Marie and Lorna--Shopping

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Backdated to Monday--Lorna and Marie go out shopping and Lorna discusses the lessons learned in California.




Getting back into the swing of classes and work after a vacation was always hard, particularly when jetlagged on top of it. Lorna yawned as she rapped on Marie's door, leaning against the wall. Her time sense was all screwed up and she had no idea if her friend was even going to be at home or not. There might be a need to track her down.

The Southern girl had gotten back from class maybe ten minutes before and had just finished changing from the suit she'd donned for her presentation into a more casual jeans and a t-shirt. "Coming," she called out, widening her eyes in exaggerated shock at Lorna once she'd opened the door. "You look familiar, do Ah know you?" Continuing the theatrics, she tilted her head one way and then the other. "See, Ah used to have a friend with green hair who looked a lot like you. Except she didn't smile as much."

Lorna laughed and stuck her tongue out at Marie, "Very funny. I'm just in a good mood, am I not allowed to be in a good mood? I think someone doesn't want her tacky California souvenir." She held up a bag, clearly from the airport and shook it invitingly.

Marie's held her hand against her face and swooned against the door. "Not my souvenir! You can't take that from me." Laughing, she reached out to grab the bag from Lorna's hand and gestured the other woman into her room. "So what's on the agenda for the afternoon?"

Lorna let her take it, giggling and made her way to a chair, flopping dramatically, "Napping. Five hours of airplane sleep and then a full day of teaching is so not cool." She smiled without opening her eyes again, "Actually I was thinking we could head into town and grab a cup of coffee. I'm not quite ready to be stuck at home and by some miracle I don't have class today at Westchester."

"It's just what Ah always wanted," Marie said as she extricated the snowglobe (or maybe it should've been called a sandglobe) from the bag. Shaking the round crystal, Marie watched the grains of sand settle around the two surfers wobbling on the board affixed to the bottom of the container. Walking over to one of the bookshelves, Marie gave it one last shake and set it on an eye-level shelf. "Coffee it is. Ooh, and maybe shoes? Ah haven't bought a new pair in at least a week."

"I love how you think. Shoe shopping is a definite. I'm sure Lili has destroyed something else I love because I haven't seen her yet and that's always a sign of guilt." Slowly, Lorna peeled herself back up out of the chair with a stretch and a yawn. She grinned at the surfer globe, "I thought that you'd like that better than the Hollywood sign with the little stars floating around it."

"This is why you are my friend. And why the globe is on a shelf, not in midair headed in your direction," Marie said as she grabbed her keys off the counter and picked up her coat from where she'd dropped it on the couch. "Caffeine first though before Ah lose you to sleep."


At CoffeeQuake, Lorna ordered a red-eye, just the thing to recover from an actual red-eye flight and clutched at it like it was her last lifeline to consciousness. She sipped it slowly while she waited for Marie to order. "I need summer shoes. I have a million pairs of boots and nothing to show off my pedicure. I'd like to shop for a swim suit too."

Marie almost dropped the skim latte the barrista had just handed her. "You want to...what?" No girl ever wanted to willingly subject themselves to swimsuit shopping.

"Well, summer's coming and my current one is so last year and why are you looking at me like that? Is there something on my face?" Lorna dug into her purse for a mirror and quickly checked her reflection, flashing herself a grin to check her teeth. Once she ascertained that all her make-up was where it was supposed to be and there were no extraneous particles, she looked back at Marie, puzzled.

"Nothing's wrong," Marie said, though her tone didn't make it clear whether or not she believed it. Maybe Lorna had started taking drugs in California. Or had been replaced by a pod person. Marie resisted the urge to shudder at that particular thought, since it wasn't necessarily an idle one where the mansion was concerned. "What exactly happened in California?" she asked as the two girls walked out of the coffee shop.

Lorna's steps slowed for a couple paces then she shrugged, "I went out there, met my sister. She offered me a job but I said no. Then I went home to see my parents. It was pretty uneventful actually." She poked a hole through the lid of her coffee. "Nathan was teasing me about having my very own evil family member but...I don't know. Zala's sort of an interesting person. She's just not really my kind of person."

"Oh, meeting long lost relatives, just another Easter weekend?" Marie said, raising an eyebrow. "And while Ah'm hoping for your sake she's not an evil relative, well, the mansion tends to have a certain track record. It's why Ah'm not sure Ah want to really go all out searching for my biological parents." The words slipped out without Marie thinking about them and she decided to just forge ahead and hope Lorna didn't poke. "But you said interesting and not your kind a person...that to me screams of a need for more details.

Lorna half-smiled, and decided to just keep talking rather than ask. Marie would tell her when she was ready. "I didn't actually tell you about all that, did I? Sofia did some research for me and tracked her down. Turns out my big sister married a weapons dealer and when he died, she took over the business. She wanted me to be her ethical advisor. Oh, those. I want those." She tugged Marie into a little boutique after a pair of earrings she'd just spotted in the window. She continued her story while the clerk finished up another sale. "It was kind of hysterical, actually. She put me up in this fancy hotel, sent me to the opera, gave me a car to use while I was in town. I nearly said yes."

"Well, no one can say you have boring relatives. And man, must've been hard to walk away from that life. But what would you do with your spare time if you didn't get to cavort around in black leather?" Marie ignored the look one of the other store patrons gave her at that comment. "Oooh, this would go perfectly with those," she added, pointing to a delicate necklace underneath one of the glass counters.

Lorna smiled slightly, almost more to herself, "It wasn't the life that was the attraction. I kinda hate opera to tell you the truth. I spent most of it texting Jim. Sometimes I feel like my life is such a soap opera. I mean, my mom and dad are really my aunt and uncle and my cousin is my sister and she's, well, who she is and it's nuts. That's leaving out all the craziness with the leather and everything." She broke off when the clerk stepped up and gave the woman a brilliant smile, "Hi, can I see those earrings in the window? The fire opal dangles with the..." she made a wiggling motion with her fingers.

Marie nodded, waiting to comment until the clerk had walked off to get the earrings. "Yeah, it's not a normal life, that's for sure. But...for having just stumbled across all these, you seem surprisingly well adjusted."

"It was almost a relief, actually. I mean...I've been chasing her down since August. I spent half my paycheck on it and would have spent more if I had to and...hell, I'm just glad to know that she's alive. My parents haven't heard from her in years. She could have been anywhere and doing anything and what she is doing...well, so what? We run into worse every other Tuesday." Lorna rolled her shoulders and considered the necklace solemnly, "You're not Catholic, right?"

"Ah guess sometimes it's just...nice to know, huh?" Marie said, her attention turning to the necklace. "And no. Southern Baptist. Why?"

Lorna held up a finger as the saleswoman returned with the earrings and a mirror, "The necklace here too, please?" She tried it on quickly, sliding the earrings into her ears and holding the necklace up. "I love them. Can you wrap them up? Catholics renew our baptismal promises on Easter," Lorna continued like there had never been an interruption, "Do you reject sin, do you reject Satan and all his empty works and promises? It's a chance to start anew, to leave behind all the things that you've been holding too tightly. Usually it's just a simple ritual but this year...I don't know. I felt like it was really...like starting over."

"Starting over sounds kinda nice," Marie said as the clerk wrapped up Lorna's purchases and the two girls walked over to the cash register. "Ah mean, it kinda sounds like you've had this weight on your shoulders for a long time and now it's lifted. People don't get the chance to have fresh starts al that often - if you feel like you've got one, make the most of it."

"That about sums it up." Lorna handed her credit card over and grinned, "Plus I have spending cash again. Thanks," she said as she signed the slip and accepted the bag. "It's a little bit weird--I've known I was adopted for a few years and at first it really bothered me. They didn't want to talk about it then they did and then there was Magneto and then Zala and...I feel like I spent a lot of time not knowing who I was or how I fit in places. Any place. And I don't know, going to California, meeting Zala--it was like a perfect storm of Issues. I guess I just decided to give them all a miss."

"If you can keep that up, you'll win most adjusted of the year award for sure," Marie said as the pair made their way outside again. "It's like, now that you got this big hole in your history de-mystified, you can move on from it." Because knowing who you and are and where you came from - it does matter.

Lorna laughed and tucked her jewelry bag into her purse, "I'm not well-adjusted. God knows, I'm like the furthest thing from it; you can ask my therapist. I'm just...I don't know. It's like I've been thinking that knowing was going to make everything make sense. Not just the family part but all of it. If I knew Zala, if I could bring her home...I would really be my parent's daughter, I'd be a person who was worth something...I'd...okay, this is going to sound incredibly dumb, but part of it was giving Malice back her name. She couldn't remember it. Somehow in my head, I could fix that if I found Zala." She rubbed her hands together thoughtfully, "And that doesn't work. I can't fix Malice, I couldn't save Zala and...I'm never going to be the girl who grew up with an aunt and uncle and a cousin named Zala. The past doesn't change and it doesn't define the future."

Marie just continued walking in silence, taking in what Lorna had said, before finally responding. "Now the key will be remembering that the next time something comes up to make you start wishing the past could change."

Lorna half-laughed, "Yeah, no kidding. I give the warm and fuzzy feelings about a week before I'm back to being a grumpy bitch without a proper perspective of life, the universe and everything. My calm zen center is really more like my calm zen candy shell over my ooey gooey chocolaty issues inside." She shrugged, "But in the meantime, shoes!"

"Mmm, chocolate," Marie said. "But ooh, look at those," she said, almost pressing her nose up against the glass of the store they'd finally arrived at. "They'd go perfectly with that little red skirt Gar likes."

"The one with the thing? Well, what do you know, Kiki has taste!" Lorna responded, feigning being impressed. "Well, no sense standing around out here. Let's go in and buy everything that fits."