"Hey Raul," Julia shouts to get her twin's attention as she bangs on her baby brother's door, "Would you hurry up already! we do have a birthday party to plan!"
She watches as the doorknob jiggles and turns in order to open the door when the sight of Raul lappears while leaning against the threshold of his bedroom door.
"I'm up!" he counters as he rubs his eyes with the side of his hand and notices his sister in front of the door, "I just wanted to take another nice little nap."
"Come on sleepy head." Julia instructs him as she takes a good look at her brother and silenly ponders why he slept so much.
"Romero already called for a taxi and it's charging by the second so come on." She informed him after she grabbed Raul's hand and dragged him all the way outside.
"It's about time you finally joined us again, Raul." Romero greets the red haired twin once they entered inside of the backseat of the taxi cab.
"I would have just simply left you but Julia vehmently protested against it since she desperately wanted her other half with her." Romero comments when Julia pushes Raul further across the taxicab seat so she could have a seat.
"Ah sis, you should have just said that." Raul mentions when he cuts his gaze over to see his sister, who was staring out the window.
"Now you of all people should know your sister better then that." Romero jokes with Raul after seeing a blush of embarrassment present on her face.
"Whatever..." Julia mutters to herself when she ask "can we just go ahead and leave?" while avoiding eye contact with her traveling companions.
"Whatever you say Julia." Romero and Raul jokingly responses in unison.
'That was a really brief cab ride.' Julia inwardly notes to herself and was even surprised at the fact that they made it to their planner in record time.
"Thank you so very much for your services! Have a nice day." the taxi cab driver announces once he dropped his three passengers off at their intended location.
"You too sir. " The traveling trio returns the good favor before they emerge from the taxi after they paid for the cab fare,
Raul takes in the sight of the two stored building with white bricks laid out by a well-known local masonry. There was a patio filled with elaborate metallic chairs and tables that holds a wooden pole and a red fabric with golden trimming outlines the edges.
"Wow, that was fast." Raul declares as he releases a whistle and places his hands inside of his pants pockets.
"I thought it would have taken us a least another half of hour to get here." he voices while rocking back and forth from the balls of his feet to the heels.
"I guess it just puts us in good favors since she doesn't tolerate anyone arriving late for their appointments, no matter who they are." Romeo mentions to the twins before he ushers them inside of the building.
"That just puts us in good favors then since she does not like anyone being late for her appointments no matter who they are." Romero stated to the twins before ushering them in.
As they move inside of the meticulous decorated room, that boasted samples for various events such as weddings, birthdays, corporate and social gatherings.
The birthday section instantly catches Julia's sights as she strolls over in that direction while Raul ventures off in the opposite direction toward the social gathering section.
Romero causally observes the twins sense of priorites as one seemed to be fully focused on the task at hand while the other was off floating somewhere in cloud nine.
The sound of high heels clicking against the wood before it suddenly stops and a feminine voice breaks the silence. "You two have excellent timing."
"I was just thinking about you two." She adds in, which causes Julia and Raul to break their concentration on whatever it was that they were focused on and turns until they notice a women approaching them.
She was a petite woman with an olive complexion, who wore a longsleeve grey blazer with a sleeveless yellow dress shirt with billowing ruffles down the center of the blazer, along with a black pencil-shape skirt, and patent leather pumps that added six inches to her height. She had medium lenght curly Strawberry Blonde hair that was styled in a bob with a sideswept bang and light blue eye color with thick black frame eyeglasses.
Romero was the first to greet the woman with a small smile present on his face, "Ah Mariana, it is so good to see you again."
"Same to you too, Romero. It seems as if time has been treating you rather well." she returns with a similar smile on his face.
"That's rather a nice compliment from a beautiful woman such as yourself." He chimes in with a wider smile present on his face when he explains why they were there. "Anyway, the twins decided to stop by and check up on the progress of their birthday party."
The woman name, Mariana, cuts her blue eyes over toward Julia and Raul before she returns her gaze back to Romero, "Oh what good timing do you all have, I was going to call you all in today so I can get their sizes for the clothes.
When Mariana mentions the word "clothes" in her statement it seem to have caught the twins' attention as she instructs them, "Come on up to my studio and I will show you all what I have done."
Romero was the first to follow Mariana up a set of steps with Raul and Julia not to far behind him, "As I already told you before I took the assignment on because I had huge plans for our famous performers in the area."
Once they arrived at the second floor, Mariana issues out another set of orders to the trio, "You can take a seat in those empty stools over there and I will pull your folder."
As the twins and Romero occupy the empty stools that surrounded her work place, Mariana searches through a cabinet file of a binder.
"Alright here we go…" she mumbles to herself as she removes the folder, strolls over to the twins, and places it in front of them. The cover had their names, Raul and Julia, typed in an elaborate font along with their picture underneath their names.
Mariana removes one of the high stools from underneath her work station and takes a seat in front of her clients.
Raul simply reaches out, lifts the folder's cover, and checks out the various pictures of the venue that they were going to have their party at. 'That's amazing! Its more than enough room for them to put the big tent up.'
"Do you like the area? If you don't like that particular location then there are other possible venues that you two can choose from?" Mariana asks before she even allow the twins to answer her initial question.
Julia simply turns her attention to Rau, who nods his head at her, which causes her to return her gaze on to Mariana.
"I believe even if we wanted to change now then it would be too late, since we already delivered all of our invitations with this address printed on it." Julia mentions before she adds in, "Besides we both agreed that this was the best spot."
On the other hand, Raul continues to flip through the contents of the binder ignoring Mariana's question and stops at the page that had their menu.
Mariana nods her head at Julia's statement before she clears her throat and starts to outline the details of the twin's eighteenth birthday party.
"Let's talk about you food choices." She mentions first, which causes Raul head to snap upright at her comment. "If I recall correctly you selected an Topsy Turvy birthday cake one for show and the other was a four tiered cake. You wanted two of those sections to be vanilla and the other two chocolate flavored. You want light foods, nothing heavy, such as finger foods. The popcorn machine is in enroute and will arrive here on your special day."
Julia nods her head again when Mariana watches Raul flip the page to the layout of the party.
"Now for the layout, you said wanted to incoporate parts of the circus so the tightrope is being built in the center along with net under you all. Once you two have completed your grand entrance we will remove the net. The photo booth will be here in a couple of days."
Julia thinks over the concept before a new idea emerge within her thoughts. "How about move the tightrope outside instead so no alterations would have to be done so it could fit inside. "
Mariana raises her eyebrow at the suggest from the orange haired twin, "We can have a circular platform in the middle of the tent for our entrance and a couple of more where tables and chairs can be placed."
"Then we can have the food being served by waiters and waitress while they watch the show from their seats. Oh and we can have the hoops hang from the middle in a triange fashion with the dangling clothe a little ways apart from each other." Julia concludes what she wanted to change.
"What do you think about that plan, Raul?" Julia poses to her twin after explaining her layout and because it was his party as well.
"It's all fine by me." he agrees with the idea when he expresses his honesty opinion, "After all, we don't want know if someone might have the sudden urge to climb up the tightrope and utimately hurt themselves in the end."
"Then it is settled then." Mariana responses as she grabs a ballpoint ink pen and scribbles in shorthand format the altercations Julia did to the original proposed plan.
Raul merely turn to the next page and saw an array of reds, whites, oranges, yellows, blues, and greens.
"Oh this is my favorite part, the stylist offered this paritcular color palate to me and told me to show you some pictures of the outfits you two will be wearing." Mariana mentions after seeing Raul turned to the clothing section.
Julia studies each and every one of her options before she finds the one that catches her attention and pulls them out of the line up, "I want this one as my party outfit, this one as my performance attire and that as the after party outfit."
"I guess I have to do the same thing too." Raul mutters to himself as he busies himself with choosing his three outfits as well.
"Raul, if you would turn to the next page," Mariana instructs him when the agenda of the party appears before his eyes.
"I want you two to take a good long look over this line up, since this is the most crucial part of planning." she informs them in a serious tone.
The twins eyes cautiously scan the outline of their party, "So our tightrope performance would already be prerecorded and televised to our guests."
"Yes, they will be guided to an open theater and instructed to watch the brief film of your entrance before they head inside of the tent."
"Once they enter inside of the tent they will recieve the opening by the ringmaster and then that is when we will make our entrance through the platform with a cloud of fog."
"Then around ten thirty the circus performance will end and every one will walk to the after party that will start at eleven."
Mariana continues to scratch and then scribble the changes on the paper when she asks "When you flip to the next page...let me know if it fits your standards?
Julia watches as Raul flip to the next page over that had after party venue typed across the top portion of the paper.
"Oh...I like this place a lot!" Raul declares as he holds the picture up close to his face. "I think we found us a winner, Julia." he says as he hands the picture over to his red haired twin.
Julia could only watch as Raul display his fondness over the place when he saw where it was located.
"Well if you feel that way about it then I can't say I disagree with it." Julia agrees along with her brother and copies the similar smile he had on his face.
"It looks like the end of the binder." Raul announces to the group once he reached the opposite end of the binder.
"Alright then..." Mariana pipes up as she cast her gaze upwards and places her pen down, "...so I do hope you enjoy the changes that you two have made and if you feel strongly about what you see then I will go ahead and uphold my part of the deal."
"If that's all then I think I have my hands full with these changes," she mentions as she removes herself from the surface of the stool and walks over to them.
"So I will see you two on your birthday," she informs them as they mimic her action and stands on their feet when Mariana European kiss each one of her clients, including Romero.
"See you later then," the twins mentions in unison as the traveling trip makes their way back downstairs to the first floor and exits.
'I can't wait for our birthday party! It's going to be so much fun!' The twins thought in excitement while humming the same tune to themselves.
0000
"Hey what did you and Claude talk about?" Mathilda inquires out of concerned for what Claude could have told Miguel.
"The same thing as always, he tried to probe my mind to see that me leaving a day early would be for an ulterior motive instead of work." Miguel response to her question while putting emphasis on ulterior.
Mathilda's eyes swiftly scans the area around to see if Claude was there before she provides an answer, "That's because you are. Did he try and prove that you are?"
Miguel merely huffs at what she just ask him, "He wanted me to make a list of all the numbers of the places I visited. On top of that, when you all will arrive Claude is going to ask them did they see me there."
'Claude really isn't playing with Miguel about this thing?' she mentally notes since she felt that Claude was overstepping his boundaries.
"But you do have a plan don't you? I mean I know you aren't going to let that little thing Claude told you to do for him get in the way of seeing her, now would it?" Mathilda poses as she looks at Miguel's facial expression at the same time.
Miguel could not help but to laugh at his pink haired friend because she knew him all too well. "You can say that but I won't know if it will work until I get there."
"Come Miguel!" she suddenly interjects causing him to be in shock, "You got Aaron and I rooting for you on this one. So get out there and prove to us that Claude is dead wrong about all of this."
Miguel could tell that Mathilda was rather fired up about his current situation and its positive future outcome.
"Alright Mathilda, don't burn down the apartment okay? Besides I already have something in my head." Miguel reassures his friend with a small smile present on his face.
"Well then you owe me a favor in turn," Mathilda proposes to him, which catches Miguel off guard.
"You have to come with me to do some shopping. After all, I do have to look my best for their party." Mathilda states her demands for her favor.
Miguel simply laughs at her once again and her request. "That wouldn't be too hard to complete. Are you ready to go right now?"
"Yay, I get to go shopping!" Mathilda exclaims as she jumps up and down from excitement while clapping the palms of her hands together.
"Besides, I need to buy some clothes for the party too. After all, I do only have some of the same items in my closet." Miguel jokes at his lack of taste in his wardrobe.
"That's why you have me." Mathilda reminds him before looking for her purse when she mentions, "I will make you look like what every girl wants in a boyfriend."
He rubs the top of her head out of a habit when comments with, "I'm sure you got me."
"So what are we waiting for then, lets go before dictator Claude come and try and stop us." Mathilda warns Miguel when she grabbed her purse and made their way out of the apartment.
"Aaron, do you know where Mathilda went?" Miguel could hear Claude's voice travel up to the apartment door when he locked it.
He quickly turned toward Mathilda, placed his index finger over his lips, told her to be quiet and signaled for her to break down the hallway.
"Go!" Miguel whispers as they swiftly run down the hallway of their apartment trying to avoid making the smallest of noise.
Claude unlocked the apartment door, stuck his head out, and looked left and right down the hall but did not see anyone, 'I wonder just where did those two go off to in a hurry.'
"Whew, that was close." Miguel mutters under his breath once they paused at the corner in order to catch their breaths.
"Lets go before Claude wises up and walks down here." Mathilda proclaims before she straightens back up to her intended height.
Miguel simply nodded his head in agreement before they quietly made their way down a flight of stairs.
"Mathilda," He called out to his pink haired female companion once they exited their apartment.
"Yeah what is it, Miguel?" Mathilda asked as she glanced over her shoulder after they merged in to the sidewalk traffic.
"What do you think I should get Julia for her birthday?" Miguel inquires to her since she would know what girls like the best for gifts.
Mathilda thinks over the question for about a couple of minutes when she asks, "What was it that you have in mind for her gift?"
Miguel merely scratches the back of his head from embarrassment, "Uhm...I wanted to get her a book of poetry."
"Wow…that actually sounds like a nice gift, Miguel." Mathilda agrees with the idea when she asks him in a teasing manner, "Are you sure you aren't a girl in disguise?"
"I guarentee you that I am a boy." Miguel counters after hearing Mathilda mentions he could possibly be a girl in disguise.
"So what other ideas did you have in mind besides the book of poetry? I'm curious to find out." she redirects the conversation back on to the initial subject.
"I thought that she would find that corny so my next thoughts turned to jewlery. But I didn't know what her opinion of jewlry is so..." Miguel expresses his concerns over his choice of gifts.
"Calm down, Miguel, it won't be the end of the world." Mathilda calms the blonde haired boy down with a pat on the shoulder.
"I think she would appreciate any gift that you give to her, besides I don't really think Julia is the picky type." Mathilda remindes him when he could feel himself ease up a little.
"You're right but still I don't want to give her just any kind of gift. I want to show her that I actually put some kind of thought into it." Miguel insistingly claims with an expression of concern present on his face.
"There you go!" She suddenly announces with a wide smile on her face. "You've manage to have successfully clear all the stages of confusion for buying gifts in record time."
Miguel's facial expression changes from concern to a "I did what" expression. "My, my my, Miguel you must be use to these kind of things?" Mathilda asks him as she returns her arms to her side.
"Not really but there's something else that I need to ask you about." Miguel adds in while looking at Mathilda as they start off on their walk to the mall.
"Yes, what is it?" Mathilda answers in an optimistic tone when she spoke, "I am sure we can fix whatever it is."
"Do you think you can help me pick out something nice for the twins' birthday party?" Miguel finally asks his favor toward Mathilda.
She could not help but laugh as her attempt to cover it up was of no use since he was quite serious about what he just asked her.
"Sure," She confirms her participation in the favor.
"I wouldn't mind after all…I was tired of seeing you in those boring old clothes anyway." Mathilda admits, which causes Miguel to laugh as well.
"Wait a minute..." Miguel suddenly chimes in as he snaps his head to the pink haired girl's, " are you saying I don't have any sense of color coordination."
A couple of minutes later, the mall enters the duo sights one they strolled through the shopping district.
"Well then let's do our best then." Mathilda claims with a wide smile before they walk inside of the mall