Brights Lights and Promises
By Missy

SERIES: Souvenirs
SUBTITLE: Bright Lights and Promises
FOLLOWS: Souvenirs, Fire With Fire, Bury That Jewel,
High Sierra, Walking Lonely, Blues Along The Way, Balloons Land, Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans, Somewhere Sails, Baby, It's You, So..., Through The Looking Glass, Desertion, I Know You Rider, Midnight Musings, West End Family Grave, BattleLines
PART: 1 of 1
AUTHOR: Missy
EMAIL: lasfic@yahoo.com
RATING: PG, Het
PAIRING(s): L/L

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: Drama
FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!
SETTING IN TIMELINE: California
SPOILLER/SUMMARY: Lenny finds himself and the girls somewhere else to stay for the time being.

****

"I know this is hard to take, Lenny."

Lenny shook his head, looking across the table at his sister. "You gotta reconsider," he pleaded. "Me and Laverne only need a week..."

"Shirley and Laverne can't be in the same room with one another without screaming about sex," Lenny noticed his sister's eyes roll. "It ain't even that. We got a family here. All the screamin' ain't doin' anyone any good."

"Ange..."

Her shoulders shifted. "All right. You can stay. They go."

"That ain't fair! What about Laverne!"

"What about her? She's your lover, Lenny. She's not your wife. You can't say she's gonna be with you for ever."

"Tell my class ring to that."

"Lenny, you wasted years of your life on that girl. Now you're gonna give her your class ring?"

"And she's gonna love it, Ange. She's my best girl now, and you'll see. It'll work."

"Not under this roof."

***

Hector held his back as he dumped the suitcases on the rough wooden floor. "That's the last of them."

"Thanks, I'll owe you."

Hector grunted. "Angie said to keep comin' over for Sunday dinner."

"Yeah; I got a good sister."

"I'm sorry it didn't work out, Lenny."

"Hey, it's only temporary," Lenny shrugged. "When me and Laverne get back to Milwaukee, you and Angie and the kids, you can come any time."

"I'll take you up on that," said Hector, as though he didn't think Lenny meant it.

Lenny escorted Hector to the door, his girlfriend pushed her way into the apartment and glanced around.

"Len, how're four people supposed to stay in two rooms?"

"Remember the Royal-" He didn't want her to remember the Royal Cactus.

"I guess it's okay, for just a little while," she pointed her index finger at him. "YOU start practicing."

"Yes, ma'am." They both stopped cold in the middle of their affection as Shirley entered the room, toting the baby.

She looked around the room, sighed, and flopped down onto the threadbare couch which had come with the apartment. Hector and Angie had relented because of Davy and offered to allow Shirley room and board until she figured out what she wanted to do with her new life. But Shirley, in some fierce stroke of loyalty, stood her ground, taking up a short-term lease on a two-room apartment a few miles off of Beal Street.

Suddenly, she jumped to her feet. "I'll have to start helping out around the place."

"Shirley..."

"No, I've been allowing things to go over my head for far too long. This apartment is unsuitable for a small child, and I have to make it properly clean."

"Shirl..."

"I'll start in the kitchenette. You two start in the bedroom...no, wait, start in the living room."

Lenny watched Shirley race by them, mumbling about getting supplies from their new landlord. Shirley had done it again, hadn't she.

"Some best friend," Laverne snorted.

"She's still our friend, Laverne."

"She don't' like you being with me, Lenny."

"It don't matter what she says now. She married a mummy!"

Laverne laughed, and suddenly the world's darkness was relieved.
FIN


To "Battle Lines"
To "Break"