[2.43] Family Style (Part 1/5)

“What are you wearing, Angelica?! This is a nice place!” Corticia Hallow spat with hushed venom the moment she saw her daughter. Not even a polite greeting or happy smile upon seeing her for the first time in over a year, just critique.

Sadly, this was exactly what Angelica had been expecting. And the moment she saw her mother already waiting for her in the booth at the restaurant, her whole body clenched in fear and anxiety, having half a mind to run away and ghost the woman again. But she knew that would only make things worse at this stage. So she grinned and bore the meeting and criticism.

Actually, she had spent a good amount of time deciding what to wear and getting ready for this lunch. Sadly, not as much time as she would have liked. Her sleep was poor, having had a big nap the afternoon before, accompanied by plenty of twisting and turning in bed overnight. So she’d only woken up about an hour before she had to leave.

Originally, Angelica was planning to wear an outfit that her mother had bought for her. She didn’t know what emotion drove that decision—love, sentimentality, guilt—it was hard to say. But she decided against it, mostly because none of them fit her well anymore, all a bit baggy. Not to say that her current clothes weren’t, but they were hers, the usual fare she wore everyday and had picked out herself.

To her mother’s argument, she knew they weren’t really suited for somewhere so ritzy, and she’d also brought a cheap tote bag with her instead of a fancy purse that really made her look out of place, but that had been on purpose. This was her now, the somewhat sloven Angelica who spent, or at least wanted to spend, all day cooped up inside drawing art. Like Adora had advised, she was going to present herself as she was, and hope that was enough, giving her mother a chance to love who she was now, if they could reach that point.

Part of her had wanted to go even farther, and whip up something fancy with Transfiguration, that leaned even more into her artsy and witch desires, but that felt like too much. Plus, she wouldn’t be surprised if Corticia demanded that they go clothes shopping after this, and that could lead to an awkward circumstance if she wasn’t technically wearing anything. Also in the realm of things she wasn’t actually wearing, Angelica had a long silent debate on whether or not she should wear her How Intriguing Rune, but ultimately decided against it. She still brought it with her, however, in Second Stomach, and practiced bringing it out discreetly under her clothes a few times in case she found a shift in dynamic was necessary.

“Hi, mom.” She chose to not address the aggression, and gave her mother a courteous smile, which definitely lowered the woman’s defenses a bit… just for the tiniest moment. When she scooted into her side of the booth, likely making her clothes pull taught for a second, properly revealing the frame underneath, the critique ramped up even more.

“Vissiem help you, Angelica! What happened to you?! You’re so thin. Please don’t tell me you’ve developed an eating disorder. You’re old enough to make your own doctor’s appointments, but I’ll set one up if you need me to.”

“Mom, it’s fine!” She tried to assure her. “I just lost a bit of weight is all. I’m eating… okay.”

“Don’t lie to me, Angelica!” Corticia insisted. “This… you… it’s not healthy!”

Wow, that genuinely took the daughter aback, and she couldn’t stop her mouth. “That’s rich coming from you. You’re the one who nagged me to oblivion when I gained some weight in college as a freshman, even though it was barely anything.”

“Because you had…” her mother argued. “But that’s normal for those just starting college. I was just trying to get you to pay attention before you really let go. Don’t tell me this is all due to just a few comments I made years ago?!”

Well, perhaps part of it was initially due to those comments which were much harsher than the woman admitted. It definitely wasn’t the case anymore, though. “Really, mom, I’m eating okay,” she repeated, though it was still sort of a lie since she often found herself deleting food with Starvation for one reason or another. “It’s just… I couldn’t afford proper regular meals for a bit there. But it’s fine now. I’m fine.”

“Guh, is that supposed to make me feel better?!” The woman looked like she was going to have an ulcer after hearing that her daughter openly admitted to her tumultuous poverty. “You should never have let that happen. You should have… I shouldn’t have let it get that far.”

Huh, that was new. Corticia had suddenly shifted the blame to herself. “Lurren mentioned you were looking awfully skinny lately, but I didn’t take it seriously enough. If it gets that bad again, if you genuinely need help, promise me that you’ll reach out. I know you want to be independent, but I don’t want to get called by the police because my daughter starved to death. Do you have any idea what that would do to…” She paused again. “I don’t know what I would do if that happened. So please, promise me. I’m serious, Angelica. Look me in the eyes and promise me.”

“I promise, alright?” Angelica did glance at the woman’s eyes for just a moment, but immediately had to look away. They were too intense, and brought up way too many emotions. Those damned eyes that had been judging her all her life, like her mother was looking into her soul. And maybe they were. She wouldn’t be surprised if Scrying Eye had been used on her, especially after the reveal of how scrawny she was, but so far, there’d been no notification indicating the illusion was broken. “Fritsing hell. Can we just talk about something else?”

Hmm, maybe in the future, she should use Transfiguration to alter her looks a bit in an attempt to placate the woman, not to any significant degree, just as a healthier weight that would cause less worry. It felt like it would be disingenuous, to not be herself, but the body she was in now, it wasn’t really herself anymore, was it? This was Angelica the night before she was turned into a Demon, on the brink of starvation, so yes, she could see why it’d raise concern. Nothing more than a memory, the last she had of her human self. It wasn’t a reflection of the much healthier being she’d become. And while that had only been a month ago, if the false form didn’t age, then it would be extra suspicious. So it was probably a best practice she should get used to.

“Language, Angelica!” Her mother spat once more, likely on reflex more than anything, but immediately softened her tone. “But fine,” she relented. “Then—” They didn’t get farther in that moment, since it’s when the waiter decided to come by to take their order. Very good, possibly intentional timing, because the atmosphere would have been way too tense before that.

Corticia took care of the order, which Angelica was fine with—one less stranger to talk to. And the woman ordered a metric scuffton of food. It was the sort of place where the dishes were served family style, and everyone took what they wanted. Corticia typically ordered a lot for the variety, yet even this was a bit absurd. But she’d gotten some of Angelica’s favorites, which definitely brought on a nice feeling since the woman remembered.

“So… art.” Her mother started up the conversation again once the waiter left. “You never told me you were into art. Of course, I saw you doodling things when you were home between semesters. But I figured that was just a passing hobby, one you weren’t inclined to share since you never showed me any of it. If it is something you were seriously considering for a career, I do wish you would have let me know sooner.”

“Well, it was just a hobby then…” Angelica admitted. “I was still committed to becoming an actuary like you wanted. Just… when I got the job, and… y’know, all the stuff happened.”

“No, I don’t know, Angelica,” Corticia lamented. “Because you’ve never told me, not properly anyways. Everything I heard was from secondhand sources. I didn’t even know you’d lost your internship until it was too late to do anything about it. Why didn’t you just tell me?! I could have helped you sort things out or found you a new job in no time.”

“Because…” Angelica nervously pressed her fingers together, unable to really look at her mother at all. “I felt like I’d failed. That everything you’d done for me, the connections, the degree, everything, it had all gone to waste. And I guess to make it worse, during that time, I really came to realize I didn’t want another job. Not as an actuary, not anywhere really.

“And that’s when I decided to really try my hand at art. Which I knew you wouldn’t approve of, not then at least, and definitely not back when I was in college. So yes, I am sorry that I didn’t tell you sooner. I’m sorry I’ve been distant, I just… didn’t think you’d support it, and I didn’t want to disappoint you…” She’d ended up spouting more than she meant to, laying it on heavy, and she had to stop herself from going any further or she’d break down crying.

There was a moment of silence until her mother finally spoke again. “I do support you, Angelica. In whatever it is that you want to do. I guess… I did push you rather hard into becoming an actuary. I just saw so much of myself in you growing up, and I wanted you to have as many opportunities as you could that I didn’t, while also avoiding some of the major mistakes that I made. So if you want to be an artist, that’s fine.”

Huh, did she really just hear that, right? An unfettered stamp of approval? It felt so wrong. Damn, it was at a time like this that she really wished that she’d bought Detect Falsehoods. Angelica had also debated buying that ahead of time for this meeting, but chose not to. The argument was that she knew her mother well enough after all their time together, that she should know when she’s lying. Of course, the woman had been a Summoner her whole life while she’d been none the wiser, so it wasn’t exactly a strong argument.

Still, she knew the woman well, so should at least have a general baseline to when Corticia was being genuine. But really, the choice had nothing to do with that. It ultimately ended up coming down to not wanting to delay purchasing Auto-Color yet again, seeing it as a betrayal of her artsy dreams. And she planned to do so right after this meeting was over and she got back to her apartment, only having held onto the Growth Points for now just in case her secrets did come out and she had to flee for her life. Not knowing if some unpurchased other Skill would come in handy.

“But…” her mother continued, ignorant of or willfully ignoring her daughter's internal conundrums. And of course there was a but. There was always a but with her. She couldn’t just have her love and support be completely unconditional. “I just want you to be realistic about it, alright?

“For me, it is difficult to imagine art as a genuine career path. Of course I know about those who sell paintings for millions or do art for big studio projects. Until you mentioned it, I had never even thought once about artists who do covers for things like book covers, and whether that would be sufficient enough to live off of. So this is all new to me.

“And as you may expect, I do have concerns. We’ll get to the contract you mentioned after we eat, and I will look into the company on my own whether you want me to or not. Even if it is all above board, I would still be worried about the compensation and work load. So I would like you to make me another promise, Angelica.

“We’ll give it a year. One full year for you to give it your all at being a full-time artist. Since you say you’ve been doing it for a bit now, you should have a decent understanding of what that would entail, and have the footing and experience needed to genuinely try without excuses for failure. I don’t believe it’s unfair to say that if you are still unable to make a living wage after the next year, regardless of talent, then your current methodology simply isn’t working.

“During this year, if you need money for anything; food, rent, art supplies, whatever you need to work toward this goal within reason, then you’ll reach out to me, and I will give it to you without question. This may seem counterintuitive, but I understand that expenses can be unexpected, and income in a profession like this could vary from month to month. No more dumpster diving, Angelica.”

Huh, how did she—

“I’ve seen pictures.” Corticia answered the silent question before it could even finish being asked. “When city hall is having meetings on our homelessness and poverty assistance measures, imagine my surprise when some of the images they show look suspiciously like my daughter sifting through trash cans. Even I didn’t believe it at first. But after Lurren’s report and your own admission of your poor finances, it’s not hard to connect the dots. Fortunately, the images were blurry and dark enough for reasonable dismissal. But I still had to bat away inquiries about how you were doing after that.

“You’re not— we’re not going to let things get that bad again. So if at the end of this year, you are still unable to be fully independent with your finances from art, then we will take a new approach. I will not ask that you join another corporation if that would truly make you miserable, or ask you to find any other job that I know you would hate. Instead, you will come work for me.

“The mayor has been bugging me about getting an assistant for a while, and I can’t imagine I’d find any with stronger qualifications whom I could ensure would be held accountable with their work. Yes, you could also see it as a return on investment for your tuition. And before you reject it outright, I do not make this demand to kill your dream, assuming it is not a fleeting one.

“We will take what you are making into account. If you’re seventy-five percent of the way there, then great, you’ll just have to work part-time, one or two days a week, and you can spend the rest of the time focusing on art. But if it’s barely anything, if this work with a book publisher falls through, then I would expect you to come on full-time until you could get another stable source of revenue. And if you are meeting the bare-minimum of what you need, ideally more and able to invest, then I will never bother you about it again, but still leave the offer on the table should you need it in the future. Does that sound fair?”

Yes… surprisingly, it did. Suspiciously fair. Because of decades of distrust, it was hard to take anything her mother said at face value, but Angelica found herself wanting to believe her. And it hurt her heart a bit. Would this always have been the case if she’d reached out sooner? Or was it only now that things had reached a breaking point that Corticia was willing to make so many concessions?

“I think that’s fair,” she shyly admitted, feeling a twinge of pain out of guilt. It felt like her mother’s words, her generous offer was wasted. If Angelica had never become a Demon, she would genuinely accept this offer, probably with some wary trepidation. But since her life had changed so far outside the realm of typical human concerns, this had become an honestly trivial matter with no chance of failure. She already had enough money to meet the condition from her various Demon antics, and even if she spent the majority, she should easily be able to get more. All that would be needed was forging some payment transactions and coming up with a fake budget if her mother asked for them.

Meaning this was all a farce for her to agree to. Annoyingly, it seemed like her mother had put a lot of thought and worry into this on her behalf, whether there were underlying unspoken conditions or not. But if it was the first step to repairing their relationship, one built on lies while they both had their secret double-lives, then she’d still take it. And it wasn’t like it’d be a full fabrication. That would still be Angelica’s dream and goal, one she could hopefully achieve so this wouldn’t be all for naught.

“Good… good,” Corticia took a heavy breath, as if their agreement was a burden lifted. It was weird to see the woman actually worry about something, a side Angelica rarely got to see, which just added more guilt. “Then I suppose I just have one more major hangup for now. I’ll be honest about something, maybe a bit painfully so. The last time I saw any art you made was when you were in grade school, and I can’t say it was to a level that I would expect anyone to pay for. Though, I also suspect, you weren’t as enthusiastic or committed at that point to really give it your all. What I’m trying to say is that so I can better understand this new direction of yours, would you be willing to show me some of your art?”