SERIES: The Rainbows of Her Reason
PART: 3 of 6
RATING: R (Adult thematic material, adult content)
PAIRING(s): L/L; S/C; S/R; F/E; S/W
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CATEGORY: Romance/AU/Sci-Fi
FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!
SETTING IN TIMELINE: Post-Show, but Dark and AU.
SPOILLER/SUMMARY: Laverne is given a rare opportunity - to
go back and re-imagine her life. Is this
new chance a blessing or a curse?
NOTES: This is occasionally wildly AU and may be dark at
times. I have, however, tried to keep
everyone IC. You have been warned!
And remember: Laverne's thoughts are in italics.
***
"My, Laverne," Shirley said, as she bit the edge
off of a dark chocolate caramel, "Lenny remembered everything, didn't
he?"
"Yeah," Laverne said mildly.
"I wish I could expect the same sort of commitment from
Carmine," Shirley sighed, the chocolate finished, then
puncturing the middle of an unidentified truffle in the northernmost edge of
the box. She pulled out a red nail
streaked with red liquid. "Oh, a cherry.
Here you go - you like cherry..."
Carmine's alive! Laverne stopped herself from directly
expressing her glee. "Shirl, I don't wanna eat something you had your finger
in..."
"When Kenny was two, you'd chew up a cookie and spit it
into his mouth," Shirley said, disdainful of the memory.
Laverne gingerly picked up the chocolate and popped it into
her mouth, leaving a trail of raspberry across her lips. "Wrong - raspberry," she said
through a full mouth. "How's
Carmine?" she managed to say before swallowing.
Shirley frowned at her friend. "You're not sick? Are you sure of that?" she pressed her
palm to Laverne's forehead. "You saw
him last night, Vernie - we came over with
Shawn."
"Shawn," Laverne repeated. From the fond way Shirley caressed the name,
he had to be either a boyfriend or a child.
Laverne hazarded her guess.
"He's getting so big."
Shirley beamed.
"I think he looks just like his father," she rhapsodized.
Laverne felt a refreshing flood of relief. "He has your eyes."
Shirley lit up. "Really? I still
think he looks like Carmine..."
Another answer gleaned, Laverne grinned. "He looks like the both of you. Unlike my kids, who all look like Len."
"You know that's not true," Shirley laughed,
popping a coconut cluster into her mouth.
"They all have your eyes, your face," Shirley relaxed. "Oh, I must look like a beached
whale! When I was Mother's Helper at
Shawn's school, none of the smocks would fit me."
Laverne eyed her friend's figure and groaned. "Shirl, I bet
you're still a size five - even from the waist down."
She winced.
"Size seven since Shawn was born."
Laverne glanced down at her belly. "I bet I'm a twenty."
"You're not fat," Shirley said brightly, patting
her friend's hand.
"Sure," Laverne laughed, standing up to clear the
table.
"Let me!" Shirley insisted gently.
"Ugh! I'm not
helpless - you and Len treat me like a baby!"
"You're going to give birth any day now," scolded
Shirley, picking up the empty pancake platters and syrup trencher and depositing
them in the sink. "The second
Carmine heard about Shawn, he treated me the same way. It's what a new mommy deserves."
"I'm anything but a new mommy. Did you notice that Mary's ten now?"
Shirley grinned.
"And she has a smarter mouth than you ever did."
"Yeah," Laverne grumbled, remembering the girl's
sulky face.
"It's just a stage," Shirley said breezily,
running water over the plates and setting them to dry in a rack beside the
sink. Laverne noted that she never
dropped a single sud outside of the porcelain
tub.
"Are you gonna be busy today?"
"Of course not! Carmine's taking Shawn to the movies,"
she turned off the taps and wiped her hands with a bright yellow kitchen
towel. "We have the whole day to
spend together."
Laverne grinned.
"That's great. But Len and
the kids are gonna be back in the afternoon..."
"Oh, I knew that," Shirley covered her mouth,
blushing. "You're not supposed to
know that I know - oh, fudge, never mind me!" She pushed her chair back
into place. "I have a coupon for a
game of bowling."
Laverne couldn't contain a further outburst. "Since when do we need coupons? My Pop..."
"Did your father give you your present yet?"
Shirley worried. "I told Carmine
that a round of bowling would be redundant, but then he suggested a few free
ballroom dancing lessons - I told him it would be gauche," she
sighed. "There isn't much to do for
fun in this town when you're related to half the National Amusement
Association."
Laverne smiled wanly.
Her father had a chain now? And
Carmine still owned a dance studio, probably the Marjorie Wards chain. "We could go out for pizza later
on..."
"We just ate!
Besides, you don't like Ronzonis. Honestly, your father never should have taken
the "Pizza" out of the "Pizza Bowl....oh well - he's got a
nationwide chain of twenty alleys now, and I'm no businesswoman."
Her father had given up food service? That made no sense to Laverne - his love for
pizza and spaghetti trumped his affection for loud bowling patrons any
day. She said, lamely, "yeah - I guess bowling would be fun."
"'Fun' is eating sugar cookies and watching It's A
Wonderful Life - but it's not Christmas yet," Shirley noted tartly,
pulling Laverne onto her feet and out the door.
***
Four hours later, Laverne rested herself in a large,
overstuffed easy chair in the Kosnowski living room. She rubbed her belly in a gentle, circular
motion - the kid apparently didn't enjoy the day's activities, which had
consisted of four bowling games and a half a pizza, split between herself and
Shirley. Shirley - how she had missed
her! Her best friend was ever wise, ever
practical, ever bright - her common sense was a
relief.
Her stomach growled, and Laverne shook her head. "Uh uh - no more food." She had to admit she had become a ravenous
eater lately - but she had been starving for weeks after spending paycheck
after paycheck on booze and ignoring her hunger to remain insensible. The memory of alcohol caused saliva to fill
her mouth - she swallowed and looked for a distraction.
Laverne picked up and glanced at a TV Guide which had been
casually abandoned on the end table. Her
eyes caught hold of a large advertisement for Amazon Woman On The Moon: An Andrew Squiggman
Production and did not bother to suppress her shock. Even though she had managed to worm a few
stories out of Shirley about their
If she remained in this universe.
She suddenly realized that she couldn't count on being there
that Sunday at seven - that at any minute she could be pulled out of this
reality and be forced to face the pain of the real world...
The house, situated in a cul-de-sac, was flooded with
Inside was a treasure trove of memories. Lenny's guitar. Jeffery. Magic props, a green blanket - moth-eaten but
loved. And underneath them, carefully
preserved in a cardboard box, lay a reel of 16mm film labeled "Laverne and
Lenny's Wedding" and a projector. With some effort, Laverne dragged these to a
coffee table, and set up the reels in the camera. Pointing both to a blank wall facing the
door, she turned off the lights, pulled down the shutters, then
turned the camera on.
The picture came to life - a sea of greenery and trees in
sunshine. She saw an unmistakable blob
at the corner of the picture - her father's thumb - as she came into view.
She saw herself - in a white dress and veil, walking toward
the camera, a small smile on her face, a big bouquet of roses between her
gloved hands. It wasn't at all a
traditional dress - a bit too short at the knees to have been her mother's -
and yet there was something quite old-fashioned to the look. She walked, grinning, toward the camera -
then the scene cut abruptly to the exterior of a church, where she and Lenny - clad
in a cheerfully obnoxious plaid tuxedo - waved shyly at the camera, flanked by
a blue-suited Squiggy and Shirley, clad in a filmy pink gown with a thousand
ruffles around the neck. A final cut
took them to a raucous celebration - dancing on tables, people swigging bottles
of wine, a large, multi-tiered cake. She and Lenny, dancing together, looking only into each other's
eyes as they danced slowly.
Laverne felt a sudden, overwhelming sense of frustration - why didn't
she feel that way now?
"'Cause you know you don't belong here."
Laverne's body leapt to life. It was her father, staring into her face with
eyes that were oddly mean.
"Pop..."
Frank DeFazio stepped into the living room, the projection
distorting on his belly as his body shifted.
"You don't belong here.
Neither do I..."
"I want to," she said. "I want to belong here. If I could just have more time..."
"You don't get it!
You're disturbin' my eternal rest here."
"So you're really dead," she whispered. "But does that mean I'm..."
Frank struggled to find a kinder tone. "You're not dead, Muffin. Not yet," he amended. "You're in purgatory. Just like me," he reached over and shut
off the projector. "And They sent me here to help you."
"They?"
"You know..." Frank pointed up to the sky.
"God sent you to me?"
"Not God. Gods."
"There's more than one God?" Laverne gaped.
"We got a lot to talk about," he looked back over
his shoulder. "In
the kitchen. So Lenny won't here
if he comes in."
Laverne obediently followed her father into the kitchen, her
confusion deeper than ever.