That evening, Anna hummed as she moved throughout the house collecting all the smaller trash bins to empty into a larger bag in the kitchen. There was no getting around the fact that she was now a voluntary Cinderella. But if she kept her spirits up, she wouldn't dwell on it.
She lined the bags on the floor and removed the lid from the larger bin to haul out the kitchen bag. Instantly, her nose wrinkled up as the odors of cleaning solution and sour milk assaulted her senses. How had Hans accumulated so much trash after just a day? She shook her head as she let the bag drop onto the kitchen floor. The thing started to sag as if it would vomit its contents everywhere. Remembering Hans's earlier fury over spilled cereal, Anna dropped to her knees to stop the bag from spewing out its smelly trash. That was when a certain cyan gift bag caught her eye.
She was reminded of the painfully awkward dinner which Hans had orchestrated to be her reunion with Kristoff. That was when she'd last seen the gift bag. She picked it up and fished out a black velvet case from inside. Her eyes grew when she opened the case to find a gleaming pearl bracelet inside.
But when her initial surprise subsided, she clicked her tongue and frowned. "He just threw this out...?! How wasteful!"
She stared at the triad of brilliant diamonds set in between each smooth pearl, her fingers trembling as she calculated how much the bracelet must be worth. Surely Hans hadn't meant to discard this?
Anna's brow wrinkled as she again thought back to the unpleasant dinner. Perhaps the pearls had been intended for Ariel. She understood the other three were friends. But then why wouldn't Hans have given his gift? She stared into space as her writing brain began to buzz with possibilities.
"In any case!" She stopped herself. It was none of her business. "Finders keepers."
With that, she tucked the bracelet into her pocket and went back to work. First, she cleared section by section of the fridge to wipe it down. This was not something she'd done on a regular basis previously, so there were actually a few unidentifiable stains she had to put real elbow grease into. Then, she re-organized the food as best she could. The 100% grass-fed milk and pulp-free orange juice went up in the largest shelf space up top. She also squeezed a vitamin water and mulled wine on their sides in the stacked rack meant for smaller bottles. Next she stacked the Greek yogurts into one pull-out drawer, combining apples, lemons, lime and oranges together in the drawer next to it. Below that was space for the egg carton and container of leftover cauliflower soup, plus the remaining ingredients. On and on she worked, designating one whole shelf for a troupe of club soda cans. She put snack meats and cheeses in another pull-out drawer. The lower, larger storage became home for salad greens, peppers, celery and other vegetables. Condiments, dressings, pickles and spreads went in the refrigerator door. For someone who'd neglected housework for months, she found it oddly relaxing to organize someone else's things. She even took that time to formulate a plan for another place to stay.
The classifieds might have someone looking for a flat mate. The dress she'd worn to dinner the night before would surely sell secondhand for enough to cover her first month's rent. She'd lay hard into job hunting and then begin the slow process of saving up enough to pay Hans back. With any luck, she'd find work that would allow her to keep writing… and once she made her first big break, most of her troubles would disappear.
The doorbell rang, startling Anna so much that she turned and knocked right into the open refrigerator door. She closed it with a groan and shuffled off to the entrance foyer, wondering. Hans hadn't said she should answer the door when he was out, but what else was she supposed to do?
It was with some relief that she opened the door to find a delivery man waiting. He held out a wide, thin box. She raised her eyebrow when she found her name on it, unable to recall ordering anything recently. There was no one that she could think of who would have shipped her something.
After signing for the package, Anna shut the door and moseyed back out to the kitchen. There she found a pair of scissors in a standard junk drawer. With those, she hacked through the packing tape and found a brand new cast iron frying pan inside the box.
"I didn't order this, did I...?"
She picked up the packing slip and invoice, scanning them until she spotted the unfamiliar billing address. That was when she realized it must have been Rapunzel or Eugene who had ordered the fry pan. Who else would order something in her name?
"Azalea Lane..."
She ran her thumb over the street address and quickly pulled out her mobile phone to take a picture of it. She would look up the address and check it out the following day. If Rapunzel or Eugene were indeed the residents, they were in for a surprise visit.
Hans set the boxed vacuum from Pierce's on the foyer floor and shrugged his coat off at the door. It had been a long afternoon downtown once he and Ariel parted ways. A successful recording session was always satisfying, but that hadn't even been the most productive part of his day. While he'd been singing, his mind had been at work.
A proposal to Ariel was no small thing; they had so much history. He wanted to put extra care into the planning since he had rushed to get the ring.
With the new year just around the corner, Hans was buzzing with enough courage to whisk Ariel off to her favorite beach after Kristoff's party. He'd called up memories and conversations of old, bits and pieces he remembered from over the years. With this, he put together what he hoped would be the most breathtaking moment for her. How many women got to be proposed to at midnight on New Year's Eve?
At first, Hans had wanted to take more time and research to pick out the engagement ring. But the more he thought about Ariel moving, the more he got into a tizzy. It wasn't that he couldn't court her if she moved to Glowerhaven. His schedule was generally flexible until a tour came up. It was more the fact that Ariel would be close to his brother again.
So, he'd done a little shopping. He ended up picking out a three stone, blue topaz and diamond engagement ring in 18k white gold.
…he'd also picked up a vacuum for Anna, as promised.
There was a sudden thump from upstairs but it didn't worry him. Provided Anna stayed out of his way, it was fine. He left his keys in the basket on the half-moon console table by the door. Then, on his way into the kitchen he left the new vacuum at the bottom of the stairs for Anna to find.
With work done and a few hours left before his usual sleep time, Hans decided to spend the rest of the night practicing what he'd say to Ariel. He'd been thinking it over all day, how to best share his feelings. Nothing seemed good enough.
First, he tried to think of all the things he adored about Ariel. But between her personality and her beauty, that list was too long. Ariel's attention span was not exactly infinite.
Next he considered bringing up the 'good ol' days' to remind her that they'd had such a good thing. The only problem with that was that their romantic relationship, good as it was, had come to an end. He didn't necessarily want her to bring that up. Besides that, they had both grown since their days at the university. Their future could not, would not be the same as their past because they weren't the same people they used to be. What was the point then in dredging up the past?
He sighed and ran one hand through his hair in mild agitation as he gazed out the glass slider door looking out over the patio and fjord from the kitchen eating area. The gibbous moon illuminated the frozen landscape outside.
Will it be too cold to go to the beach? Ugh. Focus.
From then on, he recited some of his ideas aloud to get a feel for what sounded best. He spoke to his reflection as if it were Ariel and imagined her various reactions.
"…each other for many years now, and not a day goes by that I don't regret not fighting harder that day we broke up…"
Ariel had initiated the break-up. There'd been a period of a couple of months that Hans had just… he'd been too busy. He didn't think anything of it at the time, but Ariel had tried to address his absence. There'd even been the fight weeks before she dumped him. He'd been an utter fool.
"Do you remember Vienna? The promise I made to you at the Danube Tower?"
He'd broken that promise, of course. All Hans had been able to remark on at the time Ariel left him was that she and Eric had been spending an awful lot of time together.
The abrupt shoom of the vacuum starting up in the living room made him jump. He looked back over his shoulder and saw Anna had found the new hoover. She gave him a distracted wave as she ran the vacuum over the area rug. Hans turned back to the glass door, picking up where he'd left off.
"I want you… I want us to be in each other's worlds again. You've been my dearest friend for so long, but I… I've never seen you as just a friend."
The vacuum stopped. He heard Anna groan as she lifted the coffee table to put it back in place on the rug.
"I've loved you from the moment our eyes met at the summer jazz festival. Don't leave… stay. Please stay… and do me the honor of—," The vacuum went back on at full-blast, making him abandon his practiced proposal as he turned around to give Anna a disbelieving stare. She whirred past him with the vacuum on the hardwood floors, completely oblivious to his annoyance.
"Do you mind?!" Hans snapped, his voice raised so he could be heard.
Anna stopped short and jerked her head towards him in alarm. He pointed vehemently at the noisy device in her hands, satisfied when she switched it off and left it resting near the stairs. He thought he saw her make a face, but she turned away to fetch a dusting cloth from the bucket of cleaning supplies she'd left on the kitchen floor.
With a roll of his eyes, Hans turned back toward the slider doors and went back to rehearsing his proposal.
"…I…damn it. I've never seen you as just a friend," he repeated, having lost his train of thought. But it came back to him rather easily once he spoke aloud. "I've loved you from the moment our eyes met at the summer jazz festival." He smiled as he pictured that moment when her red hair and black ribbon had first caught his eye. "Don't leave… please stay and do me the honor… of being my…"
Again unable to finish, Hans trailed off distractedly under the unnerving sensation of being watched. He turned around. Sure enough, Anna was staring at him with interest as she dusted the television stand.
"Can I help you?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Is that for a role in another movie?"
"What?"
Horrified, he realized she'd been listening and his face reddened. Afraid that Anna might give her unsolicited input about his dialogue, Hans nodded and quickly elaborated before she could say any more.
"Ah. Yeah. This one's about a man who… well, he loved a girl for a long time and decides to confess how he feels before she leaves the country."
"Let me guess!" Anna interjected despite Hans's efforts. "He can't go through with the confession because the girl is in love with somebody else." A startled look crossed his face, but Anna went on. "…devastated, he quickly proposes to a wealthy girl he met recently, hoping to marry into the family and their riches. But the girl's older sister disapproves and threatens to take away the sister's inheritance if the two get engaged. Enraged, the guy constructs an elaborate plot to get rid of the sisters and inherit the estate as the younger sister's surviving husband…"
Hans blinked at the dreamy look on Anna's face as she rambled on and on.
"What? Are all your plots so outlandish?" He breezed past her, completely dumbfounded by her imagination. "Knock it off and make some dinner."
He went upstairs in a huff, pausing to glance back and watch Anna as she pulled out various pots and pans while talking to herself. He couldn't help chuckling to himself over her weirdness.
A/N: Goodness gracious, I hadn't updated this since August?! My apologies. I got very wrapped up in a course I was taking. I'm going to make it a goal to update weekly, but we'll see how that goes.
Thank you for waiting and reading!