d be. He was half asleep, but I’m pretty sure he heard me when I spoke to him.”
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Post by Jenny on Jun 7, 2009 12:01:56 GMT -5
The two girls stepped out of the doors of the lobby and out into the gardens of the impressive hotel. The lake was right ahead, just slightly outside the boundaries of the hotel's land, but Beatrice had said that as far as she knew, it was only owned by the government and not by anybody else, so they could visit it whenever they liked.
"That's why we just leave the old boat here," Beatrice said. "For one thing, it's only an old thing and nobody's going to take it, but also because I think we can just tie it up here and it doesn't interfere with anyone else."
While she spoke her delicate hands unlocked the single chain holding the boat to the railings, and once she had set it free, she beckoned Emma over to help her. The two girls eventually managed to push the boat out so that they could climb into it and then set it out on the water and begin to float out onto the lake, the shape of the Hotel growing further anbd further away as they moved out on the water.
Eventually Beatrice began to use one of the makeshift paddles to steer them a little, and then she stopped and just allowed them to float.
"I wanted to take the boat out when the sun was setting," she said, but then smiled and looked up at the beautiful open sky, where over the light grey a yellow glow was coming from below the distant hills. "But I suppose being out here when the sun is rising is just as good, even if I've never seen it before."
"I'm sorry I can't stay here another day," Emma said. "So that maybe we could take the boat out at night, too."
"Well, you can always come and stay again," Beatrice told her. "Your parents can come too if they want, even the Widdershins if they want to again. My mother said she'd like to have you all over again, maybe sometime when your mother isn't so ill."
Beatrice hadn't meant it to sound cruel, but Emma hung her head. "I'm sorry you haven't seen much of my parents," she said. "They aren't reclusive, honestly. It's just that my stepfather doesn't like to leave my mother, and my mother is ill quite often with colds and sore throats and flu. It isn't that they don't like you, or that they don't like everyone else at the Hotel."
Beatrice nodded. "I hadn't thought that for a second," she said, but Emma knew that others at the hotel would have. She hadn't had a chance to speak to Violet or Kit or Sunny about the lack of contact over the weekend with Esmé in particular, and even though Emma didn't know for sure, she knew that there was something underlying between them all. She could only hope that her mother and Jerome might be willing to return one day and make friends with Beatrice's family.
She wasn't so keen for the Widdershins to come back with them. She thought of Faust like her sister, and had grown incredibly close to her at the same rate that Esmé had grown close to Colette (though Jerome and Fernald had not exactly followed suit: there was no animosity between them for sure, and they were friends because of the connections between their families, but Emma could sense it that they weren't the best of friends like Esmé and Colette or herself and Faust), but she would ahve been glad to come back to the Hotel Denouement again without Faust tagging along behind her and interrupting her while she was trying to talk to Beatrice. She supposed she and Faust really were like siblings--they loved each other's company, but needed their own space all the same.
"The Widdershins probably won't come back with us," she said. "I think my mother just wanted Colette--Mrs Widdershins, that is--to come with her here."
Beatrice's brow furrowed, but it was clear she was not angry. It seemed to Emma that her rosy cheeks and pleasant smile could never turn angry. "Why did she want Mrs Widdershins to come with her?"
Emma knew it was to do with Kit Snicket: she knew how her mother had reacted to being told that Jerome had been in a relationship of sorts with Beatrice's mother once upon a time, and that she probably felt she needed security because of that. But of course she voiced none of this.
"I don't know," Emma lied. She was a good liar, not that it was something she often practised. Her stepfather had noticed that she didn't have any tell-tale signs to give her away if she ever lied to them (she had once lied about going to the library the day before her exam and had met up with Walter Dali and gone to a café instead), not like he did. Her mother had burst into tears after that, but Emma hadn't known why. She had to wonder now if it was because Esmé herself had always beena good liar, or whether it was something to do with the man she was forced to call her (Now deceased) biological father.
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