The Perk; Saturday Evening.

[ecirpnellehada.livejournal.com]

After quite possibly the quietest dinner ever, two dark haired, pale eyed women sat at a table in the Perk. Both dipped their teabags into the steaming water the same way, except that one of them dropped it with her left, the other with her right. If it weren't for the could of age hovering of the right handed one, or the significant slump of the southpaw, they could practically have been twins. But, no; the timing was wrong, and the slumped one already had a twin, the reason for the slump, or so they thought, but Adah liked to think she'd know if something happened to Leah, in the dual nature of the condition of their coming into the world, something shared beyond chromosomes and birthdays. Orleanna dipped her teabag again. Once. Twice...up to four times, one for each daughter. They were so quiet, but the silence was typical. A relief for one, a standard for the other.

And then Orleanna's eyes grew wider as she glanced through the large pane of glass beside them.



Adah noticed the shift, but barely had time to give her mother a questioning look before Orleanna was moving. "Come on." What choice did Adah have but to pick up her notebook, her tea, and follow the older woman booking it toward the back of the coffeeshop? However, it wasn't an easy adjustment for Adah at all, so she made sure to give Orleanna an expression demanding an explanation as compensation. When Orleanna did look back, like Lot, she caught it, and, thankfully (or regrettably, depending on your angle and angle was everything), Adah did not turn into a pillar of salt. Or, from Orleanna's mind's eye, which was on the Greeks, the nymphs and the satyrs, she was not dragged back into the deep depths of the underworld.

No, Adah was still there, following, flesh and bone, so Orleanna owed her that explanation. Her eyes settled calculatingly on her daughter for a moment before they went past her, through the window, at a man passing by, outside on the street.

"Just an indiscretion, sugar," she said and promptly took her new, hidden seat. "That's all."

The quiet, like them, had shifted. Adah blinked in surprise at her mother, falling into a new chair; Orleanna, ignoring her daughter, just sipped her tea. Finally, possibly as sick of second guesses and speculations as she was (a bit) to her stomach, Adah was forced to her notebook, writing, importantly and insistently, "What do you mean, indiscretion?"

Adah didn't need a straight answer, it seemed. Orleana's hesitation and the dart of her eyes said everything well enough. Adah felt the muscles in her jaw go slack, causing her lips to gape, catching flies.

"Don't give me that look," Orleanna spoke now into her tea.

But what a thing to ask! She might as well have told electrons to stop being negatively charged, viruses to stop adapting! The look remained.

And then, what exactly could Orleanna say, as well? Ask for Adah not to pass her judgment? Of all of Orleanna's living ghosts, Adah was the one who could pass judgement, had real reason and never did. Pale face, Orleanna forced out words. "You wouldn't understand."

"What's not to understand?" Adah wrote back quickly.

Orleanna hated to have to play these sorts of games with her daughter, but she could see the game already in Adah's eyes. "From what I've heard so far in my stay, Adah," Orleanna tried to speak calmly, "I really don't think you should be judging me for moral slips."

"At least I make my moral slips worth the fire and brimstone."

"Oh, Adah, you're seventeen! What would you know about any of this?"

"More than you'd expect. Mother, we don't even know if he's alive or not..."

"Adah!"

"You're married, still."

"Adah, please. If you had any idea what it's been like for me, being married to a man like that..."

"I wouldn't be stupid enough to marry a man like that ever."

And that just drove the nail home, didn't it? Orleanna stared at her daughter's heavy, accusing gaze, the judgment, finally, not on her, but on Nathan, and the fact that she did nothing. Nothing at all. The moment hurt, at first, hard and deep like rusted nails and then, quickly, it turned. It turned into anger. Undeserved anger, she knew, but she couldn't help it. "Adah Ellen Price, I will not have you speak ill of him. Like him or not, he is still your father."

"As he is still your husband."

Orleanna's hand slapped on the table, instead of slapping across Adah's face like it wanted to. She'd never be able to lash out at them, and the jolt through Adah's body, the shiver, the uncontrollable result of the excitement firing up her faulty nerves made Orleanna shutter herself. "I...I'm sorry, Adah. We'll..Tomorrow. Before I leave. But I just..."

Their relationship now had been built on silence so Orleanna decided to leave it as such, stopping her words and drawing a deep breath. Adah would understand. Without another word, she gathered her things and left.



Adah was left staring, blinking at the wall in utter confusion. Of course she knew what had just happened. It was just a matter of understanding it as well.

[[ open for all your perkly needs, although Adah's the only one there now. certain focal gentleman modded briefly with permission. Up late because I have evil work. ]]