Fourth Chair
Chapter Two
By Missy

TITLE: Fourth Chair
PARTS: One of Undetermined
RATING: PG-13 for one adult reference and one mildly salty word; use caution.
DISTRIBUTION: To LW, FG and Kai 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. Â 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: SOL
PAIRINGS: What do you think? ;-)
FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!
SPOILLER/SUMMARY: Laverne and Lenny's daughter may be a great cellist in the making; one whose intelligence makes them feel both blessed and mystified. Can they possibly let her go to New York alone?'

NOTE: Lyrics are, of course, from the song "Cell Block Tango", from the musical "Chicago". All rights reserved.

****

"He Had It Coming!"

He hovered by the doorway of the theatre, watching an animated troop of teenagers in rather conservative black catsuits writhe across the stage.

"HE ONLY HAD HIMSELF TO BLAME!!!"

Somehow, their words minimized him even more; he had seen Carmine play Billy in Chicago years ago, and the glib way the show presented murder had always made him uneasy.

His eyes fell proudly on Aria, sitting in the orchestra pit, who produced flourish after flourish from the body of her cello as though it were nothing. The scantily clad teenagers tripped over one another on the stage, but Aria produced everything just as it had been written. He knew, incidentally, that she could recite Katalina Hellinski's entire monologue in Polish.

"Ladies, ladies," Clapped squat, mean-eyed Sister Assumptia, "That is more than enough for today. Briette!" She addressed a shorter brunette who had fallen on her face just as Joe's head was 'popped', "PLEASE WATCH YOUR STEP NEXT TIME! The orchestra is dismissed, the dancers are not."

Aria heaved a sigh that seemed much older than her years. Lenny watched her stow the cello in its case before heading up the aisle. When she caught sight of him, she rushed the final few feet to his waiting arms.

"You were real good, sweetheart!" And he couldn't help but notice how heavy she was, with the combined weight of cello and backpack.

"Thank you. But, daddy, where's mom?" The ingrained anxiety in her green eyes haunted him. He rarely came to pick her up, Laverne's job being the more flexible one. She seemed to inevitably link his presence at the school with emergency, as he had been the one to retrieve her when her Grandpa Frank had died of a heart attack.

"Nothin's wrong; your mom's pickin' Christian up from daycare."

Her slim shoulders relaxed under a heaved sigh, and they both found a seat in the back row of the theatre.

Lenny watched Aria unzip her green camouflage backpack and noticed chiefly her many doodles. There were badly scrawled band names everywhere; her obsession with punk bands clear. The word ANARCHY!!!, written just so, still gave him a small fright. But even he couldn't help but smile at the word "Aviril", crossed out with a "just say no" sign.

Aria, he hoped, was good at saying no to just the right things. Lord knows, he and Laverne had tried to be as lenient as possible in this day and age they had been plunged into. Her pink hair, naturally light red, testified to that. The conservative ponytail she wore at the moment would be released when she got home, gelled up into a spiky mess of jeweled clips.

Then there was that nose ring...Lenny winced whenever he had to look at it. She had gone off and gotten pierced with her best friend after their first concert, leaving their horrified parents to shriek in dismay when they arrived home.

Autumn's reaction fit in with her breeding; she had shrunken back as Shirley cried out in horror. But Aria had been firmly defiant when he and Laverne had claimed that she was wrecking her beautiful face; she had pointed out her father's earring.

Lenny's protestations that he 'was drunk' and 'your mom dared me ta do it' hadn't proven his case.

Everything about Aria suggested bubbling rebellion these days; trying to sneak out of the house in her white uniform blouse with her camouflage bra peeking over the top. Wearing leather Doc Martins that were oversized by two sizes. Sneaking by the school's dress code by wearing textured black hose with little rips in them. Her hero-worshipping of Shirley Manson and Ani DiFranco.

Lenny's teeth sunk into his lower lip as she began scribbling out her geometry problems.

Yet, somehow, for all of her rebellion, she didn't have any friends, preferring the solitude of her one close friend, Shirley's daughter. She was an isolationist.

All of this made him more nervous than he needed to be.

Laverne's appearance by his chair made him leap, and Christian laugh. Resultantly, Aria looked up, her green eyes alarmed.

"What is going on?" She demanded.

Laverne gave Lenny a surprised look. "Why didn't ya tell her?"

"No! You are not getting divorced...are you?"

"No!" They both cried simultaneously.

"Your principal wanted to see us, Ari." Laverne explained. "Can you look after Christian while we do that?"

Ari's nose wrinkled, but she took her baby sister into her embrace. "Well, Keek, maybe you know what the square root of ten is."

Laverne straightened her suit, taking Lenny's very sweaty hand in hers as they walked across the hall and to the principal's office.

"You do the talkin'." Lenny suggested.

"No way! Nuns make my palms sweat!"

Lenny snorted, both of them experiencing their own form of severe guilt. One knock admitted them to the inner sanctum of Sister Mary Elena's world.

"Mister and Missus Kosnowski!"

"De Fazio-Kosnowski." Corrected Laverne.

"Ah yes." The sister remarked, apparently not approving of Laverne's decision to hyphenate her name. "Come in."

Lenny selected the chair to Laverne's right, Laverne the left. He instantly grabbed a starlight mint from the collection resting in Sister M.E's Jesus Saves ashtray.

"Sister, we've been trying real hard to control Aria..." Lenny plunged on.

"But she's just a kid, ya know? I mean, I did things way worse than she's done..."

"But if you want us to dye her hair back or something..."

"Oh no, Aria's appearance is the least of our concern."

"But she's pullin' straight 'A'S' in almost everything!" Lenny said, staring at her nameplate.

"That's precisely why you're here!" Smiled Sister M.E. "Mister Kosnowski, your child is an unqualified musical genius. Her original compositions are outstanding, as are her history and literature scores." She passed a pamphlet across the space between them. "Those scores more than qualify her to attend our sister school. It's a specialized school for the arts named Interlochen."

Lenny and Laverne stared blankly at the colorful spread which chronicled the rather gothic and forbidding school.

"Who's gonna pay for that?" Laverne asked hoarsely.

"The Board of admissions are so pleased with Aria's scores that they're willing to transfer the funds of her scholarship here to their account."

"What's the catch?" Lenny asked.

"Excuse me, Mister Kosnowski?"

"The catch; what does she have to do, write music for the president fer ten years 're something?"

"Len..."

"Well, there is one small proviso."

"Yeah, spill it..."

Sister M.E. seemed to hesitate before saying. "Interlochen is located in Upstate New York. If you accept our offer, it's required that Aria spend all of her semesters there."

New York. Miles away.

Lenny acted on his gut instinct.

"No way."



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