Okay, here's part two of Chapter 9. I know it's pretty much all dialogue, but there's no other way to do it. And I was just so rushed, I needed to finish this and get it out, because it's driving me insane. So please don't mention that in your reviews. I am already aware of it.
That being said, I hope you enjoy this chapter. Or this part of a chapter. Whatever.
Mandy slowly made her way to the table and took the empty chair next to Allison. Nobody had been expecting this. Cameron and Chase had hoped, but they all knew that as soon as Virginia Meyer saw her youngest daughter, the one she ignored, standing in the kitchen doorway, she was going to flip.
But she didn't. She'd calmly asked if Mandy would be joining them. It was a shock to everyone, including her husband.
Richard set his wine glass down and turned his attention to the free-spirited blonde on his right. "Would you like some peas, dear?"
Mandy gave her father a small smile and took the bowl he was offering. Cameron followed, picking up another bowl, and passing it around the table.
Once they had all settled in with their meals, Virginia spoke again. "So, Robert, tell me about yourself."
Cameron and Chase exchanged a glance.Well, that was what they'd wanted, right? The attention off Mandy. But now that they were here, neither of them were exactly anxious to talk about him or their relationship with her parents.
"Uh, well, there's not much to tell," Chase began.
"How did you meet my daughter?" Virginia prompted.
Cameron stole a look at Chase. Although Allison was her mother's favourite, she knew the older woman wouldn't like the fact that her daughter was dating a coworker, and she didn't want to be the cause of an argument, so she and Chase had previously come up with a "parental approved" story of how they got together. But she didn't need to worry, Chase knew what he was doing.
"Well, I'm an Intensive Care specialist, and we met at a conference," he lied to her mother.
Mrs. Meyer seemed to buy it so far, and motioned for him to continue. "So which hospital do you work at?"
"Princeton General." It came out sounding so natural Cameron almost believed him herself.
"So you've been working so close to each other and you didn't meet until a conference?"
Chase gave her his best "parent smile" and said, "Yeah, funny world we live in, isn't it?"
Throughout the meal Mandy stayed quiet. She was grateful her mom hadn't freaked out when she saw her there, but the fact that she hadn't freaked out also scared her. It gave her a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach, like this was the calm before the storm.
40 excruciating minutes later, the dinner party of five were still in the same spots, still eating and conversing together. But just like Mandy predicted, all good things come to an end.
"So, Amanda, what are you up to these days?"
Everyone froze. Virginia hadn't addressed her youngest daughter at all except when she asked if Mandy would be joining them.
Mandy didn't look at her mother. "Uh, well, I..."
"Are you still with that boyfriend of yours? Mr. Grease Monkey?"
Now all four heads turned the other direction, towards the place the sound had come from, Mandy and Allison's father.
Richard had been quiet and let his wife interrogate their oldest daughter's boyfriend, but when it came to their youngest, he couldn't restrain himself anymore, he had to get a word in. Mandy had been his little girl. He loved Allison of course, but Mandy was the younger one, and she looked more like him, so he'd been very fond of her. When she'd stopped speaking to them six years ago it had broken his heart. He just wished more than anything in the world that Mandy could settle down and be responsible. He hated seeing her act the way she did.
Allison grabbed her sister's hand under the table and squeezed it, which seemed to help Mandy bite back the comment she'd wanted to use as a reply to the question.
Instead, she took a breath, met her father's eyes, and said, "No, Dad, we're not together anymore."
Richard grunted something that sounded like approval. Mandy, Cameron, and Chase breathed a sigh of relief.
"But I assume you found twenty more to replace him."
Just when they thought they'd been in the clear, Virginia couldn't help herself, and then all hell broke loose.
No amount of warnings from her sister could stop Mandy's outburst at this. "I knew it! I knew that sincere thing was an act!"
"Mandy-" Cameron started, but was cut off.
"Well it's true, isn't it?" Virginia shot back.
"No, mother, it's not true! Why do you ALWAYS have to think the worst of me?"
Virginia gave a bewildered laugh. "Well, if you have to ask-"
"Ginny," Richard jumped in again. "The girl said she's not sleeping around, just let it go."
Mrs. Meyer looked at her husband in shock. "Are you taking her side?"
He rolled his eyes. "Oh for Christ's sake, this isn't about sides!"
"Well, I think that's debatable. Mandy won't see reason, so it's us against her."
"Oh come on, this didn't have to be war, YOU chose to make it that way!" the furious blonde blurted out.
Since the arugment began, Chase had taken an immense interest in his food. He wasn't going to put himself in the middle of this. He wanted to help Cameron out, but apparently she'd been right, him as a distraction would only work for so long.
Across the table from him, Cameron had her eyes closed, like she was wishing this all to go away. He hated that she had to go through this, wished there was something more he could do.
"AND you put your sister in a terrible position, to choose, between her sister and her parents. Only an extremely selfish person would do that, Amanda."
At this Cameron looked up. She hated when she was dragged into their fights, but it happened more often than she wished to admit. Of course, that didn't keep her from trying to stay out of it.
"Oh really? Well, Allie doesn't seem to have a problem with it! She talks to me and to you guys, no choice needs to be made!"
Virginia stopped for a second and looked at Allison. "Exactly how often do you talk to your sister, Allison?"
Cameron bit her lip. She didn't want to do this, she really didn't, but what other choice did she have?
"Well, mom..."
"She's even letting me stay here!"
Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. Mandy didn't mean to blurt that out, it just happened, she wasn't thinking.
Cameron looked horrified, staring at her sister with a look of confusion mixed with disbelief.
"She's doing what?!"
Cameron's mind was racing. Damage control. She needed to do damage control.
"Okay, Mom, see, what happened was-"
"I don't care what happened, Allison! How could you do this? I thought we agreed we needed a united front if we were ever going to straighten your sister out."
"We did, but-"
"Wait, you what?!" Mandy jumped in. "Were you conspiring with them against me?"
Crap. Crap crap crap crap crap. "I can explain..." Cameron started, although she wasn't sure who she was addressing with that, her mother or her sister.
At this point Richard spoke again, and not a moment too soon as far as the older Meyer sister was concerned. "Mandy, don't be angry at your sister. She was just trying to help you, and us. It's a tough position to be in."
Chase silently wondered how it was possible for a level headed man like Cameron's father to be married to a complete paranoid basket case like her mother. The thought was kind of amusing, but he was careful not to smile, not now.
The fighting had stopped for a second as Mandy took a breath. "You know what Dad? You're right." She turned to her sister. "I'm sorry Al, I shouldn't let Mom tear us apart, it's exactly what she wants." She turned to her mother. "And I'm not going to let her win."
"So it looks like I'm not the only one drawing the line of scrimmage."
Did her mother just use a sports metaphor? This was getting too much for Chase to take...
Mandy shook her head. "It doesn't matter what I say to you, does it, Mom? You're never going to believe it if I do something right. I'll bet the fact that I got a job means nothing to you."
Allison suddenly pulled her head up and looked at her mother. "That's true actually, Mom. She got a job. She's turning her life around."
Virginia scoffed. "You? You got a job? Is it legal?"
"See!" Mandy's cheeks were now flushed. She was breathing hard, but she didn't care. "None of it matters. You're such a hypocrite. I'm sorry Allie, but I can't do this anymore."
With that Mandy pushed her chair back with such force that she knocked it over, and then bolted from the kitchen. A few seconds later the slam of the front door could be heard. Cameron jumped.
Nobody spoke for a full sixty seconds. It was Richard that finally broke the silence.
"Well, I think it's best if we get going, Allison."
Cameron tried to hide her relief. "Yeah, alright."
She and Chase stood and walked her parents to the front door that Mandy had dramatically exited through a few minutes before. Richard reached out to hug his daughter. Cameron clung to him as tightly as she had when she was a child and had just had a nightmare.
Virginia and Allison didn't huge. All she got from her mother was a "Goodbye dear." And the two were out the door.
Mandy finally stopped running once she was safely onto the sidewalk outside the apartment building.
She had to push the thoughts out of her mind. She grabbed her cell phone out of her pocket and flipped it open.
After the fifth ring, she heard a click and then deep breathing came over the line. Before the receiver could get a word in, she jumped straight to her reason for calling.
"Meet me for drinks."
"Mandy? Is that you?"
"Just be there."
House walked into the same bar he'd met Cameron's sister at the first night. He spotted her immediately near the end of the bar. She was hunched over her drink, like she was trying to figure out a way to disappear inside it. Now House was interested. When she'd called twenty minutes ago, he'd figured something was up, but he hadn't given it much thought at the time. As he approached her now, he thought back to the last time he'd met her when she was upset, and he noted that it was a different kind of upset this time. Before, it had been an angry upset, now it was a defeated upset.
"You better have a good reason for dragging me out at this hour."
She didn't look up from her drink, and so he settled himself and ordered a Whiskey.
They sat in silence for five whole minutes. Occasionally House reached for a peanut.
"You gonna tell me what happened?"
At this Mandy finally looked up at him.
"Tell me something, Mouse."
"Brazil is the only country named after a tree."
She didn't laugh, he didn't even get a smile.
"No, tell me something about your parents."
House choked on his Whiskey. "Do I have to?"
Mandy just nodded knowingly. "No, you don't."
House looked at her for a moment, studying her. Trying to find the reason for the late night phone call. He couldn't. Just like her sister, this girl was still a bit of a mystery to him.
"What happened?"
She looked back at him. "Do I have to tell you?"
"Yes," he answered. Mandy was shocked for a minute, but then she sighed. House wasn't the type of guy to let you just sit there and not talk about it. He wanted to know. She knew that when she called him.
"My parents are in town."
"Ouch," he replied instantly.
That at least got a smile. "Yeah. And I'm their greatest disappointment, so the reunion didn't go well."
House didn't say anything. Neither did Mandy. They sat and they draink, in silence. A mutual understanding, it seemed.
"Gin."
House grunted and threw his cards down on the table. "Fix."
Mandy laughed. "Yeah, that got old after the third hand."
House reached across the coffee table to grab his Vicodin bottle. He popped a few and then realized she was looking at him.
"What?"
Mandy shook her head, as if coming out of a reverie. "Nothing, just...Thanks, Mouse."
House cocked an eyebrow. "For what?"
"For this."
"I didn't do anything. Except let you win."
"Right, sure thing Mouse."
Cameron and Chase flopped down on her bed, totally and completely drained.
"Well, at least there's one good sign."
Chase looked over at her. "What's that?"
"You're still here," she smiled back. "My disasterous excuse for a family didn't scare you off."
Chase snaked an arm around her middle and tugged her towards him. "Honey, wild horses couldn't scare me off."
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