Chapter 59: Egg Salad
Franco headed outside following Hannah’s death, not even bothering to give her tombstone a proper burial. Because of how heavy the tombstones were, Bronson took care of that. He wandered through Twinbrook, over the bridge into the orange sunset, and past the first cicada of summer, buzzing loudly in a willow tree after its hibernation.
He spent the whole night walking, weeping as he passed the Bistro and the Theatre. He walked and walked, taking three laps around the Consignment Store and despondently. He stopped inside the art gallery and stood motionless in front of a nondescript still life for an hour, until the curator told him that he couldn’t have been appreciating it for
that long and kicked him out.
Franco, if he returned home, would fall asleep in a bed that still had a sunken spot where Hannah slept, and had pillowcases that smelled strongly of the grapefruit-scented shampoo that she used. While he could bury his nose into the fabric and inhale all of the soap and hair oils that he was familiar with and sob into it, he made a good decision that night and fell asleep on a park bench at the town center.
Annette obviously had to find Franco before he did something incredibly stupid. She called a few friends and asked them if they saw him wandering about, which someone did. A fat, pink old man dressed in his best vest was rather hard to miss.
So Annette drove to the park to find a bleary-eyed Franco, still congested from crying.
“Do you need a ride?” she asked, “I understand mourning, but you nearly gave me a heart attack over this.”
Franco got up instantly, tensed up. He snarled at his mother for the comment. “Please don’t tell me that you didn’t do strange things when you lost dad. I’m doing what I need to do.”
“You could have just left a sticky note somewhere,” she said, meekly.
“In my time of crisis. What nonsense are you thinking, mum?”
“Relax. It’s affecting all of us. You can still cry at home,” Annette said, “And plus, your stepson could use the support. I always fear what that kid will do.”
“Treat me like a peer and I’ll cope myself,” Franco said, clenching a fist.
“Fine,” Annette said, leaving for the diner in order to take inventory of the walk-in fridge. She couldn’t trust those rookies to do it right. Meanwhile, she understood loss, having done that before. As much as Hannah was primarily Franco’s lover, she still knew Hannah on some level, talked about paying the utilities with her, and once attended her live show.
“Hey, Chef,” one of the cooks said, “Sorry about your family’s loss.” He slipped her a coupon.
Drinks @ The Swamp Goblin: 1/2 Off.
“Oh, how could I forget?” she said. Once all of the onions and eggs were accounted for and neatly stacked on the shelves of the walk-in, Annette had a special order for the mixologist on duty at the dance club.
She came home with four drinks, and to Franco coming to his senses enough to mope at home where everyone could find him.
“Let’s cope my way,” she said.
“Why?” he asked, “I don’t even like that cocktail. It tastes like valerian and menthol.”
“You do realize that it basically is valerian and menthol, right?” she said, “Nothing clears your sorrows like it!” Annette grabbed a glass for herself. “I just need one for tonight. The rest is yours.”
“And I’m the one with a problem,” he sneered.
“We all have coping mechanisms, sweetie. Mine is juice. I’ve always liked it, but after dad was gone, well, I still miss him. But two glasses of juice and I’m a whole new, happier person. It’s an awful thing, but we’re living a long life of grief and boredom. Drink up.”
Franco still looked at the tray of three glasses with disgust, and the one drink in his mum’s hand, in their sickening green glory. “It’s an awful color.”
“I thought that you’d be the one who knew about color symbolism, you painter,” Annette said, “It’s a pretty all-purpose color. Some associate it with sickness, some associate it with life. I’m going to go with the ‘life’ part here. There’s something good around the corner, right?”
“Dubiously,” he said.
“You’ll be saying differently when you’re a grandfather, or seeing Lily’s face in newspapers all across Simnation after her best show. This life isn’t worth moping through.”
“Any why, mother? Why shouldn’t I mope for a couple centuries when there’s plenty to mope about?”
“Do you listen to Bronson’s music?” she asked.
“It’s pretty unlistenable.”
“You have a stick up your unmentionables, so I guess you’ll never see its appeal. But there’s this one song he had on shuffle. I don’t know who did it, or the name, but it had a little line that I think applies: ‘I pity the living, living for the dead.’ And I thought ‘wow, that would be pitiful!’ You might argue that I’m just letting this sweet, sweet juice guide my life instead, but I do it so I have something else to live for. I’m lonely, but I’m not miserable all the time.”
“Are you suggesting that I mask my feelings and move on?”
“If you want to be so cynical,” Annette said, “Yes.”
“I’ll see how it works,” Franco said. When Annette headed inside to wash her glass, Franco stared at the tray of drinks again. Three of them: identical, neon green, nearly fluorescent, and bubbling with seltzer water.
He picked up the tray and headed downstairs.
It was going to be a long, lonely journey, with Franco and his drinks. He sulked over the counter with the beverages sitting still right beside him.
One by one, he held his nose and drank each drink without stopping for air. Valerian and menthol was right, but soon Franco napped on the couch, face-down and in a juiced haze. No wonder his mum had a problem.
The next day, Hephaestus got dragged home by a very angry Selene Kindle. Franco was hardly functional, both mourning and hungover, but Lily had enough sanity in her to take care of the situation. She told Selene to scram and set Hephaestus down in the living room for a conversation.
“What crazy thing have you done now?” she asked.
“It wasn’t crazy. I kept hearing some voice during Physics and I couldn’t keep it out! It was the last class of the day, and I could trace it, trace it back to the swamp.”
“So I got a dozen eggs. I didn’t want to throw stones at them, because I tried that before and spirits get very angry when you do that.”
“Yeah, don’t do that. Spirits might not mind, but people still don’t like eggs on their doors. It got me arrested when you were just a nooboo. Wait, you were doing this at the Kindle’s house?” Lily asked.
“Well, that’s where I heard this the loudest. Mum said that dad lived there a long time ago, so maybe it was him? Or someone in the family? Anyways, they’re, like, really loud over there.”
“Also, eggs break. But then I remembered that I came from Physics to do this, so I stopped squeezing so hard and I threw it right in the spirit’s direction! Which was their door,” Hephaestus breathed a sigh of relief, “Maybe that’s mum trying to talk to me.”
“Whatever it was, I guess they didn’t like that,” Lily said.
“Yep. I got an earful from Felix.”
Hephaestus’ classmate and cousin had enough of his antics during homeroom, let alone outside of the school building. When a runny yolk ran down the window, Felix ran outside, only to get his jacket stained by another projectile egg.
“Heph! I know you’re angry that I didn’t do any of the work on the Physics project. Lighten up,” said Felix.
“Nope! You didn’t deserve the A,” Hephaestus said.
“Oh yeah, blame me for using the smartest kid in class for my advantage.”
Lily knew how to handle that. “Revenge is perfectly okay,” she said, putting a hand on Hephaestus’ shoulder, “You’re confused and angry. I was about your age when I lost my mum, and I did the same thing. I guess you’re just like your big sis.”
“That’s what I want to be,” he said, “Will you let me sculpt, one day?” He gave Lily an innocent, upwards look, with those big indigo eyes.
“I’ll pencil you in,” she said, “It’s hard with three vying for sculpting time, you know?”
Lily recovered quickly, which was good news for her career, because a sad magician made for a sad audience and bad reviews. She did plenty of “just put money in my tip jar” sessions at Performance Park, with extra effort put in to her show when the law enforcement was watching.
It might have been a bad time for Bronson to get out from work and have an idea to get Lily’s attention.
He took his army beret off and fished the megaphone out from the roomy pockets of his military coveralls, and screamed one obscenity into it. Lily cocked her head, and then turned in his direction. Her soldier found a good fight.
“Protest, how about right now? The military works us to death. I don’t even have enough time for my wife!”
“Bronson,” Lily quietly said, “You’re doing this for me?”
“Yeah.”
“Keep at it. That’s kind of hot.”
Lily took the lighter out from her glove to light the firepits around his podium. Bronson kept with it. “Better hours for military workers!” Lily responded to each chant with a cheer, because she could use a little more home-time with her husband. She even took a sign from his podium, even though it was just a maimed stick figure drawn on construction paper, with “We don’t get paid enough for this!” scrawled on in permanent marker.
By the time the sun set over Twinbrook and bathed the town in clear summertime darkness, Bronson attracted a small crowd of both Lily’s half-sisters and some random military wife who cheered at the prospect of her own spouse having more regular hours.
A bit of applause later, and Bronson had a good proposal for his boss when he went to work the next morning, and the backing needed to get his attention.
The police officer on site gave him a 2,000 simoleon fine, but that didn’t bring Bronson down from his high, especially not when Lily attacked him with a hug.
“Okay there, big boy, you got my attention,” she said, “Let’s go home to celebrate.”
“Oh good, you’re thinking like I am,” he said.
As sweaty as he was after spending three hours outside in 80 degree weather, in a coverall, Bronson still kept the attention of his lonely wife.
“I’m really sorry about the work things,” he said.
“Hey, at least it’s easy to make these things up to me!” she said.
Lily may have regretted not just going out to dinner and sharing a kiss, though.
Word Count for this chapter:
1,854Word Count so far:
95,476Edited @6:24 PM EST because I realized that maybe my sims shouldn't put gasoline in their cocktails. Valerian is a-okay, though. Makes you sleep and stuff.
The song that Annette quoted was "Anesthesia" by Type O Negative. They were a great band, but be careful watching their music videos, because many of them aren't family-friendly.
