☾ BLOSSOMING FLOWER ☽

Lourdes had to learn early on in life that female friendships were everything. Maybe it was because she was just like the other girls, or maybe cheer had always been a female sport and therefore she had no chance to associate with the other sex. But there was something thrilling in the prospect of a sisterhood; Lourdes hated cat fights and women pitted against women. Maybe that’s why she felt so drawn to Alexis’s naivete, her wide eyed wonder at everything and everyone. Or maybe Lourdes was too much of a dazzling star that she was only getting used to. Walking up to her shabby little Beetle, “You have to really tug the doors. And I know, I know, Lourdes why don’t you drive a Bentley? It’s because I fucking hate big cars and we’re on Catalina Island. If I wanted a big car, it would be a Hummer. Duh!” Finally, the door gave way and she gestured for Alexis to get in. “Okay Calvin, you fucking idiot. Guess there can only be one good Calvin and thank fuck he’s a DJ.” She sat in the driver’s seat, trying to discreetly adjust the orthopedic seating under her bottoms as she turned the key to her engine on. “…I feel like you don’t know what a pyramid is. It’s a cheer thing, and I used to be Middle Base for the longest time, so it’s like…arms outstretched and holding onto your flyer like n-b-d. Not the hardest, but it’s like by the time I got to Junior, I was promoted to Flyer and wow….” She trailed off, finally getting the car in motion. “So…tell me more about you, Alexis? Can I call you Lex? Or whatever nickname you prefer?” 

There was something about Lourdes that felt familiar and warm. As if they had known each other all their lives rather than a few weeks. It was mostly the other girl's doing. She held an aura about her and confidence that Alexis envied. That wasn’t to say that Alexis had never met people like her before, just that, usually people who shone as brightly as Lourdes did rarely took interest in a wallflower like her. What Lourdes exactly saw in her was debatable but she appreciated it. A friend was something she’d never turn down and something told Alexis they would be good for each other. Perhaps maybe even balance each other out a little bit. Instead of approaching one of the other nicer looking cars the girls abruptly stopped at an adorable looking beetle much to Lexie’s surprised. Her usually stoic features immediately morph into excited grin, dark hues meeting Lourdes with a dorky expression. “Gosh, Lourdes. This car is so precious!” Perhaps it was cliche for a girly-girl like her to have always wanted a beetle but even so, she had! Her second dream car choice was a jeep like Cher from Clueless but her father refused time and time again to buy her either models due to ‘safety concerns’. Which was understandable but heartbreaking. 

     “I’m so jealous! A beetle is way cute than a clunky hummer please!” Sliding into the vehicle with ease since Lourdes had done the hard work of jamming the door free Lexie took to admiring the interior with a smile. “I actually heard DJ Calvin’s a douche too though, so are all Calvins cursed? Probably. Except the chipmunk or was his name Alvin?” Lexie commented lightheartedly, closing her door just as her companion slid behind the driver’s seat. “You really got my dream high school life huh? I always wanted to be a cheerleader but I was...homeschooled.” It was probably too soon in their friendship to drop the ‘Oh, yeah, I had leukemia and missed out on a normal childhood’ bomb huh? “You can call me anything you want but usually people stick to Lexie. And, um, I don’t know what to tell you? I’m kinda boring actually.”

Filming is exhausting, and coming from Reina, who never likes to show when she’s drained, that’s saying a lot. When she signed on for all of this, she had no idea just how much she was going to have to put on a show for the cameras. So when one of the PA’s walks into her living room after a very long day of trying to get her children to behave for the camera and actually deliver some usable content, she can’t help the way her jaw clenches and her spine stiffens. A thought runs over and over through her head as Alexis speaks, be nice, be nice, you want a good edit — but it’s impossible for Reina not to snap every now and then. That’s who she is at her core, it’s in her nature and not even the newfound sense of self control she’s somehow acquired since moving to Catalina can change that. “I’m a very busy woman, sweetheart, I can’t just rearrange my schedule for some promotional bullshit at the drop of a hat.” Her tone is biting as she looks up at the girl from her perch on the couch, rolling her eyes at what an inconvenience the request is. “Did they not think maybe getting this done earlier on might be a little more responsible?” 

Even so, Reina knows that this is important and something she has to do if she wants to keep herself in production’s good graces, so she scrolls through her phone to get to her calendar app, searching for a day when she’s not absolutely swamped in real life shit. “Let’s see— I’ve got a PTA meeting that I absolutely have to attend next Tuesday. My kid has her gymnastics competition on Wednesday. These things take all day, right? And there will be hair and makeup there?” Reina’s not one to ever sugarcoat the fact that she’s extremely high maintenance, at this point it must be expected from all of the women, and she truly doesn’t think it’s an absurd request. Alexis may not know the answer to her question, but she’s sure as shit not showing up anywhere without a full glam squad at the ready to make her look her best. With a few more clicks, she looks up briefly from her phone before she goes back to tapping away, speaking as she does so. “The only possible days I can do are Thursday of next week and the following Monday. You’ll just have to figure it out.”

      Alexis considers letting it be known that it wasn't exactly at the drop of a hat. She very clearly remembered it being brought it up to all the main cast members at a dinner shoot a couple weeks ago but it wasn't a hill she was prepared to die on. It was a miracle Reina hadn’t kicked the brunette out of her home altogether so the least the production assistant could do was stand idly by silently absorbing the complaints being tossed her way with a solemn nod of her head. “I’ll be sure to bring it up sooner next season, Mrs. Rhodes.” She assured with all the confidence of a middle schooler asking their crush to sit with them at lunch. One would think that with almost a full season under their belt that Lexie would be more comfortable around the housewives but they still intimidated her. Reina in particularly, who seemed to be the human embodiment of a sour patch kid. She could go from being sweet to sour within a mere matter of moments and it never failed to rattle Lexie and catch her off guard. Her natural instinct to be liked and favored meant she tried her best to stay on the woman’s good side but it was hard to know whether she was failing or succeeding at any given moment. 

     Chocolate hues flicker away from the woman on the couch to consult her own phone. Nimble  fingers immediately finding her notes application to jot down the dates in question where Reina would be busy doing things for her kids. Making sure to pass it along to the production team so they would also know in case they weren’t aware already. “Yes, they usually take all day,” Lexie answered without missing a beat. Her attention immediately shifting toward her calendar as she awaited Reina to tell her the days she was available. “I believe that there will be a glam squad on set to get you guys ready but I’ll also double check for you.” The last thing she wanted to do was give the woman wrong information that would come to bite her in the ass later but it didn’t feel like such a stretch to say that hair and makeup would be there. “Next Thursday and the following Monday, got you. Thank you so much for being so cooperative. I’m sorry for the inconvenience, I know you’re probably itching to get some alone time with your family so I’ll be on my way soon. Just one more thing, do you have a theme or color scheme in mind? I wanna jot down ideas from everyone.” 

His apartment has felt confining as of late, and there’s only so many Candy Crush levels he can complete before his energy level runs out and he’s forced to confront his apartment’s resounding silence. So, the family home. Rory loathes that it’s still the next best place to clear his head, even though it’s occupied by a bustling cast and crew half of the time —  but it’s still, by far, a healthier mechanism compared to just lying on the couch, glaring at the screen decorated with jellybeans and gumdrops, waiting for the energy bar to fill up.

He doesn’t walk so much as stumble into the room, his phone dangling dangerously on his hand, the familiar hum of the app from his phone effectively making his presence known before he even opens his mouth — and even then, what comes first is an indignant huff of breath. “You know the worst part about this game?” Rory says to anyone who’d cared to listen, “the waiting. And if I use my credit card to pay for unlimited energy, that’s it for me. I won’t be able to look back.”

      Alexis Valentine never knew a grown man to be more obsessed with a application on his phone than Rory Hirsch to Candy Crush. It seemed that every time they crossed paths, he was playing it. She couldn’t decide whether his dedication to the craft was charming...or pathetic. Not that he himself was pathetic, just...wait, why did she feel the need to defend her own thoughts to herself? It wasn’t like he heard her think his addiction to the mobile game was bordering the line of pathetic. 

     Carefully side stepping to avoid becoming a victim of his less than coordinated entrance, the brunette paints a friendly smile on to her features. Chocolate hues curiously glancing toward his device before rerouting themselves to his face. Regardless of how she felt about his affliction for Candy Crush Rory had never been anything but kind to her and she’d always return the favor. It also didn’t hurt that he was easy on the eyes. “Why don’t you play another game while you wait for Candy Crush?” She offers helpfully, manicured fingers already reaching for the phone hanging precariously in his grasp. 

    “Have you heard of Best Fiends? It’s similar to Candy Crush but there are cute little monsters that help you along with each level. I think every Youtuber I’ve ever watched has had a brand deal with them.”

Leslie? Lily? Truthfully, Reina doesn’t know the name of the redhead that’s no doubt been forced to come find her after the screaming match that just went down, nor does she really care. It’s been two weeks and still the only people she’s even bothered to give the time of day are the people who control her fate, so to speak — the producer’s and the editors. In Reina’s mind, everyone else is just background noise. She can’t help but give a scowl when she’s told they want her back on set, as if she’s about to take orders from a fucking PA. If they want her back inside that badly, they can come get her themselves. Otherwise, everyone will just have to wait until she finishes her cigarette. “Um, do I look ready to go back on set?” she sneers, giving an over-exaggerated imitation of the girl’s use of the word um. “Give me a goddamn minute, Jesus.” 

Reina takes a long drag of her cigarette, holding in the smoke just long enough that she feels she’s not about to burst before she finally gives the timid PA a good look. It only takes her a moment to realize it’s probably not the best idea to snap at the girl and make her hate her guts. What’s-her-name may be fairly low on the totem pole around here but it’d only take the redhead blabbing to just one higher up that actually likes her for Reina to be given a bad edit, and she’s not dumb enough to let that happen. Being nice to the crew is practically part of the job, as much as it pains her. “My apologies, that was just stressful — as you saw.” Reina does her best to give a somewhat apologetic and friendly smile, but she’s never really gotten the hang of being kind. “What was your name again?”

      — JUST A CUTE LITTLE TIME SKIP, NO BIGGIE. 

      With the premiere date for Real Housewives of Catalina Island around the corner, everything was kicked into high gear. The last couple shows of the season were due to be wrapped within the next week or so and then everything Alexis and the rest of the crew had been slaving over for the last two months would be handed off to post production. 

      Unfortunately there was still a lot to do before then. Most important out of them all, the promotional pictures and filming of an opening credit for the show. With a cast of so many big personalities it had been harder than anticipated for Lexie to get everyone to agree to on a singular page. She hadn’t been left in charge of many tasks during her time as a production assistant. In fact, Alexis had mostly been left with grunt work and menial duties but she had managed to earn the trust of a superior enough to entrust her with getting a date in the books to kill two birds with one stone. It was a make it or break it situation. Alexis could either succeed and earn herself another season working on the show, or fail spectacularly and lose any good grace she had managed to build up until this point. She had already failed to get any of the ladies to agree to anything concrete during the last video shoot but wasn’t willing to give in just yet. 

    Where there’s will there was usually a way. Lexie figured approaching them each individually would yield better results. She had noticed early on that when all the ladies of their main cast were together, they tended to disagree with each other sometimes just for the hell of it. If one to a Monday shoot, two would rise from the ashes simply to swear that Monday was absolutely unacceptable. Mrs. Hirsch would have probably been the easier person to approach due to her connection with Alexis’s mother but she chose to drive to the Rhodes residence first. If she could get Reina to toss out a couple days that were good for her, Alexis felt certain that she could somehow trick the others into agreeing over one. Patiently biding her time the young brunette only approached the older woman once the camera crew emptied out of the living room they spent the better half of the day filming in. 

    “Hey, Reina I know you must be exhausted from filming but can you spare a few extra minutes? I still, um, need to set a date for the promotional photos to be taken and the opening sequence to be filmed.”

“The sound guys?” And it’s then that maternal instinct surfaces, one that’s eluded her in the first few years into motherhood, but now she only just manages to keep at bay, afraid to be quintessential Tiger Mom that had led to severe repercussions in Maggie’s own life. But the frustration lies there, adeptly hidden so as not to scare Alexis off from divulging her doubts, but palpable just so in the way Maggie’s courteous tone slightly falters. “You shouldn’t have to get used to them giving you a hard time. They should know better than to gang up on you.”

Deep down, she knows that Alexis isn’t delicate. Far from it — she’s much stronger than she realizes, having come out of harrowing experiences that would’ve broken most people stronger and wiser. And while Maggie has been there for her, in every step of that toiling path, she’s certain her daughter can survive anything on her own. But she’s afraid to turn the lens onto herself — her unwillingness to let go of Alexis’s hand, that once she’d secured against her own, but is now admittedly the one that keeps Maggie steady. 

“My day went well,” she begins, taking a generous sip, before she adds (because, she knows Alexis won’t be satisfied with those four words — they’re privy to each other’s secrets than most), “I took to painting earlier today. It’s been a while since I’ve held a paintbrush,” she remarks wistfully, knowing her days are now often spent in the confines of her office than her studio, “I’ve almost forgotten how exhilarating it felt.”  

      Heroes came in many shapes, sizes, and temperaments. As a kid, even before Margaret and Nate accepted an orphan into their home to raise and love as their own, her mother's cool older friend Maggie had always been source of fascination and adoration for the little girl. Other little girls wanted to be like Cinderella but Alexis wanted nothing more than to grow up and be just like Margaret Chen. Something that remained true til this very day. Her lips curve upward in obvious amusement at the telltale signs of her mother’s thinly-veiled concern. “Mom, it’s okay.” Lexie assured with a flash of a smile, the tickle of laughter in her throat swallowed down long enough to reach across the table to intertwine their fingers. “I’m sure they are just hazing the newbie.”  

     “They’ll get bored soon enough. It’s nothing I can’t handle.” Plus Alexis had already concocted her own strategy for winning their favor. It include bribery of course, but not the monetary kind. Years of being limited to nowhere but home when she wasn’t in the hospital meant that Alexis’s baking skills were nothing less than superb. Something the people on her crew were soon going to find out. After all, how can you continue to be grumpy and dismissive to a person bringing you baked goods?

for → @bcbydoll​ location: the brunch club time: february 22nd, 11am

“You doin’ all right?”

It’s the first thing that comes out of his mouth when he sits down across from his adopted daughter. Nate, despite all of his misgivings, never neglected his duties as a father. The countless visits to the hospital, chemotherapy sessions and hospitalizations for minor setbacks — he was there through it all, and now, sitting before him was a strong, beautiful, capable woman, and suffice to say, Nate was proud. But still, he worried about the girl and his gut reaction was to double-check that everything was okay, that everything would be okay for his little girl.

      There’s an avanchlance of paper work sprawled across the large table near the back she’d sweet talked a hostess into letting her use by herself. Filming dates, coffee orders, a never ending pile of receipts, an unorganized mess of items the twenty-four year old was expected to file, put away, and send off now that the filming of Real Housewives of Catalina Island first season was nearing it’s end. The sound of her father’s voice is an immediate relief to the young woman’s frazzled nerves. Chocolate hues lifting to meet his with a pathetic look in them, nude painted lips pressed together in an exaggerated pout. “Daddy, help,” Lexie whined unabashingly. Her gaze quickly shifting back to the work before her as her hands gesture vaguely toward the cause of all her stress. “I’m drowning. Tell me you’ve come to save me.”

“Hell yeah I did. Pretty girls like us always get eaten by bigger and badder wolves. That’s why we roam in packs, and that’s why missy…” Looping her arm through Alexis’s, Lourdes really wasn’t taking no for an answer, “….we’re going to The Lobster Trap.” Truth be told, Lourdes was beginning to miss being the social butterfly around town. All of her old friends had either moved on, or weren’t stuck in the same mindset as her, and it hurt to be left behind like she was. So, taking advantage of all the new people in town, in lieu of this reality TV stuff. “Hmm, sounds like an easy fix. I was thinking there would be more techno stuff to do, but damn you, sound dude. What was his name again? Kev? Yeah, fuck you Kev! Trying holding a pyramid for more than an hour, you idiot!” Lourdes wasn’t screaming at anyone in particular, but it did feel good to let all of that out. She actually chuckled at the mention of having better things to do, “Babes, unless you have a thing about not being in front of cameras, then I don’t see why we can’t do lunch right now.” 

      Did she mean that in the metaphoric sense? Or were there actual wolves around the island that Alexis wasn’t privy to? She couldn’t be sure and the tornado of a girl known as Lourdes hadn’t given her much of a chance to inquiry about it before they were linked arm and arm headed away from the set and toward the parking lot. Whose car they were going to take or how they were gonna pay for lunch if neither of them were taking a purse with them seemed to be consequently to the brunette leading the charge for their get away. The obvious lack of a game plan or any kind of organization partially thrilled Alexis but mostly it threatened to give her a headache. Was she really allowed to be on camera with on of the cast members of the show she was working on? It seemed like that was against the rules somehow, but, like, it also wasn’t like she could refuse Lourdes either. She wasn’t in the business of turning down friends when she had so little of her own. “Calvin, his name is Calvin but you were close enough. Next time he annoys me though I’ll definitely remember that tidbit about him probably not being able to hold a pyramid up.” Then again Lexie couldn’t hold a pyramid up either but that was neither here nor there. “I’m just used to being behind the camera I guess.”

“Yeah, but —” His protests are cut short by a litany of curse words from the executive producer, the unbearable invisible hand who’s yet to step foot in the set, and Garrett forces himself to keep his expression steady. He lets the man talk for another couple of minutes, the words going into one ear and right out the other, before a lull on the other’s end finally compels him to say, “…if that is all, Sir?” Those words are enough for the producer to drop the call, and as it drops, he feels his chest loosen ever-so-slightly, and consequently he lets out a breath he doesn’t know he’d been holding. 

“What do you think?” He says to the first person he sees, too exhausted to extend a greeting or any other customary courtesy, “should I just live in the forest as a goblin?” 

      As far as superiors went Garrett Gray certainly wasn’t the worst. He took his job seriously without feeling the need to be douchey to assert dominance. If anything, actually, Alexis found they shared a lot of common personality wise. Just two peas in a pod with a habit of being stampeded over by others. She hadn’t meant to eavesdrop on his conversation but there were only so many places to stand when everyone else wanted you out of their way. “You’re probably too civilized to thrive as a goblin,” Lexie offers with a sympathetic smile. “Plus, you give off more of a banshee vibe anyway.” Was any of this commentary particularly helpful? Not in the slightest but it offers enough of a distraction for Lexie to dig out a pair of keys from her bag. “I brought one of my dad’s fast cars today. Wanna take it for a ride? It’s almost lunch and if I’m not mistaken you owe me a meal from last week.”

“Why hello there! Looks like this group needed a little…” Plopping herself right beside the person, “me!” She wore a smile of utter smugness, as if she had won a prize and not just crashed what was possibly a thing for one. “How have you been, darlin’?”

      The intrusion is sudden but not entirely unwanted by the pathetic looking twenty-four year old. She had spent the better half of the last hour or so waiting for a Tinder date she was beginning to realized held no intention of showing up. “Um, could be better I suppose.” Alexis responds with a slight shrug of her shoulders, perfectly painting fingernails playing with the condensation of her cold glass of lemonade. “I think I’ve just been stood up.”

lunacyiero‌:

anyone else ever daydream for 6 hours straight and then after ur just like nah let’s scrap that and do it all again but slightly to the left

my brain: *out of breath* Was that good?!