Disclaimers: WHOOOOO HOOOO! Here we are, kids! Chapter 13! What's that about? My supposed 'one hit fic' which is what the bet was, has turned into an epic! And nothing has even happened yet! Haha. Again, thanks for the wicked reviews, and…oh yeah, the reason for disclaimers- I own nuttin. Nuttin at all! Enjoy!
Chapter Thirteen
So Moira sat, and watched out the window until long after Jack had disappeared from view. The door opened, and her mother swept in, breaking her thoughts.
"Oh, Moira, you're home. Wonderful, just the girl I wanted to speak with."
"As opposed to the plethora of girls around me?" Moira asked, surprising herself with her sarcasm.
"There's no need for wit. I have to speak with you."
"Sorry, Mother, what is it?"
"I've just met with our accountant. Would you like to hear what he told me?" Kathryn asked, then, without waiting, continued. "He told me that you seem to have expended most of your personal finances. And, my understanding is, that you did it in quite a short time." Moira jaw hung open. "Would you like to tell me how you did that?"
"Well, Mother…the funny thing about that is…." She trailed off, not knowing what to say. She was broke. Flat broke.
"IT'S GONE MOIRA! ALL OF YOUR MONEY IS GONE!" Kathryn yelled, standing over her daughter. "HOW DID YOU GO FROM A BANK STATEMENT OF OVER FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS TO A TOTAL OF THREE DOLLARS AND TWENTY NINE CENTS?" She asked, her face turning red.
"I had things that I needed to take care of."
"Well, if that's your answer, I would like you to take care of something else now. You will be getting a job. And no, I am not referring to that…house that you call your place of employment, I mean a real job. A teaching job, if at all possible. Do you understand?" Moira looked at the ground,
"Yes, ma'am." She whispered softly.
"Good, now go and get ready."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, Moira dear, you may be poor, but I'm not going to let you starve." Her mother scoffed, sighing. "Go on, wear that lovely blue dress. You look so nice in blue." She told her, as a way of smoothing over whatever hung in the air between them. Moira said nothing, but made her way back to her room to get ready for dinner.
"So, Moira, darling, what on Earth happened between you and dear Jonathan?" Elizabeth Darcy, a girl a few years older then Moira, asked gaily over coffee that evening. Elizabeth was a beautiful girl with absolutely no talent in anything. She was rather dim witted and content to live the rest of her life with the upper class, filling her time with dinners and parties. Moira despised Elizabeth Darcy.
Still, she put on a false smile and sipped her own cup of coffee. "Well, Elizabeth, darling, I wasn't quite ready to surrender all of my freedom to a man who has the personality of a doorknob." Kathryn glared at her from across the table. Moira paid no attention and went back to sipping her coffee, while Elizabeth looked confused.
"Well, you were the talk of the town for quite awhile. Unmarried, working at some kind of run down lodging house for…what was it? Oh yes, newsboys! The rumors we were hearing! The Bailey girl! Working with newsboys! Thank God they're not true!" Elizabeth's mother, Annabelle, who was just a foul, cackled in a loud voice. Moira felt her cheeks turn pink, but said nothing. Mrs. Darcy sobered and eyed her. "They're aren't true, are they?" Annabelle demanded, glancing around the table, the finally at Kathryn, who had become suddenly interested with her utensils. "Oh, goodness! They are!" She exclaimed, dabbing tears from her eyes in laughter. When she finally calmed down, Elizabeth leaned forward.
"Do you really?" She asked, interested.
"Yes, I do."
"What on Earth would possess you to do that?" Annabelle asked, making Kathryn want to sink into her chair as the Darcy's interrogated her daughter.
"Well, I started there in August, because my grandfather needed my help. But since he's past away, I haven't found the heart to leave them."
"What do you do?" Elizabeth asked, concerned.
"I do all sorts of office work, and I occasionally help with the cleaning and washing. You can't expect boys to do it all, can you?" Moira laughed, trying to make a joke. No one laughed, just stared at her like she was some kind of alien life form.
"That must be horrible! Those boys are filthy! They drink, smoke, steal, lie…just menaces to society. Kathryn, how do you allow such things like that?" Mrs. Darcy asked, as Moira boiled inside. "Those boys…."
"Perhaps we can marry her off to one of them!" Elizabeth crowed, sending the entire table into a fit of laughter as Moira faked a smile.
"Well, actually, Liz, being married to one of those boys as you refer to them, would probably be one of the best things that could happen to me. You see, unlike anyone in your social circle, the people I surround myself with have personalities. They actually enjoy their lives, something that it completely beyond your comprehension." Moira stated calmly, putting down her fork.
"I- I enjoy my life." Elizabeth stammered, taken aback. The table grew silent.
"No, you don't. You may tolerate you life, because you're comfortable and it's all you know, but trust me, once you had a taste of life outside of society, you wouldn't want to go back. And when you were forced to, you would feel like a prisoner." The young woman stood up, glaring at everyone, gathered her things together, and left the restaurant.
As she walked back to her apartment, the sky opened up and it began to snow. Moira sighed; pulled her coat tighter around her and picked up the pace a bit. Still raging from dinner, she went over, in her mind, what had been said, and just when she had snapped.
"That must be horrible! Those boys are filthy!" That was when she had begun to come unwound. The nerve of that awful Mrs. Darcy. She didn't know the newsies; she didn't realize that they were filthy because they only had enough running water for them to take one bath a week. How dare she make such uneducated remarks about them! Moira surprised herself with how upset she had gotten. The comment about marriage was uncalled for as well. Stupid Elizabeth Darcy. Engaged to some baron over in England. Stupid England. She thought, trudging along through the snow. Her thoughts were juvenile and childish, but Moira didn't care.
She was just plain sick. Sick of everything. Sick of plastering on fake smiles and feigning happiness. Sick of people asking what was to become of her. Sick of thinking about marriage. Sick of her mother and all of her friends who laughed the same, talked the same, thought the same, and were basically the same person, just in different forms. She was sick of dealing with people who broke their heads worrying about whether to wear Italian silk shoes with a French made dress. She was sick of Italian silk and French designers. But out of all of these things, Moira was sick of not knowing what she wanted from life anymore.
When she was at the university, her life had been so well planned, so clearly laid out in front of her. Then her father had died. And she then moved to New York after graduating. Then her grandfather died. And then she ran out of money. And now, here she was, freezing, ruining her Italian silk shoes as she shuffled through the snow. Yes, things had turned out just swimmingly. Moira huffed and picked up the pace, getting home just as the snow really began coming down.
She made herself some tea, filled the tub with steaming hot water and lilac bath oil that someone had brought her from Europe, got out of her cold clothing, and sank into the bubbles, ready to relax. The only thing that made her smile about the whole ruined evening, was that across town, Jack was proposing to Sarah. Moira smiled at the thought of how Sarah's eyes would light up, and how Jack would be smiling as they walked back to the Jacob's apartment to tell them the good news.
"Well, congratulations." She told the empty room. Moira was happy for them, she really was. But her happiness would be much easier to achieve if her life wasn't such a royal mess.
***
The next day, Jack ducked his head in around noon, grinning like an idiot, with a pile of papers under his arm. Moira raised her eyebrows,
"Well…?"
"She said 'yes'." He told her, smiling from ear to ear. She came around the desk and gave him a hug.
"I knew she would. Congratulations."
"Oh, and dat play. Sarah really liked dat play."
"I'm glad. What did you think of it?"
"Eh- I seen bettah." Moira rolled her eyes, and went back to her post on the other side of the counter. She looked at the newspapers he carried, dug into her purse for a penny, and tossed it to him.
"May I have one of those?" She asked, thinking about the employment section. Jack shrugged and gave it to her before saying goodbye and heading back on his rounds.
An hour or so later, Racetrack came back, surprising the young office girl. He explained that he had stuck to Manhattan today, instead of heading out to Sheepshead. Race looked around the office, noticing that Moira had newspaper spread all over the place, with big circles spotted all over the page.
"Whaddya doin' Moira?" He asked, raising an eyebrow. She glanced up and sighed.
"Trying to find a job."
"But ya gotta job."
"Tell that to my mother."
"Nah, dat's all right. Your mudda…she's scary." Moira giggled and went back to looking at the columns and columns of potential jobs. She had been wrong last night, her life wasn't a complete mess, she still had the newsies.
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Yeah, that was another random. I don't know what's going on with me lately. Anywho- I hoped ya liked it! Thanks again for the reviews- keep 'em comin'! HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT!
