She wakes up thinking how rare it is for Lucida to climb into her bed these days, then she remembers that Leo's staying here in their house, sleeping in her daughter's room.
The moon is still out at this hour.
Lucida is too busy to cram on her homework to look at the moon that still lingers in daylight.
Watching Lucida's favourite late-night show together resulted to the two of them opening up to each other. They don't like the same character, but they do agree on disliking Mr. NumNum.
"His personality is crap and I hope he'll die in the next season," Lucida says casually.
Leo is slightly taken aback by the intensity of her disdain. "Let's...not take it to that direction."
Ermilinda feels relieved to see them getting along now.
Once Lucida leaves for school, a new routine is set up in place. They do their respective activities in the living room slash kitchen together, since they're not too keen on doing it outside for their neighbors to see.
Ermilinda has recently taken up gardening, a fact that takes Leo by surprise. Then he realises that if she has the patience to paint, then she can pretty much do gardening herself.
"I don't want to keep a dull backyard any longer," she tells him. "It's more about keeping up an image. And my image is to make things interesting to look at."
Leo takes on another chore.
Lucida sneaks back in her room to read on her special chair. She misses her space here, and just wants an excuse to kick Leo out for a while and stay here.
Verde Park feels peaceful in this area.
But not as quiet as Lucida would have wanted, since she had the luck to visit here just as people started arriving for the Simfest.
She finishes her homework anyway.
Yolanda Lemmon, a well-respected acrobat, gives back Leo's judging sheet with the word PASSED at the end.
The guy wishes that he could have his form handed out by Yolanda Lemmon too.
While she isn't a born genius as her mother, Lucida is pretty much curious about anything. Her taste for knowledge is basic, but she excitedly asks Ermilinda about the availability of names for the many different shades of colors.
It pleases Ermilinda every time she asks. It's one of the things she looks forward to during weekdays.
Among the bills, Leo finds a letter sent by his folks from Sunset Valley. He sighs at seeing the date on the letter; a couple of days from now.
They could just call him instead, or chat him online, but Leo writes a letter in response anyway.
Cresalina and Sammantha has recently adopted a child named Trisha, and has been invited to the house after being conveniently assigned as Lucida's partner for an assignment.
"I hope your mom hasn't been too strict on you," Ermilinda tells her niece jokingly.
Trisha is about to ask which mother, then remembers that Felicita looks like the type to be strict with anything. "She's okay," she reassures her.
"I'm kinda excited to live with them," Trisha tells Lucida.
Lucida is more excited to have a cousin now; Aunt Cresalina had long declared not to have any children, and her aunts Felicita and Sammantha had been married long before they finally decided on adopting.
"They're good people," Lucida says. "But Aunt Feli is strict, so you got to be careful."
Trisha is starting to wonder how badly her mom had treated them before to make them say that, but doesn't ask.
Just as Trisha was sent home early after finishing their assignment (Felicita is kinda strong with the 7 pm curfew), these two suddenly started dancing?
Are they celebrating the arrival of a new family member?
"What's the occasion?" He thinks that the mother and child pair dancing looks very adorable. Lucida doesn't seem to notice his presence, or decides not to.
"Just felt like dancing," Ermilinda shrugs. "It's fun like this."
Leo asks her if they could dance together.
"By the way, Feli and Sammantha adopted a kid."
Leo makes an expression of worry and confusion. "Can the kid handle her?"
Ermilinda laughs. "Feli's not that bad. The good thing that can come out of this is that she'll mellow down, and Lucida finally gets a relative that's not one of her aunts."
He glances at Lucida who continues to dance. "Is that why she's dancing? Celebrating the arrival?"
"Could be," Ermilinda non-replies. She's enjoying herself.
Leo looks on helplessly at how cute Ermilinda is right now. It's not every time that she decides to drop everything and dance along with this weird pop music her daughter had put on.
Maybe he could ask her out so that they could dance by themselves.
A few days after Ermilinda was working until midnight, she reveals that the paintings she was working on turns out to be portraits of Lucida and Leo. The reactions to the paintings were mixed.
"You should have shown a part of my face, at least," Lucida complains.
Needless to say, Leo is very flattered by the attention to details on his portrait.
Something about the fact that she painted a portrait of him...triggers an intense part of his feelings to just LET IT ALL OUT and deal with the consequences later. They say letting it all out will be good for the person, so why not try it for himself?
He ends up stuttering. A lot. Every word mumbled is turning into a form of regret, and looking at her blank expression only churns his stomach even more.
"Just me out on a date already!" Ermilinda laughs nervously. Shit, why did I say that? She mentally curses at herself. Her mind is as blank as her expression, but eventually the word WHY starts to fill up the blank space.
Leo stares at her for a moment, carefully considering what she said before laughing nervously. "Okay."
He gets off work at 11 pm, so they agreed to meet up at the park for the date.
An inconvenient time to go on a date, with most of the places (where they like to hang out at) already closed, but Lucida is happy to make use of the time she gets to spend alone, and the lack of crowded public places is an opportunity too good to pass up.
Apparently the police car was from Felicita, who gave it to her sister since Sammantha got her own. SHE was also the one who thought it'd be cool to drive around in a police car. So kudos to Felicita.
Karaoke at 2 am.
She's bad at this, but Leo's enjoying the company and the fact that they're singing together. Ermilinda's a bit unsure about this though, and hopes that the proprietor won't have to deal with this any longer. Fortunately, the bar closes at 3 am.
It feels like college all over again, except for having a kid and a job part. It feels a bit weird to be talking outside the karaoke bar after it was closed for the night, but it sends off some kind of thrill in a not-too-thrilling way.
"I know what we could do next," Ermilinda suddenly declares.
"Are we going to paint together? Since we already did my thing -- " Then he notices the look on her face. With an eyebrow raised, she's giving off an aura of amusement.
She pauses to stare at him long enough before finally saying, "That's really sweet, but I was suggesting we'd visit the old dormitory." The old dormitory was where they used to hang out together while they cut classes. Nostalgia is messing her up right now, and she needs to release it.
Leo opens his mouth before closing it. Then he opens it again, "Maybe we could paint there?"
Ermilinda laughs until her insides start to hurt.
__________________________________________
In the end, they went home. It was a weird and awkward date, but they enjoyed each other's company. Having knowledge of an old friend's crush on you and having to live with them is kind of awkward in its own way already, but whatever. They're making this thing work.
Trisha was adopted and Lucida FINALLY gets a cousin. With her mother having two siblings, she could at least get another relative from out of them. Without my intervention, that is. So that was a good thing.
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