cottoncandypink

Entry tags:

2018,
tess mercer

Tess

The door opens to Wilford's dressing room. The blue walls are decorated with framed vintage movie posters, opening up for a vanity that doesn't look like it's been used since Wilford moved into the building. Along the exterior brick wall is where Wilford's set up his office, with a few shelves and filing cabinets behind the massive desk. The other side of the room is more of a lounge, with a black leather sofa and matching chair, and a smudged up glass coffee table that shows evidence of small, sticky hands.

Wilford closes the door behind them, only to open it again to reveal the large closet where he keeps several other guns. He stores the rifle in with the rest, making sure the door is locked so the nosy little toddler can't find his way in.

Beyond the door leading to the hall, people are obviously coming and going. Someone's having a heated argument, but the soundproofing in the building is heavy enough that nothing specific can be made out.

Now that there's signal, Wilford pulls out his phone to check the traffic report. Wilford sighs. "Someone dropped a yacht on the beltway," he says.

His phone isn't buzzing with missed texts though, so he's hoping it happened after Andy got past that point.

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"I grew up in Louisiana. I loved living near the water."

These days she doesn't get to enjoy it as much, but so long as there aren't boats involved she has a blast when she does.

She furrows her brow, something finally sinking in.

"How do you drop a yacht on land?"

If challenged, she could probably find a way but she'll leave the explanation to him this time.

Wilford shrugs. "Probably stole some big helicopter from the base."

He says this as if people breaking into a military base and successfully stealing vehicles and getting away isn't a massive federal ordeal.

With everything shut down, he has just enough time to go get comfortable on the sofa before someone knocks on the door and lets themselves in. Andy gives Tess a brief glance, acknowledging that she's there and that he won't take up too much of her time as he brings Michael into the room. The backpack he sets down is old, with a certain 90s charm to it. Almost as if it's seen the 90s personally.

Michael looks around the room at Tess, eager to squirm out of Andy's grip and show the new stranger his Barbie.

"I think he's holding onto something from the trash," Andy says as he hands the kid over to Wilford.

"Is that what that is?" he asks. Well, it would explain why no amount of baths seems to get the kid smelling clean.

"I tried to coax it from him, but he's really holding onto it."

Great. Wilford puts the kid down, since he clearly does not went to be held. He immediately trots over to Tess.

"Thanks," Wilford says, not at all looking forward to finding out what Michael's hiding in his inventory now.

She watches them carefully. Body language and non verbal cues being so important. Andy seems hesitant, but that could just be her presence. Michael looks unusually happy.

Crouching down, she meets Michael at his level when the boy approaches her.

"Hi. What have you got there?"

While Andy and Wilford exchange noteworthy information, Michael shows her the doll. Someone has recently taken the time to braid her hair, probably to hide a recent impromptu haircut.

"Ba ba ba ba," he says, probably explaining something.

After a few more moments, Andy starts to leave. "Oh, the beltway's going crazy today. I'd avoid that."

"Yeah, I saw," Wilford says.

As soon as Andy's gone, Wilford grabs the trash can from behind his desk and moves it close to Tess.

"Take everything he gives you. It's his favourite game as long as you're not trying to get him to give it to you."

Kids do that with their toys. Alexander threw his in the fire. A haircut is hardly an issue.

"She's very pretty," she tells Michael. "Does she have a name?"

The trash can gets a raised eyebrow.

"Am I to throw them in there?"

"Only if it's gross," Wilford says, pretending he's not watching what's going on.

Michael keeps making the same 'ba ba ba' sound as he pulls out a spiky plastic dinosaur from his inventory and hands it to her.

"She doesn't want that," Wilford says.

The kid is stubborn as hell, and being told no only seems to make him want her to take it even more. This trickery may get more difficult if the kid ever starts to talk, but for now it's the best tool Wilford has.

"He's a child. Most of what they have is gross."

He's obviously a bright kid. He understands the concept of an inventory and how to use it. That's a huge step.

She takes the dinosaur and smiles genuinely. "Thank you."

"You'll know it when you see it."

Michael pulls out another dinosaur, this one with a long neck, and hands it to her, while Wilford continues to make noises of protest.

Apparently making Wilford grumpy is a fun game!

"I'm sure I will."

It is a fun game. and one that's not terribly difficult.

Tess makes dinosaur noises with the toys.

"Are they friends?"

"Ba ba ba ba ba," babbles Michael, handing her a potato.

It's squishy, and dripping.

Luckily, Wilford is close on hand with some wet wipes.

The wipes are appreciated and she takes one to clean her hands, but otherwise seems unaffected by it.

"I don't think dinosaurs ate potatoes."

Completely unfazed by this, Michael gives her a little plastic sofa. It's been coloured on with crayons.

For a second, Wilford almost has something to say about that, but he decides to leave it. He'll deal with disappearing crayons later, but not so much later that they appear on his walls first.

"Ba ba ba ba ba ba."

"Ba ba ba ba ba," she answers back, turning the sofa over in her hand. "Can you say ma ma ma ma? M-ah."

Wilford watches this whole exchange, curious to see how it plays out.

"Ba ba ba ba," Michael says.

He pulls out a handful of soggy, mouldy crackers. Before he can even hand it over, Wilford rushes in to get it into the trash, and to scrub Michael's hands with one of the wet wipes.

"The hell is wrong with you?" he asks.

Michael is torn between trying to flee, and cackling. Something about this situation is clearly hilarious.

"Yeah, real funny," Wilford agrees, finally letting him go. Gross. He tosses the wipe into the trash, and takes the whole thing out to the hall so it doesn't stink up his room.

"That should be the last of it. I don't think he has that much room."

She tries again. "M-ah, m-ah."

The rest she looks slightly amused at as well.

"You act like a mess is the worst thing in the world."

She understands not wanting to clean them up all the time, but it's to be expected.

The dinosaurs are held out to the boy and she makes more noises for them.

"Isn't it?" Wilford asks.

He's lived alone his entire life. No messes, no trouble, everything exactly where he wants it, as he wants it.

When Tess starts making noises, Michael forgets all about making Wilford grumpy.

"Ba ba ba ba!" he shouts back.

"That's all he says," Wilford says. "We've had a few flukes, but I think that's all it was."

He goes to pick up the backpack, to see what was packed along with the kid. It probably needs to be emptied out and thrown in the wash just for good measure.

"Of course not." Granted, Tess has done things like purposefully crash a plane and then clean it up afterward, so she takes the bad with the good.

"You need to reward the flukes and continue to speak to him normally. Teach him the proper words for things. Have you got him a speech therapist?"

She assumes yes, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

Wilford nods as he slings the bag over his shoulder. "Speech therapist, psychologist, general... whatever, ear specialist, and a dentist so far. That's how I found out they still had him using a bottle before I got him."

Even with Wilford's extremely limited experience with his friends' children, he knows that was all kinds of too late.

"He told Teja to fuck off once." Or something similar. 'Fuck' was definitely the key component to whatever Michael had said. Wilford was too busy laughing to even consider how to appropriately handle that.

"You ready, pipsqueak?" he says to Michael. "Get your friends. Let's go."

"Ba ba ba ba," says Michael as he starts carefully picking up his toys one by one and putting them back into his inventory.

She stands, lips pursed.

"Is he eating all right now?"

Then she smiles back down at Michael again.

"He knows what you're saying, at least. That's a good sign."

Wilford nods. "Those both took some work, but we got there."

When Michael's done packing away all his toys, he trots over to Wilford, only to shy away before he can be picked up. He deliberates very carefully on the situation at hand before deciding he'd rather go with Tess.

"He'll punch you in the face. Watch out," Wilford warns.

They've been working on that too, but apparently tiny minds can only handle learning so many new concepts at once.

"Then he's capable enough. He's a smart kid."

She holds out a hand to Michael, curious to see what he'll do.

"I've been punched in the face before, but the warning is appreciated."

Michael holds up both hands, waiting to be carried. He's probably a little old to still be carried everywhere, but it's more socially-acceptable than putting him on a leash.

"Yeah, everyone we've talked to so far says it's environmental. His shrink says he'll probably be behind for a while, but once he starts to catch up he should do it in a hurry."

If Wilford sounds a little relieved over that, it's because he is. There are enough psychological skeletons in his closet without adding more.

He barely makes it two steps out of his dressing room before getting an odd look from someone Tess may have seen around the bar. Wilford waves Nichola off, ignoring whatever she might be speculating right now.

Beyond Wilford's dressing room, the studio takes on a vastly different appearance. It's clear he's not in one of the main studios in town, but shunted off to one of the smaller ones reserved for lower-budget shows. The carpets are a mess, it's loud, and there are definitely some plastered-over bullet holes in one of the walls. His dressing room has only been kept nice because he's put effort into keeping it that way.

The boy is picked up with a little effort - she's out of practice - and they follow Wilford out into the rest of the studio.

It's not quite what she expected, but then this is the kind of place that likes to surprise.

"That's a promising prognosis." She boops Michael's nose. "See? Just keep working hard and you'll be fine."

Michael boops back. With the spiky dinosaur.

"Put it away, or I will," Wilford warns, not even in the mood for this game right now.

Michael holds the dinosaur to his chest, but doesn't put it away.

"Give it to me."

The dinosaur disappears. He's not in the mood for this game either, but it's also a game he never wins, so he moves on.

It's a quick walk out to the parking lot. The weather would almost be pleasant — sunny and warm — if not for the fires of Mt Doom raging off in the distance and filling the already smog-choked air with smoke. He leads the way to a big, black luxury sedan out in the parking lot. Like most of the cars in town, it shows evidence of traffic battles, but nothing he's felt worth taking it into the shop over. He unlocks it and tosses the bag into the back seat.

While the front of the car is just as clean and tidy as his dressing room was, the back... well, the back is obviously used to transport dogs and a small child. Nothing's been trashed, necessarily, but it sure isn't clean.

"We should just miss the dinner rush if nobody's messing around on the highway," he says, taking Michael to strap him into his seat in the back.

Tess sighs, an indication that Wilford could have left well enough alone. Being booped by a child's dinosaur toy is the least of her many and varied injuries.

The smoke and smog is unexpected and she coughs a few times, waving her hand at the air around her. She's grateful to be ending up in a sedan, child and dog mess be damned. Her clothes will dryclean.

"Where are we headed to?"

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