Joyce sighed at the old ledger, once again wanting to track down and beat Misty's last accountant. Technically this was a bit more than a gallery manager normally did, but there was no confusion as to why the previous bookkeeper had been removed from the position, and apparently the last gallery manager had been frightened off by too many mutant conflicts, and the one before that had been unable to cope with Misty and Irene's relationship… She still hadn't met Irene, but the woman was obviously a talented artist. Her work was vibrant, colorful, and managed that difficult feat of speaking to the emotions, something that seemed quite unconnected to color, composition or even talent.
At least Irene's showing was arranged. The paperwork was in order, the decorations planned, and she'd arranged for a bit of assistance with setting up the displays. The only thing left was talking to Irene or misty about prices. That in mind, she got out of the comfortable office chair and headed towards the room where Misty was probably located, though God only knew what she'd be doing in there, with her laptop and cell phone, as well as stacks of folders and papers that didn't seem to have any connection to the gallery. There was also a small refrigerator and a nice television.
The door was partially open, a signal that Misty wouldn't mind the interruption. On the screen, there was a news clip about some sort of conflict involving a group of mutants in dark outfits and what looked like strange purple robots. One of the mutants was blue, with a tail and an astounding resemblance to medieval depictions of the Devil, another was a woman with dark skin and long white hair, floating in the air with lightning crackling around her hands.
Misty sat behind her desk, looking bluer than ever, tears streaming from yellow eyes. She was focused on the screen, her expression one of shock and pain.
"Misty?" Joyce left the woman's name as a question, not quite soft enough to be a whisper, not loud enough for a normal conversation. It was obvious that something was terribly wrong, and she had no clue what to do about it, or even what it was. Her guess was that, like her own life, it was actually plenty of smaller things piling up and one last thing being just that tiny bit too much to bear and setting off tears.
"I thought he was dead…" the words dissolved into more sobbing, and Misty seemed to collapse into her chair.
Joyce moved over, rubbing her hand along Misty's back, hoping that she could help a little bit, at least enough that Misty was coherent. "You know one of the people on the television?"
Misty kept sobbing, her whole body shaking as she wept. Her skin was now almost the same dark blue as the very acrobatic blue mutant on the television. She was murmuring things in several languages, though Joyce could only make out a few words – baby, lost, son, and dead. Joyce kept rubbing circles on Misty's back, hoping to calm her down, uncertain what else she could do to help.
"You're Joyce. I've heard quite a few things about you," there was another woman in the doorway, a slender woman with light grey hair and dark sunglasses, garbed in a soft grey matching pants and jacket over a shirt of a dark blue that currently matched Misty's skin. "My name is Irene Adler."
"The circumstances aren't ideal, but it's good to meet you," Joyce commented, still rubbing circles on Misty's back. "There was a clip on the news about a group of mutants fighting some big purple robots, and she just…" Joyce shrugged, unable to come up with better words, "she just fell apart."
Irene moved closer, pulling a second chair over beside Misty's and wrapping her arms around the sobbing blue woman, "I'm here, love. You aren't alone, I'm here…"
"One of the mutants was a rather distinctive blue fellow, very acrobatic. Allowing for color distortion, I'd say about the same blue that she is right now," Joyce let Irene take over the little circles on Misty's back. "She's murmuring things, but I couldn't really make them out. Something about a baby, or maybe her baby… a son. And he was either dead or lost…"
"She had a son, a number of years ago. He was… visibly a mutant, from the very beginning," Irene spoke softly, still curled around Misty, rubbing her hand along Misty's spine. "There was a great many objections, and it seemed that he was killed."
"The blue mutant either looks enough like that baby that he might be her son, or at least reminded her of him?" Joyce asked, glancing over to the television which was now playing a commercial for Mercedes-Benz.
"Exactly," Irene nodded. "Joyce? Why don't you go home for the day, or at least just… come back tomorrow?"
"I suppose I can do that," Joyce looked at the two of them. At the bare minimum, this was an emotionally trying moment, and who knew just what Irene planned to help calm Misty down? She could certainly go away for a while.
Besides, she did have some other things to worry about. Her girls. Emma. And Buffy's stalker.
Joyce left the art gallery. There were plenty of things that she could deal with that would give Irene and Misty their privacy.
end part 16.
As she pulled the borrowed BMW into Emma's garage, Joyce tried to remember which of her multiple cars Emma had driven to her corporate offices today. It was a company day, not a school day, so she would be farther away, and less likely to have the time for a phone call. Had it been the Porsche? Joyce sighed, thinking that the fact that she couldn't remember which car her friend, her girlfriend, had taken was a sign that Emma had too much money. Her girlfriend… Joyce shook her head when she realized that she was just sitting in the garage with a sappy grin, and went inside the mansion.
Joyce made her way to Emma's home office, looking for a phone book. Since her life had been turned upside down in the divorce – not that she regretted ending things with Hank in the least – she had so many changes. Some of them she'd handled – a different home, a new school for the girls, a job. She still wanted, perhaps needed to change her will. As things were, her possessions were to go to Hank if he survived her, and to be held in equal shares for her children until they came of age if he didn't, with Hank getting custody if she died. It had sounded like a good idea while they were married, but not anymore. Damn if she'd let anything go to Hank just because they'd been married before he went off with some perky, big breasted secretary. Of course, just because a lawyer or law firm was in the phone book didn't mean they were a good choice for what she needed…
"What are you looking for, Joyce?"
Emma's voice startled her, and Joyce blinked, wondering just how long the book had been open to Lawyers, Rendal & Jenkins. "I need to update my will. I hadn't changed it since before Dawn was born, and it's a bit out of date, especially now…"
"Quite understandable," Emma murmured, and plucked the phone book out of Joyce's hands. "I left work early so that I wouldn't not so accidentally mind-wipe a few of my department heads. Why don't we have some ice cream and coffee? I can catch you up on what the teachers have to say about your girls…"
"Isn't that bribery?" Joyce smiled as she stood up, her arms sliding around Emma's waist. Leaning forward, she gave her a quick kiss before walking towards the kitchen. "Is there more strawberry, or just the chocolate almond?"
Emma followed behind, her bare feet quiet on the tiled floor. "There should be both. I pay my staff quite well to keep things running smoothly, and when someone has this much money, that means I shouldn't run out of ice cream."
In short order, the coffee was brewing, and they had bowls of ice cream on the counter.
Joyce took a bite of the strawberry, grinned before taking a spoonful of Emma's chocolate almond. "Now, what's this about my girls?"
"Dawn is getting along very well with the Stepfords, and doing very well in her classes. She keeps getting into arguments with Billy, the teacher is dismissing them as youthful squabbles and suspects that he might like her and have no better idea of how to express himself. Mindee, Sophie and Dawn are working together for a history project that sounds like it will become some sort of fashion show. She hasn't made any other close friends, but she gets along fairly well with a good number of other students. Dawn isn't the one we need to fret about," Emma took a bite of her ice cream, and sighed.
"Which means that Buffy is the one to worry about," Joyce translated. "Is she fighting at school? Or skipping classes?"
"She's present in her classes, though she has had a few problems paying attention in history and French. Mr. Douglas says that she seems to have problems paying attention during lectures, he used the term 'zoning out.' Of course, she hasn't had problems turning in her work, though her essays and reports could use better structure and more extensive vocabulary… Which is beside the point. I put her in martial arts lessons with Walter. He said that she's faster and stronger than a girl her size should be. He also said that she's good now."
"Which raises the questions of how and why she got so good at fighting, and who she's getting into fights with," Joyce sighed, poking at her ice cream. "What about her stalker?"
Emma took a breath before speaking, "I tracked him down after I left Frost Enterprises. Jeremy Claybourne is utterly convinced that there are demons and vampires stalking people in the shadows and the darkness, preying on humans. That the best way to deal with these monsters is to have a young woman fight and kill them. Not just any young woman, but some sort of mystically chosen warrior, someone called a Slayer. More troubling, this Slayer rarely lasts a year after being chosen, dies horribly at the claws and fangs of these demons, and he thinks Buffy is the current Slayer."
"Dear God…" Joyce had no idea what to say to something like that. "Buffy? Some sort of destined warrior?"
"Rather absurd sounding," Emma agreed. "More disturbing, I found a stash of pictures that he'd taken of her. Pictures of her on a morning jog, at the mall, at the school. He was planning to approach her about her destiny."
Joyce shuddered.
"Considering a few of the pictures, I was not amused. He's currently being examined by the staff of Bayview Cove, a facility for the mentally disturbed. He won't be able to keep from telling them all about the demons, and how he was stalking an under-aged girl to have her kill the monsters," Emma's smile reminded Joyce of a tiger, or perhaps a snow leopard would be a better comparison. "I'm not about to have strange men taking pictures of my students, especially not at the locker room door."
"Wouldn't he have had to be in the school grounds to get that one?" Joyce could feel herself growing hot at the idea of some pervert trying to look at Buffy. She was only fifteen. The idea of her being forced to fight monsters… to fight anything on the say-so of some middle aged British man…
"That's why I arranged for him to be committed. He won't be able to keep from telling everyone about stalking the girl, though he kept thinking of her as The Slayer. He won't be able to stop talking about the monsters, how they're hiding out there." A few moments of quiet, and then Emma sighed, "I just wish I hadn't lost my temper, I could have figured out how he got onto the school… He probably doesn't remember that anymore. Maybe not a few other things either."
"Perverted stalker. I hope they do something terrible to him. Electroshock therapy, or regular enemas… anything as long as it's awful," Joyce was still angry, and took another bite of the ice cream.
"They will, oh yes they will…" Emma shook her head.
"To blatantly change the subject, did you ever look into that absurd idea that the Stepford girls were your clones? Or long lost half siblings, or something?" Joyce stood up, pouring a cup of coffee for herself and one for Emma. "How would you go about checking that anyhow?"
Emma chuckled, though it lacked her usual intensity. "I suppose I could always start with having someone run a blood typing on one of them. If it's radically different from their parents, then something's odd. Or if it's incompatible with my own, then I can dismiss things as pure coincidence. But I can't just order a blood typing, let alone a full DNA workup on my students just because."
They let the question of the Stepford girls' blood and heritage go, considering it to be of minor importance. Buffy's stalker was much more troublesome, even if Emma had dealt with him. Her secrets and fighting were a bigger concern for them both. And Joyce still needed a good attorney to update her will.
End part 17.