fresh start, loaded history

July 2080 - Phoenix McCullough is 40, Brooke is 38, Fiona is 12, Robbie is 9, Connor is 2.

It's just one of those things where none of them noticed it getting bad until it already was... all of it. They have a house they can't really afford, a house that ended up having all the hardwood floors pulled because of termites. Robbie wants a car for his birthday, and Brooke says, "No you can't have a car, you're only turning ten!" Phoenix hugs his kids because Brooke will barely talk to him. They don't even know what they're fighting about, but somehow they'd managed to lose that spark, when they didn't even know they were in danger of losing it. They have three kids and no time left in the day, and are still so very tired from trying to keep up with the Lakeside Heights lifestyle. Phoenix is working full time and managing a successful freelance photography career. Fiona is a big help, not because she's generous or anything, but because she thinks the state of their lives is so epically gross that Miss Priss cleans things up herself - she'll be sure to rag on her parents for that later.

Phoenix doesn't even really understand why she's mad. Could it still be from that stupid new years' eve party, a year and a half ago? That Nathan Lind, and his prankster ideas, and too many beers...

Whenever he asks her, she says, "No, that's not it. It's everything. It's a bunch of things. It's just the principal! You embarrassed me! And I'd just had a baby, and you'll never understand that. You don't respect me, you don't respect what I do - three children and a career!..."

If you don't quite get it, don't feel left out. Phoenix doesn't get it either.

Meadow Lind wants to discuss something very important, so Brooke suggests they pay a visit to her sister-in-law's restaurant. This is Meadow's treat, of course - Brooke's family can't afford Ashlee's restaurant. But Brooke worries, the way things are going lately, she's probably about to get fired or something!

But what Meadow wants to say is that she needs teachers out in Bluewater Township, and she offers Brooke a nice bonus, and a teaching position out there. It might normally be traumatic to uproot a family like this, to move the kids out away from their cousins and aunts and uncles and friends, but Brooke thinks things can't get much worse than they already are.

Patrick has groupies! This wasn't their table - they sat down there just to watch him play. Well, Brooke is a fan of blond artsy guys (hence the gorgeous blond artist husband she won't talk to...), and Meadow just likes Nova guys period!

But Brooke does talk to her husband enough so that they can decide to make the move. And Fiona doesn't take the news happily. She says, "You want me to live in the country? The country?!? What do you expect me to do out there, have a hoedown?" Her parents wonder how would Little Miss Priss like to live in a cardboard box instead?

Robbie is happy though, because they'll be living just down the street from his favorite little girlfriend, Liza Hathe. His other little girlfriends are going to miss him!

The house they choose is an old one, which has been through several families and generations. It hasn't been on the market long, but is very affordable, and roomy - both being very important aspects of what they're looking for.

There's even a toy car left behind in the middle of the large empty living room. Fiona says to her brother, "Don't play with that, or you'll be cursed."

"I will not," Robbie says.

Brooke says, "There's no such thing as curses."

"It might be haunted," Fiona says.

"It's not haunted," Brooke says. Well, not by ghosts at least - but it does have a strange lingering feeling of the once-happy family that used to live here. Well, the McCullough family is too broke to worry about curses!

Maybe Fiona just might survive out here in the country. She always liked to imagine herself the heroine from a classic romance story... today, she thinks she might be Cinderella...

Later, a local girl would reaffirm Fiona's claims. Melody Tinker lives across the street, and she says the house is cursed! And she tells them all about that house, and it's former owners that her parents knew through the generations. She says, "First it belonged to the Ramirez family, and three people died in that family! Then the Phoenix family lived there, and you all know what happened to them..."

Robbie doesn't buy it. He's bored and wants to go explore their new town. Fiona is riveted! She totally believes in fairy tales and ghost stories and the paranormal.

But Robbie wants to walk down to Liza's house and see if she wants to play. So Fiona asks. And since this is the small kind of town where kids can just wander around safely, Phoenix says, "Watch your brother, don't go too far, stay off the roads." Fiona isn't expecting anything mind-blowing though.

Melody takes them to "the field." It's nothing much, really, but just a field - across from the church, with a pond and a couple benches, where kids hang out, and go to get into trouble after dark. "Is this it?" Fiona asks. "Is this all there is to do around here?"

Melody says, "Yeah, unless you want to go to church."

"That does not sound like fun!" Fiona says.

"Or school." Melody says.

"It's summer!" Fiona says.

"Or the rec center, we could play baseball!" Melody says.

Fiona says, "Do I look like I play baseball?"

"No, but you look like you could use a noogie!" Melody says.

Of course, it doesn't take Fiona long to start making enemies.

Fiona says, "You smudged my lip gloss!"

But don't let her fool you - Fiona isn't all stone cold, not when it comes to her baby brothers.

But she's just cold enough. "Eeww, don't touch me! You might have germs!" she says. "You might have, like, bacterial meningitis or something!" (lol, she had three bolts with him!) And besides, she's already scored that first kiss. She just wanted to see what kissing might be like. Fiona's lips are sacred!

And what were these two fighting about?...

Well, whatever it was, it looks like he's forgiven. Maybe they just needed a fresh start.

But curses or not, Fiona believes in all that stuff and she just wants to say, they've been warned.... Would it be too superstitious to suggest they hang their wedding pictures on a different wall?

Most of the people of Bluewater are very friendly, and Leila Watts comes over to introduce herself. Cody Bradshaw also stops by, as does Liza's dad, Chad Hathe. Brooke likes the small-town kind of feeling - everybody really does know everybody else around here!

(You can just never have too many pictures of Sims dancing...)
As the month winds down to a close, it turns out the only friend Fiona has managed to make is her little brother's buddy, Liza Hathe. Fiona turns thirteen next week, and Liza turns twelve.

But Robbie wonders if Liza remembers that she's supposed to be his friend, and not Fiona's! He notices that Liza is definitely different this summer. She doesn't want to play cops and robbers, or tag. Instead, she likes spending more time with Fiona - they were never even friends before! She started wearing all these bracelets and necklaces and now that's all she and Fiona want to talk about! Boring girl stuff!

"Hey, Liz, look at me, I'm juggling." But nobody's paying much attention.

Robbie asks her, "Are you still my friend?"

Liza says, "Of course we're still friends. Best friends! Don't be weird."

The only person not talking about necklaces around here is his little brother, and maybe that's just because Connor is only just turning three.

So he goes outside to play with that stupid car - Robbie doesn't believe in curses, and it looks like this might be the only car he has until he's sixteen - and maybe when school starts up he'll find some new friends, who like to do things other than talk about necklaces...

Only this time, he's the one not paying attention, and Liza sneaks up behind him. "Oh, Rob-bie," she says...

and she has a water balloon...

Maybe girls aren't so boring after all.

***

notes: OMG, Fiona is going to be the most hilarious romance sim I've ever had! She's such a paranoid prissy germaphobic brat! That ought to make her a miserable romance Sim, lol! Hers was the aspiration I rolled randomly, rather than choosing like I normally do, because she didn't fit any of my normal criteria. So funny! :)

I don't even know what Phoenix and Brooke were mad at each other about. But whatever it was didn't last very long, lol. There were out of love and she wouldn't even let him flirt with her! They didn't have anything in their memories about it. Weird.

I'm actively recruiting families to live in Bluewater, lol. Since Hayden's family left, there was only the Hathe family and the Watts family left, and Bella's parents, but they're old, lol. So this makes three, and if Charlotte and Paul move out there, it will be four. I want it to stay a small town, but I figure the kids need other kids to grow up with out there :)