A finger poked into a slender shoulder wearing the typical white shirt chefs are clad in, had a blonde head twirling around, and the body it sat on immediately taking an unsure step back.
"Parker?" Chase tested, his shoulders suddenly tense due to my grim features.
"You snitch."
Chase sweet face scrunched together into a guilty expression as he moved his hand to scratch the back of his head. "Look, I'm sorr–"
"Save it," I grunted and unfolded my arms, gripping the plate with a freshly made hamburger and fries from the silver counter. "I got my eyes on you." I squinted my eyes threateningly, glimpsing Chase gulping before I banged the doors open to the Grill with my foot.
The noisy kitchen faded away behind me and was replaced by a deafening chattering which indicated that the venue was full, as it always tended to be around lunchtime. It was even packed to the point that I had jumped in and volunteered – actually volunteered! – as a waitress. Being responsible and all that shit.
"Here you go." I placed the steamy hot plate before a dark-haired man and flashed him a quick, bleak smile, being returned with the same. He actually seemed a bit familiar. Shrugging the feeling off, I decided it was probably just a regular.
As I moved back to my regular place behind the bar counter, a buzzing made itself known from my pocket. Usually, I kept my phone in my locker back in the staff's room, but for whatever reason I'd forgotten to throw it in there today. The sight of Elena's number greeting me had me scrunching my nose.
I hadn't spoken to her since the time she'd called to inform me about Vicki's body being found. Elena had sounded distant then, and ever since a tendency for her to keep things from me had kept on increasing. Starting with Stefan being kidnapped and my sister stating a rescue mission by using my weapons without me, and continuing with the whole bloodaholic vampire boyfriend drama, seeking guidance and advice from Damon – of all people! – instead of me.
To say her behavior was bugging me was an understatement. It was pissing me off! Which was why I genuinely considered ignoring her call, at first. But I couldn't. Perhaps her niceness – when it came to other people who weren't me, at least – had rubbed off on me a bit. Darn.
"Yes?" was all I said into the phone; forget that I was greeting her warmly!
"Hey, Parks…" Oh, but she sounded so troubled. Stand your ground woman!
"What do you want?" I asked after a moment of silence, pretending to be busy behind the bar, all whilst hiding my phone call from prying eyes and Bella's x-ray vision.
"Look," she began with a heavy sigh. "I know that we haven't been on the best terms lately–"
"Because you lied to me," I interrupted.
"Which you've never done before," Elena retorted in a harsh enough tone to knock me out of balance. That wasn't like her. "Sorry," she went on with another sigh, "it's just… I really need to ask for a favor. I need my old sister back."
"Why?"
"Because… Well…" Oh, just spit it out woman! "They announced the nominees for the Founders' court today. I'm in, along with Caroline, and I have no idea what to do, say or wear," Elena finally blurted out. Oh. I see.
"Mom entered you into that," I recalled vividly. She had practically been jumping with excitement when they'd filled out the papers together on the dining table, occurring during one of my brief visits back home.
"I figured, since you were in this thing, that you'd know…" Elena left the words hanging in the air, for me to finish her thought for her.
Straightening my posture, I tried sounding a bit softer when I spoke again. "You want some expertise advice from a Miss Mystic survivor?"
"Exactly!" Elena's beam of relief shone through the phone.
"Okay. I got you covered," I promised, the image of Mom's beam as vivid in my mind as it surely was in my sister's. "But I'm warning you, it's not gonna be easy."
"I know. Caroline's in it." Elena slowly blew out a breath.
"Oh, we're gonna beat her," I spoke confidently.
"You sure? She probably deserves to win more than m–"
"Nonsense! You're gonna win over Caroline thanks to me. I'll be the perfect coach," I reassured.
"That's a relief," Elena chuckled.
"One condition." Her laugh died out. "We need to talk about the elephant in the room." There was a long pause, I almost thought she had hung up on me. Until…
"I know you don't like Stefan, Parker. But don't you think calling him an elephant is taking it a little too far?" A snorting sound escaped me, caused by a failed attempt at smothering my laughter. When did my sister get so witty? I had never been more proud! Wiping away a tear from the corner of my eye, I tried to calm myself with a deep breath.
"Okay, time out. Awesome joke, sis. Hands down. Time back in again: you know what I mean. I don't like being lied to. Ever." An intake of air was all it took for me to predict what Elena was going to reply with. "Keeping someone in the dark and lying to them is the same thing. At least to me," I defended.
"You're right," Elena sighed, for like the hundredth time during only this conversation. Actually, thinking about it, she always sighed a lot these days. "At least we'll have lots to talk about then, no uncomfortable silences." I smiled, but caught a glimpse of a platinum blonde head heading towards me, my action quickly freezing to fade.
"Gotta go, Elena. I'll call you after work. Bye!" I caught a similar reply before pressing the call away.
As I poured up a beer to hand it to a woman in front of me, Bella drew past me on her way to the kitchen, a quick glance cast over her shoulder. As I tested out my biggest beam, having it feel strained on my face, I was actually rewarded with a confirming nod. Keep up the good work. Oh, I would.
FEBRUARY 2006
"You look beautiful, honey." My mom beamed at me through the mirror, her hands lightly placed on my bare shoulders. The indigo dress was indeed drop-dead gorgeous, but also happened to cut into all sorts of uncomfortable places. I didn't point out any of this to my mom, however. She was too happy about me for once doing something nice for the community, besides keeping their police staff busy. I couldn't ruin it for her.
The preparations had only taken a few hours, but during that time Tim had already texted me about a bizillion times, every single one of them being thoroughly ignored. If Mom found out that I was still seeing him, when a completely different guy would escort me out on the dance floor tonight, then she would freak. Nah, it was better to keep him a secret for a little while longer. He never had nor ever would be what you called 'boyfriend material'. But the free booze was good enough for me, at least.
A knock on the door interrupted me from my worries, my mom and I twirling our heads around towards the sound simultaneously. A tall man dressed in a fancy suit peeped his head inside the white room, illuminated by the afternoon sunlight. Every white detail in the room was glowing, from the thin, woven drapes and the basic sofa to the marble floor. It was white enough to hurt my eyes, and Mom didn't exactly help with her light pink dress and discreet and natural yet glowing makeup either. Thankfully, Dad's black suit broke the trend, meaning that his presence was very much welcomed.
"Mirand– Wow." His eyes widened as they wandered from Mom to me. "Who are you and where is my daughter?"
"Haha," I bickered back, folding my arms in front of my chest as a shiver passed over my skin, all exposed by the halterneck dress.
"Honestly, sweetie. You're gonna kill everyone out there looking like that."
"Gray," Mom warned, yet she smiled at her husband's joking side.
"I'm kidding." Dad winked at me over Mom's head, and I put a hand over my mouth to stifle my chuckle.
"Is it starting already?" Mom asked, in a sudden worried tone.
"No, no!" Dad reassured with a shake of his head. "It's just that I'm going to need some backup."
"For wha–" Mom began with a frown, but before she could finish the door behind Dad swung open entirely to have two small whirlwinds barge in, answering her question for her.
"Hey, stop that!" Dad scolded when Jeremy started pulling on the drapes framing the window on the other side of the room from where I was standing by the tall mirror framed with gold. The other little whirlwind had calmed down immediately, standing before me to look up at me with wide eyes. As Dad grabbed Jer and held him by his stomach in a wrestling grip, Elena pulled at my long dress for my attention.
"You look amazing, Parks." Her voice was nothing but a mesmerized whisper, and I couldn't help but smile. I squatted before her, impressively done when wearing heels, might I add, while my mom made a hissing sound in the background, probably fearing that my dress would rip at the odd movement. Ignoring her, I tucked away a dark-brown strand of pin straight hair from Elena's round cheek.
"Thanks, Tornado." She grinned, two front teeth missing. "Could you turn down the strength of your wind a bit? Dad's gonna get a headache." Elena nodded violently. "Good girl." I smiled and straightened up, still ignoring Mom's worried gaze examining my dress. "You can go, I'm basically finished," I reassured her.
"But your makeup–"
"I got it, Mom," I insisted. "Look after the little ones instead."
Mom smiled when Elena grabbed her hand. "Okay then, honey." Dad carefully sat down the squirming Jeremy, who immediately shot towards Mom to cling to her knee-length dress, wrapping his entire little body around her leg.
"I knew we should have left them at home with a babysitter," Dad sighed, airing his thoughts when Mom was too busy with the kids to hear him.
"Where's the fun in that?" I pointed out, receiving a weak smile from Dad as he followed Mom out of the room.
"You got this, sweetie," he called, giving me two thumbs up before closing the white door.
Finally some peace and quiet! I turned away from the full-length mirror and sat down on a white stool, twirling it to face a smaller mirror, framed by big lightbulbs similar to those I only imagined existed on movie sets in Hollywood. Pleased, I let a hand travel over my knotted updo, savoring the fact that my hair for once wasn't all over the place.
Easily, I applied some simple makeup, skipping the cat eye and instead brushing a thin layer of sparkly eye shadow across my lids to match my dress. A little mascara, a nude lip and I was done. I looked strange without my usual eyeliner and dark, bold lip, but Mom would have slaughtered me if I walked down the steps looking like my usual self, the one matching the mugshots down at the station.
Once I was done, I sent a quick text to stop Tim's flow of 'why aren't you answering me?'. On second thought, I probably should have told him about the Miss Mystic thing beforehand, but then he would've most likely found a way to crash the event. It was too late for him to make those type of plans now, so there was no harm in telling him anymore.
When another knock on the door broke the silence in the room, I threw my phone back into my black purse on the white sofa – which looked so out of place there, a black spot in the Lockwood's perfect facade. The black sheep of the party, that was what I felt like. No matter how many times Mom tried to tell me otherwise.
"Come in," I called, shrugging off the heavy feelings those thoughts brought. I figured it would be Mom or Dad who wanted to give me a last minute pep-talk, but instead none other than my escort for the evening stepped in. His tall, athletic body looked incredible in the simple, black suit, and the sight of the short, curly hair remaining seemingly the same as always calmed me a bit. Even as I felt like I was putting on a show in my dress with my fancy hair and makeup, at least I would have something familiar to hold on to during the dance. Which, by the way, was not causing me to be nauseous from nervousness. No, no. Because dancing was easy! Especially when you've trained the exact moves over and over again for weeks. So why were my knees shaking like crazy?
"You doing okay?" Mason asked with a tilt of his head. As I was pulled out from my thoughts and quickly found myself forcing a sweet smile to convince him of how perfectly fine I was doing. Then, I realized that this wasn't my mom, and relaxed my facial muscles.
"I'm kinda freaking out," I admitted, clenching and unclenching my fists. Mason noticed my action and stepped forward to take both of my hands in his.
"You got this," he reassured as I stared at his comforting grip, all whilst biting into my lip.
"What if I fail somehow and everyone laughs?" My voice was shaking, and I hated feeling so weak and vulnerable.
"They won't," Mason spoke surely.
"How can you be so certain?" I asked and raised my face to meet his blue gaze.
"Because Carol will obliterate anyone who ruins this event. Trust me, I know my sister-in-law." His smile calmed me a bit, rubbing off a little on me as well. "Deep breaths," Mason instructed, and I obeyed whilst still looking into his eyes. "We're gonna do this. I'll be by your side through the whole thing." He squeezed my hands and nodded to really underline the meaning of his words.
What had I done to deserve such a nice guy helping me through this sucky even? He hadn't needed to step in as my escort, no one had made him. The choice had been as free as the position to stand at my side, and from out of nowhere Mason Lockwood had appeared, unyielding with his decision. In his presence, all thoughts of Tim seemed to wither away, leaving an odd feeling in my stomach.
The sensation wasn't familiar to me, but I had a likely guess to what it meant.
Really, ditching Tim for Mason wasn't such a bad idea. For starters, Mom would definitely approve of me dating a Lockwood, even though he was scandalously enough five years older. Family and the community in this little town were two of most important things to her in the world; combining these two and it would be a dream come true! Her own troublesome daughter dating a respectable Lockwood. I couldn't help but shiver at the thought. It wasn't that I had anything against Mason, but the rest of his family just gave me the creeps.
Also, even though a fear of being laughed at or receiving disapproving looks from the Founding families made me want to crawl out of my skin, actually being part of the community made me feel even sicker. Believe it or not, I actually enjoyed being the rebel who knew all of the officers by their first name, as well as what went on with their families and kids in school, since I'd spent more time at the station than at home. The role truly suited me perfectly.
The only reason I was coming out of that comfort zone tonight was for Mom. She deserved to feel like a part of this, even if her daughter was a troublesome bitch. I was doing it for Mom, and for Mom alone. With that mantra ringing in my ears, I took a deep breath and squeezed Mason's hands back.
"Let's do this thing," I said with a determined nod.