Not The Way We Planned
So I ended up using the sleeping bag after all. It was almost pleasant though, waking up with the sun on me, the sky burning pink and purple and throwing my surroundings into vivid colour. If only my back hadn't hurt so much. I think I'd been laying on a stone.
You're right if you noticed that isn't my lot. I slept up closer to work, after I'd been so late the day before. I needed to progress, I wasn't going to spend one day longer at the bottom of the ladder. I was going to climb it, and I wasn't going to let anything get in the way of climbing it.
The lot had improved somewhat while I was away. There was a building and everything. I don't like it much. It's small, it's not exactly fitting for a man of my destiny. You still have to sleep outside. It's a good job the seasons don't change on this island, or we'd all have got wet.
The rooms, they're alright in themselves though. The bathroom's smart. Not that you can invite people over to talk business in your bathroom.
You can just about do that in your kitchen, but most people probably expect to be able to walk between the two rooms and actually remain indoors. We were living like poor people, like poor people who can't even afford to build themselves a bedroom or somewhere to invite accomplices over to for a spot of plotting. Or even a corridor.
It was the first point I really felt despair for my project. There I was, the most brilliant man on the island, the first person to come to this place for years with any kind of plan or destiny, and I had nowhere to live that befitted this status. It should have been a mansion. If I'd wanted to remain in a house where there was no room to pick up a cat, let alone swing it, I'd have remained with my parents.
But, you don't become the person I am by giving in at the first signs of despair. I was going to do this. Sebastian Shark was destined for greatness.
Enough of that. Daniel and Mary Sue settled into their new home with ease. Daniel tried out some new ways of doing his hair. I stayed out the way of that.
He also took up a hobby and spent all of his time engrossed in sculpting. I'd really have rathered he got a job, but then I realised how much even his first paltry efforts were selling for and quickly changed my mind. That, combined with my realisation that sculptures of me would be the perfect addition to the museum I was planning to create in the basement to showcase mine and my descendant’s successes.
Mary Sue did get a job, at the island hospital. I approve. She's also been improving her cooking skill, which is also something I approve of. I don't have any desire to learn to cook.
She too got a new look; “something less beach-girl and more Responsible Doctor”. It still seems skimpy to me. Women's fashion, however, is something else I have no desire to learn, and I stuck to a couple of compliments and then left to go to work.
Work, where I promptly got arrested.
Excellent.
There's very little to do in prison. I spent most of the time using the gym equipment. After all, they have it there, which is more than my excuse for a house. The other people in with me were all stupid. None of them seemed to have an ounce of ambition, all of them seemed content to spend their lives committing minor crimes. One of them told me I didn't look much like a criminal. I'm not a criminal, I'm an evil genius, thank you very much.
An evil genius who slept that night on the police station porch.
It really wasn't going how I'd planned it.
That next day did start to look up, however. About time too. Mary Sue took up painting, another useful skill to preserve my family's legacy and my good looks. And I didn't even have to suggest it either.
I was working out that evening when Alana arrived at the lot.
“Hey.”
I wasn't really sure what to say. She hadn't spoken to me since I left her party two evenings ago, although to be fair I'd spent a large amount of the intervening time in the police station.
“I brought you something!”
“You shouldn't have.”
“And you shouldn't have kissed me in front of my husband, but you did.”
For the first time ever when trying to get a girl, my mind completely clouded over. I ended up rambling to her about a computer malfunction that had happened up at The Lair that morning, resulting in a very funny situation involving the Head of Evil IT, a llama and a whole load of tomato plants. It was only when I realised she was staring at me with complete confusion on her face that I came to an abrupt halt.
“Seb, I was there.”
So she had been. How to not attract a woman, lesson one.
“And, for your information, I'm leaving my husband. He's an idiot, and all he cares about is becoming the Leader of the Free World at the next elections. When you kissed me at that party, he said not to ever do that in front of his work colleagues again. I was embarrassing, apparently. He didn't care that another man was kissing me, he only cared about his own reputation. I've left him, and Leilani, who stuck up for him, and I'm not going back.”
Could this mean...
“Do you want to... I mean, you don't have to... I've got room though... you could move in here?”
“I'd love to. Have you got anything to eat? I'm starving.”
I was half expecting at least a hug for that. Maybe a kiss. Something more than a demand for food. But I led her inside, and served us both up some of Mary Sue's salad.
“I can be gone in a few days, if this is awkward for you,” Alana eventually said.
“No, it's fine.”
This was my chance to get her, and I wasn't going to let it slip away.
Author's NoteHere's the rest of Mary Sue's makeover. Upthread was her everyday wear.
Formal.
Sleepwear.
Athletic (you may never see this again!)
Swimwear.
