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rainbowfic2012-12-18 08:45 pm
sarcasticsra) wrote in rainbowfic2012-12-18 08:45 pm
Olive Drab, 3 + canvas + novelty beads + stain + glitter.
Author: Sara
Colors: Olive Drab, 3. “I peeked at the end, Frank. The devil did it.”
Supplies: Canvas, Novelty Beads ("Stay thirsty, my friends."), Stain ("What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected generally happens."), Glitter ("Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.")
Word Count: 3,350
Rating: PG
Story: The Devil Herself; title of this is Lucille's Lemonade, Open For Business, Serving: Hell (and Heaven, Sorta)
Summary: A nice, normal twelve-year-old girl decides to open up a nice, normal lemonade stand as part of a nice, normal school project. Well, almost.
Notes: Finally getting around to posting my Junetide stories. I'm pretty behind, lol.
The Gott-Heffernan brownstone seemed, at first glance, ordinary enough: it was beautiful and well-kept, owned by the wealthy ‘power couple’ of Ms. Lucinda Heffernan and Mr. Daniel Gott. Most of their neighbors, if you asked, would have pleasant things to say about them and their charming twelve-year-old daughter, Lucille: they were neat, they were quiet, and they were courteous, all around the perfect neighbors.
Of course, if you kept asking, you would soon find out a few strange things, like the fact that no one could quite remember when they’d moved in, or was fully sure exactly what Ms. Heffernan and Mr. Gott did for a living, or why the brownstone always seemed to be so empty all the time.
But, well, they were private people, this was New York City, quiet neighbors were a Godsend, and why were you asking so many nosy questions, anyway?
“Ah, Lucille,” called Mrs. Van Aller, as Lucille got out of the car. She tipped the driver with the money her mom had given her and thanked him, then turned a smile on her neighbor.
“Hi, Mrs. Van Aller,” she said. Lucille was tall for her age, and gangly, with long sandy blonde hair and dark blue eyes that, if you really noticed them, knew far more than any twelve-year-old should. “How are your azaleas?”
“Fine, thank you.” Mrs. Van Aller’s thin lips stretched across her face in a tight, close-mouthed smile. She was the head of the neighborhood watch, as well as the neighborhood busybody, self-appointed to make sure no one made the unforgivable mistake of having up too many holiday decorations, or put out their trashcans a minute too early the night before pickup. She didn’t dislike Lucille, exactly, but she’d always held the firm conviction that all children under the age of 16 were up to something mischievous, no matter how outwardly polite they seemed. She might not have caught Lucille at anything yet, but in Mrs. Van Aller’s opinion, it was only a matter of time. “Do you know when your parents will be home?”
“Mom’s on a business trip for the next week,” she said promptly. “Dad should be home around six, though. Do you need to talk to him?”
“Yes, about the meeting on Friday. Please tell him I was looking for him? I tried to leave a message with your nanny, but no one answered the door. She is there, isn’t she? You shouldn’t be home alone.”
“She’s probably cleaning,” Lucille said with a smile. “She likes to use her headphones. I’ll tell Dad you need to talk to him.”
She studied Lucille for a long moment, attempting to detect even the slightest indication of irresponsibility or dishonesty. “Yes. Thank you.”
Mrs. Van Aller nodded and headed back to her own house, feeling, once again, as though Lucille had just gotten away with something, though she couldn’t for the life of her put her finger on what.
Lucille, for her part, waited until Mrs. Van Aller disappeared through her front door before smiling more knowingly and shaking her head. She had, in fact, gotten away with something, but it was merely the same thing she’d been getting away with for the past twelve years: making someone else—everyone else—believe that she was a nice, normal girl with nice, normal parents who lived in a nice, normal home in New York City.
Only part of this was a lie, to be fair. Lucille was very nice, most of the time, unless you were rude or mean or just downright unfair. Her parents were also, on the whole, pretty nice, though everyone on the PTA knew, intimately, that you did not make Lucinda Heffernan mad. Even their home was nice, but it was not located in New York City. It wasn’t even located on Earth.
You see, there was simply nothing particularly normal about Lucille or her parents.
Lucille whistled softly to herself as she headed inside the brownstone. She stepped immediately into the foyer closet, shut the door behind her, and said, “Home, please.”
Seconds later, she opened the closet door, only this time instead of stepping inside a New York City brownstone, Lucille stepped out into her actual home. “Mom?” she called.
“In the office, sweetie!” her mom called back, and Lucille nodded, dropping her bookbag on the couch and hanging her coat up on the rack. Then she headed for the office, where she found her mom working on the computer. She glanced up as Lucille walked in the door. “You’re home late, I think,” she said, and glanced at the second clock on the wall, which indicated it was about four-twenty in New York City. The first clock told time of a decidedly different nature.
“Traffic,” Lucille said. “The driver called it hellish before apologizing for his language, but I thought it was funny. I wanted to tell him he was wrong, anyway, there’s no traffic in Hell.”
Her mom—Lucy, to her friends, or acquaintances, or even enemies, really, but Lucifer if you wanted to be stupidly formal about it, which, in her opinion, far too many people did—grinned at her. “Of course there isn’t. How inefficient would that be?”
Lucille smiled. “Oh, I also ran into Mrs. Van Aller. She wanted to talk to you guys. I told her you were on a business trip this week, but Dad would be home at around six.”
“This is why you’re my favorite daughter,” Lucy said, and Lucille laughed.
“It’s his turn. I keep track.”
“You should let him know. He had to go into work early today—big meeting, apparently, even the junior associates had to be there, I guess, who knows what that’s about. Maybe The Big Guy has another commandment planned, or a sequel to the Bible or something.”
Lucille snorted. “It’s been awhile since I’ve visited him at work. Think he’ll have time to see me?”
“Your father would fight with every single angel in Heaven and The Big Guy if they tried to stop him from seeing you. He’d win, too.”
She smiled. “Cool. I’m going to get a snack and go—oh, and I have to talk to you about a homework assignment when I get back.”
“All right. I’ll be here.”
After Lucille cut up an apple and found some caramel dip in the refrigerator, she put it all in a Tupperware container and headed back for the closet. “Dad’s office, please.”
This time, when she stepped out, she was in an expansive marble lobby, the color scheme in whites and blues. James, the angel who sat behind the large desk outside her father’s office, smiled once he looked up. “He just got out of his meeting,” he said. “You can go right in.”
Daniel was etched in the glass in the door, with Senior Associate Angel underneath it. Lucille pushed it open and went inside. “Hey, Dad,” she said, and he glanced up.
“Lucille!” he said with a grin, standing and greeting her with a hug. He, like Lucy, glanced at the second of two clocks on his wall. “You just get home from school?”
“Yep,” she said. “I had to tell you that Mrs. Van Aller was looking for you. I told her you’d be home at six.”
“Oh, wonderful,” he said, shaking his head. “You couldn’t have made your mom go talk to her?”
“Sorry. It’s your turn.” Lucille smirked unrepentantly.
“I know, I know,” he replied. “All right. It looks like I have about an hour.”
“I brought a snack for us,” she said, holding up her container with the apple and dip.
Daniel smiled. “Thank you, sweetheart.” He kissed her forehead and took the container, opening it and taking a piece of apple.
Just then, the door swung open. “Daniel, I’ll need you to—” Gabriel stopped as soon as he noticed Lucille was also in the office. “Oh. Hello,” he said, giving her the look he always gave her, the one he thought was cool-yet-polite, but in reality held an undercurrent of bitterness she knew he didn’t mean for her to see. Gabriel was the chair of the Committee, a group of seven senior angels who basically ran Heaven, and if you asked, he’d deny fervently until the day you died (since, being an angel, he was immortal) the notion that he had been more or less in love with Daniel for roughly a millennium, give or take a decade or two. This would not make it any less true.
Lucille smiled at him. “Hi, Gabby.”
Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Your mother has made me immune to that nickname,” he said, just the slightest bit of sharpness in his tone around the words ‘your mother.’ He turned toward Daniel. “I’ll need you to review all the reports from the junior angels.”
“Sure,” Daniel agreed. “I’ll start as soon as I get back.”
Gabriel frowned. “Get back?”
“Neighbor thing, on Earth,” he said.
“Oh,” Gabriel said, this time not even bothering to hide the distaste in his tone. “Of course. Well, just make sure it gets done.”
He turned on his heel and left without another word.
“He’s upset,” said Lucille, looking curiously at her father.
“Yeah. God made quite a few modifications to his latest proposal. He’s not happy about them.”
“Poor Gabby,” she said absently, dipping an apple slice in the caramel. She took a bite, eyes slightly unfocused, before shaking her head and snapping back to her father. “We should probably go, huh?”
Daniel glanced at the second clock again and nodded. “Yeah, good idea. Want me to drop you back at home?”
“Please? I need to talk to Mom about a project.”
Daniel touched her shoulder and made a complicated gesture with his hand, and near-instantly they were in their living room. Lucy walked in. “Have fun with Mrs. Van Aller,” she said, grinning.
“Just remember, next time it’s your turn,” he said, leaning to kiss her. Then he made another gesture with his hand and disappeared.
“So what’s this homework assignment?” Lucy asked.
“I have to write a paper setting up a fictional lemonade stand,” she said. “Figure out costs, try to predict number of customers, that kind of thing, but we get extra credit if we actually make the lemonade stand, and I wanted to. Think I could set it up at your office?”
“Of course you can,” she said. “When were you thinking?”
“Saturday, Earth time?” Lucille said. “The paper’s due next Thursday.”
“That’ll work. When do you want to go get the ingredients?”
“Tomorrow or Thursday, I think,” Lucille said. “I still have to figure it all out. I want to use my allowance for this, too.”
“If that’s what you want.” Lucy nodded, and grinned. “This is going to be fun!”
---
That Saturday (via New York’s standards, of course), Lucille dragged a folding table into the closet with her, saying, “Mom’s office.” A moment later, she stepped out into a lobby not unlike Daniel’s, although this one was warmer and less brightly lit, and the color scheme was hues of soft pinks and golds. It was also much larger, but that was simply what happened when you ran the place. Angelica, the demon sitting behind the desk, smiled when she saw her.
“Your mom said you could set up wherever,” she said.
Lucille nodded. “I’m thinking the main lobby.”
“Makes sense,” Angelica agreed. “Need some help?” She nodded toward the table.
“Actually, yeah, if you wouldn’t mind? I still need to bring out a few other things.”
“No problem,” Angelica said, snapping her fingers three times. The table disappeared, and Lucille smiled.
“Thank you. I’ll be back.”
After moving her chair, the cups, the cashbox, her handmade sign (proclaiming, “Lemonade: 50 Cents!” because using American currency was, she assumed, expected for class, though she had been tempted to use Euros), and the lemonade—three pitchers to start with, but she could make more if she needed—Lucille was ready for business. She was not remotely surprised when her mother appeared beside the stand not a second later.
“I wanted to be your first customer,” she said with a wink. “Your father’s going to be so jealous.”
“Not if I beat you to it,” said Daniel as he appeared right next to her.
“Too late,” she said, grinning and handing over two quarters. Lucille smirked and poured her the first cup. Daniel got the second.
“Delicious,” he proclaimed, after a long gulp. “Absolutely delicious. I’ll have another.”
“Dad, I can’t sell all my lemonade to just you and Mom,” Lucille said, but she poured him another cup.
“Of course not. It’s just really good. Honestly, I’d drink this even if you weren’t my daughter. Even if you were just some stranger.”
“Some random stranger setting up a lemonade stand in Hell,” Lucy said dryly. “Because that happens so often.”
“Excuse you, I’m an angel. I cannot tell a lie.”
None of them could keep from bursting into laughter as soon as the words left his mouth.
“Okay, I should get back to work. Gabriel’s going to freak out if those reports aren’t finished.”
“Gabby freaks out if someone parts their hair the wrong way,” Lucy pointed out.
“I should try that,” he mused, then smiled at Lucille. “I’ll be back for more of this later, though. Have fun.”
With that, and a hand gesture, he vanished.
“I’d like another cup myself,” Lucy said. “This is good lemonade.”
“It’s lemonade, Mom,” Lucille said, grinning. “Kinda hard to screw up.”
“I don’t know. I think you’re already leaps ahead of some of my employees.”
Lucille just shook her head as she poured another cup.
“You have got to be kidding me,” said a voice to their left. A glance over revealed the speaker to be Lou, one of Lucy’s many, many brothers, and, in particular, one of her brothers still holding a grudge over the fact that Hell had chosen Lucy, not him, to be its leader. He was looking at the lemonade stand like you might look at a particularly gross small, dead animal that your cat had just dropped at your feet. “This isn’t evil!”
“Well, of course not, Uncle Lou,” said Lucille. “It’s lemonade. Would you like a cup? Only fifty cents.”
“I’m telling Ivan about this!”
“Please do,” Lucy said, too sweetly, voice at least twice as sugary as the cup of lemonade in her hand. “Ask him if he wants some lemonade. Ivy works so hard, you know? He should take a break now and then. It’s only fair.”
Lou grumbled under his breath before snapping his fingers twice and disappearing. Lucy and Lucille exchanged a look before breaking into laughter.
“All right, sweetie, I need to get back to work,” said Lucy, after she regained her composure. “I’ll be back later, though. Maybe you and your dad and I can go out for lunch. There’s that place in Toronto we keep meaning to try.”
“That’d be awesome,” Lucille said, and Lucy grinned. She snapped her fingers once and disappeared.
She had a steady stream of customers for a little while after that, mostly comprised of demons who were obviously buying a cup or two in an amusing attempt to suck up to her mom by proxy. One, though, a demon named Ray, was of particular note, as he bought not one, not two, but ten cups, and drank them successively in front of her. Lucille was actually impressed enough to make a mental note to mention his name to her mom. She figured if someone was trying that hard, they deserved a break.
At some point—as used as Lucille was to quantifying time in hours and minutes, the longer you were off Earth’s dimensional plane, the harder it got—Lou and Ivan the Indomitable showed up.
“See, what did I tell you? It’s a lemonade stand!”
“I see that,” said Ivan, slowly. He was the chair of the Board, a group of seven senior demons who theoretically provided oversight in Hell, although their actual power was limited except in very specific circumstances. It should probably not be a surprise for you to learn that ‘discovering a lemonade stand in Hell’ was, in fact, not one of these specific circumstances, or, really, anywhere approaching anything resembling one of them. In response to this, Ivan, who was large and, by default, looming—though right now he was mostly just tired—simply rolled his eyes, muttered an ancient curse word under his breath, and said, “I’ll take a cup, kid.”
Lucille smiled and poured him a cup. He handed her two quarters. Lou fumed in the background, then snapped his fingers twice, and vanished.
“Not bad,” said Ivan, giving her a shrug. He snapped his fingers once and vanished as well.
It wasn’t long after that Daniel returned, this time with two of his friends, Ezra and Michael, in tow. “Your dad’s been raving about your lemonade,” said Ezra, eyes twinkling with mirth. “We had to stop by and try some.”
“He’s ridiculous,” she said, but she grinned as she poured them each a cup. Ezra handed her a dollar for the both of them.
“And I’d like another, ridiculous as I may be,” he said, and she shook her head.
“Oh, Mom was wondering if you wanted to go out for lunch today,” she said as she poured him his cup. “She said something about Toronto.”
“That sounds like Heaven,” said Daniel, and Lucille half-groaned and half-laughed at the pun.
“Dad,” she said, shooting him a look, and he grinned unrepentantly.
“Can I ask why two of my fellow Committee members and my senior associate are gathering in the main lobby of Hell?” asked Gabriel, snappishly, as he appeared suddenly.
“Lemonade?” Lucille offered.
Gabriel stared at her. “Seriously?” he asked, though he wasn’t directing this question at anyone in particular inasmuch as he was simply inquiring of the universe as a whole.
“It’s good,” said Michael, helpfully. “In fact, another, for me and Ezra. On me this time.” He gave her another dollar as Ezra smiled at him.
“Coming right up,” said Lucille, grinning. She had the thought that they were roughly as cute as her mom and dad, and that was saying something. “Did you want a cup?” she asked Gabriel, looking at him expectantly, as she poured more for Ezra and Michael.
“Oh, fine,” he said. She smiled and got him his own cup. “Can we all get back to work now?”
“I’m about to take my lunch break,” said Daniel, and Gabriel rolled his eyes.
“Fine. Ezra, Michael, let’s go. We have some Committee business to take care of. I already rounded up Raphael, John, David, and Matthew.” He made a quick hand motion and vanished.
“Guess we have to go,” said Ezra, smiling ruefully. “Thanks for the lemonade.”
They made their own quick hand gestures and vanished as well.
“I’m thinking lunch,” said Daniel. Lucy appeared next to him precisely on the word “lunch.”
“I think that’s a good plan,” she said.
“What time is it in Toronto?” Lucille asked.
“Um…lunch time?” Lucy said, and snapped her fingers. A pocket watch appeared in her hand. “Oh, wait,” she said, because as it turned out, at this particular moment, ‘lunch’ by their standards was ‘dinner’ by Toronto’s: “It’s nearly seven.” Time could be tricky across dimensional planes. “Well, whatever, it still sounds good. Ready to pack up, you think?”
“I made a profit, I know that,” she said. “So I think so. Hold on, let me figure out how much.” A few minutes later, she declared, “I made nine dollars and fifty cents.”
“Just shy of ten,” said Daniel, but then they noticed the pitcher nearest Lucille dip suddenly, as though another cup had just been poured out of it. A second later, a small piece of paper and two shiny quarters appeared on the table.
Lucille picked it up and grinned widely once she saw what was neatly printed on the paper. “It says, ‘Thanks for the lemonade,’” she told her parents. “Signed, ‘G.’”
Colors: Olive Drab, 3. “I peeked at the end, Frank. The devil did it.”
Supplies: Canvas, Novelty Beads ("Stay thirsty, my friends."), Stain ("What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected generally happens."), Glitter ("Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.")
Word Count: 3,350
Rating: PG
Story: The Devil Herself; title of this is Lucille's Lemonade, Open For Business, Serving: Hell (and Heaven, Sorta)
Summary: A nice, normal twelve-year-old girl decides to open up a nice, normal lemonade stand as part of a nice, normal school project. Well, almost.
Notes: Finally getting around to posting my Junetide stories. I'm pretty behind, lol.
The Gott-Heffernan brownstone seemed, at first glance, ordinary enough: it was beautiful and well-kept, owned by the wealthy ‘power couple’ of Ms. Lucinda Heffernan and Mr. Daniel Gott. Most of their neighbors, if you asked, would have pleasant things to say about them and their charming twelve-year-old daughter, Lucille: they were neat, they were quiet, and they were courteous, all around the perfect neighbors.
Of course, if you kept asking, you would soon find out a few strange things, like the fact that no one could quite remember when they’d moved in, or was fully sure exactly what Ms. Heffernan and Mr. Gott did for a living, or why the brownstone always seemed to be so empty all the time.
But, well, they were private people, this was New York City, quiet neighbors were a Godsend, and why were you asking so many nosy questions, anyway?
“Ah, Lucille,” called Mrs. Van Aller, as Lucille got out of the car. She tipped the driver with the money her mom had given her and thanked him, then turned a smile on her neighbor.
“Hi, Mrs. Van Aller,” she said. Lucille was tall for her age, and gangly, with long sandy blonde hair and dark blue eyes that, if you really noticed them, knew far more than any twelve-year-old should. “How are your azaleas?”
“Fine, thank you.” Mrs. Van Aller’s thin lips stretched across her face in a tight, close-mouthed smile. She was the head of the neighborhood watch, as well as the neighborhood busybody, self-appointed to make sure no one made the unforgivable mistake of having up too many holiday decorations, or put out their trashcans a minute too early the night before pickup. She didn’t dislike Lucille, exactly, but she’d always held the firm conviction that all children under the age of 16 were up to something mischievous, no matter how outwardly polite they seemed. She might not have caught Lucille at anything yet, but in Mrs. Van Aller’s opinion, it was only a matter of time. “Do you know when your parents will be home?”
“Mom’s on a business trip for the next week,” she said promptly. “Dad should be home around six, though. Do you need to talk to him?”
“Yes, about the meeting on Friday. Please tell him I was looking for him? I tried to leave a message with your nanny, but no one answered the door. She is there, isn’t she? You shouldn’t be home alone.”
“She’s probably cleaning,” Lucille said with a smile. “She likes to use her headphones. I’ll tell Dad you need to talk to him.”
She studied Lucille for a long moment, attempting to detect even the slightest indication of irresponsibility or dishonesty. “Yes. Thank you.”
Mrs. Van Aller nodded and headed back to her own house, feeling, once again, as though Lucille had just gotten away with something, though she couldn’t for the life of her put her finger on what.
Lucille, for her part, waited until Mrs. Van Aller disappeared through her front door before smiling more knowingly and shaking her head. She had, in fact, gotten away with something, but it was merely the same thing she’d been getting away with for the past twelve years: making someone else—everyone else—believe that she was a nice, normal girl with nice, normal parents who lived in a nice, normal home in New York City.
Only part of this was a lie, to be fair. Lucille was very nice, most of the time, unless you were rude or mean or just downright unfair. Her parents were also, on the whole, pretty nice, though everyone on the PTA knew, intimately, that you did not make Lucinda Heffernan mad. Even their home was nice, but it was not located in New York City. It wasn’t even located on Earth.
You see, there was simply nothing particularly normal about Lucille or her parents.
Lucille whistled softly to herself as she headed inside the brownstone. She stepped immediately into the foyer closet, shut the door behind her, and said, “Home, please.”
Seconds later, she opened the closet door, only this time instead of stepping inside a New York City brownstone, Lucille stepped out into her actual home. “Mom?” she called.
“In the office, sweetie!” her mom called back, and Lucille nodded, dropping her bookbag on the couch and hanging her coat up on the rack. Then she headed for the office, where she found her mom working on the computer. She glanced up as Lucille walked in the door. “You’re home late, I think,” she said, and glanced at the second clock on the wall, which indicated it was about four-twenty in New York City. The first clock told time of a decidedly different nature.
“Traffic,” Lucille said. “The driver called it hellish before apologizing for his language, but I thought it was funny. I wanted to tell him he was wrong, anyway, there’s no traffic in Hell.”
Her mom—Lucy, to her friends, or acquaintances, or even enemies, really, but Lucifer if you wanted to be stupidly formal about it, which, in her opinion, far too many people did—grinned at her. “Of course there isn’t. How inefficient would that be?”
Lucille smiled. “Oh, I also ran into Mrs. Van Aller. She wanted to talk to you guys. I told her you were on a business trip this week, but Dad would be home at around six.”
“This is why you’re my favorite daughter,” Lucy said, and Lucille laughed.
“It’s his turn. I keep track.”
“You should let him know. He had to go into work early today—big meeting, apparently, even the junior associates had to be there, I guess, who knows what that’s about. Maybe The Big Guy has another commandment planned, or a sequel to the Bible or something.”
Lucille snorted. “It’s been awhile since I’ve visited him at work. Think he’ll have time to see me?”
“Your father would fight with every single angel in Heaven and The Big Guy if they tried to stop him from seeing you. He’d win, too.”
She smiled. “Cool. I’m going to get a snack and go—oh, and I have to talk to you about a homework assignment when I get back.”
“All right. I’ll be here.”
After Lucille cut up an apple and found some caramel dip in the refrigerator, she put it all in a Tupperware container and headed back for the closet. “Dad’s office, please.”
This time, when she stepped out, she was in an expansive marble lobby, the color scheme in whites and blues. James, the angel who sat behind the large desk outside her father’s office, smiled once he looked up. “He just got out of his meeting,” he said. “You can go right in.”
Daniel was etched in the glass in the door, with Senior Associate Angel underneath it. Lucille pushed it open and went inside. “Hey, Dad,” she said, and he glanced up.
“Lucille!” he said with a grin, standing and greeting her with a hug. He, like Lucy, glanced at the second of two clocks on his wall. “You just get home from school?”
“Yep,” she said. “I had to tell you that Mrs. Van Aller was looking for you. I told her you’d be home at six.”
“Oh, wonderful,” he said, shaking his head. “You couldn’t have made your mom go talk to her?”
“Sorry. It’s your turn.” Lucille smirked unrepentantly.
“I know, I know,” he replied. “All right. It looks like I have about an hour.”
“I brought a snack for us,” she said, holding up her container with the apple and dip.
Daniel smiled. “Thank you, sweetheart.” He kissed her forehead and took the container, opening it and taking a piece of apple.
Just then, the door swung open. “Daniel, I’ll need you to—” Gabriel stopped as soon as he noticed Lucille was also in the office. “Oh. Hello,” he said, giving her the look he always gave her, the one he thought was cool-yet-polite, but in reality held an undercurrent of bitterness she knew he didn’t mean for her to see. Gabriel was the chair of the Committee, a group of seven senior angels who basically ran Heaven, and if you asked, he’d deny fervently until the day you died (since, being an angel, he was immortal) the notion that he had been more or less in love with Daniel for roughly a millennium, give or take a decade or two. This would not make it any less true.
Lucille smiled at him. “Hi, Gabby.”
Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Your mother has made me immune to that nickname,” he said, just the slightest bit of sharpness in his tone around the words ‘your mother.’ He turned toward Daniel. “I’ll need you to review all the reports from the junior angels.”
“Sure,” Daniel agreed. “I’ll start as soon as I get back.”
Gabriel frowned. “Get back?”
“Neighbor thing, on Earth,” he said.
“Oh,” Gabriel said, this time not even bothering to hide the distaste in his tone. “Of course. Well, just make sure it gets done.”
He turned on his heel and left without another word.
“He’s upset,” said Lucille, looking curiously at her father.
“Yeah. God made quite a few modifications to his latest proposal. He’s not happy about them.”
“Poor Gabby,” she said absently, dipping an apple slice in the caramel. She took a bite, eyes slightly unfocused, before shaking her head and snapping back to her father. “We should probably go, huh?”
Daniel glanced at the second clock again and nodded. “Yeah, good idea. Want me to drop you back at home?”
“Please? I need to talk to Mom about a project.”
Daniel touched her shoulder and made a complicated gesture with his hand, and near-instantly they were in their living room. Lucy walked in. “Have fun with Mrs. Van Aller,” she said, grinning.
“Just remember, next time it’s your turn,” he said, leaning to kiss her. Then he made another gesture with his hand and disappeared.
“So what’s this homework assignment?” Lucy asked.
“I have to write a paper setting up a fictional lemonade stand,” she said. “Figure out costs, try to predict number of customers, that kind of thing, but we get extra credit if we actually make the lemonade stand, and I wanted to. Think I could set it up at your office?”
“Of course you can,” she said. “When were you thinking?”
“Saturday, Earth time?” Lucille said. “The paper’s due next Thursday.”
“That’ll work. When do you want to go get the ingredients?”
“Tomorrow or Thursday, I think,” Lucille said. “I still have to figure it all out. I want to use my allowance for this, too.”
“If that’s what you want.” Lucy nodded, and grinned. “This is going to be fun!”
That Saturday (via New York’s standards, of course), Lucille dragged a folding table into the closet with her, saying, “Mom’s office.” A moment later, she stepped out into a lobby not unlike Daniel’s, although this one was warmer and less brightly lit, and the color scheme was hues of soft pinks and golds. It was also much larger, but that was simply what happened when you ran the place. Angelica, the demon sitting behind the desk, smiled when she saw her.
“Your mom said you could set up wherever,” she said.
Lucille nodded. “I’m thinking the main lobby.”
“Makes sense,” Angelica agreed. “Need some help?” She nodded toward the table.
“Actually, yeah, if you wouldn’t mind? I still need to bring out a few other things.”
“No problem,” Angelica said, snapping her fingers three times. The table disappeared, and Lucille smiled.
“Thank you. I’ll be back.”
After moving her chair, the cups, the cashbox, her handmade sign (proclaiming, “Lemonade: 50 Cents!” because using American currency was, she assumed, expected for class, though she had been tempted to use Euros), and the lemonade—three pitchers to start with, but she could make more if she needed—Lucille was ready for business. She was not remotely surprised when her mother appeared beside the stand not a second later.
“I wanted to be your first customer,” she said with a wink. “Your father’s going to be so jealous.”
“Not if I beat you to it,” said Daniel as he appeared right next to her.
“Too late,” she said, grinning and handing over two quarters. Lucille smirked and poured her the first cup. Daniel got the second.
“Delicious,” he proclaimed, after a long gulp. “Absolutely delicious. I’ll have another.”
“Dad, I can’t sell all my lemonade to just you and Mom,” Lucille said, but she poured him another cup.
“Of course not. It’s just really good. Honestly, I’d drink this even if you weren’t my daughter. Even if you were just some stranger.”
“Some random stranger setting up a lemonade stand in Hell,” Lucy said dryly. “Because that happens so often.”
“Excuse you, I’m an angel. I cannot tell a lie.”
None of them could keep from bursting into laughter as soon as the words left his mouth.
“Okay, I should get back to work. Gabriel’s going to freak out if those reports aren’t finished.”
“Gabby freaks out if someone parts their hair the wrong way,” Lucy pointed out.
“I should try that,” he mused, then smiled at Lucille. “I’ll be back for more of this later, though. Have fun.”
With that, and a hand gesture, he vanished.
“I’d like another cup myself,” Lucy said. “This is good lemonade.”
“It’s lemonade, Mom,” Lucille said, grinning. “Kinda hard to screw up.”
“I don’t know. I think you’re already leaps ahead of some of my employees.”
Lucille just shook her head as she poured another cup.
“You have got to be kidding me,” said a voice to their left. A glance over revealed the speaker to be Lou, one of Lucy’s many, many brothers, and, in particular, one of her brothers still holding a grudge over the fact that Hell had chosen Lucy, not him, to be its leader. He was looking at the lemonade stand like you might look at a particularly gross small, dead animal that your cat had just dropped at your feet. “This isn’t evil!”
“Well, of course not, Uncle Lou,” said Lucille. “It’s lemonade. Would you like a cup? Only fifty cents.”
“I’m telling Ivan about this!”
“Please do,” Lucy said, too sweetly, voice at least twice as sugary as the cup of lemonade in her hand. “Ask him if he wants some lemonade. Ivy works so hard, you know? He should take a break now and then. It’s only fair.”
Lou grumbled under his breath before snapping his fingers twice and disappearing. Lucy and Lucille exchanged a look before breaking into laughter.
“All right, sweetie, I need to get back to work,” said Lucy, after she regained her composure. “I’ll be back later, though. Maybe you and your dad and I can go out for lunch. There’s that place in Toronto we keep meaning to try.”
“That’d be awesome,” Lucille said, and Lucy grinned. She snapped her fingers once and disappeared.
She had a steady stream of customers for a little while after that, mostly comprised of demons who were obviously buying a cup or two in an amusing attempt to suck up to her mom by proxy. One, though, a demon named Ray, was of particular note, as he bought not one, not two, but ten cups, and drank them successively in front of her. Lucille was actually impressed enough to make a mental note to mention his name to her mom. She figured if someone was trying that hard, they deserved a break.
At some point—as used as Lucille was to quantifying time in hours and minutes, the longer you were off Earth’s dimensional plane, the harder it got—Lou and Ivan the Indomitable showed up.
“See, what did I tell you? It’s a lemonade stand!”
“I see that,” said Ivan, slowly. He was the chair of the Board, a group of seven senior demons who theoretically provided oversight in Hell, although their actual power was limited except in very specific circumstances. It should probably not be a surprise for you to learn that ‘discovering a lemonade stand in Hell’ was, in fact, not one of these specific circumstances, or, really, anywhere approaching anything resembling one of them. In response to this, Ivan, who was large and, by default, looming—though right now he was mostly just tired—simply rolled his eyes, muttered an ancient curse word under his breath, and said, “I’ll take a cup, kid.”
Lucille smiled and poured him a cup. He handed her two quarters. Lou fumed in the background, then snapped his fingers twice, and vanished.
“Not bad,” said Ivan, giving her a shrug. He snapped his fingers once and vanished as well.
It wasn’t long after that Daniel returned, this time with two of his friends, Ezra and Michael, in tow. “Your dad’s been raving about your lemonade,” said Ezra, eyes twinkling with mirth. “We had to stop by and try some.”
“He’s ridiculous,” she said, but she grinned as she poured them each a cup. Ezra handed her a dollar for the both of them.
“And I’d like another, ridiculous as I may be,” he said, and she shook her head.
“Oh, Mom was wondering if you wanted to go out for lunch today,” she said as she poured him his cup. “She said something about Toronto.”
“That sounds like Heaven,” said Daniel, and Lucille half-groaned and half-laughed at the pun.
“Dad,” she said, shooting him a look, and he grinned unrepentantly.
“Can I ask why two of my fellow Committee members and my senior associate are gathering in the main lobby of Hell?” asked Gabriel, snappishly, as he appeared suddenly.
“Lemonade?” Lucille offered.
Gabriel stared at her. “Seriously?” he asked, though he wasn’t directing this question at anyone in particular inasmuch as he was simply inquiring of the universe as a whole.
“It’s good,” said Michael, helpfully. “In fact, another, for me and Ezra. On me this time.” He gave her another dollar as Ezra smiled at him.
“Coming right up,” said Lucille, grinning. She had the thought that they were roughly as cute as her mom and dad, and that was saying something. “Did you want a cup?” she asked Gabriel, looking at him expectantly, as she poured more for Ezra and Michael.
“Oh, fine,” he said. She smiled and got him his own cup. “Can we all get back to work now?”
“I’m about to take my lunch break,” said Daniel, and Gabriel rolled his eyes.
“Fine. Ezra, Michael, let’s go. We have some Committee business to take care of. I already rounded up Raphael, John, David, and Matthew.” He made a quick hand motion and vanished.
“Guess we have to go,” said Ezra, smiling ruefully. “Thanks for the lemonade.”
They made their own quick hand gestures and vanished as well.
“I’m thinking lunch,” said Daniel. Lucy appeared next to him precisely on the word “lunch.”
“I think that’s a good plan,” she said.
“What time is it in Toronto?” Lucille asked.
“Um…lunch time?” Lucy said, and snapped her fingers. A pocket watch appeared in her hand. “Oh, wait,” she said, because as it turned out, at this particular moment, ‘lunch’ by their standards was ‘dinner’ by Toronto’s: “It’s nearly seven.” Time could be tricky across dimensional planes. “Well, whatever, it still sounds good. Ready to pack up, you think?”
“I made a profit, I know that,” she said. “So I think so. Hold on, let me figure out how much.” A few minutes later, she declared, “I made nine dollars and fifty cents.”
“Just shy of ten,” said Daniel, but then they noticed the pitcher nearest Lucille dip suddenly, as though another cup had just been poured out of it. A second later, a small piece of paper and two shiny quarters appeared on the table.
Lucille picked it up and grinned widely once she saw what was neatly printed on the paper. “It says, ‘Thanks for the lemonade,’” she told her parents. “Signed, ‘G.’”
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There were a lot of specific bits I liked, from how Lucille's mischievous side peaked out around the edges of her niceness; to how Gabriel's a tightwad, but still a decent person when you get down to it; to, of course, Lucy/Daniel being adorable domestic forces of good and evil. Also, I am really intrigued at Lucy's reference to how Hell chose her, and all that implies.
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Hell did indeed choose Lucy; I'll need to write a bit more about that. It's an interesting process.
Thank you so much!
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Thanks!