The Real
By Missy TITLE: The Real
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" - Sixth fic in the "Even More" continuity. Preceded by "Three Kisses", "Even More", "The Third Door", "Roadtrippin'", "Patchouli" and "Love on a Rooftop"
SPOILLER/SUMMARY: Shirley takes a course in self-improvement. This serves to amuse Lenny and Squiggy, who like her as she is - but the most vocally displeased is someone she did not expect to hear from...
NOTES: The series has been moved to the "Collaboration" section of the site with this fic.

****

"Well, fellas - what do you think?"

Lenny and Squiggy ignored the trilling implorement of their roomate and chose to stare at her small black and white tv instead. They sat perched on the edge of the sofa cushions, chewing mechanically at a bowl of popcorn and watching as Tom chased Jerry around a room with a mallet.

"Go Jerry!! Go!" Lenny slapped his knees. "Ha! You owe me three bucks, Squig!"

Squiggy glared at the tv set. "You dumb cat! The mouse hole was right there!"

"Told you cats ain't smart," Lenny said. "If they was, no mouse in a dress'd fool 'em..."

"Boys..."

"Maybe Tom's colorblind!"

"What's that got to do with it?"

"Boys?"

"Waah?" They asked together, turning to face Shirley. They looked her up and down, looked at one another, and burst out laughing.

Shirley locked her palms against her hips, distracting herself - if she didn't, she would burst into tears. "Good gravy, what's so funny?"

Leave it to Squiggy to bring blunt honesty into the picture. "You look like Miss Clairol barfed on your head!" he brayed.

Shirley frowned. "I wanted a little bit of a change." She tugged at a lock of her pixie-length and now bottle-blonde hair. "Haven't you ever wanted to be...how should I put this...TALLER?"

Squiggy stopped laughing. "I ain't short!"

"You're not short? Then I'm a natural blonde," she walked up the landing and picked up her purse. "When you leave, be sure to lock the door this time."

"I know," the boys whined simultaneously.

"Oh Shirley?" Squiggy called.

"What?"

"Would you get off your patoot and get the mail? I'm waiting for something. I just subscribed to this new magazine called 'Hustler'..."

"I don't approve of you gambling," Shirley repremended.

Squiggy grinned. "Oh, it's not about gambling."

"Good - I want to keep this household from declining into a moral sewar."

"Yes, mommy," the boys replied, once more in unison.

Shirley opened the door, but Lenny's voice called her back. "Shirl - I think your hair looks good."

Lenny's comment was delivered with such sincerity that Shirley flashed him a sweet smile. "Thank you, Leonard."

As she closed the door behind her, she heard Squiggy saying, "what'd you say that for? Now she's gonna keep it like that!"


***

After a long shift at Bardwells, the last thing Shirley wanted to do was dampen her new peasent skirt with a dripping-wet garden hose. But she was responsible, and Lenny and Squiggy, as per ususal had abandoned a wading pool on the front lawn with the hose running and overflowing onto the grass. She had been coiling the garden hose back onto its peg when she saw Sonny approaching.

"Hey, miss, you can't -" She faced him and his face turned vividly red. "Shirley?"

She self-conciously touched her hair. "Is the change that noticable? I was told twice today that I didn't have clearence to enter the employee lounge at Bardwells."

"Wow - I can understand that. You look really -"

"Bad?"

He touched her shoulder. "Different. It's not a bad look, but...it's not really something I'd expect out of you..."

She shifted away from his touch. "Really? What do you expect me to look like? Should I walk around in a flour sack with a bucket over my head?"

Sonny winced. "I didn't mean to make you angry. I'd just never pictured you in my head as a blonde."

Shirley visibly softened. "I think that's why I did this - everyone who knows me here thinks of me as poor, provincial Shirley from Milwaukee. Every day I'm confronted by people my own age who are trying to change the world, and what am I doing in the meantime? Working a nine-to-five job, looking for mister right, hoping he'll take me away from my lonliness - just like I did back in Milwaukee!"

"Those kids' idea of changing the world is avoiding a bath and smoking grass," Sonny chuckled. "Don't waste your time thinking about them - not when you do more for people in the real world than they do with their ideas."

She threw up her hands. "How? By shopping at goodwill every week?"

"I don't understand how you don't see the good you do. Shirley, you do more volunteer work with the poor and for the animal shelter than anyone I know."

"But I don't know how I'm making any honest difference. People are still poor, animals still suffer..."

"By doing. It's easy to be a radical and do nothing, but it's hard to stick to what you really believe and live your life the way you want to. And you're doing that, not just sitting back and spitting out ideas without the guts to back them up."

Shirley smiled wanly. "So you don't think I'm provincial?"

"If you're provincial, than California deserves a little more of the providence," he laughed. "You're refreshing, Shirley Feeney. I'm glad there's no one else like you in the world."

"I needed to hear that," she sighed, and began to head back into the building. "I need to get Squiggy his mail before I go out for dinner - I'm too tired to cook tonight..."

"Hey, wait - are you going to stay a blonde?"

Her smile was radient. "I think I'll keep it this way for a little while. One of the boys in accounting said I looked a little like Sandra Dee."

A slight tremor passed through his jaw when she mentioned another boy, but she didn't notice. "Yeah, when you're out in the sun."

The seductive tone of his voice went over Shirley's head as she rummaged through her purse for her keys. Finding them, she turned to her mail slot and pulled out a pile of mail, which mosly consisted of brown paper envelopes. "At least Squiggy will be happy..."

"Happier than you know," Sonny said under his breath. She tucked the mail under her arm and shoved her key in the lock. "Hey," he asked, rooted to his spot on the lawn, "you aren't really lonely - are you?"

She grinned at him over the shoulder. "Not anymore."


***

The creamy tan surface of the bowl of butterscotch pudding called out to Shirley. She was reminded of her own recipie for the chcocolate variety, left in a scrapbook somewhere in the middle of her kitchen counter. She needed to start cleaning soon - she'd found something particularly sticky and unidentifiable underneath the cookie jar last weekend.

She had been perusing the pastrami selections and had decided on a turkey sandwhich when she lost her grip on her purse. As she bent over, she felt the sudden heat and presence hovering overhead - and went instantly on the deffensive. A shadow cast itself before the too-familiar voice began to speak.

"Let me help you, ma'am..." The hands met hers on the white leather. He didn't see her face until they both stood upright in the light, then the tone became amusingly perplexed. "Shirley?"

She smiled to cover her shock. In her best Betty Crocker/Donna Reed tone, she said, "hello, Carmine. What brings you to Los Angeles?"



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