Title: Acting
The Part
Author: Pattyanne
[email protected]
Disclaimer: None of the
BtVS
characters belong to me.
Feedback: Love some, thanks.
Rating: Up
to NC-17
Summary: AU. William St. James is
an actor in a hit television
show. While
appearing at a fan convention, he meets
Buffy and her six year
old daughter, Melanie
AN: Hey, check out the pretty picture vamps
made
for the
story:
www.offangsandfairytales.com/actingthepartmain.html
Part
twenty-three...
Buffy placed a bowl of cereal in front of
Melanie, then
sat down opposite her. She dumped a spoonful of
sugar into
her coffee, stirring it for a moment before
replacing the spoon on the
table.
"Your dad called last night," she said casually, taking
a sip
of her coffee.
Melanie just kept on eating.
Inhaling a deep
breath, Buffy went on. "He wants to take
you out for some dinner tonight and
give you your birth-
day gifts. Won't that be fun?"
"Uh-huh," her
daughter nodded, chasing stray Cheerios
around the outer rim of the bowl with
her spoon. "Are you
coming, too?"
Buffy hadn't expected that
particular question, and it
threw her for a moment. "No, sweetie, not
tonight. This
is just for you and your dad," she said, hoping the
child
would let it go at that.
Melanie looked up. "Then you'll be all
by yourself."
Well, there was no getting around it. Buffy knew that
if
Melanie thought her mother was indeed sitting around
on her own she'd
fret about it.
"Actually...William asked me out to dinner,
so..."
Buffy braced herself for a protest of some kind, but
Melanie
surprised her by smiling brightly. "Are you
going to go?" she asked
eagerly.
Buffy sat back and studied her daughter's expressive
face.
"Yes," she said slowly. "But I'll make sure I'm
home before
you."
"Okay." Melanie climbed down from her chair and
ran upstairs to
brush her teeth.
It wasn't difficult to figure out what was going
through
the little girl's mind. Melanie was still heavily into the
notion
of William taking over the usually vacant position
of 'Daddy' in her life,
but in order for THAT to happen,
Buffy had to be on the bandwagon as well.
Using the child's simple logic: Mommy + William+
going out alone on a
date = falling in love, which would
lead quickly to marriage, the end result
would be
'brand new daddy'.
But as much as Buffy was beginning to
warm to the
idea herself, she wasn't ready to pin her dreams on it.
She
wasn't even certain exactly how she felt about him
yet.
Just because
her heart began beating double time
in her chest every time she saw him, and
chills raced
up and down her spine when she heard his voice, and
her body
turned to pliable clay in his hands when he
touched her....well, all that
didn't necessarily mean that
she was in love with him.
She'd only
known him for a very short time, less than
ten days. How could she possibly
be in love with him?
"I can't be," she said firmly, clearing the dishes
off the
table and carrying them out to the kitchen. She twisted
the
faucets on and waited for the water to run hot, then
squirted a glob of Ivory
dish soap into the sink and let it
fill. "It's way too soon to even think
about something
like that."
Turning off the water, she dried her hands
on a paper
towel and left the dishes to soak, then took Melanie's
lunch
box out of the fridge and went to wait for her at
the bottom of the
stairs.
And it wasn't as though he'd come out and said anything
about
love to her. Yes, he'd MADE love to her, wonderfully
passionate love, and
he'd said all the right things as he did
so, but the only one he'd openly
declared himself to
was Melanie.
Of course....SHE hadn't said anything
either. Maybe he
was waiting for her, for some signal that she was
ready
to be responsive to such a declaration.
He'd admitted that he'd
never been in a serious relationship
before meeting her. That meant that he
did indeed consider
their relationship to be a 'serious' one, didn't it?
And if that was true, how serious was it for him? How
serious did she
want it to be? What if his idea of serious
wasn't the same as her's. What
if.....
"What if you stop asking 'what if'?" she ordered
herself,
shaking off the introspective mood she'd fallen into, and
smiling
at her daughter as she skipped down the stairs.
Melanie picked up her
lunch box and backpack,
waiting on the porch for Buffy to lock up the house.
She
hopped an imaginary hopscotch board across the lawn
to the driveway,
then climbed into the car and plopped
herself down in her booster seat.
Buffy buckled her in, handing her the pair of bright yellow
plastic
dark glasses shaped like daisies she'd bought to
shield the child's eyes from
the bright morning glare of
the sun.
In the driver's seat, she keyed
the ignition, then glanced
at Melanie in the rear view mirror. "Flaps
down?"
"Check!" her daughter responded brightly.
"Landing gear
up?"
"Check!"
"Ready to rock?"
"Ready to
roll!"
Turning up the radio, Buffy backed out of the driveway
and
headed for Sunnydale Elementary
School.
*****************************************
She
moved through the day without once losing the
sense of giddy expectancy
she'd woken up with.
The prospect of going out with William alone kept
her
emotions churning, giving her a boost of adrenalin that
kept her
moving and busy.
Turning over the store to Willow and Anya at noon,
she
ran down to the salon on the first floor and had her hair
washed,
conditioned and trimmed. While she was there,
she decided to splurge and have
her nails done as well.
She picked Melanie up at 2:30, listening to
her
chatter all the way home about a prospective field trip to
visit a
real farm. Apparently, the opportunity to milk a cow
was going to be made
available to the children, as well
as the chance to see baby chicks
hatching.
Buffy made all the right responses, even though her mind
was
only halfway attentive. She promised to sign the
permission slip immediately
upon arriving home after
Melanie informed her that the children who returned
them
promptly would earn a smiley face sticker on their weekly
progress
chart. If enough of these stickers were
accumulated in the allotted time,
they could be ex-
changed for small treats from the student store on
Friday
afternoon.
At four o'clock, she took her daughter upstairs and
gave her a bath, then supervised her choice of wardrobe.
By five
thirty, she had Melanie dried and dressed, her
hair neatly brushed.
Parking her in front of the television, Buffy popped a
video into
the VCR and dashed back upstairs to bathe.
She pinned her hair up and
sank into a tub of steaming,
fragrant water. Too on edge to linger, she
washed
herself from top to bottom with rose scented
body wash, then shaved
her underarms and legs to a
satiny smoothness.
Pulling the plug, she
let the water drain out and
wrapped herself in a towel She stood at the sink
and
brushed her teeth, rinsing with a peppermint
smelling
mouthwash.
Back in her bedroom, she made up her
face...giving
herself a more dramatic 'evening' look...and brushed
her
hair till it gleamed in the lamplight.
"Not bad," she said to her
reflection when she was
done. "For an old mom, you look pretty darn
good."
She gave herself one last smile in the mirror before
diving
into her closet for the 'little black dress' that had
been hanging in the
back of it for months. She'd bought
it on impulse, with no clue as to when
she might have
an opportunity to wear it.
The dress was short and
clung nicely to her curves,
with a scooped neckline that revealed a great
deal more
than she normally cared to.
Laying the dress out on her
bed, she donned a lacy
black bra and panty set that she'd hardly ever worn.
A
pair of sheer stockings encased her legs, held up by
an elastic band of
lace on her upper thighs.
When she was satisfied by all aspects of her
appear-
ance, she gave herself a final once over in the mirror,
pleased
with the results.
"You know," her reflection seemed to say, "for
someone
who's not in love, you're really pulling out all the
stops."
She grabbed an evening bag and loaded her essentials
into it,
ignoring the comment.
As she walked downstairs to join Melanie in the
front
room, she heard the tinkling chime of her brass mantle
clock strike
6:00 p.m.
********************************************
The
promised time of Angel's arrival came and
went with no sign of
him.
Buffy sat on the couch beside Melanie, only getting
up once to
replace 'Cinderella' with 'The Lion King'.
6:15 passed, then 6:30, then
6:45. By five minutes
to seven, she was internally climbing the walls,
feeling
that old familiar anger towards her ex-husband begin
to stir
inside her.
Forcing herself to remain calm, she stared at
the
television without really seeing any of the action
on
screen.
Although she was by no means surprised by
Angel's
non-appearance, her irritation at it was approaching
a level
she'd not felt since divorcing his worthless
hide.
"Maybe he forgot,"
a little voice piped softly.
Turning to meet her daughter's eyes, Buffy
swallowed
the hard lump of anger that was building up in
her
throat.
She had promised herself a long time ago that
no matter how
she might personally feel about
Angel at any given time, she would never say
a
harsh word about him in front of Melanie, and would
always try to find
a plausible excuse for her father's
behavior.
It was a stretch, but
she managed it once again. "I
don't think so, sweetie," she said, brushing
her hand
over the child's curls. "He might be stuck in
traffic."
**With a cellphone in his pocket** she added
silently.
**************************************
At exactly
6:59, when she was on the verge of
going upstairs to call Angel, Buffy heard
a car pull
into the driveway. She turned on the couch and moved
the
curtains aside, seeing her ex-husband step out
of the Mercedes Benz he'd
bought himself less than
six months ago.
Relief washed over her, but
its euphoria was short
lived when she saw a silver Carrera glide to a stop
in
front of the house.
**Oh, no....this isn't happening! I'll close my
eyes
and one of them will NOT be there when I open
them.
One...two...three...**
TBC.....
(Oh, boy! This ought
to be GOOD, huh?)