TITLE:  Patchouli

UNIVERSE/SERIES: Even More

EPISODE: 1 of 1

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

PAIRING(s): Possible SF/SSJ

DISTRIBUTION: To LW, Kai, Myself and FG 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: Sequel to "The Third Door" - Fourth fic in the "Even More" continuity.  Preceded by "Three Kisses", "Even More", "The Third Door" and "Roadtrippin'"

SPOILLER/SUMMARY: Shirley settles in to her new life in California.

NOTES: The series has been moved to the "Collaboration" section of the site with this fic.

 

****

 

 

On May third in 1963, the earth moved for Shirley Feeney. 

 

And all of Southern California.

 

A calamitous jouncing awoke her from a dream of Fabian sometime past midnight.  Squealing her fear, she grabbed Boo Boo Kitty and watched her lighting fixture sway, drizzling plaster across the floor.  Bow-legged, she tried to balance against the tremors, bumping into her vanity and against walls before clutching her wooden doorframe.  As she locked her feet against it, the world's rocking became even more violent.  For the fifth time that day, she cursed what had sent her to California.

 

Shirley squinted over the wrought-iron banister of her Spanish-style condominium, down the short flight of stairs and landing that separated her from the living area.  Through the blinking lamplights Shirley could make out one form hunched beneath a table, another sprawled across the couch.  A familiar snore reached her ears, and she realized it was Squiggy sleeping on the couch.

 

The cowering form was Lenny's.

 

Shirley clung to the solid frame with the tenacity of a tiger.  She pressed her forehead to the cool wood, feeling her pin curlers pinch into her scalp.  How could someone like Rhonda - her new neighbor and a b-movie actress, with the distinguishing characteristic of always referring to herself in the third person - stand the constant threat of such cataclysm?  Then again, she tittered mentally; Rhonda didn't seem to mind bouncing up and down on her off hours, if those noises on the other end of her bricked-off living room wall meant anything.  The thought brought immediate castigation - after all, it was likely the boys were lying about seeing mirrors on Rhonda's bedroom ceiling.  But in Shirley Feeney's brave new world gossip seemed most often to become fact, and it was anyone's guess what was right and what was wrong.

 

Abruptly, the pitching stopped.  Woozily, Shirley climbed down her stairs and into the living room, and then crouched down to Lenny's level.

 

The blond boy hunched beneath her flea-market bargain teakwood coffee table, his knees planted against his chin as he rocked back and forth.

 

"Leonard."  She squeezed his shoulder. 

 

Lenny sprang upward in defense, banging his head against the glass underside of the tabletop.  His mouth opened and bowed at the pain, and he moved toward Shirley in the dark, rubbing his scalp.  "Is it over?"

 

"Yes, I think so." She watched Squiggy - completely motionless on the couch in his pajamas.  With mouth wide open and his limbs carelessly arranged, he looked dead.  A shiver ran up Shirley's spine.  "Andrew's all right, isn't he?"

 

"Oh, sure - Squiggy always looks like that when he sleeps."

 

"I should have guessed." She tugged primly at the cuff of her pants before rising to her feet.  Someone was knocking at the front door, and she climbed back up the landing to answer it.  "Who's there?"

 

"Sonny!"

 

Sonny St. Jacques was Laurel Vista's tall, dark-haired, muscular super - a stuntman in his day job.  Adding the descriptor "Italian-American" to the equation made him Frank DeFazio's dream boy for his muffin- and precisely Laverne's type, Shirley thought, as she allowed Sonny in.   

 

"You all right, Miss Feeney?" He strolled into the room with authority, despite his lack of shirt and shoes.  She allowed herself a brief moment of guilt-free admiration of Sonny's attributes - it was obvious that he was fond of working out.  More than fond - his bottom was like granite - and he seemed to have walked out of a musk ad and into her life.  Sonny's kindness and gentlemanly conduct were icing on the cake.

 

"Oh yes." Shirley suddenly realized that her bright pink pajamas and permanent set weren't presentable for company.  How had she become desensitized to the presence of males?  In her childhood, she and her mother had run squealing whenever her father or brothers accidentally intruded on the two of them in a state of semi-dress.  It seemed that the longer she lived with Lenny and Squiggy, the less frequent their passes became, and the less interest she had in wearing a bathrobe tied at her neck just to get a bowl of oatmeal.  "Is everything okay in your apartment?"

 

"Oh yeah - just a little bit of stucco damage.  Looks like you made out all right too - no foundation cracks.  You're gonna need me to repatch your bedroom wall again?"

 

"I'm afraid it's my ceiling this time.  I think the lamp's coming loose - it was spraying plaster every which way during the quake."

 

"Yeah, I thought those y-joints were loose, the last time I checked 'em."  He was squinting into the gloomy darkness of her kitchenette.  "Looks like you've got some stress cracks around the refrigerator."

 

Shirley hadn't noticed the aforementioned problem, but Sonny’s eyes were focused tightly on an inch-long slice of black spreading like a vine across her kitchenette ceiling. 

 

"Oh dear," she followed him as he entered the kitchen, where he began to examine the depth of the crack with his fingers.  "How often do you get earthquakes here?"

 

"Usually, not too many - maybe two a year."

 

"Two a year?" Shirley covered her face in expression of her dismay.

 

"Strangely, we've had two since you moved in."

 

Shirley covered her fear with a laugh.  "Maybe you've used up your earthquake allotment for the year, then."

 

"Maybe."  He watched Shirley while she blandly studied her ceiling.  "I've been wondering - why did you decide to move to California?  It's a hell of a long way from Milwaukee."

 

"I was fired from my job and I'd just ended a fifteen-year-long romantic relationship.   My mother lives in Palos Altos, and she's the only family I have left on dry land." She smiled.  "And these two wanted to see the ocean."

 

Sonny looked over Lenny and Squiggy - Lenny was trying to make himself comfortable on the long, wooden end table she had brought from Milwaukee.  He uncomplainingly used it as a temporary bed.  Squiggy, obliviously, continued to sleep on.

 

"You're good to those two."

 

The distaste in Sonny's voice irritated Shirley.  "Leonard and Andrew have been friends of mine for years and they're not bad people, after you've gotten to know them."

 

"I don't doubt it - but a classy lady like you don't have to put up with guys like them."

 

"You're being judgmental.  Leonard's sweet.  And Andrew is...very loyal."

 

"I believe you."  She felt Sonny's warm fingers slip down the inside of her arm and shuddered involuntarily.

 

Shirley turned from Sonny's touch, avoiding the memories it stirred up.  Her eyes fell on the bricked-off doorway. "How can Rhonda sleep through all of this?"

 

"How can Squiggy?"

 

"Squiggy's always slept like a log.  But Rhonda's not the sort of girl who sleeps heavily  - unless it’s on top of someone."

 

"Rhonda's a nice girl," Sonny defended.

 

"I don't suppose she sleeps in full makeup?"

 

"Well...she puts on her pants one leg at a time just like everyone else."

 

Playfully, Shirley nudged his hand away as it reached for her shoulder.  "And how would you know that?"

 

Sonny gulped.  "Uh, I'll be back to fix everything while you're out tomorrow."

 

"I'll leave the door unlocked."

 

 

***

 

"...and that will be four fifty.  Here's your change."

 

Shirley's sixteen-year-old customer gave her a metallic smirk while handing her his money.  She grinned back, remembering being that age and that awkward - even though those memories brought back thoughts of her relationship with Carmine.  Conflicted emotions of love and anger arose, making her feelings a muddle, but she forced a last smile for her customer as he left with his package.

 

It was five - quitting time.  As Shirley locked her register and stripped off her Bardwells' blazer, she felt a sense of arrogance;  her position as gift wrapper at Bardwells' Department Store was the first white-collar job she'd ever had, the first job she had been qualified for that didn't require heavy manual labor.  Her supervisor had given her praise without adding a leer and a pat on the hiney, and her pay was five cents higher than it had been at Shotz.

 

Bardwells also gave her a sense of belonging - while it wasn't as purpose-driven as she wished, those bright packages and bows brought a happiness, and Shirley felt needed and appreciated when customers came to her department.

 

Nevertheless, she didn't have a reason to hang around after hours.  Instead, she made her usual Friday evening trek - to personnel for her check, To Daamon Liquors across the street to cash it out, and then the two mile walk back to Laurel Vista.

 

California was lovely in mid-spring - not humid - the temperature hadn't gone below sixty since they had arrived.   Sonny warned her she would be overheated by June, and had used the new central air conditioning as a selling point when he showed her and the boys the apartment.  Sonny didn't know that she wanted the place, badly, the second she laid eyes on it, and would have paid double his asking price.  t Everything had worked out well - the boys had new nooks and crannies to play in,  and Shirley ended up in a home twice the size of Knapp Street and interesting new neighbors.   Altogether, her new life would be paradise, if only the earthquakes would stop.

 

Shirley tucked her hands into her wainscoted pockets - the earthquakes were emblematic of her problems.  She and the boys were in the process of refurbishing their lives, and in that they were chucking out whatever didn't fit in with this beach bound life.  That meant being a little more like Shirley "Whoopee" Feeney in her case - the old, churchgoing, Protestant woman she once was would never go with Burbank and Bardwells.  .

 

"Sister!"

 

She whipped her head around.  The voice came from a long-haired blonde woman, sitting cross-legged at the edge of the curb in her torn jeans and dirty peasant blouse.

 

"Hello," Shirley said tentatively.

 

"Would you like some beads?"  The girl held out a handful of bright glass baubles on a string of dental floss.  Shirley scrutinized them at a distance - they were pretty enough.  She looked into the hollow eyes of the seller and felt a thrill of worry.

 

"Why would you want to part with these lovely things?"  Shirley walked back to the girl and began to study her wares, which were prostrate upon the ground around her.

 

"I'm on my way to San Francisco." Her smile was distant, as though given to another.  "It's far-out, man.  I don't need much for the gas, but I'm a little hungry, so Moonshine said I should sell what I make..."

 

"This Moonshine isn't forcing you to do this, is she?"

 

"No, man - we all help each other out.  It's my turn to make some dough."

 

"Gee, you must be starving to death," she opened up her pocket book.  "How much do you need?"

 

"Just a dollar, man."

 

Shirley placed her crisp bill in a clay ashtray by the girl's sandaled feet - when she bent to do so, the girl looped a strand of beads repeatedly around her supplicant wrist.  Shirley stared as it glittered in the brilliant sunlight - the workmanship of the beads were practiced and refined, and they were something that should be displayed proudly at a county fair, not offered for a dollar on a grimy street corner in Burbank.

 

"Are you sure I can't help you?"

 

The girl blissfully shook her head.  "I got all the help I need right here."  She reached into her coat pocket and retrieved a thin, hand-rolled cigarette.   "Wanna share?"

 

Shirley stopped herself from giving the girl a discourse on the evils of smoking - it wouldn't serve her well, and it was probably a sole pleasure in this destitute life.  "No, thank you." she moved down the street, unsure of how to exit the moment, somehow afraid of it.

 

The woman's voice rang in her ears as she crossed the intersection.  "Peace, sister."

 

***

 

Shirley sat at her kitchen table, winding and unwinding the multicolored beads about her wrist.  She wondered how that girl could do it: live on the streets without any source of food, without any assurance of the future - give away so easily on what she had worked so hard.

 

A small part of Shirley wanted to be like that girl - so fearless, so completely happy with the danger of life.  But she knew somehow that such release would never come - that despite her new trappings, she remained Shirley wait-for-the-wedding-night-Feeney.  And that wasn't a bad thing.  Apparently, a few people liked her that way...

 

She pulled out a picture postcard of the Gulf Coast Highway from her scrapbook pile and turned it over.  In her florid script, Shirley began her weekly note to Laverne - her hands still smelling of musk and patchouli oil, the beads wound around her wrist like a chain.

FIN


To "RoadTrippin'"
To "Love on a Rooftop'"