Chapter One
"God dammit," Julchen said as she looked down at the broccoli. There were two sections of it, which was why she was swearing. One cost less and the other was "organic," whatever the fuck that meant.
"Louise?!" she called suddenly as she remembered her little sister. Oh, but there she was, standing just inches behind Julchen, as usual. The elder sister looked down at her younger one. Louise was five with short blonde hair and electric blue eyes. Her face was always calm and serious and Julchen could already tell that Louise would be the more responsible of the two of them, even though Julchen was twenty-one years older than her sister.
"Which one do you think we should get," Julchen asked, crouching down so that she was at the eye level of her sister. Her black tank top bunched up around her chest, probably showing some of her bra. Julchen knew she was getting dirty looks- how could people not give her dirty looks when she was dragging a cute five-year-old in a blue dress around the store with her while wearing a skimpy black tank top, tight jeans, knee-length black boots, and had her hair cut like a boy's? -but she didn't care.
"Should we get the organic one or the non-organic?"
Louise looked at both types of broccoli with a serious, pondering look on her face. "That one is less," she said, pointing. Even though she was young, she could already form the English words as good as any native English-speaking child.
Julchen grinned and ruffled her sister's hair before standing back up and sticking a thing of broccoli into her basket. "A lady after my own heart," she joked to Louise, who didn't smile.
She reached down and grabbed Louise's hand, then lead her out of the vegetable section and into the place where they sold microwave meals. Microwave meals were a lifesaver because when Louise got home from school and Julchen wasn't there she could make herself a snack. Or, if Julchen ever had to leave at night for some reason, she could make herself dinner. Sandwiches were good too, but microwave meals were warm.
At the cash register, Julchen gathered up one dollar bills and change and managed to pay for everything, even the Avengers chapstick Louise had been eyeing.
They walked out of the store, Julchen swinging her sister from one hand and the bag with their groceries from the other.
They stopped in front of of Julchen's old, beat-up Volkswagen Bug. Every time Julchen saw the old thing- painted a horrendous, chipping lime-green color, Julchen laughed. Louise still didn't though. In fact, Julchen hadn't seen Louise laugh once, not even smile. Julchen didn't know how yet, but she would weasel a smile out of her sister if it killed her.
Julchen strapped Louise into her carseat, then moved to sit in the front seat. She stuck the key into the ignition, twisted hard a couple of times, took it out and blew on it, then stuck it in and twisted again. This time the engine coughed to life, and Julchen grinned victoriously, reaching back for a high five that Louise returned half-heartedly.
Julchen pulled out of her parking place and zoomed out of the parking lot, causing Louise to reprimand her in German. See? Responsible one already.
Julchen drove the ten or so miles to their beat-up apartment complex. On rainy days it actually looked abandoned- though it wasn't -but it had one of the better reputations in town. I mean, the better reputations for for the bad apartment complexes in town.
Their apartment was near the top, and yeah it got cold at night and yeah they didn't have air conditioning, but it wasn't summer yet and also the heat worked. Julchen had made sure of that much, because if Louise got sick and somehow died because their heat didn't work, Julchen wouldn't be able to live with herself.
Because Louise- though mature -was still only five, Julchen ended up carrying both her and the groceries up the seven flights of stairs (their apartment complex wasn't good enough for an elevator), but that was okay. Julchen was strong; she worked as a construction worker/handywoman, so she was used to carrying around heavy things and doing hard work. She had tight muscles all over her body, in fact, which was yet another reason people gave her strange looks.
Julchen set Louise down in front of the door and dug her keys out of her tight jeans- which might have been a bit too small, but she had decided to spend most of her money on food and clothing Louise, which were her two biggest priorities.
She unlocked the door, then herded Louise in first. She didn't really trust any of the people living in this complex with her, as it didn't have the best rep. She wouldn't be surprised if someone tried to steal Louise away while her back was turned.
The door unlocked and Louise safely inside, Julchen closed her door and quickly crossed the hallway and knocked on the door of the apartment across from hers. It was soon opened by an older woman with laugh lines near her eyes.
"Yes, Julchen?" she asked, smiling.
"Could you take Louise again this afternoon?" Julchen asked, shuffling from foot to foot. "You can send her over to my house for food if you want. I just got a job that I couldn't turn down- it's quite a bit of money -and I don't have anywhere else for her to go-"
The woman grinned, then reached out and cupped Julchen's face in her hand in a motherly way. "Don't worry about it, love," she said. "We love having Lulu around, don't we, Feliciano?"
A little girl popped her head around her mother's leg. "Ve, yes, we do!"
Julchen grinned down at her. "Good, because I'm sure Lulu loves coming over. Now, I'll just feed her real quick and then send her over, shall I?"
Feliciano clapped his/her hands together. "Ve, yes! I'll go clean up my room!" and then off he fled.
"How's the counseling going?" Julchen asked in an undertone. Feliciano's mother sighed.
"Well, we think that maybe she's improving… She's the one out most often, and gatto hasn't come out for a while now."
Julchen smiled. "That's good. I think I might miss the little cat though…" It had been very funny to see a little girl wander around the apartment acting like a cat, though at first it had been a bit disquieting.
"Yes, we've become attached to gatto as well, but we'd really rather just have our Alice back." She said "Alice" Ah-lee-chey, because it was the Italian version of the name.
"Yeah, I can guess." Julchen slowly stepped back, pulling a hand out of her pocket to awkwardly wave. "I'll just grab her and then I'll go. I'll be back around… eight?"
The older woman smiled. "Of course… Have fun!"
Julchen laughed. "I'll do my best, ma'am."
When she got into her apartment, Louise was sitting demurely at the kitchen table, staring at the wall above the stove. There was a little plaque there, one of those stupid types of things that said stuff like "Hope." and "Have faith." This one said "There's more to life than trying to survive."
"Those are song lyrics," Julchen said. Louise looked over, and Julchen continued, "Yeah, from this singer I like. She's not very popular, but she's good."
"Mn," Louise said.
"What would you like to eat?" Julchen asked.
"I don't care," Louise said softly.
Julchen sighed softly, then headed to the fridge and made Louise a ham and cheese sandwich. She plopped it on a plate and set the plate in front of Louise, then grabbed a rag from near the sink and started wiping down the dining room table and the beat-up stove and the stained wooden counters. She opened the fridge and took a look at the contents inside, which consisted mostly of week-old takeout and some leftovers. She threw away anything that had been in there for more than a week, then wiped down the inside of the fridge as well.
By this time, Louise was finished eating. She had just gotten up to clean off her plate when Julchen whisked it out of her hands and did it herself.
"Okay, Louise, it's time for you to go. You're going to Alice's house!"
Louise nodded somberly. "Who is she right now?" she asked.
"Right now I think she's Feliciano," Julchen said, ushering her sister from the apartment and locking the door behind them. "Or at least, she was when I was there."
"I don't like Luciano and Agnese as much as Alice," said said softly, pronouncing the Italian names deftly on her tongue.
"Yeah, sometimes they can be a bit scary, huh?"
Louise nodded. "They're nice, but they're a bit different."
Julchen knocked on the door once more. This time it was opened by Romana, Alice's older, more irritable sister. She was nineteen or something like that, and she scowled at Julchen as if the albino woman had done something to personally offend her honor. She was holding a small, gray bunny in her hand, and Julchen made a face of want as she saw it.
"Can… Can I…?" she said. Romana looked at her suspiciously, then sighed and handed over the small creature. Julchen cradled it in her arms and petted it gently on the back, feeling happy. Bunnies. They were so damn cute!
"Anyway," Julchen said, still holding the bunny. "I've brought Louise here. Your mom knows when I'll be coming back."
"Yeah," Romana said, nodding sharply. She turned to Louise and said, "Agnese is out right now. She just changed, just now."
Louise nodded, then moved into the apartment under Romana's extended arm. Julchen sighed, then handed over the cute gray bunny with its twitching pink nose- GAH! Bunnies were so cute.
She turned away, calling a goodbye to Louise over her shoulder. "Oh, and say thanks to your mother for me, Romana," she added. "She's been doing a lot for me lately. Tell her I'll buy her dinner sometime." She laughed to show that she was joking.
"Yeah yeah, stop your flirting, asshat," Romana grumbled, slamming the door after Julchen's retreating form.
Julchen practically flew down the steps that led to the parking lot, then hopped into her car and started the engine, skillfully backing out of the lot even as she buckled her seatbelt over herself. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and checked the message she had gotten. A man wanted her to fix his deck, since the boards were rotting. He also wanted her to add electricity to it, and possibly do some plumbing in his bathroom.
It would be a lot of money. Sure, the materials would cost some, but she would get a lot of money. At least a month's rent, plus enough for food for a while. And it would only take around a week, if she worked really hard, and dammit she would work hard.
She began driving slowly as she reached the street the man had said it was on. To her surprise, it was full of businesses and small office buildings, and she squinted as she tried to make out the addresses. Where was two-seven-seven-eight-four? Oh, there! She marked it down in her mind, then sped up and parked around the corner, as it was unprofessional to show up in a Volkswagen Bug.
She grabbed her work bag out of her trunk and walked to the entrance of the small building, which seemed to be some sort of small grocery. She walked to the back, smiling politely at the man behind the counter.
"Hey, I was called here for a job? Something about a deck and some plumbing?"
The man jerked a thumb to over his shoulder at the doorway she could see behind him. "That'd be back there. The man who owns this building rents the bottom front part out to us and live in the back part and the second level."
Julchen shrugged. "Whatever floats your goat," she said. She stepped around the counter he was behind and walked through the doorway. "I just go up these stairs?" she asked, gesturing to the stairs in front of her even though the man couldn't see her.
"Yeah," he called after her.
"Thanks," she said, and then she stepped quickly up the stairs.
She knocked on the door at the top, then stood there aimlessly for a moment until the door was opened by a short, balding man in a button-up white shirt and slacks.
"Oh, good, you're here," he said in a vaguely squeaky voice. He pulled an embroidered handkerchief (those actually existed still?!) and wiped his sweating brow. "The plumbing situation has gotten worse. I think I might have done something bad…"
Julchen sighed. "Okay, I'll take a look at it. It might cost more now, though." Now the job would take longer and it would be longer before she could get another job. Didn't this man know that he ought not to mess around with what he didn't know about?
"Show me to your bathroom."
He walked in front of her; his steps were small and dainty and he was nearly a foot shorter than her and she had to shorten her steps so that she wouldn't run him over.
As they walked, the sound of running water grew stronger and stronger. He stopped in front of a closed wooden door and shifted from foot to foot in a guilty manner. Julchen sighed.
"How bad is it…?"
"Well… I was just doing my best to fix it, but I… I guess that…" He squirmed. "I don't know what happened."
Julchen grabbed the doorknob and opened the door to find a bathtub that was nearly filled to the brim with water.
"It won't turn off!" he said anxiously. "I tried twisting the knob and other things, but it won't turn off!"
"Why haven't you unplugged it?!" she asked, hurrying forward to look at it.
"U-unplugged?" he stammered. "Well, I didn't want to get wet…"
Julchen rolled her eyes. "Okay, okay. I'll take care of it. You can go watch TV or something." She set her bag down just inside the door and moved to the bathtub, unplugging it. This was going to be idiotically easy.
AYE**LUV**YOU
Famous last words, apparently, because it was not easy. The pipes had rusted through and it seemed that everything else was rusted or rotting or broken and it would take a bajillion years- or maybe a couple days -to fix it all. She sighed and resigned herself to having to ask the Vargases to watch Louise for quite a while longer.
At around two in the afternoon, she decided to take a small break for lunch. Her stomach growled as she packed away her tools, but she left the bag there. The man who had hired her had gone out a couple hours ago and had told her he wouldn't be back for a while, so her stuff was safe.
She could have gone out for fast food or something, but in the grocery downstairs they had sandwiches and milk, which was good enough for her.
When she went up to the counter to make her purchases, she felt a strange sense of deja vu. Standing in front of her was a slim woman with very dark brown, waist-length hair with two strands that were pulled away from her face to go down her back in a small braid.
It was exactly how her best friend from eighth grade- Annaliese -had always done her hair. It reminded Julchen of her, especially since it was the exact same shade and style, more or less.
Julchen tried not to stare as the woman in front of her talked to the man behind the counter. She couldn't help listening in, however. Apparently the woman had just been through a divorce, though the two involved had promised to stay friends. Humph. As if that was possible.
As the woman turned around to leave the grocery, Julchen nearly jumped in surprise as her face finally came into view. She had cute little glasses, purplish blue eyes, and a thinnish face with pale skin.
"Annie?!" Julchen said before she could stop herself. She clapped her hands over her mouth, but she became even more convinced by the strange hair curl sticking out of the side of the woman's head. Annaliese had had a curl like that, and she had always complained about how the curl would never straighten in her straightener and would never grow long enough for her to tie it up properly.
"Who're you?" the woman asked, and Julchen's heart sunk. Part of the reason she had moved back to this small gray town when she had gotten custody of Louise was that she had been hoping to somehow get back in touch with Annaliese.
"Um- Sorry, I mistook you for someone else, I guess," said Julchen, removing her hands from her mouth as she spoke. "My name's Julchen." Sure, the girl may not have been Annaliese, but she was still pretty nice to look at.
The woman narrowed her eyes, then took a step closer. "Julchen- Holy crap. Julchen?! As in, Julchen Beilschmidt?"
Julchen's eyes widened. "Wait, are you really Annie- I mean Annaliese?"
"Yeah…" said Annaliese, narrowing her eyes as she took in Julchen's appearance. "It's just that no one has called me Annie in… Well, since you moved away."
Julchen grinned, then suddenly threw her arms around Annaliese. She pulled away quickly, dusting her hands off on her shirt. "Oh shit sorry, I'm all gross aren't I? Sorry, sorry…" She noticed Annaliese's fancy-looking dress shirt and tight, expensive-looking jeans. It was apparent from nothing more than her clothes that Annaliese had done a lot better with her life than Julchen had. She'd probably gone to college during the day.
Annaliese looked uncomfortable at Julchen's staring eyes; she hitched her bag higher onto her shoulder and said, "Well, we should meet up some time."
"Yeah," Julchen agreed immediately.
"When are you free? Would sometime this week work?"
Julchen noticed that the man behind the counter was looking at them curiously, and so she said, "Here, give me your number and we can plan it some other time, okay? I'm actually in the middle of a job right now…"
Annaliese looked surprised for a moment, then smiled. "Of course." She dug around in her purse for a moment, then pulled out a stack of business cards and handed one to Julchen. "There, just call that one. It'll take you to my cell phone."
Julchen smiled at Annaliese, and the other woman smiled back before turning away and walking gracefully down the aisles and out the door, which made a wooshing noise as it closed.
Julchen nearly walked after her and watched her travel down the street (tight jeans were… well, very attractive), but she managed to jerk back to her senses. She turned to the man behind the counter and handed him her lunch, then stuffed her hands in her pockets and tried to look as if she had not just totally checked out her old friend from middle school.
The man behind the counter took a long look at her, then scanned the barcode on her sandwich and the small container of milk.
"So… Annaliese," Julchen said awkwardly, mostly to satisfy her burning curiosity. "Does she come here often?"
The man looked up from bagging her groceries- oh shit she hadn't noticed that he was doing that she really ought to tell him to stop -and said, "Information costs you around these parts."
She scowled, then sighed. "What do you want? I only want to know what's been happening with her lately is all. She mentioned… a divorce?"
He nodded, then handed the bag-wrapped groceries to her and leaned toward her across the counter. "She was married to someone for a couple years- never mentioned a name, but said something about Spanish being their first language and that they loved a nice glass of wine -but they ended it because things just weren't clicking like they used to." The man leaned forward. "She described it as 'not having that same spark' that they apparently used to have. There wasn't anything wrong with it but that, so they're still friends."
Julchen nodded. "And what will that cost?"
The man grinned. "Sorry. I was kidding about that. You're good to ask me anything about her, although she doesn't tell me too much."
Julchen hesitated, then picked up her groceries and shook her head. "I'm good." She couldn't exactly ask the guy at the checkout counter if her old friend had as keen an interest in girls as Julchen herself did. "Thanks," Julchen said, opening the bag and pulling out the carton of milk.
"'Welcome," the man said, pulling a book out from behind the counter. "Oh, and come back."
She smirked. "Your customer service is the best I've ever seen," she called back over her shoulder as she walked up the stairs to the home located behind the store.
"Thanks," he said faintly after her as she left.
She touched the business card in her pocket as she sat down at the man's kitchen table, careful not to touch anything. Hmm… she wondered if Annie had changed much since middle school. Probably… She wondered how Annie would feel about Louise.
She polished off her sandwich and milk quickly, then got back to work, doing her best to push Annaliese from her mind.
A/N Ay ay ay... Sorry that this took so long! DX And also, I hope this didn't go by too fast... I just kind of wanted to introduce all the people I would include in this, I guess. ^^" Thanks for reading! R&R!