Log: Lorna and Alex Who: Alex & Lorna NPCs: Alex's adoptive parents When: March 11 Where: Alex's Childhood home: Hawaii What: Lorna goes with Alex to Hawaii, which means at least stopping in to his parents for a couple of days. Meeting of the parents happens. Rating: PG
"So here we are." Alex put the car into park and looked over at Lorna. He had a grin on his face, and yes a few nervous knots in his stomach. They were here, in the driveway of the house that he had grown up in. It was there in front of them, a brightly painted house that you could just see through the palm trees that had sort of taken over the front "yard".
Alex pulled the keys out of the cars ignition, and pocketed them, and than wiped his hands on his pants. Yes his palms were a little sweaty, he was kind of nervous after all. He was about to introduce Lorna to his parents. He was sure that they would love her -- but he was worried that maybe she wouldn't like them.
"So. Ready?"
So Alex seemed a little nervous, but Alex was sometimes easily made nervous. Lorna, however, felt like she might throw up. Seriously. She'd been so pysched about a Hawaii vacation and relieved about the end of the world that she felt completely relaxed and in a brilliant mood while packing and driving to the airport. It took her until halfway through the flight to realize exactly where their first stop was and what the implications of this was.
Lorna's parents lived pretty close to San Fran. Alex had already met them, but it was before anything was going on. This was different. She was meeting parents as the "girlfriend." Not every bad movie and TV show where the girlfriend is always hated came to mind.
It didn't help that Meet the Parents was the in flight movie. That was how her luck went.
She swallowed and forced a genuine smile on her face. "Ready." She said opening the door.
"Great." Alex opened the door on his side, and got out, and stood there for a moment looking up at the house. "All right, lets go." He held his hand out to Lorna before heading up the driveway. He had phoned his parents, so that they weren't going to just arrive and surprise them.
Moving up the driveway and reaching the door the house, Alex stood outside the front door for a moment -- feeling weird as always when he came "home." This was his home, but he hadn't lived there full time since he was a teenager. And so he always rang the doorbell or knocked before going in, even if it was his house.
He reached up to knock on the door, when the door opened and reveled a graying older gentlemen dressed in jeans, and a Phish T-shirt. "You two made it." He said with a girn, than glanced back over his shoulder into the house before looking back at Alex and Lorna. "Your mom's acting all casual like, but she's been sitting in the window all morning waiting for you. come on in, come on in." The gentlemen than moved back from the door, so that Lorna and Alex could enter the house.
"That's my dad." Alex said in an undertone to Lorna, as he motioned for her to go on into the house first.
So Lorna was a tad bit girly enough to admit that she felt slightly less nervous when she grabbed his hand. Still that just meant she no longer wanted to throw up. Instead she was just worried about making the best first impression anyone could possibly ever make. And it wasn't like she was a naturally shy person. She could talk to pretty much anyone, but she'd stayed quiet, giving a small nod and quiet sounding, "Hello." As Alex ushered her into the house ahead of her.
Hell, she was so nervous that she didn't say, 'Oh really? Who else would be answering the door?' to Alex when he kind of stated the obvious. Still the Phish shirt had caught her attention. Her family was usually casual around the house, but she could never remember either of them ever slipping on a band shirt. "I have an old friend who emailed me to tell me they saw them play at Bonnaroo last June." She said in some weird attempt to make conversation.
She was saved when they were quickly joined by an older woman engulfing Alex in a hug.
"Bonnaroo, nice." Alex's father gave Lorna an approving look even if she herself hadn't made it to the show. Just the fact that she had a friend who took the time out to e-mail her about going to see them was giving her points in Peter's books.
He gestured towards the living room / sitting room area; "Come on, in sit down."
"Can't we go set in the kitchen? Or on the back deck?" Alex had gotten out of his mothers hug and looked between his parents. The living room and sitting room area was reserved for Special Guests. And while yes, Alex thought that Lorna was special, but he thought that the kitchen or the back deck was a lot more -- well a lot more like his family.
His father shook his head at Alex; "Can't, your mother was cooking. We just actually managed to clear out the smoke, but now we have to wait for the EPA to declare the room a safe zone. You cook Lorna?"
Alright so she said something good. Score one for Lorna. Because yes this was like an exam. She'd compare all the good things said and all the things she said that didn't go over so well, and then she could gauge whether she was doing well or not. Never mind the fact that all through school Lorna always thought she did horribly on every test. Still there was something about the jokes about bad cooking and the Phish T-shirt that put her at ease.
She gave Alex's hand a quick squeeze to show that she was alright with his parents ushering her anywhere (although hopefully without questions about her intentions towards their son) before letting it go. "Some, mostly we eat take out." She offered up, making her way in the direction he'd ushered her. "But I make good hamburgers." Food was a good topic. Safe topic.
"Too busy to cook? Well you two are young, you can probably cope with eating mostly take out. Watch out though, it catches up to you." Peter patted his stomach, which didn't hang out over his jeans no, but was a little round.
Once in the living room, Peter motioned for them to sit on the couch, Alex took his normal seat (to the left), and leaned back into the coach. This might be the "formal" room, but the couch was still a comfortable piece of furniture. Alex had learned everything he needed to know about couches, and how to purchase comfortable ones (and ones that would last!) from his parents.
Peter and Tara, took seats in two of the chairs in the room, and Alex stared over at his parents, waiting for them to say something. They however seemed content to just sit there and smile, and Alex began to feel a bit panicky. The conversation couldn't have stalled already!
"The flight here was good." Alex blurted out desperate to fill the silence.
Lorna settled into the couch near Alex, but not as close as she might sit if they were by themselves. (There was such a thing as respectful personal space in front of parents, right?) She sat back and instantly noticed that this couch reminded her of the couch she'd accidentally destroyed. Except no where near as ugly as the thing that used to sit in X-factor HQ. Lorna felt she knew Alex, and while she was normally one to calm him down, this was a situation where she needed him NOT to freak out because she was on the cusp of doing that herself. He was just going to feed into her own nervousness.
And she honestly thought Alex was on crack, the flight sucked. Meet the parents should be banned from being an in flight movie. She pushed some hair behind her ear and smiled. "Movie sucked, but they always do."
He was trying not to freak out, but he felt that the silence was bad. Despite having been raised by these people, people who were comfortable with silence and just sitting, Alex was not capable of doing that.
"Right. Move sucked." Alex agreed with Lorna, wanting to change the subject so that the name of the movie didn't get mentioned. He was sure that his parents would find it hysterical, and not mortifying.
"Oh, well that's too bad. Was the food any good?" Alex's mother inquired, leaning forward in her seat a bit. "Oh, and can I get you anything to drink Lorna? Water, tea, coffee, juice?"
Lorna smiled kindly. "I'm fine right now, really." She said quickly, not wanting to be a bother even if she had been thirsty, but she really wasn't. But Lorna agreed with Alex's unstated thought, asking what the title of the movie was would be a little mortifying. But yes, silence was no good, and making polite conversation was the only option. The couple may have been happy sitting in silence, but Lorna wasn't like that with new people. "So Alex tells me you guys own a bookshop."
"All right well if you need anything just speak up, Alex knows where the kitchen is, he can get you anything." Alex's mother looked pointedly over at her son. "But why don't we show you the house? Alex can still get you anything you need, but we'll show you around." She stood and smiled at Lorna.
"So we'll start with the upper level, and than end up back down here and we'll be ready for dinner!" She lead the way out of the living room area, and up the stairs. Alex waited for Lorna to go ahead of him, hanging back a bit to have a quick and quiet conversation with his dad. Mostly consisting of; 'Please don't embarrass me' on his part and 'of course we won't relax.' on the part of his dad.
There wasn't that many stairs that lead to the upper level, the stairway had pictures hung on the wall, Alex's parents when they were younger -- lots of flowers and beads apparent in those pictures. Tara and Peter outside their bookshop, than Alex as a kid with his parents, and so on.
Reaching the top of the stairs Tara pointed out the bathroom, the guest bedroom, their bed room and than; "And this is our spare room."
"No. That's my room." Alex spoke from near the back of the group.
Tara turned and smiled at her son; "Sweetie, your twenty-eight, and you don't live at home, or even in the same state. And we are so proud of you, and all you do, but we needed the space ...don't worry. Your dad has been just using it to store his gym equipment. We'll put some blankets down on the treadmill for you!"
Tour. Lorna figured a tour was good. So followed straight away, and she did take note of the pictures in the stairway. Oh it was so hilarious that it was obvious Alex's parents were old hippies. Alex, it seemed, was an argument for the nature side of nature vs. nurture. Apparently no amount of laid back parenting could penetrate through those uptight Summers' genes. She nodded when shown different rooms. Although finding out that they'd converted Alex's room seemed a little sad maybe. For a fraction of a second she wondered if she was serious about the treadmill, but she really did know better.
"Don't worry, Lorna." Peter said. "You can have the guest room. Perfectly comfortable in there."
Tara shook her head, seeming to take a little bit of pity on her son, but not too much. "Don't worry. You'll both be in the guest room. If not... Alex will try to sneak in in the dark. He'll fall and hit his head, and we'll never ever hear the end of it."
Lorna glanced between the two, and Peter gave her a quick wink, and she couldn't help but smile, laughing a bit as her arm linked into Alex's. Oh, she liked them.
"I can't believe you turned my room into a spare room." Alex looked morose, and looked between his two parents. "What did you do with my -- wait -- wait -- let me see the room." He unlinked his arm with Lorna's with an apologetic look at her. And moved to the room that had once been his.
He moved to the door of the room and opened it and looked into the room. "Where -- where is my stuff?"
"Attic." Peter responded cheerfully, as he moved over to the open door and closed it. "Now come on kids, let's go get some food, and I want to hear more about you Lorna. We know all about Alex, he's old news. Let's hear about where you went to school, I hear your into the geophysics thing as well?"
Lorna couldn't help bit look a tiny bit impressed that his father knew she was doing geophysics. It meant that Alex had obviously mentioned something about her a time or two. She kind of liked that. "NYU." She said with a smile, letting the conversation switch to her from Alex's attic'd room. "But yes, let's eat, and I'll answer anything." She said with a smile.
"Guests. And it's your first night here -- and I'm sure you must be tried from the flight. So you two go on." Tara spoke from her seat at the dinner table, and was dismissing Alex's offer to help her clear the table.
Dinner had gone well, there had been no more awkward silences, conversations had flowed, and Alex could tell that his parents really seemed to like Lorna. He just hoped that she liked them.
"Okay, okay." You didn't have to tell Alex twice that he was exempt from dish duty. "All right if I show her the attic?"
"Oh Alex." Tara sighed and shook her head. "Just be careful, all your things are in nicely labeled boxes. Now I don't expect you to put everything back just as you found it, but try not to make too much of a mess. Or come crashing down through the ceiling?"
"Right, right, sure." Alex stood from the table. "Okay come on Lorna. Lets go to the attic." Alex had a lucky rock to find after all.
Dinner had been perfect. Oh, she was a fan of the Baldings. They were quick on their feet and just teased the hell out of Alex it seemed, and not to seem cruel she actually enjoyed that. She liked that he came from a family that really tried to not let him take himself too seriously. So the conversation hadn't failed, and they seemed extremely interested in her. When Alex offered to do the dishes Lorna almost piped up herself but she was quickly shushed by his mother speaking.
Alex, though seemed like he was really still on his stuff in the attic. "Thank you for dinner." She said with a smile, getting up with Alex.
She followed him through the house to the attic. "Lucky rock?"
"Lucky rock." Alex agreed as he reached the entrance to the attic and pulled down from the ceiling the little ladder that lead up to said attic. Moving up into the attic, Alex quickly found the light up there, and turned it on. Once the light illuminated the area, it could be seen that the space was full of boxes. So many boxes. Some of them labeled, some of them not.
Alex glanced around and spied a pile of boxes off to the side that had "Alex's Belongings" written on it. He made a beeline for those, taking the box that was on the top of the pile off, and pulling it open. He glanced down at the contents; books mostly it looked like. He sighed he had a feeling this might take a while . . .
"So." asked oh so casually as he started to root through the box. "What do you think so far?"
Once he was up there and had turned on the light, Lorna followed him up the ladder and perched on the side of the frame. She smiled watching as he moved to his boxes. "I like them." she said moving a box to look through as well. It was full of old clothes. "I would have never pegged you for raised by hippies." She teased gently.
"Ex-hippies." He pulled out a book and frowned at it. "Not mine, dad's." Deciding that it must have been in his room, and packed away he placed it off to the side. Diving back into the box he kept rooting through it. "Good think I already had a name, or else I might have ended up named Sunbeam or Moonshadow .."
Lorna rolled her eyes. "You're being dramatic." She teased, fairly certain his name would NOT have been Moonshadow. She pushed the flaps on that box back into place. "They're sweet, and I'm sure you're name wouldn't have been Sunbeam."
"You don't know them well, they would have named me Moonshadow. Or possibly Jerry, after Garcia." He pulled some more books out of the box, and looked down into it. Some old posters -- posters of some surfer girls in skimpy bikinis.... he quickly dropped the books down into the box. "Or possibly some name they yoinked out of something by James Joyce, mom loves James Joyce ...."
Lorna, unfortunately, seeing a couple of Alex's boxes in this collection of boxes assumed they were all his. She shook her head before leaning forward to give him a quick kiss. "It's alright. I might still love you if you had a name like Moonshadow." She teased. "Although I might insist on calling you by your middle name." She teased returning to her searching. She mindlessly opened a box and started to go through it, until she realized that it wasn't Alex's. It just seemed to be important papers, but before she closed the box though she noticed a bag. She laughed, picking it up. Holding it between her fingers she turned towards Alex. "Alex, hon, are you positive about that "ex" part on the hippy word?" She asked holding a bag of what was apparently marijuana near her head.
"Oh my god." Alex lost all the colour in his face as he looked at the bag that Lorna held. "Put that back!" The colour returned and with it, Alex started to laugh. "Oh god put that back or they'll ... they'll ..." Alex had caught a sudden case of the giggles. It was just the stress of everything and now -- he had found his parents stash. Or rather Lorna had found it. "But it back before they think we 'borrowed' some from it!"
She was laughing, and she was now just laughing at him and his reaction. Although she was assuming she'd have a similar reaction if it were her parents. "Why? Did you used to have a habit of stealing from their stash?" She asked, stifling her laughter. "It was under two of your boxes. They've probably forgotten about it." She said tossing it back into the box so he didn't completely lose it.
"N-N-N-No." Alex managed to get himself under control. "I think -- I think they were always disappointed that I didn't smoke, so they couldn't steal from my stash." He wiped away a few tears from his eye. "But you know, I brought this green haired geophysicist home, and she's from New York. They might think you stole some." Alex was teasing of course, he could tell his parents really liked Lorna.
She gave him a slight playful glare and a playful kick. "I'm from California, you dork." She said suddenly still giggling. "Not New York. I'm not an east coaster." Though she stayed for college. "And psssh I know they love me. They'll just think it's your bad influence." She was teasing, but she was fairly certain they liked her.
"Even worse," he said rubbing his leg were she had kicked him rather theatrically. "Your from California -- so you won't have stolen it like a New Yorker, you'll have taken it to smoke it. And please, they know I'm as innocent as the snow. Well maybe not snow since we don't get that here." The thank god didn't have to be said aloud.
"What would a New Yorker have done? Stolen it just to be a bitch?" She asked curious about his thought process there. She smiled reaching for another box, making sure it was labeled as his this time. "Pssh, you lie. Deep down they know you're a devil."
"I thought all New Yokers stole. All the time." Alex of course new better -- he just sometimes wondered if his parents did. "And please they know I'm great. I think they just think your up here being all West Coast like and corruptive."
Lorna couldn't help but leave the box alone for a few second when Alex said that. She shifted slightly a bit closer to him. "And here I thought you rather liked my West Coast corruption..." She said, trailing off.
Okay so they were in his parents house -- but they had told them to stay in the same room. And they were here up in the attic, and his parents were down in the lower levels. "Well ...." Alex moved a bit closer to her, abandoning the search for his lucky rock for the moment. "I don't dislike it actually ...." He kissed her quickly. Because yhea. Parents house.
Lorna didn't let him get away with that. Her hand snaked to the back of his, pulling him back to her for a more proper thorough kiss, before resting her forehead on his with a smile. "I knew you did. Thanks for admitting it."
"What can I say, your very good at what you do." He kissed her again, trying and succeeding in ignoring that he was in his parents attic. And that they had found his parents pot stash. And that his parents where in the same house right now.
"Mmmhmmm. I'm brilliant." She agreed between the kisses. She let her hand play with the hair at the back of his head. "Now." She said giving him a quick peck. "do you want to stay up her in this dust, or find your rock as soon as possible?" She asked, giving him yet another kiss. She was alright with the dust for a few moments.
"Not allergic to dust -- and your not either right?" Didn't mean he wasn't going to start sneezing eventually. "But I think we can find the rock in a bit ..." tell his parents it took a while to find the rock. He shoved that thought away mostly because it had the phrase 'parents' in it, and he didn't want to think about his parents right now. He wanted to think about Lorna, and how much he cared about her, and how much he enjoyed the time they spent together.