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staytheb · 5 years

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Official Anyways

Pairing: GOT7′s Mark x OC [Violet] Genre: slice of life, slight fluff Word Count: 5,223 Summary: Whether or not of what others may think could be legit or not legit, only those involve are sure of the answers themselves. What makes it official is when both parties actually confirm to one another that it's official.

Warning: none except like always it hasn’t been proof-read since it was last shared 3 years.

this was for the same contest as Leap of Faith, but it was due to someone bailing at the last minute and i gave it a shot to see where it would go. then again i’m always stuck with MT man... like can he leave me alone? lol anyways, happy reading and kthxbai, Admin Lia~

"Here you go, Vi." Violet's supervisor, Lara, hands her a call-in ticket with a grin. "The customer, J.F, wants you to make these." "Again?" Violet said a bit confused. "That's like the fifth one today and it's almost six." "I know, I know. But that's what the customer wants. They'll be here in an hour." Violet pouts. "But I'm off in two minutes and you know how Lyle feels about us milking the clock." Lara smirked at her. "I guess you'll be getting those sixty minutes of overtime this week. And 'milking' is part of our job, Violet." Violet glares at her lead's lame joke who just continues to grin at Violet. "Oh, haha, funny, Lala." She scrunched up her face and then remembered something. "But it's Christmas' Eve. I thought we were supposed to close at eight?" She looked at the monitor screen and saw that it flashed 6:02 PM and frowned. "Why haven't we done the pre-closing yet?"

"Why are you so worried? Got a hot date with Mark tonight?" Lara teased her. "What? No." Violet answered slightly flustered. "There's no hot date or anything of that sort. We're just talking. That's it." "For like how long already? It's been at least three months by now since you've guys been 'talking'." Lara shot her a weird look. "Please tell me that something must be going on between the both of you. Tell me you're at least official." Violet remained indifferent. "I'm not telling you anything except that we're not official and so what? He's a friend of Jackson and technically, my friend, too since knowing him about a year now. Anyways, what does it matter to you? We just talk and that's it." "Uh huh." Violet continued to convince her supervisor otherwise. "There's seriously nothing going on between us. We just talk like how friends talk to one another." "Yeah, like friends until late at night at four in the morning. Friends. Sure." "Shut up. I don't know why we're on this topic. Let's go back to why we're not closing early."

Lara grinned, but dropped the topic and continued with the previous one. "Well, Lyle changed his mind at the last minute. We're closing at nine thirty instead today." Lara informed her. "Didn't Minnie tell you?" "No." Violet groaned. "And she left two hours early, too." "Well, that's Minnie for you." Lara chuckled as she patted Violet's back. "Also, we had the notice on the door for two weeks now. You didn't see it?" "No, I didn't." Violet groaned again as Lara continued to rub her back. "Don't worry, it'll be fine. Tomorrow's Christmas and we're off!" Lara then whispered the other part in a teasing manner. "And you can enjoy more late night talks with your boy toy." "He is not a boy toy!" Violet exclaimed and then toned down her voice when her co-workers shot her knowing looks. Lara laughed beside her and Violet elbowed her. "That was totally not cool, Lala." "Hey, you're the one that overreacted after hearing 'boy toy', Vi. Not me, but you."

"Whatever and again, he's not a boy toy, or mine for that matter." Violet grumbled shooting her co-worker a glare. "I don't even know how that even came about." "The boys in the back talk, Violet. Remember that." Lara told her with a chuckle as Violet rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, sure, whatever. I forget that some of them are friends with Jackson and Mark, too. Ugh." Violet let another grumble. "Stupid back house boys always messing around with me." Violet then glanced down at the piece of paper and her eyes widened upon how many custard drink items were on it. "Are you serious, Lara?" She holds up the list. "There's like ten drinks on here." Lara had walked away to do something else while still replying. "Technically it's sixteen, but that's all on you since the customer specifically asked for you to make them or they don't want it at all if made by someone else."

"That's messed up, Lara. You couldn't lie or something?" Violet frowned and then glanced at two of her co-workers. "Hey, Carol or Megan can do it." She pointed at them when Lara turned to face her. "This J.F person wouldn't even know the difference." Lara gave her a firm look. "Look, Vi, that may be true, but that's close to a hundred dollar bill right there, and I already told them that you were here. So get going as ten minutes have already passed." Lara interrupted her from thinking otherwise. "And no, the others can't help you as they have other things to tend to." "But it's a lot, Lara." Violet tried, but Lara shook her head. "Just focus on that call-in order and don't worry about anything else." Lara's face softened. "Besides, the faster you get it done and over with the faster you can go home after you're long shift."

"Fine." Violet let out in a defeated sigh as she thoroughly read what was on the yellow slip with a pout. "Sixteen. Gah, sixteen drinks." She then noticed another co-worker walked by. "Ugh, kill me, Austin." "Why?" He asked as Violet showed him her list and he let out a low whistle. "Wow. Good luck, Magenta." He teased her before going back to the back of the house after getting a refill of his soda. "Tch. Stupid Jackson for sticking with that nickname after Mark accidentally called me that." She let out another sigh as she grabbed her pen and started to numbered the list so that she would know to make the 'least likely to melt' item first and then work her way to the 'most likely to melt' item last. "List done and now the actual tall cups." Violet then grabbed her black sharpie and wrote on the cups of what kind of dessert drink they wanted. This helped her to keep track of it all. "Wow. That's a lot and I haven't even started putting in the custard yet."

Thirty minutes later, Violet finished the last custard item, placed it onto the fourth drink carrier with the ticket list and the last three items, and placed them into the retail freezer with the other three drink carriers. "Alright, I'm done and I'm going home now." Violet announced happily as she began to untie her apron while walking towards the back of the store to put it away. Lara stopped her. "Not uh, missy. You're staying until the customer shows up." "What? Why?" Violet asked confused. "I finished the ticket. They can just pick it up without me being here." Lara shot her a wry look. "Didn't you read what was written on the back of the call-in ticket?" "No." "I think you should read it." "C'mon, Lara. It's Christmas' Eve, I've been here all day and I'm tired. Can't I just leave and go home?" Violet let out tiredly as she removed her apron while Lara shot her an understanding look. "I know, but not yet." Lara took Violet's apron. "Just clock out and sit in the office as you read the note. I'll let you know when the call-in is here."

"Fine, but can I at least changed out of my uniform?" Violet asked hoping she would say yes and noticed a smirk appearing on her supervisor's face. "What?" "Oh so you do have a hot date with Mark later tonight and it is official?" "No! I don't and we're not official. Sheesh." Violet groaned. "I just thought I had today off, but apparently I didn't. Luckily my work uniform was in my car though." Violet defended herself as Lara's face was still amused. "So you're going to be wearing your pj's around work?" "What? No. I went clothes shopping before coming to work." "Are you sure you're not going on a date with Mark?" Violet shot Lara a look. "What's up with this whole me and Mark going on a date thing?" Lara just shrugged with a small smile while waiting for Violet's real reason on going clothes shopping. "Anyways, it's because my parents want to do this Christmas' Eve dinner thing later tonight before they drive off to Texas to visit my mom's side of the family for the holidays and I needed newer and nicer clothes, too. Okay?"

"Hey, I'm not judging you, Vi." Lara told her with that same smile. "Anyways, just kick it in the office until then. I'll let you know when that call-in order comes through so you can take care of it." "Are you serious? Are you sure that the other girls can't do it for me?" Violet pleaded, but Lara shook her head. "Nope. No can do, kiddo." "I'm the same age as you." "Don't care. Anyways, hurry and clock out so you can change and not milk my clock." "I thought 'milking' was part of our job, Lara." "It is, when you're actually doing anything milk related, duh, Violet." "Tch, whatever, fine." "That's a good girl." "Not funny." "It wasn't supposed to be." "You're a jerk, you know that?" "I am the boss and need to make sure the kids listen to me." Lara grinned at her. "Now, go. You're bringing up my labor." "Yeah, yeah, I'm on it even though earlier you said it didn't matter." "I changed my mind." "Mmhmm."

Violet walked back to the front of the store and told her fellow co-workers that she was done for the day, but would be in the back chilling if they wanted to disturb her or whatever. She then clocked herself out, made her way to the retail freezer, grabbed the call-in ticket, headed back to the register to print out another ticket just in case someone asked about the items, and replaced the one she took. After doing that Violet made her way to the back and entered the office, grabbed her bag, and went into the employee bathroom to change. After doing all of that did she finally make her way back to the office to wait for this J.F customer to show up. Not sure what to actually do, Violet just settled herself onto one of the rolling chairs and played some random movie on the work's computer before remembering about the note on the ticket. "I guess I could read it and prepare myself when they arrive." Violet began to read the message out loud.

"Dear Lovely Lady Between the Shades of Red and Blue..." Violet stopped reading after reading those words. "Why does this sound like Jackson? And how did Lara keep a straight face when she wrote this?" She shook her head with an amused look and continued reading out loud. "Thanks for always making our drinks. We greatly appreciate it. Hope to see you soon. So please don't leave yet. Sincerely, J.F." Violet raised an eyebrow after finishing the note. "That's it? So simple." She flipped it back and forth, and then placed it onto the desk. "I don't even know what I was expecting, honestly." She told herself as she ran a hand through her hair. "Well, at least I can watch this Tinker Bell movie, Secret of the Wings, until then." Violet then shot a glance at the monitoring screen next to the computer screen where cameras were placed throughout the store to monitored it and noticed a large group of people entering the place. "Too bad I'm off the clock."

Violet was so engrossed with the film that she didn't hear the third knock coming from the door until she heard her name being called when the person opened the door to get her attention better. "Violet?" "Yeah?" Violet answered as she turned to look over her shoulder at the person. "What's up, Tim?" The younger male pointed behind him. "Lara said something about serving the call-in because they're here." "Ah, okay. Thanks, Tim." "Yup." Tim returned back to the kitchen leaving Violet to pause the movie. "Ugh, and they were about to stop the Freeze, too." Violet stood up, stretched, and glanced at the monitoring screen once again. "Hmm, should be okay. Doesn't seem busy now." And then noticed the time. "Huh, they showed up a little later than said. Oh well." She left the office and made her way to the front of the store and came across Lara. "Hey, Lara. Tim told me J.F is here?" "Oh yeah, his party is around the corner at the last booth." Lara informed her while pointing in that direction with a smile. "Have fun."

"A party?" Violet let out questioningly as she gathered the drink carriers from the retail freezer. "I thought it was only one person picking up the order and then leave right after?" "Nope, it's a pretty big group and they're actually dining in instead." Lara stated as she helped Violet put the carriers onto two eating trays for her to carry them better. "Alright, go ahead and send these out to them and let me know how it goes." Lara grinned and patted Violet on the back. "Are you serious?" Violet just shot her lead a look. "You're not going to help me?" "Nope. No can do, kiddo. I gotta take this order as I sent Carol on break." Lara smirked as she pressed a button on her headset to take the guest at drive thru. "Hello. Thank you for choosing Roman's Truffles. My name is Lara and I'll be tending to you tonight. Our flavor of the day is Oreo Overload. Which is amazing, I might add. What can I make fresh for you?" Lara waved at Violet before walking away to the drive thru's register.

"Sheesh, some friend you are." Violet mumbled as she balanced the two trays and began making her way to the customer while muttering to herself. "When this order is delivered, I can go home, then the dinner with the fambam, and my precious bed afterwards." Once she was nearing the group, she put on a friendly smile for some good customer service, and greeted them in a cheery voice without actually paying attention to the faces. "Hello." She placed the tray onto a nearby table so she could hand them their drinks. Although she didn't have to, but she always did this so that the customer would get their right order without having them to figure it out and then asking for a remake even though it wasn't needed. "So I have a call-in for J.F?" "Yes." One of them answered and Violet finally paid attention to the faces and recognized him instantly. "Jackson? Seriously?" She shot him a look. "You're the one that's been doing all these call-ins today?"

Jackson grinned at her and let out his hyena-like laugh. "Yes ma'am." He then waved his arms around at the other people around them. "I don't know if I told you, but some of my family and friends came to visit from out of state and I'm treating them out." He then looked at the others while pointing at her. "This is my good friend, Violet." "Hello." They greeted her as Violet waved at them with an awkward smile. "Uh, hi." She then remembered about the drinks and started to distribute them. "Blueberry Cheesecake mixer with extra Oreo's and cheesecake pieces?" No one claimed it and Violet repeated it once more. Still no response and so she put it back and grabbed another one and moved on. She then returned to the Blueberry Cheesecake mixer with extra add-ins. "Is someone missing?" Violet asked as the others looked at one another. "Jackson, did you order an extra one?" Jackson thought about it and shook his head. "No. Everyone got what they ordered."

Violet still held the dessert in her hand while giving her friend a weird look. "But there were sixteen on the list. This one is still unclaimed for. Jackson, are you sure?" "Yes, Violet, I'm really sure." Jackson answered with a roll of his eyes and smirked at her. "Maybe you miscounted or something." "I did not." Violet then remembered she was still at work and talking with a customer and so backed off. "Alright, well enjoy. If you need anything else, please do let us know." She smiled at them as Jackson grinned at her. "Will do, Viola. Thanks." Violet cringed at the other nickname, but continued to keep the smile on her face. "OK. Once again, please enjoy." She bowed her head as she backed away. Just as she turned around, she ran into another body who just turned the corner, and the custard spilled between them while falling to the floor due to the collision.

"Oh my. I am so sorry. I wasn't looking. Oh, I'm so sorry." Violet apologized as she stared at the custard cup where it was still leaking the sticky substance before looking up at the person she had ran into. "I'm so sor- ah, Mark. Hey." She suddenly greeted him, but then remembered what happened. "Oh, I'm so sorry about this. I didn't see you." Mark cast her an understanding look. "It's alright, Violet. It's my fault." He touched the spillage on his shirt. "I wasn't looking either when I rounded the corner. Sorry." "Ah, no, no. It was totally my fault. Ah, wait, hold on." She quickly walked to the condiment's bar and grabbed some napkins. She returned to Mark's side and handed him some of the napkins. "Here. And again, I'm really, really sorry about the accident, Mark." She then picked up the broken cup and threw it away before crouching down to try and clean up the mess.

Mark joined her after wiping away at the stain on his shirt. "Violet, it's okay." "Ah, Mark, you don't have to do that." Violet told him as she was surprised by his actions. "I might as well helped you since it was my fault, too." He grinned at her as Violet just shook her head. "No, it's okay. I got this." She finished up and took the dirtied napkins from him and threw it away. "Thanks though." "You're welcome." He smiled at her as the two just stood there while she kind of remained awkward about the whole ordeal after wiping away some of the mess from her sweater. Violet then heard Mark chuckled and she looked up at him. "What's so funny?" "This reminded me on how we first met." "Really?" Violet asked as she tried to recall the memory. "Yeah, the same thing happened that time. I rounded this corner as I was running late and you had a drink in your hand and we bumped into one another. Don't you remember?"

Violet let out an embarrassed laugh. "Um, not really, but it isn't a great first impression that I really want to keep though." She then asked why he was there. "Oh, Jackson invited me to hang out, but I just got done dropping off Joey at his girlfriend's house for a Christmas party, and the reason why I was late." "Ah, I see." Violet nodded her head as she assumed the custard was for Mark and that Jackson had lied to her. "Well, um, I'll let you go then." Violet said with a sheepish laugh. "I just hope you have another shirt, well sweater, to change into though. Although you can just zip up your jacket to covered the stain." Just as Violet was about to turned on her heels and walked away with embarrassment, Mark stopped her. "Ah, Violet, wait." She turned back to look at him unsure as she was still embarrassed about the whole thing. "Yes?" Mark looked at her a bit embarrassed as he didn't know what to say or do next.

"Just kiss already!" "Just confess already!" The duo heard two different people called out and turned to look at Jackson's party where Violet noticed Lara was apart of while watching her and Mark. "Why are you there?" Violet asked her lead as Lara waved like it was normal sitting with the customers casually. "Because she's my girlfriend, Vivi." Jackson stated using another nickname for Violet as he wrapped his arm around Lara's shoulders. "Am not." Lara shrugged off his arm and moved away from him while Jackson just played it off coolly. "We were trying to help Mark out." Violet then glanced back at Mark. "Help you with what?" "Well..." Mark trailed off as he was still trying to figure out the right words. "Violet... I..." He let out unsure with a shy look as Violet was wondering where he was going with this although she could feel her heartbeat quicken its pace and thumping hard against her chest.

"Ugh, this is taking too long and it's going nowhere." Jackson let out frustrated as he patted Lara on the arm. "Lara, go with Plan B." "Plan B?" Both Mark and Violet let out confused. "What's Plan B?" Violet asked Mark as he shrugged being equally confused as her. "Honestly, I have no clue." "Leonidas! Zacharias!" Lara called out the nicknames of two boys as Violet's tall co-workers suddenly appeared and held some sort of long and gold tinsel over Mark and Violet's heads with some plant-like thing directly hanging over them. "Oh, look. It's a mistletoe." Lara feigned surprise. "Now you guys have to kiss." Everyone who was in the lobby witnessing this started clapping in merriment. Violet cast Mark an embarrassed look. "This is so embarrassing and I'm so sorry for Lara's action. I didn't know anything about this." She then rubbed her burning cheeks and avoided looking at Mark. "You seriously don't have to go through with it, Mark."

Mark watched her with a small smile while letting out a chuckle. "It's okay, Violet." He then grabbed a hold of her wrists and removed them from her cheeks while meeting her gaze. "There's something I have to confess." Violet bit her bottom lip wondering what it was although she had an inkling feeling of what it may be. "And that would be?" "Well, honestly there's two, but can I kiss you first?" He asked softly as Violet grinned at him suddenly wanting to tease him. "I don't know. Can you?" His lips quirked up following along with her. "May I kiss you?" "Um..." She continued to tease him while pretending to think about it. "I'll think about it." "Oh c'mon! Just kiss him already, Violetta!" Jackson let out frustrated using another nickname as Lara elbowed him. "Don't ruin the moment, idiot." "I'm not ruining anything, Lara. Besides, they're official anyways since the day they met. OK?" "Please, you're loud voice is disturbing their moment. Shut up, already." "Rude."

Due to Jackson and Lara's bickering this snapped Violet back to reality with the others watching her and Mark. She removed her wrists from his grip and used one of her hand to rub her elbow nervously. "Um, is it possible that we could do this somewhere else without them, y'know, watching us?" Violet asked Mark while tilting her head to the group behind them and Mark looked over and then back at Violet with a small smile. "Ah yeah. How about we go and talk outside?" "That would be great." Violet let out with a relieved sigh. "Wait!" Jackson called out interrupting the duo again. "You can't just leave us hanging even though I know you guys are already official and what not." Jackson stated with a pout. "Just confess and kiss and we'll be the witnesses to your guys' love line making." "Dude, shut up. Why are you always putting in your two cents?" Lara asked annoyed. "That's so annoying."

"Because it's a free country and it's my free speech." Jackson defended as Lara rubbed her temples to calm herself as to not hit the idiot. "1, 2, 3..." "Why are you counting?" Jackson asked clueless as he looked at his family and friends for an explanation, but none of them provided him with an answer. "Maybe Lara and Jackson should be the one hooking up." Violet chuckled as she whispered this to Mark. "If it makes you feel better, he does have a crush on your boss." Mark admitted with a laugh as Violet looked at him intrigued. "You mean Lara right? Because my boss is actually the owner, Lyle, who is married and a guy, unless Jackson rolls that way. Also, there's Minnie, too, but she is also married." Mark rolled his eyes playfully. "Lara of course and Jackson's straight from what I know. Anyways, don't you notice the two bantering left and right all the time?" Violet rolled her eyes while shaking her head as she and Mark made their way outside. "I just figured it was a Jackson thing." "Yeah, it can be that too."

Once the duo was outside and had settled themselves on to the patio did Violet questioned him. "You tried to reenact the first time we met, didn't you?" "How did you know?" Mark asked surprised that she had figured it out. "Well, it's not that hard considering Jackson wants us to kiss and Lara doing the whole mistletoe thing and making me make all those custard items." And Violet paused to let out a slight annoyed sigh. "To which I believe the one that was destroyed was supposed to be yours, huh?" Mark rubbed the back of his neck as he let out a sheepish laugh. "Yeah." He let out lamely, but recovered. "At least it worked out, didn't it?" Violet nodded her head in agreement. "It worked, yes, but it was so not cool that I had to make all of them, Mark." "Well, Violet, that was Jackson's idea." "Really?" "Yup." 'Ugh, figures. Anyways, what does J.F stand for though?" "Oh, that is one of his many nicknames that the guys call him. J-Flawless." "Should have known it was something like that." "Well, he made that one up himself." "Typical Jackson."

The two sat there while the silence lingered between them for a moment before Violet broke it. "Um, so earlier, you said you had something to confess to me about or something like that. What was it?" Mark looked at her a bit lost and then a smile graced his face. "Well it's now or never, so I might as well just say it since it's already kinda out in the open." Violet waited for him to continue on. "Violet, I like you." Mark confessed as Violet just stared at him shocked by his sudden confession. "Um..." Mark let out unsure as she still didn't react to his confession a few seconds later and assumed he just made it even more awkward between the both of them. "Violet?" Violet shook her head and focused back to reality. "Yeah?" "Did you hear me?" "Um, that you like me, right? Yeah, I did." "And?" "And well..." She let out slowly while gazing at him a bit shyly. "I like you, too, Mark."

Mark let out a relieved breath. "Oh, good. Because I really wanted to do this for a long while now since we first met." Before Violet could asked what that was, Mark had leaned across the table and tenderly placed his lips against her sharing their first kiss. He pulled away with a smile as Violet softly touched her lips. "Wow, I wasn't expecting that." She then looked up. "Well, at least the mistletoe didn't make you do it." She chuckled while glancing back at Mark. "Well, I wanted to do that then too, but it was kind of awkward at the time." "Tell me about it." Violet indirectly confessed in wanting to kiss him back then as Mark raised an eyebrow intrigued. "So you wanted to kiss me then, too?" "Yeah, but I didn't know how you felt about me." Mark leaned closer with a wide smile. "Well, now that we both know how we feel about each other. Let's try that kiss again." Violet leaned forward as well with a smile. "I agree."

Just as they were about to lock lips once more, they heard a thump against the glass and turned to see the others watching them. "BE OFFICIAL ALREADY!" Jackson yelled through the glass with Lara pulling him away in annoyance. "I don't know if to be embarrassed for myself or for them." Violet let out with a laugh as she used her hand to block them from her sight and looked over at Mark who also let out a laugh. "How about we just ignored them." He grabbed the collar of his jacket and raised it up and leaned even closer to Violet blocking the both of them from the onlookers. "Is this better?" "Yes. Much better." The two shared another kiss before pulling apart and Violet remembered she had other plans tonight. "Hey, I gotta go. I have this Christmas' Eve dinner with my family and I'm kinda running late." "Don't you have to change?" Mark pointed at the stain on her sweater. "I need to, but I'm already late as it is and my house is kinda far where I need to go."

Mark shook off his jacket and handed to her. "Here, take this." Violet didn't reach for it. "Oh, but that's yours. Don't you need it?" "I have another one in the car. Besides," He grinned at her as he still held out the jacket for her to take, "You can always return it to me tomorrow and borrow it again and returned it again." Violet took his jacket, slipped it on, and zipped it up. "Why tomorrow and I'm not the type to borrow things that belongs to others?" "Because it's Christmas and oh, you'll be borrowing from me a lot from now on." "We'll see about that and yeah I already knew that it was Christmas. So?" "And so Jackson having his annual Christmas party. We can meet there for you to return my jacket, if you want to." "Oh right, I forgot about that." Violet laughed. "Thanks for reminding me." "No problem." Mark smiled at her as he stood up. "Let me walk you to your car." "Well, I have to grab my things first." Violet let out slowly as she stood up and Mark saw her hesitation. "And?"

"Well, they're going to hound me about you and our status as everyone already believes your my 'boy toy' of sorts." Mark cast her an amused look. "You're 'boy toy', eh?" "It wasn't even like that. The boys just like to tease me, a lot." Violet tried to defend herself, but Mark just smiled at her understandingly. "I know. Austin and Michael do the same thing to me about you. Jackson more so than the others." He then took a hold of her hand in his. "How about we tackle this together since technically it was my fault that it became like this and we'll be official anyways as everybody's been saying it since the first day we met." "I'll like that." She smiled up at him. "And I'm good with the whole official part too, although it was a week for me instead of day one." "Good, because I already accepted it the day I met you." "Wow. But, thanks, Mark." She tip-toed and planted a kiss on his cheek. "You're welcome, Violet." He returned the same gesture. "Let's go."

#staytheb #got7 scenarios #mark tuan #duan yien

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femmesfollesnebraska · 3 years

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Artist Feature: Kara Dunne

Pleased to present this q-and-a with artist Kara Dunne. All words and images (c) Kara Dunne...

A Trailer is a Castle on Its Side

Where are you from? How did you get into creative work and what is your impetus for creating?

I like to say I’m from Vermont because that’s where I was born and most likely will end up someday. Currently I live in Massachusetts.

My observation skills got me into creative work. I was always good at drawing from observation growing up, and in general observing things that were odd or quirky in the world. Once I tapped into these heightened skills of seeing things in a new way, I think the gift of creativity followed suit. Once you are super-honed into the world around you, you naturally start making unusual connections that you’d like to share (secretly in hopes that you may be the first one to make them of course).

As a practicing artist over the years, my work accumulates around me in boxes and flat file drawers. And since I mostly create multiples of things, sometimes I feel like an unintentional hoarder. But the thing is, unlike a hoarder, I don’t want to hold on to the stuff I make. I have increasingly felt the “what is the point of producing all this stuff?” question that is not unique to the artist’s experience. I can relate to the: “If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around, then it doesn’t make a sound” concept. If I make work that remains in my flat file, then it too, remains silent. So what is the point? I can only amuse myself for so long by producing for myself. One needs an audience. Coming from a performance background, audience interaction for me was always the most exciting part of the practice. I’ve recently made it my main goal as a printmaker to reach an audience with my work by finding new ways in which I can just give my prints away. I’ve never wanted to sit with my stuff at a table making puppy dog eyes in order for people to stop and buy something from me. No surprise that I was terrible at selling girl scout cookies.

Tell me about your latest project and why its important to you. What do you hope people get out of your work?

Just before the world shut down, which for me was a year before the pandemic because my time was happily consumed as a new mom, I had just finished a long term research project that connected the agrarian and urban versions of what it meant to be a shepherd and gather something. It compared the idea of a shopping cart attendant at the grocery store to that of a traditional shepherd gathering and caring for a flock of sheep. The final result from my years of research into this concept was a limited edition artists’ book, titled, Shopping Cart Shepherds. Printed on a letterpress, it combined drawings, screen-prints and interviews from my conceptual journey that began in 2012 when I spent time in a small town in Ireland (and yes, around sheep and people who raised sheep). I met a local man in his eighties named Tom Tarpey, who had been raising sheep for about thirty years at that point. Strangely enough and quite a rarity in Catholic history, he was the retired priest of the town. He had left the church in order to marry the love of his life. Once a shepherd of the people, he became a shepherd of sheep. What a rare find! I thoroughly enjoy my work when I can interact with the world more directly; when my artistic research connects me to people in places I have never been and with whom I remain in contact with. I have all these great big ideas, and usually I will be hesitant at first (shy?) to make connections with the community in order to see those ideas come into fruition, but ultimately things pan out in one way or another. For example, when I came home from Ireland and was blabbing about sheep, a friend gave me a newspaper article about traditional Basque shepherds still working in this country- in the mountains in Idaho. For a long time, the article was taped to my wall as a reminder to contact some guy I read about named Henry Etcheverry. In 2014 I was awarded a residency at a fabulous spot called Surel’s Place (thank you so much Surel Mitchell), and it gave me the opportunity to the make necessary connections out there for this book. Needless to say, it was an amazing experience and the Etcheverry family embraced me like one of their own; and I learned a lot about sheep. I now consider them my extended west coast family.

110 copies of the book, Shopping Cart Shepherds, exist (that’s all I could afford to get printed) and inside the back cover it asks the reader to pass the book along to someone else once they finish it. It is my hope that the ideas in this book will travel and reach more than 110 people. (More trees falling in more forests?) I have given away most of the copies at this point, both to people I know and don’t know. The books serve as messages in bottles- it’s honestly difficult to not to have control over where they go, but I guess an artist never really knows where their artwork will end up after it is purchased anyway. Perhaps my books are mostly buried in the sand dunes of someone’s office book pile, or they have actually reached new beaches far far away. I will never know.

Since completing this major work, all of my ideas for making prints have the underlying purpose of getting out into the world and reaching an audience.

I find certain design elements of architecture to be amusing, and often make work about the structures around us, as they are extensions of our culture and can change with popularity just like anything else. Cupolas, ultimately a very useful and functional architectural ventilation add-on to barns and other large buildings, have been on the rise where I live. Decorative cupolas mainly, seem to show up on top of garages overnight, like cherries atop sundaes. (Makes the sundae and the house look better). I made an edition of screen-prints based on this idea- a vanilla sundae with chocolate sauce and sprinkles in a fancy glass serving dish…with a cupola on top. To get them out to cupola-adorning people, I made up a survey of questions about cupolas. I printed the survey onto paper door hangers and distributed them. The survey could be cut out from the door hanger as a postcard and mailed to my special P.O. box in town. If the survey was sent back, that household would receive an original artist print. I had the post box and distributed the door hangers for a few months before I had to stop the project because of the emergence of covid. I had received at least a dozen responses at that point, and mailed out a portion of the edition. I’d like to start it up again at some point.

My next print- based community outreach project idea is in process now and will involve restaurant placemats. I just need to make some local restaurant connections. (Another pre-pandemic idea forced to simmer on the back burner). Here’s the basic idea. A table at a restaurant is the perfect gallery space. It is especially ideal because it is the location where a group of people will sit and wait for a long period of time together with nothing else to do but sit and chit-chat in one place. Not even in a gallery do you have the same group of people staying near each other and talking for longer than fifteen minutes in front of a single artwork.

A paper placemat at a restaurant is viewed for a longer period of time than a work of art on a gallery wall. It is hard not to look at a placemat- it is one of the few places to look while waiting for food. I will use the format of the dining placemat as a way to bring fine art into the everyday world. I believe an etching is the perfect kind of print for this project. An etching is considered the finest of fine art printmaking, mainly because the process of making an etching plate is just as time consuming as printing the edition itself. Also, it would be perfectly ironic if a plate made a placemat. And the thought of such a sacred piece of paper so carefully processed as an art work that should end up underneath someone’s sweaty beer glass and dinner plate is simply…exciting to me. Equally, the thought that a restaurant guest may decide to not get it messy because they want to take it home is the kind of leave-it-to-chance scenario that I gravitate to as an artist; it forces me to relinquish my control and challenges the idea of art as an artifact. For the viewer, the idea plays with the preciousness of “art” and the context in which we view a work of art (in a gallery vs. the real world). For the restaurant owner, it may also bring more business and create a new kind of hype attracting more customers. Let’s say I print a series of five placemats, and if people collect all five placemats they get a free limited edition non-placemat print worth X amount of dollars. Or maybe they collect all five and get ten dollars off their next meal. Something like that.

This project connects directly with the public and gets the fine art print into the hands of the everyday person. The imagery within the frame of the placemat will vary- from beautiful local scenery and landmarks (as everyone enjoys a pretty picture), to several different designs that will engage the table with non-phone related activities- like a dining room scavenger hunt or a list of dinner conversation starters, as well as other designs that are more cerebral and open to interpretation, serving as conversation starters themselves (with digestion friendly, witty imagery). It is also my intention to make one of the placemats at each table have a QR code with a link to a video of how the placemat was produced, essentially educating the public about what an etching is, and moreover- what printmaking is.

Considering the political climate, how do you think the temperature is for the arts right now, what/how do you hope it may change or make a difference?

The climate is quite volatile right now, to say the least, and I think artists have a responsibility now more than ever to connect people from both sides of a political issue in order to start a meaningful conversation. I think the temperature for artists right now is great- get in the pool! Art always impacts at least one person looking at it, so that’s something. Art is mainly a non-confrontational way to interpret something about the world that needs to change for others who may not understand why change needs to happen. The best example I can think of within the visual arts is installation and involves statistic- based information. For example, a person may come across a beautiful sculpture of a sea monster made from plastic cups. Then they read about the work and how two million cups were used to make the work and that two million cups end up in the ocean every day; that person now has the physical representation in front of them of what two million actually means and it is forever burned into their mind. That person can stand next to the giant sculpture of cups and can better understand what the number means in relation to how it impacts the environment. A real life artwork that is forever burned in my mind like this is a video piece by the ceramic artist Ehren Tool called the ‘1.5 Second War Memorial’. In it, every 1.5 seconds a cup is shot and breaks. Each cup represents a human life. You would have to watch the video for eight minutes to get to the number of people who died in the Gulf War (Tool is a veteran of that war) and watch the video for two years to get to the number of total casualties in WWII.

Artist Wanda Ewing, who curated and titled the original LFF exhibit, examined the perspective of femininity and race in her work, and spoke positively of feminism, saying “yes, it is still relevant” to have exhibits and forums for women in art; does feminism play a role in your work?

More often than not, feminism lies under the surface of my work. How can it not, as I am living as a woman in this world? Feminism is always going to be relevant. It does not end, it is forever in existence; Feminism should not be considered as waves of the past, but as the water itself. I hate that ‘feminism’ is still considered a ‘dirty’ word. Mostly I experience this as a high school teacher, when every so often I will have a male student who expresses their thoughts about what they think feminism is and after I cringe, mostly internally and sometimes externally, I sadly realize that this wrongly informed opinion comes from the belief system of the parents. I try my best to inform them of what is true and false without becoming pushy; it is my hope that these particular students gain more perspective in the world through life experiences once their bubble becomes bigger- and of course once their bubble of close-mindedness has popped.

Ewing’s advice to aspiring artists was “you’ve got to develop the skill of when to listen and when not to;” and “Leave. Gain perspective.” What is your favorite advice you have received or given?

One of my first professors, Nick Tobier, had a five line mantra of sorts that he told us to write down during his first lecture.

“Public space is yours to take.

Reveal the things that are hidden.

What you see has been filtered for you.

Let private notions become public.

You can make icons”

https://www.karadunne.com/

Les Femmes Folles was a volunteer organization founded in 2011 with the mission to support and promote women in all forms, styles and levels of art from around the world. Editor Sally Brown retired from active blogging after 10 years in 2021, but still accepts submissions. [email protected] https://femmesfollesnebraska.tumblr.com/callforart-writing

Check out the 10th anniversary LFF exhibit, Feminist Connect, here:

https://www.les-femmes-folles-feminist-connect.com/

#contemporaryart #feministart

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3one3 · 7 years

Text

The Sequel - 826

Brody’s

André Schürrle, Juan Mata, other Chelsea/BVB players, and random awesome OC’s (okay they’re less random now but they’re still pretty awesome)

original epic tale

all chapters of The Sequel

“How did I not know about this place? How long has it been here? How do none of my friends know about it? Why is it a secret? How have I been living 45 minutes from a concentration of the hottest girls I’ve ever seen, and not known about it? I don’t even care if they’re all lesbians,” Marco said, marveling at the clientele at Brody’s, the restaurant and bar that Christina wanted to go to.

“They are not lesbians,” she groaned for the third or fourth time since arriving there and getting cozy in a corner booth. She looked up at the ceiling, as if to ask a higher power for strength to deal with her friend. Marco and André both were thoroughly impressed by the sheer volume of gorgeous women hanging out in the unique eatery. That ceiling she was looking at was all corrugated steel and pipes, because the restaurant was really an empty warehouse made inviting by knocking out walls and putting in tons and tons of huge windows, bamboo scaffolding to separate different types of seating and from which to hang enormous drapey plants, and all organic feeling furniture and decor. There were plants everywhere- potted ones shelved on the bamboo, dangling ones creating a kind of canopy above diners’ heads, and vines tying it all together. Booths and chairs were upholstered in off-white cotton canvas and cream wool, just like the couches and settees and more relaxed style sitting chairs. Tables ran the gamut from 10’ long solid pieces of wood from what must have once been some almighty trees, to thin square marble toppers on dark wooden legs, to low ovular birch coffee tables with cage-like bases that sort of nodded to the cellular bamboo network. There were some loveseats with thin metal pipe frames too, and they had darker wood tables and benches to go with them. Each little area of the restaurant had its own type of furniture that was mismatched and yet complementary, down to the range of pillows from white and cream giraffe print to delicate Asian floral designs.

All of these wonderful pieces were hosting happy people having a good time, and a disproportionate number of those people were good looking and cool enough to be models. There were quite a few men around too- enough to make Christina wonder why her men were still talking about lesbians- and they weren’t ugly. Everyone was dressed stylishly, whether they went for sneakers, jeans, and sweaters, or dresses and heels. Coffee and wine were the popular drinks of choice, and it was hard to tell how the staff kept the appetizer bar well stocked. Guests were invited to help themselves to millet arancini, Korean bbq meatballs, shrimp ceviche, cheese of every origin, a selection of hummus flavors and breads and crudités to dip in them, 6 different bites of tofu, pickled vegetables that Christina had never seen pickled before, mini soups in shot glasses, tiny avocado toasts with their own buffet of accompaniments, and fruit for days. That stuff was included in the cost of an entree, or available by itself for a set fee. The dinner menu offered an almost overwhelming number of salads and grain bowls, pasta dishes, burgers with meat or alternatives, fried chicken, more soup, and a bunch of different pizzas. There was vegan this and that and gluten-free everything. All ingredients, save for some of the seafood, it was noted, were local, organic, and “boutique”, meaning someone went and picked out every bushel of green beans and carton of eggs instead of ordering blind and in bulk. The prices reflected that, and that might have contributed to the narrowing of the customer demographic. Just as everyone in the place looked like they took care of themselves and wore nice clothes, they all looked like they came from a certain class.

“How do you know? Some of them might be lesbians,” André pointed out. He liked it at Brody’s, and not just because everywhere he looked there was a fit girl with a pretty, cute, or sexy face, being pretty, cute, or sexy with her friends. After five minutes at their table, he began to wonder if some of the plants emitted something that made everyone happy and high, or if the food was laced. He’d never been anywhere that just felt good like that. It was a pleasure to be there and he wanted to stay and eat the delicious food and look at the delicious people forever. It seemed like everyone there was really into each other. People got up close and personal to talk, and laugh. Food sharing was rampant. It felt almost as if he and Christina and Marco were the only people looking around at the surroundings instead of remaining fully absorbed in each other.

“Okay, some might be lesbians,” the rider relented with an eye-roll. Like the two girls on the couch by the table with the nice candles, who have been holding hands most of the time since we got here, she thought. I saw a guy and girl making out before though, so they can’t all be lesbians. Plus, they’re just not. She knew where she heard about Brody’s, and knew it would have been mentioned if the restaurant and bar were some kind of exclusively lesbian hangout. Christina liked it there too. The music was wonderful, and she’d never heard a single one of the songs before. The hidden speakers played what she’d begun to think of as the soundtrack to a very cool, smart, beautiful, important “it” girl’s very cool, fun, deep, meaningful life of leisure, love, lust, and self-exploration. Just hanging out there made her feel like a way cooler person. The easygoing songs weren’t all happy sounding- some threatened to make her deeply rooted melancholy bubble up a little, and others made her long for something unidentifiable- but they all sounded good to her ears and to whatever inside of her woke up for special music and somehow consumed it more comprehensively than just listening to the notes. They triggered her ability to feel the music. André had to tell her to stop Shazam-ing the songs and enjoy his company instead.

That wasn’t really necessary. They’d only been there for 20 minutes when Marco got distracted by the hot girls again and paused the conversation about Auba’s ambitious partying agenda, and Christina was very much integral to all the conversations- particularly her partner’s contributions to them. He did his hair, and he was wearing a pretty boring thin black sweater that just made him look sexy no matter what he was doing but in particular when he did anything with his hands, like pick up food, or his glass of wine. His smile, both the one he did with his lips and the one he did with just his unique blue eyes, was captivating. She wasn’t sure if it was the mood of the place that brought something extra to that smile, or if he was just more authentically amused that night when something was funny, or when he knew something, or when he felt something inside and couldn’t stop his face from showing it. Whatever the reason, it was working for him from the get-go and he got plenty of his wife’s attention.

“Seriously,” Marco stressed after downing a whole heavily laden toast point in one bite. “How did you find out about this place?” He narrowed his eyes at Christina, implying that she wasn’t anywhere near important enough to know about such an interesting and rewarding establishment.

“So there’s this...Well...I guess you could call it almost like an industry magazine,” the rider began. There is no way this won’t sound obnoxious, she lamented to herself. “You can’t subscribe to it. Someone has to recommend you to the publisher, and then-“

“What industry?” Dortmund’s favorite son prodded, brows pinched together and impatience laced throughout his face and his voice.

“Err...”

“Spit it out, Chris,” André laughed. He had no idea what she was talking about, but thought her squirming and discomfort was funny. To him it looked like she was trying very hard to hide something embarrassing, and he couldn’t imagine what it might be. The rosy pink color glowing through her cheeks was nice though. He liked that.

“It’s sort of like...”it” girls,” she said, her voice low. “It’s for girls who get around a lo- Not like that! I don’t mean it that way! Jeez. I mean, like...girls who know a lot of people, and travel a lot to certain places, and have relationships with important people, and...have a lot of money. It’s the female answer to all the spoiled rich guy lifestyle magazines, I guess.” Her shoulders sagged as she struggled to explain the magazine in a way that didn’t sound terrible to her own ears. She didn’t like the idea of being part of the exclusive club she was describing.

“Why is it a secret? What’s in it? Why does it have Düsseldorf restaurants in it? This isn’t exactly a significant place,” Marco pointed out. He was clearly skeptical. André was too. He fixed his girl’s hair down her back and kind of watched her profile with an inadvertently scrutinizing expression on his own.

“It’s not a secret. There are tips and deals in it though, and they’re like...only available to certain people. Imagine a grocery store circular but for the super rich and important. It has places all over the world, and then there’s some features about people and stuff too. It’s a lot of fashion, partying, planes, boats, real estate, cosmetic surgery and the craziest skincare and spa services ever...”

“Who sent it to you?” the uncomfortable equestrian’s partner inquired while she sipped her XO and Sprite in hopes of calming the heat in her cheeks. She read his question differently than he intended. He sounds disappointed in me, Christina decided. He’s using that soft and “but why?” tone he does when he doesn’t understand why I’ve done something he doesn’t like. But I don’t know if it’s because I didn’t tell him, because he thinks this is a Juan thing, or because he thinks I’m turning into the kind of girl who cares about a magazine like that. Hmph. Where is my fried chicken? I’m the kind of girl who goes to the clean eating jungle living room warehouse restaurant and orders the fried chicken. “Hello?”

“Oh. Um. Athina Onassis.”

“Who?” the boys asked in unison.

“She’s the only living heir to Aristotle Onassis.” Look at these idiots. “The Greek shipping tycoon? Once the richest guy in the world? Married to Jackie Kennedy? Is any of this ringing any bells?”

“Maybe?” André squinted into the distance, searching his memory for some thread that could connect him to the people she was talking about. It all sounded a little familiar.

“I know shipping heiresses are more important to Americans but I’m pretty sure everyone knows about the Onassis family.” She side-eyed him back.

“How do you know her?” his teammate asked.

“She rides. She does big stuff but she isn’t very good, which is remarkable actually. If you’re worth $720 million, you should be able to buy a better career, I think,” Christina laughed to herself. “Anyway, I know her husband a little bit. He rides too. He’s better. He’s Brazilian and has Olympic medals and has been around forever. Actually, he’s the one who rode Rio at the Rio Olympics.” That last part was like a thoughtful aside because she’d actually forgotten about it. Onassis’ husband, Doda Miranda, was at every show. She spoke to him all the time and he was courteous enough not to hold any kind of grudge about the horse ending up with her and becoming a better competition mount. They never really talked about him. Doda was one of the riders with whom Christina maintained a more social than professional relationship. That is to say, she was more likely to start a conversation with him about his daughter than his stable. They talked more at the horse show parties than the warm-up ring.

“So you know someone with $720 million?” Marco was still suspicious.

“Yeah, I guess. Athina is really nice. Our beach chairs were next to each other in Miami one morning and we talked a bunch. Lukas loves her.”

“Auba getting private jets to fly him and his friends across Europe to go clubbing doesn’t seem that ridiculous now,” André remarked. Her horse show life is still so foreign to me, he remarked further just to himself. You can’t even get the whole picture when you go to one with her, or even two in a row like last summer. It’s such a big group of people that it’s all different at the different kinds of events. She’s with all these jetsetters when she does the Tour, and the hardcore, tough competitors at the Nations Cup things, and then a mix I guess at World Cups and the other stuff. I wish I could know her circles better, he rued, watching her have some kind of fork fight with his teammate over a zucchini croquette. I go to training, I see the same people every day, and I tell her the highlights. Sometimes I go out with non-football friends, and I tell her about whatever dramas are happening in their lives. It’s more or less always the same. She has a whole private life away from me. Even when it seems like she’s telling me everything when she’s traveling, I always find out about things after that she never mentioned.

“Guys, is Mario alive? I texted him today when I made the mistake of setting up the ice bucket for my leg in my office where there is literally nothing interesting to do for 30 minutes but look at my phone. He didn’t answer. I miss him.” Christina turned her lower lip over and looked from footballer to footballer, hoping to crack one of them. She’d been trying to get information about their friend for weeks- ever since she saw how much Stefanie liked that guy she met in a bar and brought to the cookout, really- and her husband evaded her inquiries in a variety of crafty ways.

“Yeah,” the other one said without making eye contact. “He’s bored too. He can’t do anything. But he’s alive.”

“Are you guys doing enough to support him? Are you talking to him all the time and helping him keep his head up?”

“Yeah of course we talk,” the taller of the two pacey forwards insisted. He looked at her in a way that erased her earlier fear that he was disappointed in her for qualifying as an international “it” girl worthy of the exclusive magazine for that sort of girl. He couldn’t help it. Even as he reflected on the parts of her life that seemed perpetually out of reach for him, a part of her that he knew very well stood out. Christina was, above all else, caring. Mario was far from a significant friend to her and she still cared for him enough to worry when she couldn’t see for herself or be reassured about how he was coping with his health situation, and to be persistent in her quest to make sure he wasn’t neglected. “He has plenty of people supporting him, Prinzessin. I promise. He’s happy being with his family right now.”

“Okay. I want to talk to him next time you have him on the phone though. Can you let me out so I can go pee? I need to make more room in my tummy for food.”

André slid off the comfortable canvas banquette to let her out of the corner, and then watched her wander around the other tables and bamboo and plants to find the restroom. Her rolled, ripped and holey jeans were fairly relaxed in terms of fit, and her sweater was long in the back, so there was no perfect butt to admire from his seat but she was wearing tall heels and her clothes could conceal her shape but not the cadence of her walk. He didn’t like when Christina walked away from him. He liked watching it though.

“She looks good, bro,” Marco said, infringing on his momentary space-out.

“She always looks good,” he mumbled. He unlocked his phone in his lap under the table too.

“Yeah but I’m talking about overall. She’s not so depressed. I personally think she is irresistibly sexy when she’s all moody and depressed, but from a conventional beauty standard, obviously, she is looking good.” The co-captain was still looking at the area where Christina walked through and had long since departed, his face kind of squinching on one side and then the other as he tried to narrate his train of thought. “I was a little bit worried about you two recently. I have everything you tell me over here, on one side, and then what I see of her myself on the other. I think she was doing worse than you thought. Now she’s more like herself though,” he hasted to clarify, lest his friend take offense.

André wasn’t offended, or surprised that Marco noticed a change. His observation just illustrated a concept the newer Bee had already considered: that Christina was indeed more like herself, but that her relationship with him wasn’t exactly “itself” again. He thought she was less at sea in terms of who she was and what she wanted and how she felt about herself. He thought she still didn’t know what she felt about their relationship, or what she wanted to feel about it. As good as things were during her little spell at home, there was a persistent feeling inside of him that his wife was going through the motions. It was the distant looks he caught, like when she smiled and joked around with him about something and then her smile evaporated the second she turned away, almost unnaturally abruptly. It was the lack of intimate pillow talk. Christina didn’t shrink into a tiny ball on her pillow and talk to him in her innocent little girl voice about her most guarded thoughts and issues at night anymore. It was in her insomnia. The busy wife, mom, trainer, rider, and public figure woke up in the middle of the night a lot and disturbed his sleep with her tossing and turning and getting up for water or to use the bathroom. She also never seemed to take advantage of opportunities to sleep late, and only napped when Lukas wanted to nap with her. It was in his inability to make her giggle with sheer joy. It used to happen all the time. She used to erupt into an animated expression of hilarity and happiness that André thought was pure, unadulterated, and adorable delight. Just watching her do it made him feel good. The only time he could remember seeing it in recent past was when Christina was on the phone with Juan. Their day to day relationship was significantly happier and more peaceful than any time in recent memory, without question, but it wasn’t as strong, connected, and rewarding as he knew it could be.

“She’s getting the riding sorted out,” André provided almost dismissively as explanation for his good friend. “The results are getting better so she doesn’t have to keep freaking out and making it worse. Chris is the same as us but worse. You don’t feel normal or good in anything if you’re having a bad time in training or on the pitch. She doesn’t either. Her standards are too high,” he mumbled, still without looking up from his phone. He wasn’t even looking at anything, just scrolling up and down Instagram without really seeing what was there.

“Maybe it’s that,” Marco shrugged in his periphery. “Or maybe it’s that you’re not acting anymore like the sadistic dog owner who has a pet just to enjoy punishing it for misbehaving.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Is it? I think you liked jerking her around by the chain, maybe just a little? Chris was looking at you like a little puppy trying to follow the rules and do what the master wants, but the master kept expecting her to come faster, and sit more nicely, and wait longer too piss. Control is exciting, bro, I know. There is a rush. Zoe gets off on making people do what she wants. Sometimes I think she would love to physically force Noah to stay in the bathtub, like violently hold him down in the water.” The slightly ginger player smiled in what the other one judged a weirdly fond way for someone talking about his partner hurting his son. “It looked like that at times when you guys were having problems. It sounded like that the few times she called me, like last fall. I told you about it...”

“I don’t like or want to fight with her,” André replied definitively. “I don’t try to control her. It wasn’t about that, ever.” That is completely off base, he reiterated to himself. Shut up, Marco. You’re ruining this place. Everybody else here is oozing chilleria and he’s here being a dick. I know he’s trying to help but c’mon. Shut it.

“Okay, man, fine. You know better than me, obviously.” Marco got the implied message.

Christina returned about 30 seconds before the arrival of her almond meal fried chicken, a roasted vegetable and super green pesto pizza, and balsamic grilled pork chops. That was enough time to show the guys the treasure she found in the bathroom: honey ginger candies, individually wrapped, with an adorable little bee on the packaging. She said it was only natural that a little sweet that good was associated with bees, like them. Her crispy chicken came with some honey too, for the biscuit that shared the plate. They also got sweet potato fries and garlic asparagus for the table, and another round of drinks. Whether André was correct to think that his wife had been phoning it in a little, or hovering just short of authentic happiness, there was no question that she was delighted with the fried chicken. Consuming it appeared to be an orgasmic experience. There was no talking after declaring it “oh my god so good”. He watched her dutifully pull the crunchy brown coating off in just the right proportion with each piece of breast meat and then navigate it into her mouth so that the salty outside hit her tongue first, and watched her use naked pieces of juicy meat to hoover up breading and biscuit crumbs around her plate. No bit of almond meal breading would go to waste. She seemed to hurry in the beginning, unable to eat all the deliciousness fast enough, and then realized she would soon run out and instead wished to savor it.

André was happy that something she wanted actually worked out for her. She’d been looking forward to going to Brody’s for a while, and it was better than expected. He knew Christina was having trouble matching experiences to expectations lately. Even if she never expected much luck in her life because bad things always seemed to stalk the good ones, so much success in the show ring raised her expectations in another way. The rider expected things to work when she went about them in what she believed was the right way, and that wasn’t always happening anymore. Her best wasn’t always good enough for first place. It was somehow trickling down into other things too. Working with Vegas wasn’t going as smoothly as she thought it should, or so she complained each time her partner tried to tell her how much he appreciated being able to watch her work. Lukas wasn’t taking to his new learning games as quickly as she thought he should do so close to his second birthday. Even some of her cooking experiments weren’t turning out for her. Her effort to hide disappointment and frustration was obvious, and completely see-through. André kept reminding himself that their getting along each day and her looking less like a single mother of four with three jobs didn’t mean she was as happy and content as she could be, and that her feeling better about her riding and reasonably satisfied with her trip to North America wasn’t the same as her feeling proud, fulfilled, confident, and hungry for more. A restaurant wasn’t a big deal, but it was still nice to see something deliver on the promise she assigned it.

“Stop eating so much pizza, dude,” she said to Marco, scolding. Evidently only she was allowed to stuff her face. “You have to beat Hoffenheim this weekend. I can’t take Champions League qualifying. You have to finish third.”

“And eating the healthiest pizza I’ve ever seen is going to prevent that how?”

“It’ll slow you down. You’ll bee offside a million times because you have to run early because you know you’re lugging around a pizza gut.”

“He’s offside a million times in every match anyway,” André interjected. His pork chops were delicious too, and guilt-free.

“What gut? I have negative gut,” Marco argued, lifting his button-up shirt to show Christina his stomach. Even slumped on a cushy seat, it was flat, narrow, and defined.

“But pizza is heavy! It sits in your tummy for days!”

“That’s just because you are very small and you eat too much, Prinzessin.” The injured BVB forward reached over to poke her stomach. It was full of Sprite bubbles, free appetizers, and salty chicken, and he was sure she would be uncomfortable and plaintive later.

“Zoe tried to make cauliflower crust pizza for Noah the other day because his girlfriend’s nanny makes gluten-“

“Wait, his girlfriend? Noah has a girlfriend? He’s three.”

“Of course he has a girlfriend. This is his second one,” Marco scoffed. “He broke it off with the first one because she was stingy with toys. He picks up girls at the gym.”

“What?” Christina finally stopped eating, so great was her surprise and confusion. I clearly don’t talk to Zoe enough, she decided.

“He goes to this little kid gym a few times a week. It’s basically just a padded room full of sports equipment and they turn 20 kids loose to do whatever they want. They’re supposed to have organized games but I think it must be impossible to get 20 three-year-olds to play team sport,” the player explained. “No meets girls and they get attached, and then Zoe or the nanny has to set up playdates with the girl’s mom. Right now he’s going with a blonde a bit older than him. He likes her braids. They ride bikes together and play fetch with Higgins. Anyway, whenever he goes over to her house, the nanny- who is soooooooo hot by the way-“

“Okay you have a nanny fetish. Seriously. Stay away from the nannies. Are you sure Zoe keeps firing yours because they’re bad nannies, or is it just because you flirt with them?” Christina narrowed her eyes at him and then looked at André for support.

“No I don’t. So the hot nanny makes gluten-free pizza with carrot pepperoni. I don’t know what that is. I don’t know how you make carrot into pepperoni. Noah loves it though and every time Zoe asks him what he wants to eat he says Kat’s pizza. That’s the nanny, Kat. Kat told her she was giving the kids gluten-free pizza the first time Zoe took him there. Apparently most people clear the playdate menu with the other parents or nannies ahead of time? So Zoe started looking up gluten-free pizza when Noah kept saying he wanted Kat’s pizza, and instead of finding the ones that are still like bread, like this one, she found the cauliflower crust. We found out quickly that No’s stomach doesn’t like cauliflower,” Marco laughed. “It got so big. I was afraid it was going to explode. It was all gas. He couldn’t stop with the gas, and his stomach made so much noise, and he was crying because it was so bad. You know in Willy Wonka when the kid blows up into a grape? His stomach was like that. It was funny but disgusting, and I felt terrible for him. We don’t give him cooked cauliflower now. It seems okay if he has a few bites of the raw kind.”

“Poor kid. Lukas got Schü’s stomach. He can and will eat pretty much anything. I try to make new stuff for him and he eats it whether it’s good or not. I really want to do something special for his birthday but I don’t know what. I don’t know what kind of cake would delight a two-year old. I was thinking maybe like one hidden under a chocolate dome so I can use syrup to melt it? If you were two, would you be amazed by that?”

“I’m like 15-times his age and I’m amazed by it,” André piped up.

“Yeah but he’s more sophisticated than you, babe,” Christina teased. He didn’t appreciate it.

“I’m sure all he wants for his birthday is for you to actually be here to celebrate it with him instead of putting it off a week because of a horse show, again.” He kept his eyes on his food, but still caught the daggers Marco shot across the corner of the table at him.

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