Following a strategy meeting with my bestie this morning, I wrote this chapter instead of working on my assignment.
Chapter 31
"Dad had to duck out to help a friend," I announced as Imogen and Aunt Beth emerged from the piano room following her lesson. "He said you could hang out here until he gets back. It could be a while."
Imogen shrugged. "Okay," she agreed, pulling up a chair beside me at the kitchen table and snatching a cookie from the plate Aunt Beth had provided for us to share. "What are we going to do?"
I snatched another cookie for myself before she had a chance to eat them all, and stood. "Well," I said, pausing to gulp down the last of my milk. "I still have my piano lesson. I can't skip, Dad will know. And you, my dear, sweet child, have math homework that you've been avoiding."
This earned a groan from the girl as she shoved the whole cookie in her mouth and slid languidly off her chair, landing in a heap under the table. "I hate math!" came her food-muffled cry.
I nodded knowingly even though she couldn't see me. "I know," I said calmly. "But it needs to be done. I hate getting up early for a morning run, but I still do it."
More frustrated sounds came from under the table. Aunt Beth smiled slightly, a gesture that I returned, nibbling on my cookie and waiting for Imogen to get her groans out so that we could continue the negotiations. We'd made a lot of progress in the last three weeks since the walking-home-from-the-park incident. The next day I'd made it clear that I didn't hate her. At all. And that just because she did one mean thing didn't mean she deserved to be hated. We had a lengthy chat about her mom and I shared some stories about my own mom, which helped her to see that mother's are not all they're cracked up to be. And since then we'd been on good terms.
These days there was almost no evidence of the contempt that I'd been treated to for the first month and half of my time here, replaced instead by a friend and kind demeanour that warmed my heart a little more every day. This week was a particularly large turning point when Imogen refused to let her Brandon do her hair for school on Monday morning, insisting that I do it, since I was there for breakfast after our run like usual. And then, that afternoon, she'd shared her chocolate milk with me on the condition that I helped her colour a picture.
I was slightly worried that she would grow too attached to me and that when I eventually had to leave to go back home, she'd suffer more trauma from the abandonment. I would have to discuss that with Brandon before too long. I wanted to make sure that Imogen wasn't hurt by befriending me.
Speaking of Imogen, her head poked out from under the table, her eyes narrowed at me, accusingly. "You said Dad said we could hang out," she pointed out. "Not do homework."
"And we can hang out," I assured her. "In half an hour when my lesson is over, and you've done at least half of your math homework." She still didn't seem happy with this compromise, so I slipped the ace I'd been holding up my sleeve into my hand. "Dad said that if you get your math done we can watch Ghostbusters."
Her eyes lit up, just like I'd hoped. She'd been wanting to watch it ever since I told her about it last week, but Brandon had informed her that she was too young for it. He didn't want her having nightmares because of the paranormal themes. Tonight, though, he had relented, acknowledging that it might be just the motivation she needed in order to actually do her homework. "Really?" she asked eagerly.
"Really," I confirmed, drawing a cross over the left side of my chest to show how serious I was.
She was out from under the table in a flash, dashing to the front door where she'd dumped her backpack earlier and grabbing out her math book before racing back and placing it on the table along with a pencil and eraser. I glance at me before she sat down prompted a shooing motion, urging me to get my lesson done so we could watch the movie.
"Come on, Stephanie," Aunt Beth urged, sliding open the door and waiting for me to enter. "We'd better not disturb her concentration."
An hour and a half later, I was perched atop a pile of cushions in the dim living room, Imogen was in fits of laughter as I quoted every line of the movie in time with the actors on the screen, even attempting to imitate their voices. She had been attempting to braid my hair, but between her giggles and my unruly hair, the only evidence over her efforts was the fact that her fingers were now trapped in the tangled mass. The more we tried to extract them, the more she giggled, the more my hair ate her hands. And that, unfortunately, was the sorry state of affairs we were stuck in when my laptop, on the coffee table in front of me, began to trill out the video chat request tone, a sound that I'd gotten used to since arriving in England.
Abandoning Imogen's hands in my hair, I paused the movie and hit accept, unable to keep the grin from my face as the faces of my three favourite Merry Men filled the screen. Bobby and Tank appeared to have been mid conversation when I accepted, while Lester had his head down, busily fiddling with something on the table in front of them.
"Hey guys!" I greeted merrily. "What's up?"
"Well," Lester started, still focused on whatever was in his hands, "We were looking into tha-OOF!" he grunted as Tank slammed an elbow into his side. "What the he-" he glared at the large man, but must have caught sight of the screen because he changed tactics halfway through his word. "-Llo, hello hello!" he tried to save. "Who's your friend there, Steph?"
"This is Imogen," I introduced, reaching up to continue my efforts to get us both free now that we'd calmed down a bit. "She'd wave hello, but my hair is trying to eat her hands."
"Oh dear," Bobby said, shaking his head with mock sadness. "But at least it's the hair and not the stomach. The hair is much more forgiving than the beast that lives in your stomach."
"This is true," I agreed. "I just hope I don't have to cut my hair off to get her free."
"I think I almost have it," Imogen said, appearing to concentrate hard from what I could see of her in the webcam box in the corner of the screen. "If you could just hold still, I'll be free in a second."
Tank, Bobby and Lester were all casting meaningful glances at each other while Imogen continued to tug herself free. "So, what's been going on back home?" I asked, trying to fill in the silence. They obviously hadn't expected me to be in the company of a child and were struggling to build a proper conversation topic to cover the reason for their call. You'd think that three ex-special forces men would be a little better at this thinking fast under pressure thing. "So what's the latest goss?"
"Tank got his hand back," Bobby replied. "Should be back to normal before too long if he follows my rehab instructions properly. Lester ate some bad shrimp and has been dealing with some gross food poisoning symptoms for the last twenty-four hours. And I have a headache from all the complaining."
"And now that we've given you a medical update," Tank took over, "How are things with you?"
We engaged in agonisingly banal conversation for a few more minutes until Imogen had extracted herself from my hair and collapsed back onto the sofa, flexing her fingers like she was trying to regain feeling. The guys wasted no time in requesting a little privacy. I can't blame them for acting so quickly on my first opportunity to move away from the girl. From what I could gather from Lester's first, uncensored words, they had an update on the search I'd asked them to do a few days ago. And I was eager to hear what they'd found.
With a quick word to Imogen to let her know that she could continue with the movie while I was gone if she wanted, I excused myself from the room and made my way up to the seclusion of the room I'd been staying in. The guys waited patiently while I closed the door and got settled on the bed before launching straight into the real reason for their Skype call.
Unfortunately, they were all talking over top of one another.
"Guys," I said, to try get their attention. "Guys. One at a time. Seriously, it's hard enough to follow what you're all saying when you do this in person. Do I need to implement the talking stick again? GUYS!" Finally, they shut up, staring at me down the camera. "Please take a moment to choose a spokesperson," I requested calmly. "Or I'll terminate the call." I wasn't really going to terminate the call. I'd been waiting for this call for days, my curiosity going haywire. The only thing that would keep me from the information they had for me, at this point, was the apocalypse, or perhaps the internet dropping out.
"We were looking into Brandon's wife like you asked us," Lester said after several moments of silent negotiations on their side of the screen. "Once we had a name she was actually surprisingly easy to track down. Sarah Shrivington. Living in California, working as a receptionist at a day spa, recently married to a Mr. James Crone, five months pregnant according to her medical re-."
"Wait, what?" I interrupted holding up a hand. "Are you sure that's the right person?"
"Positive," Tank confirmed. "I ran the search myself."
I shook my head. With as little information as I had on the situation with Brandon's wife leaving them stranded at that theme park three years ago, I had assumed there was some kind of foul play involved, certain that Brandon was overselling the abandonment factor. I assumed she was kidnapped and murdered or something, otherwise why didn't Imogen have any contact with her mother at all… I recalled Imogen's heartbroken tears and absently wondered how I'd gotten such a thought in my head. "She's perfectly fine?" I asked, receiving a solemn nod from the guys. "What about her relationship with Brandon? Were you able to uncover what happened at the theme park?"
"That's where things get interesting," Bobby took over. "See, when we looked into her history we found an interesting-" BZZZZZZZT
The screen froze for a second, before going black. Fuck. Just my luck that my laptop would die without warning right when I was about to learn the juiciest piece of information I'd heard in more than two months. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I plugged the power cord in forcefully, like the harder I pushed it into the socket, the faster it would charge. Jabbing the on button, I willed the computer to magically turn back on and pick up exactly where it cut out, but it refused to play the game.
And then Imogen's voice was calling up the stairs to me, letting me know that Brandon was back.
I shall now go hide in an undisclosed location and await the fallout of ending the chapter there.
