Short Fuse
By Missy

TITLE: Short Fuse

UNIVERSE/SERIES: Even More

EPISODE: 1 of 1

RATING: PG-13 (Adult thematic material, references to mature acts and drug use)

PAIRING(s): SF/SSJ

DISTRIBUTION: To myself so far; any other archives are welcome to ask, but disclaimers must be included, my email left intact. Send a URL, and provide full disclaimers as well as credit me fully. Please inform me if you are going to submit my work to any sort of search engine.  Please do not submit my work to a search engine that picks out random sets of words and uses them as key words, such as "Google"

Please contact me in order for this story to be placed on an archive, or if you want know of a friend who would enjoy my works, please email me their address and I will mail them the stories, expressly for the purpose of link trading. MiSTiers are welcomed! Please do inform me that you'd like to do the MiSTing, however, and send me a copy of the finished product. I'd also love to archive any MiSTings that are made of my work!

CATEGORY: Slice-of-Life

FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!

SETTING IN TIMELINE: Part of the "Even More" Universe - preceded by   "Three Kisses", "Even More", "The Third Door", "Roadtrippin'", "Patchouli", "Love on a Rooftop", "The Real Blonde", "Detachment" and "Hell or Highwater".  Tenth in a continuing universe.

SPOILLER/SUMMARY: A power outtage brings the various denizens of Laurel Vista together - and brings Shirley together with Sonny at an inoppertune time....

****

Beauty Queen, Veterinarian and Astrophysicist Shirley Whilhelmina Feeney smiled as she stepped up to the podium.  Amazing in her poise, her hands did not shake as she gripped her newly-awarded trophy for Prettiest Veterinarian/Rocket Scientist Ever.  The thousands at her feet stared at her in open awe as she leaned over the podium to deliver her speech...

and tumbled out of her dress...

"EMERGENCY!"

Shirley came out of the dream with a muffled cry of pain - pressed sideways against the pillows, something small and furry had crawled under the covers with her.  A lifetime of growing up in second-rate apartments made her peer beneath her quilt cautiously.  Two dark eyes peered up at her.

"Squiggy?" she gasped.

"Hello," he said, outwardly calm but with darting, frantic eyes. 

At that moment, her bedroom door crashed open, admitting a pajama-clad Lenny into the room.  "Squiggy!" he bellowed.  His eyes fell on the bed and he gaped as his best friend surfaced from beneath Shirley's quilt.  "Aww geez, not you guys too!"

Shirley placed a firm kick square to Squiggy's fanny, tumbling him from her bed.  "Don't worry, Lenny - it'll never happen," Shirley retorted.  "What's wrong, fellas?" she asked, sitting up and yawning.

"Uhhh," Lenny squirmed.

"Well..." Squiggy hedged.

She reached over to her bedside table and flicked the switch on her lamp. 

It didn't turn on.

"What happened to the power?"

"It went out," Lenny said, scratching himself in an indelicate place. 

"Yeah, you see Len and me were trying to see if toasters float..."

Shirley groaned.  "It's too early in the morning for your insanity..."

"S'ok, Shirl!  It's not morning!" Lenny said cheerfully, and Shirley resisted her initial urge to smack him.

A loud clang sounded from below, setting Shirley up in bed once more.  "What was that?"

"Eh, it's just Sonny," Squiggy shrugged. 

"Sonny's here?" Shirley gaped, wincing at her high-pitched, feminine squeal.

"Why do you think I'm in here, woman?  I'm hiding from him!"

"I thought it was dumb to call him, too, but Squig said you can't fix circut breakers with gum..."

"Leonard, please go back to bed."

"All right - if any rats come out of the walls, yell for me and I'll squish 'em..."

For a moment, Shirley wondered if she could sleep.  Then a whisper came from beside her, "So, Shirl, considerin' we're all alone here in the dark, how's about a little..."

Squiggy's big move got him a pillow in the kisser.  While he spat out feathers, Shirley tossed on her new purple robe and headed downstairs to check on her handyman.

Just to see if she needed anything.  After all, there was nothing worse than a bad hostess...

Predictably, he wasn't in her apartment but fiddling with the switchboard of wires where the build's main circuit breaker was - the utility closet.   Standing shirtless as he worked, Shirley couldn't stop herself from admiring the beauty of his form.  Sonny Saint Jacques was a long, hard-muscled, dark-featured hunk of masculinity - something she knew but could not seem to get over.  A long minute of looking made her realize she was staring, and so Shirley began to consider going  back to bed.  What was she doing standing out here, anyway?   No, she had to say something, before she lost her nerve.  When he bent to retrieve a wrench she knocked lightly on the door, pleased when he looked up. 

"Do you need any help?"

He smiled, shook his head.  "Nah, I don't want you to turn your hair white," he teased.  "I've just got to flip a couple of switches and..." he did.  Nothing happened.  "Hmm..."

She rubbed her suddenly chilly shoulders - the heat was gas-powered, she had no idea why she was cold.  "Do you have any experience with electrical work?"

"Yeah - I worked summers for my cousin John over on Bay Ridge.  He's a contractor." Sonny pressed something within the mass of wiring and it made a buzzing noise.  "Maybe I should call somebody," Sonny muttered.

"You're from Brooklyn?" Shirley asked, a strange feeling of familiarity creeping through her.

"Yeah."

"My friend Laverne's from Brooklyn," Shirley explained.

"The girl with the overbite?" Shirley nodded.  "Squiggy was showing me pictures.  I was surprised a girl with that much leg would date a guy like him..."

Shirley snorted.  "Laverne would never touch hide nor hair of Andrew Squiggman."

"How did you meet a couple of guys like them, anyway?"

"It's a long story - I'd be happy to tell it.  Come use the phone at my place, I'll make us some coffee."

He hesitated.  "I don't wanna be  in the same room with Lenny or Squiggy."

"They're up in their room by now," she smiled.  "Asleep.  I'll even bake you my famous Feeney Family Sugar Cookies."

"In the dark?"

She smiled over her shoulder as she walked back to the apartment.  "It wouldn't be the strangest thing I've ever done with the lights out."

She couldn't believe her own flirtatious choice of words, but Sonny obediently followed Shirley back to the appartment, expecting nothing to come of it from his lack of grabby hands.  She stumbled and yelped in pain as her foot struck a hassock.

A white beam of light fell on her foot - from his flashlight.  "Hey, you okay?"

"I just stubbed my toe," she said calmly.  The next few minutes sent her on a quick journey through the kitchen, where she found four thick, red and green candles that she and Laverne had used annually for their Christmas display.  She spared them a bittersweet glance as she found a book of matches swiped by Squiggy from the Brown Derby last week and struck one of the pack to light.  "The phone's right next to you - go ahead and call."

As she bustled about finding more candles, she listened to Sonny make a quiet call to California Bell Power.  Since it was such an emergency - and a possible fire hazard - they would send someone out right away to help.  As he hung up, she found two more glass candles - novena candles and also Laverne's, how in the world had she ended up with them? - and lit those as well.  Soon the room was aglow in a warm, friendly way.

Sonny shut off his flashlight.  "Can I help?" he asked.

Shirley was face-deep in her cabinet - resurfacing with her good Pyrex bowl and her set of translucent measuring cups and green plastic measuring spoons, she smiled kindly as she placed the stuff quietly back on the counter.  "Could you get me the Crisco and the flour and sugar canisters?  They're on top of the fridge."  Lenny had put them up there when he'd done the shopping last week - where they were completely out of range of reach.  Sonny snapped right to her request, and she busied herself by finding the bottled lemon juice, baking soda, salt, vanilla extract and premade cinnamon sugar mix that she needed to complete the cookies. 

When Sonny returned with the rest of the ingredients, she thanked him and requested, "two eggs- medium-sized brown ones.  How long's the power been out?"

"Two hours."

"Lucky for us.  I'll take a stick of butter, too."

He peered into her darkened refrigerator.  "Should I ask what that brown thing is?"

She peered over his shoulder.  "Did it move?"

Sonny's eyed widened.  "Move?!"

She sighed.  "Sonny, if it's an inert brown blob, it's not dangerous."  She slammed shut the refrigerator, her inner neat freak wincing at those words.  The boys had done a good job of adjusting to the way she kept house, but she made occasional adjustments to keep the peace - as long as it didn't turn her stomach or pose a threat to public health.

"I don't think it moved," Sonny mumbled, finding what she needed and placing them on the counter. 

"You must have seen Irvin."

"Irvin?"

"Squiggy's pet mold stain."

"Ugh," Sonny remarked, rubbing his washboard stomach.  Shirley ripped her eyes away from the fascinating picture he made to search through her recipe box. 

"Do you want an apron?"

He looked down at himself.  "I guess."

"They're hanging on a peg by the refrigerator."  She managed not to laugh out loud when he returned with a flower-speckled red monstrosity that made him look like a refugee from the drag shows on Sunset.  She giggled when he peered over her shoulder.

"What are you looking at?"

He was frowning.  "You went past the 's' section."

"That's right."

"It's not 's' for sugar cookies?"

"No - it's under 'c' for cookies, then 's' for sugar-types, then 'c' for cinnamon-sugar."

He rubbed his temple with an open palm.  Shirley wondered to herself if any man would ever be able to understand her, or if perhaps she was more alien than the average female.  She pulled the index cards and ignored the nausea she felt on seeing her mother's handwriting.  "I'll need a quarter-cup of shortening..."

The process of making the cookies sent her directly back to her childhood.  She and her mother had always baked together for special occasions - every Christmas Eve ended with the two of them stamping out sugar cookies in the kitchen with the boys, then eating as many as their little tummies could take without upchucking or leaving Santa hungry.  Sonny filled in well for Bobby and Tommy, helping her with the boring stuff like measuring and beating the dough into a stiff pile.  Then they each dipped a tablespoon into the batter and scraped out over a dozen cookies from the bowl, then sprinkled the tops with the cinnamon sugar.  She put the stove on gas mark 2 before putting in the two trays of cookies and returning the recipe to its place.

"Five minutes," Sonny reminded her, and she set her rooster timer for that length of time.

"Would you like some coffee?"

"Sure."

She put a kettle to boil and then offered him a chair in the kitchen; Sonny took the bowl of batter with him and began to eat leftover pieces of sugar dough.

Her nose curled up.  "You really would get along well with Laverne," she said.   Nostalgia began to instantly temper her disgust.  "Whenever I would make these, Laverne would always lick the bowl.  She'd stuff herself so much that she didn't even want the cookies when they were done."

He smiled fondly.  "You miss her."

"Every day, but we need to live alone for awhile."

"For a girl who took your boyfriend, you like her a lot."  Sonny's features twisted as he regretted his clumsy words.

Shirley felt a small throb of pain under her breast - the usual sort she felt whenever Carmine was brought up - but oddly it just didn't hurt as much as it did a few months ago.  "Laverne and I have been best friends since we were five.  It's not that I wasn't hurt at first, but..."

"But you don't love Carmine the way you thought you did?"

"Carmine and I had a complicated relationship..."

"Lenny said you wanted to marry him."

Shirley groaned and resisted the urge to go upstairs and knock the blond meathead for a loop.  "I don't think that ever would have happened.  Carmine wasn't ready to settle down - neither is Laverne, that's why they're perfect for each other.  But I want to be married some day - have babies."  Her finger ran circles around the rim of her coffee cup.  "If Carmine and I loved one another that way, someone like Lucille never would have gotten her wormy claws into him in the first place - and I would have..."

He stared at her squirming form in confusion.  "What?"

"Done something with him that I'm planning to do with my husband."

"What...oh....OH."

She blushed - were virgins a scarcity in California?  "I'm not sorry that I didn't give in now.  I'd much rather be friends with Carmine."

"I still think he deserves a pounding for doing that to you."

"You're sweet," she looked into his dark eyes.  She made a brave leap forward.  "But why are you so interested?"

He immediately diverted his eyes.  "Ooops, let me get that," he rushed over to the stove and retrieved her pot of boiling water, then poured two cupfuls before adding instant coffee.  "Do you like milk or sugar?"

"Just milk."  He apparently took his black, for he returned after a quick stop at the fridge.  They sat back down together again. 

She took her cup from his offered hand and took a small draught - it wasn't bad, she decided, for instant.  Since he apparently yearned for a change in subject, she said, "do you have any other family back in Brooklyn?"

He lit up.  "I've got a brother and my folks.  They're all in insurance or construction."

"I'm surprised you're not."

He shrugged.  "It's not my kind of thing.  I wanna be out where the action is, living each moment, yanno."  He shrugged.  "It's the traveler in me.  My mom comes from gypsy stock, and my dad used to say that when he met her everything about her was wild.  I didn't understand what he meant - she was such a quiet kind of woman and a solid Christian.  But after what she went through, she just wanted to settle down."

"Went through?" she asked delicately.

He drank a bit more of the coffee, then explained, "I meant it when I said we had gypsy blood.  They were Italian Gypsies.  My mother was in Bergen-Belsen during the war."

The names resurfaced from her father's war stories and her high school history class.  Shirley shuddered.  "Then her family..."

"Went to other camps.  Everyone but her sister died."  Shirley reached out to comfort him, even though he seemed not to own his own pain.  "We all knew what she'd gone through, and not to talk about it - but she lost a lot of family - we lost a lot of history.  She probably wanted as normal a life as she could get when she married my dad."

"I sympathize - I can't relate, but I sympathize."

"Thanks.  It's a good family, we love each other - but I just wanted to do something else.  Anyway, that's why I rambled all the way across the country," Sonny shrugged.  His downcast, puppy-dog eyes caused sympathy to well inside of her.

"You look like my brother when you do that."

"That wasn't what I was going for."

She chuckled.  "Teddy had a way of making sure he got the biggest cookie with a look like that."  Her buzzer dinged.  "There we are..."

She headed over to the stove and took out a tray of golden-brown sugary beauties.  With a spatula she scraped each from the cookie sheet and laid them on a series of stone platters, placing them in the middle of the table to cool.

Sonny's mouth watered.  "Do I have to wait?

"Sonny - you know waiting is more than worthwhile..." she grinned.  He coughed and looked away. 

"Tell me about your brothers."

She laughed.  "They're all tall, blonde and of the sea.  I haven't learned how to do anything but dogpaddle."

"So I guess we're both kinda black sheep, eh?"

"Well - maybe I'm more grey..."

"Is that what they dyed your hair?"

She picked up a hot cinnamon cookie and shoved it into his mouth.  "EAT," she requested.

He chewed, panted, swallowed.  "That's good," he said.  "Good but hot."

"That sounds like a Squiggy come - on."

"I don't believe you and Laverne are both sane after knowing those guys since you were kids!"

"Sanity is a relative term where I come from," Shirley smiled. 

"I get that.  I got a couple of crazy uncles like that - Uncle Guido and Uncle Paris.  One of 'em runs a flea market out of a back alley, the other thinks he knows Queen Elizabeth."  He took and ate another cookie, this time not proclaiming it hot.

"You  know someone who's crazy?  I can't imagine you coming from flighty stock."

"We've got neighborhood characters back home."

She smiled.  "Brooklyn's still home to you?"  She picked up another cookie and dunked it into her coffee before eating.

"Yeah, but I can't be a stuntman over in Bay Ridge," he pointed out.

"Same reason I couldn't stay on the line back home," she finished the rest of her cookie.  "I liked Milwaukee, but..."

"You just wanted a fresh start."

"That's exactly what California is."

A knock sounded at the door.  "Power company!"

"It's the sixth door on the right!" Sonny called.  He turned back to Shirley.  "I gotta go show him."

"Okay.  I'll see you around, Sonny."

He wasn't leaving.  "You're a fascinating woman, Shirley."

"You keep saying that," she responded lightly.  How had they managed to eat six cookies between them?  She took the other platter of cookies and left them on the stove for the boys, then took the empty plate and coffee cups and began to rinse them in the sink.

"But you really are," Sonny pointed out.  "How many women of our generation can say they've packed up without even the benefit of a prospect and moved somewhere where no one knows them?"

"Myself and Laverne," Shirley said.

"You're both interesting.  But I have a theory," Sonny said, coming around and standing before her.  They were pressed comfortably against the sink.  "I say that we usually end up where we belong, with the person we deserve."

"Laverne's a good girl who deserves Carmine."

"Forget Laverne.  The question, Shirley Feeney, is: what do you deserve?"

She dropped the other plate into the sink and turned around.  They were illuminated by moonlight pouring in overt the kitchen window and through the leaves of her houseplant, Dave.  They locked eyes and for a long minute Shirley stood frozen under his gaze.  Then she moved impulsively, wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pressed her lips to his cheek.

The shift of Sonny's body and the press of his lips stopped her still.  The kiss lasted and lasted for an indefinate amount of eons.

The sound of the front door opening went unnoticed.

The nasal wail of her best friend didn't.  "Shirl?"

Shirley managed to pry her lips from Sonny and saw the form of her luggage-bearing best friend in the doorway.  Drawing her robe closer to her body, she forced a wan smile.

"Hi, Vernie."

To "Hell or Highwater"
To "E-Strange-Mints"