Return to Shenkuu:Part Three

     Margot’s house was exactly as Clarise remembered it. Way too big, full of way too much stuff. It wasn’t decorated in the Shenkuu style, not in the slightest. Most of the furniture had been imported from old Neovia. The curtains were made of the absolute heaviest fabric on the market, and all the seats were topped with the same stiff brocade covers. It was more like a poorly curated museum, than an actual home.

     Clarise’s quarters in Virtupets were modern minimalism, through and through. She’d had one picture of her with the sales team, but that had gotten trashed after a weak sales quarter. The fools on the sales team didn’t deserve a spot on her wall.

     There were plenty of pictures hanging on Margot’s walls. Most of them were of Margot. It looked like Margot had also been a faerie krawk and a maractite krawk, before settling on her current eventide exterior. There was a full size painted portrait of Margot in a pastel floral gown, above the fireplace. Margot was painted faerie, in the portrait. A date in the corner proudly announced that it had been painted only a few months ago. That must have been embarrassing, Clarise thinks, to have had that commissioned and then be painted a totally different color immediately after.

     A number of the pictures actually featured Terry and Alexi and, astonishingly, Clarise. One hanging next to the stairs showed the four of them, all in one place and smiling, a rarely synchronized moment. Terry was in the center of the photo, as was custom, but she had an arm draped around Clarise. Alexi and Margot bookended them, grinning like someone had just offered them an all-expenses-paid trip to the NC mall. The picture was small, only about the size of a postcard, but it was cased in the gaudiest frame on the wall.

     There weren't any pictures hanging of Margot and her new friends. Because really, Clarise was sure, Margot had new friends. New friends to talk about absolutely nothing with, and obsess over the absolute shallowest trends with.

     But it had been fun, sometimes. A part of her whispered. You missed them. She pushed that part to the back of her mind. Obviously talking about UsukiCon had been more fun than doing actual work. That didn't mean Margot and the others weren't crummy friends. Even if Margot did have that photo of them all framed.

     ***

     Margot suggested that they all could lay out sleeping bags and blankets on the living room floor. It'd be a sleepover, like old times sake. Alexi sort of liked that idea. Clarise had said no, that would be ridiculous. There were more than enough guest rooms.

     Alexi dropped her backpack down in one such room. It was bigger than her entire neohome in Neopia Central. Nicer, too. There were little decorations hanging on all the walls. Neovian inspired, she thought. Margot had always wanted to visit Neovia. Alexi wondered if she had ever gotten the chance to go. Alexi would have loved to go with her. Margot made traveling fun. Alexi was always worried about following the map and sticking to the travel checklist. Margot was more concerned with taking fun pictures, and seeing everything there was to see.

     The just wasn’t time for traveling these days, though. Alexi only had two days off from work, and that was it for her vacation days until next year. It was worth it, to see everyone, but it meant that her planned day trip to Roo Island was officially off the itinerary. Who wanted to see Roo Island, anyways?

     There was a knock on the door, and Alexi sprung across the room to fling it open. Margot stood in the hallway, looking at her feet.

     “I wasn’t sure if you’d still be unpacking.” Margot said.

     Alexi looked back into the room at her solitary backpack. Technically, she supposed, it was not yet unpacked.

     “I travel light.” She told Margot.

     Margot wandered in, a little self-consciously for the fact that they were in Margot’s house. She leaned against the dresser, picking at a purple-polished nail. Purple was a great color on Margot. It complimented her gradient of glossy, evening-colored scales. Margot had always made an effort to eat lots of protein, so her scales would be at their best. Alexi expected her own scales were somewhat less vibrant than Margot’s. That was the downside to living off of tinned prunes and breadfish for months at a time.

     “So, um.” Margot started.

     Alexi dutifully looked up. She had been picking at the cloud-fluffy bedspread with a sort of inexplicable nervous energy.

     “You’re probably wondering why I sent you all those neomails?” Margot asked.

     Actually, Alexi hadn’t been wondering. She had assumed Margot felt her same sense of nostalgia for old friends, combined with the means to actually feel proud about inviting them all to visit. But if there was an ulterior motive, that was fine too, she supposed.

     ***

          The four sat in Margot’s living room. Terry knew this room well. She remembered building a big blanket fort in the living room, clustering together underneath to tell ghost stories. That had been on-camera. Margot had been so afraid of the stories, but Terry had assumed the fear was just played up for the show. No one was actually that afraid of the Haunted Woods, Terry had thought. Maybe Margot was. Maybe that was part of why Terry had been such a bad friend. Maybe while Terry was looking around the living room with a sense of warm familiarity, Margot was looking around, feeling betrayal and stale fear.

     “The studio contacted Margot.” Alexi said. Margot was sitting next to her on the sofa, nodding in agreement, but avoiding eye contact. Alexi looked like she was bordering on frantic, herself. Her easy vibrancy had really taken a turn for wild-eyed burnout, somewhere along the way.

     “The studio?” Clarise asked. “What’d they want?”

     “They want to reboot the show.” Alexi said.

     Clarise laughed. It wasn’t a pretty sound. Usually, Clarise had such a lovely-sounding laugh. “What’d you tell them?”

     “I told them I’d ask you all.” Margot said, to the shag carpeting.

     Clarise stopped laughing. She thought for a moment, in the coldly calculating way she sometimes did. It was an action that had become both colder and more calculating, since the last time Terry had seen her.

     “Is that why we’re here?” Clarise asked.

     Alexi and Margot both looked a little deflated. Terry wasn’t sure why Clarise was making them admit it out loud. Couldn’t that just go unsaid, and they could all pretend they were still friends, for a little longer?

     “That’s why I invited you here.” Margot said, very quiet, and very small.

     Terry remembered Margot moderating a million fights. She had never once been quiet, and she had never once been small. None of them had been.

     Clarise, at least, refused to be quiet or small, now. “You’re unbelievable. We haven’t so much as spoken in five years. Why would you ever even for a minute think we’d want to be back in that horrible Neovision show?” Her tail flicked back and forth angrily, and her fur bristled on end.

     Margot faced that anger with guilty acceptance. She was wearing black trousers, so the lighter sunrise colors striping her legs weren’t visible. She appeared exclusively deep blue, dotted with stars.

          “I’d do the show.” Alexi said.

     “What?” Clarise yelled.

     “I need the neopoints.” Alexi said. It was as if the combined airspace taken up by Clarise and Alexi’s words could only be so big. For every outburst from Clarise, Alexi shied away more.

     “Sellout.” Clarise accused.

     “I know.” Alexi said. “But with the kind of neopoints they’re offering...It doesn’t matter, actually. The show, I mean. Without Terry, they wouldn’t care about us. We were just there to support Terry’s weekly storyline.”

     Everyone turned to look at Terry. Terry thought back to every time every camera was aimed at her. She had spent so much time floundering in that electronic gaze. Then she had thought she’d mastered the art of saying exactly what was expected, in the most entertaining way, but that hadn’t been quite right either. She’d been awful to her closest friends in the world. Alexi and Margot and Clarise had been her only friends, and she’d berated them all publicly for an audience’s entertainment. She deserved to be stuck up on Terror Mountain with only Feather for company. She barely deserved Feather’s company.

     But for all she did or didn’t deserve, her house on Terror Mountain was the loneliest place in Neopia. She couldn’t go back there, alone, and know that she had left behind any sort of hope of a chance of reconciling with the others. Maybe she could stay in Shenkuu, and do the show, and be the worst again, like they all expected her to be, but make the others understand that it was never their fault. They never deserved to be the victims of Terry’s Neovision presence. She could be awful, without being awful to them, right? It’d take some talented acting, but that’s what Terry was best at. She had been such a good actor that no one had even known she was acting.

     “I’ll do the show.” She told them.

     “I...are you all crazy?” Clarise asked. “Terry, I thought you were trying to be, like, less horrifyingly obnoxious.”

     Terry could feel tears poking the back of her eyes. She was probably going to cry. She accepted it, and could continue the conversation with cognizant awareness that she was going to fall apart at some point during the next three sentences.

     She took a deep breath. “I’ve been so lonely. I don’t want to do the show...but if it’s the only way you’ll all keep hanging out with me…”

     Margot beat her to the waterworks. She let out a big gulping sob, then loudly blew her nose. “Terry, I’ll hang out with you no matter what. I missed you so much.”

     “I was so terrible to you, though.” Terry said.

     Margot shook her head. “You were trying to be a perfect Neovision reality star. You’re different now.”

     Terry climbed onto the sofa between Margot and Alexi, resting her head on Margot’s shoulder. The two of them were both still in tears. They were a different sort of tears, though, Terry thought. Kind of a cathartic, things are going to work out after all and maybe be okay in the end type of crying.

     “So we aren’t doing the show?” Alexi asked. “I mean, I’m okay if we don’t do the show…”

     “I’m certainly not doing the show.” Clarise said, looking at the conglomeration of snotty-nosed crying on the sofa with disdain. “I have to get back to work in a few days.”

     “Me too, I guess” Alexi said. “Do you want to join us on the sofa?”

     “No.” Clarise said.

     Alexi nodded. “Okay. You know, I don’t think I ever told you how much I missed you. I’m really glad you’ve been successful, and I know you’ve always liked to work independently, and that you’ve got your work on Virtupets now, but I miss hearing about your crazy adventures.”

     Through eyes blurry with tears, Terry can see Clarise smile. Maybe, for all the years it’s been, Alexi still has that knack for knowing just what to say to make everything okay again in the end.

     “Maybe I will sit with you all on the sofa.” Clarise said.

     “Bring it in.” Alexi said.

     “If you get snot on me I’m leaving.” Clarise told her.

     ***

     It had been three months since that visit. The Neovision studio had been disappointed to hear that Shenkuu Mountain Pets would not be returning for a season three. Disappointed, but not surprised, Margot thought. It had been a long shot.

     Margot had missed the show. She had missed waking up to whatever crazy nonsense dramatics Terry dredged up, and she had missed Alexi buzzing around like a poppit on a sugar rush, and she had missed Clarise showing up at dinnertime with her insane get-rich-quick ventures. She had missed the energy and the life of it all, staying in Shenkuu long after they had all gone. They had moved to bigger and better things, and she had stayed in place, waiting for them to come back. The neighborhood had lost its sheen, and no amount of repainting or reorganizing or redecorating had fixed it.

     These days, Margot still missed the show sometimes, but she missed it a whole lot less. She liked thoughtful, creative Terry so much more than theatrical, aggressive Terry. Terry would still try anything once, but she’d do it because she wanted to learn and experience, not just because someone expected it of her. Margot liked Alexi’s newfound sense of confident purpose. Alexi’s old excitement for everything now seemed so hollow next to the genuine drive she had for her new job. Clarise was happier, too. She had felt left out, Margot now realized. Alexi, in her great social wisdom, had noticed first, and now the two of them were helping each other. Clarise had gotten Alexi a job in sales, up in the Virtupets Space Station. Alexi had given Clarise the genuine compassion she had been missing. Margot received a neomail from them two weeks ago. Alexi wrote about how beautiful space was, and how much fun they were having exploring Kreludor on the weekends. Clarise wrote about how she was pleased to report the GRUUNDO sales team was having its most lucrative quarter on record. That was as close as Clarise was going to get to saying she was thrilled to have a friend.

     Margot couldn’t fault Clarise for that. She was also thrilled to have a friend. She checked her watch. There was still an hour until the boat left, so she and Terry still had time to get food before the official start of their vacation.

     Not a vacation, Terry had reminded her. A business trip, practically. A voyage up to Happy Valley, to officially sign papers selling Terry’s old neohome. It had been in perfect condition to sell. Practically unlived in.

     Terry was going to come back to Shenkuu, and stay in one of Margot’s guest rooms. Margot certainly had enough space to house a tiny kacheek and a yoakie. Not to say that Margot wouldn’t have found room for Terry in any neohome. She and Terry were going to finally have their chance to be real best friends, off-camera. They were going to build a blanket fort in the living room, but they weren’t going to tell ghost stories. They were going to make hot chocolate and paint their nails.

     And once Terry and Feather were all settled in, then they could go on a real vacation. Margot had always wanted to see Neovia.

The End.