Adult-FanFiction.org : Celebrity

As the Seasons Grey	By : christinecornell Category: Celebrities - Misc > AU - Alternate Universe Views: 150 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: Started life as kinky Christmas-related short stories in 2022 and took on a life of its own shortly thereafter. 100 fiction, none of this is real, and I own nothing except for the character of Christine.

Chapter List
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She promised to keep the entire situation under wraps for the rest of the day, although she knew the woman at the counter had seen it go down as well. But there were some things that needed the safety of a journal rather than another person who could very easily leak the extra juicy details to another person and thus was a game of gossip that Christine never wanted in the first place. But then again, the woman at the counter knew about the two of them, and she knew all who frequented the cafeteria as well. Once Alex had finished his lunch and bode her farewell for the time being, and he was out of her sight, Christine ducked over to the side of the counter to meet up with her and the look of concern upon her face. She leaned over the surface, and Christine did as well.
“I’m off in five,” she said in a low voice. “Do you have anything next?”
“I have history next,” Christine replied. “I got out of ceramics early so I have about thirty minutes before I have to go.”
“Okay. Um…” She peered over her shoulder to the rest of the kitchen, and then she returned to her. “Let’s see, it’s raining at the moment. We can’t go outside for privacy.”
“I have an umbrella,” Christine said, and she showed it to her.
“I take that back then. Wait here for me until I clock out.” She nodded at her, and then she headed back into the kitchen to take one final order before her shift was over. Christine lingered off to the side of the short corridor next to the kitchen so she remained out of sight. No way would Alex come back in for something, but nevertheless, she couldn’t be too cautious with it.
Within a few minutes’ time, the woman untied her apron and hung it up on the rung next to the door, and she signed her name on the binder at the table there. She put her jacket on and sling her purse over her shoulder, and she joined Christine at the doorway.
“Okay, let’s walk and talk,” she quipped, and the two of them made their way outside to the narrow street between the cafeteria and the main building there. Rain fell in thick sheets, and Christine shivered from the cool breeze around them, even with her long green coat around her body and even with the umbrella over their heads. She thought about the deep chill that Eric had talked about the day before, and she wondered if he was still feeling that way at that very moment with all the rain around them.
“So, start from the beginning,” the woman coaxed her.
“Well, to be perfectly honest, I can’t really share everything because I’m sort of sworn to secrecy,” Christine began, to which she shrugged and shook her head.
“That’s completely understandable,” she assured her.
“But basically, it looks like an ‘other woman’ situation—me being the other woman. I also said ‘looks like’, too.”
The woman paused for a moment. “You don’t think he’s using you at all?” she asked Christine.
“Nah. I feel like that’d be something I would know, too—something I would sense, like a bad premonition or something…” She then raised her attention to that woman next to her, with her fuzzy mop of soft blonde hair and smooth skin, smooth despite working in a kitchen and around hot oils.
“I didn’t catch your name, by the way,” Christine told her.
“Vanessa,” she replied. “Everyone calls me Nelly, though.”
“Nelly! Yeah, I don’t think he’s using me. He’s too up front with everything, and when his phone lit up, he had this look on his face like he was dreading something. I know that look.”
“Yeah, I know that look, too. It’s the look you make when you’re getting sent down to the principal’s office, that sort of thing.”
“And I could tell that something was troubling him, too. There was something off about the whole thing, and—when we had lunch the day before, he was really chatty and friendly with me. Today, he was almost completely silent, as if I had said something offensive to him.”
“Or spooked him,” Nelly suggested as she stepped over a small puddle in the sidewalk. “When he walked out of there, he looked as though something just completely shook him down to the core. The look you make when you’re going to the principal’s office, and looking like you just did something you weren’t supposed to do, either.” Her voice trailed off as they reached the corner at the end of the street, and they looked around together.
“Which way?” Christine asked her.
“How ‘bout this way—” Nelly pointed to the left, and they crossed the wet blacktop to the sidewalk that snaked around the building on the other side there. Christine adjusted the umbrella over their heads as they reached the curb on the other side there.
“I mean, it’s not like we kissed or anything, either,” she added. “We had lunch twice. I paid for both times, too. A nice time together does not quantify a date.”
“He sure does like to flirt with you, too,” Nelly pointed out. “Really, I can see it from across the room: he flirts with you big time.”
“The three girls who sit behind me in Mr. Hansen’s class—where I initially met him—all say the same thing,” Christine recalled. “I don’t know how much truth there is to it, though, and the way they said it was kinda… gossipy, too.”
“Oh, that always bugs me,” Nelly said with a shake of her head. “Although, in my experience, there could in fact be some truth to it. And you’re completely right about it not equating to a date, either—by that standard, this right here should be a date.”
“Two people chilling together on a walk through the rain,” Christine followed along.
“Exactly!” She chuckled at that. They were silent for a moment, with only the sound of the rain on the pavement all around them, and then Nelly spoke again.
“Who are the three girls who sit behind you, by the way?”
“There’s actually four of them—three right behind me, and a redhead right behind them. The one girl’s name is Colette, and I think I caught the redhead’s name, but I can’t remember. Aside from the sort of gossipy remark, they’re all actually pretty nice.”
“Well, don’t let that fool you, though, dear Chris—can I call you Chris?”
“Sure.”
“Don’t let that fool you,” Nelly advised her. “Just because they’re nice to you doesn’t mean they actually are. Colette sounds familiar, like I’ve heard her name mentioned in passing before, but I’m sort of drawing a blank on her, though—even with my knowing everyone here.”
“I haven’t really paid much attention to them before, so it could be nothing more than my own imagination talking here.”
“What’s your story, by the way?” she asked her.
“My story?”
“Yeah. Why does your mind slip up so much? Even for an intelligent person like yourself?”
“Let’s just say that I have had my share of problems in the past,” Christine told her with a straight face. “Parents divorced when I was seventeen, and I struggled with anorexia and anxiety for years.”
“Wow.”
“I feel it creep in when I least expect it, too,” she continued, “because it’s sort of like addiction or alcoholism in that I can only control it and the fact it wants me to be perfect all the time rather than let it control me. It’s just instead of drinking or putting something awful in my body, I’m hyper aware of everything, and sometimes my mind can slip. It affects me in everything I do, be it with my own schoolwork or talking to a guy that I like. I mean, I know Alex is older than me, but I can’t help but like him, though.”
“And he feels the same way,” Nelly assured her. “Even with the undeniable fact that he is dating another woman.”
“I don’t know, Nelly, this whole thing confuses me. I feel like he likes me, but there’s just something wrong about it, though.” Christine fetched up a sigh and tucked her free hand into her pocket: the rain pattered all around them, some of which flooded right into the storm drain down below their feet. “If only there was a way to confirm it.”
They fell into another bout of silence, and at one point, Nelly peered up to the gray, weeping sky as well as the series of low buildings all around them. Christine bowed her head a bit as if to protect her head and face from the rain, even though they were completely dry under her umbrella. There had to be a better way of figuring out how to prove that Alex did like her, and something that didn’t just involve asking him. She thought about simply asking him, but then again, she wondered if she could find what she was looking for with him by doing that.
“Tell you what,” Nelly began. “How about—you try to pay for your lunch a third time around and I refuse it, but you have him insist on it in spite of his financial troubles. Make him feel important no matter what his situation is. Guys like feeling important—I’ve seen a few guys at this school who get food with their girlfriends and when she pays for it, he looks like he could go absolutely bonkers. But when she tells him to pay for it, he gets this little twinkle in his eye.”
“So, tap into what makes him a guy, is what you’re saying,” Christine said.
“Exactly! Make him feel like he’s happy to help you, especially after today.” Nelly then turned her attention back to Christine. “Did you see what the woman’s name was?”
“No, I didn’t. It was something odd, though. Kind of foreign, but it’s hard to say, though. I just remember looking at it and thinking, ‘who the hell is this now?’ And I thought Alex was going to curl up into himself like a hedgehog upon sight of her.”
“If nothing else, we can send her down to my house in Jersey and I can show her a good time.”
Christine snorted at that, and they reached the next corner of the street before them.
“Another left turn and make a loop around the main building here?” Nelly offered her.
“Might as well,” Christine said with a drumming of her fingers on the handle of the umbrella. They rounded the corner and made their way down the sidewalk to the main street before the face of the main school building. Nelly glanced at her watch and shivered.
“How much time?” Christine asked her.
“You’ve got about ten minutes. I was hoping we’d wrap it up soon enough, anyway.”
“Yeah, my feet are starting to get wet,” Christine admitted, and she glanced down at the speckling of water on the hems of her jeans.
“You better keep an eye out for those four girls, too,” Nelly added. “Like I said, they seem to be drawn to situations like you and him, like moths to a flame.”
“Should I watch out for her name as well?”
“Absolutely. Ab-so-lutely. I mean, what other choice do you have, Chris?”
“By the way, I think it’s interesting that you go by Nelly and not Nessie.” Christine showed her a smile at that.
“Nessie implies that I’m a monster,” she explained. “Not something you want to be known by with incoming students. I get to know every single student here, too, so when the newbies come in, they know me as Lunchlady Nelly.”
“True. But Nelly implies that your name is Ellen, though. I just find that interesting.”
“Do people actually call you Chris?”
“Not really,” she replied. “I’d like to be called that more, though. But everyone just insists on calling me by my full name of Christine. Christine Elizabeth Peck.”
“My mom’s name is Elizabeth,” Nelly told her.
“Really?”
“Yeah.” She showed her a thoughtful smile.
“Do people call her Lizzy or Ellie?”
“People call her Beth, believe it or not. My dad calls her Lounge Lizard, though—the only person who can call her that, too.”
Christine gazed up to the windows over their heads, and she thought about Alex back there in the cafeteria. Somewhere out there, on the campus, he walked about by himself with a cloud that hung over his head, and Christine had no idea if it came from guilt or from something else, something he refused to tell her.
“So, when do you want to do this little set up?” Nelly asked her right then.
“We could do it Thursday,” Christine replied. “I have tomorrow off, so—hopefully, he’ll be here. He’s an adjunct professor, too.”
“Oh, he’ll definitely be here,” Nelly assured her. “Adjuncts have to show up here every day if they want it full-time. Also, we should meet up at the cafeteria before your first class starts so we can make sure everything goes on well.”
“Excellent,” Christine declared. “Anyway, I have to go—it was good doing this with you, Nelly.”
“And thank you,” she told her with a wistful little smile.
“Would you like me to walk to your car?” Christine offered. “You know. Just ‘cause it’s raining and whatnot.”
“I take the subway back to Jersey,” she told her, and she pointed across the street. “And it’s right over here, too.”
“Oh, okay.”
“So—Thursday, you said?”
“Thursday, one o’clock.”
They waved their goodbyes for now, and Nelly tugged her hood over her head and she jogged across the wet pavement to the stairs which led down to the subway platform. Christine headed back toward the double doors of the main building, and all the while, she thought about what Nelly had said back there. She knew every student in that school, no matter who they were, which meant she had to have seen more of Colette than she had initially thought, even if she only heard her name in passing. Either those four girls were more than meets the eye, or there was something more to Nelly that Christine hadn’t seen at the moment: either way, she made her way back to Mr. Crow’s class for another hour before she headed home on the bus.
Eric once again rode the way home with her, and he looked as though something bothered him.
“I saw you walking with some other woman,” he explained.
“Upset because I took the lunch lady out for a walk?”
“Nah. Oh, that’s who that was!”
“Yeah, Nelly. She’s really friendly and told me she knows everyone at the school, which means she probably knows you, big fella.”
Eric tugged on the side of his shirt collar and then held still and giggled. Christine playfully nudged him for that.
“I also saw you and Professor Skolnick together again, and he didn’t look too happy, either,” he added.
“It wasn’t me, I promise,” she vowed. “He got a phone call that was a bit distressing.”
“How distressing are we talking?”
“Enough to render him silent for the rest of the lunch.”
“Was there a reason why?”
“Yeah, but—I can’t really say.”
“You can’t?”
“I can’t,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Because he asked me to.”
“But we’re friends, though.” And Christine hesitated at the sound of his saying that.
“I still wanna give him his privacy, though,” she pointed out.
“That’s true.” His face then lit up. “Did you get the homework for Mr. Hansen’s class done?”
“Not yet,” she said. “I have tomorrow off—I’ll do it then. It’s raining, and I really have nothing else to do, either.”
“Want me to join you?”
“If you’d like. Far end of the second floor on the left—the door on the right side is my mom’s place.”
“Oh, really?” he chuckled at that.
“Yeah, if you hear vacuuming or Jackson Browne on the other side of the door, it’s probably her place.”
“And complete silence is your place?” he asked her.
“You got it.” Christine flashed her eyebrows at him, and then she reached up and rang the bell for the two of them at the next stop.
Within a couple of minutes, they padded off the bus, and they returned to the safety of their apartments. Christine set down her things and ran her fingers through her hair.
There had to be something she could do right away, especially when she thought about the mystery woman who called Alex, most of all, who was she and why hadn’t he mentioned her in the first place. She stressed him out, and thus, he left her an unspoken secret when he met another person, be it Christine or someone else. There was a part of her that wanted to take up something, and something of significance as well, something that would direct his attention back to her and only her.
The idea of having to compete with another woman made her stomach churn, however, especially when this woman was a complete unknown to her. But when she thought about his excitement about her taking ceramics class, she wondered if there was something more there, and something that she could take advantage of, even if it didn’t seem that way at face value. Nelly was right about one thing and that was to make him feel important, but also pique his curiosity. Perhaps she could do something with the world of ceramics that she previously had left untapped from before.
She curled up on the couch with a book taken from her shelf and relaxed for the rest of the evening until her mother invited her over for dinner. She dared not tell Wendy about Alex, but she was eager to talk about her feelings with ceramics.
“Well, that’s great, honey! I hope it’s something you feel really passionate about.”
“Just the feeling of working with my hands and crafting out something like a statue or something,” Christine said with a little smile and satisfied shake of her head. “It’s so fun, for one thing.”
“When your dad and I were together, we often entertained the idea of doing something hands-on like that together,” Wendy said with a nudge of her horn-rimmed glasses up her nose. “We never did because of money.”
“Because of money?” Christine almost laughed at the notion.
“Yeah, living in one of those cheap apartments up in the Bronx and he had just been laid off, too. We were trying to save up for it, and we never could because money kept on coming and going with us. We decided to give up the ghost and either save for a class or save for a newer, better apartment so we could raise you.”
“And you chose me,” Christine muttered, to which Wendy put her arm around her.
“We always choose you,” she assured her. “Even after we split. We will always choose you.”
After dinner, and Christine bode her mother good night, she returned to her apartment across the hall there and the safety of her shower followed by her bed. Money troubles between her parents: of course. And all the while, she wondered as to whom in that couple had the major issues with it all as well, because they often kept these things separate from their relationship with her, and she kept it in mind until she went to bed that night. She curled up in bed under the blankets, and Alex entered her mind right then.
There was the plan she had set up with Nelly, and she hoped that everything would fare well enough as she and Eric traded history notes together for the next day.
“The second I heard Jackson Browne, I knew where to look,” he told her the very second he was in her apartment. He set his things down and gave his long black hair a toss back with the flick of his head. “Okay, now, where is the homework?”
“I was just about to get started on it,” she promised him as she picked up her textbook and the worksheet she was given the day before from the kitchen counter and set both down on the coffee table. Eric rubbed his hands together and took his spot on the couch before her.
“We should have a study session with everyone in the class,” he suggested,
“And fill up this tiny apartment? No way.” She chuckled at that.
“Or we could do it in the classroom itself. You could organize it if you’d like.”
“I can’t,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Because Mr. Crow asked me to.”
He closed his eyes. “Just like with the conversation with Alex at lunch, or the walk you had with the lunchlady. I thought we were friends, and we could tell each other secrets.”
“They’re secrets for a reason, though, Eric,” she insisted, “because it’s confidential information I shared with the two of them. I don’t want you involved in it just—kind of for your own sake.”
He never moved a muscle, and he never said a word, and the look on his face made her wonder if there was something that he kept hidden away as well.
“Is there something you want to tell me?” she asked him, and he sighed through his nose.
“Okay. You got me. I never really had the best of friends before, especially with girls. This whole thing is sort of new to me so—you know. There’s so much friendship etiquette that I’m not very familiar with.” Without further hesitation, she plopped down on the couch, but he bowed his head so he wouldn’t have to look at her. “I was a nerd growing up,” he said. “You know, I was really drawn to things like reading books and comics. Not really your typical jock kind of kid, but the one who receded into the intellectual side of life. And you know how that goes—at least I hope you know.”
“I do,” she assured him, and then she snorted.
“What?” he asked her.
“‘Friendship etiquette,’” she recalled. “That’s just funny to me.”
“It sounds like a band name,” he joked.
“It does!” She laughed some more, and then they fell into momentary silence.
“You know what I can tell you about me and Alex,” she started again. “I’m thinking of giving him the project I’m making in ceramics.”
“And what would that be?” he asked her with a clearing of his throat.
“It’s a little coffee mug,” she told him. “It sort of looks like a tea cup but it’ll house coffee in it no problem, though.”
“May I see it?” he asked her in a small voice.
“It needs to be glazed and then fired in the kiln first.”
“And when will that be?”
“In the next week or so. I got it done quickly, so it’ll be one of the first pieces to be fired. If you want, you could come into Miss Estes’ class and check it out for yourself.”
“I’d rather see the finished product, to be honest with you,” he said with a shrug.
“I don’t blame you, to be honest. Right now, it doesn’t really look like anything but a roughly made bare mug from an archaeological site. It’s that really rich red earthen clay that starts out brown and dries into this really rich dark red. Miss Estes says that the advanced class has been working with this fine white clay that becomes porcelain, or bone china as she called it. I’m thinking of continuing with the whole ceramics thing to be honest.”
“Do whatever makes your heart sing, as my grandmother would say,” he told her.
“What’re you thinking about majoring in?” she asked.
“I’m already a music student,” he replied with a straight face. “Hence the whole doing so well in Mr. Hansen’s class.”
“Oh, shut up,” she teased him, and he giggled at that. “Anyway, let’s get to it.”
Eric stayed at her place until around the time the sun went down, and even then he was reluctant to leave the apartment.
“I dunno, it’s—going home to an empty apartment by myself and whatnot,” he confessed to her.
“Do you want me to walk you home?” She pressed her hands to her hips and showed him a little smile at that.
“Nah. That is very kind of you, though. You actually have a heart of gold, Christine.”
“Heart of gold? Not me. I just like to do a little good in the world.”
“I reckon that’s the mark of a heart of gold,” he noted, once more in that fake southern accent, which in turn brought a laugh out of her.
Nevertheless, he left the apartment within mere moments of the sun setting over Queens, and Christine was once again, alone, but with completed homework the realization that she would have to execute the plan with Nelly. She met up with her before class started, just as planned: when she showed up, Nelly had tied her apron around and put on the latex gloves for the day. When she spotted Christine there with a look of determination on her face, she hurried over to her with her hand tucked down into her pocket.
“Here’s a hundred dollars,” Nelly told her as she handed her the crisp bill, as if she had just taken it out of her safety deposit box. “When you and him get lunch today, try and use this on me, and I’ll refuse it for you.”
“I assume you need this back,” Christine told her in a low voice.
“Part of my rent money,” Nelly replied with a flash of her eyebrows.
“Oh, yeah, definitely take care of this—” Christine tucked the bill into her wallet, and Nelly nodded at her for that.
“Okay, I have to get moving now…” She hurried back into the kitchen to ring up orders from the students who ordered breakfast, and Christine bowed out of there and back for the door, and then to Mr. Hansen’s class. She was eager to see the plan go through with Nelly as Mr. Hansen talked about classical music for the day, and more so as she moved onto a new project for ceramics class after that: a couple of sake cups for her and Wendy, and she wondered if she could make them twins given it es for her mother after all.
By the time class let out at five to one, she knew that ceramics was a good calling for her. Even on the walk over to those glassy double doors, she knew that she had made the right choice.
Alex was once again right there in anticipation of her. He showed her a smile from behind those glasses, and he tucked a strand of hair off to the side as if he had intentions to flirt with her. They strode over to the counter and Nelly stood there in anticipation of them with her pad of paper ready for them.
Same as Tuesday with Christine asking for a gyro and Alex with the basket, and she could feel the hundred dollar bill in her wallet, like a snake in repose ready to strike between the two of them. She rested her purse on the bar before her, and she looked on at him as if she was waiting for him to tell her a dirty secret.
“So, do you want to tell me who that woman was that called you yesterday?” she began. “Or would you rather keep it to yourself? Is she musical or artistic?”
“She’s not really musical,” he began, that time with a stoic look on his face. “Well, I mean, she kind of is, but she’s actually an architect.”
“Wow, a chick architect,” Christine remarked.
“She also does stuff with like graphic design and writing—” As he was saying this, Christine glanced over to the counter where Nelly stood in anticipation of someone, or something. She nodded at Christine, who lowered her gaze to the counter itself, where she spotted her gyro. She then returned to Alex, who looked on at her bewildered.
“What’s going on?” he asked her.
“I think our food’s almost ready,” she replied.
“When you get a chance, could you probably get Eric, the boy who sits next to you in Mr. Hansen’s class, to aide for me the next time I sub? I feel like that’s something someone at the school would be able to tell him about.”
“I can’t,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Because he asked me to.”
“Damn,” he muttered with a few blinks behind his glasses.
“What?”
“That’s dedication.”
“Nah, I just think it’d be best if someone like a teacher would tell him to do it…“ Her voice trailed off, and she padded over to the counter for her gyro and his basket. Nelly nodded at her head at her once she came within range of the counter.
"Do you have it?” she asked her once she came within earshot.
“I do, yeah,” Christine replied, and she shook her head. “The woman’s an architect, apparently.”
“Wow,” Nelly breathed, and then she cleared her throat; Christine knew that Alex was watching them.
“Aw, really?” Christine asked her to go along with it. She turned around for a look back at Alex there at the bar on the far side of the room. He raised his eyebrows at her, and his face softened at the sight of her.
He then gaped at her. Christine gestured for him to come on over, and he picked up her purse before he walked on over to the counter for her and Nelly.
“What’s happening?” he asked them, to which Nelly shook her head at them once again.
“I’m sorry, I can’t take this,” she told them. Christine looked on at him with her eyebrows raised. He nudged his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and then he reached into his front pocket for his wallet.
“Pay that shit,“ he said in a bold tone of voice. "How much?”
“Thirteen-fifty,” Nelly said. He chuckled at that.
“Change for a hundred dollars?” he joked with Christine.
“Eventually,” she assured him, and she had no idea as to how she could pay him back. But he handed Nelly thirteen dollars and fifty cents for their lunch.
“Pay that shit,” he repeated. She burst out laughing at that, and he showed her a little smile as a result. Nelly handed them their food with a little smile on her face as well.
“Come on, Alex—” Christine said as she held onto her gyro. “Oh, wait, I have to get some napkins.” She returned to the counter again right as Nelly walked over to the register.
“I’ll give the hundred dollars back to you before I go to history,” she promised her in a low voice, and Nelly nodded her head and flashed her a wink and handed her some napkins.
As she walked back to the bar, Christine peered back to the counter and flashed Nelly a thumbs up, who returned the favor. She had done well.
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As the Seasons Grey