Staccato

Instincts on Fire

October 27, 2014

Villa Reviera, Long Island

3.30 pm.

But before I could work on a cloud chamber that I'm trying to make, and forget the perplexing uneasiness and tenseness that sits just under my skin, Laurie bounds into the warehouse, bringing along my troublesome, absolute delight of twin brothers, and together, they try to smoke me out by random acts of disruption meted out on random apparatuses and equipments. My brothers try to 'genuinely' admire things and out of 'sheer inquisitiveness' want to open a vial of radioactive polonium that I have kept to use in the cloud chamber, and I shoo them all out and decide to just spend time with them.

When we reach our family room I see that Lilly's here, and surprisingly, Leslie too. Even more surprising is the fact that she is in a perfectly good mood, which is a rarity, as she sits with her boyfriend David and talks and laughs with the family.

Dad's not present with us. He's off at a meeting at our headquarters in 641 avenue.

"Mom, you know what, I have an excellent idea to spice up the evening." Les says seriously. Mom looks pleased because Les is so, well, normal today.

"Uhhuuh, we really need it." Lilly inclines her head in agreement with Les. "Considering the, uh, kind of people we'll be having over."

"The Asshole family, woot woot!" Laurie says in a sing-song tune of 'the Adam's family'.

"Laurie!" mom admonishes.

"You hate their guts mom! You know you wanna support this woot!" Laurie hits back with a laugh.

"Gotta show them we're no less than them." Les snorts contemptuously.

"Less than them?" David raises his brows at Les. "Your turnover last year was like billions more than them,"

Les narrows her eyes at him. "You keep tabs on our incomes? What's your true intention of being my boyfriend?"

"It's on the newspapers, for everyone to see," David enunciates slowly, as though explaining something to a slow kid.

"Yeah and we all know the kind of people who read business news daily." says Louie.

"Espionaging spies, that's the kind." says Leon. "Why else would you read the business section of newspapers, dude? Cut any important articles out and stuck them in your little personal memo lately?"

David flips them off in kind.

"What's your plan Les?" asks mom, leaning forward, encouraging Les to pick up from where she left lest she forgets it, wanting to make the most of the rare sunshine Les shines on us today.

"Well," she dithers modestly, grinning, "I'm thinking of performing for the evening," Les looks at David, "With our string quartet, David. You up for it?" she asks him.

"Sure." he shrugs, looking only pleased.

Mom's eyes light up in delight. "Oh that's such a nice plan!"

Les is a pretty good violinist, having taken right after our mom (who plays harpsichord). String quartet was what had brought her and David together. David plays the cello; the remaining two members are another couple from Leslie's and David's class, Derek Eom and Megan Osborne. It's a string quartet with a twist, though, because Derek plays the drums instead of another string instrument.

Les grins excitedly. "We'll play the one we're gonna for the Halloween skit. Shit, gotta brush up on the notes; we'll start practising right away! I'll call Megan, you call Derek, if they're eating each other's faces right now hopefully we'll have to call just one of them-" she breaks off mid-sentence and tugs David up, looking charged up and determined as she tows him away.