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aparticularbandit · 1 year ago

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Senior Center Shake-Up

Summary: As a volunteer, Eve runs into some issues trying to make the Haddington Senior Center winter decorations more inclusive.

Part of The Valentines Collection.

Rating: T.

Eve Fletcher/Claire Debella

Reminder that I write Claire as trans and that Claire hasn't come out to Eve yet. As this is in Eve's POV, she refers to her as Christopher, he/him.

AO3

Snow flurries through the air, overhead cloud cover a soft greyish-white – more white than grey, as befitting the gentler snow. Later on, the clouds might grow darker, and if they’re really, really lucky, small jagged lines of lightning will brighten the evening sky with the lingering echoes of thunder around them.

But Eve isn’t thinking about any of that as she makes her way across the parking lot to Haddington’s Senior Center. She’s thinking about all the homework she has to get through this evening – you’d think, with college application dates coming up soon, her teachers would let up on all the busywork, but they seem to just be piling even more on. Of course, she’s gotten most of her applications in already, so that shouldn’t be much of a concern, but Christopher talked her into applying to a reach school with him. She probably won’t get into it. She knows she won’t get into it; she’s not the sort of person they want. So she hesitates and decides not to and then—

The problem, really, with thinking about all of this other stuff in frigid cold weather is that then you’re not really paying attention to where you’re walking, and Eve – precious, precious Eve – places her heel on just the wrong patch of ice and finds herself slipping. Her arms whirl about, trying to steady her, but nothing works. She falls backward—

Only to be caught in the warm, firm hands of her boyfriend: Christopher Valentine.

“Hey,” Christopher says, smile playing about his soft lips as he looks down at her.

Eve’s cheeks warm as she looks up at him and meets his deep blue eyes. “Hey.”

Christopher helps her back to her feet, but where any other boyfriend might wrap his arms around her and rest his chin on her shoulder (and maybe kiss her cheek), he shoves his hands into his pockets, still that same awkward boy he’d been before, and steps next to her, scuffing the toe of his boot along the patch of ice. “They should salt this. If any of the seniors slip on this, they could fall and break their hip.” He bites his lower lip and lets out a low hiss. “They could sue.”

“They won’t sue.” Eve tucks her hair back behind one ear. She wraps her arm through Christopher’s. “C’mon,” she says, “you can keep me steady on the way in.”

“S-sure.” Christopher’s face flushes a deep red, one that near reaches the top curves of his ears when Eve tugs him against her. At least this time, when they make it inside, he doesn’t immediately untangle his arm from hers. He just stands there in that thin jacket of his, uncertain and unsure.

Of course, as soon as their supervisor, Mrs. Rafferty, shows up, Christopher pulls his arm from Eve’s. “You’ve got some ice out front, ma’am,” he says, still not removing his jacket. “If you want, I can take care of that right quick for you.”

Mrs. Rafferty offers him a half of a smile. “No, Christopher, dear, I’m sure we’ll be quite alright.”

“Eve fell—”

“And she’s alright, isn’t she?” Mrs. Rafferty turns to Eve, brows raising. “You’re doing alright, aren’t you, Eve, dear?”

Eve pauses halfway through removing her mother’s old, moth-bitten coat (for all its holes, for all its patches, for all its threadbare nature, it’s still quite warm) and then nods. “Yes,” she says, avoiding Mrs. Rafferty’s watery eyes, “but only because Christopher caught me. I could have hit my head on the curb if he hadn’t.”

“Oh.” Mrs. Rafferty’s teeth grit together – the word sounds harsh and annoyed. “I’ll get George to take care of it when he gets here. He’s supposed to be taking care of the sidewalk.” Then she gestures with one arm. “C’mon, you two. I’ve got you on Christmas decorating duty—”

Winter holiday, Eve corrects but doesn’t say. It’s the sort of thing that’ll just get Mrs. Rafferty to glare at her and say something about not being one of those politically correct sort of people and also next thing she’ll know Eve’ll want her to say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas, and it’s….

It would just be a whole thing, and Eve doesn’t want to cause a stir.

Instead, Eve gives Christopher a look, hoping to meet his eyes for a little encouragement, but notes how focused he is on their supervisor. She sighs and then follows along with them to whichever room it is Mrs. Rafferty wants them to decorate this time.

There are three rooms to be decorated: the main community room, which has all sorts of group meetings from yoga to book club to that one club Mrs. Rafferty won’t mention to them by name but is apparently very sketchy; the secondary community room, which is mainly for sitting and chatting with other people who simply want to be there (and which has a nice little coffee bar and tends to be where the caterers set up while the actual eating takes place across both community rooms); and the theater, which doesn’t get used too much during the rest of the year, other than a monthly movie double feature, but which has Christmas (and yes, Eve does mean Christmas) movies and shows playing near constantly through the holiday season.

Including while Eve and Christopher are hanging the decorations.

The Who song from the cartoon Grinch sings so loudly in the background that even when Eve tries to talk to Christopher, he can’t hear her. He stares at her blankly, and her cheeks flush a bright red again when his gaze drops to her lips, even though she knows he’s just trying to read them. Other boyfriends, seeing the empty theater (literally empty – most of the seniors won’t come to the Christmas movies until much later, nearer the last few days leading up to the holiday itself, and then they’ll bring their extended families with them because the senior center theater has more seating than their own houses) and noticing how dark it is and how their supervisor has left them for who knows how long, would do…something. Something. Especially since the movie’s so loud; it’s not like anyone would hear them in here.

Not that they’ve ever gotten far enough for being heard to be a problem.

When Christopher’s gaze returns to her eyes, his own narrowed in clear confusion, Eve gives a little shake of her head. It’s not important, she tries to tell him, hoping he’ll at least be able to understand that. She looks over the decorations and sighs. Points to herself, points out the door. I’ll be right back.

Christopher nods. He gets it. Maybe. It’s always hard to tell when you can’t hear each other speak.

Eve makes it out of the theater, glances over her shoulder to make sure Christopher isn’t paying her any attention, quickly checks down the hallway to make sure no one is coming, and then leans against the wall with another sigh, one that causes her to sink until she’s crouching near the tiled floor. It’s sparkling clean, which means the nearby bathroom must have flooded before they got here – that’s the only reason Mrs. Rafferty would have it this spotless at this time of day. Still, it’s not like being at home, when she can lean her head down between her knees and open her mouth in a silent scream. She doesn’t want her hair to touch the tile, no matter how clean it might be right now. So instead of doing either of those, she presses her lips together as tightly as she can, teeth biting on the inside of her mouth.

It…doesn’t help. But it’s something.

(Before she goes back into the theater, Eve imagines that while she was gone, Christopher found a remote to mute the movie. Then they can at least talk while the show is playing – Rafferty probably wouldn’t notice as long as she can look through the windows and see it still going – and that would be. nice.

Somehow, that fantasy feels just as outlandish as some of the other things she’s thought about Christopher doing with her. That’s the disappointing part.)

It’s while they’re decorating the secondary community room that Eve notices. At first, she isn’t sure she wants to say anything – mostly because she doesn’t want to be a tremendous bother to anyone, let alone Christopher or Mrs. Rafferty – but the longer they decorate and the more it becomes obvious to her, the more uncomfortable she gets. Eventually, she pauses in her decorating and bites her lower lip.

Christopher notices immediately. “Eve?” he asks. “Is something wrong?”

“It’s all Christmas decorations.”

The words sound weird when she says them, but Eve can’t think of any better way to say it. She glances around at the nativities – multiple nativities – and the Christmas trees and the angels, and she presses her lips together again.

Christopher looks over the decorations they’ve placed around the room. “I think the snowflakes are much more carefully neutral,” he says, as though sharing a secret, but his eyes don’t hold that light they normally do. He moves closer to her. “What do you mean?”

“Well. Um.” Eve runs her fingers through her hair – an odd nervous habit she’d picked up from her mother – and gazes around the room. “There are…there are more holidays than just Christmas. My grandparents, for instance, they celebrate Hanukkah, and it would be nice….” Her gaze drops. “We should have some decorations for that, too, not just…not just Christmas.” Her fingers fidget together. “I think…I think Ms. Eisenhardt would really appreciate it, and, um—”

Christopher reaches over, places his hand over Eve’s, and stills her fidgeting. She glances up and searches his eyes, finding nothing there but a gentle calm. “Okay.” He gives her a soft smile. “What should we do?”

His hand feels warm on hers.

Eve bites her lower lip. Her gaze flicks away and then back again, and she looks up at him through her lashes. “We should talk to Mrs. Rafferty first,” she says. “I’m sure she’ll have an idea.”

“Okay.” Christopher nods but doesn’t drop her gaze. “Let’s go ask.”

“Absolutely not.”

Eve stares, dumbfounded, at Mrs. Rafferty, where she sits behind her messy desk. She blinks twice, uncertain that she’s really heard what she just heard. “What?”

“I said no,” Mrs. Rafferty repeats. There’s nothing intentionally menacing in her tone, just a firm sort of firmness to it. “The senior center simply does not have the extra funds to cover buying any new holiday decorations at this time.” For all that there might not be anything menacing in her tone, there’s something off in the way she says holiday, as though it’s a naughty word that shouldn’t be said at all. “We’ll keep using the decorations we already have. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Christopher takes Eve’s hand in his and gives it a gentle squeeze. “What if Eve and I made more decorations? That should help with the problem.”

Mrs. Rafferty shakes her head. “Cut-out decorations are for the craft room, not for the rest of the center. If we start putting up everyone’s artwork all over the building, then we would have to put up everyone’s artwork all over the building, and you understand why that would be a bad idea.”

Eve does understand. For all that she loves the seniors, some of them are…a little stuck in some…views that would be more harmful to some of the others than not putting up inclusive decorations would be. Still. “What if…what if I brought something from home? Or bought something on my own to bring in? Then it wouldn’t cost the center anything.”

“The center can’t be held liable for items you leave lying around, Eve, you know that.” Mrs. Rafferty stares down at them. “The answer is no.”

Eve is too shocked – too upset – to say anything else. Her gaze drops, and she can feel tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. That’s not the worst part of this. It isn’t. But she can hear every bully she’s ever had laughing at her, making fun of her for crying, just because they said something that’s definitely not that harmful at all. She can’t help it. If she tries even harder not to cry, it just makes her cry harder. So it’s better to let the tears prick at her eyes. If she tries to stop them, she’ll end up weeping, and nobody wants that – least of all her.

But where Eve falls silent, Christopher speaks. “If we can’t add more inclusive decorations,” he says, “then we should take down the decorations specific to Christmas. It isn’t right to let a government building lean so completely in one direction. What would the voters think?”

Rafferty takes a deep breath in and leans forward. “Look. The voters will be more upset if we aren’t decorated for Christmas. I’m not voted into this position. And none of the seniors have ever complained about any of this.” Her gaze hardens. “Now you will drop this, or you will need to rethink where you want to volunteer next semester.” She lifts a hand and waggles it at them dismissively, her chipped nail polish a dull red in the overhead light. “Now go on. Back to your decorating.”

When Eve stands, Rafferty continues, “Sorry, dear, but your tears don’t work on me.”

Eve takes a sharp breath in and hurries out of the room. She doesn’t stop in the hallway – more than almost anything, she wants to be out of the center, away from Rafferty, away from the center, somewhere she can feel safe. Normally, she feels safe here, but right now…right now she’s not sure she’ll feel safe here again, and maybe that’s the worst part of all.

Christopher races after her, catches her, places his hand on her shoulder. “Eve—”

She wants to shrug him off. She wants to keep running. She wants to go home.

Eve turns into her boyfriend and crumbles against his chest.

At first, Christopher tenses, but then he wraps his arms around her and holds her close to him. He runs his fingers through her hair – she finds it soothing, maybe more so because it’s him, because it’s so odd for him to do this somewhere so public, and she curls closer against him. Still, he gently leads her away from the main hallway and sits with her on the floor – not as sparkling clean, but maybe it’s just harder to tell because she’s crying and her sight is all blurry, and honestly she hates this – and then, a few minutes later, pulls away just enough to brush the tears from her cheeks. He hesitates and then says, soft, “Maybe it would be good to take the rest of the day off.”

Eve flinches away from his touch. “What…what do you mean?”

“I mean, I can take care of everything else. You’re, um. You’re kind of a mess, Eve.” Christopher’s lips curl up in a gentle, soft smile, but it feels patronizing. He reaches as though to brush his fingers through her hair again.

“I…I guess,” Eve says, but she still flinches away from his touch. She looks up at him, searches his eyes, finds only warmth and comfort there. He doesn’t mean anything by it, by saying she’s a mess. He’s right. She’s certain she is a mess, what with the crying and everything, and honestly, she should have.... She should have kept her mouth shut. She doesn’t know anything about running one of these places anyway, and she never would’ve thought about the money issues or the liability, and Mrs. Rafferty is…she’s right about all of that, she is, really.

Still, Eve can’t help but sigh. “I just thought….” Her head tilts to one side. “Ms. Eisenhardt would be so happy.” She rubs her hand across her eyes. It doesn’t matter. “Um, I’ll…I’ll come back tomorrow. Thank….” She takes a deep breath in and gives Christopher the warmest smile she can right now. “Thank you. For going to talk to her with me. And for…for covering for me.”

Christopher pauses – and for a moment, Eve imagines him leaning forward and kissing her – but instead, he takes her hand in his and gives it a squeeze. “Of course. Whenever you need me.”

Eve needs him now, but she won’t say that. She’ll just keep thinking it to herself all the way to her borrowed car. On the drive home, she’ll be just as preoccupied, but she won’t say anything about that either.

Two things happen at the Haddington Senior Center the next day.

Eve’s a little later than normal – her mom needed the car back, which is fine because Eve can just get a ride back with Christopher, as long as she isn’t a mess again today, but did mean that she took the bus there instead of riding with Christopher because he’d said something about having something else to do and that he would meet her there. But she’d seen his car in the parking lot outside, so even with whatever else he’d needed to do, he’d still gotten it done and gotten there faster than the bus. Which…really means that he’ll be waiting on her to finish up her hours before they can leave, but. But.

Almost immediately, Ms. Eisenhardt finds Eve, takes both of her hands in both of her own, and looks up at her with a broad, bright grin. “Come see,” she says, eyes growing brighter as she speaks. “Come see.”

Eve doesn’t even have time to respond before the little old lady pulls her down the hallway to the main community room – the one Eve hadn’t helped decorate the day before. Of course, the first thing she sees are all of the winter and Christmas decorations, but then Ms. Eisenhardt pulls her to one side and gestures, saying, “Look.”

It’s a little haphazard, of course, but Eve starts to see them through everything else – a menorah here and there, a few dreidels on one of the tables with a printed out guide on how to play, and some of what she’d thought were snowflakes or Christmas stars are now much clearly stars of David. Her eyes widen. “Where did they come from?”

But Ms. Eisenhardt doesn’t say anything about that, only goes to her normal chair, just next to one of the menorahs. She drums her fingers on her leg and then pulls out her glasses, perches them on the edge of her nose, and starts to read her book.

It’s then that there’s a sound at the door behind her, and Eve turns to see Christopher carrying a large plastic bag filled almost to the brim with more of them. He holds a finger up to his lips before Eve can say anything, then he leans forward conspiratorially, “Mrs. Rafferty always takes Tuesdays off. So I thought, if I could get everything set up while she wasn’t here, then she wouldn’t have anyone to blame. Then the center could keep everything for next year.”

Eve wants to kiss him. She wants to grab his collar and pull him to her so strongly that he drops the plastic bag and kisses her. (Although she really, really doesn’t want to make him drop the bag because she doesn’t want to make him break anything.) Still, that impulse doesn’t pass when he places the large bag on the floor and opens it with a bright smile, gesturing for her to take some of the new decorations to put them wherever she wants.

Her heart feels so full.

(She doesn’t question how Christopher got the money to pay for all of this. She would never have been able to do it on her own. She would never have fought Mrs. Rafferty like this.)

The second thing – and perhaps the one that isn’t the most important overall but that feels the most important to her – is when they’ve almost finished getting everything out of the bag and Ms. Eisenhardt clears her throat and points at the ceiling. “Mistletoe,” she says, nodding upwards.

Eve glances up, and her eyes widen again. “Christopher, you didn’t—”

“No.” Christopher shakes his head.

Ms. Eisenhardt just cackles. “Just kiss each other, you lovebirds!”

Eve bites her lower lip. She meets Christopher’s eyes, trying not to look hopeful or excited. She catches the hesitation in his gaze and says, her voice soft, “You don’t have to kiss me, if you don’t want. I know you don’t…. You don’t really want to—”

Before she can finish what she’s trying to say, Christopher leans across and kisses her. He cups her face with one hand, and she leans gentle into his touch. “I always,” he starts to say as they part, then flushes a bright scarlet, gaze dropping. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“You could never,” Eve responds, near breathless, and leans up to kiss the tip of his nose. Christopher just smiles. “Excellent.”

#bandit fic #december banditnanza 2023 fic #eve fletcher #claire debella #mrs. fletcher #glass onion #the valentines #the valentines collection

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