I'm SOOOOOOOOOO sorry for not updating for months, but I really couldn't help it. There were a lot of things going on in my house, things involving super sick sisters, salt lakes, piano recitals, drunkenness, druggie cousins, Bogotá, gorillas (or rather guerrillas), and vineyards. You don't want to know.
But I'm here now, groveling for your forgiveness (and hopefully getting it). All problems have either been solved or are being solved, and I'm feeling happier than I have in months. So here goes the third chapter of "Nothing Gold Can Stay." Voila, madames et monsieurs!
Disclaimer: I, sadly, do not own Gone With The Wind, its plot, and any of its characters. I do, however, own my modern interpretation of it, and if anyone plagiarizes it…well, let's just say that person had best start walking with his back facing the wall.
"Where's Suellen?" Scarlett asked Cathleen. Though it was not obvious, her voice was slightly slurred, the result of too much brandy and too little food. She was not drunk, per se, but if she drank a drop more of alcohol she would have been.
Cathleen, on the other hand, was. Extremely.
"I dunno," she murmured, and then started to laugh hysterically. Scarlett stared down at her in disgust, and with reason. Cat's breath stank of beer, there was vomit on her shirt (or what was supposed to be a shirt, but really looked like a piece of cloth which covered one fourth of her breasts), and her fly was unbuttoned, for a reason that Scarlett really did not want to know. It was her duty, as usual, to bring a drunken Cathleen and (most probably) a drunk Suellen as well. It was not a job she particularly relished, but she was the only who was ever sober at the end of parties and so she could not dump the job onto the lap of some love- (or rather lust-) struck senior with a driver's license. On the contrary, she was the one stuck bringing back as many guys as could fit in her car home. Brent, Stuart, Tony, Charles, Frank, and Cat were already installed pell-mell in the back and in the trunk of her Renault. Scarlett sighed and started walking towards the mansion.
There was still Suellen, who was probably vomiting behind some bushes somewhere, and, much as it tempted her, Scarlett could not leave her behind. Unlike with most sisters, it was not because her parents had told her to take care of the younger sibling. For some reason, she had always felt responsible for her sisters. She could not explain it to anyone, much less herself, but since she was a little girl she was always making sure that Suellen did not get lost in the supermarket, or that Careen put on her seatbelt properly. Neither girls ever noticed it, and Scarlett was grateful for that. She did not want to appear like a mother hen, and so she always blamed it on Mother, saying that she'd been told to make sure they were okay, and that was the way it would always be, as far as Scarlett was concerned.
Being the oldest sucks.
"Your sister, I believe," a smooth voice said, coming from the darkness. Scarlett shrieked and spun around, only to find herself facing the amused face of the one and only Rhett Butler.
"You!" she exclaimed angrily, her fear forgotten in the face of her antipathy towards the man standing in front of her. He raised an eyebrow, his face still retaining the arrogance that she'd noted earlier.
"My, what hostility for someone to whom you just spoke for one minute," he said, his silky voice not showing the least bit of offence at her treatment of him.
"One minute too much," she snapped, but his amusement only increased. She crossed her arms. "What do you want?" He glanced down at his shoulder, and for the first time she noticed that Suellen was lolling against him, one arm around his shoulder and the other one touching his chest intimately while she murmured something that had to do with "sexy," and "hot." Scarlett's face flushed as a burning shame enveloped her. For a second she was tempted to say she didn't know her, and that he should just leave her there (so that she could discreetly pick her up later), but then she remembered that they'd already met.
"Yep, that's her!" Scarlett said, as though the matter had ever been at doubt. She reached out as though to grab her, but Rhett's hand closed around her to stop her. For a second she stood still staring at it. It felt burning hot against her cold skin, and a bolt of energy seemed to go from his body into hers, in a manner she'd never experienced before and thought it was unlikely she ever would again. She looked up at him, and Time seemed to stand still for a second. He has the blackest eyes I've ever seen, she thought.
And then Suellen giggled and the moment was broken. Scarlett jerked her hand out of his, and ignored the fact that the eyebrow that had been normal a second ago had joined the raised one.
"What was that for?" she asked brusquely.
"I'm sure," Rhett said, his drawl as smooth as ever, "that I could never be considered a gentleman if I were to let a lovely young lady such as yourself alone to deal with her-" he paused for a second, glancing down at Suellen with a slightly curled lip, "ill sister," he finished. Scarlett gave him a look.
"I'm sure you could never be considered a gentleman, period," she replied tartly. Rhett smiled faintly.
"That's most probably true," he conceded. "However, it's never too late to change my ways," and with that said he jerked his arm and Suellen was suddenly in his arm, held by the crook of her knee and her neck. Scarlett gaped at his back as he started striding in the dark as if he knew exactly where her car was. He paused for a second and glanced at her, his look obviously saying, "Are you coming or not?" She hurried to catch up.
"By the way," he said suddenly, "do you know what happened to Frank? I've been looking for him for an hour."
"Frank Kennedy? He's in my truck," she answered, somewhat sullenly. What right did Butler have to tell her what to do?
Said man paused to glance at her in surprise.
"In your truck," he repeated, as though saying it again would explain what Frank Kennedy was doing in the trunk of Scarlett O'Hara's car. "Should I inform the police?" She gave him a dirty look.
"He's drunk," she explained, as though that would clear up the mystery. Any other person would still have been confused, but Rhett was not any other person.
"So you're driving him home?"
"No," she retorted sarcastically, "I'm taking advantage of his weakened state to kidnap him."
"Ah. So I should inform the police," Rhett drawled, acting as though he had not realized that she was being sarcastic. She rolled her eyes, but didn't bother to answer since they'd already reached her car.
"This is it," she announced, stopping. Rhett eyed it appreciatively.
"Well, aren't you Daddy's little girl," he said sardonically. She narrowed her eyes at him.
"And what's that supposed to mean?" she asked coldly.
"Just that you have to be quite…appreciated…by your parents for them to buy you a car like this," he ran his hand down the sides. Scarlett shrugged.
"Around here you could be your Dad's most hated enemy and you'd still get a car like this," she replied indifferently.
"Still, you seem like a good daddy's pet," he murmured, and Scarlett scowled at him angrily.
She opened her trunk and was immediately assaulted by groans, moans, and other drunken sounds.
"Scarlett, baby," one of the Tarletons (she couldn't tell them apart in the dark) said. "S'up, baby? Come here." She ignored him and grabbed Frank.
"Here," she said, pushing him towards Rhett. Frank simply flopped on the ground. Rhett glanced down at him then held up Suellen.
"What should I do with her?" he asked.
"Just stuff her in there," she answered, gesturing to the inside of the trunk, where the twins were sprawled. Usually she put her in the passenger's seat, but she was feeling annoyed at her right now, for humiliating her in front of Butler. Rhett complied, and then stood up and glanced at her with a highly amused look.
"Bus driver, are you," he whispered. She glared at him and his mocking eyes.
"I hope you rot in hell," she snapped. He smirked and hauled up Kennedy.
"Since you're probably headed there, with pleasure," he replied, and looked her up and down with slow and appreciative eyes, then grinned at her. Though she was used to being checked out, it had never been done in such an obvious way, and so she ignored his backhanded compliment (if it was even that), and grabbed a tennis ball to hurl at him as hard as she could. She was slightly tipsy, however, and Rhett had no problem ducking in time. For a second he looked at her, with the laughter evident in his eyes, and then he frowned suddenly.
"Are you sure you should be driving?" he asked abruptly.
"Why ever not?" she snapped back irately. He opened his mouth as though to reply, then shook his head. She's probably used to doing this, he thought. And yet he still felt a twinge of concern. He shook it off, annoyed at himself. Why do I even care? He asked himself, and then smiled at Scarlett.
"It's been a very interesting pleasure meeting you, Miss O'Hara," he said, bowing. On an impulse, he grabbed her hand and kissed it with a great deal less chastity than was probably ever allowed in the olden days. Scarlett gaped at him until she recovered her spirits enough to jerk her hand out of his, in a way that gave her a great sense of déjà vu, and asked in an embarrassingly shaky voice:
"What the hell are you doing?" He merely laughed, and carrying Frank as though he were a bag of potatoes, walked out into the dark.
And good riddance, Scarlett thought to herself, wiping her hand distastefully on her jeans. May he never come back.
It's impossible, even for the luckiest girl on earth, to have her wishes answered every time.
SCE
The next day, Scarlett woke up at ten, and only that early because Mammy had opened the blinds abruptly and loudly. She groaned and pulled the cover over her head, only to have it yanked off just as unexpectedly.
"Time for you to get up," Mammy announced, as though it was an undisputed law that had existed since the time of the cavemen, that Scarlett O'Hara must wake up at ten on the dot, on November 23rd, in the year of our Lord 2006.
Scarlett disagreed.
"Lemme alone," she groaned.
"I don't think so," Mammy replied sternly. "Whose fault is it that you stayed up until three last night?"
"God's," Scarlett muttered, pressing her face in her pillow, which was also taken away from her, leaving her on a bare mattress with no possible protection against the sun.
"The culprit must pay the consequences," she said, ignoring what the younger girl had said.
"So what are you going to do?" Scarlett snapped. "Punish God?"
"Don't you be smart with me, young lady," was the only answer. "Unlike your mother, I know perfectly that what you were doing last night did not involve playing 'Duck, Duck, Goose!'" For the first time, Scarlett opened her eyes and gazed at the familiar black face. Mammy was not part of the O'Hara family, but she might as well have been. She had started as Mrs. O'Hara's nanny, and for some reason had never left the family since.
She was the one who always watched over Scarlett, made sure to kiss her booboos when she was a little girl, bought her her first bra, gave her "the talk," explained to her what puberty was, made sure she always did her homework, made sure she ate well, and, most importantly, kept her from getting into too much trouble. For some people, that would not appear like a hard job, but then some people did not know Scarlett.
Mammy's career as Scarlett's guardian angel had started when said girl was only two years old, and had decided it would be fun to jump out of the window. Mammy had arrived just in time to save her life. Then when Scarlett turned four and decided to join the circus and trained herself by climbing onto horses and hitting them with sticks until they started galloping. She fell off and would have been trampled to death had Mammy not been passing by, heard her screams, and rushed to her rescue. Of course, then came the running away stage at the age of six. All children go through this; however, unlike Scarlett, few make it far. She, on the other hand, got all the way to Atlanta by bus, and was found in a candy shop by Mammy, who was coming back from a visit to her family.
There were many more incidents like this, such as when Scarlett and her boyfriend Brent decided to elope at the tender age of eight, or when Scarlett sneaked into the liquor cabin to see whether or not she like drinking. All anyone needs to know was that Mammy always managed to save her skin, and despite her numerous exclamations of "This child will be the death of me!" and Scarlett's grumblings about "Mammy always sticking her nose in places it isn't wanted," the two loved each other dearly. They blackmailed, insulted, and threatened each other, of course, but that didn't change the deep bond of trust between them. If Scarlett ever had a problem which she didn't dare tell her mother about, she turned towards Mammy, and Mammy always helped her. Scarlett was Mammy's pride and joy, and as soon as she was one she had stated that "this girl's going to be real sharp," a statement which she gloatingly told everyone about when Scarlett started doing calculus in eighth grade.
But right now Scarlett wasn't feeling very inclined to like Mammy as she got out of bed and started dressing up reluctantly, her companion having left the room to give her some privacy. Annoying old lady, she thought bitterly, putting on a shirt that showed off her tiny waist. Why can't I sleep any longer? It's the weekend, for God's sake! She shook her head sourly. One thing was certain: Scarlett O'Hara would not be in a good mood that day.
La Fin de Chapitre Trois.
Before all oldest siblings go and agree with this, I would like to point out that being the youngest sucks even more. The oldest beats you up, tells on you, bullies you, controls the remote, is always more trusted by adults, and generally treats the youngest horribly. I know there because I'm there, and I'm doing it still. I HATE my sister, although she doesn't have so much control over me anymore. The bad memories remain.
Anyway, as I said before, I'm terribly sorry about how long it took me to update.
I also have a matter that I would like to address: should I include Scarlett's infatuation for Ashley in her? I'm torn. On the one hand, Ashley is essential to Gone With The Wind, and I'd like to keep my story as faithful to the book as possible. On the other hand, I hate that part of the story, and I'm not sure I could write about it without sneaking in some snide comments in there. Honestly.
Okay, here's a test. Imagine that you were a girl (if you are one don't bother doing this) and you have a choice between two men.
The first looks alright, is married to your best friend, doesn't understand, can't do anything but read, doesn't understand you, is your polar opposite, and spends his time reminiscing about the past even though he know you hate that.
The second is the sexiest guy on earth, hilarious, really smart, rich, loves you completely, is great in bed, does his best to please you (most of the time), takes care of you no matter what, understands you completely, and respects you.
Now, which one would you pick? Everyone thinks long and hard
Yeah. Me too.
Seriously though, tell me in your reviews (by which I mean please god I'm begging you okay review, and also check out the book, "The Truth About Forever." It's good, not great, but good. winks at Kreepi Spicer).
Did You Know: The dollar symbol ($) is a U combined with an S (U.S.)
And now a riddle: Why did the dinosaur cross the road?
If you already know the answer, then don't say it. The rest of you can leave it in your reviews (see above). By the by, if someone gets the answer right and then everyone else follows with the same correct one, I think I'll be able to guess why.
And sorry again for the long pause! I feel terrible about it.