silly red sheet, part 1

September 2083 - Aurora Miguel and Adrian Jackson are 51. (Beau and Tyler Jackson are 20, Carly Cook is 28.)

* soundtrack: "Superman," by Five for Fighting. *

After a lovely weekend with Adrian, Aurora was quickly dropped hard back into her real life. She's afraid of this man, the same man who called her employees customer service lazy and entitled just a couple years ago. So when she sees him in her boutique again, she feels herself inclined to run and hide. But this time he says, "No, don't worry! Everything looks great!"

Mostly, everything is going great. She does the best she can sometimes...

There's really very little you can mess up with some of them, who only need extensions, makeup, and an actual outfit.

While others she just needs to point in the right direction and they pretty much dress themselves.

She hires a new stock girl, Hazel Monif, and though she'll only make minimum wage, these teenage girls would fall over backwards for a 15% discount on clothing!

And it's always nice when they convince all their friends to come in and spend some money.

It's not just the teenagers though, even Carly still sends her friends in. Carly managed to get Jodie into a new outfit, which qualified for her very particular specifications, something functional, not too much color, not too much cleavage, and no heels!

And she even convinced her to try out a new haircut too, since the elections are coming up this fall. They've seen quite a few people coming in to freshen up for the coming elections.

Jodie says, with minimal fanfare, "Oh, okay, that'll do."

Hazel also sent her father in to get a little refresher, for the very same elections. She said she doesn't think she's ever seen him in a different shirt, since she was born, though maybe she's exaggerating just a little. Berjes did wear a different shirt, once or twice, and in surgery he wears his scrubs. And he went to a wedding or two where he even had to put on a suit.

But he runs into Jodie as she's leaving the boutique. "If you're wondering if you should go in, then you should. That shirt has got to be older than you are."

She makes him clench his teeth. She makes him torn inside between wanting to pin her hard against that wall and kiss her until she begs him to take her home, or telling her to go screw herself, which are indeed two very different things.

So torn that he says nothing, and only sighs heavily as she carries on walking, a prime view of her backside and those are some really great new pants.

When he finally does make it inside, Hazel can see him trying to change his mind. "It's okay, Dad," she says. "People come from all over the city to get makeovers here. She's really good!"

He puts up a struggle, but they manage to find him something.

Nothing too crazy, just a different shade, a designer label. And a new, refreshing pair of jeans.

But that, unfortunately, was where his good experience end here. She tried to run a sculpting wax through his hair, to give it a little texture, and it hardened too quickly, before she could style it, turning his hair into strange horn-like spikes. It's just been a long night, a long few months even. Aurora offers to fix it for free, offers a few free coupons to pass on to his friends and colleagues if he likes, and he certainly won't be paying for any of the clothing tonight.

He's scared to let her try, but Hazel convinces him. "You kind of have to, Dad. You can't go to work like that."

And the styling wax did wash out just fine, but she went a little far, a little tanner for his cheeks, a little blush. Blush? What was she thinking?

"I'm sorry," she says. "You looked a little pale."

He says, "I didn't ask for that!"

"I'm sorry," she says. "Let me fix it! It should wash right off if we don't wait too long."

"No, let me out of here!" he says. "Don't do any more! I'll just wash it off at home."

It's not that she's getting too old for this, but just that she's been working way too hard. She keeps piling up more and more things to do, and she's finally come to a breaking point. Finally, she thinks she knows why.

Because when she's not working, there are even more empty spaces to fill with worry. She finds herself automatically drawn to the TV, when she hasn't heard from him for any longer than a week, wincing against the dismal news stories. Her family tells her that she shouldn't be watching the news. The newscaster announces, in a dull monotone, "Three soldiers killed today in a ship malfunction."

She gasps, every time.

"Mom, it's not him," Beau says. "They would have called you already, before they report it on the news."

"What does that mean, ship malfunction?"

"That doesn't mean anything," he says. "It just happens. It means an accident."

Every time the phone rings, she jumps out of her skin. Her baby, out in space, and people shouldn't even be out in space. She's mad at him - he should be in school! She's mad at Summer, that girl she treated as a daughter all these years and if she hadn't jerked him around, he'd still be here. She's mad at Beau for not talking him out of it. She's mad at them all, but mostly she's just scared. She's petrified. And every time the phone rings, as it does again and again through the day, she feels the ground drop out from under her.

"You get it," she says. "I can't."

Beau picks up the phone. It's not Tyler, or anyone calling about Tyler. Usually, it's just the Thompsons across the street, or Carly checking in from the boutique, or someone trying to sell identity theft insurance on their credit card accounts.

"It's just credit card spam," he tells her, and he can see the tension dissolve from her face.

You never saw a woman so happy to get a spam phone call.

***

Tyler Jackson was never the most scholastic young man, but now he finds his days packed with more learning than he's ever had to do before. "Boot Camp" out here at the International Lunar Base didn't turn out to be quite what he'd expected. There is a little physical training involved, which looks more like an intense health class than the trench crawling he's seen in war movies. Here, he has to do artificial-gravity conditioning, and take biology classes to learn about the effects of space on the human body. He's reading textbooks on his downtime, and his initial weeks of military training involve more sitting in classrooms than he'd even experienced in college.

Of course, Tyler didn't always go to his classes in college. His first course in discipline training set that faux pas right really fast.

And in these last few weeks he'll be on base, he gets scheduled use of the communications room, which he can work in between his many training sessions. Usually this room is very busy, with the soldiers squeezing in as many phone calls to family as they can, but some of the troops have already been shipped out. The units will be spread out around the planet in all directions, a sphere of defense as they anticipate making the initial contact. Tyler's unit ships out at the end of the month.

In these past few months, Tyler's family has learned his little pockets of free time, and they gather around to wait for his call.

"Did you get to shoot a gun yet?" Beau asks.

"No," Tyler says. "We're still on base. I got to shoot a simulator though. We'll practice with the real ones once we leave base next week."

"Where are you going to be?"

Tyler named some solar system coordinates that meant nothing to Beau, and then said, "You know, it's kind of out by Mars right now."

"It's just a rumor," Tyler says. "Make sure you tell Mom it's just a rumor. We don't know yet if they want to eat us or not."

"Oh," Beau says. "Okay."

"And tell her not to worry, while I'm out. You guys won't hear from me for a while, but it doesn't mean something's wrong."

Aurora takes the phone back then, squealing in delight at her lost child, at least until Tyler tells her he'll be shipping out for a few months. Even Mary Jane yips at the phone, sensing the presence of her dear master. Mary Jane always hated Beau.

Beau hasn't been more than a few feet from his brother since the day they were born, and now here Tyler is, some kind of war hero out in space. Tyler gets to be Superman, while Beau is left home to be Clark Kent.

***

Carly stopped over one morning on her way over to open up the shop. She came offering a present. "You're so busy making everyone else look good for this election," she says. "So I thought I'd make you something new to wear too."

"Oh, Carly, you shouldn't have," Aurora says, and she isn't just trying to be modest.

"Try it on, please," Carly says. "I can make some little tweaks if I need to."

Aurora tries it on, and no tweaks are needed. The plush ivory jacket fits perfectly.

"Oh good," Carly says. "It's just how I imagined it. Stern, authoritative, and powerful. You look just like the new CFO of the Lake County Treasury."

"Let me take you out for lunch," Aurora says. "It's the least I can do."

In truth she wishes she could do much, much more. Aurora always hoped Carly would be able to buy the boutique when she was ready to sell. But that day ended up being much sooner than she thought. Carly has been like a daughter to her these years. She never had a daughter of her own, and yet manages to find herself wrapped up in these poor motherless girls. Maybe her guilt has something to do with Summer right now - she loved that girl like her own daughter, and her boy wouldn't be fighting in this war if they'd just stayed together.

So considering she's been a sort of mentor to Carly for the past eight years, she feels even worse admitting that she has to let the store go. She's found a buyer for the building - but they don't want to buy the business - they're looking to sell athletic shoes and sports equipment there instead.

"So I'm losing my job?" Carly says.

"I'm sorry," Aurora says. "I just can't keep it up anymore. I always thought you'd be able to buy it from me some day, but-"

"But I don't have that much money," Carly says. "Or even a downpayment to get that much."

"I know," Aurora says. "But I think you could do it yourself, something smaller to start. Then build from the ground up, like I did. It would be your own and it would be amazing. I know you have it in you."

Carly doesn't look convinced.

"I want to show you something," Aurora says.

Aurora takes her to 720 Lakeside Circle, a property she's noticed up for sale in Lakeside Heights. It was once a photography studio, but is now gutted and stripped bare inside.

"It's for sale," Aurora says. "Not very expensive, since it needs some work. You could even put me down as a reference on your loan application."

Carly maintains her skepticism as Aurora points out the room. "Mannequins in the windows," she says. "And over there is where you'd sew. It's not much right now, but it could be done, can't you just see it?"

Carly contemplates those empty windows for a moment, then she raises her hands to them. "And right there," she says. "The coming winter line, jackets and woolen skirts, black and grey, with just a pop of color, a golden yellow, for warmth. I can see it."

*** continued ***

(footnotes: the weekend // the military send-off)

notes: sorry about the wait on these lately. I'd like to get back to doing twice a week again, but it might take a while for me to build up some reserves to fall back on. I'm down to nothing since the move, and just blogging as I have them ready.

So anyway, Beau and Tyler (and Carly) kind of take over their parents' update then, lol! Which is why I felt okay with devoting that whole update to Aurora and Adrian recently.This song (linked up top) always reminds me of Beau, more so in the later parts of this chapter, but those stories already have a song picked out, so I used this one here :)

Oh, and about having to lose the salon - I hear you say, "Oh, no, you didn't do it again!?!"

Oh yes I did :\