Guys, this chapter was like pulling teeth. I got to the point that I just said forget it and hit upload. I know the chapter can be better but if I keep harping on it, I'll never finish the story. So here you go. I'm currently sitting in the library on campus and I'm not going to leave until I have at least a completed draft of the next chapter so hopefully I can get that to you guys by the end of the week. I wanted my update schedule to be a bit more regular but my grad classes are going to take priority so I won't be able to get the two chapters a week like I wanted. I will however, try not to go more than a week and a half without getting a chapter out.
Chapter 6 Happiness is always a coincidence.
Dear Mister Fantasy play us a tune
Something to make us all happy
Do anything, take us out of this gloom
-Dear Mr. Fantasy by Traffic
They say coincidences are the universe trying to tell you something. Like a guardian angel whispering in your ear that this is the path that fate has chosen for you. However, being a scientist and grounded in things that were tangible with the ability to be proven, when Aubrey ran into the two girls Chloe had introduced her to while at the mall with her brother, she refused to believe it was anything but the result of Chloe's machinations.
"I'm telling you, Bree, Beca is all for you being the singer. She even said she's only writing lyrics for you and that we can just practice the music until you 'see sense'," Chloe said. Aubrey rolled her eyes but remained quiet knowing anything she said wouldn't deter Chloe's attempts at persuasion.
Ever since that day in the robotics lab, three weeks before, Chloe had gone out of her way to walk over to Aubrey's house and attempt to persuade her to join their little music project. And according to Chloe, the short guitar player she'd see that day, Beca, was now "100% on board for making you our singer." The first few times Chloe visited, Aubrey just repeated her answer but Chloe was persistent and Aubrey had to resort to other methods including mentioning her mother who wouldn't be persuaded even in the face of someone as tenacious as Chloe. She then reminded Chloe she didn't even like the music they were playing and it would be a disservice to everyone involved if she wasn't fully invested in the music or the band. She tolerated Chloe's taste for that music of which it seemed all they did was scream but she wouldn't subject herself to it if she didn't have to. Aubrey told Chloe all of this, and yet, her neighbor persisted.
Aubrey had initially come to the mall with her older brother, Danny, because she had promised to buy him ice-cream if he'd leave her alone long enough to finish her engine. She had, of course, forgotten her promise not long after she made it but Danny hadn't, thus leading them, along with Chloe, to the small mall downtown on what would otherwise have been a relaxing Saturday afternoon.
"D'you think they'll have chocolate mint this time, Bree?"
"I'm not sure, Dan. We'll just have to see when we get there." She tried not to roll her eyes when her brother huffed and pulled on her arm to urge her to go faster.
Chloe looked at her sympathetically and said, "How about I go get us a table?"
Aubrey pursed her lips and nodded. When the small ice-cream shop, situated between a Payless and a bookstore was insight she released a breath of relief, only to sigh when Danny dropped her hand and ran in the direction of the parlor.
"Cynthia Rose Lenora Adams, you have five minutes to get your butt out to the car. You know we need to be down at the church before nine."
Cynthia Rose rolled her eyes and waited for the sound of her mother's foot steps to grow faint before turning back to her little sister, "Anyway, like I was saying, this album is special." She turned the vinyl over and pointed to a spot on its back cover. "See, it was signed by all the members including Geezer Butler himself."
"Who's Geezer Butler?"
"Only the greatest bass player ever. C'mon, Nat, you can't have forgotten already. Remember, I played Sabbath last night, 'I am Iron man'" she said, her voice robotic and eerie making the five-year-old in front of her laugh.
Annie jumped up and stretched her arms out to imitate a robot, "I am iron man! I am iron man!"
Cynthia Rose raised her hands in triumph, "that's right. Rock out!" she jumped up as quickly as the superfluous fabric of her dress would allow. "Dun Dun, DunDunDun," she sang as she ran her fore and middle finger along her thigh to mimic strumming a bass.
"Cynthia Rose!"
Cynthia Rose rolled her eyes before standing up straight and lifting her younger sister into her arms, "C'mon, Nat, before mommy turns into a green monster and tries to come up here and eat us," she joked, pocking her sister's cheek. She carried the young girl to the door, grabbing her bass case on the way before making her way downstairs.
"You better had got your butt down here," her mother, Rose, said as Cynthia Rose walked into the kitchen. "I was fixin to come up there and drag you down here myself. And put that child down. She's too big for you to be carrying her around."
Cynthia Rose rolled her eyes and placed Annie down on the floor. She placed her case by the archway that led to the hallway and walked over to her mother who stood by the sink. "Morning, momma," she said, kissing the older woman's cheek. "Where's everybody?"
Rose smiled "Morning, baby. Brandon and Ben already headed out to the car with your father." She turned to check her daughter's clothes before sucking her teeth and running her hand through her daughter's hair instead, "I still can't believe you did this mess to your hair."
Cynthia Rose smirked and flipped a patch of pink curls out of her face, "It looks sick, right?"
Rose frowned, "No it doesn't look sick. You look sick in the head for thinking that mess is alright. I oughta hide your tail for messing up your pretty hair. Bad enough you're always hanging around that Spanish girl now she got you out here putting them crazy chemicals in your hair."
Cynthia Rose rolled her eyes again out of view of her mother. "I didn't do this because of Flo."
"Uh huh, and I gave birth to Jesus Christ himself. Before that girl came 'round here starting trouble, you were a good child. Going to church, listening to wholesome Christian music. Now you're off shaving parts of your head and coloring your hair. Now, I was able to tolerate that junk music—"
"Now momma, you know I've always liked punk and metal."
"I don't matter, no how. That girl's the reason you doing all this," Rose said, gesturing to Cynthia Rose's hair again. "I'm going out to the car. You better get something to cover that mess on your head." Rose looked to her younger daughter, "Nathalie Rose Adams, get your hand out that jar. You can sweets after church." She grabbed her youngest daughter's hand and led her out of the house. Cynthia Rose sighed and turned on her heels to head back upstairs to find something to cover her head. Two minutes later she exited the house with her bass in hand and her hair covered by a floral scarf she found in her mother's dresser drawer. Rose frowned, her face unamused at the way Cynthia Rose had tied the scarf.
"I swear, if—" she began when her daughter approached where she stood at the car. Cynthia Rose burst into laughter and handed her instrument to her father who was waiting to load it into the trunk.
"I'm just kidding, momma," she said, reaching up to reconfigure the scarf so that it no longer mirrored a hijab and was instead gathered into a knot the back of her head.
"Keep testing my faith, child," her mother warned. Cynthia Rose continued to laugh, dogging her mother's attempt to swat her behind, as she got into the car beside her brother, Ben. Rose took her place in the passenger seat and they pulled out the driveway and onto the road.
Nearly ten minutes after arriving at the church, Cynthia Rose had separated from her family for the quick rehearsal that was schedule before bible study and went off to meet with the Deacon who oversaw the church band.
"Alright, sounding good," Deacon Clarence said. "But the bridge was a bit rushed. Sister Florencia, I know you can play the notes but I need you to not just play what you see on the sheets in front of you. You gotta feel them. You and Sister Cynthia Rose should always be in sync. You two should be following each other's moves. Now I've seen you do some great things with those fingers of yours, but you don't need to play a thousand notes in a measure for the heck of it. If the notes feel like it should be held, hold it."
Flo nodded and Cynthia Rose cleared her throat and looked away trying not to laugh at the idea that Deacon Clarence would probably have a stroke if he knew what "things" Flo's fingers got up to, or more like into, outside of playing piano at church. Flo glanced back at her and winked when Deacon Clarence wasn't looking, obviously also finding humor in the older man's unintentional innuendo. Luckily for everyone involved, the rehearsal wrapped up ten minutes later without any more double entendres from the Deacon. The small ensemble was allowed to leave with ten minutes to spare before bible study began.
Flo and Cynthia Rose took full advantage of the free time and managed to find an empty closet at the back of the building that would provide some, although temporary, refuge from the watchful eyes of their respective family. They were currently in the small space laughing as Cynthia Rose relayed her mother's reaction to her hair.
"Well you were the one who wanted to be fancy. I told you to just color the tips like I did," Flo said, gesturing to her own dark hair that had been dipped in light blue at its ends.
Cynthia Rose rolled her eyes and pouted, "I like my hair."
Flo grinned and leaned forward to kiss the girl in front of her, "Me too." She coursed her hands through the half of Cynthia Rose's head that was covered in pink ringlets and pulled her girlfriend closer. Cynthia Rose smiled into the kiss and took a step closer until their bodies were flush against the other. However, before the kiss could get to deep, she pulled her head away and smirked at the moan of protest her girlfriend let out. "If we keep going, we're gonna be late for bible study."
Flo rolled her eyes and pulled Cynthia Rose back towards her until their lips were inches apart. "We can ask for forgiveness in opening prayer," she said and connected their lips, silencing any protests Cynthia Rose might have had.
Aubrey sighed when she finally reached the ice-cream parlor, Cassie's Creamery, and saw that Danny was inside. She pulled open the door and was greeted with a blast of cold air. She walked over to where her brother stood at the counter, his eyes wide as he examined the dozen tubs of ice-cream displayed behind the glass.
Aubrey smiled when he turned towards her and gave her a goofy grin as he said, "they have it, Bree. They've got mint chocolate chip."
Aubrey nodded and smiled brightly, glad that the various parents pulling their children closer to them and away from her brother, went unnoticed by the twenty-two-year-old. Taking her wallet out of her purse, she walked to where the server stood behind the counter and waited for him to notice her. When she noticed that he was staring at her brother longer than appropriate she cleared her throat and frowned at the embarrassed teen when he looked up and mumbled an apology.
"Can I have one scoop of mint chocolate on a regular cone and two scoops of vanilla in a cup, please?"
"Aww, Aubrey can't I have two scoops, please?"
"No. One scoop. Remember how hyper you were the last time you had all of that sugar?"
Danny pouted but didn't argue further, instead turning back towards the ice-cream display. His face soon enough brightened up when the server handed him his cone. Aubrey quickly paid for their treats and directed Danny out of the store and out to the center of the food court where the tables were situated. She was glad that the mall wasn't crowded because it made spotting the head of red hair much easier. They made their way over to Chloe and Aubrey groaned when she realized she wasn't alone.
Aubrey didn't believe in coincidences.
As a scientist at heart, she believed that everything had a cause (even if the cause was unknown by that which is affected). So, this might have seemed like the proverbial universe conspiring against her but Aubrey knew better. She knew Chloe was behind this "coincidence."
Adjusting her glasses, something she found she did when she was concerned about how she'd appear to others, she sighed, inhaling deeply before leading Danny to where Chloe sat chatting with the two girls she had brought to the school in hopes of convincing her to join their band.
"Aubrey!" Chloe called and Aubrey cursed under her breath when the two other girls turned towards her direction and smiled. The shorter one smirked and raised an eyebrow again, chuckling lightly when Aubrey looked away to hide her blush.
"C'mon Aubrey, I saved you a seat. Beca and Stacie, you remember Aubrey, right? And that's her brother Danny."
Danny grinned and waved excitedly before turning his attention back to his ice-cream.
Beca winked at her as she scooted her chair over so that Aubrey could sit in the chair next to her. "Of course, I remember Aubrey." She said, although her tone betrayed something that Aubrey couldn't quite place. Intrigue, maybe?
Chloe smiled brightly as she said, "Beca was just telling me how she stopped by the mall to try and find someone to fix her broken pickup on her guitar. I told her that you're really good with that stuff."
Aubrey glared at her friend but Chloe smirked and looked away as if oblivious to the look that Aubrey was giving her.
Beca turned in her seat to face her directly as she said, "And I told Chloe that it would be awesome if you could help me out. That is, if you want to help. I would hate to impose and get in the way of robotics or choir practice." She said with a wink.
Aubrey found herself leaning back the closer Beca got and she nervously pushed her glasses onto her face as she stammered out, "I—I guess that would be alright."
Beca smiled. An actual smile, not that suggestive smirk that she's given Aubrey so far. "Great. I'll stop by tomorrow."
First, I want to say the weirdest thing happened to me today. Well it was more like I was being weird. I was in the supermarket and there was this girl with her hair shaved in a mohawk with the remaining hair braided. the braids were each black that bled into a neon green. It was exactly how I pictured Cynthia Rose's hair to be (later on in the story, not now because she could never get away with that in her religious household) but couldn't find any online pictures to draw from. So, doing something I would never do, I walked up to this complete stranger asked for a picture of her hair. Luckily she was an artist as well and completely understood and allowed me to take a picture. One of the perks of living in L.A. I guess.
Anyway, as far as the story, I hope you guys like this update. I introduced Cynthia Rose, a character I felt was never truly developed in the films and was, at best, a poor representation of a lesbian woman of color and, at worst, a stereotype of what a lesbian woman of color would be. I've wanted to write a story where I could develop her but haven't really had the chance, or felt I could do it correctly, until just recently. Obviously, I'll go a bit more into her backstory as the story progresses as well as expand upon the bit of information I revealed about Aubrey. As is the case with most of my stories, I try to incorporate the supporting cast that kinda falls in the shadow of the main three characters and Flo was the chosen character for this one. Not quite sure how much I want to incorporate Flo but I know for certain that she'll be in at least one more chapter.
Umm, i think that's all I have to say. I'm not sure if anyone even reads these notes but if you do, that's awesome. I feel like I'm talking to you guys personally and it makes this whole process of writing fanfiction that much better. Anyway, thanks for reading and if you can, please leave a review. They really tell me what's working and what's not.