Thanks once again for the wonderful reviews. I reread each and everyone and they mean so much to me. Thanks again!
This chapter is back to Emily. It's one of the most important chapters in the story so I hope you enjoy it.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own characters.
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"Bonjour, Emily! Comment ca-va?"
Emily rolled her eyes at her friend and opened the door wider.
"You've been spending more time with Antoine, I take it?"
Helena strode inside the apartment, slipping off her scarf and gloves and placing them on the table right beside the entry way. She shook the little bits of snow out of her hair and Emily watched the little flakes flutter to the floor.
"You could say that." Helena winked and Emily smirked at her friend's enthusiasm, closing the door shut.
"Is he 'The One'?"
Helena turned to look at her friend incredulously.
"Emily, why go after just 'one' when the whole world is at your finger tips, a jam-packed selection of gorgeous hunks waiting for you to find them."
"That's sort of sad, you know."
Helena snorted as she made her way into Emily's tiny living room. The couch was enveloped with various papers that were covered with sparkly, pink penmanship. The floor around the sitting area was full of various stacks of notebooks. Yearbooks and photo albums were spread out over the coffee table, beside them, was a large pizza box and a tub of chocolate ice cream.
"Jeez, Emily. The sad thing is that the only guy you've had in this apartment of yours in a year, is that fat gold fish you have, Norman." They both looked over to the corner of the room where the plump fish was floating in his fishbowl. Norman burped and bubbles escalated to the surface.
Emily grimaced. "That's not true."
Helena's hand went to her hip, her slick blue designer jacket rising up, exposing the silk tank top underneath. No matter how many times Emily told her friend this was a simple girl's night, Helena still dressed like she was a step away from going on David Letterman or the red carpet.
"Family members don't count, Em. Your dating life is like an old balloon. It slowly falls from the ceiling and gets all wrinkly before it fades away."
Emily sighed heavily. She hated when Helena started commenting on her love life, it always made it seem so much worse than it actually was. She was totally fine, completely down with rocking the single life.
"Can we just start now, Helena?"
Helena tilted her head, looking at her with a hint of reservation. She dropped the subject though and made her way over to the couch. Emily gave a small smile and followed her friend. Brushing some loose papers onto the floor, Helena situated herself amongst Emily's many throw pillows. Tucking her legs underneath her, Emily grabbed a list off the floor and sat now beside her.
"Alright, so I've made a list of what we need to be looking for and...Helena? Helena are you even listening to me?"
Helena was scanning all the books and papers around her, a sort of awed expression on her face.
"I know you said you began your researching during your youth. But this...you researched the hell out of your youth! How much did you detail these? It's just...wow."
Emily laughed at her Helena's bewildered expression.
"What can I say? Emily Davis always gets the scoop."
"How did you sort these?"
"By year, I started keeping track of everything that went on when I was in grade four. Those aren't very pretty, I had terrible penmanship, but by grade ten they actually got extremely detailed and more specific.
Helena just nodded her eyes wide as she took in all the notebooks, stacked in piles. Parts of Emily's life filled these pages, what she saw, heard, thought. Helena always found writing down parts of her life to be a bit odd, the one reason she was an editor for a magazine that was just about natural beauty. Shaking her head slightly to get herself out of the trance, Helena turned back to Emily.
"Okay, what's all on this list of yours?"
Emily looked down. "I need to find some woman who was with me during my youth, liked to dance, has blue eyes and enjoys shopping."
"This is what, Marissa told you?"
Emily nodded.
"Shit...Emily you do know you've just described every teenage girl in North America right? Probably some in Europe too, possibly Asia and Australia."
"Not all of them have blue eyes."
Helena turned to Emily, shaking her head violently. Her delicate pony tail started coming loose but she ignored it.
"Emily." Helena folded her hands in her lap as she spoke to her friend, her expression serious. "Why didn't you just ask Marissa who her Mother was? It would make all of this a whole lot easier. You're driving yourself insane over someone you last saw when you were eighteen! Look," Helena leaned over and opened the pizza box. "Extra cheese with pepperoni? What has gotten into you? What happened to the simple, thin crust Hawaiian? You're losing it, Emily." Helena's arm made a grand sweeping motion of the room. "There are not even any Christmas decorations in this room. I know you said you go home for the holidays, but you usually decorate a little."
Emily looked down at her list, hands shaking with rage and frustration.
"I couldn't just ask her. When she accused me of being 'Emily, her Dad's ex-girlfriend' she looked at me with pity. She looked at me like she knew exactly what I felt, exactly what I was thinking. I didn't want her to go home and tell Derek. She'd make it sound like I'm some desperate loser."
Helena wrapped and arm around Emily's shoulder.
"Honey, you're not a loser."
Emily lifted her head.
"But am I desperate?"
Helena grabbed the forgotten list and slid down to the floor so she was sitting directly in front of one of the largest stacks.
"Let's get to work." She responded, avoiding the question.
---
"This isn't working, Helena."
Emily was slumped down on the couch, a pile of notebooks on her lap from her fifth grade year. Helena had her knees up, back against the couch. She was eating a piece of pizza, after Emily finally convinced her it wasn't going to do anything to her figure, and looking at one of the notebooks that Emily had written in sixth grade.
"I think we're going about this the wrong way."
Emily sat up slightly, shifting the pile of books off of her. She peeked out her window and felt her mood drop as she looked at the dark skies. Day light never lasted long during a Canadian winter. By 4:30pm, the sun was already setting, the tall buildings of Toronto getting left in darkness. Well, they still had light, but no happy, warm light, just the depressing man-made kind.
"You think we're starting too early in my childhood? Should we move to the beginning of high school?"
Helena contemplated this.
"Well, yes, I guess so. But I was thinking that we need some really good punch, spiked of course, to go with the pizza. If you're going to eat greasy pizza, why not go all out?"
Emily threw a throw pillow at her friend's head. It bounced off and bumped into one of her grade seven piles, scattering the bright pink and purple notebooks everywhere.
"I ask for your help, Helena and all you do is make jokes and eat my pizza."
"Technically, I wasn't joking about the punch."
"Helena." Emily groaned in defeat.
"Alright, alright." Helena ate the last bite of her pizza before turning towards the couch, sitting so she was on her knees. "If you're positive you knew her, then you must have some more recent memories of her, so I'm willing to bet she went to your high school. There's also a good chance her and Derek were an item at some point during that time. Do you have any books that are full of just the relationships of students or-"
Emily cut her off by grabbing a red notebook with bright yellow sunflowers on the cover. The words Dating Stats of Grade 11 were scrawled on the top in neat handwriting. Helena squinted. "That isn't your writing style?"
"I know. My friend, Casey wrote it for me, you know, the one I told you all about? She was my head assistant for getting all the gossip. She was dating the football quarterback at the time I started this, so she knew everything about the cheerleaders, the players themselves. She ran with the popular crowd for a...short amount of time."
Helena started to flip through it.
"None of these pages have anything about Derek in them. Do you have a book that is just about him?"
Emily was already ahead of her. Digging through one of the piles, she grabbed a thick, navy blue coil notebook. It was enormously vast, with sticky notes and loose paper falling out of it. The cover was ripped in some places and it looked as if someone had put a hot cup of coffee on it, for the rings were still there. An old Oilers stick was stuck in the top left corner, but it was already coming off, the glue not wanting to stick anymore.
"This is what you're looking for."
Helena held out her hands and Emily dropped the book in her hands. It was rough to touch and probably weighed a couple pounds.
"Good Lord...This is all about his relationships? How early does this start?"
"When he was in grade two. That's the year he started his dating cycle."
"What happened in grade one?" Helena snorted, making a joke.
"He was only making out with girls then." Emily answered, yawning. Reading always made her tired. "Here," she reached down and plucked the book from Helena's hand. "Starting on page 108 is the index. Then on page 156 is the list of all the girls he dated in grade eleven and twelve. Would that be a good place to start?"
Helena gave a stiff nod. "What's on all the other pages?"
"Just little memos and recordings of his relationships and what the girls say about him, where he took them on dates, kissing scale. That sort of thing. Most relationships for him lasted a week, two at the most so I only had to use no more than four pages to write about one of his...women before they were dumped and gone."
Helena looked at the thick volume in her hands, filled with pieces of a man's life she had never met. His relationships, other people's thoughts on him. It was an unsettling sort of dirty feeling, like she was invading in on this poor man's world, but she flipped to the page number Emily told her and began to read out loud.
"Wendy Hampton... Kailey Jackson... Irene Winters...Polly Ester," Helena began to laugh. "That is hilarious! Was that actually her name? Polly Ester? Man," she wiped beneath her eyes. "She must have loved clothes and fabrics!"
Emily joined into the laughter too, remembering the time she had made the exact same joke to Casey when she had first moved into the Venturi's home. Helena took a couple of deep breaths to get herself back under control before she advanced further down the list.
"Rachel Gates... Kyle Fox...Whoa, whoa, whoa. Kyle?"
"Girl Kyle."
"Ah."
Helena continued. "Fay Douglas... Jenna Simmons... Emestina Brühland," Helena looked up and gave a smug grin.
"See, I'm not the only one interested in foreign affairs, Em."
"Shut up and read."
"Kendra...I've always hated that name. I knew three Kendra's and they were all annoying, stuck-up bitches. Is this, Kendra any better? I bet you five bucks plus seven pennies she's not."
Giving a short laugh, Emily shook her head.
"Amy Daniels?"
"Cheerleader."
"I hated them too."
"Helena, you hated everyone unless they ran races or threw orange balls around, trying to get them in nets."
A beat.
"Did not." Emily looked up towards the ceiling, fighting the urge to get up and leave. Helena could be so damn difficult sometimes, as well as never knowing when to stop talking. One of the many traits Emily often questioned why she put up with, but then again, Helena always got dished out the best gossip. Plus she was good with this sort of boy stuff.
"Sally Todd? There's a star sticker beside her name. Why is there a star sticker beside her name? Why does the star sticker have sunglasses and a smile?"
"She was Derek's longest girlfriend. She loved him, got him to write a song for her and I'm pretty sure he loved her too."
Helena swallowed, obviously catching the hint of sadness in her friend's voice. Luckily for Emily, she kept her mouth shut and just reached for another piece of pizza.
"Hannah Jenks... Laura McLeod and Emily Davis." Helena's voice went quiet and she closed the book silently, avoiding looking back at her friend.
Emily gave a large sigh, kicking the remaining books to the floor. They landed with a thud, in a heap beside Helena. No one said any words, not even when Helena began to place everything back into their original piles. It was an awkward, tense silence that lasted for a good couple of minutes. Helena wasn't really sure why Emily was acting like this, and she was just about to voice this when two legs swung down to her right. Emily reached and grabbed the tub of ice cream. She flipped open the lid and grabbed a spoon from beside the container before flopping back on the couch.
Helena slowly grabbed the other spoon and cleared her throat.
"Willing to share?"
---
The atmosphere had changed so dramatically since the afternoon when Helena had walked through the front door. Emily felt like Derek had broken up with her all over again and wanted nothing more than a friend's shoulder to cry on and tons of movies with Matthew McConaughey in them. Girl stuff that would help soothe the broken heartedness she felt now. God, what the hell was wrong with her? She wasn't seventeen any more. Derek was married and had three children who were all smart, successful and happy.
Helena had moved up on to the couch with her, the tub of ice cream wedged between them as the sorted through the list one more time, often comparing with Emily's graduating year book to see if anything matched.
"Jenna Simmons," Helena's fingered the name and watched as Emily quickly flipped to the right page in her yearbook. Smiling faces in tacky blue robes flashed by at lightning speed before Emily slammed her hand down on the page, stopping the hurried flipping. Her eyes began scanning the rows of pictures.
"Da dum da dum...Ah ha! Here she is. Jenna Simmons. Oh, but she has brown eyes. It's can't be her."
Helena made a slightly tired sound and looked back at her list.
"Is this German chick even in here?"
Emily thought for a moment.
"I don't think so. Besides, she had blue eyes and blonde hair."
Helena looked up, hopeful.
"So it could be her?"
"I doubt it. Her face was all wide and chubby. Marissa had a small, smooth face. They look nothing alike."
"Well that sucks." Helena stood up, stretching her arms above her head as she made her way over to the kitchen. "If you don't mind, since it's like," she checked her wrist watch, "6:30pm. I'm going to call and order us some more pizza since you ate it all."
Emily stood up as well. "I'm pretty sure you were the one stuffing her face. Besides, I thought it wasn't good because of all the cheese and meat and greasy fat..." she trailed off with a smile on her face.
"Okay, okay!" Helena broke down, her face crumpling and her hand shot out, stopping Emily from saying any more. "It doesn't taste half bad. You...were right and I was...wrong."
Helena shot her a serious look. "But it still isn't healthy and I'm not eating this kind whenever we order pizza. Deal?"
"Deal."
"Great." Helena looked as if everything was far from great, especially having to admit she was wrong and someone else was right, which was something she never did very often. "Now what pizza joint did you order that bad boy from?" The phone was already in her hand.
"Pizza Hut. Duh. Like I always do."
---
After two pizza boxes, a tub of ice cream and seven bottles of water, the girls were back in their positions on the couch. Yearbooks were spread out in front of them and papers were scattered everywhere. It looked as if a paper shredder, garbage can and a book shelf had all unexpectedly thrown up, Emily thought. Even Norman was swimming around angrily, circling the pen cap that had plummeted down into his tank. Emily noticed as soon as it happened and reached inside, grabbing it before it could work her poor fish up into a dither.
"I swear that fish acts like he is the high king of goldfish land or something."
"Helena...he just has an attitude problem, that's all. He's also isn't good at making new friends, I think he ate the algae eater I put in here a couple of weeks ago."
Helena looked at Norman who was still circling the now empty water where the pen cap use to be.
"Don't fish have a three second attention span?" Emily gave a weak shrug. "Maybe he thinks a lot in those three seconds."
Just then they both heard a clunk ring through the room. Emily and Helena both tilted their heads slightly as they took in the picture in front of them. Norman had apparently spun around so fast that he smacked head first into the glass of his tank. He was now sort of floating there with a dazed expression on his face, like he was seeing stars above his head spinning round and round.
"I'm not even going to comment on this." Helena said.
"I'm with you on that." Emily grabbed the yearbook. "Now who did we leave off with?"
"Well let's look up...Sally. She was his longest girlfriend after all, according to the stupid smiling star sticker."
"Sally isn't in here either." Emily tapped the cover of the book thoughtfully. "She was a year older than us to begin with, and Casey told me of this weird fear she has of clothes hangers and high heels. It's so strange, like you won't know strange until you've heard it!
Helena gave her a blank stare.
"She doesn't like shopping." Emily clarified.
"Just because she doesn't like spending money on 'Polyester'," Helena chuckled. "Doesn't mean her daughter does too. She could totally love it and spend all her Mom's money while Sally sulks in the background."
"Except, Sally's eyes are green."
Helena threw up her hands in exasperation.
"Do you know anyone with blue eyes?"
Emily gave her a small smile and thumbs up.
"You, Casey, Kendra, that Amy Daniels girl."
Helena's eyes widened and her head snapped back down to the list of Derek's girls.
"Kendra!"
Emily's fingers were already searching for the right page and when she finally found it, she said a little victory cheer. Helena slipped the book from her hands to get a better look. She squinted as she tried to read the tiny paragraph under Kendra's picture, leaning forward on the couch so she could get better light.
"Kendra Mason. Interests include clothes, music, shoes and mascara. Has attended dance class since she started high school and has a high interest in interior designing. We know, Kendra will move on to great things. Congratulations on graduating!"
Helena threw the book back at Emily, giving a little clap. Emily ducked and it smacked the pillow beside her.
"We found her, Emily! The new Mrs. Derek Venturi!"
Emily never joined in with the clapping and just looked at her friend. Helena slowly caught on to the fact that she was the only one excited.
"Why are you not clapping?"
"Derek would never date her again, let alone marry her."
"You don't know that for sure. A lot could have changed over the years."
"She called him 'Der-bear'."
Helena's face fell into a frown and she dropped her hands into her lap, folding them together.
"I see your point. No guy would enjoy that pet name." She was quiet for a moment before she lifted her head to beam towards her friend. "But it says here she liked to dance!"
Emily snorted.
"If you want to call what she did, dancing? To me it looked like some kind of bizarre tribal mating ritual. I know people who stopped going to school dances because of her. She always dressed like she was some easy, STI that was just begging to fall on some unsuspecting boy."
Helena's face scrunched up in a sour look. "I hated girls like that."
"I know. You've only told me about a million times." Emily answered, bumping shoulders with her friend.
"What about that last one? Amy or whatever? She was a cheerleader so she obviously liked to dance, plus she probably owned an entire store full of wardrobe."
"She broke up with Derek, though." Emily replied, shaking her head.
"Yes, but she could have gone after him again."
"Nah. She broke up with him because all he did was talk and complain about his step-sister, Casey. She told me later on, it was like being in a relationship with the two of them and not even knowing it."
Helena looked completely shocked, mouth hanging open and eyed wide. It was the kind of look that you get when you realize the car keys you spent the whole morning looking for were exactly right under your nose the whole time.
"What?" Emily waved her hand in front of her friends face. "What's wrong? Hello? Earth to Helena, come in, Helena?"
But the girl made no sound. She just started to turn over pages in the yearbook, hands shaking so badly Emily wondered how she could even hold on to a page at all.
"I remember reading something earlier..." Helena was biting her lip in concentration. Emily felt so confused at her friend's antics, that all she could do was look down at her last high school yearbook and try to figure out what had her friend so shocked.
Helena must have found what she was looking for because she stopped turning pages and lifted the book up so Emily could see it too. She swallowed loudly before reading.
"Casey McDonald. Interests include dancing, writing and world history. Has been in every school drama production since she moved to London. We know our Valedictorian will move on to great things. Congratulations on graduating!"
And as both women looked at the picture of a pretty, dark haired and bright blue eyed young girl, Emily felt her throat tighten. It all just matched so perfectly. The way Casey looked and the way she acted compared to the way Marissa looked and acted. She just knew that this was Mrs. Derek Venturi, and by the look on Helena's face she knew it as well.
---
It was 1:29am and Helena had long gone home. Emily was still sitting in the living room, surrounded by all her notebooks and looking at the graduation photo of Casey. Emily tried to pretend that Marissa didn't share any of her features, that they were nothing alike. And for the first time in her whole life, Emily Davis began regretting her love of research.
Well, if it wasn't clear before, I hope you all know now. Yes, Casey is Marissa's Mother and the wife of Derek Venturi. Please review and let me know what you think. Happy New Year!
xoxoTaraxoxo