WHO: Lyra, Jemma and Patrick WHEN: Tuesday afternoon WHERE: DUMBO WHAT: I'm meeelllting WARNINGS: TBA
The heat was so thick Lyra wasn’t thinking straight. How could she? How could anyone? At least when she was up the side of the building the wind stole a little of the humidity, and she could keep accidentally-on-purpose getting caught in the spray. Inside her overalls though, it was a nightmare. She’d messaged Rosario more than one 'bout her sweaty boobs-and-everything-else and was gonna keep complaining till something changed, and yeah that involved whining at Rosario (who was in the same boat, or worse; she had to wait on people in this heat) but it also involved angry daydreams 'bout working her way through a long list of climate change deniers' houses and smashing their windows in the night. More than once today she’d sent a bitchy psychic message right at the sun too: fuck you Apollo, the worst the worst the worst.
The lack of sleep she was getting lately wasn’t helping her mood. The heat had a part in that; sharing a bed with someone when it was 76 degrees overnight was a serious test of how much you loved each other, and then when she finally did fall asleep she kept dreaming of dragons. Or trolls. Doorways opening up in the floor under her feet. Aliens once too, but dragons quite a bit. Her heat-addled brain was taking a long time to catch up with the memo that there wasn’t any danger.
So she really wasn’t in the mood to listen to an audio message from her mom between window jobs. For one thing, it was an audio message and her headphones were broken, and she didn’t wanna risk her workmates overhearing anything capital-W-Weird. It didn’t matter how many times Lyra insisted just TEXT me, mom! Jem insisted on her way. It’s so much easier! And you get to hear my voice! This is what phones were built for! Well, Lyra was gonna finish her shift before she listened to them, and Jem was just gonna have to deal with a few hours wait for a reply.
She still had a whole side of a building to go when her phone rang with an unidentified number, and that was a little irresistible. Sure, more than likely it was a phone scam, but sometimes it wasn’t; once, a woman called Nellie from Ohio had called her number by accident after Bonkers the spaniel she was dogsitting escaped and she was panicking, and Lyra had a twenty minute phone conversation with her while she ran around her neighbourhood in Ashtabula calling him home. She’d found him, and now whenever Nellie dogsat she’d send Lyra photos, so how could she not answer her phone knowing that she could be passing up an opportunity for random dog pics or something equally unexpected and interesting?
You weren’t supposeda answer your phone when you were half way down a building, though, and if Jake was on the platform with her she wouldn’t’ve, but she was working with Clint and he wasn’t a nark.
It was Carina, one of the leaders Splat Camp, the summer programme Jem had enrolled Jemma in; Lyra’d gotten a bunch of photos last week of Jemma looking quietly pleased with the slime she’d made, though when Jemma had talked to her on the phone 'bout it the main thing she’d wanted to tell Lyra was that there were a lot of big kids in the same programme and Jemma was the smallest.
“You are supposed to be here to collect your child at three fifteen,” Carina said, in a voice that betrayed a fraying patience, though it was the words, not her tone, that made a chill pass over Lyra. “Jemma is the only one who hasn’t been picked up. She’s waiting.”
“Shit, is she okay?” Lyra cast a grimace of a look over at Clint, just for the comradery; he was squeedging a line of soap from the glass and trying not to look like he was listening.
“She’s wondering where her mommy is,” Carina rubbed it in, but seriously, Lyra was fully on board with her. Like a hundred percent, everyone was wondering where her mommy was.
“I’m her sister — but, I'm on my way, seriously, fast as I can. Can you stay with her? Can someone stay with her?”
“She can sit in the back with the older class. No one here is going to leave a four year old by themselves,” Carina said, failing to realise via the psychic link Lyra was tryna establish that Lyra was fully on board with everything Carina was saying and that there was no need to take it out on her.
“Yeah alright I get the message,” Lyra snipped back, too hot to try and explain they were on the same side. “Tell her I’m on my way, okay? Tell her I promise I’m coming.”
If Lyra knew anything 'bout love it was if someone needed you, you turned up. You didn't start making calls to see who else could turn up instead, didn’t start hunting for someone more convenient to take over. You turned up, whatever the consequences were. "I gotta go right now," Lyra said to Clint, shoving her phone back into her pocket and looking down the dozen stories like she could vault over the railing and end up safely on the ground. "Family emergency."
In the long run, she didn’t think this reason was gonna fly, and it wasn't gonna surprise her if Jake gave her another hard time 'bout her reliability, but fuck it. If she lost this job, she’d land on her feet somewhere else, right? She was Saint Patrick’s lucky daughter, the universe seemed to keep providing her with safety nets to catch her when she needed it the most, and right now Jemma needed her to catch her, so yeah she was gonna walk out on the job.
It didn’t mean she wasn’t very, very pissed at her mom for sticking her in this situation. She also knew it'd be useless to call her and yell her into picking Jemma up instead.
She listened to the audio messages on her walk to the subway. She’d jogged a block but it was too hot to run, pushing ninety five degrees, and down in the streets the air felt heavy with humidity, felt like breathing through a hot flannel. The sidewalks that had been blessed by afternoon shade were packed thickly with people, most of them dripping with as much sweat as she was. I need you to pick up Jemma from Splat today, my love! Something incredible has happened and I’ll never get there in time, but you can make it can’t you? I’ll owe you the world! Your grandmother has gone and blocked me so she’s useless! Aren’t you so blessed you don’t have to deal with her moods anymore? Oh- there was a man’s voice in the background, too difficult to hear over the noise of the street, but Jem was clearly listening to him. Anyway I’ve told them to expect you, so just bring Jemma home she added after a moment. I’ll be there as soon as I can, oh! Fix her something too? You're an angel!
Not a single worry that Lyra wouldn’t be able to do it, not one. If it wasn’t Jemma on the line, Lyra would have been tempted to pretend she hadn’t got the message at all and let Jem deal with the consequences, and had the strongest suspicion this was why Jocelyn had blocked her; to force Jem into responsible parenting. If this was true, Lyra was gonna go off at them both, first chance she got.
Looking on the bright side was a real challenge right now, but at least the subway ride was a straight shot across the city, and the doors of the train did close the second she pressed herself in with the other passengers. And it was only a short walk on the other end, she’d come up at the station a block away from her destination. But also: she was so disgustingly uncomfortable. Everyone reeked, the air was so thick and hot you could slice it up and eat it like oily BO pizza. The train seemed to jossle everyone more than usual and it was impossible to avoid touching other people every time it swayed round a corner and with every sway Lyra felt the irrational desire to snap at the train itself to STOP going round CORNERS. Down the other end of the car, someone passed out, and by the end of the journey Lyra was jealous of their lack of consciousness cuz this was horrible.
It was still half an hour between the phone call and her arrival, though, and Jemma had been waiting an awful forty five before Lyra was pushing through the front doors covered in smeary fingerprints, the name of the school that hosted the programme frosted in large letters on the glass. If it’d been any less hot or if Lyra’d gotten any more sleep or if she’d been any less focused on recovering her sister she might have wondered how her mom could afford to send Jemma here, even for a short summer programme.
Half a dozen older kids rushed past with homemade parachutes, heading for the stairs, and Lyra stepped back against the noticeboard to let them pass. The noticeboard was covered in sleek posters for immersive French and Mandarin classes for the pre-K crowd, posters 'bout brain development aimed at parents, and photos of kids doing different activities arranged to spell out #ProNerd. Lyra spared a quick thought that kid-Rosario would have been super jealous, and then coming through the door the parachute enthusiasts had erupted out of was Jemma, running at her, a frustrated but ultimately relieved Carina behind her. Lyra wrapped her arms round Jemma, and hauled her up into her arms.
"You good, Jemmabella?" Lyra asked, as Jemma buried her face into Lyra's hot neck. In the doorway, Carina looked drawn and mad, and when she dropped a few very snippy comments Lyra was very very close to snapping back and describing just how quickly she’d managed to get here on short notice and it wasn’t even her fault cuz she weren’t even the one supposed to be here! But Jemma was looking very shrunken already and Lyra wasn’t gonna make that worse with an argument. Besides, part of her, underneath it all, was too aware that Jemma wouldn't have had to wait so long if Lyra'd just listened to her messages.
"C'mon then,” Lyra blew a raspberry on her neck, and Jemma squirmed and giggled and Lyra felt like maybe she’d done good despite being so late.
“You see the Burger King, end of the street? Wanna get a cherry slush?” Lyra asked, hoping that sugary bribery would stick in Jemma’s memory longer than whatever she’d been going through before Lyra got here, and almost completely convinced it wouldn’t.
“I got juice,” Jemma said, offering Lyra the last of the juice box clutched in one hand, and Lyra grateful sucked up the last mouthful through the straw, wincing at the heat of it, like the box had been in a microwave.
They got a cherry slush anyway, or rather one to share, and Lyra sat Jemma on the only free stool in the crowded Burger King and tried to think. See… Patrick’s place was only a few short blocks away, and Bushwick was a miserable bus ride in the scorching heat away and besides (if she was being honest with herself) she wanted to spite her mother by not heading home straight away. So... she was tempted… but not sure, cuz turning up with Jemma in tow was something she could do at the Ortiz’s without a second thought but could she expect the same of Patrick— and even before she’d finished the thought she was pulling out her phone to ring him.
Not cuz she was certain, but cuz she was too hot and tired and all mixed up to care if she was ‘bout to be a pain in the ass. She wasn't losing anything by asking, anyways.