Entries tagged with what: birthdays

Entry tags:

Room 210; Sunday Afternoon [11/01].

It was November first. Astrid's birthday. Seventeen now, and she felt an odd compulsion to look back on all the different places she'd spent her birthdays over the past four years, starting with that first one that made any difference, with Starr and Ray and Carolee and Owen and Peter, because they knew when it was thanks to a piece of official paper, offical documents, and why wouldn't they have celebrated her birthday? She didnt' explain that birthdays weren't really celebrated before; Ingrid didn't really believe in them. Ingrid didn't believe in a lot of things. But almost everyone seemed to believe in birthdays.

Claire definitely believed in birthdays, and she'd made a big deal out of Astrid's sweet sixteen, and she thought she would have made a big deal out of seventeen, too. Where would she be, if what happened hadn't happened, and she was still in California? Another camping trip to Mexico? Would they be skiing in the Rockies? Ron probably knew someone with a timeshare or a condo in Aspen or something, Claire would be covering Astrid in real wool and cashmere; she might even laugh as the two of them attempted to pizza and french fry their way down the non-intimidating bunny hills, oblivious to Ron schmoozing it up with snow bunnies and boozy hot cocoa back at the lodge.

And it was that thought that inspired Astrid that day, to pull out the tarps and the paints and pull her bed away from the wall so that she could add some new paint to it. Just adding. She wanted to keep the black sparkly sky of ash and glitter, but she was going to paint new blue-white snowy mountains over it, add bursts of stars and snowflakes to the space between. She could imagine herself cascading down them in the safety of a nice dream. She could imagine herself lost among them, would she be able to survive? She could imagine a lot of things with those mountains, really, which wasn't so bad, was it, for someone with apparently no imagination?

[[ door and post are open, with work-related SP throughout the day! ]]

Entry tags:

California Institution for Women, Chino, California, 1993. [11/01 FT].

It was a gray morning so overcast you couldn’t see the Hollywood Hills from the yard. November First. Astrid's birthday. Claire had talked about doing something for her, a birthday party, something like that, but Astrid didn't have any friends at Fairfax she could invite, and the logistic of inviting her friends from Fandom were too much, how could she really explain to Claire a girl who looked like a cat but didn't see it herself? So instead, Claire, in all her misguided wisdom, thought the best gift she could give Astrid that day, the day she turned sixteen, was her mother.

Claire and Astrid were going to visit Ingrid. Claire had set it all up. She put on a miniskirt, turtleneck, and tights, all in mahogany brown, frowned in the mirror. “Maybe jeans would be better.”

“No denim,” Astrid said.

The idea of this meeting was almost too much to bear.

Happy birthday to me...

( Astrid could only lose. CW: Ingrid Magnussen in all her full gaslighting, abusive, narcissitic glory )

Claire stared out at the road. A tear slipped from her overfilled eyes. Twenty-seven names for tears. But no, that wasn’t Astrid's thought. She refused to be brainwashed. This was Claire. Astrid put her hand on her shoulder as she made the turn onto the rural highway. She smiled and patted it with her small, cold one. “I think I did well with your mom, don’t you?”

“You did,” Astrid told her, gazing out the window so she wouldn’t have to lie to her face. “She really liked you.”

A tear rolled down her cheek, and Astrid brushed it away with the back of her hand. “What did she say to you?”

Claire shook her head, sighed. She started the windshield wipers, though it was only a mist, turned them off when they started squeaking on the dry glass. “She said I was right about Ron. That he was having an affair. I knew it anyway. She just confirmed it.”

“How would she know,” Astrid said angrily. “For God’s sake, Claire, she just met you.”

“All the signs are there.” She sniffled, wiped her nose on her hand. “I just didn’t want to see them.” But then she smiled. “Don’t concern yourself. We’ll work it out. It's your birthday, anyway. Let's go get you something nice.”

It was too late for that now, and Astrid realized, staring out the window at the scenery flying by, that Ingrid hadn't even mentioned her birthday once.

[[ and, lo, one of my favorite scenes from White Oleander by Janet Fitch, and a pivotal moment for the rest of this arc. Modified slightly for Fandomness and quirking the timeline, NFB, but open for contact! ]]

Entry tags:

Hollywood, California, 1993. Tuesday [10/22 FT].

A letter came in the mail, from Ingrid. Astrid started to open it when she realized it wasn’t for her. It was addressed to Claire. What was her mother doing writing to Claire? Astrid never told her about Claire. Should she give it to her? She decided she couldn’t take the chance. Her mother might say anything. Might threaten her, mightlie, or frighten her. Astrid could always say she opened it by accident. She took it into her room, slitted it open.

Dear Claire,

Yes, I think it would be marvelous if you’d visit. It’s been so long since I've seen Astrid, I dont know if I’d recognize her—and I’m always delighted to meet my loyal readers. I will put you on my visitors list—you’ve never been convicted of a felony, have you? Just teasing.

Your friend, ingrid.

The idea that they corresponded filled Astrid with a sickening dread. Your friend, Ingrid. She must have written after she’d caught her reading in her room. Astrid felt betrayed, helpless, anxious. She would have confronted her with it, but then she’d have had to admit she’d opened Claire's mail. So she just tore up the letter and burned it in her wastebasket. Hopefully Claire would just be depressed that Ingrid never wrote back, and give up.

Not even the discussion that came up over dinner that evening, after Astrid got home from her art class, was enough to distract her, pushing peas around a piece of meatloaf, unable to look at Claire as she chattered away, oblivious, between sips of wine. It was only until Claire mentioned one word that seemed to rise above the static noise that Astrid looked up, blinking with surprise, unsure if she heard.

"What?"

"It's your birthday soon, isn't it?" Claire repeated dutifully with a soft smile. "And it's a big one. Sweet sixteen. We'll have to do something special."

"No," Astrid shook her head. "We don't have to. It's okay."

She wouldn't even know what special thing to do.

"You only turn sixteen once," Claire said with a wistfulness that almost seemed painful, one Astrid was sure she didn't even realize she possessed. "Think about it. Anything you'd like. We'll figure something out."

Astrid wanted to object, but she knew that she wouldn't. She would do anything for Claire and if doing something special for her birthday was what Claire wanted, so be it. She felt a little tug in her chest, thinking about how this wasn't about Astrid at all, but rather Claire, trying to live vicariously through this odd girl she'd welcomed into her home. It was about wish fulfilment, her dreams of having a child one day, and, in the meantime, she'd bestow all her naive dreams of how the world should be on Astrid.

Astrid also wanted to tell her to stop. Stop writing to her mother. Forget about Ingrid. Nothing good could come of it. If Claire loved her, then Claire would do that one thing for her. That was all she wanted, far more than birthday presents or parties or anything else Claire might think of. Just forget about Ingrid, just walk away...

But she knew that would be too much to ask for, so she didn't dare.

[[ first part from Chapter 18 of White Oleander by Janet Fitch; second part is all me, baby! NFB, obvs, but open as always for getting in touch and what have you ]]

Entry tags:

Room 210; Monday Early Evening [11/12].

On her way back to the dorms from her shift at T&C, Astrid had swung by the post office, out of habit more than anything else, muscle memory, not really expecting anything to be there, as there hadn't been for months now. So when it turned out that she actually did have a letter waiting for her, she could scarcely believe it. It had to be one of those weird bends of reality that happened here, it couldn't be real, but there it was, in her hands, her name and box address in her mother's unique and artistic scrawl, the rubber-stamped address of the prison in the top left corner.

She didn't run back to her room; she didn't trust that her knees would be able to hold her well enough for that. But she did hurry, her brain a fog as she tried to decide whether to just rip it open now and consume the words hungrily or just wait until the privacy of her own space. She had to wait; she had no idea what she'd find inside, but she did know she would want to be alone when she found out. The timing...it couldn't have been coincidence, could it? Could Ingrid have planned it, such a long stretch of silence, finally ended more than a week after Astrid's birthday ~~which we'll pretend I hadn't messed up and was the 1st not the 11th this whole time, whoooops~~? It was too perfect to have been planned, wasn't it? But at the same time, it was Ingrid Magnussen she was dealing with here, there was no telling what that woman was capable of if she set her mind to it.

( Cut for length/wordiness; CW: Astrid's narcissistic, abusive mother and all the terrible hang-ups that go with it. )

Don't cry, Astrid told herself as she stared at the cold flourishing of closing of the letter. Don't you dare cry. Her mother's voice, which she could scarcely tell if she even remembered anymore, Don't cry. We're not like that. We're the Vikings, remember?

But it was too late, she realized, noticing the spots of teardrops on the paper, realizing her cheeks were already wet. Another failure, but she embraced it, releasing the sob that had built up inside of her, and, wrapping her arms tightly around her legs and balling herself up, just let it all out anyway.

She missed her so much, and here Astrid was, just ruining everything. Maybe Ingrid was right. She didn't know what she was doing, she didn't know who she was anymore, fumbling around blindly, a broken boat adrift in the sea without a rudder, without a paddle, without a hope. Her name now was Lost, her name was Nobody's Daughter. Or, at least, it would be, before long.

[[ don't mind the melodrama! IT'S CANON, DAMMIT. She was well overdue anyway and I've been itching to give her a good spiral. Door closed, but post is open! probably with work-related sp ]]