Re: antique store: sam & julia
"I guess even Alexanders clean up good if they get raised by other 'rents. His adoptive fam is like HELLA loaded, and Lou was raised in Scotland and def acts like someone from England or something." Geography was NOT Sam's strong suit, yeah? And Jersey was never far for Sam. It was home, huh? Home wasn't out here, not like OLD home. Home was something that lived in Sam's nose, as weird as that sounded. It was Cuban coffee on the stove in a metal pot, and it was cigars in the courtyard, and it was the smell of Joey's too-sharp cologne, stolen from the bodega at the corner. It was violets splashed on all the babies and kids in the building, and it was the smell wafting ahead of them and announcing them as they ran loud and stomping through the halls. This was where she lived, yeah? But THAT was home.
"Her name's Joey!" she said of the baby that wasn't a baby anymore. Terrible two, and Joey was LOUD. She rambled in Spanglish and demanded everything. She bit with sharp little teeth, and she liked to grab hair, and she was kinda a beautiful demon with dark curls and black eyes. "She's staying with her abuela right now, and with Cris' daughter, while we paint and get the new house ready." It WAS busy, and it WAS mad, and it WAS good. It wasn't enough, and Sam knew she needed to find a new creative outlet, but what she had WAS good.
She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, let's see if he doesn't get into trouble. He was always like Shane. Him and Shane, they were ALWAYS getting into trouble." Sam said it fond; getting into trouble was kinda like a physical trait for the Alexander fam, like blue eyes and light hair.
Sam reached for the birdhouse and traced the little square edges. She was kinda dreaming of a studio in the backyard, and she could totes see this inside it. It was the right kinda old, and she considered asking Lou for it. It probs had some terrible history, like the owner had tripped and fallen and gotten impaled on it or something, but she liked it. Dark stuff, it kinda sang to her these days. "So, what's up with Alex?" Alex was too old for Sam to know well. Julia, yeah, but Julia was a girl, and Sam had been allowed to be around girls. Guys? Yeah, not so much. "Cris? He used to be sheriff, and now he runs the art store. He's an old Cuban hottie, huh? Like the guys back home in Elizabeth. He's from New York, tho."