"The Doom Statues" - Chapter 7
“Does anyone want to write a letter to the president?” the girl in the window asks.
“Uh...,” says Denise, while Jeremy just chuckles and smirks.
“Sure!” Emily enthuses, however, and ventures a few steps closer.
“Always eager to please,” Denise mutters to Jeremy, out the side of her mouth.
Jeremy nods but says nothing, too intent upon absorbing this scene to focus on anything else. A great deal has already changed since their first visit out to this place. And that was only a few weeks ago, which means Kidwell has been working these people at a furious pace ever since, half building and half restoration. The three of them having just stepped into the oldest remaining structure, one that has been shored up and patched in a couple of places yet otherwise, apparently, left almost unchanged from its previous incarnation.
It’s a three story, almost exclusively wooden affair, with a smattering of brickwork on the back, and will function as the main building for most residents at this retreat. They have entered through the front door, to the left of which is one of those giant, bulging bay windows, common to old school, downtown businesses back in the day. A raised platform where mannequins and merchandise would frequently reside, although now there’s some girl seated at a school desk, with an ancient typewriter, pecking out the message that Emily’s dictating.
This young lady, of roughly the same age as they, possibly a smidgen older, has curly reddish hair which would probably look even more reddish, except she’s wearing these plastic bright red glasses as well. Retro looking ones, though, of course, with these sharp, kittenish edges, like a sexy secretary in some 1960s spy movie or something, Jeremy thinks. She’s wearing a metallic name tag with GRACE etched into it in black block letters, though, which might look more at home on a security guard or police officer. Even as the rest of her outfit, from this frilly, sheer blouse with an obnoxious flower pattern, to these lime green slacks, neatly complements those eyeglasses.
Smiling with satisfaction, having just hammered out that three sentence message on a postcard, Grace peels a stamp from this roll on her desk and affixes it, before dropping this missive into a tray up top. Outside of Harry Kidwell, whom they chatted with for a good ten minutes near the entrance again, and silently nodding at a couple of construction workers in passing, Grace is the first person they’ve encountered, although the house is bustling with activity behind them. Per Kidwell’s instructions, Grace is supposed to act as their tour guide, introducing them to the rest, and she rises now to facilitate that role.
Emily’s parents required no convincing whatsoever, to fund her three month enrollment here. That was every bit the effortless slam dunk she and Jeremy expected. Though passionate about any number of things, she’s been kind of directionless ever since graduating high school, and her folks couldn’t break out that checkbook fast enough. The problem as Jeremy sees it is Emily’s been too fascinated by far too many things, and has left the burned out husks of her interests scattered all over the place. She was enrolled for a while at a university branch location near Jenson, theoretically pursuing nursing, then kind of switching gears into radiology at some other community college even closer to home, is now talking about always wanting to be a veterinarian. Dropping out in between each of these, she has occasionally dabbled in random work, too, for the most part at clothing stores, though her current jobless state has been far more frequent.
Now that she’s already signed on the eye-popping dotted line, today’s mission is kind of two pronged, possibly three pronged beyond her already agreed upon involvement. She still holds out hope that Jeremy will join her, of course, even though he’s not the least bit artistically inclined. He has said he will surely drive out here often to visit and in fact would think it kind of cool to hang out around here often, but his interest extends no further. Kay on the other hand remains highly interested, though funding is an issue, as is the Noah situation. They’ve fantasized about all sorts of wild scenarios where they might come up with the money for Kay to attend, down to Emily even hinting about it to her parents, though they failed to take the bait. That is admittedly a far-fetched scenario, and while under other circumstances she might be more inclined to attempt persuading them, this concern is taking a back burner for now, and she’s really just accumulating more information for Kay at this point, trying to stitch together as many selling points as she can to bring back home. Reason being that, most of all, Emily is really hoping that Denise will take a shine to this concept.
If Denise even displays the tiniest glimmer of interest in being here, Emily knows for a fact that her parents would double the speed in saying yes and forking over the cash. It’s been a major battle with her kid sis, one for whom she almost feels like a parent herself, whose funk or depression or rebellious streak or whatever has lasted well beyond some moody teenage phase. Maybe some or even a lot of it is just a cry for attention, but she’s convinced that if Denise would just give this retreat a chance, it could seriously turn her life around. Nobody’s talking about taking the art world by storm as a result of this obscure, remote outpost; it’s just a means maybe of tapping into their potential and exploring what they’re capable of, and networking, possibly even stitching together a career somehow if they are lucky.
“So, well...hi!” Grace beams at them, flashing a broad, nearly flawless smile, as she extends a hand to shake each of theirs.
“Howdy!” Jeremy throws back at her, with a slightly exaggerated jocularity. “Harry sent us here for, you know,” he sticks his index finger in the air and twirls it around, “the grand tour.”
“Yeah, I know!” she enthuses, and is already two or three paces ahead of them as she beckons with one hand, “come on!”
The three of them are barely paying attention to their guide, as the space beside a scuffed, wooden check-in desk of sorts – and beyond – has commanded nearly every drop of their collective focus. As they move past that desk which looks like something from a hundred year old hotel, a series of long wooden troughs line the right hand wall at ground level, stuffed to the hilt and overflowing with mountains of random looking old toys. From a plastic yellow school bus to some embroidered blue heart, covered with lacy white doily, and a monstrous jeep missing one wheel, a lunch pail, miniature playset characters, and everything else conceivable in between. Wooden racks above are crammed with still more, all the way up to the pressed tin ceiling. In one section above, a world map tacked to the wall has countless similar toys glued to its surface, sticking out from it in often gravity defying angles, the animals and vehicles, statues and figurines more or less affixed in geographically correct places. None of it looks any more recent than two decades old, at best, and Emily finds herself shivering through her crossed arms, creeped out by this display. Though it’s this Raggedy Ann stuffed doll, minus one eye, which bothers her most of all.
“Huh uh,” she shakes her head and chuckles darkly at the sight, “nope!”
Denise giggles and says, “she’s looking at you.”
“I know she is! Why do you think I’m freaked out!”
Drawing up to a halt, Grace cackles in the manner of someone who’s heard this countless times before and asks, “you like that, huh? So yeah, umm...,” she brings her hands together, pausing for a beat to collect her thoughts before continuing. “To give you a little bit of history about this place, uh...oh wait – have you all already enrolled, or just thinking about it, or...?”
“I’m already enrolled,” Emily explains.
“Great! Great!”
“...and he’s on the fence,” she points to Jeremy.
“No, I already backed away from the fence. I never even looked at the fence,” he jokes.
“And I burned the fence down,” Denise adds with a smirk. If nothing else, this seems to ruffle Grace’s unflappable demeanor ever so slightly.
“Well, uh...so yeah...,” Grace fumbles, for just a second, before perking back up again. “Anyway! To tell you a little bit about this place, then, as you probably know, Harry’s grandmother passed away a while ago, and left it to him. Now, as you can probably imagine, there were some legal, uh, situations to sort out, with a site like this...”
“I can imagine,” Jeremy offers.
Grace shoots him a brief, quizzical glance, then barges onward with, “yeah, so it took a couple years to get off the ground, you know, but here we are!”
“What’s with all the toys? And the other...shit,” Denise asks, casting her eyes around the space.
In this spacious, would-be lobby, the vaunted ceiling reaches as high as the second floor's would in other parts of the house. Everywhere they turn, the wooden racks stretch to similar heights. Some contain neatly sorted collections, if the location itself is still apparently random and often duplicate, for example six old Speak N' Spell devices lined up in a row, identical. Or board games, books, eight track tapes, magazines, folded fabric, and, in one memorable section, eight or nine ancient looking steamer trunks, side by side on the floor, stacked atop one another. Just to name some of the various sets, which she can’t even begin to fully catalog yet. Boxes where the tape is ancient enough to evoke a wondrous fascination within her, looking improbably cool on its own, high on those shelves.
“I was just getting to that!” Grace offers with a smile, “so yeah, basically, everything you see here in this main house, it belonged to Harry’s grandma. It was all here when he inherited the place. Now...”
“Crazy hoarder granny, eh?” Jeremy suggests.
Grace chuckles and says, “well, you know, I have heard that word used, hoarder, but I think that's kind of a modern term. Which you might use to describe, like, this highly disorganized, pack rat type of person. But as we can see,” she opens one palm, swivels it around to indicate this room as a whole, “she was actually extremely organized, and thought of herself as more of a collector. I mean, yeah, we have tidied up a little, and made some...modifications, too, but for the most part, she left this building just like you see it.”
Stunned to the point of speechlessness, the trio follows Grace’s lead in a near daze, attempting to cast their eyes around and absorb as much as they can. As such, they have nearly reached what is possibly the most crazed sight this section has to offer, before any of them realize what they’re about to walk through. It's an arched doorway carved into one wall, just around and past that hotel desk, except it was created by sawing through stacks of boxed board games stuffed into the wall. These too are all seemingly vintage, if occasionally still popular. Such as the bizarre cross sections of Monopoly, Sorry, and fittingly enough Operation, which they can peer into while traversing this doorway.
Awaiting them on the other side is a proper, musty old library, with shelves high enough to require ladders at their upper reaches. In keeping with much that they have seen here, the books are neatly arranged, though otherwise without any sort of organizing pattern. Tall and short, fiction and nonfiction, it’s all jumbled together in a fashion which has them spellbound. A handful of what are presumably fellow residents, Emily observes, are shelving books from boxes, about the spacious room eating up this half of the building.
“We did have to restore most of the floor in this room,” Grace observes, staring pensively down at the fresh looking, bare hardwood that has now drawn their attention as well, “here, and in the kitchen. There was just too much damage.”
“You were pretty involved with that, were you?” Jeremy jokes.
Finding humor in this taunt, Grace smirks, shooting him a sidelong glance. “Well, you know what I mean...”
“The kitchen?” Emily questions. “But what happened at...”
“Oh, yeah, there's a kitchen” Grace replies, though missing the point of this short question. “And a communal dining area, too. Come on, I’ll show you.”
Near the library’s rear, a pair of restrooms sit on the left, and straight ahead a back door with a window permitting some much needed light. To the right, a wide, brick lined arched doorway, which was apparently the only one connecting these two halves before that saw job on the board games. Passing through it, they observe a long, scarred and much written upon wooden picnic table, albeit one which was recently shellacked with a shiny, clear protective coat. It and the bench seating on both sides run parallel to the building’s longest sides, which Jeremy thinks must be east-west if his internal map is correct. Meanwhile, beyond that, tucked into the remaining unseen back corner, there’s an actual restaurant looking counter, with the crude beginnings of a menu chalked onto this blackboard hanging above.
“Oh, wow...,” Denise mutters.
“Yeah, it’s starting to come together,” Grace observes, nodding up at the menu herself. “We did have a little...setback with some of the staffing this morning,” she laughs, “but eventually, yeah – it's gonna be great. We plan on having the same mentality here as we do with the materials, you know, pretty much everything we use will be from on site. I mean we will probably have to get our meat elsewhere, and possibly some other stuff, but plan on growing as much as we can here. Actually, we already are.”
Grace starts to lead them back the way they’ve arrived, toward the restrooms and the back door, although Emily stops her momentarily by asking, “the materials? Can you elaborate on that?”
“Oh. Yeah! See, the plan is, everything we artists use is supposed to come from the collection. The materials Mrs. Kidwell donated, which we have on hand. That is what you might call our organizing principle.”
“Really?” Emily says, doubt plain in her voice, as she casts her eyes about the room, from the floors to the ceiling, “I mean, don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of stuff here, and it’s pretty damn fascinating, and weird, but...” she trails off with a giggle.
“You haven’t seen the upstairs,” Grace explains, looking a bit self-satisfied as she miles. She nods toward the obvious, a big staircase whose backside is only visible from here, running alongside one wall between here and the front desk. “But anyway...oh wait, let me show you our garden area first.”
Upon stepping through the doorway and exiting the back door, they land upon a dirt clearing, with benches and a fire ring, which is obviously used as some sort of smoking lounge for the residents. Indeed, a young female in a white kitchen jacket, black chef’s pants emblazoned with a continuing pattern of ketchup and mustard bottles, is puffing away on a cigarette out here. Standing off to the side, she’s a short woman with dark brown hair which has been braided with rubber bands on the side, while the braids themselves – or pigtails, or whatever, Jeremy’s not exactly sure what you call these – are lashed with clips to the side of her head. She looks both a little agitated, somehow, and completely nonplussed by their presence.
“This is Jen,” Grace explains, extending a hand as if demonstrating just another tour piece. “Jen will be in the kitchen, well, obviously.”
“Is she the main chef?” Denise asks.
“They!” Jen snarls, turning toward her with a swift, startling vengeance.
“Huh?” Denise replies.
“I’m not a she! I prefer they, okay!?”
Denise’s eyes widen as she turns to her pair of colleagues, as if to ask, what's with this crazy bitch!? yet saying nothing more.
“Well, I guess you could say Jen is our primary kitchen employee, now...,” Grace suggests, offering a weak smile to cut the tension.
“Only kitchen employee now,” Jen retorts.
“Yeah, I heard! Okay, so anyway...,” Grace breezily declares, “moving along...”
Beyond the smoking area, they reach a fenced off garden, directly behind the kitchen's brick wall. The garden is a rectangular plot measuring, Jeremy calculates, probably something like 30’ x 50’, enclosed by a wire fence, with neatly tilled rows and a path for walking the perimeter. Additionally, the rain spouts running alongside the back of the building are modified with these neat little appendages, curving upward every couple of feet, as additional planters for spices, flowers, and the like. Even if much of this is beginning to look a little threadbare at this point, late in the summer season.
“We’ve already harvested a lot, obviously,” Grace says, intercepting where their gazes have drifted, and the thoughts behind them, “and canned or frozen or, like, preserved what we could, you know, since it’ll be getting cold soon.”
Now that the chef has finished her cigarette and drifted back indoors, though, Denise explodes with what bottled up sentiment she's struggled to contain. “What a fuckin cunt!” she bellows, staring at the back door into which Jen just disappeared. “How the fuck would I know the way you prefer to be addressed?”
“There’s no reason to be that shitty about it,” Jeremy agrees.
“Yeah...,” Emily concurs in soothing tones, in an effort to calm down her sister but also not completely alienate this really nice tour guide, “not with somebody you just met, I guess.”
“That’s what I mean,” Denise says, still seething.
Grace crinkles up her features into an awkward, lopsided smile, but otherwise presses onward in showing them the facilities. Led back indoors and up the stairs, they will encounter a second followed by a third floor, nearly every room of which is dedicated to one particular type of supply Mrs. Kidwell was in the habit of collecting, from mountains of yarn in one room, to pretty looking bottles in another, various types of wood, or a thousand half empty containers of paint. According to Grace, the old lady was not an artist herself, just really into amassing large sets of random objects like this. A select few rooms on the second floor have been left alone as quarters for kitchen employees, and there’s one in the front portion of the top level which has a bar, was once and might be again a resident lounge of sorts. Also, one giant, carpeted section, which is in the southwest corner of the second floor and feels like the world’s largest walk-in closet, features nothing but clothes.
“We’re encouraging the artists to borrow clothing from The Collection, also,” Grace notes, “in fact everything I’m wearing today is from The Collection.”
“Everything?” Denise suggestively questions, with a raised eyebrow.
“Well...,” Grace cackles, shutting off the light as they leave, “everything you can see.”
Once they are finished inspecting the main building, the three of them track down Harry, working on yet another residential cabin. Beginning right next to that front administrative building, where they had met him during their initial visit, he and his crew are building these small wooden structures in a backwards L pattern. A short, straight line across the lip of that front hill, reaching a major expanse of woods, and then another long row of them running up alongside that forest, their backsides snuggling against it.
Harry shakes their hands with considerable enthusiasm and asks what they thought, before leading them through the rest of the grounds, as he extols this concept's virtues at great length. Just two of the cabins remain from an earlier incarnation, and it’s in one of these that they are introduced to a middle aged couple, Tom and Kathy Drucker, who are apparently artists of some renown in the region, especially him. Tom Drucker is arguably semi-famous, Harry explains, after they’ve left the couple, and it’s a major coup, landing them for extended residencies, that he’s hoping the pair will conduct some workshops. This makes Jeremy wonder if they’ve been paid to come here, but he can’t think of a tactful way to ask. So, as Harry rambles on about some buildings being in such a sad state he was forced to tear them down, although an old brick schoolhouse and a barn are a couple of the other preexisting structures, Jeremy instead frames a vague question about what kind of employees will be on hand once this opens.
“We’re launching in two weeks,” Harry begins explaining, in somewhat roundabout fashion. They’ve stopped walking for the moment and are gathered near the rear of the compound, drawing up short of the barn and the school building. Harry stands with hands on hips, nodding yet observing the distant action up by the main house. “In fact you might argue we’ve already launched, unofficially. So, yeah,” he chuckles, “I’m in a little bit of crunch on some things, particularly on the kitchen staffing now. I have already hired this extremely knowledgeable old guy with a ton of experience, Liam Blodgett, who I’m sure you’ll be meeting shortly. He’s basically gonna be running things here, on an administrative level, but then also I’m hoping providing some guidance on the art angle as well.”
“He’s gonna be running things?” Jeremy asks. For whatever reason, he pictured Harry being on site even after the retreat launched, although this does seem kind of preposterous, the more he thinks about it.
“Yeah...well, I figure to back away, and move into more of a financial support role, you know, operational or whatever, once this is up and running. Of course,” he turns his attention to them now, finally, flashing a lustrous white smile, as a gust of wind blows his brownish-grey moptop around, “the way things are looking, I’ll probably be stuck as the acting caretaker, too, for at least the next little while. So just call me Mr. Janitor!”
Trailing in his wake, they follow him to the faded old brick building, directly ahead. Though the land has continually, slightly inclined ever since cresting that first big hill up front, it levels out here, although the school and barn both are wedged in against an even larger hill directly beyond. Hemmed in by forest on the north and south, but the rise itself, behind and to the east, continues in mostly clear fashion – at least as much as they can see – other than a tall, wild, trampled looking variety of lush green grass.
As they enter the school, Kidwell explains a little bit about its history, that it was built in the 1940s and contains four classrooms, an office, and a small breakroom. No cafeteria, however, as the main building downhill has existed much longer, and its ground floor was used in that capacity during the years this school was open.
“Wait, was it a school school ever, or just, always, like an art institute of some sort?” Emily asks.
Pausing in their travels, about halfway down the central hall, Harry taps his lips thoughtfully with an index finger and says, “that’s a good question, actually. I’m not sure. I think it might have been used as a regular old school, briefly. But I have to admit, I haven’t done a ton of research on the history here. Or any research, really – but don’t tell anyone.”
As he chuckles and continues down the hall, they do the same, reflexively. Dividing the brick building in half, this hall passes a classroom on each side. Ahead, the passage bends to the left, though near its elbow on the southeast corner sits the office, where they can hear someone talking on the phone. Following Harry's lead, they slip into the reception area, and can see an older man, probably in his late 50s, with a mostly grey head of curly hair and matching bushy goatee, seated at a desk, cell in hand. He glances up and raises a hand, to which Kidwell does the same, and the others nod in recognition.
Backing out into the hallway, they conclude this portion of their tour. As they move onward, a small teacher's lounge lies on the far side of the bend, this hall a boxy, square shaped 7, with another classroom, running the length of it on the left, and a final one carving out what remains of the space on the right. They then exit the only other door into the building, and find themselves facing the barn, with the sun having suddenly gone behind some clouds and a somewhat fiercer breeze kicking up. Dreamily absorbing this scene, they absently gaze at the flurry of activity down the hill. People toting boxes into various cabins, and the construction team busy in various other pockets about the compound.
After offering to show them the barn, though with the disclaimer that it’s only used for storage and there’s nothing interesting to see there whatsoever, it suddenly occurs to Kidwell to mention, “oh! So that was Liam Blodgett back there, in the office, in case you couldn’t figure it out. He’s a...Carolina...Englishman...trapped in – well, whatever you’d call this place, I guess!”
Though chuckling heartily at his own joke, the others aren’t quite sure what this means and respond in much more subdued fashion. More to break up the awkward silence than anything, Jeremy nods at the hill behind them and asks, “so what’s up that way? Anything else?”
Startled away from his own train of thoughts, by appearances studying some workers nearby, it takes Harry a second to register this question and turn in that direction. “Yeah, actually, there’s a decent sized pond up there. It seems to stay pretty clear, too, don’t ask me how. Of course there is a little creek flowing into it, but...some fish, too, believe it or not.”
When another moment passes in silence, Kidwell brings his hands together and says, “well, okay, I guess we should wrap up this little sojourn. I’m behind enough as it is. But do I have any converts?”
He laughs and so does Emily. While Denise continues to not so much scowl, but look around in every direction, in contemplative fashion, the other eyes turn to Jeremy, who has suddenly somehow become the target of an inside joke. Or at least that’s how it feels. He becomes aware that Kidwell and his girlfriend must have had at least some discussion about persuading him to attend. Emily knows that he easily has enough money saved to afford enrolling here for as long as she has. What she’s not aware of, however, is that he has been mulling this over at great length, and some of the time, it does almost seem like a viable concept to him. Despite not possessing one whit of artistic talent, or interest, the idea of goofing around in this pastoral retreat for a few months sounds heavenly. But then more practical concerns win the day, and he realizes it would just be a tremendous waste of his hard fought savings. Not to mention the most compelling obstacle of all, which he voices now.
“Well, unfortunately, while it sounds cool and everything...there’s the little matter of the job I’ve got to hold down. Those bills don’t pay themselves!” he jokes.
“Don’t I know it, don’t I know it,” Harry nods in agreement. But then shifts gears back into a clowning mode again, jesting, “you any good with your hands, by chance? I told you I need a custodian around here!” And laughing heartily yet again.
Even so, Jeremy thinks he’s if nothing else half serious, and can’t resist throwing out some feelers in that direction. “Hmm! Well, you never know. What's it pay?”
“Well, what are you doing now? Chances are I’ll match it.” Harry suggests, though muddying the seriousness of this proposal, once more, with another hearty chuckle.
Upon hearing this suggestion, however, Jeremy isn’t thinking about himself, but rather his uncle Lenny. Lenny, his mom’s younger brother, is probably his favorite relative, and it’s kind of cool to daydream about Lenny taking up such an exotic assignment as this. In many respects, Lenny is custom made for it – kind of a hard luck guy, even if much is his own doing, true, and accident prone, but a lot of fun to be around, always up for an adventure. But more importantly, he has a ton of background in this line of work, while at the same time does commonly experience difficulty keeping a job. He makes a mental note to ask Lenny if he’s interested, as soon as they are back to town.
“Of course, even with the tuition and grant money and so on, uh...let’s just say we might need some other revenue streams around here...,” Harry muses, rubbing his jaw as he continues to study the workers. “So be brainstorming! Your thoughts are welcome, heh heh. Now, I know we will probably set up some showings down the road, but I’m not sure how much I could realistically expect from that...maybe a gift shop, too, I’m thinking maybe in the barn if we clear that out at some point...”
“What about charging for a tour?” Emily suggests, “that was actually pretty interesting. I’ll bet you could rustle up a decent crowd if you did that, like, once a week or something.”
Harry makes an impressed face as he begins nodding, then turns, smiling, and points an index finger in approval at Emily.
The three of them turn right upon leaving the institute, which is the same direction they’ve arrived from, of course, on this immaculate, newly constructed road. There’s still almost nothing but forest in both directions, though, and so even if most of the trees are those tall, slender, nearly branchless pines, creepy as they are, this should indeed make for an idyllic retreat, for Emily to get away from their pleasant if stale everyday existence and just focus on her artwork. She sighs now, dreamily, wishing the residency had already begun. In this otherwise silent car, where all are lost in their isolated thoughts, possibly soaking up the scenery. It’s only upon reaching the curvy, mostly downhill main road back into Stokely that she attempts questioning them.
“So...what did you guys think?”
“Eh,” Jeremy shrugs, “it’s impressive how much they’ve accomplished in such a short order. And I have to say, meeting a few more people who’ll be staying there makes me feel a little better.” He smiles over at her and clarifies, adding, “makes it seem a little less...half baked.”
She opens her mouth in mocking protest and says, “it was never half baked! You could tell right away they weren’t messing around up there!”
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding.”
“I don’t know, something was bugging me the entire time we were up there,” Denise chimes in from the back seat, “I don’t mean, like, something paranormal or whatever, nothing like that. I mean...like there was something missing or something, something off, and it was in plain sight but we hadn’t noticed.”
“Well, they were definitely missing a strong internet signal. But Harry said that’s one of the things they’re working on,” Emily replies, which is true, but half a taunting jest anyway.
“No, no, that’s not what I mean. Although now that you mention it...,” Denise trails off, digging into the front pocket of her jeans to extract a cell phone. She pulls up an internet browser and asks, “has anyone actually bothered to check out the history of that place? Or do a background check on him?”
“Paranoid much?” Emily says, and rolls her eyes as she smiles over at Jeremy.
Well, Emily can make these dismissive wisecracks all she wants, but it’s always been like this. Denise feels as though she’s forever the one hanging back and observing, attempting to piece things together, see them as they really are. Whereas Emily tends to just accept everything at face value. Again, this probably ties back into Emily's need to please, but it’s also, in Denise‘s estimation, made for a much more superficial existence. Whereas with her own choices...Denise is well aware that her family condemns them, is often plainly dismayed and considering her the clear cut black sheep of the family. And she's screwed up often, no doubt about it. But as far as she’s concerned, this is the price you pay for attempting to strip out superficiality, the see things as they are and live how you want.
“Well, the signal’s still not great, even here,” she says, puts her phone away in the face of such sluggishness. “So hopefully this dude has some major clout or something. But. I don’t know. Jeremy’s right, in a way, that encounter with that kitchen bitch does make things seem more believable and real, somehow....”
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