The Longest Day
Calypso High
Series Two, Episode One

      (August 26) "Something needs to change," Mari said, glaring viciously at Blaine as he sprawled on the futon.
      "Yep," he agreed.
      "I'm leaving," she said. She couldn't look at him as she picked up her bags and walked out of the living room.
      In the kitchen, just before the door to outside, she paused. No sound came from behind her. Blaine wasn't coming after her.
      She was right to leave. He didn't want her anymore. Probably never had.
      She closed the door with a quiet click and walked down to street-level and her car. She'd have to give up a lot to move back home-- pride, freedom, happiness-- but it was better than living in a bitter marriage.

***

      Blaine sat on the futon, frozen by Mari's declaration and ensuing departure. She didn't love him anymore? Was that it? Things were really so bad between them that she had to leave.
      Well, fine. She could go-- back to her parents, or wherever. She was mentally unstable anyway. He didn't need that kind of stress. Not with school, work, the band...
      His stomach lurched as it hit him. There would be no more band. Mari was half the songwriting team. She sang lead. She'd started playing bass. Daniela was Mari's sister. No Mari, no Dani. No band.
      Mari's car started up outside. The distinctive VW putt-putt noise made Blaine's heart trip a few beats.
      She really was going. And nothing would ever be the same again.
      Blaine reached for his guitar.

***

      Mari reached blindly across the seat as she sped toward Calypso Beach, groping for a CD to pop into the player.
      When the music started, she nearly drove into a tree.
      She'd randomly chosen the Sphere Archipelago EP.
      Tears flooding her eyes, she pulled over in the Calypso Midway School parking lot and tried to find another CD to listen to. But she just couldn't seem to make herself choose.
      So Mari curled up in the bucket seat and listened to the same four songs over and over again, until dawn and the arrival of the school bus drivers.

***

      Blaine spent the night curled on the futon, cradling his guitar and thinking of the way Mari had lovingly polished the instrument for him at least once a week.
      He knew the song he was writing was going to have some strange lyrics, but it was how he felt. And that was the important part. Getting the feelings out.
      So maybe they wouldn't hurt so much.

***

      (August 27) At dawn, Mari turned off the CD player and drove in exhausted silence the few blocks to her parents' home.
      She could tell from the street that everyone was already up and moving about. But she didn't feel like talking to anyone just yet.
      So she drove down to Calypso Bay and watched the ocean come alive with early morning surfers and the occasional seagull.
      She got a muffin at a nearby beach shack. A couple of guys there were talking about school-- it started today, in just an hour.
      In all the excitement, Mari'd forgotten about school.
      School would mean talking to people. They'd ask about Blaine. They'd ask why she looked as though she'd slept in her car. No, she wouldn't go to school today. Maybe never again.
      At nine, when the younger surfers had gone off to school, and the older ones were shooting puzzled looks at her car as they walked to their own, Mari finished her coffee and drove off again.
      This time when she stopped at the DeSka homestead, there were no cars in the drive. There were no lights in the windows, no movement at all.
      She closed up the car and dug in her purse for the house key, at the same time dragging her bags and her guitar up the walk.
      Just as she was about to put her key in the lock, the door swung open.
      "Augh!" Dani blurted before realizing who it was. Mari just stood there with the key in midair, a "deer in the headlights" look on her face.
      Dani recovered and acted quickly. She grabbed Mari's arm and a bag and dragged her into the house and up the stairs, kicking the front door closed somewhere along the way.
      "Okay, now, we'll get you settled in. You look like hell," Dani said, ever the helpful sib.
      "What are you doing home?" Mari frowned. "Don't you have school?"
      "Yeah, well..." Dani muttered. "Here. We kept your room just how it was. Well, I cleaned out the old pizza boxes..."
      "Damn you, those were an integral part of the decor." Mari flopped face-down on the bed.
      "You want to talk?" Daniela ventured.
      "No."
      "Shower?"
      "Sleep."
      "Okay."
      "You talk. Why are you home?"
      Dani sighed. "Someone caught wind of my planned outfit, and thirty-nine girls were wearing it. That was just the ones *outside* the school. Heaven knows how many more were *inside*. So I came home after first period to change. I have study hall now, so it's okay if I stick around for... oh, an hour or so."
      "Go back to school," Mari said into her pillow.
      "You sure?"
      "I'm just gonna sleep."
      "Okay. Bye." Daniela closed the bedroom door softly behind her.
      Mari sighed and burrowed deeper into the stuffed animals.

***

      Blaine spent the early morning hours sleeping fitfully on the futon. The guitar and a pile of manuscript paper lay haphazardly on the floor nearby.
      When he woke up, he noted that he'd missed his art appreciation class. He also found that mornings kinda sucked without the smell of coffee and toast to wake up to. Or a warm body curled next to him.
      Reluctantly conscious, he brushed his teeth and changed clothes, then headed down to a nearby donut shop for coffee. From there, he considered attending his advanced composition class, but decided instead to visit his mother.
      Chris would have started his classes at L.U. already, and wasn't he staying in the dorms, anyway? Davy, never one to waste time with school, would be at the beach already. Dad would be in the studio.
      But Mom should be in her home office. Mom would have advice. And breakfast.
      Blaine thought maybe it wasn't right for a 23-year-old man to depend on his mother so much, but he couldn't help it. She was also his lawyer. And she was the smartest person he knew.
      Except maybe for Mari...

***

      In Layla:) PHS's hallowed halls (Daniela thought "hallowed" must mean "graffitied"), Dani fielded questions from her sister's persistent, and in some cases pestilent, friends.
      Most of her answers consisted of, "How the hell should I know?" occasionally punctuated by, "Is it any of your beeswax?" The latter comment, when directed at Frogman, prompted a puzzled, "What does beeswax have to do with anything? And do bees even *have* wax?"
      To which replied Daniela: "How the hell should I know?"
      Doreen, now starting to show a little pregnancy belly (and proudly), was especially persistent. Something about Mari being the closest thing to Dear Abby that LPHS had, but without the heavy moral overtones.
      Dream and Tianne also tried, as a team, to ferret out any information on Mari's whereabouts that Dani might have. All attempts continued to be ineffective however, as Dani's large group of friends swept her out of the Seniors' reach each time.
      Her good friend Chastity was particularly disturbed by her brother Cueball's attentions upon Daniela. The usually-aloof Cueball had even, at lunch, attempted to persuade Dani to rat out Mari by bribing her with a Bahama Mama slushie. Dani had accepted the drink with a thank you and a smile, but nothing more, while Chastity had rallied a small army to shoo her brother away.
      Daniela took a short breather during Humanities, to reflect on her day and her sister. She hoped Mom had eaten lunch at Fairy's today, or the Lady Slipper Cafe, instead of going home. Mari didn't need that kind of stress just yet. Not without Dani there to protect her.
      Then Dani had to laugh. Here she was, the school's most popular student, and why? Because her *sister* had skipped!
      She idly wondered how Pandora was doing down at Calypso Middle School.

***

      Mari screamed as an insane bundle of fur landed on her back and dug its claws in.
      "Sorry!" Pandora called from down the hall. A moment later, she dashed into the room and removed the kitten from Mari's bleeding back. "Hey, you really are home, huh?"
      "No, my car got bored and took a ride. I'm just a hallucination. And look, I'm hallucinating that you're skipping class," Mari said, sitting up cautiously and warily regarding the tiger-striped gray cat now climbing Pandora's shirt.
      "Just study hall," Pandy shrugged. "I couldn't stand the eighth-grade guys hitting on me or the sixth-graders worshipping me. So I walked out."
      "I sense three detentions or suspensions in the DeSka family future," Mari sighed.
      "You mean you didn't take Senior Early Dismissal? You're actually skipping?" Pandy perched on Mari's desk chair and freed the devil-cat.
      "Long story. Coincides with why I'm home."
      "Ah."
      "Where did the cat come from?"
      "Well, when a mommy cat and a daddy cat really love each other..."
      "Ahem."
      Pandy laughed. "Dani found her on the side of the road. It was a daring rescue."
      "I'm sure. Did the cat *want* to be rescued?" This asked as the cat in question shredded Mari's curtains.
      "Well, she likes Dani."
      "What's her name?"
      "Natasha, but I call her Natas."
      "No wonder," Mari sighed. Pandy loved naming things "Satan," spelled backward.

***

      Blaine spent the day with his mother, even calling in sick to work. He just didn't have the energy to be a lifeguard today. He was liable to let people drown.
      Mom made him a nice breakfast, which he picked at. Then they discussed Mari.
      "She's such a nice girl. Can't you possibly reconcile with her?"
      "Mom, she left me. She doesn't love me anymore." He sighed and held his head in his hands. "Maybe she never loved me to start with. She was just trying to escape that gypsy guy."
      "Blaine, you know very well that Mari loved you. I'll bet she still does." Mom pushed his chin up with a finger and forced him to look into her eyes. "I really think you should talk to her. Or I'll talk to her for you."
      "No! Mom..." Blaine set his jaw. "I'm a grown-up. I can make my own decisions. And I think I should file for divorce."
      "B..." She shook her head. "If it's what you really want..."
      "It is." Blaine had to get up from his chair and look out the window so his mother wouldn't see the tears in his eyes.
      "One recommendation... and this is from your lawyer, not your heartbroken mother. Apply for an annulment, not a divorce."
      "Okay," Blaine nodded. There was a robin on the clothesline. "Can you do the paperwork without me, Mom? I want to go outside for a while."
      "Sure, darling. Come in if you get hungry for lunch." She watched, nearly as miserable as her son, as he went through the French doors to the back porch, then out into the yard.
      She wasn't getting back her son. She was losing the daughter she'd never had.

***

      Daniela caught a ride home from Dava Jini, who in his burgeoning wisdom had not asked about Mari at all that day. They discussed some general LPHS news and gossip, such as what the drama production would be for fall semester. But psi rating aside, Dava could tell that Dani was worried about something. Or so he gathered from the way she was shredding sheets of notebook paper into teeny pieces.
      "What's wrong?"
      "Huh? Wrong? I didn't say I had a problem with 'Rent'."
      "No, I mean why are you shredding paper?"
      "Sexual frustration?"
      "Ew, Daniela..."
      "Sorry. You really don't want to know, though."
      Dava turned on to the DeSkas' street. "Why?"
      "It's Mari, okay? Something bad. But I don't want to talk about it. Especially to you, because she'll know, and it'll make her feel worse." Now that Daniela had gotten started on her confession/defense, she wasn't about to stop. "I've done some things lately she's going to be really, really mad about. I'm having a hard enough time keeping her from finding out. But if I blab what's happened now... well, you know what she can be like."
      Dava nodded silently. Oh, he knew alright.
      "So... don't press me. Thanks for the ride." She squeezed his arm as he pulled up to the curb. "I'm sure you-- and everyone else-- will know soon enough. But I don't want to tell if I'm not supposed to." Dani slid out of the car, snagging her bookbag as she went. "Oh, and I promise I'll clean your car. Sorry about that."
      "It's okay," he sighed, glancing down at the confetti mess on his passenger seat. "Good luck."
      Dani was already halfway to the house.

***

      Mari was napping again when Dani tiptoed into her room, but she woke immediately and rolled over to face her sister.
      "Oh, didn't mean to wake you," Dani whispered.
      "It's okay, I was just... I wasn't really sleeping. I can't sleep. Aren't you early?"
      "I got a ride from... ah... a friend," Dani said. She probably could have mentioned Dava without any trouble at the moment, but it wasn't worth risking. "Did I see Pandy's shoes in the hall?"
      "Yeah, she skipped last period."
      "We're just a bunch of delinquents, aren't we," Dani giggled.
      "Okay," Mari said, rolling back over and burying her face in a teddy bear.
      "You want to sleep some more?"
      "Not really. I'm hungry."
      "I'll go find food. And..." Dani shrugged and left as quietly as she had come. Mari had lost consciousness again.

***

      Blaine sat in the treehouse that afternoon, staring out at the woods behind his parents' house. There were a lot of different birds, he thought. He wondered why he'd never noticed before. Maybe he should get a book on birds out of the library, and then he could have names for all of them.
      Mom quietly left food for him, which he didn't touch. He just didn't seem to be hungry, although he should be. He'd barely eaten at all. But he felt strangely disconnected from his body.
      He stared at his hands, which had so recently spent time caressing Mari's body. She was muscular for a girl, from all the surfing, but she still hadn't lost all of that charming roundness. She was just predisposed to having a bit of fat on her, to being curvy, and he loved that. He loved that he'd been the only one ever to touch her.
      He had taken her virginity, and still she could just toss him aside now. How? Didn't it mean anything at all to her?
      "Blaine? It's getting dark, sweetie." Mom poked her head up through the trapdoor. "You should come in."
      "In a while."
      Mom sighed. "I finished the papers. If you're still certain..."
      "I am."
      "Come inside and sign them?"
      "I'll be right there."
      Mom climbed back down the ladder. She frowned at Davy, who'd followed her out into the backyard.
      Davy scowled back. "Of course. The band starts going good, and I find something I'm good at, and then the whole reason for the band gets a divorce."
      "Annulment."
      "Same thing. No more sister, no more band."
      "David, are you telling me you only care about the band? Because if you are, young man..."
      "Mom, I'm just mad at them but I don't want to be, so I'm being mad about something else."
      She nodded. They were all trying to redirect emotions. So she found herself comforting Davy instead of Blaine, because she needed to comfort someone, and Blaine wasn't letting her in.

***

      Mari spent the rest of the night holed up in her bedroom with her sisters. They brought up dinner on a tray, barred entry to their parents, and sat around attempting to discuss mundane matters.
      Dani was in the process of dragging in sleeping bags and blankets for herself and Pandora when the doorbell rang.
      "Who could that be?" she asked.
      "It's almost ten," Pandy said. "Too late for any of my friends."
      "And mine know enough not to disturb me at home," Dani said. "I'll go see, anyway."
      The two came crashing down the stairs, only to find a completely unfamiliar man in a suit standing in the hall with Darci and Grey DeSka.
      He seemed startled at the girls' arrival, but continued on with his interrupted speech. "I have annulment papers for Mrs.... ah... DeSka-Brison. Mr. Brison's attorney has requested that she sign and return them as soon as possible. The sooner this business is concluded, the better it will be for all involved parties."
      "Go away," Daniela hissed. "You tell that attorney that nobody answered the door. We've all gone on vacation and won't be back for weeks and weeks."
      "What's going on?" Mari said, carefully making her dazed way down the stairs. "Who is this?"
      "Nobody," Dani said, glaring at the man. "He's leaving and he's *very sorry* for having disturbed us."
      "Daniela, go to your room," Grey said.
      "Yeah, right," she snorted. "It's all your fault, anyway, if you go all the way back."
      "Daniela!" Darci snapped.
      "You, too."
      "Did you say annulment papers?" Mari asked the man.
      "Yes, ma'am. Are you Mrs. Brison?"
      Mari paled. She closed her eyes and swallowed hard against a wave of nausea.
      "You've all upset her," Dani said, her features pinched. "You should all just go away."
      "No, I'm fine. Dani, I'm fine," Mari said. "Give me those papers. Where do I sign?"
      "Mari--"
      "An annulment, not a divorce," Mari said musingly. "It will be as if it never happened at all. Never happened..." She leaned over the table in the hall and scribbled her name. It was a little shaky, and a bit wilder than usual, but clearly read: "Marianna DeSka".
      "Here. Go now." She shoved the papers back at the man.
      "You don't want to consult with a lawyer?"
      "No. Get out of my house."
      He was turning brighter pink with every moment in the house, and took this opportunity to flee.
      Mari turned and went back up the stairs. She had not once addressed or even looked at either of her parents.
      Daniela sent glares all around again, even at Pandora who hadn't done a thing. Then she stomped upstairs, shaking the walls of the house.
      Pandora, at a loss, finally fled upstairs as well, leaving Darci and Grey alone in the hall.

***

      Late that night, in the cricket tinged darkness of Mari's room, the DeSka sisters sprawled on bed and floor. Pandora stared blankly through the open window, the few visible stars blurring in her eyes. Dani hugged the floor, angrily perusing the weave of the carpeting.
      Mari stared at the ceiling, which was becoming a familiar sight today, and picked absently at the fur of a stuffed bison. Dani had given it to her for her last birthday. Birthday...
      "Dani?"
      "Hmm?"
      "Happy birthday."
      Dani sat up, not that she or anyone else could see much in the dark room, and stared in the direction of the bed. "Damn, you owe me a present!"

***