#bee teller

[marigoldscreativeprocess]

about miranda (3/?)

Miranda was a comparison point for everything that Cassie did. Miranda would have done it like this, Miranda would have done it like that, say what you will about Miranda but at least she didn’t do it like you. It would have been really, really easy to hate Miranda, who looked spotlessly beautiful in every framed photo, and whose trophies and awards took up so much space in the house that there just wasn’t room for anything of Cassie’s on display, but by the time she was fourteen years old, Cassie had noticed what her parents didn’t ever draw attention to: Miranda didn’t call.

Her parents obfuscated this fact with a kind of helpless mania, turning the house into a Miranda Shrine—mostly just stuff from high school, because Miranda wasn’t really active on social media, and the boring accounting work she did wasn’t exactly the kind of thing they could frame in the same way they could all of those Best In Class certificates. Miranda came for holidays every so often, never regularly, always with the attitude of one going into a war zone, and met the adoring fussing of her parents with a furious coldness that made it impossible for Cassie not to love her. 

She always had time for Cassie, though, whenever she was there. She didn’t give Cassie a lot about her life, always brushing off Cassie’s questions with something like you don’t want to hear about numbers. She would look at Cassie’s sketchbooks, running her fingers along the colors and the curving lines with a delicate reverence, and she would listen to all of Cassie’s petty little grade-school dramas, and there would be something like a smile in her eyes for Cassie. 

Which was why—

Cassie hefted the suitcase off of the bus, stumbling a little on the wet pavement and only barely managing to keep her balance. Her heart was slamming in her chest, an awful, resonant drumbeat that dizzied her almost as much as the weight of the suitcase. 

Everything around her felt a little surreal—the gray skies, the indecisive rain, the unfamiliar street. She wasn’t the kind of person who did things like this. She was the kind of person who, in moments of apocalyptic teenage sadness, curled up in her bed and obsessively watched sitcoms on her phone until her eyes blurred with tears. The fact that she had gotten this far without anyone stopping her felt as though she had to be dreaming. This wasn’t the sensible thing to do.

Miranda was sensible. Miranda, Cassie thought, would come up with something to do about this, even if it was just putting her on a bus and sending her right back to their parents. She wanted someone to see her, if only for just a moment, and maybe Miranda would.

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Miranda’s apartment building was small and dingy—nothing like the big-city glitz that Cassie had always imagined for her—but the door to her apartment looked like it had been hit with a power washer, which made Cassie pretty certain that she was in the right place. She rapped on the immaculate wood and waited.

Miranda opened the door. She took in Cassie, then the suitcase, all with that flat, blank expression that never seemed to change into anything that anyone could reasonably understand. Then, as easily as if she’d been anticipating Cassie’s arrival this whole time, she stepped aside, clearing a path for Cassie into the apartment.

Cassie hadn’t been expecting this. Her parents—their parents—were both very critical and very opinionated people. She hovered nervously in the doorway, waiting for Miranda to say something else.

“The forecast says that it’s going to rain in exactly eleven minutes,” said Miranda. “It’s not going to be cold, but it’s going to be damp, and you’re wearing short sleeves. That’s a nice shirt,” she added thoughtfully, almost smiling, and walked farther into the apartment.

That was a fair point. Cassie followed Miranda inside, only barely remembering to shut the door after her. She set down her suitcase in the front hall—

“Shoes off,” Miranda called from the kitchen.

Cassie took her shoes off. She felt disoriented, joyful, unsettled, like she’d tumbled unexpectedly down a soft, grassy hill into—well, into a frighteningly monochromatic apartment, all of it scrubbed down just as obsessively as the front door had been. The furniture was modern, sterile, devoid of personality. She sat down on a chair that was all angles and tried to find a comfortable position.

“Oh, it’s not designed to be fun to sit in,” said Miranda, still in that blank tone of voice. “Try the sofa. It’s moderately better. I don’t have visitors, usually, but we’ll do what we can.”

Cassie had no idea how to start this conversation. She decided to go with the simplest question she could think of. “Do you—I mean—do you know why I’m here?”

Miranda looked up at her with a startlingly intense expression. “Our parents are nightmares,” she said.

“...Yeah,” said Cassie.

“You don’t want to go back there.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I…”

“I don’t know if I’m much of an improvement, honestly,” said Miranda. “Obviously, I’m going to have to call them and talk to them about this, if only to make sure the authorities don’t get involved when they realize you’re in another state. I suspect that telling them outright what I think of them won’t help remove you from their custody, but framing it as though I see you as an unwanted imposition—it would have worked in high school; they would have insisted that we bond, and they would have all but shoved you into my custody. Yet now it seems that all they wish to do is appease me.” Her brow furrowed. “This is an interesting problem.”

“You have to be better than them,” said Cassie, her voice breaking a little. “You wouldn’t be living stupid far away and never calling if you didn’t know—what it’s like.”

Miranda’s mouth trembled. “I’ve had time to think about it,” she said. “I don’t like leaving you there, but at the time, I didn’t know what else I could have done. And I couldn’t…I do mean it when I say I don’t know if I’m much of an improvement.”

“I mean it when I say you have to be better than them.”

“A rabid wolverine would be better than them, Cassandra,” said Miranda. “Raising yourself would be better than them. Saying that I am a better option than our parents means literally nothing. You—”

Her mouth twisted, and she didn’t finish the sentence. 

“I will find you an improvement,” she said instead. “Something not just better but good.”

“You’re good,” said Cassie immediately.

Miranda made a strange little noise and stood up very quickly.

“I’m going to order takeout,” she said. “That’s what teenagers like, yes? All my available data suggests that teenagers like takeout. I don’t have any food appropriate for guests, so takeout is a good option for this reason as well.”

“You’re such a robot,” said Cassie, punchy from the long trip and an absurd, unfamiliar feeling of relieved safety. “Beep boop.”

Miranda’s lips twitched into another almost-smile. She stared intently at Cassie. “I’m not a kind person,” she said.

“Okay, well, whatever,” said Cassie. “Are you going to tell me that I suck and my art career’s never going to go anywhere?”

“You don’t, and it will, so, no,” said Miranda.

“Cool,” said Cassie. “Then I’m staying. If—” She hesitated. “Or do you not want me here?”

Miranda blinked a few times and appeared to seriously consider the question. Finally, slowly, she said, “You are the only family I find worthwhile. I would not…like that…to change, over the course of however long we live together. There is no guarantee—”

Experimentally, Cassie asked, “So you think you’ll get tired of me?”

“Never,” said Miranda, very sharply.

Cassie felt that wonderful safety again—like she was a weighted blanket, heavy and soft. “Then I’m staying.”

Miranda stared at her for another long moment, then turned on her heel and retreated into the kitchen, punching some numbers into her phone. 

The apartment wasn’t all that big. Cassie could hear what she was saying.

“Mother? Yes. I—” A long, put-upon silence. “Yes. Fine.” Another silence. “Fine.” A slightly shorter pause. “I’m occupied with more pressing matters than that. I realize—” a strange, hitching breath that didn’t sound like Miranda at all, “—that is, I know it’s been difficult for you, both of you, raising such a distant and indifferent daughter. I wondered if—no, there’s no need to apologize. You were justified in expressing your frustration.”

Which was pretty much exactly what Cassie had always suspected. Their parents sucked.

“I only wondered if I could pay you back.” A terse exhalation—Miranda’s version of a laugh. “No, not financially. Cassie arrived here in a fit of teenage pique.”

The words might have stung if Cassie didn’t see the utility of them—the threads behind them—the story Miranda was putting together.

“I was struck, upon speaking to her, with the difficulties that the two of you must be facing in managing such a headstrong, tiresome teenage girl.”

Now the words didn’t sting at all. Cassie knew that that had been for her benefit. 

“I thought it might be a useful way to show my appreciation—” A pause, tense and hopeful. “Yes. No. I—I understand. Of course that is also—Mother, may I be frank? In speaking to Cassie, it’s become clear that you and Father must need some sort of break from her. I simply don’t think it’s in your or her best interests if she is sent back to you and subsequently returns to her old patterns of behavior. As is well documented, I set rigorous yet reasonable expectations; I will not brook foolishness, and I have the advantage of unfamiliarity—she will want to impress me. At the very least, I can take her in for the summer.”

Another silence.

“Yes. Yes, and we’ll—we’ll see how the summer goes. Yes, of course.” A strained pause. “I—l-love you too, Mother,” Miranda forced out, which wasn’t something Cassie had ever heard her say. “Goodbye.”

She came back into the living room, a little flushed, and said without preamble, “I’m sure you heard all of that, and I’d like to clarify, Cassandra—”

“Oh, it’s fine,” said Cassie. “They’re evil. Fight evil with evil.”

Miranda did another round of stunned blinking, then sat down on the couch next to Cassie and smoothed down her hair for a good handful of seconds. Finally, briskly, she said, “I want to see your sketchbook.”

“I love you,” said Cassie. “You know that, right?”

“Please withhold all expressions of perceived sentiment until you have spent ample enough amounts of time with me to form a more three-dimensional image of me in your mind,” said Miranda.

“So that’s a no,” said Cassie brightly.

Miranda sighed through her teeth. Cassie got the sense that, if she wasn’t Miranda, she would have rolled her eyes.

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beemblebu: you’re kidding

beemblebu: just like that?

cassowary: JUST LIKE THAT

beemblebu: goddddd why isnt MYYYY family like that

beemblebu: my older sister’s in detroit and if i showed up at her place she’d kill me

beemblebu: and then she’d like.

beemblebu: bring me back to life and send me back to mom so mom could kill me again

cassowary: literallyyyyyyy

cassowary: craziest thing

cassowary: the whole time she’s going “i’m a terrible option, i’m going to suck at this”

cassowary: WHILE SHES LIKE. ORDERING TAKEOUT

cassowary: and then she fully just let me eat as much takeout as i wanted and left me alone for the rest of the night

cassowary: how is that sucking at this. That’s called being a perfect parent

[wizardissues]

decided by accident to spend today working on the mermaid novel and then making picrews. so here’s the most important people ever

[wizardissues]

worked more on the novel today, realized i have a very new and specific vision for certain characters, & subsequently got home and had to make the girls in the sims...

[wizardissues]

🍏🍐🥝 - x

thank youuu darling i will do bee this time!!

🍏 [GREEN APPLE] How do they differ from the norm and how are they punished for it?

bee is actually Aggressively Normal, but in the face of her older sister’s incredible achievements and her younger sister’s status as the baby, this means that her mom and her sister come down on her pretty hard for not being Interesting or Intelligent. she gets written off as the “ditz cheerleader” a lot and she is very deeply hurt by it.

🍐 [PEAR] What is their current social standing? If they could change it, would they, and to what?

bee is pretty popular at school! she socializes with the larger student body on occasion, but she honestly prefers just hanging out with cassie. she wouldn’t change any of it for the world :) she’s perfectly happy with things exactly as they are and this will totally never ever cause any problems

🥝 [KIWI FRUIT] How does their outside appearance differ from who they are?

bee is very conscious of the way she presents herself and leans into ditzy femininity as armor, which she can get away with pretty easily as an adorable blonde white girl. she is a little more selfish than she cares to admit, and not quite as in tune with other people’s feelings as she realizes. also she can and will bite people and she is deeply deeply obsessed with supernatural. little feral terminally online child masquerading as Garden Variety Cheerleader #4