the lofts, farewell marisa!

August 2078 - Cameron Gibson is 27, Marisa Wilson and Charlotte Centowski are 24, Amelia Bradshaw is 23.

Charlotte Centowski and Marisa Wilson have been best friends since they were five, and Charlotte doesn't know what she'll do without her. Marisa received an offer to dance in Abandia City, and she just can't pass it up. She's leaving at the end of the month.

Marisa says, "Awww, come on Charlotte, you know I never wanted to live and die in the same place."

Old best friends are good to have, because sometimes new best friends just don't have a clue when a certain ex-boyfriend just so happens to be standing right behind them. Marisa says, "Piper!!! Don't you know who that is???"

But it's too late. Marisa says, "Um, Charlotte, I think somebody wants to talk to you."

"It's okay," Charlotte says. "No problem."

So Charlotte talks to Adam, and Marisa and Piper hang out in the background. Marisa says, "I don't want to spy... but what are they talking about?"

"Um, scrambled eggs?" Piper says.

"Scrambled eggs?"

"Yeah," Piper says. "I think so."

"They haven't spoken since the break up, since the wedding, and now they're talking about scrambled eggs?"

"Yeah," Piper says. "Weird."

But they weren't just talking about scrambled eggs. Charlotte was telling him, of course she still wants to get into the culinary business, she's just doing this conspiracy theory thing for now. And then Charlotte says, "Oh, and I wanted to say congratulations."

"Thanks," Adam says. "That means a lot."

When Charlotte came outside where the rest of them were waiting, Marisa just about jumped on her. "Oh my God, what did you say???"

"I said congrats."

"Really?"

"Yeah," Charlotte says. "It was okay."

Charlotte buys a bottle of champagne from the bar. A toast over hot dogs? Sure, why not? She says, "To my best friend in the whole world!"

Marisa says, "Awww, you're gonna make me cry!"

When the girls get home, Roland is already waiting there for Marisa. He says, "What do you mean, you just took the job? You weren't even going to talk to me first?" After deciding to chill out about his lack of marriage proposals, Marisa had begun to think maybe he wasn't interested in making mutual life decisions.

"I was going to tell you," she says.

"You weren't going to discuss it with me?"

"I didn't know we were like that."

"Well we are!" he says.

"We are?"

"Yeah," he says.

"Oh," she says.

***

Amelia has a visitor! Amelia and Jason are becoming very good friends lately. The lofts are conveniently located just around the corner from townhouses where Jason lives. He walks over often. They enjoy each other's company, and there's a lot of tickling going on.

Cameron is happy about his recent career moves. He is working as a projectionist for a local movie house. It's still not very great pay, but a little more interesting in terms of work. He's been feeling a little loser-ish lately, especially since he heard a rumor that Bella was being pursued by Malcolm Landgrabb.

He's talking big, and tells Marisa he thinks maybe it's time he grew up a little, try to make something of himself, maybe even buy a house! So that he might have something to offer Bella some day. Marisa is thinking, baby steps, Cameron. Baby steps.

Later that night, Bella drops off a present for Cameron, in honor of his new job. It's... um, a fountain! And it's huge!!! And she must have charged it, because we know she doesn't have that much money. Now where on earth is he going to put that thing? She doesn't always think things through, does she?

Jason asks if he can stay late to use Amelia's computer, to study up on his sales proficiency, since he doesn't have a computer at home.

"Stay as long as you need to," Amelia says, and she crawls into bed, wearing a very little, flimsy, silky blue nightgown.

But then it started to thunderstorm, and because he walked, he crawls into bed next to her and says, "Do you mind if I crash here?"

"I don't mind," she says. In fact, she was hoping he might - what do you think that little blue nightgown was for? And well, at some point in the night, one thing led to another... because, you know, that was a really, really little blue nightgown ;)

The next morning Amelia makes breakfast. Jason has to be honest with her. He's still hung up on Bella. He knows Bella is all wrong for him, but he just can't shake her. He's trying. He needs time.

And then when Amelia starts talking about Ally, and her ungodly large forehead, Amelia knows he's right. They should take things slow. Not to say they can't still have fun together - an oh, do they have fun together! Just no promises right now.

Amelia throws Marisa a going away party that night. Amelia loves living in the lofts! There's so much space for parties!

Taking things slow... Jason wanted Amelia to meet his sister. This is Jodie. She just came home from college on the west coast. And she's actually going to be living in the building where Piper lives at the moment. She's 23 years old, a college graduate, and works as an Algae Hunter for the Natural Science Company. Her degree was in medicine though, and she really hopes to still be a doctor some day.

So in the spirit of mutual life decisions, Roland has decided to move with Marisa. And though she never got the marriage proposal she wanted for some time, she thinks maybe this might be as good a commitment as any.

Charlotte misses Marisa already. "You better come back and visit me," she says.

They grab one last picture together.

And then their cab arrives. Bye-bye, Marisa and Roland. Here's wishing you both a nice "happily ever after"...

***

And so much for taking things slow... it was Jason who decided to crawl straight into Amelia's bed and stay the night, again, silly boy! Amelia wore that little nightgown again, and my guess is there wont be a whole lot of sleeping going on in that bed tonight ;)

*****

gameplay notes on moving away: generation after generation, my neighborhood just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. So to combat this population problem, sometimes Sims have to move away. Inspired by real life, not everybody lives and dies in the same place. Marisa drew this round's move away random event.

She will move to another suburb, Abandia City, because I'm oh so creative with names like that, lol. I will drop in on them from time to time, to age them, update their appearance accordingly, maybe give them a promotion or two. And they're free to come back to visit. She and Roland can get married if they want, and even have children. And like any other townies, their children can date/marry back into the storyline if they want. So you might meet them some day.

Non-playable playables, I call them. Just like when we send ex-boyfriends away. It helps keep the playable population manageable. I love having a big neighborhood, but when it gets too big, it just takes too long to get through, and then it's not fun anymore. So, here we have population control.

It's a little easier than killing them off, lol, because I'm a softy like that :)