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Mary Jo Bang, from A Film in Which I Play Everyone: Poems; “Hotel Incognito”

[Text ID: “I didn’t belong, not then, not there, not anywhere.”]

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Robin: Resourceful Robin: A calculated risk Robin: Doing what I was being paid to do Robin: Should I go on? Robin: Well I would have posed as the wedding photographer to make my life a hell of a lot easier but my attempts at sabotaging your guy failed miserably @delilahcarreno

Delilah: Sorry, but what do you call sneaking into one of my weddings and pretending to be a guest to try and catch the groom cheating? Delilah: Though I guess as far as undercover was concerned, yours could've used a little work.

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robin: all too well robin: what did you do? robin: better yet robin: what did you say? @freyjadahlarchive

freyja: u know these moments when regret could kill, you'll be dead? freyja: that's me rn freyja: me and my mouth. 😭

( CAP: 00 / 04 )

@aurorabaystarter

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It was nice to see the town decorated, shop fronts decorated with brightly coloured flowers and inside filled with scents of jasmine, tuberose and amaryllis. Still, she would want the town decorated for the flower festival all year round as much as she would want the town decorated for Christmas all year.

"Thorns seem fitting for a hardware store," answered Robin with a slight shrug, she could hardly imagine walking into the hardware store looking for tools and being greeted with bouquets of lilies and tulips.

"If you buy a clownfish I will literally never leave your store." @kalanixhale

"I suppose you're right, it's just nice to see it all and sad to see it when it goes." Kalani let out a little sigh before continuing. "Thorns? So like roses? Why thorns?" He wasn't exactly thinking something like that, something brighter and happier that wouldn't stab you when you picked it up. "You know what.. what if I get a salt water fish tank for the store? That would be cool, right?"

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♡ CAMILA MENDES via tiktok ( camimendes )

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Robin had been parked across the street from the house on aurora baby drive she had followed Elliot to for an hour and forty five minutes, an impressive feat if Elliot and the woman the house belonged to were up to what her husband suspected they were up to—or maybe they were just gossiping on their sun loungers, sipping cocktails and soaking up the afternoon sun.

Whatever it was the real housewives of aurora bay drive did.

Robin just needed the money shot. A quick peck on the lips between the two women, an intimate moment caught on the front porch or just evidence of Elliot leaving the house to squash the other woman's husband's suspicions that his wife was cheating on him with another woman.

When the front door finally opens and Elliot Wray walks down the driveway, Robin knows this is the only moment she's going to get to capture something for her client. It takes Robin a breath to reach for her camera, she barely takes her eyes off of Elliot but when she holds the camera up to capture proof that Elliot was at the house, she's no where to be seen—until she's knocking on Robin's window and asking her what the fuck she's doing.

"I'm parked on the side of the road lady, what the fuck do you think I'm doing?" Robin said, winding her window down a fraction. @elliotwray

closed: @robinsantos

location: aurora bay drive, somewhere on the street

Elliot didn't think of herself as a particularly paranoid person, but she was 98% sure that she was being followed.

She wasn't sure when it had started, only that she started to notice the same nondescript car whenever she was out with a particular fling. She was walking down the driveway of said particular fling's house to her car when she noticed it again, far enough down the street to remain somewhat unassuming but sticking out like a sore thumb among the Lexuses and BMWs.

Her eyes narrowed.

Her knuckles rapped on the driver's side window, and she motioned for the woman inside to roll her window down agitatedly.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

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Robin nodded. "It's a starting point at least. I can talk to this Will guy and find out if he's another dead end or if he can give us something we don't already know. Maybe he knew about the affair, maybe he didn't or maybe he even met your mother and can tell us about their relationship."

Robin was hopeful that Will would be able to help her find the answers Cora was searching for.

"My next question is a bit delicate and I don't want to overstep but would I be able to take a look around this home that they shared together? I might be able to find something you didn't or something that you overlooked." @coradeveraux

Cora was grateful to have met Robin. Not only was she helping her make sense of the mess her mother had left behind, but she also went above and beyond by comforting Cora when she felt hopeless. She didn't know it yet, but there was a big fat bonus waiting for her at the end of all this. "I didn't get the vibe that he did, but he might've? I think it was more so that he knows his father's character, and this wasn't exactly out of bounds for him." @robinsantos

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"Where do you find time to save lives and make homemade whipped cream and hot chocolate?" said Robin, always awestruck how Louie always seemed to go above and beyond. Robin didn't know the first thing about making homemade hot chocolate. Whipped cream she could understand but hot chocolate? Louie might as well have told Robin she had cracked the DaVinci code.

"Sprinkles and whipped cream sound perfect."

"I bet the other parents at Gus's school must hate you when it comes to bake sales." Robin teased mercilessly, leaning forward against the kitchen island. "You're like a hotter Betty Crocker." @louiewells

"Well, then, call this the house that laughter forgot," Louie replies with a shrug of her shoulders, pulling out the hot chocolate mix and turning on the kettle.

The house certainly couldn't have claimed that title earlier in the day when Gus had been giggling madly while he discovered that 'hippopotamus' was his favorite word.

"No tiny marshmallows but I do have homemade whipped cream and little rainbow sprinkles," Louie offers before adding.

"The hot chocolate mix is homemade too. No Swiss Miss up in this bitch."

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closed starter / @ziggykyeons

location: the palacio club

"I have a confession to make," Robin announced over the sound of Carly Rae Jepsen's Bad Thing Twice blaring over the speakers inside of the club. "I had ulterior motives to getting you to come to bottomless brunch with me." Chalk it up to liquid courage or Robin running out of patience waiting for Ziggy to tell her all about his sexcapades but she couldn't bite her tongue any longer.

"I tried to be respectful and not stick my nose into your business until you were ready to tell anyone but I've heard you leaving in the middle of the night and coming home a few hours later a hell of a lot of the time. Who are they?"

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closed starter / @reggiellewellyn

location: outside the palm tree in motel

"I told you a stakeout wasn't as interesting as it looked in procedurals," Robin lamented, kicking her foot up on the dashboard. It was the more tedious part about her job and the loneliest, which was why she had agreed to letting Reggie tag along as long as he didn't bring any attention to them.

"It's mostly sitting in the shadows and—" She opened the glove compartment, rummaging around the endless pieces of paper and snack wrappers before holding up a bag of Jolly Rancher's as if they were a prize to be coveted, "—eating your body weight in sour candy."

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Robin didn't disagree with her reasoning. If the citizens of Aurora Bay weren't all up in each others business, it would be like a town from a horror movie—where everyone's neighbour was a suspect, nobody left their homes after dark and creepy, old gas station attendants warned you about the abandoned old house.

"Sounds like your mother would fit right in here." Amongst the curtain twitchers and nosey neighbours, a gossiping busy body would fit right in amongst the white picket fences.

"A firefighter?" Robin's brows raised, voice dripping with surprise. "You're kind of a bad ass then." She straightened, giving the firefighter an assessing once over, as if she was just seeing her for the first time.

Robin hadn't pegged her for a firefighter.

"Sucks about the salary cap but congratulations on being the new chief. I grew up in this town and I think you're the first female chief we've ever had." Busy was one word for it, Robin thought. "Oh, I don't know about the tourists but it might be the locals you have to worry about more." @camryn-hendricks

It makes plenty of sense to hear about the tendency for residents to snoop around. Camryn clicks her tongue in a playful ‘tsk tsk’ and shakes her head. “I think that comes along with smaller towns. Nosiness and small populations go hand in hand.” For those who aren’t busy, and find themselves bored too often. “My own mother was a gossip, but my dad and I kept to ourselves.” 

Some secrets found their way to the rumor mill, though Cam never found an interest to indulge in the details of someone’s life. 

“I was a wildland firefighter, reaching a salary cap in a profession with slow movement upwards. Most people there stick to their job for too long to prevent enough promotional opportunities.” Stagnant and frustrated, searching through various locations brought her here. “I saw that the previous chief was retiring, and the opening presented itself at the right time.”

It’ll be worth it for the experience alone.

She grimaces. “Sounds like it’ll keep us busy, if tourists are just as… for lack of a better word, dumb here as they are back home.”

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"Far from it." Robin confirmed. "It's an unforeseen spanner thrown into the works but there's still other avenues to go down." She flashed Cora a comforting smile, reaching a hand across the table to give her arm a reassuring squeeze. "It might not be as easy as we first thought it might be and it might take a fraction longer but the son—Will—is a good lead to start with." Pulling her hand back, she begins typing up what little information Cora is able to give her about him. "So he might have already been aware of their relationship?" It wouldn't come as much of a surprise. Robin's own father's affair hadn't been a secret to her either. @coradeveraux

Cora had figured that the man's passing would make this all the more complicated. It was difficult to imagine she would ever get answers that would satisfy her curiosity when the two people involved weren't around to answer her questions anymore. "It isn't? See, this is why I need you because I was convinced it was over." The brunette paused, trying to recall whatever little information she knew of Will. "He owns that cute little cottage, and he's about to get married. Seems like a nice guy and was more than willing to help out where he could. He wasn't as surprised as I was to learn about the affair." @robinsantos

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If Robin knew one thing for certain in this world it was that Julian Park was not an asshole. An overly melodramatic clown who had made a complete fool out of himself apparently but not an asshole. "Okay," Robin said slowly, nodding as she let this new piece of information sit with her before reacting. Julian was fragile right now. As breakable as glass. Robin needed to choose her next words carefully.

"Do you think you're being a teeny bit overdramatic and blowing this out of proportion?" Robin asked gingerly, folding her arms across her chest and shifting where she perched on the arm rest of the sofa. "You were drunk, made a fool of yourself and said some stuff you probably shouldn't have." Who hadn't done that before? "Instead of feeling sorry for yourself why don't you start fixing things and be the bigger person and apologise."

"Lying here and watching Love Island isn't going to solve all of your problems." @julianxpark

Then don't look, he wants to snap at her but Robin doesn't deserve his ire. There was only one person to blame for this, and he was currently rotted to the couch like the dead. When Robin reached for the remote, Julian groaned loudly. How was he going to survive without the comforting glow of reality television?

Rolling off his side, Julian lies on his back, looking up at the ceiling with Robin just in his periphery. "I'm an asshole," he replies simply. This was the crux of the issue. He'd made a complete fool of himself and now the self-loathing was eating him from the inside out. "I got too drunk at New Years, got too sad about being there alone. Then I saw my ex there on a date with my friend, got mad at her and we fought... Then I saw someone who I thought liked me also there with another friend and I not only was mad at her, but I also got mad at him."

Listing out his sins didn't make him feel any form of absolution, it only made him feel worse. "That's why I bailed early.. and why I've decided to live out my days here. On the couch."

"I'm pathetic and I shouldn't be allowed outside."

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"It does add an extra amount of charm but don't you think that's only the case because the town isn't decorated with flower arches and flower walls all year round? It wouldn't be as charming and the novelty would wear off pretty quickly if we had them up all the time." His next question catches her off guard. Brows pinching together. “Maybe something with thorns?” Robin suggested. “Or a reef?” @kalanixhale

open starter: @aurorabaystarter

where: choose your own adventure bbys

"I hate to see all the flowers and decorations for the garden fest to go, they make a nice addition to the town." Kalani folded his arms over his chest as he looked at the beginnings of shops taking down their decorations for the event. "I might have to hit up Flora and Fauna for some to put in my own store. What kind do you think would look nice at the entrance of a hard ware store?"

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THE HILLS RACHEL CHINOURIRI

have you ever noticed / that your house don't feel like home? (home) / in a room that you've outgrown / scrubbing at the writing on the walls (walls, walls) / everybody's been there / so you try your best to leave (leave) / i was told the grass is greener / but it's just a fantasy it seems