Electro [hs]

Twelve

There's just this one more hurdle to jump. A day out with Pam's daughter, Chloe. Given what a bundle of joy her son was, I can't imagine that this is going to go well for me. But since I'm fast running out of wearable clothes and Harry has promised to line me up with an interview with his nursing home, I figure I might as well kill two hateful birds with one stone. I don't know what is going to be more torturous; hanging around someone who'll likely hate me on sight or shopping.

In and out. I tell myself in the car. Two pairs of jeans, some t-shirts and a couple of overshirts and then done. Ben can't complain that I didn't at least try and spend time with Chloe and my obligations will be fulfilled.

Ben refuses to let me take the bus, and ferries me to the mall in his car himself. I feel like I'm in middle school; still relying on my dad for a ride because public transportation is too confusing. The plan is to meet in the parking lot, Ben taking me, Pam taking Chloe like we're the drugs in some elicit deal going on or something.

"I don't have to tell you to be nice, do I, Charlie?" Ben sighs. I don't feel as if this is particularly fair- I'm a nice person, or at least not a total shit bag, really it's Chloe that should be getting this Be Nice talk, though I realise with a sinking feeling that she probably is. I can see it now. Pam delightedly crowing about my 'troubles' and how I look and whatever other lovely nugget she's decided to pick up on.

"I'll be nice," I assure him. "We'll have a jolly old time."

"Good," says Ben, pointedly ignoring my sarcasm as he gets out of the car and I follow behind him, shuffling ever so slightly to try and prolong the time between having to go shopping and now as I spot Pam, who's shoved her massive girth into a sleeveless floral number this afternoon. Trailing behind her, in a way that is kind of similar to me is Chloe.

Who doesn't look like I'd pictured. Like, at all.

Pam is pinkness and exuberance, hugging and southern lightness but Chloe is as stiff shouldered as I am, plump underneath her calf length skirt. She's incredibly overdressed for the heat in an outfit that has been meticulously put together, but while Mercedes could throw on a pair of shorts and a cropped top and look like a movie star, Chloe Grace has to tug on her blouse, readjust her jacket and shift her feet in uncomfortable t-bar pumps. She twines a finger around a loose strand of thick brown hair and Pam-Pam swats her hand away. As we get closer her hair shines strangely, seems to sit bizarrely on her head.

A clear, definite wig. Not a good one either.

They stop in front of us and Chloe shoves her hand in it again. Weird. Very very weird. It makes me like her a whole lot more than the bouncy All-American Girl that I'd been expecting.

"Heya Chloe, happy to be home?" Ben asks cheerily. Chloe shrugs, still playing with her wig before Pam clears her throat to prompt her. Again, all points for Chloe.

"I mean...yeah, uh-uh," she wrestles out in a deep but airy sort of voice that sounds as if it's floating away the minute it comes out of her throat. There's a gap of silence before Ben smiles again, eyes crinkling and laughs through there isn't anything even remotely funny to laugh at.

Me, I'm still dwelling on this wig thing though and doing my best not to stare a little closer at it. It's not a cancer thing is it? I wonder with a twist in my chest. But why would Ben not mention it? Be nice, Chloe has cancer seems like the exact thing he would have said to me in the car on the way here. Maybe she has some other disease? Maybe she just...likes bad wigs?

"I guess we should bug off and leave them to it, Pam-Pam."Ben fishes in his pocket and hands me a crumpled twenty, "Have a coffee on me, girls."

And then we're alone. "There's something going on between the two of them, right?" I ask because it's literally all I can think of to break the ice. "I'm not imagining it am I?" I shoot a hopeful grin at Chloe, like we'll maybe bond over how gross our parents are. Chloe is kind of gaping at me, which doesn't exactly bode well but she does manage to pull herself together.