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just2hands"I am thankful." Anika looked in the mirror, first adjusting and then completely pulling off and retying the gele - her hair wrap. It was the last piece to her outfit and it was also the one piece that she had the most trouble with. Fingers plucked at the sky blue and tangerine colored fabric, attempting to push or prod it into something more graceful than her first try.
"I'm thankful that I am back home with family during the holidays. For my mom and dad, and that they sent me a ticket, because I never would have been able to afford it on my own." Came the next murmur as Anika-Amadi began turning slowly to the left and then the right, checking out her reflection from all angles. "And I'm thankful that Derek has not yet told them of his decision to go into the Army. They'd have blown the roof off the house." Her parent's view of the military was well known to their children. In fact, they had a dim view of anything that might possibly put any child of theirs into harms way. Like moving to Los Angeles and working as an EMT for a hospital in Hollywood for instance. Yes, just like that.
The music was coming through the floor boards of her old bedroom, the celebration already in full swing when she'd finished up in the kitchen and ran upstairs to wash up and change into her Aso ebi, the same color and style outfit that her mother was wearing for the Thanksgiving Day feast- slash - party. Family, friends, neighbors and business associates too were all invited to the Owanbe, and the extravagant party that had been planned to last far into the evening. Anika had spent a good part of the past two days helping to prepare for it, mainly the cutting and cooking of all the food to be eaten at the feast. There were lamb pies, and two types of soup including the Obe ata, the spicy-hot pepper soup she loved so much. The roasted corn lay on the same sideboard table now as the moyin-moyin, that bean, goat meat, and vegetable dish her mother taught her so long ago. And further on down the line, past all the her mother's family recipes were the more traditional Thanksgiving foodstuffs like the roasted turkey, the bowls of mashed potatoes and the cranberry-walnut (home made, not box) stuffing.
Pausing a moment to sniff the back of her wrist while checking for any lingering scent of the palm oil she'd used to cook most of the food with, Anika nodded to herself in satisfaction. She did not smell like part of the feast, good! Picking up a delicate swirled-glass, Egyptian perfume jar, the young homecoming med student dabbed a drop of spice-laden oil on her wrist. As she rubbed her wrists together and then rubbed both of them over her neck and around her forearms the scent of sandalwood and vanilla began to rise from her skin, covering that 'clean fresh scent' that Ivory soap was known for.
"And I'm thankful for - "
"Aaaanika! Anika-Amadi! What is taking you so long?" A voice called up the stairs to her room. Anika raised her eyes skyward as if in prayer, and sighed heavily. Anyone who knew anything about putting on the Aso ebi knew that it took a little time to wrap everything properly. Anyone that is, except for her two younger brothers. Lifting her skirt up so not to trip on it, the young woman stepped lightly to the bedroom door past a vibrant collage of wall drapes and hanging sashes, ducking through beaded curtains and under glow in the dark stick-up constellations. Opening the door a few inches, she called out to the voice on the stairs below.
"I'm coming Lucian. Just another minute, alright?" His continued whining did no good at all, his big sister still shut the door against both his yelling, and the growing sound of the lively party.
"And I'm thankful for little brothers." She told herself firmly, searching for the right lip gloss among all the different items on her desk. "Even spoiled rotten ones." She had to hunt for a few minutes, as the desk top and indeed the entire room was just the way she'd left it when she moved away to California and go to school. Everything was bright, everything was colorful, and everything was more than a little cluttered with all the books, papers, photographs and knick-knacks taking up near every flat or near-flat surface. It was a marked contrast to her apartment in Los Angeles, which was near spartan by comparison.
A photograph in the shuffle caught her attention, and Anika paused, putting down the just-found lip-color to pick it up instead. Sinking back on her bed, the deep violet quilt in a visual battle with the tangerine orange of her outfit, Anika-Amadi stared down at the photo, fingers holding it delicately at the edge so that no fingerprints would get on the Polaroid film itself.
The picture was at least three years old, and had a scratch across the top edge that Anika traced with a finger tip as she gazed at the faces of the people caught forever on the film. There were six of them with five standing and one sitting in the middle. "No, not sitting" She thought to herself, remembering. "He was leaning up on the bed. But he wasn't sitting. He wasn't strong enough to sit up yet."
One of the figures in the photo was of herself, a younger version dressed in faded green second-hand hospital scrubs. And over that? A large white tabard, with a red cross emblazoned nearly the full length and width of it. Her hair was close to the skull, several cornrows that ended in long, whip-edge like braids, all bound together by a strip of material and mostly covered by a grey-green bandanna. Around surrounding her were Doctors; two from the Congo at the clinic in Kisangani, and two from the United States.
And in the very center of the picture, with her hand held tightly in his own? Was a very thin, somewhat grubby and under-nourished, sickly looking man with dark hair, dark eyes, and dark bags that etched their way across his too-pale skin. What made the picture so unusual was that - of all the people in the photograph? Only the the man in the middle, only the patient was smiling. It was a tired smile, a sad one perhaps, but it was real, and it was really there. The photographer had caught them just as she had turned to face that man, her hand holding his larger, longer-fingered one as they held tight to each other, fingers entwined.
"Doctor Kovac!" she breathed. How the hell did the picture get here? She'd searched for that particular photo time and again before she'd left for California, intending to keep it with her. Wanting to keep it safe along with all the letters he'd written back to her over the past few years. But somehow, this one photo, the only one she had of the two of them from their time in the Congo, somehow this most important memento had gotten misplaced and left behind.
And - oh wait a minute! Her mother had stated that Anika had gotten mail while she was gone and she'd put all of her daughter's mail in a folder around here someplace, perhaps another letter had arrived from the doctor in her absence? Bouncing up from her bed, she tore around the room, searching high and low until at last she found a stuffed manila folder stuck on the floor between door and dresser. Pulling out multiple envelopes the woman scattered them across the bed, tossing one after the other as she searched through the rapidly dwindling pile.
And there it was, the familiar writing scrolled along the envelope, that same familiar return address in the upper left hand corner. All sounds of the party downstairs had faded away, all Anika could hear was the sound of her heart beat, pounding out loud as she ripped the envelope open, pulling out the multi-page letter within.
Sitting back down on the bed, wrinkling papers beneath her without a thought, Anika began to read. The letter had been dated several months earlier, and eager eyes read and re-read each paragraph with mounting excitement. This was Doctor Kovac, her Doctor Kovac. Her fiend, her mentor, her (secret) idol. It was less a crush and more hero worship, a fact she tried to hide desperately.
And then she got to the last page.
"Here? He's leaving Chicago and moving here? To Massachusetts?!" It was a decidedly un-sophisticated college student squeal of surprise and delight, heard through the room and down the hall as Anika yelled in excitement. He was coming to Boston. In fact he less than an hour away from where she lived in Gloucester. He was moving his family - she checked the dates written on the page again - he had moved his family from Illinois to the East Coast and even now he was somewhere in her home state.
The sudden sound of hand drums, shakers and voices lifted in song snapped her out of her train of thought. "Aaaanika-Amadiii! Why aren't you listening to me!" Her brother poked his head further in to her room, one hand still on the doorknob, ready to shut the door in defense of a thrown book or pillow. The sound of the revel came with him, the pounding beat of her mother's CD's making it hard to be heard without talking loudly.
"Come on! You are missing the party! You are too pretty to hide up here alone, Anika. Come on down, you'll make Derek's new girlfriend so jealous!" Her little brother winked, his warm hazel eyes - nearly the twins of her own - staring at her. "She's so stuck up, you should meet her, Sis. Mom's about to have a fit if she insults her cooking one more time!"
Anika laughed, tossing a tasseled silk pillow in Lucian's direction. Yes, he was spoiled rotten, but he still knew all the things to say to have her wrapped around his finger. "Fine, fine. I'll come down now." She replied, still laughing. "Besides I have to ask Dad if I can borrow the car tomorrow and I want to ask soon, before Derek tells him about going into the military and spoils the party."
"Oh Derek isn't planning to tell him until tomorrow and" The door pulled shut behind the younger Nuttal son as he bounded back down the stairs to tell his parents that their absent-from-the-celebration daughter was finally on her way. Anika stood up, smoothing her outfit and then wrapping and patting her gele into place once more. The letter and envelope were left on the bed, and as Anika paused to open the door to go down and join her family, she grinned.
"And I am thankful for tomorrow. Tomorrow I get to look up an old friend."
Anika-Amadi Nuttal
OC - Marvelverse
Words - 1942
X posted to -![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
writers_muses as prompt #64.4. Who are you thankful for?
"I'm thankful that I am back home with family during the holidays. For my mom and dad, and that they sent me a ticket, because I never would have been able to afford it on my own." Came the next murmur as Anika-Amadi began turning slowly to the left and then the right, checking out her reflection from all angles. "And I'm thankful that Derek has not yet told them of his decision to go into the Army. They'd have blown the roof off the house." Her parent's view of the military was well known to their children. In fact, they had a dim view of anything that might possibly put any child of theirs into harms way. Like moving to Los Angeles and working as an EMT for a hospital in Hollywood for instance. Yes, just like that.
The music was coming through the floor boards of her old bedroom, the celebration already in full swing when she'd finished up in the kitchen and ran upstairs to wash up and change into her Aso ebi, the same color and style outfit that her mother was wearing for the Thanksgiving Day feast- slash - party. Family, friends, neighbors and business associates too were all invited to the Owanbe, and the extravagant party that had been planned to last far into the evening. Anika had spent a good part of the past two days helping to prepare for it, mainly the cutting and cooking of all the food to be eaten at the feast. There were lamb pies, and two types of soup including the Obe ata, the spicy-hot pepper soup she loved so much. The roasted corn lay on the same sideboard table now as the moyin-moyin, that bean, goat meat, and vegetable dish her mother taught her so long ago. And further on down the line, past all the her mother's family recipes were the more traditional Thanksgiving foodstuffs like the roasted turkey, the bowls of mashed potatoes and the cranberry-walnut (home made, not box) stuffing.
Pausing a moment to sniff the back of her wrist while checking for any lingering scent of the palm oil she'd used to cook most of the food with, Anika nodded to herself in satisfaction. She did not smell like part of the feast, good! Picking up a delicate swirled-glass, Egyptian perfume jar, the young homecoming med student dabbed a drop of spice-laden oil on her wrist. As she rubbed her wrists together and then rubbed both of them over her neck and around her forearms the scent of sandalwood and vanilla began to rise from her skin, covering that 'clean fresh scent' that Ivory soap was known for.
"And I'm thankful for - "
"Aaaanika! Anika-Amadi! What is taking you so long?" A voice called up the stairs to her room. Anika raised her eyes skyward as if in prayer, and sighed heavily. Anyone who knew anything about putting on the Aso ebi knew that it took a little time to wrap everything properly. Anyone that is, except for her two younger brothers. Lifting her skirt up so not to trip on it, the young woman stepped lightly to the bedroom door past a vibrant collage of wall drapes and hanging sashes, ducking through beaded curtains and under glow in the dark stick-up constellations. Opening the door a few inches, she called out to the voice on the stairs below.
"I'm coming Lucian. Just another minute, alright?" His continued whining did no good at all, his big sister still shut the door against both his yelling, and the growing sound of the lively party.
"And I'm thankful for little brothers." She told herself firmly, searching for the right lip gloss among all the different items on her desk. "Even spoiled rotten ones." She had to hunt for a few minutes, as the desk top and indeed the entire room was just the way she'd left it when she moved away to California and go to school. Everything was bright, everything was colorful, and everything was more than a little cluttered with all the books, papers, photographs and knick-knacks taking up near every flat or near-flat surface. It was a marked contrast to her apartment in Los Angeles, which was near spartan by comparison.
A photograph in the shuffle caught her attention, and Anika paused, putting down the just-found lip-color to pick it up instead. Sinking back on her bed, the deep violet quilt in a visual battle with the tangerine orange of her outfit, Anika-Amadi stared down at the photo, fingers holding it delicately at the edge so that no fingerprints would get on the Polaroid film itself.
The picture was at least three years old, and had a scratch across the top edge that Anika traced with a finger tip as she gazed at the faces of the people caught forever on the film. There were six of them with five standing and one sitting in the middle. "No, not sitting" She thought to herself, remembering. "He was leaning up on the bed. But he wasn't sitting. He wasn't strong enough to sit up yet."
One of the figures in the photo was of herself, a younger version dressed in faded green second-hand hospital scrubs. And over that? A large white tabard, with a red cross emblazoned nearly the full length and width of it. Her hair was close to the skull, several cornrows that ended in long, whip-edge like braids, all bound together by a strip of material and mostly covered by a grey-green bandanna. Around surrounding her were Doctors; two from the Congo at the clinic in Kisangani, and two from the United States.
And in the very center of the picture, with her hand held tightly in his own? Was a very thin, somewhat grubby and under-nourished, sickly looking man with dark hair, dark eyes, and dark bags that etched their way across his too-pale skin. What made the picture so unusual was that - of all the people in the photograph? Only the the man in the middle, only the patient was smiling. It was a tired smile, a sad one perhaps, but it was real, and it was really there. The photographer had caught them just as she had turned to face that man, her hand holding his larger, longer-fingered one as they held tight to each other, fingers entwined.
"Doctor Kovac!" she breathed. How the hell did the picture get here? She'd searched for that particular photo time and again before she'd left for California, intending to keep it with her. Wanting to keep it safe along with all the letters he'd written back to her over the past few years. But somehow, this one photo, the only one she had of the two of them from their time in the Congo, somehow this most important memento had gotten misplaced and left behind.
And - oh wait a minute! Her mother had stated that Anika had gotten mail while she was gone and she'd put all of her daughter's mail in a folder around here someplace, perhaps another letter had arrived from the doctor in her absence? Bouncing up from her bed, she tore around the room, searching high and low until at last she found a stuffed manila folder stuck on the floor between door and dresser. Pulling out multiple envelopes the woman scattered them across the bed, tossing one after the other as she searched through the rapidly dwindling pile.
And there it was, the familiar writing scrolled along the envelope, that same familiar return address in the upper left hand corner. All sounds of the party downstairs had faded away, all Anika could hear was the sound of her heart beat, pounding out loud as she ripped the envelope open, pulling out the multi-page letter within.
Sitting back down on the bed, wrinkling papers beneath her without a thought, Anika began to read. The letter had been dated several months earlier, and eager eyes read and re-read each paragraph with mounting excitement. This was Doctor Kovac, her Doctor Kovac. Her fiend, her mentor, her (secret) idol. It was less a crush and more hero worship, a fact she tried to hide desperately.
And then she got to the last page.
"Here? He's leaving Chicago and moving here? To Massachusetts?!" It was a decidedly un-sophisticated college student squeal of surprise and delight, heard through the room and down the hall as Anika yelled in excitement. He was coming to Boston. In fact he less than an hour away from where she lived in Gloucester. He was moving his family - she checked the dates written on the page again - he had moved his family from Illinois to the East Coast and even now he was somewhere in her home state.
The sudden sound of hand drums, shakers and voices lifted in song snapped her out of her train of thought. "Aaaanika-Amadiii! Why aren't you listening to me!" Her brother poked his head further in to her room, one hand still on the doorknob, ready to shut the door in defense of a thrown book or pillow. The sound of the revel came with him, the pounding beat of her mother's CD's making it hard to be heard without talking loudly.
"Come on! You are missing the party! You are too pretty to hide up here alone, Anika. Come on down, you'll make Derek's new girlfriend so jealous!" Her little brother winked, his warm hazel eyes - nearly the twins of her own - staring at her. "She's so stuck up, you should meet her, Sis. Mom's about to have a fit if she insults her cooking one more time!"
Anika laughed, tossing a tasseled silk pillow in Lucian's direction. Yes, he was spoiled rotten, but he still knew all the things to say to have her wrapped around his finger. "Fine, fine. I'll come down now." She replied, still laughing. "Besides I have to ask Dad if I can borrow the car tomorrow and I want to ask soon, before Derek tells him about going into the military and spoils the party."
"Oh Derek isn't planning to tell him until tomorrow and" The door pulled shut behind the younger Nuttal son as he bounded back down the stairs to tell his parents that their absent-from-the-celebration daughter was finally on her way. Anika stood up, smoothing her outfit and then wrapping and patting her gele into place once more. The letter and envelope were left on the bed, and as Anika paused to open the door to go down and join her family, she grinned.
"And I am thankful for tomorrow. Tomorrow I get to look up an old friend."
Anika-Amadi Nuttal
OC - Marvelverse
Words - 1942
X posted to -
writers_muses as prompt #64.4. Who are you thankful for?
