Title: Sunday in Stepford
Rating: PG
Spoilers/Warnings: None
Disclaimer: I don't own Community, yo.
Summary: Jeff and Annie take a tour of Annie's childhood home, which prompts her to recall some unpleasant memories.
AN:I figured I owed claymay83 a prompt fill after the awesome "Fur Ball and Us". Prompt: One of them finds out that their childhood home is being sold. They go there to find any leftover mementos (can either be just the two of them or the entire group) and relive past memories, both good and bad.
Sunday in Stepford
It was a sunny Sunday afternoon in June when Jeff found himself standing in the middle of a quiet, serene suburb of Greendale, staring up at a medium-sized, cheerful looking home. With yellow siding, white fencing and a bright red door, it could have easily slipped itself into The Stepford Wives without causing much of a fuss. The yard was small, but lined with charming small gardens, and a tall apple tree with a tire swing. The whole scene was like a portrait, with only one thing to mar the comforting atmosphere: a "For Sale" sign.
Jeff frowned at the house, and then down at the woman to his left.
"So this is it, huh?" he asked. She nodded, her brow furrowed in concentration as she looked up at the place. They'd been waiting for the realtor for a few minutes now—they'd purposely shown up early so Annie could get her bearings.
"That's it," she said, slightly under her breath. If hesitation could adopt a physical form, it would have been a giant brick wall directly in front of her.
Jeff clasped his hands in front of him and rocked back and forth on his feet a few times. He hadn't been entirely pleased about coming with Annie on this particular adventure, but he knew that if anyone could understand what she was going through, it was him. Most members of the study group had sordid histories with their families, but few more-so than he and Annie. She trusted him to back her up in just the right way.
"Ms. Edison!" came an overly cheerful voice from behind them. Jeff spun around to see the realtor slamming her car door with more force than necessary. She gave Jeff a once-over when she reached them on the sidewalk. "I don't believe we've met. I'm Claire Hines, the realtor," she introduced herself, sticking her hand out to him. Jeff gave it a quick shake.
"Jeff Winger," he said shortly. The woman smiled up at him widely, making him a little uncomfortable. She didn't know his relation to Annie or why he was there, so to have her blatantly batting her lashes at him in front of Annie was a little disconcerting. "I'm Annie's fiancée," he quickly covered. Annie shot Jeff a glare as Claire covered her disappointment with an even wider smile.
"I didn't know Annie was engaged. Congratulations!" she exclaimed, before finally turning to Annie. "So, are we all ready to see the house?" Annie forced a smile.
"Yeah!" she said with a false enthusiasm that went right over the realtor's head. Jeff tried not to roll his eyes at how obtuse the woman seemed to be.
"Well, right this way!" she exclaimed. He was rapidly growing tired of the enthusiasm that she poured into every. single. syllable. Nonetheless, he followed her as she pushed open the white-picket gate to the yard and led them in. He and Annie stood in awkward silence as she dug through her purse for the key. "Never can find these things," she mumbled to herself. "Always in the last place you look!" Jeff glared at Annie. She gave him an apologetic look for dragging him along for this.
"Aha! There it is!" Claire exclaimed, pulling the small object from her purse, holding it up for them to inspect as though it was something to be proud of. Jeff bit his tongue so as not to insult the woman before the tour even began. He figured if he was going to get through this, he'd do well to just keep his mouth shut. Annie needed him there for moral support, not his sharp wit.
"Alright," said Claire, pushing the door open. "As you can see, the foyer gets a lot of natural light, and the open concept really makes the space look much larger than it is." Annie offered a tight-lipped smile and looked around. Standing next to her, Jeff could feel the tension radiating from her every pore. It was bizarre to see his normally calm, collected friend subtly losing it.
But Annie did manage to keep herself in check, and say all of the right things as Claire dragged them around the house, showing them all of the immaculate nooks and crannies of the home that Jeff couldn't help but be impressed by. It wasn't huge, but it was big enough, and it had charm oozing from every crevice. There wasn't a single white wall to be found, all dressed in pale pastels of blue, yellow and green. The floors throughout were a beautiful blond hardwood, except for the kitchen that boasted a soft tan tile and granite countertops.
It truly was the most adorable little house Jeff had ever seen, and he wasn't one to be impressed by these kinds of things. He thought for a moment that if he was really in the market for a house, he would put down an offer for this one in a second.
"So, how do you like it so far?" Claire asked upon completion of the tour. Jeff and Annie looked at each other—she seemed to be trying to speak to him in some silent code that he just wasn't able to decipher.
"It's great," he eventually spit out. "Could we have a few minutes alone to talk about it?" Claire offered another wide smile.
"Of course! I'll just be outside. You can come join me when you're all set."
Jeff and Annie watched together as the woman finally, finally left them alone. As soon as they heard the front door shut, Jeff watched as Annie sighed deeply, as if releasing a breath she'd been holding ever since they passed through the front door.
"How you doing?" he asked.
"This was a crappy idea," she said quietly. Jeff reached out and gave her a comforting pat on the arm.
"Well, at least you've seen it now. You won't have to spend the rest of your life wondering about the place." Annie looked around the open space of the kitchen where they were currently standing. Jeff gave her a moment just to take it in. It had to be surreal, he thought, to be in your childhood home for the first time in so many years.
"I don't know what I was looking for," she said after a while. "I thought coming back here would give me some kind of... I don't know... perspective? Closure? As if seeing it like this, without our mementos or furniture would somehow erase all of the feelings I have about this place and turn it back into a house instead of an...institution." Jeff's brow furrowed at this.
"What do you mean?" He looked around their immediate area and could see nothing institutional about the place. It was the furthest thing in the world from sterile, with delicate wood finishes and comforting pale colours. Annie sighed and sunk into a bar stool pulled up to the kitchen island.
"Jeff," she said quietly, peering around her immediate area before meeting his eye. "When you think about your house when your dad was still around, what comes to mind?" Jeff sighed and took the stool next to her, thinking over her question.
"I don't know," he said quietly. "I guess, I think of it in relation to him: places I went to hide from him, holes he left in the walls..." he let his sentence drift away, starting to realize what these walls really meant for Annie. "But you weren't abused by your parents, were you?" Annie gave a wry chuckle.
"No, I wasn't," she allowed. "I mean, not like you were. My parents never hit me or anything... but these walls still remind me of things I'd rather forget." Jeff nodded slowly.
"I get it," he said quietly. "A fresh coat of paint can't really cover the scars." Annie offered a small smile and looked down at her hands, splayed out over the granite countertop of the island.
"I used to sit here to do my homework," she said. Jeff nodded, urging her to continue. "I always wanted to do it in my room, but my mom made me sit here so she could watch me. For some reason she never believed I was actually doing it, even though I always got straight A's."
She slipped off the stool and wandered a few feet away, to the stove.
"One time, when my mom and dad were fighting she got so mad that she slammed her fist down on this burner." She pointed to the lower left burner, cool and black against the white metal of the stovetop. "Except I had just turned that burner on for dinner, which she didn't realize. She ended up with second degree burns on the side of her hand." Jeff winced, and Annie moved on to the dining room.
"Mom and Dad never fought when I was a kid, but by the time I was fourteen it was all they did. Dinnertime was an all out war every night, but Mom was determined that we would eat at the table every night because that's what families were supposed to do." She stopped a moment, considering this, and then looked at Jeff. "She was always so concerned with what we were supposed to be doing, instead of what we were actually doing. She wanted people to look at us and see the perfect family, even when we were falling apart."
Jeff watched as Annie looked back at the empty space that used to hold her dining table and sighed, crossing her arms over her chest.
"After my dad left I started taking Adderall to focus. The sad thing is, it was Mom who put me on it." Jeff started at this. It was a fact he'd never known before that moment, and for some reason it just stunned him.
"Your mom got you Adderall?" he asked. Annie nodded, a wry chuckle escaping her lips as she wandered back to the island where he sat.
"When Dad left I was so...out of it. I just couldn't focus, and after one particular bad semester Mom kind of freaked out. She'd always kind of equated my academic successes with her own as a mother, and so when my grades started slipping she panicked. She had a good friend who was a physician, who suggested I try Adderall, which is generally used for ADHD." Jeff rolled his eyes. If anyone was ADHD-free, it was Annie Edison.
"That's ridiculous," he spat. Annie nodded.
"I know, and that physician has since been fired after a few malpractice suits—but at the time, Mom believed in him. I came home one day and found a glass of water and a pill next to my dinner plate, and from that point forward, she had me on two doses a day." Jeff shivered. He'd never been inclined to like Annie's mother, but learning that she was the one who got Annie hooked on Adderall was almost too much to take.
"Jesus, Annie," he said quietly. Annie offered a small, sad smile and continued.
"It worked at first," she said. "I mean, I did focus better, and taking one at dinner meant I was wide-awake and ready to study all night, so my grades went way up—thus making Mom, once again, a good mother. But after a few months I started feeling like two a day wasn't enough, so I started sneaking a few more in my bag to take throughout the day. Mom trusted me to manage my own dosage, so she never questioned it when I asked her for more, she just took my renewable prescription back every few weeks and replaced them for me." Jeff shifted in his seat. Suddenly the sparkling perfection of the walls surrounding him felt suffocating.
"Mom and I were actually standing right here like this when she kicked me out," she said after a moment. "After I overdosed, she wanted to sweep it all under the rug, but I wanted to get help. She kept saying I could just stop taking Adderall and it would be fine, but I knew at that point that I couldn't just stop. The very idea of a day without it terrified me. I knew I needed help—real, proper help— but Mom hated the idea. She'd always wanted us to look like the perfect little family, and suddenly her husband had left her and her daughter was a pill addict and the rug was pulled out from under her... and so she told me that I had to choose: I could either stay here with her and do things her way, or I could go to rehab and lose her forever."
Jeff felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up as Annie recounted the story. She told it with a level of detachment that almost frightened him. It was so unlike Annie. Everything about this place seemed to change her.
"So you went to rehab and she abandoned you," Jeff finished the story for her. Annie nodded and looked around once again.
"And that's just the main floor. Don't suppose you want to go up to my old room," she said with a sarcastic grin. Jeff pulled himself up from the stool and wrapped his arms around her tightly. She didn't reciprocate, but did sink into him a little bit.
"This place sucks," Jeff said quietly into her ear. She nodded, her head against his chest. He pulled away slightly, holding her out at arms' length. "We can stay or we can go. It's up to you, Annie."
"Let's get out of here," she said decisively. She offered him a small, but genuine smile. "I think I found what I was looking for."
"What's that? A trip down memory lane?" he asked, a small grin. Annie laughed lightly, despite the sadness in her eyes. For the first time since arriving, she looked a little bit like the Annie he'd come to know and love.
"An excuse to let this place go," she clarified, watching him closely. Jeff smiled and put his arm around her, leading her away from the now dark and dank kitchen and toward the front door. "So you really don't want to see my old bedroom?" she asked. "Just imagine what we could get up to in there, Fiancée." Jeff laughed lightly.
"Hey, it was either that or I get stuck taking Claire "My Teeth are Brighter than the Sun" Hines out to dinner." Annie laughed whole-heartedly and sunk into his side.
"Don't worry, Dear. I don't mind." Jeff smiled down at her and placed a small kiss to the top of her head, just as they reached the door.
"You ready to leave this crap-hole behind?" Jeff asked, putting his hand on the doorknob. Annie smiled up at him brightly.
"Let's go, Lover." Jeff rolled his eyes.
"You're not going to let that go, are you?" She giggled and shook her head.
"I just want to make sure I'm playing the part. Wouldn't want Claire to get suspicious." She waited a beat. "Maybe I should be pregnant! With Twins!" Jeff rolled his eyes and pulled the door open. They spotted the woman standing over by her car, texting away.
"There they are!" Claire exclaimed, traipsing over to them. "What'd you think? Isn't it just darling?"
"You know, I just don't think there's enough space," Jeff answered. "By the time the quadruplets come, we're really going to need more than two bedrooms."
End
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