This is a one-shot story. However, it could also be an epilogue to each of my last three stories, Sad Eyes, The Love and the Anger and A Doorstep Epiphany. It does not contain any reference beyond episode 1.11 as I haven't got round to watching beyond that!
I would love to receive your reviews.
A New York epilogue
Had it really been ten years?
Was the morning Lena agreed to take home a sad-eyed girl she had just met really ten years ago?
Callie could remember it as though it were yesterday – or perhaps not literally like 'yesterday'. The day before perhaps. She remembered Lena's initial reluctance; her own abject horror that she might have to turn round and re-enter the institution she had just rushed out with eager haste, pride be damned; the sore cut she had on her lip – the farewell present from her fellow inmates; Lena's eventual agreement; being introduced to Stef. Brandon. The list of experiences she could recall was very long!
She found it hard enough to accept it had been a year since she had last seen her family. Her 'family', being Stef and Lena, Jesus and Mariana and Brandon. Not just her brother.
Two had become seven ten years ago.
Callie now lived in New York. A place of dreaming steel-supported spires and hidden concrete-sided valleys. It seemed they'd 'paved over Paradise and put up a parking lot'. A glorious, wonderful parking lot. She loved it. It was almost enough to inspire a new religion, but only almost; there were surely enough of those already, weren't there? Anyhow, aliens landing in New York, with a view to rescuing humanity from its sins, would have to open a pop-up restaurant to be noticed, and sci-fi writers were more likely to find their teachings turned into a movie or a Broadway musical!
As it should be.
Liam had been Callie's devil; Stef her redeemer.
Ten years had not changed the city much. It was still more Sex and the City than The Fifth Element - no moving side-walks or flying cars, which was kind of disappointing. 3D printers were cool though. There was also no more Keeping Up with the Kardashians, so small mercies. Whatever happened to the Kardashians? Whatever.
Callie had changed, however.
Being with her was like being in the same room with a tiger which was not very strongly chained. She was a full adult now. The walls of her apartment were not plastered with posters and she didn't burst into hysterical tears when a celebrity couple broke up, or experience a burst of envy when a single idol became attached. Disillusionment with your idols was an essential part of growing up. So what if One Direction had smoked cannabis. One Direction? Goodness, she was showing her age!
Getting older, however, was great. You could see forwards and backwards.
Callie loved to prance along the famous-numbered streets as Carrie Bradshaw, in fake Jimmy Choos, and glide along the more trendy areas as a character from a mid-career Woody Allen film, wearing long flowing dresses and funny hats mouthing lah-di-dah to herself. Pure, pure make believe without the need for a dystopian young-adult-fiction backdrop. So much fun. She was irresistibly naughty, permanently mischievous and wasn't finished yet. If she had lived centuries before they would probably have burned her. If she wrote a book now there was bound to be a religion somewhere that would burn it.
She currently shared an apartment with two others – the only way she could afford to stay in Wonderland. Goodness, but the rents were high! How had Monica and Rachel and Seinfeld afforded it? However, while it wasn't exactly crazily surreal as New Girl, it was a special kind of life – a substitute for the college years experience she had missed out on.
New York was still an adventure, Manhattan still a realm of fantasy – shimmering Oz in summer; Wonderland in winter.
"How cold is it?" She uttered laughing, blowing hot air into her cupped hands. Her voice was still sunny Californian. She stopped outside a coffee shop. "Are you sure you don't want to come in with me?" She asked the man who had stopped alongside her. Her boyfriend, Ian.
He was a new character in her story, one no one else knew or were expecting her to be with. Not one of the usual suspects. That would be boring. It had been ten years after all!
Her time with Brandon had been a sweet and beautiful period in her life. Wyatt had been hugely enjoyable. But Braillie and Wylie had been replaced by...Callian – she cringed and vowed never to think of that again. There had also been another two portmanteaus in the intervening years, but Callian stop it! was built on adult foundations of mutual understanding and shared dreams.
They had first met in the dark of a cinema. They had both been there on their own. She had sat several seats along from him in the same row and would not have noticed him if not for the fact he appeared to laugh at the same scenes she did and in the same way – an audible grin at an obscure reference rather than a loud bray at the more obvious funny moments. His laugh had been soft, intelligent and musical.
But what did he actually look like, this telepathic man? She had been reluctant to break the spell by being so obvious as to turn her head and stare at him. To size him up. So she had resolutely stared ahead at the screen, which was more difficult than it sounded when you were trying so hard. Eventually she hazarded a glance. His body had been comfortably twisted towards her. His face had been obscure, but his eyes glinted with light reflected from the screen.
The film had ended and still they sat on, staring at the screen enjoying the music played over the closing credits. Then she turned to look at the stranger she had been communing with in the dark for 90 minutes. He was sitting stock still, staring at the screen still enthused. It was not a moment for fumbled compliments, so she had said. "What're you doing after this?"
"Nothin' much," he replied. "What're you doing?"
"I'm going for bagels. Coming?"
"Yes."
They met again the following evening – early evening so still daylight. In the taxi to the restaurant they kissed all the way. Callie had kissed with a furious, sincere passion. The way she abandoned herself, as though a switch had been thrown, had been rather alarming. To both of them. Ian had paid the driver fumblingly in a daze afterwards. They laughed all night like 8-year-olds.
The next evening they went to a club. She had worn a dress held up by willpower alone. He was there in an instant with his jacket when she gave way. A true gentleman even if he spent the rest of the evening stepping on her toes when they danced.
The first weekend after meeting they booked themselves into a hotel. They signed themselves in as Annie Hall and Alvy Singer. Carrie and Mr Big would have been hilarious of course, but would have risked disappointment! There had been more laughter.
During the days that followed Ian proceeded to show Callie around New York; a North American Roman Holiday...without the awkward age gap and any need for etiquette whatsoever.
There had been absolutely no reason for her not to fall in love with him. And if anyone did come up with a reason, they would be wrong. It felt absolutely marvellous – funny dances in private moments.
"I'm sure," Ian broke her reverie. "I'll walk around the block a while so you can catch up."
They kissed and Ian walked away. She watched him. He turned round and she gave him a wide grin as if to say I caught you!.
The coffee shop owner was taking his time with the coffee; a patient queue had formed. He took special effort to carve smiley faces in the foam topping of each cup he produced. Callie joined the queue to get her own fix of the day, her hot Red Bull substitute in a cup.
It was then that she noticed the young man sitting in the corner. She smiled again - a different kind of emotion to that offered to her boyfriend earlier. Pride. Love so overpowering it kept her warm.
Jude was 22, but didn't look his age. He could convincingly play a teenager in a US TV show where all teenagers were played by 22-year-olds. While Carrie carried 26 very well, she would never convince as a teenager; she laughed and smiled like a young woman who is comfortable amongst her peers; danced, walked, dressed, played, drank coffee - crossed the road even like she belonged in the world. She owed it no favours and expected nothing but the respect she deserved for being the decent person she was.
All respect and no fear.
Pin up her hair, showing her pale New York winter skin to the full, she could be an Edwardian lady buffeted by the confines of her age and expectations of her station, but tempted by the allure of scandalous behaviour – to let her hair down and release the straps of her corset and breathe. To think, if Lena had not taken her home ten years ago, she could have turned out like Maleficent, with a wicked heart; a force of anger and spite swathed in rich fabrics of purple and black
Jude then noticed her. He stood up on impulse and so suddenly that Callie jolted. He returned her smile and she was infinitely grateful not to be holding a steaming cup of coffee at that particular moment. She gestured to the coffee counter to show she would be over once served.
What seemed like aeons later they stood facing each other. A split second after that they were enveloped in a hug. Jude was as tall as his big sister, so she no longer had to bend to meet his embrace. She also could no longer lift him up and swing him round like she used to, which was sad, but would have been severely impractical in the confines of the coffee shop, so never mind.
There wasn't really much to catch up on, despite being a year since they had last been in the same room together, as they frequently chatted on Skype – and by phone, by email, text, twitter and Facebook!
Callie looked at the smiley face on her coffee. "Oh!" She dabbed it with her spoon having up to then taken care not to disturb it. Her expression sulked. "I'm changing his face. Now he's looking sad. Oh...now he's crying. He's all cross-eyed now. Oh well."
Ian eventually entered the café.
"Should you be drinking coffee in your condition?" He asked on the journey to the table where his partner and her brother sat.
Jude looked to Callie, wide-eyes stripping him back to the 12-year-old he had once been.
"It's decaf," Callie responded with mock offence, but with her right hand placed on her stomach on impulse. "And I hadn't told him yet, thank you very much."
"Seriously? I've been wandering the streets for an hour to give you time to tell him... hi, by the way," he added to the dumb-struck younger man.
The younger man held up his hand in welcome while his eyes still fixed on his sister.
Stef and Lena then entered the warmth, laden with designer bags. Shopping was obviously a joy for the two women, whose children had grown up and started to earn their own wages - the drought endured while putting four of their children through college had been over for years.
Callie leapt up and flung herself at the nearest mom and hugged her like a long-lost child. Stef stepped back from her daughter, a look of glorious joy on her face; her eyes wide anime-like.
"How long?" She asked/demanded.
"How did you know?" Callie asked shocked. The older woman gave a I'm not stupid look to the stupid question. "Four months," she replied eventually.
Stef's eyes teared up.
Lena screamed.
"Does grandma want to sit down?" Callie teased.
Lena screamed again.
Callie never thought she'd be the first to produce a grandchild; Brandon had been married these past two years, after all. Perhaps he didn't want children. Perhaps having so many siblings had scared him off. She fervently hoped that wasn't the case. He would make a great father. As he had been a wonderful brother to Jude. Of course, Callie couldn't think of Brandon as a brother. That would be weird.
Ten years ago two had become seven. Soon it was to be eight.
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
Later that day the two expectant parents wandered the night streets, arm in arm. Ian stopped and pulled Callie round to face him.
"How long do you want to be loved?" He sang softly. Whenever he spoke Callie felt the volume of the world had been turned down. "Is forever enough, is forever enough? How long do you want to be loved? Is forever enough? Cos I'm never giving you up."
Callie was lost. Spell-cast and at his mercy. Damn him. It took all her willpower to appear the right side of dignified – as in love as he, but not weak at the knees and ready to collapse into an embarrassing heap in front of him. But, if she did that, at least he would then scoop her up and carry her home and lavish his...affections on her good grief, woman, get a hold of yourself It was 2024 after all!
"That's so sweet," she managed to say. "And a little creepy," she ventured.
"Creepy?"
"Yea, like a stalker," she teased.
"But, it's the Dixie Chicks. Everyone loves the Dixie Chicks."
She kissed her fingers and placed them on his lips, then walked ahead of him.
"Women are so fickle these days," he threw to her back.
"Lah di dah, lah di dah," she responded without turning round.
"Stop that."
He caught up with her and they linked arms again. After walking another block Callie noticed the time. She stopped them under the light of a street lamp and fixed Ian with an intensity of her own.
"Won't you kiss me on this midnight street," she sang. "Sweep me off my feet, singing 'ain't this life so sweet?"
Ian smiled. "OK, you win."
He kissed her. He tasted of Jack Daniels and, whisper it, cigarette smoke. The former was frustrating being as she was stone cold sober as a judge who had not yet had his first drink of the day. He traced his hand down her face and looked into her eyes with an intensity she always found intoxicating, despite the surrendering nature of the emotion.
Happiness.
She had overcome being pitiful-yet-defiant. She was no longer rare and exotic – a wild child raised by wolves and rescued by kindly suburbanites. Callie's life now may not be too original or profound, but it surely conveyed an optimistic, life-affirming message.
If this was it, she would be happy to coast along. But, she knew it wasn't the end. Had she run out of things to experience? Of course not!. She just had to set the bar higher. She was just at the beginning of a remarkable journey, with a remarkable number of experiences still ahead of her. She wasn't even close to any kind of limit. It was still so, so new. After everything that had happened to her over the last 26 years, she was still hungry.
Of course, flying cars and moving side-walks would be cool too.