Austin, Texas
"Did you have good time at Southfork?" Patricia poured three glasses of iced tea as she questioned her daughters about their time in Dallas; she knew how to play the game, a brief overview of the trip was as far as their conversation was going to go, but she would still get all of the information she wanted. She was good at polite conversation, and so were her daughters, they all knew the purpose of their tea-table talk and didn't expect anything more meaningful. Patricia didn't particularly care about how much time they had spent riding horses or swimming, she was much more interested in their shopping trips and the social connections Kristin had made, but not once did she appear disinterested in the conversation, it just wasn't the proper thing to do. Although Kristin was still too young for her social connections to really matter, Patricia made sure to encourage Sue Ellen to introduce her to as many people as she possibly could. Thanks to Sue Ellen now being a Ewing wife, Kristin would have an easier time finding a suitable husband when she was old enough; Sue Ellen was now personally acquainted with a lot of wealthy people, and there was no harm in getting Kristin introduced to that world early. If she was lucky and everything went to plan, Patricia wouldn't have to worry about putting Kristin through all four years of college; hopefully Sue Ellen's connections would find her a husband much earlier than graduation day, or heaven forbid, the year and eight months after graduation that it had taken for Sue Ellen to finally walk down the aisle. Though, as she thought about it, Kristin was really the backup plan right now; her week with Theodore James Westwood IV at his vacation home in Aspen had been wonderful, he was immensely wealthy and she really felt like she was getting somewhere with him. If she played everything right, she could be a wealthy woman in her own right within months, and she wouldn't have to rely on Kristin and Sue Ellen for her future prosperity.
"Mama?" she snapped back into reality as she heard Sue Ellen speaking her name, she had been participating in the conversation, though she wasn't really listening and hadn't heard the question. "I'm sorry, what was that dear?" she turned her attention back to her eldest daughter and waited for her to repeat her words. "I asked about your week; this is an awfully big house for just one person. It must have been strange, the stillness and quietness", Sue Ellen spoke politely and innocently, as if she had no idea where her mother had been for the past week or what she had been doing, though the opposite was true, at least to some extent, she didn't particularly want to know the details of her mother's trip to Aspen. Patricia watched Sue Ellen closely as she spoke, it appeared that she really was just making conversation and inquiring, she had no idea that Kristin wasn't the only one who'd been on a getaway trip last week; "oh yes dear, very quiet, but you know me, I keep busy", she smiled and then changed the topic of conversation. Sue Ellen held back a smirk as her mother brushed over the question, she wasn't going to drill her for answers, she already knew everything she wanted to, but it was still interesting to see the way her mother avoided the subject. The way Sue Ellen saw it, her mother was a hypocrite, she had no problem making her plans for her daughter's lives known, but she was awfully secretive about her own life, she never would have accepted a vague answer like that from Sue Ellen. "Good, I'm glad", Sue Ellen smiled politely and went back to drinking her iced tea as Kristin started to speak about something.
Dallas, Texas
JR returned home from work and was surprised when he didn't find Sue Ellen waiting for him in their bedroom, it was unusual behaviour for her, she loved welcoming him home at the end of the day. Walking out into the hallway, he knocked on Lucy's bedroom door, she was the closest Ewing and she would probably have an idea of Sue Ellen's whereabouts; Lucy smirked as JR genuinely asked where his wife was, he honestly didn't seem to remember that she was in Austin delivering Kristin back to her mother. So much for the loving, caring husband he'd pretended to be when he and Sue Ellen were first married, this was the JR she'd grown up with, the one that didn't take a whole lot of notice or care much about other people's lives, unless they affected him personally of course. "Well, if you'd noticed the now empty guestroom across the hall from your bedroom, you'd remember that Kristin has finally left Dallas", JR didn't appreciate her sarcasm, but he did have to laugh as his niece emphasised her relief at the fact that Kristin was gone. It appeared that he and Sue Ellen weren't the only ones that didn't particularly enjoy Kristin's presence, her personality was very similar to Patricia's, and that wasn't a good thing. "Sue Ellen flew down there with her this morning, but she said she didn't plan on staying long. Her return flight was supposed to land just before five, so she's probably on her way home as we speak", Lucy continued to speak and JR nodded as if he now remembered everything. Thanking Lucy, he left her bedroom, feeling like an idiot for not remembering and honestly barely registering at all that his wife had plans to leave Dallas, even if it was only for a few hours. It appeared that even when he mentally committed himself to trying to pay more attention to her, he still didn't manage to actually do it, everything else in his life always seemed to take priority over his wife, and he didn't really have an answer as to why that was.
Austin, Texas
"Would you like a chilled beverage Mrs Ewing?" the stewardess appeared in the aisle next to her seat and Sue Ellen smiled, a drink was exactly what she needed after the week she'd had, "yes please. I'd love a glass of white wine, if that's possible of course, otherwise, club soda will be fine". Although it was somewhat unusual for alcohol to be served on a short domestic flight like this, that didn't seem to be a problem for her today, the stewardess disappearing and quickly reappearing with a glass of white wine, just as she had requested, "thank you". It was good to be a Ewing; she had the best of the best and she felt like she was someone special, a fact that JR loved to remind her was true, she was his wife and anything she wanted was hers, there was no price too high for her satisfaction. Sipping her wine, she began to relax, her week from hell was finally over, she was free of her mother and Kristin for at least the next month, hopefully the rest of the summer; though, her mother would probably insist on visiting Southfork for the annual Ewing Barbecue, and if her mother didn't insist, then Miss Ellie certainly would. However, none of that mattered right now, Labor Day wasn't until September, she still had plenty of time to enjoy her own life at Southfork before the strain of entertaining and pleasing her family was thrust upon her again. Sue Ellen smiled to herself as she reclined in her seat, drinking her wine and reading a magazine. Although she hadn't been thrilled about having to fly back to Austin herself to bring Kristin home, Patricia didn't feel comfortable allowing Kristin to fly alone and expected Sue Ellen to hold all parenting responsibilities while Kristin was with her, she began to think now that perhaps being her sister's babysitter all week wasn't so bad after all. The service she was receiving on her flight home now was first class, and it was exactly what she deserved after being the one catering to her family all week. Just under an hour later, her flight landed in Dallas and she made her way back home, smiling to herself the whole way, feeling more relaxed than she had in weeks; leaving the highway, she cruised along the more rural roads that led through and past Braddock, all the way back to Southfork. Coming to a stop in the Southfork driveway, she sat in her car for a moment, just looking up at the house and thinking to herself. Although she sometimes still felt like an outsider in the Ewing family, there was no doubt that Southfork was her home now, she felt so much better at Southfork than she did at her mother's house in Austin; this was where she was supposed to be.
To be continued…