Chapter Eight: Recovering the Satellites
After the Manning twins set, Craig, Ellie and the two girls sat at their table rhapodizing over how great it was. Craig was a father glowing with prode, Ellie was proud as well but she preserved it much better than Craig could.
"So, Penny," Craig finally treid to switch the subject of his talented twin boys. "Tell me, hows your dad doing? What's he been up to?" Craig used to consider Sean a friend back in grade ten or so and he was curious to how his life had turned out. "He's doing well," She lied polietely. "His autobody shop is always busiest around this time, so he's really busy." That wasn't a lie at all, she smiled comfortable with her answer.
"And what about your parents,Tori?" Ellie turned the attention over to Tori before Craig had a chance to ask about Penelope's mom. Ellie was in the loop about these things thanks to her close ties to Paige.
"They're alright, working hard." She lied, sipping the remains of her Shirley Temple.
"And your brothers?" She asked both girls.
"Good." Tori shrugged her shoulders. "He's a nice combonation of both parents."
That answer worried Craig and Ellie. One Alex, they could handle. One Jay, they could tolerate for a moment. Combine them and you get, Jayson Jr, that scared them. They scanned their eyes at Penelope who was watching the world around her.
"Oh, mine?" Penelope really didn't want to get into that less than sunny topic. "They're fine, boys, you know." She giggled to try and ease things.
"I can't believe how big you've got." Ellie fawned over Penelope. "Last time I saw you, you had marmalade all over your face and little sundress." She smiled sweetly, Ellie had become much sweeter since becoming a mother of two.
"I remember," Craig could recall the last time they visited the Cameron abode. "And you were lifting that little sundress to show us all you had an, what did you call it," He thought back a little, Penelope had her face buried in her hands, embarresed. Tori was leaning in to hear more. "That's right, your 'agina'." Craig, Ellie and Tori just laughed whereas Penelope was turning the shade of their pizza sauce.
"Oh, Craig, you're embarrasing her." Ellie playfully swatted her husband.
Much to Penelope's happiness, the two poster boys of goregous pulled up seats to their table, The Manning Twins. The one with the more chiseled features whoTori had earlier called Vin reached over and pecked his mom on the cheek and Hartley took a seat between his parents, shaking his dads hand.
"It was a great set." Ellie's grin just kept getting bigger and bigger and happier and happier.
"Alternate your bass line on that last song, Vin." Craig winked at his son. "It was awesome though." He finally nodded his head in a solid agreement.
"I think my favorite song was the one about sea sickness." Tori spoke up, both boys big brown eyes dodged into her hazel ones and she began to sweat. "I don't know if that's what it was about but, you mention it in the chorus."
"Boys, thiis is Tori Hogart and Penelope Cameron, friends of ours." Ellie introduced to make things a little more relaxed between everyone at their table.
"No, I know what song you're talking about." Vin loosened up a smile down at her, since he was a fair amouth taller. His eyes alluminating light into hers. "Sailboat, I wish I could take credit for it," He relaxed back in his chair. "But, Hartley wrote that one on his own."
"It was great." Now that Penny knew which boy was which, she turned over to the one on her left and complimented. He just nodded, quietly. Not a chatty one like his brother.
"I think it'd be a lot better with a fuller sound." Vin took over for his older twin brother. "Unfortuantly, we haven't been able to find any other people interested in joining, at least with any talent."
"Penny," Tori swatted behind her nearly hitting Penny in the face. "She can play guitar and she's got a voice like nobody else."
"Tori, please." Penny leaned close to her friend and tried to side track her.
"I'm serious, you should hear her."
"You interested in auditioning?" Vin leaned foreword so he could look directly at her.
"Sure." She chimed in, simply. She was begining to feel as shy as Hartley was.
"Boys, have some pizza, we're done." Ellie who was engaged in a private conversation with Craig broke away to say.
"And Jonny Santos plays bass, you should really check him out. I don't know if you guys remember him, he goes to Degrassi." Tori handed out another reference to the brothers.
The moment Craig and Ellie word the name "Santos", they broke from their conversation and looked with both curious and worrisome eyes.
"Santos? Is their mother's named Manuella?" Ellie checked feeling her old high school jealously be reborn in her gut.
"Manny, I think." Tori assured them.
"She's a hair stylist, right?" Craig double checked.
Tori only nodded.
Colleen was as silent as an abandoned warehouse at the dinner table. Giselle was usually the quieter one at meal time and Colleen would yack on for hours about her day at school and why they won't hang out with certain people because of the hem on their skirts. Tonight, Giselle had to take the reigns.
"I'm sort of worried about my Media Immersion project." She said after swallowing her sip of water.
"Why? Is it not done?" Her dad said reading some work to the side and fiddling with his work on his other.
"No, it is." She nodded, pushing her blonde hair to keep from dragging on her plate. "It's just worth thirty percent of our final grade, I want to do a good job."
"That's up to you." He groaned, not really paying attention. "You have to do a good job."
"Why not, Mom?!" Colleen finally wailed. Paige looked up from her still full plate of antipasta.
"Excuse me?" She questioned her oldests daughter sudden outbreak.
"Why can't I date Austin Walters?"
"We've been over this." Paige really didnt' want to discuss it ecspecially at the dinner table. She'd never shared with her daughter about what happened between her and Dean Walters. She'd told her husband but, he didn't seem to be phased with what's going on.
"Your answer hasn't been good enough, tell me, Mom."
"Because I said so, Colleen." Paige heard her mother's voice come through her own.
"I can't believe you." Penelope folded over Tori's kitchen counter while Tori put away some left overs in their fridge.
"You love me for it, admit it." Tori gloaed with a freshly glossed smile, pulling out two coke cans before closing the refirdgerator behind her.
"I don't play the guitar anymore." Penny hadn't touched it in at least seven months.
"Now you have an excuse, too."
"And I don't sing ever anymore." Her midnight eyes pierced into the back of her friend's head as Tori led them to her messy living room where both girls collapsed over on the couch.
"Not even in the shower?" Tori opened her can, squinting so it won't squirt in her eyes.
"Not even in the shower." Penelope handed hers to Tori to open since she wasn't able to pull back the tab.
"I find that hard to believe." She handed the now open drink back to her friend.
"Look, if you don't want to audition, that's fine, but at least now we have an excuse to see them tommorrow."
Interuppting their bonding time, a clearly buzzed Jayson wandered into the apartment almost kicking the door open. He already had a smoke in his mouth and just recently lit. Behind him, a just as tipsy Sydney followed, trying to wander in a straight line and laughing like a hyenna.
"Jayson, you're not allowed to smoke inside." Tori reminded him as he trenched across the girls.
He stopped in his tracks and glossed his sister over with his stoned eyes. At first he growled in her direction but, when he noticed Penelope next to hers, he just smirked just like his dad.
"Tori, you're not supposed to have stuck-up bitches inside." He muttered and then led him and Sydney to the balcony.
Penelope couldn't believe it and Tori wanted to pounce her brother over.
"He's drunk." Tori searched Penelope's face to try and bring back the happiness that was spread on it before. "And stoned." She excused her brother.
"It's okay." Penelope knew what stoned and drunk guys could be like. She'd grown up with Zac.
Just to make things worse in walked Tori's father. He wasn't drunk, which was a shocking change and he seemed to have a pretty dominant smile on his face.
"Tori, guess what?" He called while closing the door.
"What?" She called back making a silly face at Penny.
"That job I went over a week ago at Canadian Reno's, I got it." A while back, Tori remembered, her dad went for a job to be a contractor for this company. She was thrilled that he got the job. It meant more income which meant less stress which meant happier parents. Tori was through the roof. Jay wandered out of their kitchen nook eating a leftover piece of pizza Tori had broughten home.
"That's great, Dad, congrats!" Tori exclaimed and then began to sip her drink.
Jay's smile one eightied into a frown when he set eyes on little Penelope Cameron. Penny could feel his death stare without looking and she sunk lower in the couch.
"What the hell is she doing here?" He grumbled and nodded at her.
"We're hanging out. Mom said she could sleep over."
"Why?" Jay walked close to them, ripping a piece of pizza inbetween his teeth. "Your old man finally got evicted?" He muttered in her face, so close, Penny thought pizza might spray in her face but, it didn't. He just wandered into his bedroom and slammed the door behind him.
"Penny, I'm sorry." Tori rubbed her friend's arm in support. "He's just - he's not the most welcoming guy."
"It's fine, Tori, it is." She tried to convince Tori. "It just sucks that even after all these years your family still hates mine."
"Come on, Penny." Tori laughed a little, followed by a hiccup.
"No, I know that your dad and mine butted heads a few years ago when it came to the autobody shop but, can't they just work it out?"
"Whoa." Tori shook her head. "You mean, you don't know what happened?"
"They had an arguement and your dad quit?" That's the story Penelope had been told. She was only seven years old when it happened.
Tori checked behind her to make sure her brother couldn't hear her but, he was occupied holding his lips over Sydney's.
"Look, Penny, this is what happened," Tori got in close to fill Penelope in with the truth.
Two am struck and Gavin sat with his arms crossed over his chest on the couch. He had Jeporady playing on the television to distract him but it wasn't working, not even a little bit. The sound of a door slamming outside the house alerted his ears and his eyes popped open wide. He still wore his death look, furiously. He could hear Sydney walking up their walkway and her keys fiddling in the lock. Gavin wandered to the door and opened it wide while Sydney was putting her keys in. The motion sent Sydney flying to the floor. Her face smacked the ground, harshly. Slowly, she pushed her head up, her blonde locks all spread across her make-up smeared face. Gavin couldn't believe it, she looked like complete trash.
"Hi Daddy." She giggled out. He grabbed her by the wrists and helped her up.
"Where were you, Sydney?" He closed the door and locked it behind them both. "I've been here all night worried sick, not to mention, you have Mrs. Michaelchuck-Bicknell upset and I called your school counsellor. What's going on with you?"
"Can you hold that thought?" She slurred and flopped over to the waste bin by their kitchen entrance. She fell over it and began to vomit.
Any doubt that she'd been drinking was quickly made clear.
Gavin couldn't believe his daughter. She used to be so clever, a better desicion maker than he ever was. She had priorities and goals before. She wanted to get a dance scholarship, she wanted to be a choregrapher. She wanted to dance on theatres through out the world. She was a beautiful girl, too. Eyes like his that began as thin as slits when she smiled widely and she had a body like her mother's which was perfect without even trying. She had fairtytale blonde hair - like her mother's and a smile just like his - goofy and adorable at the same time. He wanted to cry seeing her that way. This wasn't his little girl. He wanted Val to be there to help him discipline her, she'd know what to do. His instinct was to punish Sydney - to throw her out., to yell at her until her ears were bleeding but, then it hit him like a brick wall. If Val was there, this wouldn't of even helped. He just watched as his daughter spewed, missing the garbage can and letting it strak through her hair.
Chapter seven coming up.
Tell me what you guys think, I know that this chapter wasn't the greatest.
Again, suggestions and comments are all apperciated.
And I promise big drama and romance and all good things we love about Degrassi are brewing.
Recovering the Satellites - Counting Crows