A/N: Only one review? Ah maybe it's the summary. I'm trying to imply Troyella without giving too much away… Anywho, please review! I've worked quite hard on this story, I've already got seven chapters written. There's quite a large plot to come, and I'd like to hear if it's worth publishing?
Okay, I've revised the story so the season is winter, early December right now. If you find anything that says otherwise, please forgive, I've searched the entire document a million times to look for timeline references, and I think I've got them all. -love- Desireé
Chapter Two, Photograph
This is the clock upon the wall
This is the story of us all
This is the first sound of a newborn child,
before he starts to crawl
This is the war that's never won
This is a soldier and his gun
This is the mother waiting by the phone,
praying for her son
-'Pictures of You,' The Last Goodnight
It was sometime in the A.M. that Oliver dropped by with the weekly delivery of groceries. Five paper bags frosted with snow flurries, rustling in with the wind and a chatterbox teenager. He smiled as Gabriella took the bags gratefully from his arms and handed him two flat, crisp ten dollar bills. She kissed his cheek and stuffed her wallet back in the top left drawer of her desk, which had been seldom used in her time as a disorganized loner of the town. There was a soft pause, expected from the both of them, before she offered some coffee. He nodded, relishing in her proposal before quietly saying thank you. A few minutes later, they sat on the sofa in the front room of her apartment, staring ahead at the painting, the only piece of art in the entire building, that hung upon the wall.
"Who is the artist?" Oliver would ask later as he readied to leave for work. He would stare at the corners of the canvas to find no name. This would interest him.
"An old friend," Gabriella would answer evenly. "Just an old friend."
"Have you spoken to him recently?" Oliver would want to know, stirring the last bits of his lukewarm beverage with his index finger. He, being a smart child, of course would know it was a 'him'.
"I think it's time you go," would be the curt reply. Oliver would nod, taking the hint that she didn't feel like talking about it. He would kiss her cheek and leave in a flourish, dropping his mug into the sink on the way out with a clank. Gabriella would always check to see if the glass had cracked; it never would.
TYWY
The Bolton Family Tree was quite messy, but one particular picture caught your eye like a shiny new penny. Troy Bolton, artist and photographer extraordinaire, stared back at you with a relaxed smile and a glint in his gaze. Many people complimented his looks and said he should become an actor, or a model. And every time this came up, he would tip his head back and give a forced laughter, patting either of his children on the head, whoever was closer. Arielle, the younger, would wince as her father's fingertips rapped her skull, while Harris, the older, would wait patiently for Troy's act to be over, and then be on his merry way.
The other half of Arielle's and Harris' genetics on the tree, Cassandra Noel was a world renowned supermodel with long tan legs and wavy blond hair that rivaled a lion's mane, to be blunt. The woman, the children knew, had replaced the maternal picture long ago. Oh, no, she wasn't really their mother. Just someone to call upon in the later months of their childhood; it had never been any other way. Harris considered his birth mother a ghost, although Arielle had always been interested in the nearly fictional woman, especially in more recent days.
There was only one picture of Gabriella in the entire house, and it was a Polaroid with writing scribbled on the back that lay beneath Arielle's pillow. She was young, in her late teens, most likely, with long smooth black hair and a stunning smile. She wasn't looking at the camera, but to the side where the picture cut off. It was obviously taken at a party, judging by the looks of the background, and the date and title scrawled on the back. 'October 20, 2007. Autumn Social.'
The discovery of the photo had been during a rainy day wedged between Halloween and Thanksgiving when Arielle was cleaning out her closet. Troy was away for the weekend, on a quick holiday in Vermont with Cassandra. While Harris, a fifteen-year-old with very little aspiration to move more than necessary, chose to recline on the sofa in front of an HBO movie, his sister surveyed every box and bag in the loft. She had been going through her father's things when she found the picture.
She knew it was her. Troy refused to mention their real mother; Cassandra, in his eyes, had done her job to fill the void which Gabriella had created when she left. He always changed the subject when things like other grandparents and cousins came up; Arielle's curiosity was especially uncomfortable during times like Mother's Day. And now that she had found the one thing Troy kept to remind himself of his first love, things would be different.
"You're insane," Harris had told her when she showed him the picture. "Just give it up, Ari. Gabriella Montez doesn't exist. And to her, we don't either."
These words seemed to staple pain into Arielle. She grimaced at her brother, purposefully knocking the remote down from the sofa's arm when she stomped away; Harris rolled his eyes. "Your tantrums won't get you anywhere!" he yelled over his shoulder.
Something tugged at her to explore further. She was thirteen; didn't that give her room to be nosy? All teenagers were prying and intrusive—that's what the movies dictated. And with two superstar parents, Arielle had seen a lot of movies. She even had her own haven of DVD stacks dedicated to one wall of her side of the room that she shared with Harris. A sliding door divided their space, allowing minimal privacy, although it was strange Troy just didn't move them into bigger living quarters. When Arielle suggested a penthouse or a home on the waterfront, he smiled. "The family has too much history here, A," he replied, putting a hand on her shoulder.
Now, reflecting upon that, Arielle shivered. Family. It just didn't sound right. Who were they kidding when they all posed together at press events? Cassandra had just recently celebrated her thirtieth birthday. Did people actually think she did a good job of acting motherly?
One half of their celebrity was quite new. Troy's artistic ability was only discovered six years earlier, a few months after he married already-famous Cassandra, whose popularity had been the main reason of his later glory. At the time, Arielle had been seven and Harris had been nine. The children, they told their father, were fine without a mother (even though they each had some sort of longing for a mother's love). They insisted they didn't need another parent, but Troy married her anyway. "She's a good person," he had said indignantly. Arielle wondered if Gabriella had been, too.
"Why do you think our mother left?" Arielle asked that cold November night, wondering if maybe they were the reason of the woman's abandonment. Harris was flipping through a text book in his room when she asked the question. The boy looked up, and she felt a pang of jealousy. He looked a lot like Gabriella.
"Man, you don't quit, do you, Ari?" he sighed, rolling off the edge of his bed. "What's got you so worked up over her? You can't really call her our mother—a mother is someone who provides affection and care for her children. Cassandra is our mom, Arielle. Not Gabriella. Not the one who dropped us like hot potatoes."
She felt her lower lip quiver. "How could you say that, Harris? Maybe she had a reason to leave. Maybe she really loved us but couldn't stay. And Cassandra is not our mother. She's barely known us for half our lives. Whether you like it or not, Gabriella is our mother. You never give anyone the benefit of the doubt and that's—that's probably why you never make any friends," she said cruelly. He glanced at her with a particular anger.
"At least I'm not socially inept," he snapped back, "Ms. Save the Earth and Hug a Tree. I wonder why no one talks to you at our superficial yet very highly-esteemed school?" Arielle's eyes widened and Harris bit his tongue in regret over his words, but she glowered as she left, stomping to the phone to dial her father's number.
He picked up on the third ring. "Hello?" he answered. Soft music played in the background. They were out on the town. "Ari, is that you? What's up?"
"Dad," she began, bracing herself, "What was our mother like? And I'm not talking about Cassandra. I mean Gabriella. How did she laugh? Where did she like to go to eat? Did she like art, too?"
There was a silence on the other end of the phone, and for a moment Arielle thought the call had been lost or, maybe, ended by Troy. But he finally exhaled and said, "What's wrong, A? Do you want me to come home? We can get in the car right now and we'll be there by tomorrow morning."
Tears were portentously close. "No, Dad, it's fine. Enjoy yourself. See you Sunday," she mumbled, setting the phone down on the receiver. At that moment, she had never wanted to know what Gabriella Montez was doing more.
Down in Sampson…
That day, Zora was busy with redecorating (what exactly, she was unsure), so Gabriella had the afternoon to herself. She walked upstairs after flipping the open sign to closed, her legs groaning with the staircase. Finally, the apartment swallowed her in an ocean of vanilla, and she smiled at the scented candle resting on the kitchen counter. There was a meow, and the neighborhood cat who had a particular fondness for her lap, Ginny, appeared at her feet. "Hello, Gin," she murmured, kneeling down to run her hand down the feline's back. "You hungry? Oliver just got some new food today."
The Siamese, who had a lethargic behavior much like her own, followed her into the kitchen and mewed appreciatively when Gabriella opened a can and dumped the food into a bowl on the floor. "Eat up well, I'm not about to throw out your leftovers," she reminded uxoriously. Her fingers suddenly itched for something she hadn't done in a long time. Piano.
Kelsi had taught her a few pieces in high school. She had played mostly from memory, although there were a few songbooks she knew how to read. "What shall I play, Ginny?" she asked the animal. The cat kept eating, and Gabriella smiled, before wandering into the living room. The piano was pressed against the wall, and hadn't been played in over four years. Laying a finger on a key in the very middle, she flinched slightly. It was out of tune. Most things were, though.
TYWY
There was now suddenly an uproar of Gabriella. Troy winced as he thought of her. They had been so crazily in love with one another, there weren't another two people in the world who were more in love. So much laughter, and giggling, and appreciation of life. They were thrilled to be with child at nineteen years old. After that, though, things had started to go downhill.
"Honey, you all right?" Cassandra stared across the table, tapping his hand sweetly as their dinner dates, a couple who were interested in buying some of his art pieces, looked on, worried. "You scared us there for a minute."
"I-I think I need some fresh air," Troy replied, tugging his cloth napkin out of his collar. "Excuse me." He stood up and darted out of the room, leaving his trophy-like wife to reassure the buyers that all was well.
"May I get you something, sir?" the maître d' asked when Troy passed the front podium. But the artist didn't answer as he seized a handful of mints from a glass bowl beside the host and hurried outside. The bread roll he had just digested soon met the dirt outside again, and he knelt into a bush, feeling his body violently contract.
A woman walked by with her baby on her hip. "Are you all right?" she asked, sounding alarmed.
He looked up and shook his head. "I'm fine, thank you," he replied unconvincingly, leaning back into the greenery. She shrugged and kept walking. When he finally felt his insides cool down, he unwrapped a mint. And another. And another. It would unquestionably be upsetting to Cassandra if he returned to the dinner table with bitter breath.
TYWY
Certainly Harris had some interest in learning about Gabriella at one point or another. He had secretly scrutinized the Polaroid of her the next morning after its discovery to see the resemblance. Like her, he had black hair and dark skin and mild-mannered expression with a relaxed grin. The only exception was the sapphire eyes both he and Arielle inherited. Their gazes were similar to Troy's, and both had the slightly slouch that had always annoyed Cassandra.
"What are you doing?" Harris, surprised, dropped the picture and turned to see a bath-robed Arielle standing in the doorway, shaking out her wet hair with a towel as she came beside him to stare down at the snapshot on the floor. "Oh. She's beautiful."
"Yes," Harris replied, "She is." They were both hesitant before Arielle finally reached for the photograph, examining the writing on the back.
"Who do you think took this?" she asked.
"Maybe a friend," Harris said casually, "Or maybe even Dad."
A smile graced Arielle's lips. "No, I think she's looking at Dad." Squinting, she nodded. "Yes, I can see in the way she smiles. He's out of frame, but there's definitely some scene going on between them," she said.
Harris didn't respond. He, unlike his sister, didn't want to get involved with a nonexistent past. Arielle still kept the photo beneath her pillow, though, and glanced at it every night before she went to bed. Since the phone call in Vermont, Troy hadn't heard any outbursts or questions about Gabriella from his daughter. He hadn't the slightest idea she had found the one key to his past, and Arielle intended to keep it that way.
"It isn't fair," she moaned one evening as she lay on her bed, clutching the photo, bearing in mind that the next month (and her birthday) lay around the corner. It was cold that day; winter was a harsh season for New Yorkers. Harris was across the way, after they had opted to keep the sliding door open for the sake of the heater. "I have obsessed over this stranger for the past two weeks, and yet I feel like it's all to waste! You at least have some personal connection, Mr. Abercrombie, you wallow in her genetics every day."
The teenager harrumphed and her brother glanced up from the book he was reading. "Just give it up, Arielle," he said shortly. "You're missing out on so much because you insist there's more traces of Gabriella in this apartment, but there aren't."
"Stop calling her 'Gabriella,'" Arielle complained. "You act like she's—"
"She's just a shadow, a spirit, a myth? Yes, Ari, that's what she is. You can't keep this charade up for much longer. Dad's gonna find out and Cassandra—our real mother—won't be happy either." Harris rubbed the back of his neck and his eyes closed. "You act like it's a destiny to find her. Just quit while you're ahead, A. The fall will be much less painful."
Pictures of you, pictures of me
Remind us all of what we could have been
A/N: There has only been two chapters yet many original characters have been introduced, so here's a heads up: only the children are the people who have much importance. The original high school gang is in here, too, just not until later. -love- Desireé