Notes: This story is, in part, inspired by and dedicated to all the fan fiction writers I've read over the years that had the fantastic idea to interweave all of the cartoons from my childhood into one storyline. I've read many fantastic renditions of this idea, though not all of them complete, and so you have the story before you. I hope you've enjoyed it and pray inspiration strikes again so that this tale doesn't stay a one-shot. Credit for the chapter title goes to Gotye.
Lights ~ Late November
Chapter 1: Somebody That I Used to Know
She swirled the drink in her hand, watching the neon liquid trace the edges of the martini glass. The taste puckered her lips as she took another sip and set the glass down.
She'd left work an hour ago, sitting and sipping at her drink for the second half of it, as she had most nights. The drinks were cheap, and after parking her car back home, it was an easy quarter mile from her second story apartment to the bar.
Her hands were still ink stained from the faded pages she'd been cataloguing earlier and a cursory glance in the bar's back mirror showed dark circles and smudges beneath her hazel eyes. At least, she wasn't trying to impress anyone.
"Hey honey, going to want another?"
Eliza turned to the bartender, a slim woman with delicate tattoos snaking up her wrist, black hair, and a penchant for purple lipstick.
"No thanks Sam. I'll probably call it a night."
"You look like you could use it. Another late night at the museum?"
"Only when I'm not partying with rock stars." Sam laughed and leaned in conspiratorially.
"You know," she whispered, "that guy at the end has had his eye on you all night." Sam's eyes practically glittered with excitement.
Eliza glanced at the man Sam was indicating. He was fiddling with his glass and staring into his drink with deep intensity. Eliza turned an incredulous look at Sam, who merely winked and headed into the back.
Shaking her head at her barkeep turned wishful matchmaker, Eliza looked again at the man at the end of the bar and caught him staring. In a ridiculously endearing fashion, his cheeks lit up like sunrise and he grinned at her, both cheeky and bashful. He put down his drink, walked the few feet around the bar and extended a hand.
"Hello, my name is Maurice and I promise this isn't just a line, but, do I know you?"
She instinctively grabbed his hand and gave it a firm shake. "Eliza. And, I'm sorry but I don't think you do."
He held on to her hand still shaking it as he inspected her, and she could imagine the gears in his head turning. "Eliza, Eliza..." He muttered to himself before beaming. "Eliza Thornberry! Oh I knew, I knew you!"
Eliza's eyebrows raised, and she smiled in a confused way. "Um...yes. Do I know you?"
He finally released her hand, which she quickly retracted, and sat himself in the stool beside her, laughing. "Yeah, yeah, I guess I'd be hard to recognize now that I'm not covered in helmets and elbow pads anymore."
Eliza's eyebrows rose, if possible, higher.
"Oh you really don't remember? God, what was it, ten, twelve years ago? I think I was fifteen so it must've been about twelve. Your parents were in Ocean Shores studying some kind of seal or otter migration and your crazy motor house broke down outside my..."
"Sea lions!" She suddenly exclaimed, her brain finally making the connection. "We were following the sea lion migration in Southern California." Her mind was suddenly blazing down the Pacific Coast Highway, the trademark braids she'd worn until her late teens flicking her in the face as she stuck her head out of the RV's window inhaling the sea salted air. Shaking herself from the reverie, she glanced back at her companion. "Oh my god... Twister?"
He grinned sheepishly at her, seemingly glad that she'd stopped giving him a look of utter confusion, and laughed, "Yeah, though no one really calls me that anymore. Well except Otto, but he's a stubborn one."
Eliza smiled at him, "Wow, yeah it's been a lifetime and a half. How are you? Still making movies?" She recalled the camcorder he'd had practically glued to his hands when they were young. She tried imposing her memory of him, young and gangly with too many freckles, his dirty blond hair sticking out of that ridiculously large reggae style hat with this new, older Twister. Maurice. He wore a plain blue tee beneath an unbuttoned black vest; he'd lost the hat and his hair was cropped short, but longer, and curling, in the front; and beneath his tan jeans, black canvas shoes peeked out. While his clothing choices had surely matured, his face still retained that boyish charm, a quality which was only accentuated when he smiled.
"Yeah actually. I'm kind of escaping a screening right now."
Her brows furrowed, "A screening?" She glanced at the clock above the mantle. It was five minutes to two. "Isn't it a bit late for that?"
Maurice just laughed. "You'll find that the movie industry is more of a nocturnal occupation. Suits me just fine though." He stretched across the bar to grab the drink he'd left behind, and Eliza caught a glance of the official looking badge pinned to the hem of his shirt.
Maurice Rodriguez, Director
Wow, she thought, I guess some of us do get to live out our dreams.
He turned back to her, still grinning. "So what have you been up to these long years?" A confused expression crossed his face and he leaned closer to her. Eliza leaned back ever so slightly. "Is that...marker on your face?"
Eliza just barely resisted pressing her fingers to her cheeks, knowing that that would only exacerbate the problem.
"It seems you've hit the nail on the head already. I've just come from work."
"Work with...markers?"
She smiled, rolling her eyes, recalling the occasional dopey remark her childhood friend could sometimes utter.
"I work over at the Natural History Museum."
A conflicted expression crossed Maurice's face. "Oh that sounds...fun?"
She laughed. "Don't worry, I get that a lot. But really, it's gratifying work and I get to study and handle artifacts from all over the world. It's like traveling like I did as a kid, but I get to go home to an actual house at the end of the night." She paused. "Well, an apartment at least."
His smile grew genuine again and Eliza's stomach did the tiniest flip at the sight. "Well at least you're doing something you love."
He knocked back the last dregs in his glass, missing as her smile slipped the tiniest bit. Still smiling, he stood up. "Well I should probably be heading back. The movie will be ending soon and what's a Q and A with the director without the director, am I right?"
She smiled chuckling, "What indeed."
Maurice pulled out his cell phone, stalling for a moment as he checked the screen. "Listen, it was really great bumping into you, mind if I get your number, that way next time we can do it on purpose."
Her cheeks grew slightly warm at the comment, but she shoved the feeling away. "Of course." She listed off her number and felt the vibrations in her pocket as he messaged her. He pulled worn leather wallet out and counted out a few bills before placing them beneath the whiskey glass he'd emptied and turning to leave.
"Oh, Twis...I mean, Maurice." He pivoted towards her, hands stuck in his back pockets. "Just before you go. You mentioned Otto, how are the others doing?"
He grimaced in an amused way. "Well Otto and Reggie ended up opening a store together way back, it didn't do so well as an actual shop, but now they've got an all online company going and they're doing pretty well. Though Reggie's had to put the company in her brother's hands these last few months, what with the baby and all."
"Baby?" Eliza's eyes bugged slightly as she recalled the girl in her memory, older by a few years and a head taller, with hair so black it gleamed purple, she remembered admiring the strength and independence and utter nonsense logic of the surfer girl. She'd been such a tomboy back then, it was hard imagining her as a mother.
"Yeah, she's fit to burst. Gotta be in her last month or so."
"But who's the..."
Maurice's phone began to sing from his pocket and he gave her an apologetic look. "Sorry, I really have to go. I'll call you, let's have dinner or something. Soon." He flipped open the phone and cradled it to his ear, giving her a wave as he slipped out the door.
Eliza sank back against the back of the stool. Well that was unexpected, she thought.
Sam, who had been busily clearing up glasses and giving her friend space with the cute guy from the end of the bar, approached and began clearing the drinks on the bar.. "Ok, Liz, spill. You guys were chatting up a storm."
"Oh, he knows me. Knew me. I knew him when we were kids."
Sam's face fell. "Oh, well that's less exciting. He is cute though." She commented glancing towards the door he'd so recently disappeared through. "You should have at least gotten his number."
Eliza remembered the movement in her pocket. "Oh, I did."
She pulled out her phone, the screen blinking about one received message. She clicked read and felt that same flip in the pit of her stomach.
You grew up good, Thornberry.