Kelly Schuester had expected that, once she got out of college, she'd never have to wake up early again. Turns out even the weathergirl has to be up at a certain time. Kelly would bathe, dress, then head to the studio so she could have her makeup professionally done before finally going live in front of the green screen. And she was a professional to boot. No matter how terrible she felt, no matter what mood she was in, she was always chipper on screen. The way she saw it, many times the first person you see for the day is the weatherperson, so she may as well put a smile on peoples faces if she could.
Today, on her lunch break, she was pulling into a parking lot and groaning. She'd done her job, she had some paperwork to do, and then she could go home and relax. She had been feeling so ill lately, she really needed a vacation, but with the convention coming up soon, she knew she'd have to wait until after that. Kelly climbed out of her car and shut the door behind her, only to be jerked back and momentarily surprised until she realized the car door had eaten one of the coat tails of her jacket. She shouted and fumbled with her car keys, electrically unlocking the door once again and pulling her coat tail violently from the doorjam before turning back and realizing she was face to face with Rachel. "....oh, hi," she said quietly. "You havin' trouble there?" Rachel said. "...my car ate my jacket," Kelly muttered, causing Rachel to burst out in laughter, which only made Kelly chuckle a little in response. "I saw you from the parking lot across the street," Rachel said, "I work at that coffee shop. I just was hoping you weren't in need of assistance." "Oh I am, just not that kind," Kelly remarked, the girls laughing again, "...are you on break?" "Yeah." "I'll buy you lunch," Kelly said, and despite Rachel slightly hesitating, she nodded in agreement. Maybe it was time to bury the hatchet. *** Wyatt had made these reservations a week before, and now he was on the phone being told that they could no longer accommodate them thanks to a recent, very small, fire in the kitchen. Wyatt didn't even get to have a conversation with anyone, he got a fucking voicemail. That's how serious this was, apparently, it warranted voicemails. Now was what he going to do? He set the phone back on its base and collapsed onto the couch, groaning, dragging his hands down his face as Scarlett came down the stairs, putting her hair up, already dressed for the evening. She was wearing a tight black dress and tall white leather boots. She stopped in front of him, hands on her hips. "We're not able to go, are we?" she asked. "You look like a go-go dancer," Wyatt said after a moment of looking her outfit up and down, "and no, we're not able to go, but we can...I don't know...find somewhere else?" "Do you still want to?" Scarlett asked, tossing her loose strands of hair from her eyes. "Of course, this is date night, we never miss date night," Wyatt said, "I just...am at a loss for where to go is all." "Well," Scarlett said, "we could just go downtown and drive around until we find somewhere we think looks interesting, like we used to. We're too set in our ways now, we know our favorites and refuse to budge. We should get back out there and start exploring again." "Alright, that...that's not a bad idea, let me go take a shower and get ready and stuff," Wyatt said, standing up and kissing her on the cheek before heading upstairs. As he got into the upstairs bathroom and shut the door behind him, he turned to see Mona standing on a stool in front of the enormous vanity mirror spread out across the sink, looking at her moms makeup. She wasn't trying any, she was just examining it. Wyatt smirked and approached his daughter. "What are you doing?" he asked. "Does every girl have to wear this stuff? It seems like it'd be uncomfortable," she replied. "Naw, girls don't have to. A lot of them like to, a lot of them feel pressured to, but you don't have to if you think it would make you feel uncomfortable or weird," Wyatt said, leaning against the bathroom sink and folding his arms, adding, "don't you think mommy looks pretty with it?" "Mommy looks pretty either way," Mona said, making Wyatt chuckle as she continued, "but I don't like the idea of having stuff on my face." "Well, nobody is going to force you to, okay? Now go somewhere else, daddy has to shower," Wyatt said, gently patting her on the back to get her to move along from the bathroom. As she exited, she turned and looked up at him. "Why don't boys wear makeup?" she asked. "Because boys think they don't need help, when in reality, we can't do a single thing ourselves," he said, making her laugh as he said, "in fact, I'd be lost without you and your mom. Hopelessly unable to care for myself. We're just wired that way." Mona laughed and ran off, as Wyatt shut the bathroom door and looked at himself in the mirror. Truth was, he had worn makeup a few times, but mostly as a teenager to cover up acne or a scratch on a photo day or something. He didn't mind it, but he also recognized he wasn't your usual run of the mill typical 'bro' who thought anything other than Football and eateries like Hooters were inherently homosexual. He licked his lips, then licked his index fingertips and smoothed out his eyebrows. Wyatt was vain, he wouldn't deny it. But that didn't mean he needed makeup, and frankly, Mona was right, neither did Scarlett. *** "I'm just so exhausted," Kelly said, sitting inside and sipping her iced coffee from the straw plunged into the lid of her cup, "and now with Cloudcon coming up, and I'll be flying in a few weeks to-" "...Cloudcon?" Rachel asked, taking a bite of her sandwich and chewing. "Oh, it's...it's a convention for weather persons out in Orlando," Kelly replied, "I have to go every year, see new technological updates to the services we use to predict weather patterns, stuff like that. Plus sometimes we're given a seminar of how to act on screen. You'd be surprised at the limitations one is given even in just announcing the weather." "....they seriously called it Cloudcon?" Rachel asked, making Kelly laugh. "They seriously called it Cloudcon, yeah." "That sounds like an evil company in a futuristic dystopia," Rachel mumbled, still chewing her sandwich. "Iced coffee is delicious but it hurts my braces," Kelly said, tapping at her teeth with her nail. "Look...one of the reasons I came across the street to talk is cause I...I wanted to apologize for how I acted. Not just in high school, but also at the reunion. I was a bitch, and I'm sorry. You deserve better than that. I owe you an explanation. Um...I was worried that, because we were such close friends, that....I guess that I'd start to feel something romantic for you. I didn't, but I was worried I MIGHT, and that scared the shit out of me. That's why I cut you off, because it was easier than dealing with myself." Kelly leaned back in her chair, still tapping at her braces mindlessly as she listened. Rachel pushed her bangs from her eyes and scratched her forehead, exhaling. "Ugh, this is weird. I knew I was gay, I just...I didn't want to admit it yet I guess, and I was scared that if we kept spending time together, or god forbid we did somehow attend the same college-" "I understand," Kelly said, interrupting. "No, Kelly, no, you...you don't," Rachel said, "you were the best friend I ever had. You were the only person who ever accepted me flat out for who I was, and I was stupid enough to believe you wouldn't if you knew what I was really like, so instead of finding out, instead of even giving you the chance to prove me wrong, I decided it was easier to not be friends whatsoever. That's not fair to you, and I'm so sorry." Kelly smiled and looked down at her coffee cup. "...I was so angry at you for so long," Kelly whispered, "you were the only friend I had. Even at work, I'm always the odd one out. Nobody's ever really wanted to be friends with me, no matter how hard I try. So that really did hurt, but thank you for being honest, I guess. For what it's worth, I would've accepted you, but I think you know that at this point. And, hey, if a girl was going to be romantically interested in me, I guess I could do worse than you." "Hey!" Rachel said, both of them laughing. Rachel and Kelly had been best friends. They'd been as tight and close as two girls could be, without it being romantic. Cutting Kelly out of her life had hurt Rachel, but she'd deemed it necessary for her own, and for Kelly's, sake. But, after having reconnected with Wyatt, Calvin and especially Sun Rai, she'd come to discover that maybe she should give people a chance to prove her wrong. For so long, she'd just assumed Wyatt was a jock and that Calvin was a weirdo, and they were sort of those things, but a stereotype isn't defined by its stereotypes. They're still people, capable of being individuals, even if they fit into a certain categorical definition. Rachel was starting to learn that herself. So now, sitting here as an adult with her best friend, she couldn't be happier with her life. It was nice to have some bit of normalcy amongst the madness. *** Calvin pulled open the door so Leonard could enter the college library and set the boxes down on the table, before following him inside himself. Calvin looked around, remembering when he'd been in college, and the hours he'd spent in the library. Those had been good days. Leonard groaned and put a hand on his lower back as the boxes hit the tabletop, and Calvin approached him, concerned. "You okay Mr. Wattson?" he asked. "Please, Calvin, call me Leonard for christ sake, this is awkward," he replied, chuckling, "and yeah, I'm fine, I just have a bad back. Comes with the territory of living this long, I suppose." "I could've carried it, you didn't have to do the manual labor yourself, I'm more than willing to help," Calvin said. "I appreciate that, Cal, I do," Leonard said, twisting and popping his back, sighing, "but if the school detects any kind of physical weakness, it'll be seen as me being too old to work or something, and I can't have that. I'll be fine. Just take some pain meds when I get home and use my hotpad. What you CAN do, Calvin, is start unloading these onto the table." "What is 'these'?" Calvin asked as he started opening the flaps on the boxes and pulling the innards out as Leonard stepped away momentarily and cleaned his glasses on the hem of his sweatervest, chuckling. "These are student papers," Leonard said, "mostly lengthy essays about the possibilities in the field of engineering for the current year. We'll split it, yeah? You just read through them, check spelling, punctuation, stuff like that. Then slide them over to me, and I'll mark any inaccuracies regarding the science of it all." "That sounds fair," Calvin said, stopping as Leonard dragged some chairs to the table and seated himself in one; Calvin chewed his lip then said, "thanks Mr. Wattson, er, Leonard. I think I really needed something kind of ordinary for a while. Life has been so....fucked, honestly." "I believe it, Cal. I'm sorry you had to go through what you did," Leonard said, crossing his legs, "it's not fair when life rips from you the only thing you really care about. The only thing that means anything to you. The thing that defines who you are, and what you wanted from existence." Calvin felt like Mr. Wattson was speaking from experience, but he didn't want to pry. Calvin sat down himself and slid some of the papers across the table to Leonard. "These appear to have already been corrected," he said. "Yes, I went ahead and did some ahead of this to make it easier," Leonard said, pulling a red pen from his sweatervest pocket, "that way I'd have something to do while you got started. You know, you were my best student, it's a shame you didn't stick with science." "I still kind of do things," Calvin said, shrugging as he uncapped a black pen and started working on a paper as well, "I just do it in my parents shed in the backyard. Nothing spectacular, just little projects to keep my mind sharp, keep me focused, give me something to do." "That's nice to hear," Leonard said, smiling, "I'm glad to have instilled a lifelong love of science in you." Calvin had lost his wife, his children, the one thing he had left was science, and he rarely considered it but he was, in fact, grateful for that, and now here was Mr. Wattson once more, giving him something else to do with his life. He was the man who kept on giving, it seemed. *** Wyatt and Scarlett were parked in a lot, eating messily from the burgers they'd picked up at a small, hole in the wall burger place that looked good, and boy were they happy they had, because it was indeed delicious. Wyatt wiped his mouth with his napkin and glanced at his wife, who was sinking her teeth into the center of her burger and he smiled. God she was beautiful. "Mona asked me about makeup," he said. "Yeah?" Scarlett asked, chewing, "I hope she was able to give you some pointers." Wyatt laughed and reached into their shared fry box, grasping a handful and shoveling them into his mouth. "Why'd she wanna know about makeup?" Scarlett asked. "Cause she wanted to know why people wore it. She said you didn't need it," Wyatt said, "and frankly I agree with her. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like it when you look like a cheap french harlot, but I also like when you look natural." Scarlett cracked up and pressed her head against the window, laughing as Wyatt lifted his drink to his lips and sipped. "Well, thank you for your honesty," she finally managed to say between laughter, "to be honest, I never wanted to be wearing makeup at this stage in my life. I mean, I don't know. It's fun, it's like art, in a way, but at the same time it makes me feel like I'm just giving into The Man and what society expects from women, physically, you know? It's gross. It's demeaning. Good on Mona to recognize that so early on." Wyatt nodded, taking another bite from his burger and looking out at the other parked motorists, doing the same. They never missed date night, and he wouldn't have missed this one for anything either. Even if their plans fell through, Wyatt and Scarlett always seemed to come through in one way or another in terms of finding backups. Wyatt put his burger down in its cardboard container and sighed, leaning back in the drivers seat. "God...when did we get to be this age?" he asked quietly, "it still feels like we're teenagers ourselves. I can't believe we have a mortgage, and kids, and...fuck." "I know," Scarlett replied, "it's crazy how much time passes without you even recognizing it." "...are you happy? Like, with this life, and with me?" Wyatt asked, and Scarlett smiled, the took a napkin and wiped the lipstick from her lips and leaned in, kissing him. "I really really am, man," she whispered, "I couldn't imagine my life any other way." Wyatt smiled, putting his hand on her face and kissing her back. Wyatt had gotten lucky. He acknowledged this. He had a job thanks to his father, he had a house thanks to the job he got from his father, he was married to his high school sweetheart and had two kids. Most of the people he knew, Rachel and Calvin and Celia, they were struggling in some way, and Wyatt felt guilty for not struggling even slightly. Unless he counted with his conscience. Then he struggled intensely, because, after all, he had blown up a man. *** Kelly Schuester had never expected to get her best friend back. As she prepared for bed that night - changed into her pajamas, did her oral hygiene routine and undid her braids - she couldn't help but think how lucky she really was. She got to do the job she always wanted, AND she got her best friend back to boot, PLUS an explanation for her behavior in the past. How many people get that? Not many, she assumed. Kelly sat down on her bed and set her alarm clock. She had to be back at work tomorrow morning, early, to determine the weather for everyone, but it didn't matter. And it didn't matter what the weather was like tomorrow. It didn't matter whether it was rainy and cloudy or a goddamned monsoon somehow. Because nothing could beat the weather she felt today. Today had been sunny, today had been bright, today had been lovely. Today had been a lovely day to be alive for.
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A group of former high school classmates reunite at their 10 year reunion, and discover they each want something different, many with someone else there. What ensues is a labyrinthian relationship amongst them involving crime, murder, romance and, in one particular case, terrorism. Archives
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