Disclaimer is back in Chapter One, but I'll reiterate that I don't own any character from the show "CSI."
Well, guys, I'm going on vacation for a week, so I thought I'd post the next TWO sections of the story! This one's just a short one that I thought would help explain the girls' differing reactions to their mother's illness. Enjoy! As always, please read and review!
"I think they'll be nice," Jules stared at her reflection in the mirror. She could see Grace's reflection too. Her twin was sitting on her bed, lazily reading a magazine and humming to the Alicia Keys songs that were lilting into the room. "Don't you? I mean, don't you think they'll be nice? It's a small school. The principal and everyone seemed friendly. And the girls on the swim team are quite nice. It's weird, of course, I'll give you that, but I think they'll be nice. Don't you think so? They certainly did seem very nice."
"Yeah, they did." Grace crossed to her white Victorian vanity to get a nail polish. "They'll be nice. Quit flipping. Is nail polish on the list of banned items on the dress code?"
"As long as it's nude or pale it's okay." Jules lifted an eyelid and peered forward to check her eyebrows. "It'll be different, of course."
"Yeah—Hilliard we had over 600 in our class. There's only about eighty here. That's downright tiny."
"Well, yeah—and it will be different since we're the new kids. We've never been the new kids before."
"I'm sure we'll have people other than each other to sit with at lunch, if you're worried about that."
Jules stared at the Renoir above the desk; it was too misty and blurry and pastelly for her, but it was one of her sister's favorites. (Jules preferred Van Gogh.) "Yeah, I agree with you there. But I'm not worried. I think we'll be fine. The only thing that sucks is that we can't be the things we were going to be at Hilliard."
Grace's brow furrowed, "What do you mean?"
"Like, I was going to edit the yearbook. You were going to be the featured artist in that exhibition at the Monaco and the captain of the tennis team and everything. Now we've got to restart. And, we won't be invited to the class reunions at Hilliard and those are the people we've known since before kindergarten. Those are the ones I might have cared how they turned out."
Grace lazily raised an eyebrow. "Jules, you've said a million times how you're only going back to reunions to brag and how irritating high school can be."
"Well, yeah. I thought it was hard last year. It's just so little—and small-minded. It's almost easier to go into this one open-minded. I don't care what they think of me. I mean, look at it. We've got more important things happening this year."
"I wish you wouldn't phrase it like that." Grace said, after a beat. She carefully rearranged her perfume bottles and blush brushes.
"Sorry." Jules said after a pause. "Which uniform are you wearing tomorrow?"
"I don't know. I can't believe they expect long-sleeved uniforms in August in Vegas. I'm more after a tank top and jeans."
"Yeah—well. I think I'm going to wear the wraparound skirt and the Oxford shirt. I think I might pretend I live in Newport and tie the sweater around my shoulders."
"I was thinking the pleated with the blazer. Might as well deck out for the first day."
"Yeah. I think we'll be okay, don't you?" Jules bit her nail.
Her twin looked exasperated. "Yeah. We'll be fine. What time does Jessie get here tomorrow morning?"
"About ten, I think. We're already at school." Jules flopped down backwards onto Grace's bed. "Did they start school back at Hilliard already?"
Her sister flopped down next to her, hands folded over her abdomen. "Yeah. They started Wednesday. We always started Wednesday, remember?"
"Did you talk to Jonathon about it?" She knew that her sister and her ex-boyfriend had been drifting a little, despite all efforts to remain close. She was unsure how to address it—she'd never had a boyfriend. She'd figured it was because she was more aggressive and very loud and intimidating around others, and yet very timid about breaking away from her mold and letting any other side of her show. She liked people to come to her and didn't like to make herself known to guys. And, if she was interested in a guy, her analytic-ness usually talked her out of it before anything could happen. Grace was much more laid-back and open to anything, though she wasn't nearly as high-profile since she didn't care about joining everything and being in charge of everything and being impressive. She just was impressive naturally. Grace never made anything out to be a bigger deal than it actually was; she just did what she needed to do with a cool, calm exterior. Jules did care about others' thoughts, a lot. Also, Grace was the prettier twin, though Jules knew that she wasn't unattractive.
Grace pulled a face. "Nah. We've just been emailing. Caroline told me he was sort of seeing this junior, Annabeth."
"Grace?" Jules rolled her head so she could see her sister's profile.
"Yeah?"
"Do you think it's weird—how in about two weeks we've managed to pretty much pull completely out of their lives?"
"You honestly think it's only been these past two weeks? Just having Mom get sick pulled us away from them." Grace swallowed as Jules started to cry softly. "Mom getting sick made us not normal. Leaving was almost a blessing. It's a cleaner delineation from everybody else. It will let us feel separated without feeling guilty for not fulfilling our obligations. It's just sort of a suspended year before college. And besides," she added hastily after seeing her sister's face, "It's not like we're totally out of their lives. I'm sure whenever we go back we can call them up to catch up, and we'll still email. I mean, you email Liz and Courtney pretty often, even if it's just to say 'hi' and it's not like we're not all going to separate colleges next year, and then they'll all drift, too."
"It's still weird," Jules insisted. She sniffled hard before continuing, "I mean, where do we call home come next year—here, where we graduated high school, or in California, where we spent our whole lives? And the rest of them will be coming home to familiar places for things like Homecoming and Thanksgiving and Christmas. Where will we go? We live in a place we don't call home. At Thanksgivings, and family things—we won't have any of those for the rest of our adult lives? All those things like family weddings and big Christmas celebrations and everything—we won't have those."
"Jules! Knock it off! Life in California was not perfect. And we never had any of those things. It was always you, me, and Mom. I mean, we sometimes had the uncles and grandma and grandpa—but hardly ever. When was the last time we saw Uncle Dan and his kids? About four years ago. Uncle Doug—we saw him at Christmas our freshman year. Life wasn't perfect, or even great most of the time. It was just ordinary. And, calling places home? We weren't going to come back for things like Homecoming anyways. You want to go to the University of Pennsylvania or Columbia, and I'll be somewhere like Duke or Cornell if I'm lucky. We weren't going to come back. And we'd always talked about doing internships in the summer and being grown ups. This year's already going to be so sucky—don't make it worse by kvetching about how perfect life used to be."
"We still had Mom, though." Jules whispered. Her sister didn't answer her.
Sara knocked on the door before popping her head in. "Hey. It's about dinner time—what would you guys like?"
They looked at each other. "Let's try Chinese takeout tonight. I'm feeling like steamed veggies and rice. Can we get crab rangoons too? Or egg rolls?" Grace finally said.
"Kay—one of each." Sara said. "We've got to do some cleaning later tonight. Do you guys have everything you need for school, by the way?"
"Yeah." Jules said. "We'll help with cleaning. And I'd like spicy orange chicken with rice."
"Great. I'd really like the house to look nice for Jessie. There're still some boxes of stuff from your living room in the family room, too. Look through them, please."
"Got it." They girls smiled bravely, and Sara decided not to ask them what they'd been talking about.