TWO WEEKS LATER
( Friday, March 29th 1985 )
HE had been on her case for a while about this new episode. Dallas had been on its season hiatus for a while but it was finally back in business to wrap up the lives of these characters that Steve had to spend the majority of the episode colouring in for Julie. She was slowly picking up on the events in spite of its fast pacing and lack of context. She relied heavily on the recap, but it mainly covered the past several episodes. Otherwise, she had missed seven whole seasons.
"J.R. is everything I wanna be and more, I mean look at the guy," Steve commented over the phone.
They were watching the episode in their respective living rooms from their respective sofas: Steve holding his brick telephone pressed to his ear, whilst Julie had a rotary phone sitting in her criss-crossed lap, the corded phone pressed to her ear.
"He's a total crook blackmailing a random old guy," Julie counters.
"And that's totally badass. You're eight seasons behind, so you don't get it. You haven't grown up with him the way that I have."
"Well I'm sorry to be the one to break it to you but as far as I can tell, you're not J.R.. You're Bobby."
"That's insulting," Steve huffs offendedly.
"What's wrong with Bobby? He's a looker and he's a good egg."
"Bobby Ewing is boring. He hasn't got that flare, you know? He lives in the shadow of his brother. Are you saying I live in the shadow of the brother that I don't have?"
"I'm saying you're better than that cheating hick."
"J.R. isn't just any cheating hick, he's a legendary cheating hick."
Julie rolled her eyes. "I can't believe you're making me watch this. This is so ridiculous."
"It's magic."
"It's nonsense, Steve. It is not this easy to break out of jail."
"Yeah, Ted Bundy would beg to differ on that one."
"I would hardly call slipping through an open library window a jailbreak. And what is with half of the drama in this show being affairs?" Julie cringed. "It just makes the women seem so humiliating. I mean, do they have any other character traits that aren't dating horrible men?"
"Speaking of horrible men," Steve said suddenly, the light-bulb moment elevated in his tone, "Billy's found a new way to make my life a living hell."
Julie's face contorted, not liking where any of this was going already. "Oh gosh, what?"
"You."
"Don't start."
"No, he whispers all these charming random terms of endearment in my ears like bitch, pussy, and then my personal favourite, the guy with the girlfriend that would leave him in the blink of an eye for a jailbird with a rat tail." Steve feigned nonchalance, but the bitterness carried his sentences with minor inflections that Julie could hear clear as day. But it wasn't what she cared to notice.
"I'm your girlfriend now?" her lips curled with a slanted smile.
"I don't know," Steve shrugs. "It was his words not mine-besides the jailbird and the rat tail part, that was all me."
Julie rolled her eyes, her smile sticking just fine.
"But just out of interest," Steve continues casually, "what would you call you?"
"I don't know, but girlfriend is certainly news to me."
"Well, it's news I like the sound of." She could hear the smirk in his voice.
She was quiet for a moment, turning things over in her head. "I just worry a little."
"No, you worry a lot," Steve says. "Too much about nothing most of the time."
"But this isn't nothing. Breaking up after summer would be the end goal, you do realise that?"
"But would it have to be?" he questioned confidently. "I mean, look at us now. Watching peak television together on two different sides of town."
"I think you and I have established that we have two very different opinions on what makes peak television," she smirks, watching as J.R. joined a woman and a little boy she didn't recognise in their dining room. The boy wiped his worried face once the man laid a kiss on his cheek.
"Then we wouldn't have to watch television," Steve offers. "We could just talk and I'd miss the living shit out of that cute face of yours but it wouldn't matter all that much because the sound of your voice would still make my day all the same."
Julie smiled at how easily the sweet words left his mouth.
"Like it is now."
He was really smooth. If she couldn't give him anything else, she had to give him that. His reputation truly did precede him at times.
"I hated that," she cringed.
"I can practically hear your smile, Jules, there's no fooling me."
And much like he could hear her smile, she could hear his arrogant smirk all the same.
But before she could part her lips to say much else, she noticed her mother sit on the arm of the armchair across the living room, dressed in her trench coat and boots all ready to go, some leather gloves clutched in her hands, too.
She was staring right at her, waiting.
"Hold on," Jules uttered into the phone and pressed it against her shoulder. "What's up?"
"Do you mind calling Steve back so I can have a word?"
She didn't seem particular serious by any means, but Julie still knew that whatever had to be said had be important if it couldn't wait. So, she exchanged quick goodbyes with Steve and put the television on mute for the time being.
"How's he doing?" Eileen asks.
"As well as a tool can do I guess." Julie toyed with the hem of her plaid pyjama pants. "Are you all packed for Scott's?"
"Yeah, he'll be here any second."
Julie and her mother had gotten into this routine frequently enough. Eileen spent Friday nights with Scott-or Saturdays or both-because it didn't interfere with either of their work schedules. He could get the early nights he needed for teaching and she could spend her days at the flower shop and still have someone to go home to afterwards.
"I just wanted to talk to you first about the shop," Eileen says.
Julie's eyebrows pushed together. "What about the shop?"
"Well, as you know," her mother began fidgeting with the tips of her gloves. "Benny's closed down two weeks ago and any day now others will be dropping like flies with it."
"So what are you saying?" Julie snaps. "Are we not gonna make it?"
"I think we could," her mother nods complacently.
"Good," Julie stated bluntly. She stared at her mother with a blank expression, not understanding where the conversation would meander to. "Then what's the problem?"
"Well..." her mother continues, "I want to take charge early, so I'm selling the property. There are already people interested and I plan on shortly closing a deal."
Julie's blank confusion was unmoving. "But if we can make it, what's the point? I mean, we have dad's money."
"I put that away," Eileen shut down swiftly. "I don't know where that came from or what he had to do to get it but as of right now, selling the shop means more opportunities for us as a family. I can pay off college early, renovate the house all on my own."
Julie respected her mother's decision. She knew why she had made the choices she was making and furthermore, she truly and utterly believed they were wise decisions to be made. But beyond it all, she still felt a little empty and paled.
"What about-?"
"Steve?" her mother interjects with a quirked brow. Julie couldn't say anything, not that she needed to. "He's known since Saturday. I just wanted my own time to say something to you properly."
"And he was okay with it?"
"He seemed just fine," Eileen assured warmly. "Extremely supportive too. In fact I'm certain his heart was with you more than his job if anything."
The corner of Julie's lips twitched with a small smile, unable to hold back the warmth spreading through her. But even if the feeling was internal, her mother could see it written all over her.
"It's nice to see how much you both care about each other," she says. "It really is a sight for sore eyes."
"So he has your approval?" Julie tentatively twirled the phone cord around her pointer finger.
"He made it through the interview stage, didn't he?"
"For a position as a sales assistant at your flower shop. What about a position as your daughter's boyfriend?" Julie's face scrunched up anxiously.
Eileen's head tilted with an adoring smile curling at her lips. "I'm already ready to give the kid a promotion."
Julie's shoulders fell with a deep sigh.
She thanked her mom and moments after, the doorbell rang. Eileen let Scott in to greet her daughter and help her with her overnight bag. Then the three of them talked amongst themselves rather domestically for what the short few minutes were worth. And soon enough Julie was waving them goodbye from the living room sofa and watching them leave.
As she redialled Steve's number, the tires drove off the driveway with its gravelling sound and softly rumbling engine.
He picked up on the first ring.
"You just missed the best part of the episode. Sue Ellen threatened to divorce J.R., it was intense."
But she ignored him. "Well, do you still miss my face?"
Steve picked up on the suggestiveness of her tone. "What are you proposing, Juliet Brenner?"
"That you get your butt over here and prove just how much. Unless you're not willing to sacrifice peak television," she teased lightly.
It made him smirk. "I'm practically already halfway out the door."
"See you in fifteen."
"Make it five."