In my story, this is where about the time that Logan and Mary Anne start having SERIOUS trouble (my version of the countdown to their breakup)...enjoy!

The BSC Legacy - Book 1: Brave New World of High School

By: CNJ

PG-13

10: Bittersweet Thanksgiving, Part 1

Dawn:

"I can't wait to see you, Mom," I told my mom that Tuesday afternoon when I called her from California. I was already packing for tomorrow's flight to Connecticut. I also couldn't wait to see Mary Anne and Richard as well as my Connecticut friends.
"Me either," Mom's voice quavered a little and she cleared her throat.
"Just so you know..." I lowered my voice. "Verna called and said yes she got her ticket and I'll be meeting her at the airport tomorrow. Mary Anne doesn't suspect anything, does she?"
"Not a thing," Sharon told me. "And that's a feat because she is one perceptive girl who misses almost nothing." We both laughed. It was lucky that Verna managed to get a ticket to a flight from Iowa to arrive in Connecticut at two on Wednesday afternoon. I'd be arriving from California at one-thirty and Verna and I would meet. It was to be a surprise to Mary Anne because she is so kind-hearted and the dearest, dearest stepsister that has ever lived. It had been my suggestion, but last year in eighth grade, she had surprised Mom by arranging my flight.
"Hold on, she just got here..." Mom said suddenly.
"Hi, Dawn..." Mary Anne's voice came over the phone.
"Hi, Mary Anne!" I greeted.
"It's so good to hear your voice!" Mary Anne gushed, then sniffed a little. "I'm counting the hours, minutes when I'll see you."
"We..." I stopped myself. Close! "Me too. Me too." There was a pause and I was afraid I'd accidentally let a little of the cat out of the bag about Verna. I thought fast. "I thought Jeff was coming, but he still wants to stay here with Carol and Dad."
"Yeah..." Mary Anne said softly. She sounded a little sad. "I just..." she paused again. "I just...I'm going to miss Grandma. If only she'd been able to get a ticket." Mary Anne sounded so sad I almost gave the surprise away...but didn't.

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Mary Anne:

Tuesday night, after I'd talked to Dawn and told her how sad I was that Grandma couldn't make it, but was happy that Dawn at least could, Logan and I went out to eat. He'd be going away with his family for Thanksgiving to visit relatives in Kentucky. We went to Pizza Fest and had just started to eat when we saw three kids from the journalism club, Kim Weston, Tim Hune, and Renee Weng. They waved and came over to talk to us. I introduced them to Logan and him to them. We talked for a few minutes. I tried to include Logan into the conversation by bringing up the sports article in this month's Beacon and making sure they all knew each other at least by name. But I could see that Logan was getting bored and impatient. At one point, he rolled his eyes and became quiet, then got up abruptly, muttering something about using the bathroom and headed there. I tried to act like nothing was wrong, even though I was embarrassed. Eventually, we would down our conversation and they went to another table to eat. When Logan finally came back, I began to feel angry. Why did he act bored and jealous? I wondered as our order came.
"Is the latest breaking Stoneybrook special report over?" Logan asked with a drop of sarcasm.
"What?" I dropped my fork on my plate.
"They sure didn't mind interrupting us."
"Logan..." I was a little stunned. "I tried to get you into the conversation, but you were the one who acted bored and walked off. You know, the teams are in the paper..."
"Yeah, I know," Logan retorted. "And so are you getting wrapped up in that Beacon...just like you're getting more wrapped up in the BSC so we hardly have time together as it is. It seems like that's all more important than me..."
"Oh, Logan, go to hell!" I snapped. We stared at each other, so shocked that we couldn't speak for two minutes. I could not believe I actually said that! We silently finished our pizza. I could barely swallow. I hate tension and fighting. "I'm...sorry, Logan," I managed to get out, fighting back tears.
"I'm sorry I got on your case," Logan apologized back. "I had no right. It's just that I was feeling jealous." We talked quietly, trying to smooth things over. I think neither one of us wanted to part for Thanksgiving on bad terms. The acute tension faded, but there was still light tension between us. We kissed without much warmth, then parted. As I got ready for bed, I thought over tonight. This has happened before...Logan becoming resentful of the time I spend on other activities besides him. He has his sports teams and I have the journalism club and the BSC. I've never been jealous of the time he spends on sports. So why was he jealous of my involvement with the school newspaper? I went to bed, remembering the time last year that we'd temporarily broken up over this very issue.

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Dawn:

I glanced at my watch on Wednesday afternoon as I waited at the airport. Good. I'd told Mom and Mary Anne to come at two-fifteen. Sure enough, people poured out of the two 'o clock flight from Iowa and eventually...there was Verna.
"VERNA!" I yelled waving at her. She looked around, a little bewildered, then spotted me.
"Dawn!" she called and we hugged.
"They should be here in fifteen minutes." I told her. "Oh, won't Mary Anne be surprised!" Verna and I went over to the luggage belt and grabbed our bags, then wave through the crowd and tried to find a place to sit, but it was too crowded. It seemed like half of Connecticut was here with family and friends.
"We already got a little snow last week," Verna told me. "It's already winter in Iowa." I nodded and thought about out west where it was still around seventy degrees, but the trees had changed. It's really pretty the way they light up in burnt orange, mahogany, and brown against pale green cacti. Oh, there...I knew the threesome in the distance was Mom, Mary Anne, and Richard. I waved. They wove through the crowd and saw us.
"Oh, Dawn!" Mom cried.
"Mom...Mary Anne...Richard!" I called as we headed toward each other with arms out.
"Dawn!" Mary Anne's eyes welled up. "Oh...Dawn! Oh...Grandma!"
"Mary Anne, darling, it's so good to see you!" Verna's dark eyes welled up and they both burst into tears and hugged. Verna's very sensitive like Mary Anne. Mom and I hugged.
"Operation Surprise successful," I told Mom.
"It's wonderful seeing you too, sweetheart." Mom's eyes were damp..
"How are you, Dawn?" Richard hugged me too. "You've grown another inch..."
"Hello, Richard," Verna wiped her eyes, one arm still around Mary Anne as we started out of the airport.
"Hello, Verna," Richard and Verna seemed a little awkward and I saw Mary Anne glance between the two of them. Richard then looked down at Mary Anne and added, it seemed for Mary Anne's benefit, "It's good to see you again." Then Verna reached over and hugged Mom.
"Thank...you," she whispered. Once we got home, Mary Anne and I went up to her room and talked for a long time. I updated her on the latest happenings at Vista High and with my California friends.
"So, when is Carol due?" Mary Anne asked about my stepmom Carol's pregnancy.
"Late April, early May," I told her. Odd that I'm going to have another brother or sister this spring. I knew she and Logan had gone out the night before and I asked how it went. I don't think it went well, because Mary Anne tried to smile, but her brows puckered into this tense frown with a small vertical line between them. I think since Mary Anne joined the journalism club, Logan's been jealous. Mary Anne didn't come right out and tell me this, but I gathered from his reactions to whenever she brought up the Beacon. It seems that when some of the kids from the journalism club came over to talk, Logan got all huffy about it. It reminded me of the other time when they'd had serious problems back in eighth grade when he was becoming too possessive and tried to hog up all her free time. They'd temporarily broken up over it, but re-united a month later. Now I wondered if he was trying to take over her time again, trying to pressure her into giving up her free time for him. If that's happening again, Logan has some growing up to do or he could lose Mary Anne!
"YOOOOOO-hooo!" a voice called from downstairs. "Girls...do you want to eat out tonight?"
"Hey, Granny and Pop-pop are here!" I jumped up, happy to see them again. Mary Anne relaxed and got up too and we headed downstairs. It was great seeing them. Sure enough, we headed out to eat at a new Vietnamese place which was almost out in the rural area of Stoneybrook where they live.

Mary Anne:

It's so great seeing Grandma and Dawn again! After I'd talked to Dawn about the terse exchange Logan and I had Tuesday night, I felt better. I wasn't expecting Grandma, but Sharon and Dawn decided to surprise me. After we got back from dinner, Dawn and I went back upstairs, talked and played Uno upstairs. Grandma and Dawn's grandparents talked in the living room. As Dawn and I were playing, I became aware that it was quiet in the living room. Then I heard low voices arguing.
"....You left her with me after Alma died," Grandma was saying emphatically. "Then a year and a half later, you hired this lawyer and had her taken from us!"
"Verna..." Dad sounded tense. "I tried to call you when she was five and you were the one that hung up on me..." I cleared my throat uncomfortably, hoping Dawn wasn't hearing that. But that was wishful thinking, because she could hear as well as me.
"Are you all right?" Dawn asked. I nodded, fighting back tears, my stomach twisting into a knot. What a long strange evening it was. We were all a bit tense by the time we went to bed. Granny and Pop-pop were spending the night with us and sleeping on the sofa bed in the living room. Pop-pop tried to relieve the tension by joking around. "So goes the Spiers' great traditions of feuds. "
"Dad!" Sharon told him. "Just...shut up!"
"What?" Pop-pop asked when Dawn's grandmother, Verna, and Dad gave him a big LOOK. "Sorry..." he muttered.

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Dawn:

Mary Anne and I both like to sleep in on non-school days, but on Thanksgiving morning, I woke up early to my own surprise. Mary Anne was still asleep, so I was careful not to wake her as I got dressed. I was reading a Goosebumps book when Mary Anne slowly stirred, then sat up, her dark eyes bleary.
"Hi..." I whispered, surprised to see her up before ten. She groaned softly and clutched her stomach. I hoped she wasn't still upset about the argument between her dad and grandmother. "Are you all right?" I asked.
"Ohhh, it's here again," she whispered. I looked down and saw what she meant when I noticed a small red splotch on her nightshirt.
"Need a tampon?" I asked, heading for the bathroom.
"Yeah...thanks," Mary Anne nodded. I went into the bathroom, got the necessary, and brought it back.
"Know how to put one in?" I knew she'd only started her period last August. Mary Anne nodded.
"This is only my second time," she told me once she got it in. "I'm still not regular."
"It took me a while to get regular too," I told her.

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Mary Anne:

I had the feeling that this was going to be a long Thanksgiving. I slowly got dressed, fighting cramps. I flushed as I remembered how embarrassed I'd been to be that last of the BSC to get my period.
"Feel all right enough to go down?" Dawn a while later.
"I guess..." Might as well face the day. We headed down. Dad and Grandma were civil and by noon, all of us were getting the meal ready. I could feel tension between Dad and Grandma. I could also sense tension still lingering between Sharon and Pop-pop. Sharon and Dawn put together sweet potatoes and the vegetarian dishes that they liked while Dad, Granny, Grandma, and I got the turkey ready. Almost everyone chatted on about everything from international relations to the environment to pets, trying to lighten up the atmosphere. Grandma made the stuffing and bit by bit, handed it to us. She was mostly quiet like me and I knew she was still upset over last night. As she handed over the last bit, her eyes met mine and both of our eyes filled up. I think she knew I'd heard the argument and was silently saying how sorry she was about everything...long ago and last night. Once the food was ready, and we were getting ready to sit, I saw Grandma's eyes filling up again and her mouth contorted as if she were about to burst into tears. I reached over and held her hand and her tears seemed to recede...until we were seated and Dad, Sharon, and Grandma couldn't decide who should carve the turkey.
"You may as well, Verna," Dad told Grandma pointedly. "Just as you wanted to take over before." Grandma winced, then fresh tears welled in her eyes.
"Oh...Richard...let's..." Her mouth contorted and quivered again. I couldn't stand it anymore and burst into tears.
"Stop...grow up...all of you!" I pleaded. Grandma started to cry for real and Dad and Dawn's grandparents and my dad looked stricken and contrite.
"Oh, Mary Anne, we're sorry," my dad came over and we hugged. I could tell he felt bad for his part in this fight.
"Can you forgive us?" Verna sobbed, hugging me also. "For yesterday...and long ago?" I thought it over and saw Dad and Grandma look at each other and could see that they were mutually calling a truce. I nodded. Grandma then really wept.
"It's okay...it's okay..."I soothed her. Dawn handed us tissues. "I forgive you...it's all right." The tension evaporated; things felt almost normal again and we sat and started to eat. We went on talking and joked around, managing to even laugh again. Grandma seemed to feel better. I think Dad and Grandma hadn't forgotten, but the anger was gone and I was relieved...and thankful.