Participants:
| Scene Title | To Make It Past |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | For two Renard women, their only wish for their upcoming birthdays is to make it past November 8th. |
| Date | October 23, 2010 |
Solstice Condominiums and Gun Hill
"Joanna Renard speaking" Tasha's mother answers the phone on her end after the third ring which meant that she either had to search for where she had put the phone or wasn't near it at the condo. The former was likely given that was in her office at home with glasses perched on her nose and going over a file before she was to meet a friend up for a late lunch. Her daughter isn't the only person in her life and she does have meals with people other than her former husband.
"Hey, Mom," Tasha's voice comes across brightly enough that Joanna should know that there's no emergency. Crisis, yes, but nothing that Tasha is going to discuss with her over the phone — if at all. The teen is curled up on the couch with her laptop, doing some work for class.
"How are you? I'm sorry I haven't been around. School's kicking my ass a bit — in a good way, don't worry! But I totally didn't write down when we go on that cruise and I realize it has to be this week, since it was going to be in October, but — it's Colette's birthday on Sunday and we're having a party on Saturday, and I totally didn't think about that. What days are we going?"
It's not like Tasha to forget dates and the like, but then it never was like her to shoot guns or attack military personnel or the like, either. Times change.
"The cruise date came and went Natasha" It's why she had shown up at Gun Hill and scared a couple individuals who didn't want it to be known they were there. "You don't need to worry about it. I gave them to someone else at work who was getting married" She had, and for cheap, dirt cheap and they were glad for an excuse to be out of the city those days. "How are your grades?"
Tasha frowns as she shifts the phone from one hand to the other. "You gave them away? If you called and reminded me, I'd have gone. It just slipped my mind, with school and everything," she says, her tone a little defensive and a little guilty all at once. "I just forgot to write down what days."
Her eyes prick with tears — she only has one parent, for all intents and purposes, from this point on, or so she feels, thanks to Vincent's last request of her, and now she's screwing up that relationship even further. "My grades are good. I think I have all A's, but there's still like five weeks to go in the term."
"We can reschedule Tasha. Your school is important than getting on a boat into the carribean. We'll go for Christmas. Or maybe go somewhere else, you can still bring Colette. Get those A's and we still will" If she's still there, and if Colette is still there come Christmas. "Besides, your co-tennents were supposed to let you know that I stopped by to see if you were home to remind you, but you were out" You know, the boarded up building that looks like it's been condemned.
She shuffles some papers, flipping the file closed and shoving it into her briefcase so she can latch it shut.
"What? you stopped by?" Tasha repeats. "I'm sorry, I didn't get the message or I'd have called you back. Don't worry about the state of the place, by the way, I know it looks like abandoned and stuff, but it's not for reals. It's just … while we're fixing it up." Never mind it was already fixed up, back in the summer. "Who'd you talk to?"
"Lynette, dear Eric is no longer there it seems, so charming. There was some others on the roof, hadn't seen you but your apartment was fine, said you hadn't moved out. Really Tasha, you and colette and her friend can come stay here until renovations are complete. I hate to think what the dust there is like or the noise" She's biting the bait on the renovation excuse and believing it. "Did you see your father get his medal on television?"
The roof? How did she get all the way to the roof? Tasha frowns and runs a hand through her hair, closing her eyes. It's not safe for the safehouse tenants if people can just walk up from the street and look around. Luckily it was her mother and not someone from the Institute — of course she doesn't realize Lynette led her mother to the roof.
"Yeah," she says softly about her father. "I visited him. Told him I was sorry for … things." She doesn't mention meeting Lancaster.
"The renovations are fine, and there's no dust on my floor. They don't work during the night, and we're rarely there in the day, so it's fine." She wipes her wet eyes. "And cheap."
"Well you can still come, you and the others. I won't mind. What with November fast approaching. I miss you in the place" For whatever time she actually spent in the place when she first returned back. "We should all go have dinner at least maybe, soon. I'd like that Tasha. Would that be acceptable? It doesn't have to be some upscale place, we can go find some outback or an applebee's and have dinner there
"Well, I said I'd stay with you the week of the … that week. And you should take off work and we won't go anywhere with parking structures. Just walk and take cabs and we'll get food delivered and stuff, right? But yeah, we can have dinner. Maybe this week or you know, for our birthdays — yours and mine, but Colette's is on Halloween. We're all in a row," Tasha rambles a bit. She leaves out Vincent's, but his is that week as well, all the Renard-Lazzaros in a row.
She's not including Vincent only because it would be painfully awkward to have Vincent in the same possible room with Colette. "I forgot about that plan" About Tasha staying that week, so that she and her daughter would be protected and safe, vincent's government goons with them to ensure nasty things don't happen to his ex and his daughter.
"I have a case that week but it is supposed to end just before it, so I'll have to deal with that" She'd explain why to her superiors, that she might want to shuffle the case to someone else, and they might very well do so, but she is a firm believer in sticking to a case.
Tasha isn't sure that Vincent will want to put a team on her. And she's also promised to help with the Lighthouse kids. "I might have some things I need to do, too, that week, but I'm gonna make sure it's nowhere near where and when I saw stuff happen, and of course I have to go to school," she agrees. Life must go on. They can't hole up entirely. "But don't park in structures and don't go to them with anyone from work, if you have to go to work. Subway and cabs and stuff like that… I don't know. I think we might have changed enough that things won't happen, Mom, I'm hoping we did, but we should try to avoid anything that's close to what we saw."
That said, she changes the subject. "What do you want for your birthday?"
"To see Christmas Tasha"
One can imagine that if Joanna prays at all before bed, that has indeed been the top of her prayers. 'What do you want for your birthday? What frivilous terribly expensive, utterly, utterly unecessary but greatly desired object of worth do you want for your birthday?"
Her brows knit together and her face contorts a touch at Joanna's bluntness. She covers the mouth piece of her phone for a moment so she can take a deep shaky breath. Can you be an orphan at 19 years of age? If Joanna dies, Tasha feels she will be — even if the term doesn't really apply to grown-ups. But then, is she really a "grown-up?"
"I don't want anything," she says quietly. How can she ask for something material when it's been foreseen that everything that matters to her is going to be lost? "Just to spend time with you, okay?"
"The best present of all. I have to go, I'm going to be late bee bottom. Leave a message for when's a good day for dinner, maybe we'll go see a movie. I hear that RED is a good one" She's pushing out of her chair, exiting her home office and down the hall towards her bedroom.
"Love you," Tasha says softly into the phone before pressing the end button. She leans forward to put the laptop on the coffee table, then curls into a ball, sofa pillow held against her chest tightly. Her birthday wish is for everyone in her life to make it past that ominous date on the calendar, now looming closer and bigger, shadowy and foreboding. Survive the 8th. Then deal with the aftermath.