Title: Familial Secrets
Author: Melpomene
Disclaimer: A fan fiction story by Melpomene based on the characters and backstory of "Roswell" and composed without permission. No copyright infringement is intended and no monies have been earned.
E-Mail: melpomene@stories.com
Distribution: I don't care. If you would like to post it, just drop me the url so I can see your site. If you already host one or more of my other stories, go for it.
Summary: All families have their secrets. Towns do too. Sometimes these secrets clash.
Author's Note: This is set early in season 2, or at least that's when I began writing it. I've picked it up again now... let's see how much the original premise changes with the passage of time.
Familial Secrets
_______________________________________________________________________
"Hey, Mom, I'm home!" Maria droped her backpack on the couch, looking around for a sign of whether her mother was home or not. Shrugging, she led Liz and Max into her kitchen. "I dunno," she said, "maybe she's upstairs."
"Maria? Did I just hear you come in?"
Maria raised her head just as her mother walked into the kitchen, her bare feet padding softly across the tile. She looked questioningly at the expression on her mother's face, something was definitely up.
"So, spill it. You don't have Sheriff Valenti hiding up in your bedroom waiting to sneak out when our backs are turned, do you?"
"Maria! Of course not. Hi, Liz. Max. Are we studying?" She turned her attention back to her daughter.
"That depends on whether or not the Valenti in question makes an appearance," Maria persisted.
"Jim isn't here," her mother insisted. "But we do have a guest."
"Who? I didn't see any cars out front. What did they do, park a block away and hike up?"
"Your cousin is changing clothes."
"Sean is so much not a guest; he's a parasite." Maria shuddered at the thought of her delinquent relative, cringing at the thought that she was still having to share her bathroom with him. "And besides that, I thought this was his temporary residence until he's crime free."
"He's working at staying out of trouble, Maria. But Sean isn't the cousin I was talking about."
Maria raised her eyebrows, smiling at her friends who'd sat down at the kitchen table. "Well, let's see now. It's not like I have all that many cousins to choose from here. Katie's too little to come on her own, Jared should still be in school, Emma's out of the country..."
"And what? I can't come back to visit every now and again?"
Maria spun around, a bright smile lighting up her eyes. "Emmy!"
"The one and only! That is unless you've been conducting cloning experiments for biology these days." A tall dark haired woman stepped out from behind the doorway she'd been using as a hiding place, wrapping her arms around Maria in a welcoming squeeze of affection. "How ya' doin', shorty?"
"Emma, wow, Maria said you were in Bosnia." Liz stood up from the chair she had claimed, edging around the table.
"Hey, Liz, what's this? You're too mature now to give me a hug?" Emma teased, curious at Liz's hesitancy.
Liz laughed and stepped into Emma's embrace. "I just didn't want to intrude on a family moment is all."
"And when did you become a non-family member?"
"Never," she admitted. It always surprised her how all-encompassing Emma's world-view was. Emma delineated terms by her own definitions, never caring to stop and consider what the rest of the world might think.
Maria swatted Emma's arm. "What happened to Bosnia?"
"It's still there as far as I know but I needed a bit of normalcy so I thought I come here and loose myself in something lifelessly dull. Which reminds me, you wanna have your portrait done?"
"Oh yeah, now that's a compliment. Me? Lifelessly dull? I think not, babe."
Emma laughed, ruffling Maria's hair, intentionally causing the wavy locks to fall in her eyes. "Really though, a person can only handle so much death and destruction before they go batty. I finished up the assignment early and hot footed it back to the states."
"Assignment?" Max asked.
"Oh, Emma, meet Max." Maria gestured to the third member of her study group. "Max, my cousin Emma. She's a photojournalist and gets to travel all over the world with the work she does. I swear, girl, if I didn't love you so much I'd hate you."
"It's nice to meet you." Max rose and extended his hand, caught off guard when she pulled him into an embrace instead.
"Sorry," she grinned, "Once I start hugging, I can't seem to stop. Oh, and Maria gives me way too much credit. I'm no photojournalist; I'm just an extremely lucky photographer. But I wasn't joking about the portraits. I thought I'd attack you and all your friends first and then just roam around Roswell, camera in hand."
"Emma's pictures are the best," Liz explained to a slightly bemused looking Max. "You know that awesome portrait of my grandmother in my living room?" She continued when she saw Max nod. "Emma took that."
"I'm impressed."
Emma grinned. "You should be. I ran my tail off for two days chasing that old lady all over town in order to get that shot. My legs were sore for a week after."
"Right, oh ye goddess of the stair climber. I'd kill to have the definition you have in those legs." Maria wrapped an arm around Emma's waist, leading her to the table. "So what room do I have to avoid lest I loose life and limb?"
"The laundry room. I haven't set the stuff up yet though so I suggest you do a bunch of laundry tonight unless you want to end up at the laundromat later on in the week."
"Geez, girl, how long are you planning on staying? They have laws against squatters in this state, you know."
"Not sure yet. A week or two, maybe longer. It partly depends on how long your mom can deal with having me in the house. You know how it is with that generation... another mouth to feed, another conscience to worry over..."
"Another pair of hands to help with the house work... I think I'll survive," Amy said, walking to the refrigerator to see about dinner.
"Oh no you don't, Amy. Let's go out to eat tonight. My treat."
~~~~~~~~~~
"Emma, I didn't know you were in town." Jeff Parker smiled at his daughter and the group who had walked into the Crashdown with her.
"Just got in today. I was telling Amy and the kids that I wanted to do portraits while I was in town. Hope you've got room in your living room for another likeness of your beautiful daughter here."
Max smiled at the blush that Emma's comment had brought to Liz's cheeks. He couldn't believe how much at ease he felt around Maria's cousin, she was a virtual stranger after all, but he doubted she ever let anyone feel ill at ease in her presence. It would be interesting to see how she fared with Michael.
Emma watched with amused reserve as the telling looks flew across the crowded cafe between Maria and the bandana-ed cook. This holiday away from reality was promising to be even more entertaining than she had initially hoped. Now if she could just manage to avoid her annoying baby brother she'd be in heaven.
Sean chose that precise moment to walk through the door and smash her hopes of heaven into a thousand bloody shards. Casting a curious glance around the room, he had to do a double take of the woman seated next to Maria.
"Well, if it isn't my all-important big sister, Emma the upstanding socially conscious photographer," he exaggerated, pulling a chair up to the end of the booth and sitting down solidly in it. "So what major crisis brings you to Roswell, sis?"
Emma's expression chilled perceptibly as she turned her full attention to Sean. "I heard you were dead and thought I'd come to celebrate. Don't let me keep you from whatever crime it was you were going to commit. Run along now, little jail bird."
"And deprive you of my company?"
"Yes, precisely the point."
"Actually, I was just stopping by to tell Aunt Amy that I need to be in Albuquerque tomorrow morning for a court appointment. I'll be gone at least a day or two."
Amy smiled at the undisguised animosity that never ceased to flare up between the two siblings. Ever since Sean had learned how to string words together into sentences, they had spent all their time together in bitter arguments. "Give us a call when you get there, Sean. So we'll know that you made it safely."
"And wouldn't that be a huge shame, getting involved in an accident in the middle of nowhere..." Emma muttered to her soda.
"Will do. Bye." He approached the door, turning back to face his sister just before he reached for the handle. "No one else knows that you're back, do they? I talked to Mom two days ago and she said you were still in Belaruse."
Maria, Max, and Liz looked askance at one another, not due to Sean's revelation, but rather because they could almost see the emotional wall Emma threw up around herself. Something they couldn't quite pin down had changed in her eyes and the atmosphere around her had hardened into an almost palpable thickness.
Sean shook his finger at his sister in mocking reprimand before loping back out the way he had come in.
Later that night, after Max had pleaded exhaustion and left to return to his own home, laughing still as he walked out to the jeep, and once Amy had bid the threesome a good night, Emma sat on Maria's bedroom floor answering the two girl's questions.
"What's it like in Bosnia, really?" Liz asked, dragging a brush through Maria's hair in a bid to plait the thick waves.
"Unlike anything you could ever imagine, even in your worst nightmares."
Liz paused briefly, remembering Max's experience in the white room. "I wouldn't be so sure about that."
"I would." Emma's tone had turned hard and cold, a complete absence of her general gaiety that sent chills down both girl's spines.
Maria knew what Liz had been thinking but Emma's simple words had convinced her that perhaps her more worldly cousin was right about what she had said. Thinking to bring back her cousin's cheer, she decided to launch into a lighter topic of discussion. "What about the front lines of that amazing love life of yours, huh? Anything terribly exciting going on?"
They were both grateful to see Emma's smile return, even if it did seem a bit forced. "That is almost a 'no man's land', I'm afraid. With one shining exception."
"So spill, chika. We want all the gory details."
"Only after I get to hear about the broody chef in your life."
"Let's not go there, shall we? Michael is an entirely complex and all too annoying subject. You should have asked Max while he was still here, they're practically blood brothers."
Emma's eyes flashed mischievously, making a mental note of the information. "I'll have to remember that."
~~~~~~~~~~
"I don't do portraits."
Maria suppressed a grin. "Well, Spaceboy, try telling that to the human camera out there." She gestured through the order window at Emma who sat perched on one of the chairs at the counter, cheerfully snapping pictures of anything that caught her fancy. From the looks of it, Michael had just become her favorite subject. "I gave up trying to get her to stop taking pictures of me a long time ago, and you know how persistent and loud I can be. I'm not exactly cheering over the thought of my uniform and antennae being commemorated for all time myself, but once Emma starts she's completely uncontrollable."
Emma sounded a lot like someone else he knew; someone he knew rather well. She was enjoying his unease way too much, he decided as he watched Maria duck back out of the kitchen and sidle up to a new table of diners. He could hear it in her voice, and that wasn't all he could hear. Turning back to the neglected food on the grill, he tried to ignore the woman who had him trained in her camera's sights.
When Max and Isabel walked into the diner, Liz grinned and waved hello to them.
Taking a seat at the counter, Isabel noticed the woman who sat next to her, studiously watching the world around her through her camera's lens. A sudden spike of cold panic shot through her chest. Surely if the FBI were going to be doing surveillance, they wouldn't be so open about it.
Max noticed her suddenly rigid posture and leaned around her to determine the problem. What met his eye was a mop of wildly flying sandy-colored curls and two huge dark eyes. "Emma, it's nice to see you again."
Isabel stared at her brother, unsure if she should be relieved or irritated.
"Hey, Max. Don't tell me, this must be the lovely Isabel." Emma extended a hand to the young woman, pulling her in for an unexpected hug. "I've heard so much about you."
Answering Isabel's silent query, Max explained, "Is, this is Emma, Maria's cousin. She's a photographer. Um, she's in town visiting but she wanted to take some portraits."
Emma would have had to be blind to miss the change that came over Isabel once Max had explained her presence. "Finally, someone who appreciates a photographer!" she cried in mock exuberance.
Isabel flashed a bright smile, her eyes lighting up with the joyful expectation of appreciation. "Max said you were Maria's cousin?"
Emma bobbed her head sending sandy corkscrew curls bouncing and raised her camera once again. "Uh huh, Amy's my mother's baby sister which means I have the great displeasure of claiming the walking crime scene as my brother."
Isabel cocked an eyebrow at Emma's statement. Who...
"Sean," Max supplied before her thoughts could complete the sentence.
"Oh," understanding dawned and Isabel's voice dripped unsheathed distaste, her mouth forming perfect O as she drew out the sylable.
Peering over the camera at the pair of teens, Emma suggested, "How about this weekend, say... Saturday around two or so?"
Isabel quirked her brow again.
Noting the unspoken question, Emma supplied, "Pictures. I already got Maria and Lizzie to agree to Saturday morning. If you two would agree to that afternoon we could make a whole day of it. Oh, and bring the glowering cook with you, I promissed Maria I'd get a decent shot of him for her."
Max opened his mouth to object to his own portrait when Emma stopped him. "I told you I wanted to get shots of everyone in town, you are part of everyone, are you not?" She chuckled at Max's faint blush. "Plus, I love sibling pairs." Emma grinned again. "You'd think I had a great relationship with my own sibling the way I snap shots of other sib groups, oh well. You never can tell, I guess. Two o'clock at the park near Amy and Maria's house."
Max watched Emma toss a couple of bills onto the counter before she rose and bid everyone farewell, disapearing through the door in a flurry of hugs and smiles. He turned back to his sister and noticed her ttention still focused on the door. "What is it, Is?"
"I don't know," she said darkly, "but I'm going to find out." She lightened her expression before Max could ask for elaboration. "Order an Alien Blast for me, I've got to ask Maria something."
Max watched Isabel cross the restaurant, wondering at her sudden departure but distracted from his concern when Liz leaned across the counter with a smile in her eyes.
"Alright, I'll get that out to you in just a few minutes." Maria began to back away from the table while she was still writing down the order. When she spun around, she ran directly into an immobile Isabel. "Hey, Isabel, did you get a chance to meet my cousin, Emma? She's a photographer. I thought with your goals of being a fashion model..." Maria stopped short at Isabel's expression. "What is it?"
"Emma."
"Yeah," Maria responded. "Emma's my cousin. She just gt in town from Bosnia. What about her."
Isabel glanced down, she wasn't entirely sure what it was about the other woman that had struck her as odd. "Maria, is there anything we ought to know about Emma?" she asked at last, following the girl to the kitchen to turn in the customers' food order.
Tossing the slip of paper at Michael with a sneer, Maria leaned back against the doorjamb. "What do you mean? Emma's just... she's just Emma."
Michael chose that moment to appear in the order window. "Is she the one with the camera?"
"Yes, you freak, go back to work. I want good tips today!" she called after him as he retreated back to the grill.
"I can't explain it," Isabel began, "But there's something weird about her. Something off center."
"Well, she did just get back from spending six months in Bosnia. That could be it. She said it was really bad, maybe she's just a little shell- shocked." Glaring at Michael as he set one of her orders in the window, Maria snagged it and returned to the dining area.
"Something up, Isabel?"
She looked up at Michael's question. "No, probably not. I'm getting to be as bad as you are, seeing enemies at every turn."
Michael's brow furrowed in bafflement as he watched Isabel return to the counter and reclaim her seat next to Max. He just didn't understand women, not any of them.
Author: Melpomene
Disclaimer: A fan fiction story by Melpomene based on the characters and backstory of "Roswell" and composed without permission. No copyright infringement is intended and no monies have been earned.
E-Mail: melpomene@stories.com
Distribution: I don't care. If you would like to post it, just drop me the url so I can see your site. If you already host one or more of my other stories, go for it.
Summary: All families have their secrets. Towns do too. Sometimes these secrets clash.
Author's Note: This is set early in season 2, or at least that's when I began writing it. I've picked it up again now... let's see how much the original premise changes with the passage of time.
Familial Secrets
_______________________________________________________________________
"Hey, Mom, I'm home!" Maria droped her backpack on the couch, looking around for a sign of whether her mother was home or not. Shrugging, she led Liz and Max into her kitchen. "I dunno," she said, "maybe she's upstairs."
"Maria? Did I just hear you come in?"
Maria raised her head just as her mother walked into the kitchen, her bare feet padding softly across the tile. She looked questioningly at the expression on her mother's face, something was definitely up.
"So, spill it. You don't have Sheriff Valenti hiding up in your bedroom waiting to sneak out when our backs are turned, do you?"
"Maria! Of course not. Hi, Liz. Max. Are we studying?" She turned her attention back to her daughter.
"That depends on whether or not the Valenti in question makes an appearance," Maria persisted.
"Jim isn't here," her mother insisted. "But we do have a guest."
"Who? I didn't see any cars out front. What did they do, park a block away and hike up?"
"Your cousin is changing clothes."
"Sean is so much not a guest; he's a parasite." Maria shuddered at the thought of her delinquent relative, cringing at the thought that she was still having to share her bathroom with him. "And besides that, I thought this was his temporary residence until he's crime free."
"He's working at staying out of trouble, Maria. But Sean isn't the cousin I was talking about."
Maria raised her eyebrows, smiling at her friends who'd sat down at the kitchen table. "Well, let's see now. It's not like I have all that many cousins to choose from here. Katie's too little to come on her own, Jared should still be in school, Emma's out of the country..."
"And what? I can't come back to visit every now and again?"
Maria spun around, a bright smile lighting up her eyes. "Emmy!"
"The one and only! That is unless you've been conducting cloning experiments for biology these days." A tall dark haired woman stepped out from behind the doorway she'd been using as a hiding place, wrapping her arms around Maria in a welcoming squeeze of affection. "How ya' doin', shorty?"
"Emma, wow, Maria said you were in Bosnia." Liz stood up from the chair she had claimed, edging around the table.
"Hey, Liz, what's this? You're too mature now to give me a hug?" Emma teased, curious at Liz's hesitancy.
Liz laughed and stepped into Emma's embrace. "I just didn't want to intrude on a family moment is all."
"And when did you become a non-family member?"
"Never," she admitted. It always surprised her how all-encompassing Emma's world-view was. Emma delineated terms by her own definitions, never caring to stop and consider what the rest of the world might think.
Maria swatted Emma's arm. "What happened to Bosnia?"
"It's still there as far as I know but I needed a bit of normalcy so I thought I come here and loose myself in something lifelessly dull. Which reminds me, you wanna have your portrait done?"
"Oh yeah, now that's a compliment. Me? Lifelessly dull? I think not, babe."
Emma laughed, ruffling Maria's hair, intentionally causing the wavy locks to fall in her eyes. "Really though, a person can only handle so much death and destruction before they go batty. I finished up the assignment early and hot footed it back to the states."
"Assignment?" Max asked.
"Oh, Emma, meet Max." Maria gestured to the third member of her study group. "Max, my cousin Emma. She's a photojournalist and gets to travel all over the world with the work she does. I swear, girl, if I didn't love you so much I'd hate you."
"It's nice to meet you." Max rose and extended his hand, caught off guard when she pulled him into an embrace instead.
"Sorry," she grinned, "Once I start hugging, I can't seem to stop. Oh, and Maria gives me way too much credit. I'm no photojournalist; I'm just an extremely lucky photographer. But I wasn't joking about the portraits. I thought I'd attack you and all your friends first and then just roam around Roswell, camera in hand."
"Emma's pictures are the best," Liz explained to a slightly bemused looking Max. "You know that awesome portrait of my grandmother in my living room?" She continued when she saw Max nod. "Emma took that."
"I'm impressed."
Emma grinned. "You should be. I ran my tail off for two days chasing that old lady all over town in order to get that shot. My legs were sore for a week after."
"Right, oh ye goddess of the stair climber. I'd kill to have the definition you have in those legs." Maria wrapped an arm around Emma's waist, leading her to the table. "So what room do I have to avoid lest I loose life and limb?"
"The laundry room. I haven't set the stuff up yet though so I suggest you do a bunch of laundry tonight unless you want to end up at the laundromat later on in the week."
"Geez, girl, how long are you planning on staying? They have laws against squatters in this state, you know."
"Not sure yet. A week or two, maybe longer. It partly depends on how long your mom can deal with having me in the house. You know how it is with that generation... another mouth to feed, another conscience to worry over..."
"Another pair of hands to help with the house work... I think I'll survive," Amy said, walking to the refrigerator to see about dinner.
"Oh no you don't, Amy. Let's go out to eat tonight. My treat."
~~~~~~~~~~
"Emma, I didn't know you were in town." Jeff Parker smiled at his daughter and the group who had walked into the Crashdown with her.
"Just got in today. I was telling Amy and the kids that I wanted to do portraits while I was in town. Hope you've got room in your living room for another likeness of your beautiful daughter here."
Max smiled at the blush that Emma's comment had brought to Liz's cheeks. He couldn't believe how much at ease he felt around Maria's cousin, she was a virtual stranger after all, but he doubted she ever let anyone feel ill at ease in her presence. It would be interesting to see how she fared with Michael.
Emma watched with amused reserve as the telling looks flew across the crowded cafe between Maria and the bandana-ed cook. This holiday away from reality was promising to be even more entertaining than she had initially hoped. Now if she could just manage to avoid her annoying baby brother she'd be in heaven.
Sean chose that precise moment to walk through the door and smash her hopes of heaven into a thousand bloody shards. Casting a curious glance around the room, he had to do a double take of the woman seated next to Maria.
"Well, if it isn't my all-important big sister, Emma the upstanding socially conscious photographer," he exaggerated, pulling a chair up to the end of the booth and sitting down solidly in it. "So what major crisis brings you to Roswell, sis?"
Emma's expression chilled perceptibly as she turned her full attention to Sean. "I heard you were dead and thought I'd come to celebrate. Don't let me keep you from whatever crime it was you were going to commit. Run along now, little jail bird."
"And deprive you of my company?"
"Yes, precisely the point."
"Actually, I was just stopping by to tell Aunt Amy that I need to be in Albuquerque tomorrow morning for a court appointment. I'll be gone at least a day or two."
Amy smiled at the undisguised animosity that never ceased to flare up between the two siblings. Ever since Sean had learned how to string words together into sentences, they had spent all their time together in bitter arguments. "Give us a call when you get there, Sean. So we'll know that you made it safely."
"And wouldn't that be a huge shame, getting involved in an accident in the middle of nowhere..." Emma muttered to her soda.
"Will do. Bye." He approached the door, turning back to face his sister just before he reached for the handle. "No one else knows that you're back, do they? I talked to Mom two days ago and she said you were still in Belaruse."
Maria, Max, and Liz looked askance at one another, not due to Sean's revelation, but rather because they could almost see the emotional wall Emma threw up around herself. Something they couldn't quite pin down had changed in her eyes and the atmosphere around her had hardened into an almost palpable thickness.
Sean shook his finger at his sister in mocking reprimand before loping back out the way he had come in.
Later that night, after Max had pleaded exhaustion and left to return to his own home, laughing still as he walked out to the jeep, and once Amy had bid the threesome a good night, Emma sat on Maria's bedroom floor answering the two girl's questions.
"What's it like in Bosnia, really?" Liz asked, dragging a brush through Maria's hair in a bid to plait the thick waves.
"Unlike anything you could ever imagine, even in your worst nightmares."
Liz paused briefly, remembering Max's experience in the white room. "I wouldn't be so sure about that."
"I would." Emma's tone had turned hard and cold, a complete absence of her general gaiety that sent chills down both girl's spines.
Maria knew what Liz had been thinking but Emma's simple words had convinced her that perhaps her more worldly cousin was right about what she had said. Thinking to bring back her cousin's cheer, she decided to launch into a lighter topic of discussion. "What about the front lines of that amazing love life of yours, huh? Anything terribly exciting going on?"
They were both grateful to see Emma's smile return, even if it did seem a bit forced. "That is almost a 'no man's land', I'm afraid. With one shining exception."
"So spill, chika. We want all the gory details."
"Only after I get to hear about the broody chef in your life."
"Let's not go there, shall we? Michael is an entirely complex and all too annoying subject. You should have asked Max while he was still here, they're practically blood brothers."
Emma's eyes flashed mischievously, making a mental note of the information. "I'll have to remember that."
~~~~~~~~~~
"I don't do portraits."
Maria suppressed a grin. "Well, Spaceboy, try telling that to the human camera out there." She gestured through the order window at Emma who sat perched on one of the chairs at the counter, cheerfully snapping pictures of anything that caught her fancy. From the looks of it, Michael had just become her favorite subject. "I gave up trying to get her to stop taking pictures of me a long time ago, and you know how persistent and loud I can be. I'm not exactly cheering over the thought of my uniform and antennae being commemorated for all time myself, but once Emma starts she's completely uncontrollable."
Emma sounded a lot like someone else he knew; someone he knew rather well. She was enjoying his unease way too much, he decided as he watched Maria duck back out of the kitchen and sidle up to a new table of diners. He could hear it in her voice, and that wasn't all he could hear. Turning back to the neglected food on the grill, he tried to ignore the woman who had him trained in her camera's sights.
When Max and Isabel walked into the diner, Liz grinned and waved hello to them.
Taking a seat at the counter, Isabel noticed the woman who sat next to her, studiously watching the world around her through her camera's lens. A sudden spike of cold panic shot through her chest. Surely if the FBI were going to be doing surveillance, they wouldn't be so open about it.
Max noticed her suddenly rigid posture and leaned around her to determine the problem. What met his eye was a mop of wildly flying sandy-colored curls and two huge dark eyes. "Emma, it's nice to see you again."
Isabel stared at her brother, unsure if she should be relieved or irritated.
"Hey, Max. Don't tell me, this must be the lovely Isabel." Emma extended a hand to the young woman, pulling her in for an unexpected hug. "I've heard so much about you."
Answering Isabel's silent query, Max explained, "Is, this is Emma, Maria's cousin. She's a photographer. Um, she's in town visiting but she wanted to take some portraits."
Emma would have had to be blind to miss the change that came over Isabel once Max had explained her presence. "Finally, someone who appreciates a photographer!" she cried in mock exuberance.
Isabel flashed a bright smile, her eyes lighting up with the joyful expectation of appreciation. "Max said you were Maria's cousin?"
Emma bobbed her head sending sandy corkscrew curls bouncing and raised her camera once again. "Uh huh, Amy's my mother's baby sister which means I have the great displeasure of claiming the walking crime scene as my brother."
Isabel cocked an eyebrow at Emma's statement. Who...
"Sean," Max supplied before her thoughts could complete the sentence.
"Oh," understanding dawned and Isabel's voice dripped unsheathed distaste, her mouth forming perfect O as she drew out the sylable.
Peering over the camera at the pair of teens, Emma suggested, "How about this weekend, say... Saturday around two or so?"
Isabel quirked her brow again.
Noting the unspoken question, Emma supplied, "Pictures. I already got Maria and Lizzie to agree to Saturday morning. If you two would agree to that afternoon we could make a whole day of it. Oh, and bring the glowering cook with you, I promissed Maria I'd get a decent shot of him for her."
Max opened his mouth to object to his own portrait when Emma stopped him. "I told you I wanted to get shots of everyone in town, you are part of everyone, are you not?" She chuckled at Max's faint blush. "Plus, I love sibling pairs." Emma grinned again. "You'd think I had a great relationship with my own sibling the way I snap shots of other sib groups, oh well. You never can tell, I guess. Two o'clock at the park near Amy and Maria's house."
Max watched Emma toss a couple of bills onto the counter before she rose and bid everyone farewell, disapearing through the door in a flurry of hugs and smiles. He turned back to his sister and noticed her ttention still focused on the door. "What is it, Is?"
"I don't know," she said darkly, "but I'm going to find out." She lightened her expression before Max could ask for elaboration. "Order an Alien Blast for me, I've got to ask Maria something."
Max watched Isabel cross the restaurant, wondering at her sudden departure but distracted from his concern when Liz leaned across the counter with a smile in her eyes.
"Alright, I'll get that out to you in just a few minutes." Maria began to back away from the table while she was still writing down the order. When she spun around, she ran directly into an immobile Isabel. "Hey, Isabel, did you get a chance to meet my cousin, Emma? She's a photographer. I thought with your goals of being a fashion model..." Maria stopped short at Isabel's expression. "What is it?"
"Emma."
"Yeah," Maria responded. "Emma's my cousin. She just gt in town from Bosnia. What about her."
Isabel glanced down, she wasn't entirely sure what it was about the other woman that had struck her as odd. "Maria, is there anything we ought to know about Emma?" she asked at last, following the girl to the kitchen to turn in the customers' food order.
Tossing the slip of paper at Michael with a sneer, Maria leaned back against the doorjamb. "What do you mean? Emma's just... she's just Emma."
Michael chose that moment to appear in the order window. "Is she the one with the camera?"
"Yes, you freak, go back to work. I want good tips today!" she called after him as he retreated back to the grill.
"I can't explain it," Isabel began, "But there's something weird about her. Something off center."
"Well, she did just get back from spending six months in Bosnia. That could be it. She said it was really bad, maybe she's just a little shell- shocked." Glaring at Michael as he set one of her orders in the window, Maria snagged it and returned to the dining area.
"Something up, Isabel?"
She looked up at Michael's question. "No, probably not. I'm getting to be as bad as you are, seeing enemies at every turn."
Michael's brow furrowed in bafflement as he watched Isabel return to the counter and reclaim her seat next to Max. He just didn't understand women, not any of them.