Faith Brady jerked at her locker handle. It wouldn't budge.
"Uggh, you stupid hunk of tin, why always when I'm late for math??" she demanded.
Tommy Devereaux and Kay Kelly stood two lockers down, knowing better than to try to help her. Poor, unsuspecting Will Reed approached. Kay smiled warmly, Will was certainly coming out of his shell lately.
"Need some help, little lady?" he asked.
"Oh, no, Will-" Tommy started to warn him.
"Kii-yah!" Faith let out a bellow and smacked the door with the heel of her palm. Her hand sliced through the air, nearly brushing his face.
"Ah!" he yelped.
The door popped open. Her brown belt had come in handy once again. She grinned smugly.
"Okay, so I'm the little lady," Will said, his hands raised.
Kay and Tommy snickered.
"So, what's this I hear of a soiree this evening?" Will asked.
"Forget it, Reed," Faith shook her head. "It's a good old-fashioned 'girls' night in.'"
"You mean a slumber party," Tommy corrected her.
"No, Tommy, a slumber party is a juvenile affair involving Truth or Dare and freezing someone's bra," Kay said. "A girls' night in involves junk food, videos and sophisticated conversation only a woman would understand."
"Does it involve pajamas?" Tommy asked.
The girls nodded.
"Slumber party," he said.
"If it's a question of pj's, I have this adorable little blue bear number..."
"No, Will." Kay laughed.
"It has feet...." he continued.
"WILL!"
"So, Fab, when do the girls descend?" Sean D. asked, whisking a handful of chips from the bowl Faith was holding.
"Aaahhh! Hey, watch it Sean D. or you'll start getting a little paunch like Dad," she warned.
"Hey! Mom says it's just more to love!"
"She has to say that!" she laughed as she popped another bag open.
"So seriously, when do your friends get here?" he asked.
"Around 7," she said. "Wait a minute don't you have big plans tonight?"
"Well, with Mom and Dad out of town and the Funny Face significantly vacant- Yes, Kat and I do have plans tonight. A little dinner, a little dancing, try to keep the boat from blowing up."
Faith giggled. Sean D. and Kat's dates did have a proclivity for catastrophe. On their first date, Sean D. had discovered a tragic swelling allergy to shellfish. One trip to the ER later, they still hadn't had their first dinner together. So Kat tried to cook for him on their next date, something special. "Something special" nearly burnt her apartment building to the ground.
"No, tonight will be perfect," Sean D. said.
"Sure," Faith kissed his cheek. "Just keep your life-jackets on, okay?
"Hello?" a feminine voice called from the front hall. "Faith?"
"Come on in, Kay," Sean D. called. His dark-haired, doe-eyed cousin entered the kitchen. He grabbed her and began a viscous noogie. "Ohhhhh, there's my favorite cousin."
"Ahhh! Sean D.!" she cried. She had dressed in a very un-Kay outfit for the evening- a shapeless, long dark blue sweater and a pair of hip-hugging jeans. After thoroughly messing up Kay's hair, Sean D. gave her a big hug and released her.
"I'll vamoose so you girls have your privacy," he kissed Faith's cheek. "You girls be careful and give me call at the boat if you need anything."
As Sean D. left Lyssa, Stephanie, Abby and Erica pulled up in Abby's car. They piled out excitedly, throwing sleeping bags and overnight bags at each other as they came up the walk.
"Hello ladies," Faith said happily as they entered the kitchen. "Seems we're all accounted for."
"Let the girl-bonding begin!" Abby cried.
Again, Faith was amazed in the difference in her best friend. When there weren't any boys around, particularly boys of the Kiriakis nature, Abby was a completely different person. Sweet and good-natured, without an ounce of conniving.
"So what's on the agenda for this evening?" Erica asked. Lyssa had her arm draped around Erica's shoulders. As the youngest girl in the group, Erica was always a little afraid of not fitting in. But the other girls always made sure to include her.
"Well, what do you think we should do first?" Stephanie asked. "Read entries from our journals? Watch a foreign film? Do some self-actualizing exercises?"
They girls all looked at each other. "Cookies," they chorused.
In about an hour, the house was rocking to the sounds of the swing music. The girls had shed their street clothes for pajamas in various forms. Abby had poor Erica sitting on the kitchen table encased in a mint-mud facial mask.
"Stop trying to talk!" Abby cried. "You'll crack your face!"
Erica giggled and defiantly popped another chip in her mouth.
Stephanie, adorable in her green and red plaid men's pajamas, was twirling Faith around the kitchen.
"You're killing me, Brady!" Stephanie cried. "How can a girl who can kick a board two feet above her head, not do a simple kick-step?"
Lyssa was trying to keep from laughing long enough to slide another batch of cookies from the oven. Kay stood by, snatching a cookie whenever Lyssa wasn't looking.
"You know, for someone who was so shy last year you wouldn't speak to me at family functions, you've certainly come out of your shell." Lyssa said, flatly.
"What can I say, you girls brought out the best in me," Kay laughed.
Over the last eight months or so, these distant Brady cousins had been getting together. Drawing strength from their differences, from their common weird family experiences. And each could see the difference it had made in the other girls. Erica was less self-conscious. Faith was a little softer. She could still take care of herself, but as a threat to others. Abby had shed a little bit of her "bad girl" persona. She was a little nicer, more like Lyssa. Lyssa stood up for herself a little more. Not because the girls challenged her, but because they had shown her she was worth standing up for. Kay was also a little more confident. She was more talkative and laughed more. Stephanie, who was still reeling from Jeannie Donovan's announcement that Ben DiMera had fathered her son, was learning to be a little more trusting of other women.
"So what do we watch first?" Lyssa asked. "Hope Floats? Scream 2? The Mask of Zorro?"
"Zorro!" Stephanie cried making "z" in Erica's facial. She cringed and looked at her finger. "I think you better take that stuff off, Ab. I think it's starting to set."
"Ohmigosh," Abby dragged Erica into the kitchen.
"What?" Erica asked. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing. Less talking, more walking," Abby said, she led her into the sink and started splashing her face.
"So what do you say?" Lyssa asked.
"Anything but Scream 2, please," Kay said. "I can't handle all that blood and gore."
"Yeah, besides," Faith said. "Those movies are insulting. Some dumb bimbo who's willing to sit on the phone and talk to some psycho she should have figured out is in the house waiting to kill her ten minutes into the conversation. Then she's all shocked when he pops out of the kitchen cupboard and slaughters her."
"Zorro, it is," Lyssa pushed the tape into the VCR.
About an hour into the movie, the girls were firmly ensconced in the world of Zorro, each wishing she were in Catherine Zeta-Jones' shoes. Just as the music was swelling during a particularly romantic scene, the phone rang. The girls groaned, the spell broken.
"Hello?" Faith said into the receiver. The other end was silent. "Hello? Jerk."
She hung up.
Five minutes later the phone rang again.
"He-llo" she said a little more forcefully.
"Hi there, Faith," an eerily soulless male voice said from the other end.
"Who's this?" Faith asked, relaxing a little.
"You don't know?"
"Should I?� she asked.
"Probably."
"Sorry pal, I don't have a clue." she said. By now the other girls had stopped the tape and were listening in.
"Don't you think you should know me?" the voice demanded.
"What are you talking about?" Faith shook her head and hung up the phone.
It rang again.
"Listen, jerk!"
"No you listen, if you hang up on me again I'm going to come in there slice up those cute little blue flannel jammies of yours." he yelled.
Fear sang through Faith's chest, cold and hard, as she looked down at her blue pajamas.
"How did you-"
"That's right, Faith. I can see you. You and all your little girlfriends," the voice said in a sing-song tone. "And I'm coming in to get a closer look."
Back to Bonding Stories
Part 2
Get your own Free Home Page