Olive Tree:
By Missy
Title: Olive Tree
Parts: 1 of 1 Author: Missy
Fandom: Laverne and Shirley
Pairing/Characters: Edna Babbish, Laverne DeFazio
Rating/Category: PG-13; drama
Disclaimers: Doesn’t Belong to me, Belongs to Gary Marshall; no infringement intended.
Spoilers: For season 8, “Short on Time”:
Summary: Edna in Spain after she left Frank.
Notes/Warnings: Written for Shotzette for the Laverne and Shirley Fan Fiction Exchange in 2009

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The trees were heavy with olives and figs the summer Edna Babbish returned to Spain. She would always remember the scent of them blossoming when she walked down the Paseo de Prado, humming to herself, feeling the sun bake her once-dead skin a deep brown.

She never wore any but the lightest of cotton dresses when he dwelled there, encumbered only by chunky turquoise bracelets, the occasional strand of gold, a brown leather sandal that matched the tone of her skin.

Edna never lacked for attention. Johnny had shed her fairly quickly after she had left Frank for him, but she knew the language and didn’t need him to help to gather interviews, to find herself a flat.

First, she worked in a candy shop, selling pantone to the tourists in a little storefront near the Gran Via, the years spent beside Frank guiding her business acumen. She really wanted to save her way to the best business district in town, the Plaza Red de San Luis.

Six years passed before she could set up her own shop, selling clothing to the fashionable ladies of Madrid and the rich tourists. Edna missed feeling connected to the real people of the world – soon she had enough money to open a smaller shop that catered to the lower classes, with clothing of good quality but lower price.

It was there that she saw her. Time had brought wisdom to her green eyes, if not sadness. She had a rainbow-emblazoned tote and wore a poncho that was stiff from the red dirt of the country floor, her unwashed hair golden red and her form keen, skinny. Edna didn’t recognize the man with shaggy black hair who kissed her lips and waited dutifully outside; perhaps she would have approved, perhaps not, she could not tell from his jeans and poncho if he was a man worthy of giving the girl love.

A moment of anger, suppressed for a second or two; long enough to find a granny dress to wear, splattered with a print of white narcissus flowers.

She emerged from the dressing room, to say, “I just wanna know why.”

A frown. It was all Edna could give her. Olive branches drew shadows across tired green eyes, which had once captured a fleet of sailors. “For the same reason you’re in Spain, Laverne.”

“Change of scenery?” she offers, lighting a cigarillo and looking about her at the neatly-arranged piles.

“You know I would never abandon your father that callously,” she responded. “Frank and I had been fighting for awhile. Marriage just didn’t work for us.”

A change came over Laverne’s features. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “I guess I know how you feel.”

Her eyes were focused on the man sitting out on the park bench, his hair blowing in the wind, ruffling his caftan.

“How is Frank doing?”

“Fine. He married Bubbles Marone. They moved to Boca last year.” Laverne’s tone of voice showed distance, impatience. “I should just go,” she said. From the man she was with, from Edna’s shop – from the mire she was stuck in.

Edna could understand her need to run, the overpowering urge to just pick up and get as far away as humanly possible.

“Do what you have to do, Laverne.”

She looked back over her shoulder as she pushed the dress into the runsack. “Nah. Then I’d be just like you.”

In a moment she was gone, taking the dress and the shadow of the olive tree with her without paying.

The End











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