Joyce said to Buffy in a gentle tone while she sat at the dinner table, “Honey, Hank and I are getting married.”
Buffy jumped up from the table and said, “You can’t!”
Joyce stared at Buffy then rolled her eyes and stated, “He’s a good man, Buffy, and he’ll take good care of us. He offered for us to come live at his mansion, we will have housekeepers and maids and even a butler.”
Joyce was too caught up in her daydream to notice Buffy’s horrified look.
“Mom, I’ve tried to tell you, he touches me and kisses me and…” Buffy trailed off noticing her mother was barely even listening.
Joyce snapped out of her thoughts and said, “Don’t you dare talk badly about Hank. It’s bad enough you said you didn’t like Peter and Stanley but there is nothing wrong with Hank. Besides you told me Stanley did that as well and I left him. Now you are going to tell me that Hank does that too??”
Buffy’s eyes got wide realizing her mother really didn’t believe her. She was going to be stuck in this house forever with a man who insisted on looking at her like he wanted to have sex with her. Quickly losing her temper, Buffy yelled, “You pick losers!. Ever think of that?”
Joyce dropper her voice thinking that acting calm would help the situation. She was sure if she just gave Hank more of a chance then Buffy would like him.
Suddenly Joyce came up with an idea, “Buffy I’m gone this weekend. Why don’t you go and stay with Hank?”
Buffy sighed not thinking this is a good idea at all, “I’m 14. Shouldn’t I be able to stay alone yet?”
Joyce shook her head and said, “I’ll talk to Hank tonight when we go out. He should be here any minute. I’m sure he’ll agree. Then you can get settled in before the wedding. We can even move in when I get back.”
Buffy frowned but figured there was no getting out of it. She could only hope she was wrong at the way Hank looked at her. She had a really bad feeling about this weekend but she still had 3 days to find a way out of it.
The weekend came quickly and soon it was time for Buffy to go with the driver that Hank had sent to pick her up. Ever the helpful boyfriend he had also called movers to move Buffy’s things to the mansion. Buffy sighed as she was taken to her ‘new’ room by a housekeeper and asked if she wanted help unpacking.
“No thank you,” Buffy said politely. In her head adding “ What is want is my mother, and to get out of here”.. since no one seemed to understand this so Buffy started to unpack. Hank would be at work until 7, upon his arrival home he and Buffy would sit down to dinner according to the housekeeper.
Buffy had the fleeting thought that if she didn’t bother to unpack her stuff maybe her mother would change her mind and not marry Hank.
Sighing she realized that it wasn’t looking good on that front. Joyce had packed up her room and Hank had already hired the movers to go over to their ‘old’ house and pack up the remaining items to be moved over to the mansion.
Buffy sighed again, and decided that she had better make the most of it. Perhaps Hank wasn’t as bad as she thought. Her mother seemed to think he was ok.
She started to move her clothes into her closet and got to work on her dresser. She carefully laid new colored contact paper over the old that had been placed in her drawers to match the paint she had chosen for the room. It was silver with a touch of pink in it.
Ever the doting boyfriend Hank had allowed Buffy to choose her bedroom and bathroom wall color, which the painters had finished last week..
The house was really huge. The curtains in her room were going to be home-sewn once Buffy’s mother came home to measure the size of her window. Buffy’s old room had been blue so she was anxious to fix up this plain white-walled room.
She carefully placed the new light pink towels complete with lace that Buffy hand-sewn herself over the dresser top, nightstand and bookcase shelves to protect them. She even covered the shelves in her closet.
She started moving her items into her dresser drawers, arranging her little towels on top of the dresser, bookcase shelves, and even the shelves in her closet.
Buffy smiled at her work thinking it looked beautiful as she carefully started unpacking the boxes. She noticed it was lunch and wondered how to ask for food.
She noticed a little bell was placed on the wall and thought to herself, “Wow I feel like I’m Cinderella’s ugly stepsisters.”
She rang the bell and quickly the housekeeper, “You rang?”
Buffy nodded and asked politely, “Is it possible to have lunch?”
The housekeeper answered, “What would you like?”
Buffy shrugged and then said, “Just a simple sandwich of some kind would work. I’m not really picky.”
The housekeeper replied, “Certainly. Ham and cheese? Would you like water or soda?”
Buffy said, “Diet coke? If not water is fine.”
The housekeeper nodded and turned and left the room.
Buffy felt so weird ordering food as though she was in a restaurant but dismissed the thought lifting the television and placing it onto the dresser along with her makeup kit and hairbrush and barrettes.
She then went to work on her desk and bookcase filled each with her book collections and writing items.
She heard a knock at the door and opened to find the housekeeper holding out a tray for her of a ham and cheese sandwich with a soda.
Buffy smiled and said, “Thank you” as she sat down at her desk and devoured the sandwich within a few minutes.
Noticing her bookcase and desk were done, she looked around the walls that looked so bare and noticed one wall was completely empty. She frowned a bit before making a decision. It was only 2 pm.
She had plenty of time so she took the bulletin board off her desk and took out a tack from the drawer and hung up her bulletin board and took out her latest photos and proceeded to make a collage of her photos.
She sat back and took down the last box of items which was a few photos of her mother and dad together, her with her sister who had died at the age of 5, her best friend and her at the mall with prom dresses on for the spring fling and a picture of a her smiling at a piano recital taken by her dad a year before he died. Those were her precious pictures.
She placed them around the room on the pieces of furniture and finally used another tack to hang up the large picture frame containing 10 pictures of her as a baby.
She sighed looking around her room and saw that it was 4 pm. She took her shower items and went into the bathroom noticing someone had taken the time to buy her pink items.
She smiled feeling right at home thinking this life might not be as bad as she thought it would be as she settled down to take a bath for an hour.