first, part 2

June 2083 - Ashlee Deppiesse is 43, Natalia is 13. (Charlie Roseland and Hazel Monif are 13, Fiona McCullough is 15.) Last update, February 2082.

It's probably much too soon for her mother to feel lonely. It's only been three weeks since they left. Instead, she just keeps herself busy here at the restaurant, which means Natty is kept occupied as well. It isn't that she minds spending time with her mother, if she were actually spending time with her, except that her mother is working, talking, selling, and Natty is left watching old cable reruns.

Which is better than washing dishes. Because she has that option too, her mother would say, if she wants to complain of being bored.

Natty is turning fourteen this summer, which is plenty old enough to be on her own. Or she could have taken that summer job at the retirement home. But her mother says she's too young to hold a job yet, (though at the same time, she seems to have no problem asking her to stir the cream of celery soup, since she's here anyway.)

But her mother insists that bad things happen to kids left alone for so many hours in a day. She didn't have to say what she really meant - that Natty has a boyfriend now, and that it's summer break, and he lives just three blocks away.

At home, her mother asks her to play the piano, more often than Natty prefers to play herself. She's been practicing since she was six, but it doesn't come as naturally as other things, math and science. She's more technically minded, but she'll play for her mother. The piano lessons helped show off what a wonderful and well-rounded girl she is, and got her into the Lake County Honors Program, which she'll start this fall.

Her mother rarely wants to cook in the evenings, after cooking all day long at the bistro. "That smells lovely, honey," Ashlee says.

"It's just spaghetti, Mom," Natty says. "Are you hungry?"

"Oh, I guess I am." She's keeping herself so busy she even forgets to eat sometimes.

"You should take the day off tomorrow," Natty says. "We'll invite everybody over, Aunt Vi and the twins." Natty knows what her mother is really afraid of, the quiet. It reminds them both that he isn't here anymore.

"What about school?"

"Mom," Natty says. "It's June."

"Oh, of course it is."

It's the quiet that echoes through every ordinary moment of their days. It hasn't been long yet, not even a month. Natty used to watch her parents build these sandcastles together, here on the beach. She'd be doing her homework, or talking on the phone in her bedroom, and here they would be on the sand, digging and building. Then sitting down beside it to watch the waves together. Now her mother does this alone, every night, digging in the sand, like momentum, like she didn't know what should come next.

Natty doesn't know either, so she just kneels down beside her, and helps her build.

***

The next day, Natty gets her beach party. Her mother relents and takes the day off herself, handing over full reign of the restaurant to her staff. She even invites some of her own friends over to read books and drink iced tea in the sun room, while the kids run havoc on the sand.

The water is chilly still, but Charlie dives head first off the steep shore while the girls hold steady on the beach, keeping their hair dry and their tans baking.

They have more important matters to discuss than splashing around in the water, like the exact specifications of a first kiss. How long did it last? How much tongue?

"None," Natty says, and adds, "Eeew!"

"Yeah, I thought that was weird," Hazel says, remembering her own first kiss with Angelo Shaw. "I felt like I was at the dentist or something." She looks around. "Hey, weren't more people coming?"

"My cousins are here," Natty says. "They're right behind you."

Hazel looks behind her and starts to laugh. "Oh, I didn't see them there, they kind of blend into the sand."

"There's another person for you," Natty says.

"Did you invite him?"

"No, I guess Charlie did."

"He's so weird," Hazel says. "He keeps staring at me, but he never says anything."

"He probably can't say anything, because you never stop saying things."

As quietly as Isaiah slipped past them, he slips out of his clothes, stacking them neatly on the sand, and wades out into the water.

"He's so weird," Hazel says. "Boys are just weird. All of them."

It was Natty's mother who invited Aunt Brooke, who brought along Fiona and Robbie, who of course, come along with Liza Hathe.

"I hate that girl," Charlie says.

"Nobody likes you," Hazel says. "But you're still here."

"Natty likes me," he says.

Natty considers her boyfriend for a moment. Sure, she likes him, but he's being kind of a dork right now.

Hazel looks over Charlie's shoulder, muttering beneath her breath, "Good God, what is she wearing?"

They all turn around. Fiona has stripped down into her bathing suit, slowly approaching them.

"Or not wearing," Natty adds quietly.

Charlie doesn't say anything, but just grins, without blinking.

"Go on and drool," Hazel says. "You know you want to."

Fiona slides a finger along the thin strap of fabric on her hip. "You like it? This old thing?" She looks straight at Charlie then, pointing her finger into his chest. "You should see the one I wear when my mom's not around."

Then she actually, truly, winks at him.

They're all stunned. Even Charlie, who finally manages to blink. They don't know what that was about, but Fiona doesn't explain. She just slips by them and slides into the water, slow and perfect as a snake.

Natty and Charlie disperse to the kitchen to make some lunch, and somehow, every time Hazel turns around, there's Isaiah again, quiet as if he's waiting for something, or watching her. "What?" she says, her annoyance coming out sharp. "What do you want?"

"Oh," he says. "It's nothing. Ummm, lunch."

They have hot dogs for lunch. Charlie was so eager to make real hot dogs on the grill, he forgot he didn't actually know how to use a grill and burned them. "How about a peace treaty," he says to Hazel. "You know, Natty's best friend, Natty's boyfriend, shouldn't we call a truce?"

"I don't know," Hazel says.

Natty just fawns over the fact that he just called himself her boyfriend.

Isaiah didn't seem to want anything to eat, but just sat down across from Hazel, watching her, not really adding anything to the conversation. Hazel announces finally, hoping he'll take a hint from it, "I have a sort of boyfriend in the city."

"No you don't," Charlie says. "He's not your boyfriend. He never even called you back."

Hazel scowls at him. "Shut up, Charlie. You're such a punk!"

Charlie takes his cue then, to shut up, and to leave. Screw it, he thinks, she can fend off her stalker herself. He'll go try to find Natty...

but instead he finds Fiona, waiting for him on the patio with a noogie.

He's torn, between rage and lust - he's never even touched this much skin on his own girlfriend, and here he is, with his head shoved firm into Fiona's hip.

She gives mean noogies! They do hurt, and she does mess up his hair.

"What the hell," he says.

"Oh, you liked it," Fiona says. "I can always tell when they like it. I liked you first, you know, before Natty, that chubby little dork. You liked me first too, didn't you?"

"What are you talking about?"

She comes at him, intent on what she wants - she's beautiful, that much everyone knows, not just cute in the way his little girlfriend is, but built like a woman, and she uses it to her advantage. He wouldn't be alive if he didn't look, for a second.

It's this moment that Hazel finds him, stunned and hypnotized by Fiona's voice, her touch, her womanly curves. This scene looks all wrong, and Hazel feels herself inclined to run off and snitch on him to Natty, but she's just as stunned herself.

Hazel presses herself to the wall and listens.

"I like you, Charlie," Fiona says, taking his hand, sliding her fingers up his wrist. It's not comforting though, instead he imagines claws might spring from her fingertips and sink into his skin. "Why don't you come back with us after this little shindig?"

"I don't think so," he says. "I'm kind of hanging out with Natty right now."

"Sweet little Natty-patty-pie," Fiona says. "How can you even stand her?"

"She's your cousin."

"Doesn't she give you a toothache?"

"No, she doesn't," he says. "Her teeth are perfect." He really likes Natty, and he doesn't want to make her mad, not at her house, not at her own party, and not ever if he can help it.

He wrestles his hand away from Fiona.

"Oh," she says. "I don't think you understand what I mean. Let me show you something."

She lunges forward, lips puckered and eager. Beautiful as Fiona might be, even Charlie has this much sense, even in this jumble of emotions, flattery, attraction, sheer terror. Fiona McCullough is scary, overwhelming even.

"You don't want to hurt her feelings," Fiona says, easing off of him. "It's okay, we'll pick up this conversation some other time."

"You're psycho," he says, finally breaking free of her.

Hazel saw everything. She isn't sure if she should be mad for Natty, or glad. She's just confused, and unsure still. She still thinks Charlie Roseland is a creep, but at least he's not the cheating creep she thought he might be. By the time she finds Natty in the kitchen, all Hazel manages to say is, "Sometimes things aren't what they look like."

"What are you talking about?" Natty says.

She doesn't know how to explain it, that maybe Charlie isn't such a creep, or that maybe Fiona isn't the loving cousin Natty thinks she is. "Oh, I don't know," she says. "Let's go swim."

They come down the stairs and find Fiona is giving Charlie a noogie so horrendous even Hazel has to feel some empathy for the poor boy.

"Wow, she's so mean," Hazel says.

"Yeah," Natty says. "She is."

Fiona ordered her mother to take them home soon after.

The twins wandered back across the street too, at some point - nobody noticed exactly when, since nobody really noticed they were there in the first place.

Isaiah was next to leave. Hazel turned around to find him, yet again, not just standing there but leaning into her, in what looked like an attempt to smell her hair.

"Seriously, dude," she says. "Do I need to call my dad out here? Do I need to get a restraining order?"

After everyone else has gone, Natty tends to her boyfriend's achy noogied muscles, and Hazel tends to her summer glow.

Natty and Hazel don't swim when Charlie gets back into the water. They don't want their hair to get wet, or their suntan lotion to wash off.

But more than that, Hazel feels like she has to say something.

"I don't like Fiona," Hazel says. "I didn't like the way she was looking at your boyfriend."

"You don't like anybody," Natty says. "She's my cousin. She knows I like him. You're just mad he didn't want to date you."

"No I'm not!" Hazel says. "That's not it! I didn't really want to date him, I don't even like him. I can't stand him."

"But why?"

"I just think he's a creep," Hazel says. "He's not nice to anybody."

"He's nice to me," Natty says.

"Well he better always be nice to you."

"I guess there are probably worse creeps out there," Hazel says.

"Like Angelo Shaw?"

"Yeah, like Angelo Shaw," Hazel says.

But what she means to say is, like Fiona McCullough.

*******

(footnotes: Cabe goes to war // Fiona liked Charlie first // Hazel kisses Angelo, meets Isaiah)

notes: OMG, this update took forEVER to pull out of my ass! I'm sorry if this was the most terrible, scroungy, and unfocused thing you've ever read. I just couldn't seem to get a hold of it for some reason. Too many points of view, not enough substance. Have to put it out there and wash my hands of it. Anyway, moving on...

Do you guys even find these backlinks useful? Or do you remember most of this stuff anyway? I mean, it's totally not an issue for me to find them, I usually know just where they are and I usually read back a bit as a refresher anyway, so that I don't forget anything.

Anyway, in my trend of keeping notes stuff separate from story stuff, I think I'll start putting the backlinks at the end in footnote fashion, rather than linked in the story. That way they'll be less obtrusive in the story, but you'll still have them for reference.