Chapter 8: Who do you want to be?
Of course Alex was an amazing big sister. She looked after her little brother frequently and jumped at every whimper from him to see if he was missing something. She spent a lot of time watching him and making sure he had everything he needed. When Piper and Alex met to play Alex told her about everything and Piper wasn't annoyed or anything, just sometimes she wished they could talk about other things than Alex's baby brother. She herself didn't remember how she had been when her younger brother was born as they were so close together that she had been way too young to actually remember the difference to how it was before Cal was born.
Piper still liked going to school even though sometimes things got a bit more difficult at times. As every school year she sat next to Alex and no one in her class even bothered to ask her if they could be her seatmate at the start of the school year because they knew she wouldn't sit next to anyone but Alex.
Couple weeks before they turned nine both girls and Nicky went out together to the playground. They played that the three of them were detectives who had to solve who stole the diamond ring from the store. The girls enjoyed their time and that their parents were okay with them going to the playground alone without them. They were playing for a while already drawing other kid's attention to their game who asked if they could play too. All three were okay with that and so their group got a bit bigger. When the game was over and they had eventually found the thief the bigger group of about ten kids went on playing hide and seek which was way more fun in a larger group than with just three players.
Nicky got picked up first and quickly said goodbye before jumping into her mother's car. Diane picked up Piper and Alex and was about to drive Piper home.
"Diane?" Piper started, obviously having a question.
"Yes. What is it, Piper?" Diane asked.
"Can I come to your place today? Have a sleepover with Alex?" Piper wanted to know.
"We have to ask your mom first but sure you can if she says yes." Diane replied. Piper was happy. She was sure her mother would be okay with it. They drove to the Chapmans house and asked Carol who as assumed agreed to Piper spending the night at her best friends house. Piper quickly went to her room to pack a few things and soon came back and they went to the Vauses. As soon as they came in Piper and Alex disappeared into Alex's room.
They talked for a bit about school, things they found annoying and in general what was going on.
"How do you like being a sister now?" Piper wanted to know. "I know my brothers are so annoying sometimes. Especially Danny. He thinks he is this really cool thirteen year old who has so many friends and everyone else is just a loser. Though he always seems to get everything right with my parents, like he is perfect at school and sports and all the teachers always say he is such a good student and my parents now are always like 'Piper why don't you do this or that? You could learn something from Danny every now and then!'"
"Sounds really annoying." Alex replied. "Well Felix can be cute sometimes but I really don't like waking up in the middle of the night. Mom and dad tried to do something so I don't hear him anymore and don't wake up but our rooms are just too close. Other than that I love him."
They played for a while, making up stories and acting them out. When it was time for dinner Diane went to get the girls and watched them play for a while. Their current play, from what Diane heard and saw, was playing family. They had built a kind of tent with the blankets which obviously functioned as a house and Piper had a pillow shoved under her shirt, she obviously was playing the pregnant mom. Diane smiled, it was cute to see them play like that and wish it would stay like that for a while. But she knew one day not so far away they'd get older and interested in other things like normal teenagers. They'd start puberty and probably be all about boys and their looks and the normal things that meant going through puberty. It would end their interest in playing together like that, but Diane enjoyed the fact that they still did and hoped it would last as long as possible.
The weeks went on and the girls were playing together as usual. Their ninth birthday was as usual celebrated in the Chapman's garden and Piper and Alex invited a few friends they made in school. After the summer they now went to third grade and both had their favourite subjects. Alex was better in maths and Piper preferred the languages while both really enjoyed physical education, though Alex preferred ball games while Piper was good in athletics. Alex didn't understand how someone could have fun with just running. After all it was just plain running. Where was the fun in that?
On day in the middle of November Piper went to school and missed Alex sitting next to her. She waited impatiently for the next break to find Louis and ask him why Alex wasn't at school. When she found him he told her that somehow she had picked up chicken pox and was at home as to not pass them on to anyone. He also told her that she couldn't come visit Alex since she'd get them too if they had contact. Piper was sad to hear that and hoped that Alex would be okay soon so they could see each other.
When she came home this afternoon she ran to the phone to call Alex. It was rare for the two not to see each other or talk to each other. Alex was happy about her call and told her how horrible the chicken pox were and that she wasn't even allowed to be too close to Felix cause her parents didn't want her to pass it on to her little brother. She found that very annoying but understood that it would be bad if he got chicken pox too. The next days were pretty boring for Piper without Alex to talk about everything or laugh about the strange behaviour of some of their classmates. After the third day of school without Alex she told her mom that she'd go to the playground to play with some friends from school. She saw her mom watching out the window when she left she started walking towards the playground which wasn't in direct sight of their house and changed her course as soon as her mother couldn't see her anymore. She tried to get to her destination without attracting attention and luckily succeeded with her mission. She knocked on the window and got a surprised "Piper?" when the window got opened.
"Quiet. Can you help me in?" she asked.
"Sure. You shouldn't be here though!" Alex said. "You'll get this too and I can tell you it's no fun." When she was inside Piper looked at her and saw the red spots all over Alex's body.
"Do they hurt?" she wanted to know.
"Sometimes. But more than that they itch so badly all the time. And mom made me promise to not scratch them. It's just too damn hard! She said if you scratch them too much you'll probably get scars. And I don't want that. It'll look terrible." Alex explained.
"I hope you're through with them soon. I missed you." Piper said and hugged Alex.
"I missed you too Piper, but you really shouldn't be here. I don't want to make you go through that." Alex insisted.
"I don't care. I wanted to see you and talk to you." Piper explained.
"We could have talked on the phone, you know?" Alex chuckled.
"I know, but it's not the same." Piper said and started updating Alex on what she had missed at school. A while later they heard Diane outside the room. As both knew Piper shouldn't be there the blonde girl tried to quickly hide in Alex's closet. She hoped she was fast enough as Diane entered the room and hoped she hadn't seen her. If she did she didn't show it.
"Hey, everything okay? Do you need anything? How are you feeling?" she asked Alex.
"I'm good. I don't really need anything right now. Just sitting here reading my book." Alex replied and pointed at the book that was laying next to her.
"Okay. I'll leave you alone then. You can come to me if you need anything." Diane said and turned to leave. With the back to Alex she smiled. She had seen some movement and thought that someone had hidden quickly and concluded that it might be Piper who snuck in.
"Thank you, mom. I will." Alex said.
'Oh please not right now' Piper thought but couldn't help it. In the most inappropriate time ever Piper got a hick-up. She tried to hold her breath and be as quiet as possible. Diane heard the noise from the wardrobe which confirmed her suspicion that Piper was there and hid because she knew she shouldn't be here. Neither of the girls saw Diane smiling as she left the room.
"Really, Piper?!" Alex asked unbelievingly when she was sure her mom was far away enough to not hear her.
"I'm sorry. I tried to hold my breath and be as quiet as possible but I couldn't stop it." Piper quietly explained.
"If she had noticed you she surely would have send you home." Alex explained.
"Yeah, but obviously she didn't, because I'm still here." Piper gave back.
Both girls stayed a bit quieter to not raise suspicion and kept talking and playing one of Alex's board games that both liked playing. A while later both girls noticed it was already dinner time and Piper got a little afraid that she'd be home too late but when they heard steps coming closer again, Piper quickly hid again, this time as she was closer underneath Alex's bed.
"Hey honey. It's time for dinner. Would you come join us?" Diane asked when she entered.
"Yeah, sure. I'll be there in a minute." Alex said and acted busy.
"Oh and ask Piper if she wants to join us." Diane added as she walked out of the room.
Alex stood there for a second not sure how her mother knew that Piper was here.
"Well obviously she noticed you were here." she said to Piper who crawled out of her hiding spot.
"Yeah, I heard that. And by the way. You may want to clean a few things under there." Piper said holding up a used tissue.
"Oh. Sorry. Must've fallen down. I didn't see that." Alex quickly took it from Piper and threw it away blushing lightly.
"Okay. As she knows I'm here I'm gonna come with you to say hi, but I really need to go home. Otherwise my mom will know I wasn't on the playground as I told here I would be." Piper explained.
"Hi Diane." Piper quickly greeted.
"Hi honey. Nice try hiding." Diane smiled.
"How did you know I was here?" Piper wanted to know.
"Well, for starters, I saw the wardrobe door move and I've never heard that the wardrobe had a hick-up. And you forget that I'm Alex's mom. I noticed that she missed you those last days but when I came in today I saw it on her expression that something was different. I just added up one plus one." Diane explained. "You want to have dinner with us?"
"I would love to but I think my parents will wonder where I am if I'm not home soon. I told them I was going to the playground." Piper told her feeling a little guilty that she had lied to her parents.
"I don't know how I like that, Piper. You're not supposed to lie, are you?" Diane said.
"I know. And I feel bad about it, but they wouldn't have let me if I told them I was visiting Alex." Piper explained her behaviour.
Just then the phone rang. It was Carol. Diane shortly spoke with her.
"That was your mother, Piper. She was worried. They looked for you on the playground when you didn't come home and were scared when they couldn't find you. I told her I'd bring you home after we have dinner. And please don't do that to your mother. I know I would be scared if I couldn't find Alex where she said she would be. Also she would be in a lot of trouble for lying to me." she told looking at both girls.
"Yes." Piper said quietly feeling guilty.
When she got home that evening she had to face an angry Carol.
"Piper. Come here. Have you any idea how worried I was? We've been looking for you everywhere." she threw at her accusingly.
"I'm sorry, mom." Piper just replied looking down.
"Don't lie to me again. You're grounded for the next two weeks. You will come home straight after school."
"Please, mom. Can Alex still come visit?" Piper felt like crying.
"You'll see her in school. That'll be it as long as you're grounded." Carol gave back and sent her to her room.
Of course something came in the way of that. Piper got chicken pox too. And while she cursed the pox she thought it was worth it, because she had missed Alex and seen her for an afternoon but was missing her now too that she couldn't see her in school either and Alex couldn't visit her on account of her being grounded. Unfortunately she also passed the chicken pox on to Cal who complained to her at any given chance. Combined with not seeing Alex Piper felt pretty terrible at the moment. Alex tried to visit but Carol sent her home everytime she came over. Piper heard her mom talk to her when she came and asked if she could see Piper.
Once everyone was through with the chicken pox and being grounded everything went back to normal and the end of the year was through. Both families celebrated New Year's together. The beginning of the new year was also uneventful and soon Piper and Alex turned ten. This summer the families had decided to go on vacation together which Piper and Alex welcomed a lot because then the wouldn't have to wait so long to see each other again. They went to a beach house about three hours from the home and everyone enjoyed the time outside and the swimming in the sea. Piper and Alex spend a lot of time on the beach. Both girls completely immersed in their books they didn't notice much going on around them. Every now and then though when some older boys walked by they got some comments that both girls tried to ignore. They soon decided that boys were the worst and they completely couldn't understand why girls would ever behave like they saw older girls running after boys or trying to get them to like them. While Piper quickly went back to her book Alex looked around as her eyes fell onto the girl standing close by as she thought that she was very pretty.
Unfortunately the summer passed way too quick and it was time to go back to school. It was their last year in elementary school and both girls knew it was important how well they did this year.
"What do you want to do when you're grown up?" Piper one day asked Alex when both girls were in Alex's room to chat.
"I don't know. Maybe become a teacher? Like my dad. Maybe not. I don't know." Alex answered and asked Piper back.
"I would love to be a veterinarian actually. I could work with animals the whole day and help them get better when they're sick." she replied.
"That is a good plan." Alex replied.
"Who do you think you'll be when you're an adult?" Piper wondered.
"Woah. Getting philosophical here. Who knows? How is anyone supposed to know that?" Alex asked back.
"I don't know. Maybe the better question is who do you want to be?" Piper replied.
"Well I know that right now I don't want to be someone who has an answer to that question." Alex said.
"Smart answer." Piper replied and smiled.
Just then Diane announced that Nicky had come over and soon joined them.
"You okay, Nicky?" Alex asked looking at her. Nicky seemed a bit down and not like her bubbly loud self.
"I'm not sure." she answered.
"You want to talk about it?" Piper offered.
"I don't know." Nicky just said and sat down on Alex's bed.
"Whenever you're ready we'll be there to listen." Piper told her sincerely.
"Thank you." Nicky said politely.
They kept on chatting and Nicky perked up from being distracted from whatever had been on her mind. After a while of playing together Nicky opened up and told them that her parents told her they'd get a divorce.
"I'm so sorry to hear that." both Pier and Alex said. Nicky didn't really reply anything and changed the topic and Piper and Alex went with as obviously Nicky didn't want to talk about it.
Meanwhile Diane and Carol were talking in Dianes kitchen as Alex, Piper and Nicky were playing in Alex's room.
"How are things going with you and Bill?" Diane asked as there had been a few bumps in the Chapman's relationship.
"I don't know actually. Remember how I told you couple years ago that I thought Bill was cheating on me?!" Diane nodded. "Well, this time I'm pretty much sure about it." Carol said deploringly.
"What makes you so sure?" Diane asked surprised.
"Different things. As it was back then he is out for longer than usual every now and then. He has 'business dinners' way more often that he used to. But everytime after he comes back from those he is always so distant and I can't seem to get a word out of him. Plus, he smells weird. He has perfume on him which is clearly womens perfume and not one of mine. And the other night when we went to bed I found a spot on his neck that definitely looked like a hickey. So all together that makes me pretty sure." Diane's heart sunk when she heard her friend tell her all the things she recently had noticed about her husband.
"Shit." Diane didn't know what to say.
"Exactly." Carol let out a sad chuckle.
"What are you going to do?" Diane wanted to know.
"I have no idea." Carol replied clueless.
"I actually don't know what to tell you other than I'll be there for whatever you decide to do. You can count on me being there in every situation you need me." Diane offered.
"Thank you, Diane." Carol said sincerely. "I really appreciate that."
Over the next weeks and months Carol watched her husband and tried to figure out what to do. She remembered how she promised herself when she was younger that she would never let anything like that happen to herself like it happened to her mother but eventually found that it was too late as her husband already cheated on her. Now the question was what she was going to do about it. And even after a long time of thinking about it, she didn't really have a clue. She remembered how it had been when her parents got divorced and she didn't see her father very often anymore. She didn't want that for Danny, Piper and Cal. But could she just ignore it? Block out what her husband did? Recently she had been down so often that she couldn't stop from the one or more scotch to get her mind off her husband's unfaithfulness. Diane didn't like that development but didn't really know how to help her friend other than discussing with her what she could possibly do and the consequences, from addressing Bill about it directly to getting a divorce to different possibilities how they could deal with the kids and what would be.