Always Be Together (NaNoWriMo 2014)

Chapter 14 : Birthday at MacLaren's

Dedicted to Kris, Punk, Rain and Jayme. As a group because they make a guest appearence in this chapter! Yaysies!

Chapter 14 : Birthday at MacLaren's 

The week flew by too fast and Mom’s birthday was here. Dad was actually arranging something similar to what we did for their anniversary but we convinced him to drive us to MacLaren’s for the day. We even got the Smiths to help us set up the place. We all agreed that Dad should bring Mom in so the siblings and I decided to go to the place earlier to help the Smiths set up everything. 

Before Mom got there, everything was set up and Cassandra had helped us invite a couple of Mom’s friends. As far as I was concerned, Mom didn’t have any friends except for Aunt Qis. All the friends she used to have, all lost contact with her after she moved to England. Blake, Bianca, Henry, Thomas and I were all dressed up as the ragtag gang from How I Met Your Mother. I was Robin because I had her dark hair (I was no Cobie Smulders but I was close enough), Thomas was Barney, typically, Blake and Bianca were Marshall and Lily respectively (Bianca had red hair and my brother was tall) and since Henry couldn’t be anyone else, we made him Ted with copper hair (Henry was as intellect as Ted so I wasn’t worried).

While waiting for Mom and Dad, the guests started streaming in, it was a small group of people but I knew Mom wouldn’t have it any other way. The only people I recognized were her agent, her editors and a couple of writing friends I’ve seen a couple of times at parties. There was one group of people who stood out to me. They reminded me of Ted’s gang. A ragtag group of friends whom didn’t seem to fit together at all but somehow managed to fit together. I walked up to them curiously,

“Hello, I’m Vanellope, Skylar’s daughter. How do you guys know my Mom?” I stuck my hand out for them to shake it. They all took turns to shake it. Finally the lean, dark 40 something man answer me,

“Leave Sky to name her kids after a cartoon character. I’m Kris; I was your Mom’s best friend growing up, after a while we just fell out of contact. I regret that the most.” Then proceeded to introduce me to the rest of them. There was Rain, half Norwegian half Filipino. She was a reporter and reminded me of Robin. She was cool; I could see Mom being friends with her. Then there was Punk, Indian like Mom (although Mom was half), Punk was a psychologist as well as a writer. Last but not least, Jayme. The typically New Yorker was a psychologist as well and a tad blunt. After meeting them, I was starting to wonder how she could give up all these wonderful people. I would have loved growing up with these people as my aunts and uncles.

Then Aunt Qis came running towards them. She practically jumped on Kris.

“You all actually came? I thought Cassa-bitch was lying.” Kris was laughing.

“Of course we did. She’s our best friend even if we haven’t talked to her in 20 years.”

“She’s going to be ecstatic. I see you’ve met Vanellope.” Aunt Qis looked at me like she was seeing me for the first time. Wow, these people must be great if she didn’t see her favourite niece there.

“Great girl, really. She reminds me of Sky.” Rain says to Aunt Qis. I smile politely at her before I excuse myself to go see that everything’s in place. I go to Cassandra and tap her on the shoulder to check if everyone’s here.

“Um Ms. Cassandra. Is everyone you and Aunt Qis invited here?” Cassandra turns to me. She offers me a small smile before looking over the room.

“They are all more or less here. So you can just text your Dad. Also Cass would be just fine.” I nod before going off to call my Dad to let him know that he can bring Mom to the bar already.