Niagara Falls- Monday afternoon

[fates_jaye]

"Jaye! There's a burger here with your name on it!"

Jaye sighed and tried not to roll her eyes. "Thanks, Dad, but I've already got clogged arteries from the last three named Jaye," she called back.

"Okay, but if you don't claim it, it's going to Aaron," Darrin warned.

"I'd love one, Dad," said Aaron, giving his sister the look of someone who really didn't want his fifth burger of the cookout, but was more concerned with kissing ass.

Jaye'd been here a couple hours now, and by now was pulling out her cell phone to check the time and see if she could make a reasonable escape yet. This much time with her family, there needed to be a limit on it.

"Are you looking at the time again?" asked Sharon, sitting in one of the plastic lawn chairs to light up a cigarette next to her.

"No. I got a text," she lied.

"Because you can't leave yet. Mom got cake," Sharon told her.

Jaye sighed, bowing her head in defeat. There was a bakery her mom went to- or rather, that she made Yvette go to- that had seriously some of the best cake she'd ever had, and there was no way she could pass it up knowing it was there and she only had to hold out until her dad finally got tired of the grill or burned up all the charcoal or something. "Dammit."

[Establishy, cuz I love holidays with the Tylers, though she'd love anyone who called her today.]

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[fates_jaye]

"I'm at my parents' house," she said, leaving it up to her to figure that out.

And while she was figuring it out, Jaye was pulling the phone away from her ear to see who she was talking to. "And hey, Angela."

[chasingangela]

"Me too," Angela said, then proceeded to emodump all over Jaye. "I swear my sister is like all over this guy who was all into me in tenth grade and my grandmother keeps trying to feed the baby really weird stuff and I'm sunburned which is unfair 'cause it's, like, 60 degrees here, and -- wait. Did I ever tell you we had a baby? And what's your family doing?"

[fates_jaye]

"...I have no idea," she admitted, thinking back. "Everyone's having babies, I don't even know anymore. And they're being... my family. I'm pretty sure my dad had to have swallowed a bottle of uppers before coming out here, and my brother's kissing ass, and my mom is suggesting new hairstyles on me because this one makes my face look weird. It's down. My hair is down."

[chasingangela]

"You have pretty hair," Angela protested, with a sympathetic noise. "Unless you put weird streaks in it or something."

No, Angela, you aren't talking to Zero.

"My dad hasn't left the kitchen all day. It's getting bizarre even for him."

[fates_jaye]

"Is he escaping?" Jaye wondered. "That's what I do, but I hide in my room."

[chasingangela]

"Probably," Angela decided. "That and trying to keep my grandmother from dumping oregano all over everything."

Woefully, she added, "I would hide in my room with the baby, except my sister claimed it like five minutes after I started college."

[fates_jaye]

"You've got a kid, you should be able to take it back," said Jaye, thinking this was totally logical.

[chasingangela]

"See, that's what I told Danielle," Angela kind of whined. "She's just a brat."

[fates_jaye]

"Noogie her till she stops," Jaye suggested. Again, logically.

[chasingangela]

".... do you do that with your brother?" Angela was giving it serious thought, here. "Does it work?"

[fates_jaye]

"I can't. He's like a giant. I can't reach the top of his head," she said.

[chasingangela]

"Freak," Angela commented. "You should just spit in his shirt drawer or something."

[fates_jaye]

"Eh, I could, but he's a good ally against the chainsmoking lawyer. Best to keep his revenge to the stuff he doesn't notice," she reasoned.

[chasingangela]

"I had forgotten your sister was a lawyer," Angela said cheerily. "If I even knew it."

[fates_jaye]

"Yep. And she's easy to get back at. Call late at night when you know she's got to be in court the next morning, hide her cigarettes and make her search for her spare pack... But that probably wouldn't work on your sister."

[chasingangela]

"Nah," Angela concurred blithely. "I just have to hide her scrunchies or her leotards. She's in high school."

[fates_jaye]

Sometimes Jaye forgot there was a time difference. "Scrunchies and leotards?"

[chasingangela]

"Gymnast," Angela said, as if Danielle had decided to pursue that activity just to annoy her.

[fates_jaye]

"Okay, then that would totally work. You should do that. Or puff paint them." What?

[chasingangela]

"Like, neon?"

Angela ... could get into this. So she was someone's mom. Shhhhh.

[fates_jaye]

"If you have neon, that would be perfect. And make sure it's the kind that doesn't just peel off after a couple washes. Go big or go home." Jaye, shhhh.

[chasingangela]

"I think I might even have some," Angela confessed.

Don't judge.

"I am so glad I randomly called you, Jaye."

[fates_jaye]

"That's pretty much what I'm here for. Random calls involving puffy paint and leotards," Jaye said. She'd ask what happened to her life but... it was sort of just like this.

[chasingangela]

"Not a bad calling," Angela offered. "Call me if you ever wanna talk, like, walruses and spit-up."

[fates_jaye]

"Oh, I will. And we're using that as a prompt," she warned. And when she heard someone calling her name, she said, "I think that's time."

[chasingangela]

"I should go get Abby, too," Angela said. "Later, Jaye,"