9.

~ "What was going on?" George marveled for the hundredth time. He smiled nervously at Norma as though they shared some private joke. "I mean Alex Romero coming in here like that?"

Dance class had ended, and Norma hated the horribly light way George danced with her. It was as if he was afraid to lead her. Afraid of positioning his hand on her back the same way Alex had. George made dancing hard. Norma had to remember to count her steps with him and they failed far to often to coordinate their movements together.

With Alex, it had been easier. His hand would go to the small of her back and he would easily lead her entire body. Her feet barely touching the ground with every step, she had sensed where he wanted her to go and it felt like the most natural thing in the world.

"Just… I guess that's how he is." Norma said with some annoyance when the class finally ended and they were dismissed for lunch.

Maggie had seemed overjoyed to dance with Alex for the rest of the time. Her normally dull eyes becoming bright and energetic as she hoped he would move with her the way he had with Norma.

Unfortunately for Maggie, Alex kept his new partner just as far from him as Norma kept George.

"I feel like I have to ask." George said shyly. His face blushing. "Are you two dating?"

"What?" Norma huffed in an exaggerated way. "No."

"Because I heard he drove you to school." George added.

"I… he saw me walking in the rain and offered me a ride; it wasn't like we planned anything." Norma said grabbing her lunch and her backpack and hastily retreating to the top of the bleachers. She wanted to be left alone just now. All alone and hoped George would take the hint. The sun had come out but there was still a coldness in the air and Norma felt safer in the gym just now. She hated the fact people were already gossiping about her. Especially since she'd done nothing wrong.

At her old school, it was nearly impossible to be this noticed. Why was everyone paying her so much attention now?

George followed her up the bleachers. His own lunch in hand and he clearly meant to join her.

"Well, good." he said. "I think you can do better."

"I'm not really looking to date anyone." Norma said coldly. She wanted to eat in peace and maybe read a little before class. Why didn't she just hide in the library?

George looked disappointed.
"Oh." was all he said.

~ It was the same routine as yesterday. A slow, almost lazy lunch period that involved the students assembling in the gym to escape the colder temperatures outside. It was slightly fascinating for Norma to watch all the people, but she'd noticed Alex wasn't there. Instead, the usual game of basketball was replaced by indoor dodgeball, or a childish game of freeze tag. Anything to work out the lethargy that came from sitting still too long.

Norma didn't want to ask where Alex was, but she was curious. He'd left class very quickly after they were dismissed for lunch and she wondered where he went. Why wasn't he playing and showing off with his friends?

"There you are!" came an eager voice.

"Christine." George said lazily. "You're looking more stressed than usual."

Norma looked to see George's sister Christine climbing up the bleachers to meet them.

"Why are you two way up here?" Christine made a face. "You'll just have to climb back down again."

"We like a penthouse view." George smiled at Norma who didn't smile back.

"Are you okay?" Norma asked. George was right, his sister looked stressed out.

"No." Christine sighed heavily. "Mom called the office and left a message for me. She wants me to babysit for Nick Ford again. His daughter Blair just started fist grade and her nanny quit and isn't able to watch her after school anymore. I tried to tell her that I have work with theater and the election but she was adamant that someone look after the little brat. I don't care how much he's paying, I'm not ruining my Junior year playing 'Mary Poppins' to anyone."

Norma sat up straiter.

"How much is he paying?" she asked trying not to sound too curious.

"A hundred dollars a week." Christine said making a face. "I babysat for them all summer because mom made me. My parents and her parents are friends. I wasted a whole summer doing that shit, and I'm not doing it again."

"Come on." George said. "She's a nice little girl."

"I have other stuff to do." Christine said sternly.

"I can do it." Norma offered before she thought about the logistics of such an enterprise.

Christine and George looked at her.

"Well, I mean, I've babysat before. A lot of times I wasn't even paid." Norma said feeling nervous she would so readily mortgage all her free time for a hundred dollars a week. She didn't want George and Christine to know that was a lot of money in her world. That it would make all the difference to her just now.

"You're right. The election and theater is so important. They need your full-time attention." Norma said logically.

"She's got a point." Christine nodded. "I'm sure Nick wouldn't mind a change and Norma is a sweetheart, she'd be perfect for Blair."

Norma looked nervously between Christine and George.

"It's everyday after school." George said skeptically. "Sometimes Nick doesn't come home till late and you might have to be there on weekends."

George looked concerned that Norma might now be too busy to have time for him.

"Better me than you." Norma nodded to Christine. "I'm expendable, you're not."

"Good point." Christine said. "I'll go back to the office, call mom and tell her the plan. George, you can drop her off at Nick Ford's place today!"

"Won't we have to pick the little girl up from school?" Norma asked.

Christine waved a hand.
"Nick Ford has a driver picking her up. They also have a cook at the house. It's so boring there." she said. "This is great, now I'm free, and everyone's happy!"

George waited until his sister had climbed down the bleachers to make the necessary calls.

"You sure you want to do this? My parents friend isn't very subtle and he's always working." George told her.

Norma felt a rush of relief that she finally could have her own money. A real job without any effort and landed in her lap.
"I've actually been meaning to find a job and this would be better than flipping burgers." she admitted sadly.

"Well, that's true. But Christine was right, it's boring there. Their mansion is out in the middle of nowhere." George told her.

The idea she would work in a mansion with a cook and driver were so alien to her, she couldn't understand how George and Christine could ever be bored by the idea.

~ Alex had spotted Christine rushing out of the office and looking distressed after dance class. He didn't question what had happened. Christine was always upset about something. Always busy and always filled with a high, can do, energy. In truth, he liked that about her. Liked that she was driven and occupied with other things. It was refreshing to see a woman like that.

Yet, with his small circle of friends, the peer hierarchy was everything and Christine and her brother didn't measure up. They were too new, too rich and far too different from the rest of the kids in White Pine Bay. It didn't help that Alex had grown up with almost everyone here and knew their parents and even their grandparents. Most of the inhabitants around the bay were working class people who saw such foreign aggressors as dangerous and to be avoided.

Christine and her brother were too rooted in the California lifestyle to ever really be apart of this community. She was trying. No one would ever says he didn't try, but she would never be accepted here unless the town suddenly became flooded with people just like her. People who went skiing in Colorado and summered in the Hamptons. It had all seemed so insane a few years ago; this new migration of the rich into their sleepy little village. Yet, here they were; and in a few more years they would take over and Christine would fit in just fine.

Alex's thoughts on Christine didn't linger long. He could feel a natural high still radiating from his time with Norma in the dance class he'd crashed. They had shared an amazing few moments and despite the demeaning interruption by their instructor, Alex could believe they had started a real connection.

Norma didn't want a boyfriend and that was fine. He could understand completely if she wasn't ready to date or be seen with someone romantically. It made him all the more curious about her that she would so openly refuse to his advancements but kept talking to him as though she were interested. As though she'd given him a soft 'no' with all the encouragement to try again later.

Norma wasn't like the girls he'd grown up with. She didn't fall into that shallow pit of trying too hard to fit in and become just a carbon copy of everyone else. She also didn't fit in with Christine's group of socialite overachievers. She seemed so… isolated from everything. As if she really would be perfectly happy all alone. A feeling Alex could identify with most of the time.

"There you are, Alex." a winded voice called and he turned to see Shirley from the office walking quickly to him.

Alex fully expected to get a lecture about skipping art class but could tell by the way Shirley grabbed his hand that something was very wrong.

"My sister Lynette just called me." Shirley breathed. She leaned in closer to whisper something to him even though the halls were deserted and everyone was already going to lunch.

"My sister works at Pine View." Shirley whispered worryingly. "She said something happened with your mom this morning."

~ Pine View was a beautiful series of buildings on excellently manicured grounds. Its' front building with its' 'show off rooms' were a former historic mansion that once belonged to a Wall-street tycoon over a decade ago in the greed and cocaine filed 80's. He'd been arrested for tax evasion and the grounds and mansion seized and sold.

This resulted in the state of Oregon's very finest, privet pay, mental health facility. The front mansion was now too small and they had steadily been adding newer buildings to the grounds for the past few years. Much of it looking more like a high end spa than what it actually was.

This place was far different from the horrible days of an insane asylum or nut house. No one called it these things anymore and his dad's insurance had a terrific policy for these kinds of places. Whenever Dominic Romero's wife started acting up, she was almost immediately sent here. It was like Alex's dad had the place on speed dial. Still, Alex was thankful his mother was here and not in the county hospital.

Theresa Romero was always… delicate. That was how Alex liked to think about her. She was too delicate for a man like his father and a world like this. She needed to be sheltered and looked after. To be alone with her books and her sewing. If only she had the gumption to divorce his father, she and Alex could live peacefully alone.

If his father was out of the picture, Alex was certain his mother would be happy. They could get a little cottage close to the bay and she could grow things in a garden. She would finally be safe and protected there.

Alex blinked away the idea of a warm, sunny cottage for him and his mother to escape to. A place of eternal summers where everything was warm and full of life.

The world wasn't that easy. His mother with never divorce his father and she would never be free to be a normal person. After so many years of being what she was, it was impossible to be anything else now. She was still childlike and innocent. Everything upset her or wounded her too deeply. She didn't have the strength or desire to ever grow or be a better person. She knew her role in life and that was to always be a victim.

~ "Alex." The administrator greeted the young man who brazenly waltzed into the 'show off rooms'. The administration department knew him. Knew he was his father's son and that he was there to see his mother.

"I heard something happened to my mother." Alex said coldly.

"Where did you here that? No one called you." the administrator said attempting to block him.

"Doesn't matter who called me. I'm here to see her." Alex told him calmly.

"Alex, she's not able to see visitors now. I'm afraid you'll have to leave." the administrator said.

"Well, maybe I should call the Sheriff's department and tell them you're keeping me from seeing my mother." Alex told him curtly.

The administrator, a tall bald man, paled at the mention of Sheriff Romero. They were under strict instructions to never bother Sheriff Romero about his troublesome wife.

"I'll have the nurse take you to her." he said finally.

~ Alex wasn't shocked at all to see his mother in the four point restraints with a bandage on her head. She must have had another bad episode and had to be medicated as well as restrained in her room.

The back part of Pine View, the one most visitors didn't get to see, wasn't at all like the 'show off rooms' or even the luxury suites upstairs. No, Theresa Romero's room was bare except for her bed and a dresser. The walls were painted a drab, sage like green and there was wire mesh over the windows.

"Mom." Alex sighed at seeing his mother drooling on her pillow. He went over and loosened the restraints. She was so drugged she could barely lift her head. Alex lifted up the bandage and saw she'd had a large cut on her forehead that had already been closed up with adhesive strips. Her latest injury in a series of many that were sometimes self induced, sometimes an accident.

"Mom, it's me. It's Alex." he whispered and she settled herself in a more comfortable position now that her hands and feet weren't bound.

"It's going to be okay, Mom." he told her. Although he wasn't sure how his mother would ever be okay. How'd they'd ever get to the picture in his mind of the two of them happy in a little cottage in sunlight.