Boreal Springs

Cole Anderson feels overwhelmed and unappreciated by his career-oriented wife and his two very active daughters.  Will Shelly’s recent campaign win give her an attitude adjustment?

“This is a very important day for me,” Shelly began, checking her appearance for the fiftieth time in the mirror.  “Try not to ruin it.”

Cole wasn’t really sure how to respond to that.  As far as he knew, he hadn’t ruined anything yet.  Shelly was on such a tear lately, even winning the election hadn’t calmed her down any.  In fact, it made her worse, the pressure and spotlight pointed solely on her now.

“I’m not a child.”

She rolled her eyes, still watching her reflection, “really?  Sometimes it’s hard to tell.”

Shelly’s campaign manager, Jared, was the first one to arrive.  Shelly was surprised when he hadn’t come alone.  As the guests filtered in, she cornered Jared and decided to get to the bottom of this ‘mystery girl’.  She looked terribly familiar.

“Oh, that’s Sage,” he said, turning to watch as she walked towards them.  “We met awhile back.”

“You’re dating her?  Really, Jared, don’t you have any love for my campaign at all?”

He laughed, “plenty of love, Shelly… but Sage is nice.  Don’t be mean.”

Shelly and nice weren’t exactly something that went hand-in-hand, but she plastered on her fake smile and approached Sage Saunders with a cool, in control attitude.

“Sage Saunders?  My campaign manager speaks highly of you.”

“Really?  There’s a surprise,” she replied easily, laughing.  “Congratulations on your win.”

“Thank you,” she said, sizing her up.  “Enjoy the party.”

“Sure,” Sage said, watching her walk away and move into the crowd.

Jared watched the exchange with keen interest, thankful when Sage made it out alive.  She rejoined him and they moved to mingle.

“You know, Kit, if Shelly were me and she had my Awesome Tan, there’d be no reason to campaign at all,” Sade began, her perfectly bronzed skin out for all to see in her tight, but somewhat modest dress.  “She’d win by default.”

Kit sighed,” good thing you didn’t go into politics then, Sade.”

“I know!  Just think of it!  There’d be no competition, just me as mayor… year after year…” She looked past Kit and towards the door.  “Oh, hey, that’s James… and Maggie… and she’s pregnant.  Wow.”

“W-what?”

“Keep ‘em coming,” Cole said, fetching a glass from the serving man’s tray.  “It’s going to be a long day…”

The man watched him walk away, “dude…”

Of course, his second drink didn’t go unnoticed by Shelly.  She quickly cornered him.

“Getting drunk, Cole?  That’s your answer to making me look good?”

Cole gave an exasperated sigh, “me?  I’m the one making you look bad?  Give me a break, Shelly.  Your campaign manager has had so many already that he’s behind you acting like FAME is casting.  Get off my back.”

“W-what?” she spun around, horrified to see Jared dancing drunkenly amongst a crowd.  “Damn him!”

Cole watched as she stormed off, grabbing another glass from the tray.

“How are you doing?” Isolde asked, on her second drink.  She only came because she wanted to check in on them and Timothy liked parties.  “You don’t look so good.”

“I’m fine, really,” he replied, emptying his glass and setting it down on the counter nearby.  “Everything is just great.”

Isolde frowned, “it’ll get better, Cole.  It’s just all the stress.”

“Yeah, sure.  I’m gonna go get another drink.”

“So… nice party,” Kit said, also on her fourth drink and starting to feel a little tipsy.  James and Maggie were here and James had made it a point to glare at her everytime they were in the same room.

“Not really,” Cole said flatly.  “At least there’s an open bar.”

Kit nodded, taking a sip, “yeah, open bars are good.”

“What’s taking so long?” Viola demanded, literally breathing down Valerie’s neck.  “There are people in need of a drink!”

“Yeah, really, come on,” Emma said, sidling up to the bar.  “I’m not buzzed enough to deal with all of this yet…”

“Hold on, ladies, hold on!  I’m preparing my specialty… guaranteed to knock you out of your heels and make you forget all about your philandering husband, your morally ambiguous lover, and my smokin hot, way older vampire boss!”

“What?” Viola and Emma said simultaneously.

“Huh?  I didn’t say anything…”

The party went on well into the evening, Catelyn and Renee tucked in bed and Cole drunkenly stuck cleaning up the mess.  Shelly glanced into her hand mirror, pleased with how the evening went.  Everyone was pretty hammered, but it was a good time.

“That went well, but maybe we shouldn’t have an open bar next time.”

Cole tried to focus on balancing all the dishes despite his lack of equilibrium, “yeah, wonderful…”

Cole awoke in the morning with a hangover that could kill.  Of course, to make matters worse, Shelly was hovering over him before he was even able to brush the sleep out of his eyes.

“Look, you lush, the headmaster for the Academy is coming and I need you to clean up and look respectable.  I’ll be late, but I should be here in time to schmooze him a bit.  I need you to do the rest.”

He groaned, “…that’s today?”

“Yes, it’s today.  Don’t mess it up.”

Cole didn’t mess it up, he never messed anything up.  He was the perfect husband, father, and host.  That went unnoticed, of course, and Shelly jumped in just in time to grab all the glory.  The girls were accepted and the headmaster even mentioned that he was ‘honored’ to have the newly elected mayor’s children in his institution.

Cole felt like putting his head in the microwave and pushing ‘start’.  Shame it wouldn’t close with his neck in the way.

Despite his lingering depression and temptation to just give up entirely, Cole decided to give it one more try.  He thought that maybe a night out on their own would loosen Shelly up and she’d return to being her normal, pushy self instead of the super wench she’d been lately.

“We need to figure something out, Shelly,” Cole began earnestly.  “The girls are getting older, they’re going to start noticing something is up.  We’re getting older, too…”

“What’s that supposed to mean?  Now you want a divorce?”

“That’s not what I said at all.  I’m trying to build a bridge, here.”

“Go build it off a cliff, Cole.  I’m really sick of dealing with your sniveling.  Why can’t you just accept that I’m an empowered woman?  Why do you have to be so jealous of my achievements?” Shelly said, staring at her menu, unwilling to face him.  “It isn’t my fault you lost your job.”

He sighed, this was going nowhere.  “It’s not about that at all!  It’s about you being a huge, mega bitch.  At first, I thought maybe you and your campaign manager were hooking up on the side, but now I know that’s ridiculous.  There’s no way someone having illicit sex could possibly have a bigger stick up their–”

“Cole!” Shelly snapped, cutting him off.  “What’s wrong with you?  Keep your voice down, we’re in a public place.”

“You can just funnel more of my money into making your image better,” he shot back.  “You know, like you did your campaign.”

“Your money?”

“Yes, my money.  Did you forget about that?  It didn’t magically appear because of your job… in fact, your job has cost us way more than it’s earned.  But, you knew that, didn’t you?  It’s the only reason you wanted this.”

Shelly fell silent, looking at him, “I…”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.  You should have just told me.  I would’ve just given you the money instead of wasting my time all these years.”

The night ended on that note, tense silence falling between them.  They both went home, unsure of where things were headed.  Whatever lied ahead certainly wasn’t going to be pretty.

——————————–

Note from Mao: The next time I decide that it would be “cool” to throw a party and invite almost all of BS, slap me.  Please.  As soon as I hit ‘play’… all hell broke loose!  Seriously.  I have a ton of pictures, but I’m only going to show the ones I particularly liked.

Also, Shelly and Cole refuse to get along.  All they want to do is argue and woohoo, which is pretty hilarious.  Cole drinks quite a bit, too… probably shouldn’t have installed that bar.

Anyway, onto the pictures!

Cole and Shelly Anderson are an unlikely match-up, but so far, it works.  They’ve got twins to contend with now, though.  Can they manage their respective careers while also juggling the duties of parenthood?

Renee and Catelyn were walking and trying to talk before Cole or Shelly could fathom it.  Of course, having two is a lot more hectic than just one and being new parents without the help of their own parents, well, that didn’t help.  Shelly’s political career took up a lot of her time, so Cole shouldered most of the burden.  It wasn’t that his career wasn’t important, it was just that Shelly’s was a bit bigger and had time restraints.  So Cole tried to juggle his own job with caring for the girls almost exclusively on his own.

Of course, a situation like that is guaranteed not to work out.  Cole’s boss wasn’t very happy about his sudden slacking and canned him.  When Cole tried to get his job back, his boss laughed and told him that maybe, when he grew a spine, he could come back.  Until then, he was blacklisted.  Cole, of course, was upset.

Shelly’s career, meanwhile, was taking off.  She had her campaign manager attached to her hip at almost every second of the day, whether he was physically there or on the cellphone, Shelly didn’t go an hour without speaking to him.  She was getting close, so close, to becoming Mayor she could almost taste it.  It fueled her narrow-minded ambition and she found it hard to really focus on anything else.  So when Cole expressed his sorrow over losing his job, she was a little shocked.  What was she supposed to do about it?  It wasn’t her fault he was inept at his career.

Instead of being supportive, Shelly found herself being rather cruel.  It was the stress talking, she was sitting on pins and needles, watching the polls with trepidation.  Every morning, she woke up, convinced it was hers only to find out that the competitor had somehow managed to one-up her.

“It isn’t my fault you lost your job, what do you want me to do about?”

Cole was a little shocked by her callous reply, “I was just letting you know.”

“Well, thanks, but you better figure something else.  The fact that you look alien is hurting my campaign.  Thank goodness the girls look normal.”

“You’re kidding, right?  That had better have been a very cruel joke, Shelly.”

She rolled her eyes, turning on her heels.  She left the room, but not before offering one last jab, “unlike you, I’m dead serious about my work.  Figure it out.”

Cole decided that it was kind of moot to go searching through jobs he didn’t really want.  The only other option was to become a stay-at-home dad.  It wasn’t like they needed the income, Cole’s parents had left him a hefty inheritance.  How else was Shelly able to funnel so much money into her overblown campaign?  He fired the hired help and took on the care of the girls full-time.  He knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but he didn’t expect it to be as hard as it turned out to be…

For the most part, the girls were good.  Catelyn enjoy being tickled and Renee loved being tossed in the air.  Unfortunately, the girls were fussy toddlers and demanded attention at all times.  Whenever they were awake, they were glued to Cole and he was unable to do anything but give in to their every whim.  He wasn’t quite sure when this cycle of women stomping all over him had started, but it was getting a bit ridiculous now.

Shelly spent the majority of her days on the campaign trail and at her office.  She had no idea what went on while she was away.  She saw the girls, but only for short periods of time, and never long enough for them to throw a tantrum or start screaming and wailing for no reason.  Needless to say, but the end of the day, Cole was exhausted.  Shelly complained that he had no reason to be grumpy and tired, he was home all day while she was out working.  It wasn’t like the girls were up all hours of the day.

Cole usually ignored her, waiting until she left him alone to finally go to sleep.  Sometimes, he was tempted to just go in his parents’ old room and have his peace and quiet.

When Shelly was home, she was glued to her cellphone, usually talking to her flashy campaign manager or someone equally as winded.  She never seemed to get off the phone, she would even eat and talk at the same time.  It was a little bit ridiculous.  Cole eventually gave up on trying to talk to her.  What was the point?  She was usually mean and scathing anyway.

Renee and Catelyn were soon old enough for school and quite excited about it, too.  Cole was thankful for the break, being alone from seven am to three pm would be a blessing.  Maybe then he could actually get something done or unwind from all the stress.  Things between him and Shelly were becoming increasingly tense and he was hoping to alleviate some of it by not arguing with her.  If he could just get some time to himself, he’d be more pliable in conversation, instead of just leaving the room or ignoring her.

The girls weren’t about to make it easy on him, though.  They were just as rambunctious and demanding as ever, maybe even more so now.  They were constantly teasing and tormenting each other.  One particular fight had them running around the house.  Catelyn gave Renee a shove, knocking her into an expensive vase that was on display.  Cole entered the room only to find the vase in pieces on the floor, Renee in the middle of it, Catelyn looking dumbfounded.

They were suitably punished, of course, but it didn’t seem to do a thing.  They would just fight again.

When they weren’t fighting, they were joining forces to terrorize something–or someone–else.  They’d been tasked to rake leaves only to start throwing the piles all over the yard, kicking and screaming.  Sure, it looked like good natured fun to passerbys, but to them, they knew exactly what they were doing.  It was almost as if their goal in life was to cause chaos.  Cole sighed, he was close to just throwing in the towel and letting them begin their descent into the realm of spoiled brats.

Shelly didn’t help matters at all.  She fueled their demanding nature by buying them expensive things while she was gone.  The election was coming to a close and she was winning by a longshot.  She was just waiting for the day her victory was announced.  Until then, she showered her girls with gifts and bought a few nice things for herself.  Cole was unphased.  He had given up on trying to mediate the income a long time ago.  It was techncially his inheritance, but when you’re married, well, what’s yours becomes theirs.

——————————

Note from Mao: I feel so bad for poor Cole!  He is surrounded by evil women, I swear.  The girls have three nice points between them (and maxed active) and Shelly, well, she was never very nice to begin with.  Cole lost his job the first day due to a stupid chance card and when he tried to plead for it back, his boss laughed in his face!  Since the girls were such a handful, I had him stay home.  His aspiration bar has dipped low red since and his motives are always yellow.  I just can’t seem to make him happy.  Poor Cole!