The Long and Short of It
By: Allie (alliekiwi)
Rating: PG13
Disclaimer: Everything and everyone owned by Melinda Metz, The WB, etc.
To Emily, who insisted I needed a bathroom mention, and to all the people from the USA I messaged about americanisms.
Author's Notes: This story runs concurrent with 'The Blond and Rocky Road', but you should probably read this one first. It's set in the summer, ok? Back then we were all still denying destiny, Kyle was off finding Buddha, and even Tess knew she wasn't really Miss Popularity.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Isabel Evans sighed. Maria Deluca was in her back yard again, ensconced in Isabel's favourite deck chair by the pool. Just because Max and Maria had 'bonded' over the summer, Isabel was forced to spend time with the flaky blond.
Isabel had always hated the fact that she was all alone except for Max and Michael. She'd always longed for a sister or friend who would understand what it was like to be alien and female. At first she'd hope Tess would be that for her. But Tess ... Tess was still obsessed with 'destiny' and pursuing Max; Max who was still pining after Liz.
"Must you sit there?"
"Hi to you too, Isabel. I like this chair, it's got the least glare from the pool. Besides you don't get sunburned and I do."
"Who says I don't get sunburned?"
"Well you could do your Samantha Genie thing and make it go away, anyway." Maria waved her hand theatrically over her front.
Isabel rolled her eyes. "How many times do we have to tell you they aren't 'Samantha Genie magic powers'!" She regally stalked over to the chair next to Maria and lay down.
"So where is Max anyway?"
"He's at the Crashdown hoping to hear word of Liz. I tell you, Girlfriend has lost it. 'Have you heard from Liz'," Maria mimicked.
"So why aren't you there with him? And I thought you were working today."
Maria glared at the Ice Princess. "Space boy is working today, and there is no way I am spending a perfect summer day arguing with him."
"I thought Michael wasn't talking to you? Hasn't he been ignoring all your calls so far this summer?"
"Has Max been telling you about me and Michael? It figures, I get the one that won't talk, and Liz gets the one that can't keep his mouth shut." Maria went back to flicking through her magazine.
Isabel lay back and closed her eyes. Little as she liked to admit it, it felt good to lie there knowing someone else was with her. Over the summer the four aliens had spent a lot of time together working on their powers in anticipation of the unknown enemy. With Max's moodiness about Liz and her abdication from his life, Michael's moodiness about Pierce - and let's face it - life in general, and Tess's moodiness that Max wasn't paying enough attention to her, Isabel had had enough. And for the first time in her life she wanted to have a normal 'human' friend.
"Oh, I love that!" squealed Maria.
Isabel opened one eye. "What?"
"These hair extensions..." pointed Maria. "Look! I always wanted to grow my hair back long, but I hate that yukky in between stage."
"I thought you hated long hair? Wasn't Michael always pulling it back in 5th grade?"
Maria ignored that. She had always secretly liked it when Michael would tug on her hair. In fact her hair could be seen to tell the story of the ups and downs of relationships in her life. Maybe she got it from her mother who seemed to live by the motto 'I'm gonna cut that man right out of my hair'. Maria had cut off her long hair once Michael ceased to take any notice of her. She'd cut it even shorter after breaking up with Doug Sohn in 8th Grade. *Maybe now is the time to think about having it long again,* thought Maria. *Guys seem to like long hair. Look at Isabel - Michael likes her. Look at Courtney. No. Don't look at Courtney!*
"What?" demanded Isabel. "Why would I want to look at Courtney? What are you babbling about? God, could my life get any worse? I'm stuck here beside a gibbering idiot with a jealous streak."
"How much do hair extensions cost?" Maria got back to the subject at hand. "Do you think they'd look any good on me?"
Isabel glanced at the magazine. "They look pretty natural. But I've heard they can cost hundreds of dollars. And where would you get them done anyway?"
Maria carried on as if Isabel hadn't spoken. "I always liked the feel of hair swishing down my back. Do you think Michael would like it? Oh, look at all the types they can do! Do you think I should get straight, or slightly curled at the ends?" Maria bounced as she spoke.
"Maria.... MARIA....Did you see how much these cost? Four hundred dollars!"
"Oh." The bounce went out of Maria. "How am I supposed to save that amount? Mom makes me put at least half of everything toward College."
Isabel grabbed the magazine. "Which one did you like again?"
"That one."
Isabel looked from the picture to Maria and back again. Maria with hair like that would surely make Michael sit up and take notice. She remembered how Michael would lurk and wait for Maria to go by just so he could pull on her hair back in 5th grade. The guy really had a hair fetish. Look at his own hair! First those spikes and now what looked like he'd modelled the style on a bedraggled floor mop.
"I could do it," Isabel said suddenly.
Maria looked at Isabel in surprise.
"What? There has to be some good in having 'Samantha Genie Magic Powers' as you put it." Isabel defended her impulsive offer. "Besides, it'll be fun."
~*~A Few Days Later.~*~
"I love purple on you, Isabel!" snorted Maria in between gasps of laughter. Isabel's offer to lengthen Maria's hair had turned into an all out girls makeover night. With the aid of a little 'hocus pocus' both Maria's and Isabel's hair had been lengthened, shortened, coloured and styled. The only troubled they seemed to have was to get the curl to stay in.
"I wonder how Tess manages to do this each day?" muttered Isabel as Maria's hair again fell poker straight.
Maria looked at Isabel in surprise. "I thought that was natural!"
"Huh?...It's so fake if she was human all her hair would be falling out from the chemicals."
"How did you find out?"
"A couple of weeks ago Max, Michael and I stayed over at her house after target practice. She said she was feeling lonely without Nasedo... but I think she had another target in mind."
Maria giggled at the thought of Tess chasing Max around the house.
"You'd think a house that size would have more than one bathroom!" Isabel peered at herself in the mirror and turned her hair back to its natural colour with a wave of her hand. "She spent at least half an hour the next morning getting her hair to look 'just so'. And I swear she should take out shares in a hair spray company. I counted four different brands in the cupboard!"
Isabel and Maria both fell about laughing. It felt great to joke about the girl who had essentially turned their lives upside down.
**********
Max flicked through the TV channels. It was Friday night during summer vacation for goodness sakes. Any normal teenage boy should be out on a date. Or, worst case scenario, out with the guys. Max figured, King of a planet or not, he had managed to come out on the far side of normal, bordering on 'catastrophe'. Usually he could count on Michael or Isabel for company, but Michael had plans for the night. Even if they did involve Alex and an old nintendo game. And Isabel? Well Max wasn't really sure what she was up to, but Max had seen her ushering a giggling Maria upstairs a few hours before.
Max considered going to the Crashdown, but the new waitress had taken to teasing him about his continued presence, and even Mr Parker had smirked at him that afternoon and asked if he wanted a job in the kitchen with Michael, since he was there so often.
More giggles wafted down the stairwell. Max got to his feet. Whatever was going on up there had to be better than the general nothingness offered as Friday night viewing.
Isabel's door stood open, and Max surveyed the array of ...stuff... from the door. He didn't know what girls did with all these things they considered necessary. There was make up of varying kinds all over the desk. The wardrobe and dresser appeared to have erupted their contents over the bed and floor. And what was that prong thing plugged into the outlet? It looked like an instrument of torture, but as he watched, Isabel picked it up and expertly wound around it a section of Maria's long blond hair and.... wait. Maria's long blond hair? *Since when does Maria have long hair?* thought Max.
"Uh, Isabel?"
"Max! What are you doing home?"
"Nothing. Michael and Alex are... and Courtney was..." started Max. "More to the point. What are you doing?"
"What!" shrieked Maria. "What is Michael doing with Courtney? I should have figured he'd do something like this." Maria threw her hands in the air knocking the curling tongs out of Isabel's hand. "Trust a guy to tell you he loves you and then walk away. And then rub salt in it by going out with another girl," Maria muttered. "Okay, and those body piercings Courtney keeps talking about? Please. If he got all of those he'd suffer permanent brain damage. Not that that would be a bad thing, of course..."
"Huh?" stuttered Max. "Who said anything about Michael and Courtney? I said Michael and Alex are playing nintendo. And I don't want to go to the Crashdown because Courtney..."
"Oh no, Girlfriend." Maria interrupted. "You distinctly said that Michael and Courtney..."
"Stop!" Maria and Max both looked at Isabel who was holding her hands over her ears. "Let's start again. Michael and Alex are together without Courtney. Courtney is at the Crashdown, and you, Max, are home bugging us because you've decided you haven't taken this whole 'Girlfriend' thing far enough?" demanded Isabel sarcastically.
"Uh..." Max had the grace to blush slightly. "Maybe I wanted a make-over, too?"
**********
Maria nervously bussed some tables from the lunch crowd. It was nearly time for the dinner staff to arrive, and for the first time in a week she and Michael had overlapping shifts. With her new look hair - well let's say she wasn't looking forward to the scathing comments that might be made about it. Michael might not be talking to her, but he certainly could make his point well enough.
"Maria?" came Alex's shocked voice. "Is that you under that, that..."
p
"It's called hair, Alex. What do you think of the new me?"
"You... you look like that girl on TV," he stammered.
Maria grinned in amusement. "That girl on TV? There's only one girl on TV?"
"You know that one on...oh, I can't remember. That girly show by The WB you and Liz are always making me watch."
"So, we were discussing my new hair Alex. You liked the 'before'. Do you like the 'after' as least as much?"
"I like you anyway, Maria," Alex said simply. "But your new look is going to appeal to Michael. A lot. You look fantastic."
Maria stared at him, speechlessly for a moment. "So what can I get you? The usual? And who said I was doing this for that pig headed Czechoslovakian anyway?"
**********
Michael flipped some rapidly blackening burger patties on the grill. Ok, he might be the least 'Sensitive New Age Guy' in the group, which wasn't surprising considering his foster father had been the neighbourhoods' notoriously worst beer guzzling macho man. But that didn't mean he was blind. Maria had done something with her hair, something that made his memory bring up half forgotten images of dancing blond curls. Memories that made his fingers ache to reach out and tug.
The thing that irked Michael the most was that Maria wasn't talking to him, except to place an order. Usually he had to try and shut out the almost constant sound of her yabbering on at him, but today it was almost as if she was waiting for ihim/i to say something. What was it she wanted him to say?
Maria's voice interrupted him. "Two more burgers, Michael. And could you at least try not to over cook these ones?"
Michael slapped two more patties on the grill. "What did you do to your hair?"
"What? Did Michael Guerin actually talk to me? What do you think I did to my hair?"
"It looks different."
"It is different. Now let me get back to work."
Michael pondered over what had changed. He mechanically made plates of fries and onion rings, and thought perhaps it was a different colour.
He began to scrape the grill while Maria closed up for the night out front, and thought that maybe it had a bit more curl.
He began to get his gear from his locker and finally decided that perhaps it was the length that had changed. But how could hair grow that much longer in a week?
"It's longer isn't it?" Michael said abruptly as she lingered by her locker. "How could it get so long, so quick?"
Maria rolled her eyes. "It took you long enough. Alex noticed right away."
"Yeah, well not all of us are in tune with our feminine sides to the extent we're hardly a guy anymore."
"Oh forget it, Michael. Were you even going to tell me if you liked it? Isabel spent a lot of time getting this to look right."
"Isabel did?"
"Well Max helped with the finishing touches. He's the one who got the curl to stay in the ends."
**********
Max opened the front door to a raging Maria Deluca. As she brushed by him into the house he caught a muttered commentary of what sounded like, "stupid spacebutt machista dorkbrain."
"Maria?"
"So is it a generalized Czechoslovakian failing, or is he just suffering from being male? You'd think he'd have picked up a few ideas by now."
"Maria?" Max tried again.
"I mean Isabel surely pummelled some manners into the both of you. Yours took, so why not his?" Maria degenerated into Spanish from there on.
"Maria?" Max decided that whatever was troubling Maria needed a female mind to sort it out. Well, either that or Alex. "Isabel!" he called, as Maria continued to rant and gesture. He had a bad feeling that he needed to get out of the way in a hurry before Maria turned on him as the guilty party for whatever sin had been committed. 'Girlfriend' or not, he was still essentially male. And he really didn't want another 'make-over' like they'd done to him the other night.
"What is it, Max? I'm drying my hair." Isabel's voice drifted down the stairs.
"Do it the quick way. Can you get down here?"
Maria rounded to face Max. "So what is it with you guys anyway? Do. You. Do. It. On. Purpose?" Each point was punctuated by a finger poked in his chest.
At the final poke Maria's hand was grasped from behind. "He might only be a guy, Maria, but he does make a good hot chocolate. Kitchen, Max. Now. And get some ice cream too." Isabel used her best drill sergeant voice.
"So what's happened?" Isabel asked as she lead Maria up to her room and closed the door. "What has Michael been up to?"
"Who said anything about Michael?"
"Please, Maria. He's the only thing that can get you in such a tizzy. You were even hitting Max!"
"He didn't even notice. It took him all afternoon to figure out something was different about me! The guy obviously comes from faulty genetic material."
Isabel raised a perfect eyebrow.
"Oh, sorry."
"I'll let it slide this time. So basically he didn't fall in love with your hair at first sight?"
"Hello? What else did God give him eyes for? Oh, I forgot. God didn't do it... some little green men did. Well they left something out of the recipe when they were cooking him up!" Maria started rummaging through Isabel's lipstick colours. "You know, the praying mantis has the right idea. After they mate, the female bites off the male's head..."
"Maria! You and Michael didn't, you haven't... you aren't...?!" Isabel interrupted.
"What? Oh, no we haven't 'mated'. But the praying mantis idea still rocks. You know," mused Maria, "Michael could be useful in the freezer feeding us. Spaceboy Steak, Cootiebreath Coldcuts. We could serve him up at the Crashdown. Now that'd be ironic, an alien themed restaurant with real alien on it's menu."
**********
The motorcycle zoomed along the highway before coming to a halt nowhere in particular. Michael swung off, picked up a nearby stone and flung it into the distance.
"Damn, why does she have to get to me like that?" Michael shoved his hands in his pockets and scuffed at the dirt beneath his feet. What he needed was some male bonding. With someone who knew how Maria's mind worked. Alex? Nah, he'd take Maria's side in a second. Max. Yeah, Max would know what was going on in her feeble little mind. Even if he was turning into a wuss who played with hair. Come to think of it, Isabel had obviously created all that blond hair out of a few of Maria's brain cells. With that thought in mind, Michael threw another stone and headed of to the Evan's house.
The windows were closed. What family in New Mexico had their windows closed in summer? Michael didn't feel like going through the front door; questions from parents were not something he felt equipped to deal with at this time. He stalked around the house. Wait there was one. He clambered up and swung through the window .... to come face to face with a very surprised Max.
"Uh, Michael, I know we talk in the bathroom all the time at school. But a guy likes to have a little privacy in his own home."
"Yeah, whatever Maxwell." Michael dropped beside the toilet and walked toward the door. "I'll wait in the kitchen."
"Could you make a couple of mugs of hot chocolate while you wait?" called Max after him.
Michael viciously stirred the mugs of hot chocolate. Max was obviously spending too much time with Maria. First he curled her hair, and now he expected Michael to chat over hot chocolate. The guy needed to get a life. Maybe a subscription to Maxim would help.
"What did the chocolate do to you?" Max grinned as he saw the mugs stirred to almost tidal wave proportions. "No! Tabasco sauce in just one of them."
Michael looked at Max in surprise. "Since when did you stop having tabasco, cause I sure as hell hope you don't expect me to drink it without."
"That's for Maria."
"I should have known she'd come blabbing to you."
"Well at least I talk back."
Michael watched as Max carried hot chocolate and tubs of ice cream upstairs. Maria had taken over the only sanctuary he had. It was going to be a long summer.
The End