Disclaimer: Not even the idea is mine - it's the wonderful welcome to maddieland's. Also, I don't own the characters or setting (it's all Lisi Harrison) or the brand names mentioned within.
A/N: For Maddie. Hope you like it, girlie.
Risen From Pale Ashes
-A Clique Story Written by: Honour Society-
-Chapter Une-
Side-bangs pushed away from her face by a charcoal grey stretchy headband, Massie Block sighed in contentment. It had been a gruelling tryout season. Even more so than last year. None of that really matter anymore. Now, she was back in her rightful position. Defence for the Abner Doubleday Day Aardvarks.
Lame name, awesome team.
"You make it?" Alicia Rivera asked with a tilt of her head. She looked positively radiant. Her forehead glistened with post-Gym sweat, her cheeks were pleasantly flushed, and her breath was slightly irregular.
"Uh-huh." She nodded slowly.
Of their group, Massie was the quietest. She spent most of her time sending graceful kicks up the field or holed up in the art room, practicing and perfecting her brushstrokes. Not that Alicia could tell any brushstroke apart, but she still complimented Massie on her every achievement.
Like the rest of The Girls, Massie was a nearly straight-A student. A complete right brain thinker, though. She preferred to keep her comebacks and comments to herself while in large groups and privately divulge her thoughts to her best friend, Alicia, or the rest of The Girls at a later time. It was why everyone loved her. She was just so…nice.
The Girls, dubbed by their soccer coach, one Mr. Chance, because they were so close it was sometimes impossible to tell them apart, were comprised of four fourteen-year-olds. Alicia Rivera was the leader. She was outgoing, clever and not afraid to stand up to the idiots that swarmed ADD.
Massie was her loyal beta, preferring to take a backseat to all the drama of the ninth grade.
Claire Lyons had moved to Westchester last year. She was a total rich girl. Like, really rich. Rich enough to go to OCD - if only she had the test results to match. Every time she walked through the grungy, mud-caked hallways, Alicia swore to God she heard Gwen Stefani going, "'If I was a wealthy giiiirrrrrl,'" in the background. Complete with a Marc by Marc Jacobs peacoat, J Brand dark-wash skinnies and a designer scarf wrapped around her thousand-dollar handbag. After Claire, her brother and parents moved into town, they reconnected with the Blocks. Apparently, Jay Lyons and William Block were "old college buddies."
Thus, shy, introverted Massie had been shuffled out of the Brickview Apartment complex - home to Kristen Gregory, another Girl - and into Claire's home. The Lyons Estate was a huge stone building, twenty minutes away from OCD and thirty-five from ADD. Claire had been expelled from one too many boarding schools, though, so the staunch private school snubbed its theoretical nose at her. Claire and Massie quickly befriended each other and it turned out the blonde had some skill when it came to goalkeeping.
Lastly, there was Kristen. The most athletic of them all. Centre-mid was her position and, damn, she played it well. Her role in the group was the geek. She always had her tanned, taut arm up when a teacher asked a question during class. She was President of the Student Council, etc., etc., etc.
Kristen was sure she was going to get the captain position this year. Positive. Except -
"Shit," she whispered. Kristen's voice was cold, detached. It was the first time The Girls had heard her curse all month.
"What' wrong?" Alicia questioned, her saucer-shaped brown eyes oozing sympathy. She gazed over Kristen's bare shoulder to look at the sign-up sheet. "Olivia…captain?"
Even Massie's nose twitched. "Olivia…Ryan?"
Her shoulders shaking slightly, the blonde with soul-searching blue eyes turned away from the cursed list. She nodded her head. "The one and only."
"Ugh." Claire had materialized at Massie's side; a stack of zip-up binders in various colours rested against her slim hip. "Miss Popularity's on the team?"
"But! But…" The Spanish fourteen-year-old folded her arms over her ample chest. "Since when does Olivia even know how to play soccer?"
It was then that Olivia's high-pitched voice rang out through the halls of Abner Doubleday. "Since, like, yesterday."
--
The next morning… --
"Hello, dear," a dowdy-looking female secretary with a helmet of hairspray'd honey-coloured hair and formal apparel said without looking up from her computer screen. "How may I help you?"
"Um, yeah-" Dylan began just as she caught Merilee Marvil, the woman she was embarrassed to call her mother, place a practiced smile on her Botox-aided visage.
"How are you today?" trilled the unnatural redheaded TV host. Her hair was secured in place by a complicated-looking hairclip. It looked like an heirloom, but was really brand spanking new.
The secretary glanced up. One unkempt eyebrow jumped up. "Oh. Hello. Aren't you Merilee Marvil?"
Dylan's mother nodded twice, politely. She leaned against the desk which separated the office from the main sitting room. "Yes, I am."
"How nice of you to visit…" She returned to her computer, bored but intrigued. "Is there something specific I can assist you with?"
Merilee flushed a pale shade of rose, but quickly covered it up with a blindingly white grimace/grin. Apparently, no one in the hallowed halls of ADD cared how many frequent flyer miles she had or what colour her Am Ex was (black, for the record.) "Yes." She clamped a hand around Dylan's broad shoulder. "I'd like to register my darling Dyl Pickles."
The secretary briefly pulled away from her computer screen and quickly pulled out a manila folder from a file box under her desk. "Here." She placed the folder in front of the redheads. "Fill these out; you can sit there." With the tip of her pencil, she pointed towards a sketchy-looking couch just outside the enclosed office space.
Dylan shrugged her shoulders and turned on the heels of her red plaid-print Bo Boots. Merilee graciously accepted the file and followed her daughter out the Plexiglas door.
Taking a seat on the swirl-printed couch, Merilee begun to root through her Balenciaga for a pen. Quicker than her mother, Dylan pulled a blue-inked Bic pen - with a chewed cap - from her Betseyville satchel. Rolling her hazel eyes at her daughter's choice of writing utensil, Merilee produced a red Montblanc fountain pen with a flourish.
Smirking slightly, she started filling in the easiest parts. Name, age, grade, last school attended. Dylan sat awkwardly beside her mother, awaiting the moment when - There it was. Merilee had probably stumbled across the "Father's name," bomb.
The woman who was well into her forties but, if anyone had to guess, they'd say early thirties, crossed and uncrossed her Yogalates-toned legs.
"Um…" she hummed. Her fingers immediately clasped her surgically-enhanced chin.
"I've got it," Dylan mumbled, easing the folder out of her mom's shaking hands. If Dylan had to be the strong one…so be it. She just didn't want to see her mother have a nervous breakdown in the foyer of an upstate New York public school. The tabs would have a field day with that one. Besides, Dylan didn't know off the top of her head if Betty Ford needed to be notified ahead of time.
The rosy-cheeked redhead quickly filled in her father's name, Peter Marvil. None of the magazines knew the identity of the Marvil sisters' father. They didn't know he had been working at the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. They didn't know that he had never left those towers.
Not even a single tear streaked down her cheek.
She needed to be strong.
For her mother and sisters.
And most especially her daddy.