An entire year had passed since Bitsy had recruited Nathan and Mimsy into her plan to get rid of Central Park. A lot had changed during that time. Within that amount of time, things had gotten serious between Helen and Bitsy's adoptive daughter Kayla, so much so in fact that an engagement was all but inevitable; Spinel had decided to try her hand at single motherhood, only to suffer a miscarriage two months into her pregnancy on Bitsy's 74th birthday; Savannah was starting to get somewhere in her potential music career while falling back on her job as a bartender at the Brandenham Hotel; and Masa had gotten into a relationship with Bitsy's niece Gwendolyn.
In addition to all that, Bitsy's arms had managed to heal enough for her casts to be removed, and she was eventually taken off suicide watch. She had also been making clandestine purchases for things like C-4 plastic explosives, detonators, blasting caps, and daytime fireworks (mostly ones like skyrockets and smoke balls) that she hoped would cause a fire that could easily spread. She knew that she was taking a huge gamble putting the whole thing together, especially with as many people as she'd gotten involved in this scheme to destroy Central Park's reputation and deem it fit for demolition. Still, it was a risk she was willing to take, legality and popularity be damned.
The Fourth of July was just around the corner, which made this particularly devious plan somewhat amusing (at least to some people). Leopold "Butters" Stotch had already thrown his hat in to run for New York City mayor at this point, so he knew he had to do something to bolster his chances at winning the 2029 mayoral election. He knew that running for mayor was not an easy feat by any means, but he was determined to see it through no matter what. Even the good-natured man that he was, he was determined to show himself as honestly as possible. To Bitsy, this was an opportunity to bring her Central Park one step closer to fruition. She'd heard from Rabbi Cartman over the years just how gullible the mayoral candidate could be, with one story in particular being about how Cartman once convinced Butters that a meteor was about to hit Earth and then hid him away in Stan's uncle Jimbo's bomb shelter so he could attend Kyle's birthday party at Casa Bonita in his place.
So just three days before the Fourth of July, Bitsy managed to set up a meeting with Butters at the Brandenham Hotel about possibly speaking at Central Park.
"Well, gosh, Miss Brandenham!" Butters exclaimed over the phone. "I don't think I've ever been inside your hotel before. It'd be a real honor to visit you."
"It's a real honor just to have you visit in the first place," Bitsy said while putting on a cloying facade.
"Gee whiz, thanks, Miss Brandenham. I can't wait for you to see what I'll have to offer this November. You're in for a real treat."
"You too. Alright, I'll be sure to see you then."
Bitsy hung up without even saying goodbye. At that moment, Helen walked in to inform Bitsy that they'd been called back to attend Day 4 of Dante and her daughter Solaris' trial for their roles in Ambrosia and Simon's deaths.
"God, I can't wait for them to rot in jail," Bitsy said. "Last time I saw them, they looked like they were on their way to commit a skank robbery."
"That depends on whether or not they're found guilty," Helen replied matter-of-factly. "Not that they won't be, of course! Though I'm sure you wouldn't care either way. You just want to see them squirming on the stand."
"I mean, why wouldn't I want to see that? You heard how unhinged Dante is, right? She actually seems to think that she was Eva Braun in a past life, and she even told me as much! Can you believe that? How brazen do you have to be to actually proclaim such a thing, let alone even think it?"
"Yeah, that's... that's pretty brazen, alright."
"Indeed. I did not have several relatives on my father's side of the family die during the Holocaust so I could listen to some blathering nutjob talk about how she was married to Hitler in her past life and how 'he's just misunderstood' or whatever comes out of her mouth."
"Well, it's only a matter of time before she and Solaris have to report to prison anyway, so you won't have to worry about her much longer."
"I should hope not. Fetch me an Agua De Valencia, and make it snappy!"
Bitsy just watched as Helen went down to the bar to get her the drink. Hopefully, things would go Bitsy's way and Dante and Solaris would have to spend the rest of their sorry lives in jail.
It was finally the Fourth of July, a time to celebrate an elevated sense of patriotism. However, not everyone was in the mood for such a thing. For one, Dante and Solaris Henderson were sitting in the courtroom, a judge seated before them with a disapproving glare and hands steepled. There must have been hundreds of people in that courtroom, Bitsy and Helen and Kayla included.
Kayla was seated to the right of her fiancee, her face unwavering in the face of possible justice on the horizon. For this courthouse outing, she wore a red H:ours Alyson Cut Out Top and a cream-colored Quince Washable Silk Shirt paired with blue bedazzled platform high heels from Hill House. She also had her blonde hair done up into Celtic rose buns on either side of her head. Flung over her shoulder was a pink velvet shoulder bag with a ruched flap.
As if out of the blue, Kayla pointed to Dante and Solaris' lawyer. "Hey, I think I remember that guy!"
"You do?" Helen asked.
"Yeah, I went to law school with him. I think he originally wanted to be an ambulance chaser, but he decided it would be more profitable to go into criminal defense instead."
"Yeah, that sounds about right."
"Oh yeah, definitely. I think he'd be better-suited for ambulance chasing anyway. He's clearly not that great at his job."
Soon enough, the judge called Dante to the stand, and Dante started spinning a yarn about how she felt that she was in her right mind to hire several hitmen off of 4chan to murder a trans girl merely for existing and dating her non-binary child. From the way Dante was talking, it seemed that she was more than happy to dehumanize trans people by misgendering and deadnaming them (including her own child, whom she was under the impression was "just going through a phase"). Then, as if that wasn't enough, Dante then decided to go on a spiel about how she was honored to have been Adolf Hitler's wife in a previous life.
Bitsy couldn't bear to listen to any more of Dante's ramblings after a while, and so she decided not to stick around for when Solaris got on the stand. Instead, she had Kayla and Helen bail her out and take her to Dunkin. A real shame she had to miss out on watching Solaris try to save face and throw the hitmen she and her mother had hired under the bus, but it was for her own sanity. By some coincidence, Jasmine also happened to be at Dunkin, waiting in line to order some donuts and coffee.
"Oh, hey, isn't that your nurse?" Kayla asked her adoptive mom while pointing to Jasmine.
"That's her, alright," Bitsy confirmed.
"Should we go up to her?"
"What do you think?"
Kayla shrugged. "I guess we could wait for her to get her order before approaching her. She's probably not in the mood to just chat with anyone."
So they decided to wait a bit for Jasmine to order her donuts and coffee before Kayla could make the first move and approach the Tejana herself. Jasmine was so taken aback by Kayla's presence that she nearly dropped her order.
"Oh, Kayla!" Jasmine exclaimed. "Don't sneak up on me like that!"
"Sorry, I didn't know how else to approach you," Kayla replied. "So, uh, how have you been? We haven't really seen much of you lately."
Jasmine lit up like a Christmas light. "Pretty well, I must say. Gio and I just got engaged."
Bitsy's lip curled as if Jasmine had said something repulsive.
Kayla happily gaped her mouth open. "Wow, congratulations, Jasmine! We're very happy for you, right, Helen?"
Helen had briefly zoned out to fantasize about all the money she'd be getting when Bitsy died, only to snap back to reality. "Oh yeah, we're really happy for you, Jasmine."
Jasmine nodded. "Good, good. So what have you been up to lately? I guess Bitsy still really wants Central Park gone?"
"Yeah, she still does," Helen replied. "I don't know how much longer she wants to keep this up."
"Me neither. I don't even want to think about the end results."
