A/N - Greetings! This piece is an exercise for me – I want to see if I can write a story that is 20,000 words or less – and I thought I might post it to get your input. As always, I appreciate constructive criticism.
A Cupcake disclaimer - While Joe has a role to play in the plot, he will only be mentioned in passing, and he may or may not put in an appearance near the end – I haven't decided yet. I don't anticipate that he will be mistreated, but I don't guarantee anything. In other words, Cupcakes, please read at your own risk.
Warnings for smut and foul language. Also, this story won't be beta'd, so please excuse the errors you undoubtedly will see.
And, as always – I do not own the Plum Universe, and am only writing this for fun, not profit.
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The alarm woke Stephanie at seven. She got up, and stumbled toward the kitchen, smelling coffee. A minor miracle had occurred – she had remembered to set up the coffee maker last night. She just forgot to put the coffee pot under the drip. Again.
Cursing, she mopped up the spilled coffee with a clean cloth, wrung the cloth into a mug, and took a sip. It was a bit linty, but it served its purpose. She stepped out of the kitchen and walked down the hall to the front door.
The newspaper had exploded all over the hydrangea. She stooped and picked it up, cursing the paper boy. Had she offended him in some unknown way? This was the third time this had happened this month. Once each section was retrieved, she turned back to the house. Her robe caught on a branch and lifted, revealing her bottom to the busy street. A quick tug righted the situation, but not before she received two wolf whistles and one marriage proposal.
She stomped back in the house, newspaper in a shambles under one arm, coffee mug in her hand. She hipped the door closed, and caught her robe in the jamb. Rather than open the door again, she decided to pull; there was a loud rip as the cloth gave, and she fell to the floor. The dregs of her coffee arched out of the cup and landed in a long, wet line along the hallway. The newspaper fluttered down upon it seconds later, soaking most of it up.
Stephanie opened her mouth to curse. Then she saw the living room. Every stick of furniture had been neatly stacked in the very centre of the room, one piece on top of each other, right up to the ceiling.
"Goddamn it!" she shouted. "Not again!"
She called Lula to help her set her living room to rights. Her friend arrived in half an hour, armed with a McDonald's bag.
"Dang," she said, taking in the tower of furniture. "The couch is on top this time. That's going to make things tricky, getting it down."
"I know." Stephanie already had her nose in the bag, looking for breakfast fries. She hoped the grease would help quash the nervous pain in her stomach. Everyone knew that grease was the perfect preventative measure for an ulcer.
They ate their breakfast on the front step, chatting about this and that, but not the reorganization of Stephanie's living room. Then, when the last crumb had been suctioned away, Lula retrieved the step ladder from the back hall, and Stephanie grabbed a kitchen chair.
"You know this ain't normal, all this furniture stacking itself like this," Lula grunted as they tugged the sofa down off the pile.
"It did occur to me," Stephanie replied dryly.
"I mean, look at the way this is stacked. That ugly ass seashell lamp is all that's holding up the coffee table. And the coffee table is holding up the couch."
Steph made a face. "I hate that lamp. It was hers."
"Hunh." The sofa was heavier than either woman anticipated, and nudged the coffee table as they tried to clear it from the pile. The table teetered on the afore-mentioned lamp, and fell down on the floor with a deafening thud. It sat for a moment, as if thinking about things, then crumpled in defeat. The lamp, which should have gone over with the table, remained where it was, delicate, defiant, and ugly.
"Oh well," Lula said, glancing at the remains of the table. "At least we don't have to carry it down now."
Steph sighed. The coffee table had been the one nice piece of furniture in a room full of hand-me-downs. A handsome, serviceable piece that she had been proud to call hers. Now it was kindling. She stepped off the chair, and quickly compensated as she took up the slack on the couch. "Hurry up – this thing weighs a ton."
Lula stepped off the ladder, and the couch levelled itself out. "So when you gonna call someone to come in and take care of this here problem?"
Stephanie decided to play dumb. "What problem?"
She received an incredulous look for an answer. "What problem? You got invisible Houdini's stacking your furniture for you in the middle of the night. I'm telling you, girl – something ain't right in this house."
They set the couch in front of the bay window. Stephanie wiped her brow. "And whom I gonna call?" she asked. "An exterminator? Trust me, Lula – if I knew someone who could deal with this kind of problem, I'd have them here in a heartbeat."
Lula fell uncharacteristically silent, and waited until they had cleared away the coffee table remains before saying, "I think we both know who you can call."
Steph looked at her, frowning – and then she figured it out. She jumped on the chair, and reached for the sea shell lamp. "No way."
"Come on – you know he'll help you. You just say the word, and that man will be here in a flash."
Steph shook her head enthusiastically. "He won't come. We haven't talked in three years, not since… Well, you know."
Lula actually looked sympathetic, a rare feat for Lula, and it only made Stephanie feel worse. She looked away from her friend, and saw she was holding the sea shell lamp. A wave of anger rushed through her. She threw the lamp down to the ground. It bounced across the hardwood floor four times, before righting itself next to the sofa, perfectly sound.
Lula pointed at the lamp. "See? Now that ain't right. I tell you, this house is spook-ass freaky. No way I'd spend the night here. I get the heebie-jeebies just thinking about you living here."
"I've got no place else to go," she said. With her salary, she couldn't afford a decent rental. She couldn't sell, because technically, she didn't own the place yet. None of her friends had room for her; and there was no way in hell she was going to live with her mother.
Slowly, they returned each object to its rightful place, including the sea shell lamp, which went on the side table next to the sofa in the bay window… right where it had landed after she had dropped it.
"Thanks for your help," Steph said.
Lula gave her a hard look in return. Sympathy followed by seriousness was never a good thing to see from Lula, and it immediately made Stephanie nervous.
"Listen, girlfriend," Lula said. "You know I love you – but I ain't coming to help you move anymore furniture; not unless it's to help you move on out of here."
"I wish I could. But until things improve, I'm kinda… stuck here."
"You still at the button factory? You haven't given that shit up yet? Come on down to the office with me. We'll blackmail Vinnie's greasy ass, and have you hunting FTAs in no time."
She shook her head. "No thanks. I'm done with that. It's kind of nice, actually, not having to worry about rolling in garbage, or wonder which crazy will come after me next. You know I've had the same car for over two and a half years? No one wants to torch your car when you work at the button factory. No, things are good." She paused, remembering what they had just done here. "They'll get better," she amended.
"Yeah," Lula said, sounding not the least bit convinced at Steph's optimism. She looked at the living room as she added, "Sure." And she left.
Steph hurried through her hair and makeup routine, and dashed out the door. Her car, geriatric but usually trusty, would not start. Her dad collected her in his cab, and dropped her off at work. She was forty-five minutes late, an event guaranteed to make a hellish job on the production line that much more entertaining.
She worked overtime to make up for the late arrival, and caught a bus home. She dragged herself up the front stairs. She just wanted a beer, a bed, and the end to a rotten day.
It turned out that she would get none of those things. The living room furniture was stacked up to the ceiling again. So was all the dining room furniture, the bedroom furniture, the guest room furniture... Even the kitchen chairs were piled up, one on top of the other, with the kitchen table balanced precariously on top.
She knew she was in trouble. Without Lula's help, she was never going to get her house in order again – none of her other friends were sturdy enough to haul the heavy stuff down from the ceiling.
The fridge, fortunately, was still where she left it, its contents intact. There was no beer, but there was a jar of peanut butter. Stephanie found a spoon, and went to sit on the front step, eating the peanut butter, wishing she had some olives.
Normally, Stephanie was happy to deny any problems she had. It was like a little mantra that she repeated in times of stress – deny, deny, deny, and maybe the problem would go away. While her margin of success in this area was limited, she had lucked out enough times to remain faithful to this particularly philosophy. It was what had kept her in this house for so long.
Denial didn't seem to be working out particularly well in this case.
She set down the jar of peanut butter, and reached into her pocket for her phone. She cradled it in her hands for awhile. She hadn't called the number in years, though she still had it on speed dial. For a moment she actually toyed with the idea of calling him, but she gave up that thought in a hurry. It wasn't like he could actually help her, even if he felt so inclined. This type of problem wasn't his specialty. It wasn't anyone's specialty, as far as she knew. So there was no point in calling him. No point at all.
She thought of her living room, and the sea shell lamp. Then, to her horror, she saw her finger press the number and hit send. Immediately she heard a ring through the phone's tiny speaker. She ended the call before someone could answer, and threw the phone in the bush. What in the hell had possessed her to do that? She left the phone right where it was, afraid that she might just try calling him again.
She sat outside for another hour, until the air grew chill and the peanut butter ran out. Inside, the towers of furniture cast odd shadows in the lamp light. She sighed as she stared at them. She didn't often feel helpless, but she did right then. She knew Lula was right – she had to get out of this house. But like she had told her friend, she really had nowhere else to go.
In her bedroom, her mattress was on the floor, the bed frame on the ceiling, the rest of the furniture sandwiched in between. She grabbed a blanket from the linen closet, and went to sleep in her car.