Chapter 32: Dancing on a Friday Night With You
Author's Notes: First off, in the last chapter I quoted Hunter Thompson, and Willow described him as a 'dead writer'. He would have been quite surprised by Willow's statement, since he didn't actually commit suicide for another two months, in February 2005. Sorry about that. And, quite frankly, the writing was on the wall long before February 2005, so we'll just pretend it had already happened as Willow mentioned in my chapter and move on, okay? :-) And in case anyone is wondering, Hanukkah was Dec 7 -14 in 2004, so it will not bump into Christmas in this story. So no going there with Willow and all for this year at least. In case anyone wondered. The chapter title is from 'Friday Night' by Darkness.
Friday Evening - After Dinner With a quiet 'click', the door closed as John entered the dimly lit master bedroom. Rosemary lay upon the still-made bed, facing away from the door. From her position on the bed, curled up and clutching a pillow, she gave no indication that she noticed his entrance into their bedroom. John stood with his hands in his pockets, staring at the back of his silent wife.
"Rosemary?"
No response.
"Ro?" He took a step forward. "Come on Rosemary, talk to me."
Still nothing. He continued forward and sat on the edge of the bed, placing a hand lightly upon her shoulder.
"I want to know what happened down there," He asked gently, quietly.
"Nothing happened," came the whispered reply.
"Something happened. Something is wrong."
She turned over and frowned at her husband, who scooched back a bit to give her room to face him. He took her hand in his, and bent his head down slightly, expecting to hear whatever was bothering her so much that she needed to leave the table in such dramatic fashion. She turned her gaze to where their hands were joined.
"Who
is that girl?" she began in anguish.
"You mean Willow?"
"No,
Buffy. What do we
know about her? She could be anybody. She could be dangerous, or have some dangerous boyfriend hanging around, waiting 'til it's safe to come get her." She was speaking more quickly now that she'd warmed to her subject. "She knows Illyria. I heard them talking yesterday. Illyria said that Buffy had been
arrested with her cousin and the police took her baby away. What do we really know anyway?" Her words had become rushed, panicked. "She's some
criminal who has done God knows
what and she's living right in our home, right down the
hall!" Tears were spilling down her face now, and she was clutching John's hand tightly, willing him to understand the danger they were in from this girl sitting at their table downstairs.
John just frowned quietly and listened to Rosemary's fears tumble out, gaining momentum as tears began to fall down her face. He watched as her worries became irrational allegations and fears, and her anger became anguish and pain. She seemed no longer able to distinguish reality from her own fearful imaginings. He was stunned by the depth of her fear, and it's lack of a basis in reality.
"Rosemary, please. Calm down, sweetheart, calm down." He held onto her until her tears slowed and she was quieter and more capable of hearing his words.
"Rosemary," he started calmly. "Tanya told us what happened to Buffy. We know these things."
Rosemary shook her head 'no', but John continued on, making his explanation, trying to allay her fears.
"Yes. She told us that Buffy was living with her cousin who had been arrested, and when the police came to search the apartment they found Buffy and her baby living there, too. And that Buffy hadn't done anything wrong herself, but only that she'd run away from home to have her baby and that her cousin was supporting her for about a year --"
"No. No." Rosemary shook her head. "Tanya didn't say that --"
"Yes, Rosemary. I was there when Tanya came by to talk to us last Sunday. She sat in our living room and told both of us who Buffy was and why the judge might make her go into foster care when she had her hearing on Monday. Tanya needed to know if we could take in a teenage girl, since we couldn't take the little children any longer. Remember?"
Rosemary scrunched her forehead in an effort to remember the things John was saying. Then she shook her head and continued her argument.
"If she was
innocent they wouldn't take her baby away, John." Rosemary asserted.
"There were some things wrong, Ro, but she's just a kid herself. She made some mistakes because she's so young and naive. But the big things, the real criminal charges -- she didn't know about those things. That was her cousin," He touched the back of his hand to her cheek, wiping away the tears that were left. "She's not a bad kid, Rosemary. She just needs a break now. She's going to go to high school, and get some counseling and take some parenting classes. Isn't that what Tanya told you on Monday, when she brought Buffy to you?"
Rosemary frowned and stared off to the side for a moment, as though she were trying to remember the things John was saying.
"She's not a criminal?"
"No."
"
Really?" She looked back at John worriedly, biting her bottom lip.
"Really. She's a good kid who needs a home for a while. That's all. No boyfriends lurking, no criminal relatives or friends to worry about. Just a young girl with no one in the world to take proper care of her."
"Oh." Rosemary closed her eyes a moment then looked up at John again. "So we'll do that. We'll take care of her."
"Yes. We will."
"She's not six." Rosemary shook her head in all seriousness.
John chuckled. "No, she's not."
"I don't know how to take care of teenagers. I'm used to little children." Rosemary complained worriedly.
"You'll do fine. Just like we talked about."
"Yeah," she nodded. "Okay. We'll do fine." She had wound down to a point where she was speaking very slowly and deliberately now. "Okay."
When John saw that she was remaining calm, he stood and got her pills and a glass of water from the master bathroom. He handed them to Rosemary and held her up while she took them, then carefully helped her to lay back down upon the bed, laying down beside her.
"You just rest now, okay Ro?" Her eyes closed slowly and he held her while she drifted into sleep. "Just rest."
~~~~~~~~
Once Rosemary had drifted into slumber, John removed her clothes and shoes, and got her tucked into bed for the night. She was sound asleep and he knew she would remain that way until morning.
Hearing the tv on downstairs, he made his way into the family room to find Buffy. Since she hadn't noticed him yet, he stood in the doorway gazing at her as she sat cross-legged on the sofa, watching a romantic comedy on the tv. He recognized the beginning of a movie from their own DVD collection.
She really was a beautiful girl -- long golden hair spilling down over her shoulders, funny little crooked nose, laughing green eyes, and the lithe yet curvaceous body of a young woman. She was strength and health and vitality and more than anything else
life. Life itself, in all its youthful splendor, sat in his family room laughing at a movie and drinking a diet coke.
The contrast between this laughing girl and the woman he left upstairs was stark and bitter. Rosemary had also been such a lovely young girl, once upon a time. Before. Before his long hours working away from home left her lonely and aimless. Before the accident last summer that left her body intact but her brain slightly injured. Not drooling in a cup injured, but enough that she now had these headaches and was prone to sudden delusions cropping up out of nowhere, seemingly at random. She had once been the laughing flirtatious girl that he had fallen in love with so long ago. She had been. And her illness was breaking his heart and wearing him down.
But here was another laughing girl, his foster daughter, and for a few minutes he remembered their first meeting at the beach last summer. Their flirtation. Their laughter. Laughing together. He wanted that again, so much. So much.
But she was sixteen years old. And his foster daughter. And he was married to a woman he really did love very much, even more now she was so ill and needed him so greatly. And it would be the worst betrayal -- to both of his laughing girls -- to act upon his fleeting impulses and baser attractions where this one was concerned. But oh, how he wished...
*Pull yourself together, man. You are not that guy. You are not that disgusting lowlife guy who hits on his foster daughter while his wife is ill and helpless. You are not that guy. You agreed to foster a teenage girl because it would be good for Rosemary to not be alone so much, and she'd be old enough not to burn the house down if Ro had one of her spells...*
John sternly lectured himself as he continued into the room to sit next to Buffy. He would spend a couple of hours watching a light romantic comedy sitting next to a beautiful girl, and pretend for a while that everything was right in his world again.
There was nothing wrong with pretending, for just a little while.
~~~~~~~~~~
Buffy watched John walk over and sit down on the sofa next to her. She paused the movie and turned to face her foster father, casting worried eyes upon him.
"Is Rosemary okay?"
"Yeah, she just had a long day is all," he tried to be reassuring, but when he saw that Buffy was frowning at him he realized that his brief explanation wasn't going to fly anymore. He needed to be frank with her, since she was going to be living here and alone with his wife much of the time.
"Actually, there is something wrong. I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier in the week, but I didn't think it would be a problem so quickly."
Buffy's eyes widened as he told her about Rosemary's accident and her brain injury, her headaches, her mood swings, and that she was just having a particularly bad week right now.
Buffy was startled to hear that her problem was so severe, but was also relieved that she could at last put a reason to the unreasonable behavior she'd been noticing all week. She was relieved that at least it was nothing she had done wrong here.
They talked for awhile about Rosemary, and whether Buffy thought she could be happy living in their home under the circumstances. Buffy assured John that she really liked it there and didn't want to leave, in spite of Rosemary's problem. She'd make it work, and now that she knew what was going on it would be easier to deal with. John was relieved by her answer, and glad that Buffy would be staying.
Her unspoken thoughts were that she was absolutely determined to make her foster placement work. She had no way of knowing whether another foster home wouldn't be much worse. She'd heard stories of very bad homes out there, and the one she was in was heaven in comparison. She also did not want to do anything that might cause Judge Holtz to think her uncooperative or bad and therefore delay getting her baby back as soon as possible. She was very determined to make this work no matter what.
Then the subject turned to Willow. Buffy thought this would be a good time to ask about going out the following evening with Willow and her friends.
"Willow asked me if I could go out with her and her friends tomorrow evening. To the Bronze." Buffy put on her best hopeful face and willed John to agree.
"The Bronze? That club near the warehouse district?" He seemed doubtful.
"I guess. I've never been there. But Willow says she and her friends go dancing there all the time, and they let in teenagers and don't serve alcohol. To teenagers. No alcohol to teenagers. And there'd be friends meeting us there, too. So it wouldn't be just Willow and me, it would be a group of friends together."
Buffy bit her bottom lip waiting for his response to her description of the club, and John was reminded again of the woman upstairs in his bedroom. Then he shook himself out of it and focused again on the matter at hand.
"When?"
"She said we'd go about eight o'clock, and be home by midnight." Buffy tensed up and tried to make him agree through sheer force of her thoughts.
"Who is driving you?" John wasn't sure if this was the right thing to do, and tried to remember the kinds of questions Rosemary's parents used to pepper them with when they were young and dating.
"Um, she said it's not that far, that we could walk there."
"No." John shook his head and declared forcefully. "Not with that serial killer wandering about the coast. Definitely not while he's loose."
Buffy deflated miserably, her hopes for a fun-filled teenage evening crashing down.
"But..."
"But?" She perked up. *Yes, let there be a 'but'!*
"But, I am willing to drive you two there and pick you up afterwards if you're really sure you want to go."
"Yes! Thank you!" She lunged forward and wrapped her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly. "Yes!"
John stiffened in shock, then put his arms around Buffy and hugged her loosely back, letting his arms fall to his sides rather quickly. He barely dared to breathe while the girl of his longing was in his arms, all innocence and naiveté. He had no illusions that she thought anything more of her actions, but only thought that she was hugging her foster father, a father figure to her, and by that definition not a man at all. He reminded himself ruthlessly that father equals 'eunuch' in the mind of a young girl. But if she didn't loosen her grip he was going to react to her touch in the worst way possible whether he wanted to or not, and he needed to make this stop NOW.
Just as John was about to disentangle himself, Buffy released him and sat back on the sofa, a little further away than before. She was grinning from ear to ear and had obviously not suspected anything amiss. John let himself relax and then he smiled at her and moved a little further back himself.
"Sorry. I'm kind of a hugger. Faith hated it, but sometimes I get carried away when I'm happy." She looked sheepishly at him from beneath long dark lashes, and he was both entranced by her beauty and reminded once again of her innocence. This girl was trouble with a capital T. He'd have to keep remembering that. He decided to change the subject.
"Tanya's picking you up at eight-thirty tomorrow morning I've been told."
"Yeah," Buffy suddenly was all business, like a switch had turned in her head. "We're going out to breakfast to talk, and then she's taking me to the social services office in Carlton to see my daughter. It's our first supervised visit." Plain. Simple. Just the facts, no emotions involved. John was struck by the sudden change.
"I'm sure it'll be wonderful to be able to see and hold your baby again," he remarked carefully.
Buffy nodded, and then turned away to watch the frozen tv screen. "I'm watching this movie I found in your bookcase. I hope it's okay." She turned grave eyes upon him, the earlier lighter mood completely erased now.
"Sure," he agreed quietly. "Actually, it's one of my favorites. But shhhh....don't tell anyone. They'll take away my man card if anyone finds out." He thought some humor might bring the mood back, and he was right. Buffy brightened at his joke, and they were back to friendly again.
The two sat together companionably for the next two hours, laughing at the movie and sharing microwave popcorn and sodas like two friends might on a slow Friday night. The distraction was quite welcome to both of them, and for a while the world narrowed down to that family room, and neither let any dark thoughts interfere with their fun.
~~~~~~~
Bronzing will happen soon. But there's stuff to get through before Saturday night. Hope you liked this little chapter.
Next chapter will be posted - I hope - tomorrow. Until then, please leave a review if you can. I really appreciate every one.
Sara