For Brittany.
Erwin Sikowitz was known for a lot of things. For one thing, he was the oldest person living alone among mostly young couples in the suburban Wisteria Lane. For another thing, it was not a secret that he always kept an eye on his surroundings, preferably neighbors, for he was not only feeling a little lonely since he retired from being a high school teacher, but also extremely bored without any other hobbies to pursue. And so it was no wonder that the old man was the first to know about and see a glimpse of the newly wed couple that was moving in a few houses down the street.
He watched as a white moving van pulled up in front of the dazzlingly white house's front yard, almost hitting a hydrant while doing so, before smoothly coming to a halt. Almost immediately after, a woman emerged from the inside of the van, her long brown locks whipping up and down from the impact of her hopping off the front seat instead of taking the two small steps down. Sikowitz's vision might not have been the best, but even from behind the curtains of his kitchen window he could tell that she was a stunning young woman, curved in all the right places and gifted with flawless porcelain skin. He watched as she yelled something at the driver of the van and he concluded from her gestures that it probably wasn't a compliment. He couldn't help but open his window just a tiny bit, so he could hear what was going on. "I told you to let me drive! I knew you'd screw up."
As if on cue, a tan young man got off the van and slowly walked over to the woman. A smug smile was playing on his face, he wasn't intimidated by any of her words. "Hey, I think I did a well okay job for driving such a monster for the first time." He slung an arm around the woman's waist and gently turned her to face the house they were standing in front of. He smiled. "Welcome home, babe."
"You still almost hit that hydrant, just saying," she said, but her voice had lost its harshness. She leaned into his embrace for a short moment before freeing herself from his grip. "Come on, there's lots to do."
Sikowitz watched the couple carry in boxes and furniture for a while, before he decided that maybe they were not as interesting as he had initially thought. Just another average couple to add to the very average suburb, nothing out of the ordinary. Little did he know that he had never been so wrong.
. . .
"You seen our new neighbors yet?" Andre Harris asked as he plopped down on the cream-colored couch in his best friend's living room. Even before he got an answer, Tori Vega-Shapiro had already placed a steaming cup of tea in front of him, including a saucer, of course - there was nothing the young woman despised more than any kind of dirt on her spotless furniture.
She greeted her friend with a warm smile before taking a seat next to him. "Not yet," she told him while smoothing out her red skirt. "I think it's a bit rude of them that they haven't introduced themselves yet. I mean, they've been living here for like a week already."
Andre shrugged. "They're probably just busy furnishing and unpacking and stuff. I heard she's a model," he grinned.
Tori gave him a light slap on the arm. "She's married."
"I'm just sayin'," the young man retorted, lifting his hands up in defense. "Cat said she wants to bring them some homemade pie today and say hi. You can come if you want."
"The Olivers... That's their name, right?" Tori said thoughtfully and her friend nodded. "I must admit that I'm curious about them."
. . .
"Where do you want me to put your books?"
Jade Oliver slowly opened her eyes and sleepily blinked a few times before turning to her waiting husband. "I don't know," she yawned. "Just put them next to the piano for now, I'll take care of them later." The young woman used the time her husband needed to carry the box over to where she had assigned it to, to stretch her tired arms and change into a sitting position on the couple's black leather couch, that was still standing out of place in the middle of the room.
"Taking a break?" Beck smiled warmly and took a seat next to her, wrapping his arms around her tiny body.
Jade allowed herself a few seconds of sinking into her husband's calming embrace in silence and with her eyes closed, before she sighed and sat up straight. "I wish. Tell me again why we own so much stuff?"
Beck grinned. "Hey, I'm not the one who's basically collected an amount of books that would make every library on this planet go green with envy."
The young woman rolled her eyes in a playful manner. "Just because you won't come near any books unless they have twice as many pictures as words."
"Do you think we'll be happy here?" Beck asked, suddenly serious. His wife tensed up noticeably under his words, fidgeting with her golden wedding ring nervously.
"I honestly don't know," she said. "But there's nothing I want more."
He pulled her closer to his chest, resting his head on top of hers. "As long as we're together, we'll be okay, I promise."
The couple's affectionate moment was disrupted by the ringing of the doorbell. Sighing, Jade got up, closely followed by her husband. Trough the peephole in her front door she found five unfamiliar faces staring at her, loaded with pots and dishes. Reluctantly, she turned the doorknob and was immediately greeted with a flood of words coming from a bone thin brunette. "Hi, I'm Tori and this is my husband Robbie," —she motioned to a young man with glasses and dark, curly hair— "We live next door and thought it was only polite to come over and introduce ourselves." She smiled at them brightly, but Jade did not miss the hint of accusation in her tone. She already felt like she wouldn't like this woman much. Fake smiles and false kindness was the last thing she needed.
Then, a dark-skinned man with shoulder long dread locks stepped forward, arm in arm with a tiny red-haired woman. "I'm Andre Harris, I live right across from you. This is my girlfriend—"
"Cat," the tiny redhead piped up. "Like the animal," she said winking. To Jade, she seemed more like a teenage girl than a grownup woman, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
Lastly, another woman, slightly older than the others (Jade guessed she had to be about thirty), pushed aside the others to make her way to the front. "Trina Vega," she said confidently. "And before you ask - yes, I do look familiar. You have most likely seen me on the cover of the national bestseller, Wonderful Me, which is—"
"Trina," Tori interrupted her harshly, all while still wearing a wide smile on her face. "Why don't you save that for another time? I'm sure you can't leave your children alone long enough to tell the whole story."
Trina sighed dramatically. "It is so difficult to be successful and a mother at the same time, let me tell you that," she said turning to Jade, who did her best not to frown.
"Uh, yeah," she said. "I'm Jade, this is Beck."
Her husband gave them a warm smile. "Thanks for welcoming us, that's really nice."
"Of course," Tori smiled. "We brought you some food." She handed Jade a glass bowl, neatly covered with aluminum foil. "It's my famous potatoes au gratin, you will love it."
"Thanks," Jade said and forced herself to smile. She was past making everyone hate her on the first day, especially since this was meant to be a fresh start for Beck and her. Even if it meant putting up with the seemingly perfect housewife Tori Vega-Shapiro and her exclusive cooking (not to mention the stupid French names of her creations. Those were so unnecessarily over the top). While accepting Tori's gift, she caught a guy staring at her from across the street. He was just standing there, looking at her through round glasses without moving a muscle. He didn't even look away after she had caught him staring, and it sent a shiver down her spine. "Who is that?" she asked without letting him out of her sight.
Her neighbors turned around to look at the guy on the other side of the street, who was still unfazed by the sudden attention. "Oh, him," Tori sighed. "That's Sinjin Van Cleef, he lives at the end of the street. Weird guy, if you ask me, but harmless. Don't worry about him."
Jade nodded, but couldn't shake off the weird feeling she had about him. Beck accepted the others' presents and thanked them again for stopping by. Before the group left, though, Cat turned to Jade again. "Us girls are having a poker night tomorrow at my place. You should come," she smiled.
The brunette smiled back, albeit not completely genuine. "Sounds great."
. . .
"So, Jade," Tori beamed from across the round table. A fan of cards was hiding half of the brunette's face, but Jade had already seen enough of her fake smile to be able to tell that she was wearing it again right now. She looked up from her own hand, indicating Tori to continue. "Tell us more about yourself, we barely know more than your name!"
Jade sighed. "Well, what do you want to know?"
"How long have you and Beck been married for?" Cat asked curiously while returning to the table with a new round of homemade lemonade. She placed a glass in front of each of the four women seated around the table and picked up her cards, that were lying face down in front of her.
"Six months," Jade answered. "But we've been together since middle school."
"Middle school?" Tori repeated mincingly, and Jade was sure that her eyeballs would fall out, if she opened her eyes any wider. "Isn't that, like, ten years? How old are you, if you don't mind me asking?"
"Eleven, and I'm twenty-six."
Trina shook her head disbelievingly. "That's nuts. Why didn't you marry sooner if you've been together for such a long time?"
Jade looked at the brunette, her face unreadable, while she seemed to contemplate her answer carefully. "The opportunity just didn't arise any sooner," she eventually said.
"I admire that, Jade, I really do," Trina chattered. "I mean, that you took the time to make sure that you really wanted to live the housewife life with this man instead of having a career before you made your choice." Jade furrowed her eyebrows at Trina's senseless jabber, but decided not to object. She didn't feel like picking a fight with this woman, not when she had yet to become a real part of this neighborhood. "Look at me, I'm divorced, but what can I say? I'm happy. I'm lucky enough to have the talent to get both fame and children. Not many women can pull that off."
The woman kept on blathering, while Cat followed the ping of the oven into the kitchen. When she came back, she was carrying a tray of dishes. "My homemade meat pies," she explained proudly and sat the tray down on the table. "I'm not very good at cooking, but this is one thing I can prepare perf—"
The redhead was interrupted when Jade abruptly got up from the table, covering her mouth and nose with her hands. "I'm sorry," she said when she had taken a few steps back. "I just can't—"
"Oh, are you a vegetarian?" Tori asked. "I didn't know that."
"No," Jade said through her hands. "But the smell of cooked meat makes me nauseous."
"Really? And you're not a vegetarian?" Cat wondered, lifting the tray back up to take it back into the kitchen. The tiny woman hated making people uncomfortable.
Jade shook her head. "No, it's only been like that for a few days. Maybe it's the stress from moving, I don't know."
The other three women exchanged knowing glances, before Trina was the one to speak up. "Jade, honey," she said. "Let a mother of three tell you that there is only one logical explanation for your... let's say, problem." Jade raised her eyebrows, motioning her to continue. "Really, it happened to me all the time. With all three."
"All three what?" Jade asked, slowly growing impatient. Why were they making such a big deal out of this?
"All three pregnancies, silly."
. . .
Beck was already fast asleep when his wife returned home that night. She was a little confused at first, to find a neatly folded note sticking to her front door, but a piece of paper was the least of her worries right now. She took it inside with her and placed it on top of the sink in her bathroom, after she had successfully tiptoed past her sleeping husband.
Carefully, she opened her purse and took out a tiny package she had purchased at a nearby gas station just a few minutes earlier, unpacked it, and followed the instructions on the package slip. Time seemed to pass painfully slowly as she waited the stated three minutes for her result. Eventually, she grabbed the white plastic stick after her phone let her know that the time was up, took a deep breath, and took a closer look at it.
The sight of the pink plus sign that greeted her didn't really come as a surprise after her new friends had asked her all kinds of questions (was she on birth control? Was she late? When was the last time she had been to a checkup?) earlier.
Sighing, Jade wrapped up the stick, including its package, in toilet paper before tossing it into the trashcan under the sink. She wasn't sure how to feel about the newest turn of events yet. Beck and her had talked about having kids, but never in all seriousness. Yes, they wanted a new start, but this wasn't exactly what she had had in mind when they moved across half the country to live in the suburbs. And yet she couldn't help but feel her insides tingling when she thought about the little life that was growing inside her, the life that her and Beck had created.
She grabbed her purse and the note and left the bathroom with mixed feelings. She wanted to tell Beck, but she still had to make up her mind about the how. She quickly changed into her pajamas and crawled under the sheets next to her husband and was about to turn off her nightlight, when she remembered the crumpled note that was still in her hand. She curiously unfolded it to find nothing more than a few scrawled words:
I know what you did.
So Brittany and I came up with this idea one day, to put the Victorious characters in the Desperate Housewives universe and both of us fell in love with it. I hope I can do both shows justice. If you know DH, you've probably already guessed that there is a lot of mysteries just waiting to be solved.
Updates will be spontaneously since without wifi at the moment (I'm posting this from Starbucks), but then again, that gives me a lot of time to write.
Let me know what you think!
