Chapter 9
Anita
Santos walked into the fitness center, looked around briefly and then
marched up to the front desk.
A tall, athletic looking woman came out of the office, held out her hand, "Welcome to Workout City. My name is Katja and I'll be your host for today. Are you looking to join or try out our free guest pass?"
Shaking the woman's hand, Anita smiled and looked up at the prices, "Um, I was thinking of joining. My sister belongs and she's told me really good things about it."
"That's great." Katja said as she reached for a sign-up form, "Here, fill this out and I'll show you around."
Anita took the form, walked over to a small counter and began filling it out.
"Hey there." A voice said from a distance.
Turning towards the voice, Anita was surprised to see Maggie walking her way, "Hi Maggie. Are you here for a workout?"
"Yep, I've got some frustration I need to work out." Maggie said with a grin.
"I can relate to that." Anita smiled, "If you give me a minute we could workout together."
Maggie sat down her gym bag and stepped up beside Anita, "Sure, that would be good. Another tough day at the hospital?"
"Partly, but I'm still trying to deal with a bombshell my sister dropped on me the other day. It's not so much tension, but shock and surprise that I'm here to work off."
"I see, well, I can relate to sister problems." Maggie said, remembering all the times her and Frankie used to butt heads.
"Oh, you have a sister? Does she live here in Pine Valley?" Anita asked as she finished filling out the form.
"Well, she used to." Maggie
said softly, "She died a couple years ago, but we used be real
close, but we also drove each other crazy. A gym would've been a
great place to work it all out."
Anita felt awful,
reached out, and put her hand on Maggie's arm, "Oh, I'm sorry,
I didn't know."
"It's okay, it brings back good memories." Maggie said with a smile, "Anyway, are you and your sister close?"
"I guess we are." Anita nodded with a smile as she handed her form to Katja and then turned back to Maggie, "Now that I'm back in Pine Valley at least. She's a doctor…I don't remember if you've met her or not, Maria Santos?"
Maggie waited for Anita to get her membership and then led the way to the changing rooms, "Yes, but I don't really know her."
Anita and Maggie entered the locker room and were surprised to see Babe standing half-naked as she got into her workout outfit.
Babe turned to see the two women staring at her and quickly pulled a top on and smiled back at them, "Hi, I was just getting ready for a workout, as you could see."
"Yes, we're here for the same reason. Would you like to join us?" Anita said, not thinking to check it with Maggie first.
"Well sure, I'd love that." Babe smiled, pulling up her tight leotard.
Maggie smiled as she walked past Babe, put down her bag and opened up a locker in front of her. Anita did the same. The two women changed into their workout outfits and the three of them walked back out into the sparsely crowded gym.
They began with some mild
stretching, which included some interesting conversations about
Bianca.
"I hear you're going out with Bianca?"
Babe asked sweetly.
"Yes, we are together and doing great." Maggie quickly replied, "Unfortunately, Erica is trying to change all that. Has she approached you about possibly asking Bianca to the big gala next week?"
"Actually she did bring that up just yesterday." Babe said, stretching from side to side as Anita looked on, "I just didn't feel right about it since Bianca is your girlfriend, so I declined Erica's offer."
"Isn't that honorable of you." Maggie said with a forced smile, "So, if I wasn't with Maggie would you have asked Bianca out?"
Babe paused for a moment, looked at Anita and then back at Maggie, "I don't know. I hadn't thought about it."
Maggie smiled, at Babe's carefully chosen response and then turned to Anita, "How about you, I'm pretty sure Erica has approached you about the very same thing."
"I did the same thing as Babe; I politely declined since I knew the two of you were still together." Anita said, standing up and walking over to the stationary bikes and hopped on.
"No, actually I wondered if you'd ever ask her out." Maggie explained, trying to get an idea where they both stood on the Bianca situation.
"I guess to be honest I'd say yes." Anita said, looking over at Babe as she continued, "She's such a nice person, she's beautiful, talented and I think you're lucky to be with her."
"Yes, I am lucky." Maggie nodded as she picked up the pace on the bike.
"Who are you going to the gala with Anita?" Babe asked, taking a break from peddling to listen to Anita.
"Well, Bobby wanted to take me, but I don't think that's going to happen, so I don't know if I'll be going now. Why, aren't you going with JR?"
"No way, he's still trying to keep me from Bess. I'm pretty sure he's only being nice for appearance sake. When I'm alone with him, he doesn't hide his feelings for me and it only shows me how stupid I was to marry him in the first place." Babe said, unable to peddle as she put her head down on the speedometer.
"You shouldn't be so hard on yourself." Anita said, stepping off her stationary bike to comfort Babe.
Maggie followed, "I agree with Anita, you need to concentrate on the future and making sure you are not shut out of Bess' life. I hope you have a good lawyer, because going up against the Chandler's isn't going to be easy."
Babe sat up and smiled at her two newest supporters, "Thanks you two. I don't feel so alone anymore."
"Good, because you're not." Anita said, taking Babe's hand and helping her off the bike, "Listen, what you need is a long hot sauna to take your mind of this for awhile. Why don't we check out some of the other equipment, have ourselves a nice workout and then hit the sauna?"
"That sounds great." Babe said with a relieved sigh.
"I'd love to, but I'm meeting Bianca for dinner, so I'll have to take a rain check. You two have fun though." Maggie smiled, waved and walked back into the locker room.
Anita watched Maggie leave and then turned to Babe, "I guess it's just you and me now."
"Yep it is." Babe smiled, "So why don't you tell me a bit about yourself."
Anita moved over to the corner of the gym, sat down on one of the soft cushions and the two girls talked about everything from their childhoods, to their families to what they want from the future.
Pine Valley Hospital
Greenlee and Kendall opened the door to find Simone lying in bed with her foot elevated and Mia by her side.
"Is that as bad as it looks?" Greenlee said as she moved in for a closer look.
"They just took some x-rays so I'll know in a few minutes if it's serious or just a bad sprain." Simone said clutching her leg for maximum effect.
Kendall walked over to and sat down on the edge of the bed, "This is all very fascinating. I'm sure Simone will survive a boo boo on her leg or ankle or wherever, but our company is in turmoil and we've just been given some kind of bizarre proposal from Ryan and I want to find out what that's all about, so if Simone could stop whining for just one minute, we could get these proposals read and find out what to do next."
Greenlee gave Kendall a tap on the shoulder and a look of disbelief as she shook her head, "Kendall, can't you see that Simone is in pain? I think we have a few minutes to spare, so let's make sure she's okay and then deal with the other stuff."
Simone sat up and looked at Kendall with a
slight grin, "Well, it's good to know you are looking out for
Fusion. I'll try and keep my whining down to a minimum since I do
want to know what Ryan has to do with all this."
Mia
wasn't so amused by Kendall's lack of tact, "You know you can
be very cold sometimes and I think you should apologize to Simone for
your comments. She is not a whiner at all, she's in serious pain,
now say you're sorry."
"Oh god, okay, I'm sorry Simone." Kendall said as she smiled at Simone and then looked back at Mia, "There, can we get on with this now?"
"Yes we can." Mia smiled and sat back down beside Simone.
"Good." Kendall sighed and then pulled out two envelope's and handed them to Mia and Simone.
It was then that Mia noticed the four women standing in the doorway, "Who are they?"
Greenlee turned and waved at the women and then smiled back at Mia and Simone, "Oh, that's all part of Ryan's game. They are here to make sure we don't open these envelopes unless we are alone."
"I see." Simone asked, holding up her
envelope to the light and hoping to see inside.
"Well do you
have any idea what these are about?"
"My guess is they are pure and simple bribery. He will offer us each something he hopes we can't refuse in order to divide and conquer. I say we reject them all without reading them." Kendall stated emphatically as she tossed her envelope to the floor.
"I don't think it's going to be that simple." Greenlee added, "I do agree he will use Fusion against us somehow, but I think he's going to offer each of us the chance to be CEO of Fusion, but at the expense of the others, but I don't think any of us would take an offer that excludes the other, right?"
Greenlee didn't realize it but she ended her question looking right at Kendall, but the irony wasn't lost on Simone or Mia as they could see Kendall begin to turn red instantly.
"What the hell is this?" Kendall yelled as she rushed over and got in Greenlee's face, "You think I'd sell you out? Still? After all this time, you still don't trust me? Well, that's just great. I can't say it's a surprise though. I always knew it was too good to be true and the first chance you had you'd turn on me. Well, that's fine. I'm out of here!"
Kendall turned, grabbed her purse from the bed and turned to walk out the door, but was quickly stopped by Greenlee, who had a firm grip on her arm. "Okay, normally I'd get mad and offended that you'd think I didn't trust you, but I can see, well sort of anyway, how you could make such a drastic assumption about me."
"If that's an apology it's not a very good one." Kendall smirked, and then slid her hand over Greenlee's, "Okay, I can see that I might have overreacted just a little, but it's habit."
"I understand completely, but let's make a pact to stop doing this to each other." Greenlee said, half-joking and half-serious.
"Count me in." Kendall nodded and gave Greenlee big hug.
Mia squeezed Simone's hand as she watched her two friends hug, "Now that you two have kissed and made up, let's go off into separate rooms, read these silly proposals and get this over with. We need to keep Ryan from splitting us up."
"I agree, let's do this and we can get on with our plans for Fusion." Simone said, anxious to read what Ryan had in mind for her.
Greenlee was just as anxious to read her little proposal, "Okay, why don't we go back to our apartments, send our answer to Ryan and then meet back at Simone's room in the morning?"
"I'm all for it." Mia added.
Simone and Kendall nodded agreement and the four women had a group hug and set off to discover what Ryan had planned for them.
End of Part 9.
Okay, to those who are reading this story I would like to say sorry it's been so long to get another chapter up and posted, but I've had mega computer problems, some real life situations to deal with, but I'm ready to continue on with this story.
Obviously, a lot has
changed in the past year, with Mia, Maggie and Bianca all leaving the
show, plus I do believe Maria is leaving as well, so the question is,
what to do about all these changes.
I've decided
to keep Maggie and Bianca as they are a big part of why this story
was created in the first place, but I will find ways to have Mia and
Maria leave and include the new characters Amanda, Di and Julia
Santos. I'm not sure of the status of Natalia Cigliuti who plays
Anita either. I know she's pregnant in real life, but I've heard
rumors she may not be returning, so I may wait until I find out more
news before including her any further.
As for the story itself, I will continue on as if 6 months had passed and the current time frame will be June 205. The story with Ryan and the Fusion girls will be resolved, but the rest of the stories won't really be affected as there were no time specific storylines in place. Mia's departure will be explained as will Maria's.
On a side note, but for those who happen to watch the other two ABC soaps, I've decided to do something similar with GH and OLTL. Although, for whatever reason there seem to be less women on both those shows to work with, so I was thinking of combing both shows and see how that goes.
I've actually started the GH story and have quite a bit written already, but when I tried to do OLTL, there just seemed to be very few options, so I decided to move a handful of female characters from Landview to Port Charles and have them interact with the women there. I can't take all the characters from OLTL, so if I don't include a favorite of yours, I am sorry. I can say that I plan to include, Jessica and Natalie Buchanan, Adrianna and Evangeline. They will be added after the first couple chapters.
I guess what I'm asking is are any of you interested in a GH/OLTL hybrid soap story similar to the AMC one you're reading? If so, I'd really like it if you could send an e-mail at saying a simple yes you'd like to read it. I'm not asking for anything else, just something that gives me an idea as to whether there is an interest in a story like this.
End of Chapter 9
Thanks again for reading.
Buffyaith19
