Homecoming
“Rena!” Amy came running forward. Serena greeted her with a fierce hug. She was looking better, with her porcelain face tinted slightly with healthy pink and her blue hair nice and fluffy. Amy looked very happy and her blue eyes glowed with happiness.
*Not at all like what she was like when we were in school.*
Amy Anderson was not only one of her best friends, but she was also her first cousin, by her father’s younger sister, and they had studied together, though Serena knew her path would be in law, and Amy’s in medicine. Amy was a sweet girl, soft blue-eyed, as soft as water, and her hair blue-streaked light, and fluffy. She was very shy and had met Serena because they shared a dorm room at the private school they went to together.
“Your mom’s-“
“I know, worried about me.”
Another excited squeal was heard and a blond woman pushed through the people on the stairs to run to Serena. “Rena!!!!!!!!!!!” Mina Lockhart bounded over to Serena.
However shy Amy was, Mina Lockhart was much different. The blond, blue-eyed angel was very outgoing and the silver-screen princess. She was a superb actress, and that was how she had met her movie star husband Andrew. She looked amazingly like Serena, for they were distantly related because their grandmothers on Serena’s mother and Mina’s father sides were sisters. However, Mina was also one of the Virginia Dredsdales, for her mother had been a Dredsdale. The Dresdales were almost as famous as the Larynces, and they owned most of Virginia’s seats in the house and senate. There was even a Dredsdale as governor!
Serena’s grandmother on her father’s side, Gail Larynce, was best friends with Gretchen Dredsdale, the matriarch of the Dredsdales. Serena’s grandmother was the matriarch of the Larynces, so it was no surprise that Serena had seen plenty of Mina, since they always met at the constant social gatherings.
Now, as Serena looked at Mina, she was surprised to see Mina’s stomach quite swollen. “Wait a minute, you didn’t say you were…”
“Expecting? It’s fabulous, isn’t it?”
“Boy or girl?”
“We don’t want to know yet. We want it to be a surprise. But I think it’s a girl. Andrew thinks its a boy. I don’t care; either way, I’m going to be a mommy!”
“Mina! Oh my gosh!” Serena smiled glowing, dizzy with all the happiness she felt. “Congratulations!”
“I wanted to tell you in person! I wanted to see that face of yours. I knew it’d be quite a show. It appears the family thinks so too!”
Serena was now speechless. She just stood, shaking her head, trying to clear her thoughts.
“Also, Serena, your mother is going to lock you up for a year.”
“How many people has she actually TOLD?”
At that moment, she heard a woman shoving her way through the crowd by the hall leading to kitchen.
“Serena Rebecca Larynce! You are now grounded!”
“Hello mother!” Serena smiled weakly, hugging the late fifty- year-old woman. “I had a few problems getting here.”
“Don’t give me that! You are now grounded and you can’t leave for another year.”
“How about another week? I do, after all, have some classes to teach, and some more briefs to read. I still have some leftover papers to grade from last semester. That is LAST time I decide on an essay final! And where is Daddy and Sam?”
“Right here sis!” Sam, a tall young man at twenty-three, with light brown hair and the same eyes as his sister, threaded through another crowd to greet his sister with a kiss on the cheek. “I have a surprise for you too! I’m engaged!”
“You are only twenty-three, young man! You’re already getting married. I feel ancient now!”
“Meet my fiancee, Mika Stevens.” A redhead with beautiful blue- green eyes approached Serena and she smiled at her warmly.
“Serena Larynce, Sam’s big sister. Watch out, he talks in sleep,” Serena said.
“Sis!”
“And-“
“That’s enough, Bunny!”
“Daddy!” Serena ran and plowed herself into her father’s arms. “I missed you Daddy. You never scold me or bug me, and I’m so happy to see you again.”
“I don’t bother bugging you because your Aunt Hetty reports to me every Monday morning.”
“DADDY!”
“She’s your law associate. She knows pretty much what happens in your life.”
“Michael Larynce, you will stop frustrating your daughter right now!” a regal elderly voice hung over everyone. Serena turned to the entrance of the hall that led to the throne room, and her eyes widened.
“Gram!” If it was possible to glow even more, Serena did. She gave the woman a hug. Gail Larynce looked as regal as she always was, in a gown of blue velvet, with the tall stature she had passed on to her children and grandchildren.
“Now, we don’t have to all stand here. Dinner is in twenty-five minutes!” Gail now yelled to everyone, looking at her gold pocket watch. “You’ve all got to wash up and get up in the Christmas clothes! So let’s get!”
Serena smiled as the crowd retreated. She was starting to feel claustrophobic. Gail then turned to her and said, “Now you get going upstairs to your room and get on some classy clothes. We’ll catch up later.”
Serena grinned, and took her things up the winding stairs, through the crowds of Larynces and Dredsdales…some she knew, and some she didn’t.
She walked down the slightly crowded hall, and into her room. *Nothing like home.* She then plopped herself down on the bed and leaned back, ready to fall asleep. Instantly, she remembered she had to change for dinner. She immediately sat up, thinking about what to wear.
She didn’t have to wear anything truly fancy, like “gala” or “wedding” for Christmas dinner. No, the Larynces wore the “formal familiness” kind of clothing. She pushed herself off the bed and turned on the small crystal chandelier.
Little rainbows refracted from the crystal danced about the ceiling and Serena went to the suitcase to open it and hang up some clothes.
Five minutes later, she pulled out a skirt of layers of lavender silk, looking misty and flowing, a lavender silk tunic that flowed to her hips in wavy ends of the same layered misty quality that would go over her shoulders with a wide but not low cut collar and tied together at the sides by a pair of lavender satin ribbons on each side tipped with pearls, and a lavender silk blouse.
She took her clothes off and started with the lavender silk knee- highs. After, she out on the blouse, followed by the skirt and finally the tunic. She tied a pretty bow on each side. She then put on lavender silk flats.
She went to the mirror and brushed her hair, sitting down. She combed her hair up into two buns, capping them with lavender lace covers, as a family joke; Serena had worn that hair style from the time she had hair long enough to age sixteen. She wore it occasionally now. However, the length of her hair no longer allowed streamers of hair to fall down from the buns anymore, so the lace bun covers had thin lavender ribbon hanging down to her ears, with pearls tipping the end. She kept her pearl earrings on, and decided to unbutton the top button of her blouse to put on a thin gold chain with a single pearl around the base of her neck.
As she stood up, she smiled. The hair do made her look like a child…a rather big child. But she was still beautiful, and sophistication seeped her entire being. She got up from her white wooden chair, with a gold cushion, and opened her walk -in closet door to check herself in the full-length mirror.
At that moment, the dinner bell sounded, and Serena walked to the door, opening it and stepping out, turning the light off behind her.
She walked into a man who was walking out of the room next to hers. *The halls really should have been built larger.*
Actually, the halls were rather large, and Serena’s was at the end of a hall, in a circular court of rooms. Serena had only backed up after she closed her door because she noticed a name plate above her room and read “Serena Rebecca Larynce.” It was a new improvement. So was the little gold box by her door, which was apparently stuffed with mail.
“Oh, excuse me,” mumbled softly.
Her sapphire blue eyes turned to meet ocean blue eyes, and was shocked to find the deepest pair she had ever seen in her life.
