Cheryl and Toni hopped out of the taxi cab Cheryl kindly offered to pay for and observed the dreary and unpleasant building in front of them.
Just the mention of prison triggered both girls to the core, but it had taken a lot for the both of them to be here today, and Cheryl wanted to support Toni through and through.
She looked down at the pink haired girl and observed her apprehensive and anxious look that donned her face. It was unusual to Cheryl. She was normally so fierce and bold, rarely showed her emotions and let things bother her, so seeing her girlfriend so vulnerable in that moment, made her heart break.
She took hold of Toni's hand and squeezed it tight.
"Are you okay?" Cheryl asked
Toni snapped out of her daze before answering. "Yeah. Yeah I am, just a little nervous. Not sure why though, it's not the first time I've been here. Sure it won't be the last." She mumbled the last part. Her father had been in and out of prison more times than she could count ever since she was a kid.
"Nerves are normal. You just don't know what to expect I guess." Cheryl explained.
She placed her arm around Toni's shoulder and they both walked in together.
They approached the main door and were faced with metal detectors and burley yet serious prison guards, not that the two of them weren't expecting it, they were in a medium security after all.
Cheryl wasn't going to go along any further as the prison were strict on visitor numbers and the people listed on an inmates visiting list, and seeing as it was only Toni her father was expecting, Cheryl stayed behind.
"Good luck!" Cheryl called to Toni before she disappeared around the corner, being directed by a guard to the visitor boxes.
She sat at the assigned box and lifted the phone to her ear, waiting for her Dad to come out on the other side.
She observed the area and paid attention to the other cell mates and their visitors while she waited for her Dad to come out. Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard a guard on the other side of the glass yell out "Topaz!"
She heard her Dads footsteps slowly approach before he finally got to the phone.
There he stood with that infamous scowl on his face, his prison uniform rolled up his arms showing some of his many tattoos, one including Toni's name and his unbuttoned uniform exposing his white vest underneath.
He grinned at his daughter on the other side as she gave him an awkward and anxious smile.
He picked up the phone and spoke. "What happened to your hair? Almost didn't recognise you." He asked curiously.
"Just fancied a change." Toni answered with a little shrug of her shoulders
"How's things at home?" He questions
Her eyes widen a little and she gulps, tightening her mouth a little. She was supposed to be living with her uncle but she has yet to tell her father about the situation at hand. She didn't want to cause any drama, her family had been through enough. She hadn't even told him that her grandfather was back in town.
"Yeah, it's good. Uncle Ray's an idiot who can barely cook an egg but what else is new?" She joked
He unconsciously leaned further into the window, as if she could actually hear him through the glass. "And the gang? Business?" He asks
Toni narrowed her eyes and scoffed. Of course he had an ulterior motive behind his visiting order.
"Is that why you wanted me to come all the way down here?" She whispered angrily, trying not to draw the attention of the guards surrounding them.
Tommy pinches the bridge of his nose before continuing. "No, or course not Toni."
"And why are you even talking about this? You know these conversations are recorded?"
"That's bullshit. A myth. Don't worry about it." Tommy assured her.
"Why can't you be like normal Dads? You know, ask me how school is? Or about homework or girlfriends-"
Tommy's eyes widened at the mention of girlfriends. Toni acknowledged the look on his face and immediately regret what she said.
"Girlfriends huh?" Tommy smirked. "Something you wanna tell me?" She said chewing on his gum
Toni rolled her eyes and sat forward. "So what? I have a girlfriend, not that you care anyway, so spare any lectures, that you're about to-"
"Woah calm down. I don't care who you date, as long as it's not some scumbag who's gonna screw around with you." Tommy reminds her
"She's not like that." Toni calmly answered
"Does She make you happy?"
Toni smiles at the thought of Cheryl running through her head. "Yeah, she does."
"Then that's all that matters." Tommy finished.
"Can we stop talking about my love life now?" Toni sighed. "And get back to you being a crap Dad?" She snapped
Tommy laughed through the phone, as feisty as Toni was, he could never knock her for it. She was his daughter after all, she had the Topaz spirit, and her attitude reminded him so much of her mother.
"Come on, am I really that bad? It's not like I sold you for crack rocks when you were a baby." He joked
"You really have to ask that when you're sitting where you're sitting?" She rhetorically asked with her arm folded over her chest and her eyebrow raised at him.
"Okay fine. I'm not the best Dad but I'm trying." He argued
"You're in prison, Dad." She reminded him
"Yeah, and when I get out things are gonna be different. I can promise you that."
"How?" Toni questioned, knowing it was just another exaggeration coming out of his mouth. She had been down this road before.
"Look, word on the block is, the ghoulies are getting higher up on trades. Taking over, moving onto our turf. Along with that, they're getting out of hand and drawing the attention of pigs everywhere, and when their dumbasses do get caught, five o can't even be bothered to differentiate between us. The ghoulies are the ones fucking up, and we're getting punished for it!" He angrily whispered through the phone before turning around to check if a guard may have heard him.
"I'm seeing more and more of us end up in here by the week. While those bedazzled jacket wearing pussies are walking around scot free."
Toni leaned forward and narrowed her eyes at him. "And what's this gotta do with me? Or you getting your act together?"
"I need you and the rest of the juniors to up your game, you catch my drift?"
Toni pushes herself back in shock and dig her nails into the phone. Was her Dad really asking what she thought he was asking.
"Are you out of your damn mind?!"
The serpents as a whole tried to keep the teens or anyone under 18 out of their business ventures, but Tommy was as impulsive as they came and figured this was the only way, regardless of how risky, to keep things afloat.
"Just listen! He shouted quietly again before checking around for guards. "The cops aren't watching you guys like they're watching the seniors, and half of the ghoulies don't know a lot of you seeing as you're all fresh faces." He explained
"And if one of us does end getting caught what then? It's too risky Dad!"
"It's temporary, and worth the risk. Look, you do this, it finally puts us on top, and gets more money in. The only reason I'm in here is because I've always done whatever I needed to do to put food on the table and clothes on your back. But by the time I get out, we'll have a good cash flow coming in. We can say goodbye to that shit hole trailer, get a house on the northside. Everything will change."
Toni listened carefully to her fathers words. She knew he wouldn't be putting her though this unless he was desperate
"And you gotta talk to the snake charmer too." Tommy revealed. "She's gonna be supplying."
"Penny?! Asking me to smuggle hard shit across town and the border is bad enough, but you want to bring that bitch into this too?" Toni argued.
"Look, I owe her. We all do. I could've ended up in here a lot longer if it wasn't for her." Tommy explained. Along with being a drug Queenpin, Penny was also a lawyer, who had helped a lot of serpents behind bars get shorter sentences or avoid serving time in general.
"I don't know Dad. And what if nobody else wants in?" She said to him quietly.
The sound of a buzzer went off, indicating that visiting hours were over.
"Don't worry about that. So? We got a deal?" He enquires as a guard approached him
"Fine. I'll do it, but the minute shit goes sideways I'm done." She told him sternly.
A prison guard approached her father and began to pulled him the arm. "Get your hands off me!" He said angrily as he pulled the arm out of the guards grasp. He got up out of his chair and gave Toni a soft smile and said he'll see her soon.
She smiled softly back as she watched the guard take her father back to his cell.
She walked back towards the front entrance to find Cheryl sat in the visitors chair flipping a magazine.
She heard the sound of Toni's boots clicking onto the floor and turned her head.
She placed the magazine down and stood up.
"Well? How was it?" She asked.
Toni approached her with hand sin her pockets. She couldn't tell Cheryl the full story behind her visit so she kept things as normal as she could.
"It was fine. We caught up, there was some words, some tears but it was fine. Now I just wait for him to get out." Toni lied.
Cheryl leaned in to kiss her lips and she happily accepted.
The redhead wrapped her arm around her shoulder and directed her out.
"See? I told you everything would be fine." Cheryl told her gleefully, unaware of the thoughts running through her girlfriends mind.
•••
"Just to remind you, I'm leaving early for that Taste of Riverdale thingy, I'm helping out." Alice said as she carried a crate out and placed it onto the bar.
"Trust Penelope to make the preparations the same time the real housewives of New York is on." Alice mentioned with an eye roll
She looked over at a seemingly distracted FP sat at a table and going over the accounts, but he didn't seem to be doing anything, he was just tapping the pen on the page and staring blankly at the page.
"FP? Hello?" She calls
He finally snapped out of his thoughts and turned towards her. "What?"
"I'm gonna leave early? The Taste of Riverdale?" Alice reminded him
"Oh! Sure, that's fine." He said quietly turning back to the paper.
She walked out from behind the bar and pulled a chair towards the table
"Look, feel free to tell me to mind my business, but you seem, off. Something bothering you?" She asked as she sat down on the chair backwards, resting her hand on the table near his.
"I would never tell you to mind your own business." He smiled.
"Well that's good then." She laughed. "So, you wanna tell me what's up? A problem shared is a problem halved, or however the saying goes."
FP sighed and put his pen down before running his hand through his hair. He turned towards her and was a little stunned. He had never noticed how blue her eyes were before. So deep and ocean like.
He snapped out of his trance and blinked.
"It's the anniversary of my wife's death." He apprehensively revealed before sighing.
Alice's mouth dropped and she clutched her chest. "Oh my God FP, I'm so sorry." She placed her hand on top of his and he completed the hand hold with his remaining free one, lightly stroking hers with his.
"Thank you, for that Alice." He said before getting back to continuing the accounts.
"Why are you even here?" She blurted out. She didn't mean for it to come across so rude
"Excuse me?"
"I just mean, you should be with your kids you know? Take time out to remember her, not working on the accounts." She explained
"I know you're only trying to help, but I really can't deal with that. And I don't want to upset the kids further. Burying my head into work is how I deal with it."
"And it's a shitty way to deal with it if you ask me. You should use the day to remember her, not bury your thoughts. You lost your wife, the woman you love. Take the day off to remember her with your kids. I can handle the fort for the rest of the day." She advised him.
He rarely spoke about it but Gladys' death had really screwed him up. And every year since her death he avoided the topic whenever it came to the day as it just made him feel worse, but he had to accept that he did need a different way to deal with it instead of wallowing, he just couldn't believe the advice was coming from Alice of all people. Maybe she wasn't so bad after all.
"I know it's not the same, but how did you handle it when Betty and Polly's fathers were there one day and then gone the next?" He asked
Alice sighed folding her arms as she leaned against the bar.
"Well, you're right. It's not the same, I wasn't in love with any of them." She revealed before running her hand through her hair.
"Polly's father was just, some guy from school I hooked up with. After my mother kicked me out and I had to get by on the streets I had no time for school so I never saw him again." She sadly reminisced.
"And Betty's dad, it was never love, I mean, there was passion, there was thrill. He was a sexy bad boy drug dealer, always getting into trouble and the danger that came with it was beyond exciting. I was more in love with the adrenaline I guess." She admitted.
"And they never died either, they just were never there, or got locked up and bailed afterwards." She added.
"Wow. I never knew that." FP said to her, stunned by the revelation.
"I don't talk about it much. People in this town gossip enough and the girls don't need any stigma on them because of my fuck ups. So I keep it to myself. How else am I supposed to protect them?" She confessed
He understood where she was coming from. Southsiders alone got a bad rep throughout town just based on the separation of a train track.
"Thank you, for the advice I mean. You've put a lot into perspective for me." He announced.
She smiled and nodded before lifting another crate. "Glad I could be of assistance. Now go! Spend the day with your babies remembering their amazing Mom instead of moving around here. The place will still be standing tomorrow. I learnt my lesson from the last bar I burned down." She mentioned
He raised an eyebrow at her.
"I'm kidding!" She said exasperatedly.
He gathered up his paperwork and moved it into the back, before glancing at Alice again.
"Thanks again. For the talk." He spoke
"Don't mention it." She winked before wiping down the bar.
As he walked into the back he couldn't help but think that maybe there was more to Alice Smith that meets the eye. Perhaps she was more than the feisty and ballsy character he had assumed her to be. He even thought they could perhaps, be friends.