Title: One Year Anniversary
Author: Stress
First written: April 18, 2002-May 12, 2002
Edited and replaced: August 9, 2005
Summary: Part III of the Soul Mates Series; When Jack and Stress reach their first year anniversary, Stress tells a friend the story about how they almost didn't get together at all.
. August 3rd 1899 .
On the way to the Bottle Alley Lodging House
"Oh, Grace, I'm so nervous. What if he laughs in me face? Or worse, what if he cries? I can't go through with this," Stress said fiddling with her black suspenders as she turned to face her companion, a shorter girl with waist-length blonde hair and bright blue eyes.
"Don't worry, you got all day to tell him. First ya have to introduce me to all of ya friends, especially this Gip ya keep talking about," Grace responded as she smoothed a wrinkle out of her red undershirt. "The best way to persuade someone to do something," she thought to herself, "is to pretend like it ain't no big deal."
"O.K., well here's the lodging house. Home sweet home," Stress said, pointing at a sign that read "The Bottle Alley Lodging House". Both girls began to giggle as they entered through the door and ran past Mrs. Cook, the owner of the house, galloped up the stairs and skipped into the bunkroom.
Upon entering, Stress and Grace saw twelve girls all sitting around, talking and looking quite serious. One of the girls, a fairly tall girl with pale skin, freckles, long blonde hair and bright blue eyes, noticed the pair as they entered and jumped up to give Stress a hug, with the rest of the group quickly following suit.
Stress laughed as she fell over, not prepared for the body weight of eleven girls to be thrown at her. "It's nice to see you too."
"Guys, let's let her get up so that we're can here all about her adventures in Queens. And look, she even brought a little tag-along back here with her." Another girl, shorter, with dark brown hair falling about an inch below her ears, laughed wickedly as her hazel eyes twinkled.
Stress gave her a playful shove while speaking to Grace. "Don't pay any attention to her. That's Bookie, Racetrack's girl. Now before I go through the rest of the introductions, girls, this is Grace. She's gonna be living with us for a while. Now, Grace, I'm gonna introduce you to the girls now. Pay attention to who goes with what guy cause ya gotta respect the relationships around here, k? Good. This girl right here is Stripes and Spot belongs to her."
"Aww, Stress. Ya know as well as I do that Conlon don't belong to no one but himself. I just have the honor of being his girl," said a girl dressed all in black with chin length blonde hair, as everyone around her laughed at her sarcastic nature.
"Whatever ya say, Stripes. Grace, this girl next to Stripes is Mushie. You'll be able to remember who her guy is real easy. Ya see, her guy's name is Mush."
A younger looking girl ,with medium length brown hair and big brown eyes, giggled. "Ain't it cute? Race gave me the name when I first came to New York and spent all of me time trying to get Mush to notice me. He thought I was like a girl version of Mush and began to call me Mushie and the name just stuck."
Stress pointed at three similiar sized girls sitting on the same bunk - a fair-skinned girl with long black hair and dark brown eyes, a tan girl with brown hair with blonde and red streaks pulled back in a braid, and a girl with dull blue eyes and long, wavy, dirty blonde hair. "This is Wish, she goes with Skittery... Slash , Dutchy's girl... and Blaze, she's dating Bumlets. Ya wanna watch out for Blaze, cause she's always stealing people's hats."
While Wish and Slash both grinned and said hello to Grace, Blaze proudly stood and said, "I have about twenty-five hats in me collection so far. The first hat in me collection is Bumlets. That's how I met him ya know."
The twelve other girls in the lodging house (all but Grace) groaned and said, "We know!".
Blaze sat back down and began to pout. "Well, Grace didn't know."
Ignoring Blaze, Stress continued. "Now then we have a group here in the house that we call the 'Singles'. We have Midnight..," she said pointing to a medium sized girl with thick brown hair pulled back from her face in a ponytail, "...Skitterina, but we call her Reeny..," now pointing to a girl with short auburn hair and hazel-green eyes, "...Bittah..," a girl with green eyes and short, straight blonde hair tucked under a grey cap looked up and smiled at Grace, "...Holiday..," Stress continued pointing to a girl with tan skin, emerald eyes and long, wavy, chestnut hair, "...and last but not least, Gypsy, also known as Gip." The tallest girl in the room, with an olive skin tone, bold, dark blue eyes and long, wavy, dark hair, got up and clapped Grace on the shoulder.
Grace, taken aback by Gip's gesture, quickly recovered and asked, "Why are you called the 'Singles'?".
Before anyone had a chance to answer her question, Stress cut in. "It's 'cause none of them have a permanent guy, that's why."
Gip countered, her bold eyes flashing. "That's why you the leader of the 'Singles' in our lodging house, eh, Stress?"
Stress made an over exaggerated "Shhh!" motion. "What are ya trying to do Gip? Embarrass me in front of all of the girls?" she asked giggling along with the rest of the girls in the room. "Now, I think I introduced you to everyone--"
"Hey, Stress. How could ya forget your best friend?"
"Just seeing if you were paying attention. Grace, this wacky girl who launched the attack on us when we entered the room is Martini. She goes with Blink. See the hat she's wearing? She stole it from him."
Martini took a bow as Blaze said loudly as she stood up again, "I taught her to do that, ya know."
Now all thirteen of the girls in the lodging house (this time including Grace) said in unison,"We know!"
As Blaze sat down next to Slash again on the bunk, Grace continued to stand by the door, her head spinning from all of the introductions. What Stress said next didn't help at all. "Now I'm gonna take you down to meet the guys and learn which guy belongs to which girl. Any of you wanna come?" Stress asked the other girls.
"Nah, we're good. See ya later Stress. We really did miss ya," said Holiday as the other girls all called out their goodbyes and waved Stress and Grace off. Stress laughed as she grabbed the hand of an unwilling-to-move Grace and began to drag her out of the lodging house.
As soon as they were sure that they were gone, the other girls rekindled the conversation they were having when Stress and Grace walked in.
"Do ya think we should 've told her?" asked Stripes for the hundredth time since the strike had ended two weeks earlier.
"No, not at all. I'm sure she's gonna want to here the news from Jack himself," answered Slash, hitting her hand against the edge of the bunk she was sitting on, for emphasis.
"I hope that you're right," added Reeny, not sounding at all convinced.
"Well, just to be on the safe side, I'm gonna go tell Race. You guys know what a big mouth he has. He'll be sure to tell Jack that Stress is back in town. At least this'll prepare him a little. Remember, our number one goal is to make sure that none of our girls get hurt. Us girls always come first before the guys, right?" asked Bookie, making sure that none of the girls was going to give her a hard time about tipping Jack off. She couldn't wait to see him squirm. She was extremely pleased when every girl in the bunkroom nodded enthusiastically and replied, "Right!"