RP: Best Friends Who: Abby and Julian Maitland When: 13 April 2013 Where: The Maitland Apartment; Irvine Rating: PG-13 for language. Status: Complete
‘Let’s see... Beans on nothing or- ugh... nothing?’ Abby scowled into the pantry, flinging the cupboard shut with a loud thunk. The shelves were bare, zilch in the stores to stare or make faces at in defeat. Just a box of baking soda, a container of salt and nothing much to rub between the two.
‘Honestly, what does he survive on. Air?’
Now on a mission, Abby exited the kitchen and padded across the living room, down the short apartment hallway and let herself into Julian’s bedroom. No knocks, no gentle warnings, just Abby and her hunger-grump attitude. At 5-foot-1 she didn't eat a whole lot but when the hunger pains finally tickled Abby turned Crabby before blood sugar levels had the opportunity to bottom.
‘Out of bed,’ she said, toeing him with the point of her sock. ‘I need you to drive me to the store.’
To anyone else her demands would have seemed rude and selfish; between Abby and Julian she was practically pleading.
‘Come on. My stomach is going to eat through to my spine!’
Julian was napping having never grown out of the habit after working the club scene and sat up with a start.
'Murr?' He scrubbed his hands over his face. 'Oh, right. Food.'
Julian tended to just get takeout but Abby was accustomed to ingesting things like vegetables and protein; foodstuffs that didn’t come from a can or a fast-food window.
“I can drive, yeah. Give me a second for pants?” He slept naked and flashing his sister wasn’t on his schedule for the day.
‘Oh, God, right....’ Years away from home and Abby had forgotten one or two finer points about living with her brother. ‘Sorry..’
But she wasn’t. Not really.
Embarrassing her baby brother was part and partial to being a good sibling. Though with all the reports of disappearing clothes and what they had experienced during the musical outburst which swept Orange County weeks prior Abby wasn’t going to take any chances. The first time she saw a naked man in months would not be her brother.
Turning to face the door, Abby stayed in the room only for confirmation that Julian was indeed getting out of bed and not simply rolling over and zipping back off to the land of nod. ‘You know... soon as I have the money I’ll renew my license. Then I won’t have to wake you up in the nude for basic needs.’
Julian fell over a bit as he started the search for pants and a t-shirt. ‘You don’t have to worry about it, I should have food here anyway. It’s cheaper than eating out all the time.’
Soon he emerged with bedhead and mismatched clothes, yawning expansively. ‘Grocery store, then?’
Yes, he was going out like that.
Turning and seeing her brother, Abby lit up like a firecracker, grin stretching ear to ear on a squeal. ‘Oh, my hero!’ she responded, flinging herself around his middle for a tight hug. But just as quickly as she’d lit up, the spark died, Abby silently leading the way out of the house and down to the car. On and off like a loose electrical wire.
‘How is your new job?’ she asked after they’d driven a few blocks down the road, her eyes glued on Julian.
Abby had seen a lot of change in her brother over the last month. No longer exhausted - habitual naps and reduced hours had worked wonders for the bags beneath his cotton candy blues - nor doused in glitter, smiling and unbroken. Hearing her observations confirmed, however, was part of Abby’s creede. Years of abuse had taught her looks were most likely in every circumstance very deceiving.
And Julian was the master at hiding all faults.
‘Good!’ he beamed, feeling like the best little brother in the world. ‘It’s a lot better than being a promoter. I have an office and I just get to be there most of the time. I hire and fire, I do paperwork, and I don’t smell like cigarettes all the time. I haven’t had to wash glitter out of my hair in a while.’
Abby smiled genuinely at that, curling her toes up under her bum and all but folding like a pretzel. ‘I’m glad. It was getting everywhere. I still find some from time to time. And in the oddest places, too.’
He smiled at her, ruffling her hair.
‘Stop it,’ Abby bit, smacking her brother’s hands away. ‘Just because you look like you lost a fight with a hairbrush doesn’t mean I have to.’
‘Ha, ha, I didn’t use a hairbrush,’ Julian stuck out his tongue at her, grinning.
When his lanky knobby hands were no longer a threat, Abby pulled down the passenger's side visor and began fixing her hair in the tiny mirror. Not that there was much length to fiddle with; blonde pixie locks shorter than Julian’s and they pretty much stayed wherever nature desired.
Finally satisfied with her primping, Abby closed the visor and turned to look at Julian again.
Her baby brother, who towered a foot well over her head and broke her heart beneath a current of pride. He’d come so very far in the last five years, off the brink of death and back into the light.
‘Good on you, Julian,’ her voice simply tender, no hint of a tease. ‘For getting the job, and keeping at it.’
Julian smiled a little to himself, reaching out to squeeze her hand while merging into the right lane. ‘What do you want to do? I think you should go back to school.’
‘Ha!’ Abby half snorted half shouted, her usual flat exterior melting into a gentler, more bubbly sort of soul. She’d spent so much of her life hiding from their parents that the true Abby, the happy, carefree, excitable child that resided in her heart did not often rise to the surface. Julian had a talent for extracting that part of her personality, though, up from the depths for the occasional breath of fresh air.
Oh, and animals. Animals were good at melting her casings, too.
‘I’ve thought about it... and then I remember I’ve spent all my savings paying off school debts and I still owe the government. So it’s probably an irresponsible idea.’
‘Everyone’s in debt to the government, Abby,' Julian grinned lopsidedly. ‘I’m the weirdo who didn’t go to school or anything.’
He didn’t know what he wanted to do, much less what he was good at, so he wasn’t about to spend money on things that wouldn’t help him. He’d always envied Abby’s vision and knowing what she wanted to do and be.
‘Weird or smart, I suppose we’ll never know,’ Abby mused beneath a smiling. Tacking several degrees to her resume had done wonders, clearly, penny pinching and pawning while holding down two jobs just to buy a decent cup of coffee. Julian was the one with a job earning a steady living in the black.
Which was better?
‘Do you think you'll stay long in your new job?'’
‘It's better than what I was doing.’
Julian just wanted to work normal hours and not wake up with glitter in weird places. He was still in awe of his big sister; he liked how driven she was and he had every faith that she’d end up with a job suited to her talents.
Nodding, Abby concluded acceptance of Julian’s explanation. All the drugs and heavy pulsing music present in his position as a promoter were not great for a recovering drug addict and although the new job wasn’t as flashy or engaging - nothing glamorous about paper pushing - Abby fully believed that removing daily temptation had gone a long way towards improving his happiness.
She thought he might end up missing the body glitter, though.
And so long as Julian didn’t move from one terrible career to another, jumping about like a Jack Russell Terrier, she was happy to support him in almost anything. ‘Just as long as you can keep buying me food and paying the rent, we’re good.'
‘That’s about what I figured,’ he smiled back. ‘I just sometimes wish I had some passion in my life, something to ... I don’t know, ignite some sort of fire or something. I like making people happy. I wish that was a job. Giving people something to smile about.’ It wasn’t, granted, but he could dream, right?
Pulling into the grocery parking lot, Julian parked the car and smiled at his sister. ‘Don’t worry, we’re not wanting for money at all. Work is ... good. I’m annoyingly good at my job. Maybe someday I could buy a club or something.’
Abby sat back in her seat, shifting to stare at her brother and consider his comment long enough to form a sincere response.
‘Is it the whole club scene you’re not happy with? Or just the glitter and broken noses?’
‘The drug scene,’ he replied immediately.
‘Everyone that goes to clubs looks so damn sad, you know? It’s like that Smiths song - everyone’s going to find someone to screw or fall in love with, and they don’t, and they just get sadder and more resentful and upset.’
Nodding, Abby took another moment to consider.
The “club scene” had always been her brother’s world. Bumping and grinding in dark corners to music so loud the careful sound editing distorted and suffered white noise mutilation. There was a sense of anonymity available in that verse which did sound appealing but Abby had discovered similar escapes in safer environments. The library and hiking trails, a Sunday afternoon in the park watching pond ducks bobbing for algae, their flat, awkwardly flailing feet splashing water as they paddled thin air to stay inverted.
That people felt something worthwhile could be found in a club was sad and by his own admission Abby couldn’t for the life of her understand why Julian would wish to feed its growth purchasing a club of his own.
‘If you had your own club, would you really be escaping the drug scene? How would you stop people from using?’ This wasn’t prodding, simply steering of the conversation towards a productive direction. If Julian wanted to open a club, he was going to do it and Abby would support and respect his decision, providing support as possible. Just like always.
But details had to be sorted first and Abby needed order to make sense of things.
‘Well, if I made it an all ages club, I could make sure that it was well policed. ID and stuff on people. Security really helps. And good lighting! Oh my gosh, the lighting is important too. Oh, and someone doing random bathroom checks.’ He was thinking a mile a minute but he knew it was all just pie in the sky stuff anyway.
‘But I don’t have the sort of capital to run my own club. Maybe I’ll just get a job picking strawberries. I’d be good at that.’
Abby grinned, knowing like a good sister, she’d eat every last one.