Yes! Hurricane Irene missed us at The Beach! Thx for your notes! sunny

*NOTE* Thank you for the reviews and comments! Sometimes a reader asks me an interesting question but leaves an anonymous review, which is fine but then I can't respond. For those of you who feel my Ranger is cold, distant, doesn't love Stephanie...pls let me assure you: he does love her. And my stories always have a R & S HEA, at least implied.

BUT I will never write a sappy, emotional, vocal, sloppily-in-love Ranger, my mercenary Ranger doesn't do that! And actually neither does my Stephanie. They may not be vocal but their love is deep and strong and perfect. I also direct you to my stories like The Price is Right, Take a Chance, and Jane's Dilemma where I think their love is shown in a realistic (for fanfic), slightly disfunctional, modern, adult way. You want sappy Ranger who talks a lot, well...he's elsewhere in fanfiction, enjoy! love sunny

a/n 2 Back to school! This story jumps ahead a little bit, Zoe is headed to second grade! I think all the stories from now on will be tied to calendar year (ie Xmas stories in December!); the chronology may be mixed up but I always tell you how old Zoe is.

For anyone who doesn't live in the US, Staples is an all-purpose office supplies/ computer supplies (ink cartridges/ paper etc) chain of stores here. Not sure if they are all over the US or other countries. Kinda like McDonalds for office stuff/ school supplies.

Shelter from the Sorm

.

Chapter Six ~ The Crisis

.

[Stephanie]

"But Mommy! One of the folders HAS to be purple! See, here's the list. Loooook!" Zoë wasn't whining but she had that determined look on her face.

"I couldn't get purple, sweetie, I got you two blue ones instead."

"Steph, that won't work," chimed in Julie. "If the teacher says red, green, yellow, blue, and purple—you gotta have red, green, yellow, blue, and purple... NO substitutions."

Julie was spending a semester here in Jersey, taking Princeton's accelerated math program for gifted teens. Her other classes would be at the same private school where Zoë was about to enter second grade.

"I'm not a baby any more, mommy. I have a list and rules," said Zoe.

"But... Well, Julie, what did Rachel do if she couldn't find some special supply on your list?"

Julie shrugged. "Never happened."

Of course not.

Zoë's eyes were filling with tears. I was devastated! I let my baby down, I was a bad mom. I knew this would happen! Why did I insist on doing the back to school shopping myself? Ranger had glanced at the list and offered his infinitesimal shrug. Said, Give the list to Ella, babe. No problem. But nooooo, I had to be an involved parent. I'm an idiot...

Julie said carefully, "Steph? Are you okay? You have such a look on your face..."

I drew a deep breath.

"I'll call Valerie and ask her. Or maybe Mary Lou." They were both into the mom thing. "You guys go get ready, we'll get a list of stationary places and we'll have a purple notebook mission. Okay?"

"Folder, mommy."

"Yeah, folder."

"Yay! Go, mommy!" The girls ran off to change out of their summery shorts and flipflops.

This so sucked big time! The list was three pages long. Besides the notebooks, um, folders!—Zoë needed an extra-large 500 sheet pack of lined 2- (not 3)-holed binder paper; 25 pencils, #2; 4 erasers (2 pink rubber, 1 white plastic, 1 grey kneaded, fer crissakes); a laptop and charger; crayons; colored pencils; set of colored markers; dry erase pens, 6, blue; English dictionary; Spanish dictionary. 12 Sharpie pens, blue not black. 25 erasable blue Bic pens. Paperclips, hole puncher; brads!-3 boxes; 6 spiral notebooks, single subject, wide lines only. File tabs. Backpack. And a box of Kleenex. Our tax dollars can't, like, buy a box of damn tissues for the class? I wondered if she needed her own toilet paper and they forgot that on the list.

Oh wait, it's a private school...our Harvard level tuition can't stretch to a communal box of tissues? What do they do with twenty-plus grand per child anyway?

Everything on the list, excluding her for-achool-only second iPad that was to be used as the laptop requirement, cost $376.23! And it would all go lost or be shared with her friends before Halloween.

Do not get me started on the uniform issue.

... ... ...

I called Valerie first. "Omigod, Steph, that's awful. You have to find one or poor Zoë will start the year with a black mark against her! Teachers have rules!"

"I'll sic Ranger on that woman if I have to."

"Even Ranger probably can't override the school supply list rules! And um, you know...he might think you should have got the purple one too, look how he dresses his men. You never see them in say, a red t-shirt! Or even grey."

"There were no purple ones left," I screamed.

"Not my fault, Stephanie." She hung up with a bang.

I dialed Mary Lou. "Omigod, Steph, that's awful. You have to find one or poor Zoë will start the year with a black mark against her! Teachers have rules!"

What is with these people?

"Where can I go, what should I do?" My voice was wobbling.

"Well, maybe try driving out of the area, like to Pennsylvania or Virginia, go to all the malls and Staples and so on. Their schools' lists may be different..."

"And if that doesn't work? C'mon, ML, I'm desperate."

"Well, you could buy purple paint and try to paint one that's the wrong color...Or, oh I know!—you can buy purple construction paper and glue it on the cover of a bad folder."

"In a perfect world there would be NO bad folders," I moaned.

"You can't fight 'em, Steph. You have to be proactive. You gotta call the school on August first when they're printing up the lists, or getting them posted online. You gotta work ahead. Then you run right to Staples. No dillydallying, no saying your next FTA apprehension is more important!"

"Okay, okay. Remind me next year, pleeeeze?"

"Good luck, sweetie." Mary Lou hung up.

I sat for a minute and carefully wrote two lists. Best case scenario: Staples/ in PA: Purple folder. And: emergency list: purple paint. Purple crepe, no, no, XXXX, construction paper! Glue stick.

Then I had a little pep talk with myself: You can do this, Steph. (I channeled Ranger's voice in my head.) Okay, great. I went on-line and printed out a map showing the GPS coordinates of every Staples store within a 200 mile radius of Trenton.

Wow, what a market share, those Staples guys are everywhere!

I yelled, "Girls? Are you guys about ready?"

... ... ...

"Look, mommy!"

Geez, motherhood sucks sometimes. If it's not one thing, it's another.

Silence. Then Julie said, "She looked so sugary in those pastelly shorts and stuff she was wearing. She looked like a baby. I thought she'd look cute dressed up more like, well, me. Like a Rangeman babe."

Julie had found every solid black item in Zoë's closet. Zoë wore a black ruffled miniskirt and a black tee-shirt, with black leggings and black sneakers. And Julie wore a similar outfit, though her skirt was narrow black denim and her shoes—boots—were black high-laced Doc Martins.

The thing is, it was 96 effin' degrees out! But okay, I'm good with black clothes, I'm used to black clothes, right? But Julie had made up their faces: white powder on their cafe au lait skin; black eyeliner and shadow, blood red lipstick. And grey nail polish. Like a friggin' corpse.

My little Goth princesses. Their dad would either be horrified...or thrilled, who knows.

"Omigod, are you wearing anything not black?"

"Just my underpants, mommy." Zoë hiked up her skirt to show her little white cotton Thursday panties. Embroidered by Ella.

At least they don't say Rangeman.

the end/series tbc