Some Things Just Don't Add Up

Participants:

abby_icon.gif

Featuring:

elias_icon.gif

as Ella Caliban

Scene Title Some Things Just Don't Add Up
Synopsis An attempt to do something nice for her Husband, Abigail ends up finding out that what she's and everyone else has read, for some reason, does not ad up and leaves her confused as to who's telling the truth, if there's a lie.
Date November 2, 2010

Manhattan - Ella Caliban's Condo


Bomb or no bomb, Manhattan Island's always possessed a certain quality about it that's attracted all types, including the well-off and well-to-do. Maybe because of this fact, it's not all that surprising that, bomb or no bomb, some people in Manhattan have expensive tastes, expensive apartments, and, well, expensive is a pretty good descriptor for a lot of things about some people on Manhattan Island.

There are certainly worse places that Abigail Caliban could find herself. A high-rise apartment building for people that just might have a little too much money isn't so bad to be stuck in, unless perhaps she was a kleptomaniac (which, of course, she isn't). But this is where her search has brought her. To a swanky high-rise apartment building in Manhattan and the door of, who else, but an old flame of her flame: Ella Caliban. Don't chicken out now, Abby. All you have to do is ring the bell at the door, and all of your questions will be answered. Probably.

There's an idle thought that maybe this place, is bigger than the place that she and Robert now share. With information in hand, Abigail had called in someone else to run the shop today, take another day off and went home to change. And change. Then change again. Sunday best seemed wrong to wear, jeans and work shirt wrong. The sheath she'd worn to D'Sarthe's seemed too fancy. That and it bared her leg and nothing screams hi, hello, don't slam the door in my face than a GPS tether around ones ankle.

In the end, in front of Ella's door, Abby stood in jeans and a a blue cotton shirt, leather jacket to ward off cool and flats. Rings on her fingers, cross around her neck and fake pearl studs of small size in her ears and hair down, she's internally fighting with herself.

How pissed will her own husband be if she does this? Should she even be doing this? A pink box in her arms, filled with pastries and on top of that gerber daisies that were picked up at a flower shop once she'd driven past and seen that this was actually a fancier set of lodgings and the grocery store boquet were probably not going to earn anything other than a condescending sniff.

Hi, I'm Roberts new wife, nice to meet you. No. Ella Caliban? I'm Abigail Caliban, I was hoping I might ask you about the kid that you supposedly had that still alive that my husband maybe pines over. No. Shit. This is worse than sitting in front of Agent Sebastian at Homesec. At least there, she knows she would have only been arrested. Here?

She lifts a finger, pressing the doorbell quick before she can wimp out and utters as quick and short prayer to the lord above that the woman just not outright shoot her.

The bell, slightly audible through the walls and the door, is nothing special. Just a buzzer. At least something here isn't fancy. Unless the button just turns on a light, which signals a trained parrot to make the buzzing sound. Which is, of course, just plain silly.

A few seconds of silence pass, before the sound of metal gliding around metal emanates from the door, most probably the sliding open of a peep hole. A few moments after that, more metal on metal, this time the familiar sound of a deadbolt turning open, followed shortly by the door swinging casually opened. Ms. Caliban, I presume?

At least Abby isn't overdressed, with Ella in a fancy-casual taupe-colored day outfit that's not quite slacks and a blouse and not quite sweats. Perplexing how modern clothing can't ever seem to decide what it's supposed to be. It's not a shotgun that Abby is greeted with, but rather a straight-forward, if somewhat confusing question: "Orphans, homeless, or disabled veterans?"

"Uh, neither" Abigail stands there, taking in the woman who came before. Definitely the fish in the shark tank even more and making her wonder just what Robert saw in her that drew him to her. "Ella Caliban?" please be Ella caliban and not a maid who dresses far better than the current wife of the ex. "If you don't want to talk to me, I can just turn around and leave" Abigail hitches a thumb, gesturing off towards the elevator she had come out of. "I just, I got your name from a private investigation firm and I just… wanted to come and find out who… Robert used to be married to" Her hand drops, the other clutching the box of pastries and flowers. "I'm Abigail. Abigail Caliban"

Still no shotgun, so things clearly aren't going that badly. Ella's initial reaction is curiosity as Abigail is explaining exactly what she's doing there, which melts into surprise when the explanation concludes. Three seconds of stunned silence, and still no shotgun. "Oooh boy," the woman finally declares, touching two fingers to her forehead and turning around before walking away, leaving the door, perhaps invitingly or threateningly, opened and giving Abby a partial view of the apartment's interior. Or at least, into the small foray and part of the living room, complete with simply papered walls and dark hardwood flooring. "Sister, you're in for a roller coast-" The thought is cut off just before it ends as Ella turns back around to face the door, and pauses another beat. "Well, don't just stand there, come on in. This isn't doorway conversation."

No need to say further, the younger woman is quick to step into the home that belongs to the old flame, using her foot to close the door behind her. If the other woman wants it locked, she'll come back over and do it she's sure. "He doesn't know I'm here, I thought, I was looking for something else, but the road ends at your… door" She's trying to not babble, not knowing whether Ella has the same capability as Robert to break down her words and understand them, accent and all.

"I brought these, for you." She offers the pastry box up and the flowers. "They're from the place I own, well, the pastries at least. There's some Vegan ones in there, I wasn't sure whether you were vegetarian or not, or whether you would even answer the door and really, I mean, if you don't want to hear my question, I can just put these down and turn right around and we can forget that this ever happened, I swear it"

"I am not turning down pastries." Must be a vice, because Ella happily accepts them from Abigail. "We'll have some with our drinks. What'll you take?" As Caliban's former wife moves off towards the kitchen- which, by the way, is connected to a large living room boasting large windows with a pretty good view, two sofas positioned around a dark wood coffee table resting on a Persian rug, across from a raised section of the floor with a baby grand piano on it- it likely becomes clear that Abby has perhaps fallen into something just a bit more serious than a shark tank. Surely, there must be statistics for people who have died in tragic piano accidents. All of them probably caused by Bugs Bunny, to boot. Silly.

"Cosmo? Bloody Mary? Appletini?"

"I have to drive. I'll take any sprite or seven up if you have any. If not just a glass of water. Abigail stands still, dumbfounded that really, someone does have a baby grand in their livingroom. She could have a baby grand. Would Robert want a baby grand? Does he play the piano?

It's standing here that she realizes that there's still a great deal about the man she's married to, that she doesn't know. "Actually, I'll take… whatever you're having" She needs liquid courage. "I'll just walk home, or take a taxi, I don't live that far"

"Now you're talking," is Ella's reply, and it probably doesn't put Abby any more at ease. But at the very least, things are turning out well. So far, anyway. "So, you said you had a question," Mrs. Caliban the former says as the granite countertop becomes occupied with vodka, cranberry juice, triple sec and a lime that looks like it should have been used just a bit sooner. "Or, questions? One of the two, but ask, ask away. Forewarned is forearmed, I think the saying goes, and you'll need all the forearming you can get."

Maybe it's a good thing that they're going to have drinks. "There's no real polite way I guess to say this. You had two children. Thomas and there was a second child. The second one, he said, was born after you both parted ways." Maybe that will give a clue as to where Abigail is going, why she came here. She makes her way to the kitchen, lingering at the entrance to it. "They found nothing about the second child. Was… there a second child?"

Just short of adding juice to the aluminum shaker she brings out is where Ella stops and gives Abby an incredulous look. "Second child?" she repeats before turning her attention back to mixing drinks, "Well, why'd he tell you that? Honey, there wasn't even a first child, partially because we were barely being together long enough to worry about that. Can't say why he'd say something like that." Well, that's good news. At least Abby got an answer to…

Wait.

What was that about the first child?

Her husband has MPD. Or… or… or someones fucked with his brain. Doesn't cross her mind that he might have been lying to her. For the second time today she's been information side swiped. She sinks her hands into her back pockets, contemplating just turning right around and exiting the apartment, that it was all a big mistake going there. But like Caliban told Logan not too long ago. She's a nosy woman when she wants to be.

"Were, were you in a car accident at any point, like, a really bad car accident?"

"Well, not one that I remember," Ella replies. For the moment, the drinks are forgotten: The conversation has suddenly become much, much more interesting. "And I would think that my doctor would remember something like that, so, no, never in a car accident." It seems that a small, slow anger is coming over Ella. It's not seemingly directed towards Abby, no. Rather, towards someone or something else entirely, even if it is a small, slow anger. Something here isn't right.

Her hands come out, running her palms down her thighs, suddenly ten fold more uncomfortable and feeling far, far, far out of her element. "I'm.. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have.. I should have just…" She licks her lip. "This wasn't right, I should have just left well enough alone. Sometimes ignorance is bliss and I didn't mean to bring you any upset or hurt. I just saw your name when I went looking and just.. I apologize, this wasn't very Christian of me. Clearly I just… I need to talk. To Robert" Not talk to Robert. Not go home tonight. Stay at the bar, say she's making pastries, something. Is it getting harder to breath in here?"

"No no, I'm fine," Caliban's first wife retorts, "You''re the one you need to be worried about. This, isn't exactly the kind of news you want to ever here. Listen, you sit on the couch, and have a drink and you'll feel better." Ella's demeanor at this time does indicate that she's not really upset, but it doesn't indicate that she seems really surprised by this turn of events either, and maybe that only makes it worse when she tries to guide Abby towards sofas so she can do exactly what was suggested and have a sit-down.

She's imagining the worst, she's picturing something, she can't figure it out but, what could the woman possibly think that she has to worry about. She already knows he works for the Linderman Group, has hands in pots that can produce antibiotics in significant quantities with nary more than a moments notice, can bribe several handguns through to Russia, and can dance very nicely. Killed six people.

Abigail sinks onto the seat, shifting her legs enough to bend over and get her head lower and hope that this is all just quite possibly a bad nightmare. No kids, not even married long enough to have kids. "Oh lord above help me"

"I said you were in for a roller coaster," is, apparently, all that Ella has to say on the matter at this point, and once Abby is sitting down, she's off to the kitchen again. Liquid comfort is called for. "I didn't know him to be a big liar," she calls out across the room, "Just that he was a jerk and an asshole. No wonder we only made it eight months before Splitsville, huh?"

"I don't know him to be a liar either. He's never lied to me. He was… he was a jerk a little the first that I met him but after that… He's never bee anything more than.. than Robert" Save for the time he pretty much screwed her ankle up, but that, that was excusable. There was a pretty good reason. She stays seated, waiting for the other woman to come back with the drinks. "What do you mean by… rollercoaster. Why did y'all both split?"

"Well, he cheated." Crap. The sound of liquid and ice being shaken up and down is as much of an exclamation point that Abby can hope to hear at the end of that sentence. At least Ella's not bitter over it. "Wasn't very good about hiding it, either. I left him right after that, and as you can see, the result of the divorce wasn't all bad. Not for me, at least." And with that, three seconds of silence from Ella pass before she reemerges with two martini glasses in hand, a Cosmopolitan in each one of them, ice cold and ready for drinking.

"We just married" He hasn't even had time to cheat, if he would even cheat. She's warm, she can feel the warmth crawling around inside her, the flush that travels from her chest and across her face. This isn't good. Sorry Robert, I incinerated your ex-wife while she told me why you both parted ways. "I need a bathroom. I'm really sorry, and some ice. Or.. or… Just a shower, you have a shower? I know it sounds like a really off and odd thing to say and I promise that…" She takes the cosmo, tipping her head back as she starts to just drink it down, hoping the cold drink albeit alcoholic, might help before she's off the couch and heading for the kitchen. Sink will be big enough, easy to just dunk her head under the tap. This is confusing. Very confusing.

It is confusing, very confusing, and Ella only barely manages to say something about a shower before Abby is off to the kitchen and, perplexingly, running the tap over her head. Fortunately, however, she takes this as a sign that poor Abby must have migraines rather than a neurosis, because while the water is running, she grabbing ice from her freezer and wrapping it up in a towel. "Do you need some pills?" is asked with genuine concern. Poor Abigail.

"I'm a pyromorph" She turns her face to the side, letting water run down the back of her head so she doesn't choke on water. "I turn into fire. Emotions… play a big part. I don't wanna burn your place down, you're too nice" She will have a migraine soon enough, the ice cold water pouring over her face and head, soaking her blonde hair, sleeves pushed up and jacket dropped along the way so she didn't get them wet. "I'm sorry" Sputtered into the bottom of her sink.

It's an understandable reaction when Ella drops all that ice she's collected onto the counter, the floor, and into the sink. How else should someone react when informed that the lovely lady dousing herself with cold water in the sink could explode into fire at any moment. Several seconds of waving her hands in a fluster is also understandable, although running to the pantry, even in a panic, is perhaps not so understandable. It does become understandable, however, when Abby is suddenly blasted by foamy potassium carbonate that was, until that very moment, contain under pressure.

Of course, when confronted with the knowledge that Abby might burst into flames, Ella's reaction is to apply a fire extinguisher.

Well that's a sure fire way to ensure that she won't ignite, and it's not that she can't appreciate the two steps ahead thinking that the former Mrs. Caliban has exhibited. But Abby didn't bring any extra clothes with her and her own vehicle is a couple blocks away. Abby cowers into against the sink, curling her shoulders inwards and protecting the rest of herself from the white stuff that clings to her. "Enough! Stop! Please!" The water was doing the trick, this was overkill.

If nothing else, Abby at least manages to get through to Ella, who does indeed stop trying to help and points the extinguisher in a safe direction before accidentally discharging it one last time into the air with much startlement on her part. Oops. Truth be told, she took the whole thing pretty well. "Don't worry," she says, trying to sound reassuring, although it's not quite clear if she's trying to reassure Abby, or herself, "It's nontoxic. I think."

"To you, you did.. you did right. I'm sorry, I was doing fine with the water on my head, that usually does the trick" Chest a little tight, but it could be worse. "But you did right. I'm sorry" She's sorry because now the woman's kitchen is a sea of white speckled foam and Abby's looking like frosty the snow man… had a really good night. "Maybe.. maybe you better tell me about the rollercoaster I'm in for, while we're in the kitchen and you can hit me again if I need it"

"Well…" Before she goes any further, Ella hits on an idea and carefully places the fire extinguisher down on the counter before taking a moment to straighten her hair. Much more dignified now. "If you came here asking about children, then I think you might be on the roller coaster already." Which means, if nothing else, that Abby probably has more questions to ask. This time, to ask the only remaining Caliban she has any interest in. "You should be careful, that's, soap you're cover in."

"I came here thinking that I might try to find the second child that you bore, that I might find where he is and let Robert know because.. he just.. Ella, may I call you Ella?" She holds her arms out at her side, white dripping from her. "He… sincerely believe, I believe that he sincerely believes that he had a child named Thomas and that his son was killed in a car accident that you and he were in, while Robert was in France. I don't rightly think that even an actor could… fake what I saw in my hospital room"

"France?" Both of them may well be on the roller coaster that Ella mentioned, but at the very least, Abby is. No kids, when Caliban had said they had two, one of which perished. A trip to France, when Ella doesn't seem to recall anything even close to that. Something is not adding up. "Maybe you have the wrong address?" Ella offers, even though she knows that's impossible. Too much is accurate for there to have been a mistake, even if certain parts aren't adding up like they should be.

"Can you grab my purse?" It's by the couch, not covered in chemicals. "There's a picture of him and me, in my wallet. We took it at the court house" She lets the woman grab her purse while she herself starts to try and salvage her clothing, scoop the foam off herself and into the sink, the threat of ignition very low even though she's still sky high.

There's a moment that passes before it registers in Ella's mind exactly what Abby wants her to do. "Oh, right!" She's quick enough to do it, hurrying over to the sofa and snatching up Abigail's purse before hurrying back to the kitchen. Hardly enough time to clean anything up, but then again, this is something of an emergency. "Here."

Enough time to wash her hands and lower arms, shake em relatively dry and dig around in her purse for her wallet, flip it open to a back pocket and pull out the picture of Robert in his suit and Abigail in her cream dress with it's ruffled neckline that hits her at the knees and looking like ye old married couple. "Robert, right?"

Ella considers the picture for a moment, before taking it from Abby's hand for an even closer examination. Cream dress, ye olde married couple, and- "Robert," she concludes, "Without any doubt, same Robert." And once again, she carefully scrutinizes the photo, just in case she's made a mistake. If she has, it sure is taking a long time for her to realize it. Finally, she gives up. "It's him."

So then, who's lying? "When did you both divorce? Where did you live? Here? Las Vegas?" She's American, she can't fathom that Ella would have lived in England. "I'm sorry, you wouldn't happen to have any… clothes that I could… borrow? I can return them to you, dry clean them just…" Just she's a mess and she's trying to figure out what to do.

"Oh, of course." Abby and Ella aren't exactly the same size, but close enough. Rather than answering a host of questions right away, however, she elects to leave to get those clothes that Abby requested, leaving Mrs. Caliban the current to ponder exactly what all of this means. But at least she can take comfort in the fact that Ella is taking the presence of a pyromorph in her kitchen exceptionally well. Either she's dealt with something like this before, or the realization that there's fire nymph in her kitchen has yet to really register in her mind.

Gives her time to try and wash her hair out of the chemical as much as possible, slip out of shoes and socks and ponder what's laid out before her. Whether to ask her husband about it tonight or otherwise as well. Hey, Robert, guess who I ran into today? Ella Caliban, you know, the woman who bore you one if not two sons. She can't remember any of it. What do you make of that.

To ask, or to wisely remain silent.

She should have just stuck to the wine room as a present.


Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License