Whew, I bet you all thought I dropped off the earth, huh? Just a disclaimer: I haven't watched CSI in a while, and don't really enjoy the show anymore, but just felt like writing. So I'm not sure when updates will happen. Still, enjoy this.
Regular disclaimer in part one.
Jules entered the house and inhaled. She knew that smell. She hadn't smelled that smell in several weeks, but it was as familiar and comfortable as her favorite pair of slippers that were perfectly molded in the shape of her feet. Taking off her shoes, she headed in the direction of the kitchen.
Grace was sitting at the table, pouring over a calculus book. Various baking paraphernalia was strewn on the counter. A large mixing bowl had a spatula staked in it and was sitting by the stove, next to a stack of cookie sheets. That's where Jules headed. She and Grace had this down to a ritual: Grace mixed the dough; Jules ate the dough and put the rest of the dough on the trays. Using two fingers to swipe some dough, she smiled satisfactorily as the chocolate chips crunched and sat next to her sister.
"Rain in Vegas, who woulda thought?" Grace said, looking up. "Do you understand why, exactly, a chain rule works? Hell, why derivatives to find slope work? Or what a derivative does? How to use any of this?"
"No. You're not supposed to understand it. That's why we're getting tutored. Why did you make cookies? And Sara said this rain is seriously a once a year thing. Where is she?"
"Work. She hasn't been home all day. And tennis got cancelled because of the rain, so I made cookies for Ethan."
"When's he coming?" Jules got up to get more cookie dough. Realizing that the timer was almost ready to go off, she started rolling lumps and placing them on the next cookie pan.
"About twenty or thirty more minutes. I just don't want to seem like an idiot."
"Calm down."
"It's different for you. You're the history-and-English person. I'm the math person."
"You're like the biology-art-anatomy person; you hated physics. And chemistry. There was too much math in them."
Her sister gave her a hard look. "It's different for me. I'm going into engineering. All of the subjects I like require calculus. This stuff might matter some day."
"Calm down. It'll be fine. Do you want to order something? Is Sara getting home soon?"
"She said she'd be awhile. She's just happy to have a mildly interesting case. That's how she termed it."
"We got in a fight this morning."
"What?" Grace asked. "When?"
"You were in the shower—or something, I don't know. And we got into a fight about going to therapy."
Grace's eyes hardened reflexively. "Lemme guess… you don't want to go, she's forcing you."
"Yeah. I mean, it's my life, it should be my choice." Jules insisted.
Grace rolled her eyes. "Please. You're totally crying out for therapy. You act completely hysterical, and then are like, 'no, don't send me, I don't need it' when Sara tried to help. I mean, come on. You know you're doing it."
Jules felt stung. "What do you mean, acting completely hysterical? Like, oh, I've lost my mother or something?'
Grace's eyes flickered again. She really had the most expressive eyes. "Jules, please stop trying to criticize the way I deal with things. I'm really trying."
"So am I, alright? Just… be my sister. The one that I recognize." Jules pleaded. She sat down again. "This is so scary."
Grace gave her a patented 'duh' look. "Jules—please. Just please. I love you, arlight? I just don't think you're behaving in constructive ways. So, maybe, you know, this would help."
"Whatever. You need it just as much as I do. She was your mother, too. I'm worried about you." Jules said. Before Grace could say anything, Jules stood and continued, "I feel very slobby from the pool; I'm going to go change."
Ten minutes later, she was back downstairs in a strappy tank, low-slung drawstring yoga pants, and an exposed sports bra. She had blow-dried her hair, and Grace knew that she had applied mousse and bedhead wax in order to make it look natural. "Aren't you cold?" Grace hadn't moved except to move the cookie baking along.
"Please. We live in Vegas." Jules moved to the stove. "The cookies look wonderful. Maybe we should do the tutoring in the living room?"
"Good idea." Grace nodded. "This is a mess."
"Whose fault is that?" Jules' voice was light; teasing. They had always been wonderful at bantering.
"It's your job to eat the cookie dough and clean up." Grace countered, gathering her math things. She looked at her sister, and then looked at her school uniform, wrinkly on her body. "Fine. I'm changing too." Jules grinned and started wiping down the mixing bowl.
Just as she was angling the last cookie pan into the dry side of the sink, the doorbell rang. Wiping her hands on her ass, she adjusted her tank top straps for maximum "I'm looking really relaxed but hot" potential. "I got it, Grace." She yelled upstairs. She crossed the living room.
Opening the door, she was a little surprised at Ethan's appearance. She hadn't met him yet, but they'd talked on the phone. She knew that he was coming straight from soccer practice. He still wore his muddy, grass- and god-knows-what-else-stained jersey, but his hair was clean and slightly damp, and he wore jeans. He had great eyes—sort of a glassy blue-green-gray. The color of mirrors. His hair was a dark chestnut and curled down over his ears, making him look almost boyish. He had a backpack with a loose strap slung over a shoulder. She felt a frisson run up and down her spine. She smiled widely.
"Hey," he grinned. His British accent was incredibly faint, but just detectable enough to make it hot. "I'm Ethan." He stepped inside. "You must be Jules; I've already met Grace."
"Yeah. Come—in." she was momentarily dazed, and shut the door behind him after realizing how dumb her comment was. "Grace is changing. Her tennis practice got cancelled because of the rain, so she's just slipping into something more comfortable."
"Yeah, our soccer practice should have been cancelled, but Greene's pretty much an asshole. I'm really sorry if I get it on your furniture or something."
"It's alright. Sara won't care about her stuff; the rest of it Grace and I own. Come on in. Grace made cookies this afternoon; when she gets bored she bakes. Are you hungry?"
"Yeah, cookies sound great. I haven't been able to eat dinner."
"We were thinking about ordering some Thai or something. Do you want something to drink?" she walked into the kitchen.
"Yeah, where are the glasses?" she turned to see him standing in the archway.
"Oh—that cabinet. We have Diet Dr. Pepper, Diet Coke, Diet Mountain Dew, and water and milk."
"You and your sister can't possibly thing you need a diet."
"No, but why waste the calories?" Jules reasoned, pulling a takeout menu magnet from the fridge. "What would you like?"
He came over, hunched over her shoulder. The fresh scent was heady. "Spicy Beef with Noodles." He said. "Let's get some spring rolls too."
"Good idea." She dialed, placed their orders. "Lemme go grab my calc book and everything."
"Sure." He followed her out of the kitchen and stopped by the mantel to check out the pictures as she grabbed her books.
She crept closer to him—he appeared to like the photographs. "That was taken at Disneyland, on the Teacups obviously. We were eleven. Thank god we grew up. Braces were a godsend."
"Aww, come on, you two were cute." He shrugged in the direction of another picture. "Where was that taken?"
Jules followed his glance to one taken the year the girls were eight. They were on the swing set they had just installed in their backyard. Both had been twisting their swings until the chains were knobs and they were laughing crazily. "Our backyard, at a barbeque we had for the neighbors that installed the swing set for us. We were eight. It was back when we lived where our house had trees in the backyard."
"Yeah, living here you can sometimes forget that they can come like that." Jules let her eyes drift over the pictures. She hadn't realized that Sara had obviously changed them in the past few weeks; more had been added. When Mom had decorated the mantel the day after the move-in, she had hardly put any of herself up. Now, there were several featuring all three of them.
"What are the rest of the pictures from?" he asked.
"You're certainly interested."
He grinned. "My mother is a photographer, my sister is a photojournalist. They have cameras with them all the time."
"Well, then, you're practically an art critic." She smirked and looked at the pictures. "Well, that one was taken when we were three—the day we started preschool." A younger, long-haired Lilly, wearing a business suit with shoulder pads, had a girl by each hand. They both wore knee-length flower print dresses that reached with wide peter pan collars and little ribbons around the waist—Grace's was black with little daisies on it and a yellow ribbon; Jules' was dark blue with pink roses with a pink ribbon. Grace had insisted on having very long hair, and it was wispy and stringy because it was so fine and she couldn't take care of it. Jules' hair, slightly darker than her sister's was back then, was cut at the chin and had very thick bangs. Sun angled behind them to give Lilly's hair an ethereal, angelic look. It was a split frame containing two photos; in the second one, the girls were sitting on their father's lap. Thom's face had a slightly dazed, vacant expression, and he wore a white undershirt and khakis. Mom had kicked him out two weeks later. "That's our father in the other picture." She quickly moved to the next picture, the one of Lilly and Sara from a long-ago Christmas. "That's a family portrait of our mother's family. That's her sister, my two uncles, my grandparents. That's my mother's sister; she died before we were born. That's Sara, mom's cousin and whom we're living with. That's Sara's brother Troy." She quickly pointed to the next photo to avoid questions. "That's prom last year, us with our dates and our mom. That's us on the first day of high school back in Sacramento. That one is from our sixth grade talent show, after it anyways. Grace and two other girls did a ballet dance and I played a piano duet." She scanned the rest. "That's Sara and her boyfriend Nick. It looks pretty recent." Sara and Nick were sitting together, their knees angled towards each other, his arm around her waist and her hand on his knee. Their heads were touching. Nick wore a crimson-colored shirt, and Sara had on a sparkly halter. "It kinda looks like a Christmas party picture last year. There's us with Mom when we were born—I actually don't know who is who in that picture—there's us in London" –she pointed to a picture of the three of them standing in a phone booth—"we were twelve that year. There's third grade, when we went to San Francisco; Christmas—I think we're in seventh or eighth grade—with our whole extended family. That split frame has photos from when we were ten, me in my suit and Grace with her tennis racket." Her eyes settled on the last photo and a lump caught in her throat. "That's us with Mom" her voice got thicker, "at the Hospice she stayed at. It…it looks about three or four days before she died." She looked down and swallowed before turning to him. "So, do they pass your critical eye?"
He looked started and out of place, before quickly saying, "Oh, yeah. Totally. You…have so many pictures out."
"They're all new. I guess Sara must have rearranged them a couple days ago. Grace and I found a bunch in Mom's old stuff, but I didn't know Sara put them up or anything." She tilted her chin, trying desperately to get off the subject. "So, your sister? A photojournalist? Where's she work? Does she do the whole war-torn Robert Capra thing?"
Ethan laughed. "You're actually sort of close. Kass was born in Africa when my father was working there, so she did do that for a while—she was in Zaire and the Congo and pretty much anywhere there was a civil war or a famine. She's always been pretty adventurous. She mostly freelanced or worked for photo agencies for five years, but now she's with the WHO doing photos and writing news releases about diseases in Africa. She's based in South Africa and Geneva; she has a one-year-old daughter named Viola, a three-year-old named Hermione and a five-year-old named Ariel."
"Shakespeare fan. What's your dad do?"
"He used to work for the British government; when I was ten he got transferred to the Consulate in L.A., promptly got out of the business and now is in private security. My mother's a photographer, portraits and weddings and things; she pretty much just follows him around. She used to be a photographer for magazines and worked on Vogue back home, but now she just runs a studio and sometimes has a gallery showing."
"Very cool." She smiled. "You have an exciting life."
He shrugged. "I don't know. It…just is what it is." He looked sideways at her. "That was kinda lame."
She giggled, covered her mouth with a hand and bending her elbows out so they resembled chicken wings. She always involuntarily did that when she laughed and she always was embarrassed by it. "A little bit." She admitted.
Just then, Grace appeared. She was wearing sleek drawstring capris, and a fitted long-sleeved from Stanford. "Hey, Ethan. Sorry for taking so long; I was changing and Charlotte called."
"No problem. Char's awesome. She lets me copy her English homework all the time."
"I keep forgetting that you're a junior." Grace remarked. She turned to her sister. "Anyways, she wants me to make sure that you're coming to karaoke Saturday night."
"She already asked that."
"Well, I guess she really means it."
"You should come." Ethan interjected. "I'm in that group. It sounds dorky but it's really fun."
Jules rolled her eyes, not ready to admit she'd go just because Ethan was going. "Fine. Whatever. I'll try anything once." She turned to her sister. "Did you know that Sara put up new photos? They're all new."
Grace shook her head. "No, she didn't. I did when I was bored this afternoon."
"Oh." This bugged Jules for some reason. "You have a good selection."
Grace shrugged. "I tried. Whatever. Let's get working." She maneuvered around the table. "Do you want cookies? And did we order dinner?"
"Yeah, we got Thai food. It should be delivered pretty soon. I got you rice and chicken satay." Jules shoved a bunch of brochures from Hospice underneath a pile of newspapers.
"Ooh, thanks. I was actually in the mood for Thai. Let me go grab my book and we'll get started." She flashed teeth at Ethan. "Thank you so much for doing this."
Jules turned to Ethan. "So….karaoke?"
He laughed. "It sounds really dorky, like something some out-of-touch adult would write for a wannabe John Hughes movie, I know, but it's really freaking awesome. Once we all dressed up and went to this piano bar, but most of the time it's this karaoke dive downtown. We just go there and make ourselves look absolutely idiotic. It's hilarious. It's so much fun."
"Sounds like it." Jules commented.
"What? You don't like singing?" his voice was light, playful.
"I'm tone-deaf. You'll have fun with me." She laughed.
Grace came back in, math book cradled on hip and a plate of cookies in hand. "Let's get started. This is obviously going to take a while." Her book's spine made a cracking noise when she opened it, and she giggled. "See? It agrees with me."
The doorbell rang again then, and Jules jumped up to get it. "Good timing—we can eat and work at the same time." She crossed, opened the door. "Hey," she said to the deliveryman, hungrily eyeing the white cartons with Bangkok House printed on them stacked in his hands.
"24.80." he said, transferring the cartons to her.
"Here, let me pay for my part." Ethan offered, standing.
"No way. You're going to be here all night; it's the least that we can do. Grace do you have your purse?"
"Yeah, one sec." Together, the girls came up with a flat twenty-seven dollars, and thanked the deliveryman.
"Here—Spicy noodles and beef for you—Chicken satay with rice for you—and spicy ginger-peanut chicken for me." Jules divvied up the boxes, handed everyone a spring roll, and said, "Who wants the extra? They gave us four spring rolls."
"Here, Ethan, it's for you." Grace took it from Jules and plopped it in Ethan's lap.
"Thanks," he smiled at Jules. "Let's get working."
Two hours later, after showering him with profuse thanks, Jules and Grace shut the door behind Ethan. Sighing, with her hand still on the doorknob, Grace said, "I think he likes you."
"What?" Jules leaned against the door. "You're kidding."
"No. When he grabbed your math book and wouldn't give it back? Totally flirting. And you weren't much better."
"Excuse me?"
"Please, Jules. I heard you squeal a couple of times. And you giggled. Both are atypical Jules behavior."
"I squealed?" Jules said slowly, heart thudding.
"Yeah. And he ate it up." Grace smiled encouragingly. "I don't like him or anything…this won't be a repeat of Matt Horace. Go for it. Have some fun." Grace walked towards the stairs. "God knows you need it. I have to finish The Awakening. I'm locking myself in my room till either Edna kills herself or I kill myself—whichever comes first."
"Kay." Jules followed her sister upstairs and locked herself in her room. She flopped sideways onto her bed. "He likes me." She whispered. Suddenly, silent tears started to wrack her body. She didn't know why.