A lot of things must be taken into consideration when you're planning to get your mother and your best friend's mother together.
For example, the fact that your parents are now divorced and your mother has no reason to spend Christmas at your grandmother's house.
"But mommy I want to spend Christmas in Lima."
"Sweetie I can't see that happening, your father and I are going to stay here in New York. Why do you want to go to Lima anyway? I thought you loved to spend the holidays in here."
"I do. But Ben is going to be there. Quinn's going to stay with her mother. And there are Grandpa Leroy and Grandpa Hiram."
"Daddy is Jewish and Dad lives in an apartment sweetie."
Rachel smiles at her daughter with adoration in her eyes.
"We'll visit them soon okay?" She hugs the brunette girl and kisses the top of her head.
With her dads still pretty much divorced, Rachel doesn't have a home in Lima, not like she used to have anyway. She tried to buy their old house, she will always cherish it, because it was her solace place, her refuge, her haven, outside of those walls, the world could be tumbling down, but at her house, with her dads, she had all the love she needed. It was her home. Unfortunately, she hasn't been successful on her purchase yet.
"How can I convince you?" Toni asks with her head on her mother's chest.
"Uh?" Rachel shakes herself out of her reveries as she was lost in her memories.
"To go to Lima."
"It's not like that Antoinette. I have parties to attend and Kurt and Blaine and…" She sighs.
Toni pulls away from her mother rather harshly.
"You're choosing status over your happiness." The brunette girl says angrily. She turns around and starts walking away, ready to go to her bedroom.
"Hey! Get back here." Rachel frowns in confusion. "What are you talking about?"
The girl turns around to face her mother.
"It would make me happy to spend Christmas with Ben and I know you'd be happy spending Christmas with…" She trails off, fidgeting with her fingers.
"With?" Rachel looks down at her daughter, intrigued.
"Quinn." She says with a barely there voice.
Rachel smiles in spite of herself.
"Yeah." She crosses her arms over her chest defensively. "Because she is my friend, but I have friends here too." She explains patiently. "What about Lisa? I'm sure you girls are going to have fun."
"Whatever." Toni shrugs. "I'll tell Ben I won't be with him and Quinn on Christmas." She storms out like a pro, it's in her DNA.
It's not that she doesn't like Kurt and Blaine's daughter, she does. They are pretty close, but Ben is like her brother, she can't explain actually, they kind of complement each other, they are very alike but really different at the same time. Lisa is pretty much like Toni herself, a little less stubborn though.
The point is that she really loves the holiday in the city, but as always, Quinn is going to stay in Lima with her mother, her sister and Francine's family. There is no point on Ben trying to convince his mother to spend Christmas in New York. The convenient thing to do was to ask Rachel to go to Lima.
No such luck.
"That's a bummer!"
Ben huffs in frustration, running his fingers through his messy blonde hair.
"I know." Toni smiles sadly at the screen of her computer. "You can go back to sleep now. I just wanted to tell you that. I need to think now, to come up with another idea."
"You mean we're not going to publish the story?"
"No, we are."
"You know them. If they'll have time to think things through they are going to chicken out."
"Mom is not going to Lima though." She pouts.
"Maybe she will."
"How? I tried everything. I'm trying to convince her this whole week."
"No. Not like that. What about we give her a convenient time, like enough to take a flight and head off to Lima?"
"Go on…" Toni gestures to him to continue.
"I'm going to call Beth and tell her everything. We are going to confirm the story and ask him to change just a little detail at the end."
"So mom reads it, figures everything out and runs after Quinn in Lima?"
"Yes. You can help of course, with a little bit of persuasion, don't let her give up. I'll do my best. I mean, mom doesn't read his column so I will buy it myself."
"But you know how hard it is to get a flight on such short notice, with this little time, especially in this period of the year?"
He snaps his fingers. "I know! I'll ask Beth to buy a ticket for you and your mother today as soon as he confirms when he is going to publish it. I'll use my money of course."
"You're a genius!"
"I try." He smirks smug.
"I'd totally kiss you if you were not like a total loser and you know… brother material."
"That and your little crush. Do you still have that pic inside your diary?" He teases, arching his eyebrows up and down playfully.
"Shiiiii." She presses her index finger on her mouth, looking behind apprehensively. "I don't know what you're talking about." She says nonchalantly.
"You're weird."
"You're a loser."
"Whatever, do you think it will work? The plan I mean."
"I hope so. I have to go now."
"Okay. See ya."
"See you."
They log off.
Jacob Ben Israel's Epic love stories.
Okay people, today's story is going to knock your socks off, for so many reasons actually. When I started reading it I thought: hey this is really good! But then I was like: OH MY GOD!
Yes, this story is really good, but there's more:
I know the love birds!
I didn't even need to investigate anything and it will work better this way, otherwise I would have ruined everything. You will know what I'm talking about at the end.
So, off to read!
The diva and the cheerleader.
This is a story about two girls who fell in love with each other, defying logic, society's impositions and most important, defying high school's rules. Their lives collided into one another like a neutron star collision, but the odds were never in their favor.
One of them is my mother and the other is my best friend's mother. We grew up watching our mothers struggling and fighting something that is now so obvious to us: They are meant to be.
How do we know? I'm going to tell you…
It all started when my mom moved to a small city in Ohio, she was 15 years old and she was beautiful. But mom was and is much more than her looks, she was a scared little girl, she just had learned how to hide this side of her at that time.
You see, my mom had some insecurity issues when she was a young girl; she was bullied because she was overweight, had acne and used to wear glasses. When she moved to this new town though she decided she was going to change everything about herself. She lost weight and in her new school she was accepted to be part of the cheerleaders' squad, actually, not just that, she was given the position as the head cheerleader. My mom was the youngest head cheerleader at that school, she was just a freshman.
Treasure trail!
That's one of the many nick names my mom had given to my best friend's mom.
I'm going to name them, for better understanding.
My mom is going to be Lucy and my best friend's mom is going to be Barbra.
Barbra was the school's loser. She was an ambitious teenage girl; she was intelligent, brave, honest, loyal and talented. Barbra was a fan of Barbra Streisand (duh) and she was a very talented singer. I know this is true because I've watched her on Broadway many times. She is amazing. My mom can't take her eyes off of her when Barbra is out there singing and marveling the audience.
Seriously, she is always like:
"She is amazing… I mean, she has always been amazing, but know…"
Or:
"You should've seen her when we were in glee club by the way…".
But that means nothing when you are in high school, especially in a small town, full of close-minded people.
Yes, my mom bullied Barbra. She laughed when the jocks threw slushies on Barbra's face and she insulted Barbra's clothes choice many times.
If you think this is bad, things got worse when Barbra started hitting on Lucy's boyfriend. He was the quarterback and he fell in love with Barbra, even though he was Lucy's boyfriend.
But before I start with this love triangle, I need to add my dad into this equation.
Before I introduce him though I have to tell something about my mom's family, my grandfather is a bad man. My mom was raised to be the perfect Christian girl. They were a conservative family. Status mattered more than anything and my mother had learned that she should hide her deepest desires, she had learned to hide her feelings.
I didn't know it until very recently, I have always known about my sister's existence, and I do have a great relationship with her, but they never told me the whole truth until the day my mom said to me she was gay.
Yes, my mom and my dad had a baby daughter when they were teenagers.
Lucy wanted to feel normal, and she was feeling very down at that day. She felt pressured because apparently that was something girls on her age were doing. She was feeling fat and my father said the right things to her. So she gave herself to my dad because she wanted to prove to herself she was just like the other girls. But she got pregnant.
Why she cheated on her boyfriend? Yes, she was dating the quarterback. Mom said she was always attracted to my dad somehow, because he was something her family wouldn't have approved of and that makes my dad very smug. You should see his smirk. She didn't want to cheat, she just didn't want to do it with the quarterback, don't hate my mom, but she was just using him for popularity. She wanted to be prom queen and dating the quarterback was going to make that possible.
Things started going wrong when the quarterback joined the glee club, Barbra was also in that club. Because she didn't want to lose her boyfriend, Lucy got in too. My dad also joined it later. Yes, my mom and my dad are both singers, and no, they don't do it professionally, not like Barbra, she is a Tony winner. I love when they sing though, they are pretty good.
Back to the story, Lucy's life fell apart because the quarterback fell in love with Barbra and she found out she was pregnant.
Again, don't judge her, but she kind of lied about the identity of the baby's father. She said the quarterback was the father, but he wasn't. To make things short, Barbra was the one that told him the truth. He punched my father on the face after that.
So that's how my sister came to this world and I bet you'll never guess who adopted her. Yeah… mom didn't keep her. She was just sixteen and did I mention that her father kicked her out of his house when he found out she was pregnant? Yes, he did. My mom didn't have much options, she decided she was going to give my sister to adoption. But don't worry, my grandma came to her senses and she divorced my grandfather after she found out he was cheating on her. I told you he was a bad man!
My grandma went after Lucy when they were in a show choir competition. My mom's water broke and my sister was born that day.
And Barbra's mother adopted her…
I know!
But let me explain everything. Barbra has two dads, they are a couple and they found a surrogate, that's Barbra's biological mother. After she had Barbra she couldn't have babies anymore, she was told by a doctor. So she adopted a baby. My sister!
So, this is the background, let's move to the center of the stage now.
Lucy and Barbra were enemies and they used to fight a lot. Lucy was the HBIC and Barbra was the captain of the Glee club. Their animosity only got bigger when the quarterback was added into the equation. The quarterback and my mom broke up, but he didn't start dating Barbra right away, no, he needed a time or something. In the meantime, Barbra met someone, and you will never believe it.
She met my best friend's dad!
They started dating, until the day she found out he was just fooling her, he was a member of another choir group, a very good one and he was their star. This group was directed by none other than Barbra's biological mother, and she just wanted to get close to Barbra, so she used the boy. Just so you know, my best friend's dad is also on Broadway now, he is a director and the reason why they got married is because he really loved Barbra, he was just very ambitious and young at that time. Mom doesn't like him very much though. And just to be clear they are divorced now.
After all this drama, I mean, after Barbra's mother got back to NYC (with my sister) and after she broke up with my best friend's father, Barbra started dating the quarterback.
Junior year started and Lucy was back to her position as head cheerleader. Life went on normally, they still had some animosity, but it started fading away with time and with their closeness because of glee club.
I'll never understand it, but my mom got back with the quarterback when he and Barbra broke up, whatever the reason was, we didn't manage to find out, but we do know that my mom once again was trying to be prom queen. It was something important to her, her mother had been prom queen too. Before you judge her I have to inform you that he broke up with her at a funeral because he was still in love with Barbra.
That wasn't the worst thing he did I'm afraid. He almost killed my mom!
Or sort of… okay, I'm overreacting…
Lucy and Barbra became friends on senior year. That's what mom tells me. She was trying to get her daughter back and Barbra made her see reason. My dad said this was the worst period of my mom's life. One day I asked them whether I was an accident or not, and they say I wasn't. They wanted me. Then I asked why they didn't want my sister and my mom started crying.
She wanted her daughter, she said she tried her best to be indifferent; she tried to tell herself she did what was best and she should go on with her life. But she wanted her baby girl. And when Barbra's biological mother got back in town, she decided she was going to do everything and anything to get her daughter back.
Barbra however, thought it wasn't a good idea. She was the one convincing my mother that my sister was better off with her mother, because she could provide things my mom couldn't. They got close and started building a friendship after that episode.
Later on, on senior year, the quarterback proposed to Barbra, and she said yes. Lucy and Barbra's best friend were the only ones against that decision. Barbra was just 17 years old!
That wedding almost killed my mom…
Literally.
Because they were friends, in the end, Lucy decided to be there for Barbra. She never managed to, because she got hit by a truck while answering a text Barbra sent to her when my mom was on her way to that wedding.
She had to be in a wheelchair for months!
I know my mom; I know how she is reserved. When she feels she is getting too vulnerable she closes herself off. With her, gestures are more important than words. That's why when we found out she gave her prom queen crown to Barbra, I knew it then that she loved Barbra.
Let me explain.
Lucy started walking again at that night and surprised everyone at her senior prom, but her biggest gesture that night she did it without an audience. That's right, Lucy won prom queen, but she gave it up, so Barbra could have it, even though she was not even running. And she watched as the quarterback who won prom king danced with Barbra.
They didn't get married if you're wondering; Lucy's accident stopped the wedding. And after that they decided they should wait. They graduated, Barbra went to NYC and he stayed in that small town. He wanted to be a teacher, he is dead now.
They both love him very much, I never met him, but my father says he was the best friend he could have asked. Yes, my father and the quarterback were best friends before the cheating and he forgave my dad and my mom after that. He is the reason why my dad is in the air force. You see, my dad was a badass and a womanizer, but after the quarterback died (he was nineteen years old), my father decided to be a better man.
He even managed to conquer my mom's heart (or part of it). And again, just to be clear, my dad and my mom are divorced. Speaking of my mom, Lucy also left that town; she was accepted in an Ivy League college, Yale.
My mom rocks!
They remained friends of course, my mom and Barbra. And I can see it in her eyes; she never looked at my father the way she looks at Barbra. She has a secret smile, one that she only uses in rare occasions, every time I see it on her face, she is looking at Barbra.
My mom got pregnant with sixteen years old, she was kicked out of her parents' house, she suffered a car accident and she almost died. She is strong and confident, but she can't say no to those too. Seriously, Barbra and her daughter are my mom's greatest weakness.
And my friend said I should tell you guys that Barbra named her daughter after my mom's first name, not that she admitted it.
I know! They totally love each other!
But they suck big time! They will never act on their feelings, so we are giving them a little push.
Yes mom, I think you should go and get your girl, I love you and I'll totally support you on this. So, what's stopping you?
And we know there's no way you guys are not going to figure out this is your story.
We're planning a date then.
Your best friend said to us:
"I've always wondered what Lucy would have done, had she made it to the wedding, that is."
And then her wife, your other best friend, said this:
"She was totally going to say: I object!"
What would you have done mom?
Well, this is your chance and what better place to say that you object than the very place he proposed to her?
You both know where it is.
Tomorrow, 6 PM.
A/N: Rachel wasn't Klaine's surrogate in here. Nope, no way!
A/N2: Ben is a good writer, but of course Jacob edited it and he knows them, I imagine him adding little stuff here and there.
A/N3: That part where he says he doesn't know why finchel broke up on junior year, that's actually pretty much Santana not telling them she slept with Finn and also sparing them and not telling that Rachel made out with Noah, if you noticed, they don't mention it, cause they don't know :)
