4.23 Voices

Somehow, three toddlers managed to consume all the free time of five adults. Ada started out just wanting to be supportive and active in the lives of her niece and nephews, and soon she found herself working with them every moment.

 

Her easel sat untouched for weeks with a half-finished painting. Her publisher sent her a dozen emails about her missed contract deadline, and she didn’t even open them.

She found herself far more engaged in conversations about poop.

 

When she had brief moments of quiet, her muse was silent. That was the frightening part. Taking a break from being creative was all right, wasn’t it? Just so long as it was there to go back to when things calmed down.

One day, after she had helped get the triplets up from their nap, Ada looked out the window of the nursery and wondered how long it had been since she had even taken a step out of the house. She wasn’t sure.

“The voices in my head stopped talking to me,” she said with a sigh. “I need to call them and find out what made them angry.”

 

She stared down at the cell phone in her hand and saw a phone number in the contact list that she’d never been brave enough to call: Alberto Royale.

“Levar and Jabari didn’t like weird girls like me,” she said. “If I call, maybe he won’t be home forever.”

She was just stir crazy enough to try anything. She made herself dial the number.

“Hello?” came the voice on the other end of the line. It had been long enough that she wasn’t even sure if it was Alberto’s voice.

What were you supposed to say to a guy on the phone? “I was wondering if a hot male stripper likes art,” she said nervously.

“Duude?” came the reply. “Wait, you’re the girl from the Sample bachelorette party? Ada?”

“There’s a new exhibit at the art museum,” Ada said. “It has nothing to do with baby poop.”

The voice on the other end was laughing. “That’s good enough for me! When do you want to meet?”

 

That evening, Ada headed to the art museum early. She tried out leaning against all the streetlights, the doorway, and the exterior sculptures to find the most decorative place to wait.

“Hey there!” she heard across the lawn. “I almost didn’t see you!”

Ada’s face lit up. “I didn’t think you’d come.”

“Why not? Isn’t this when we were supposed to meet?”

“When guys are supposed to meet me, sometimes they leave town or get married instead.”

“Dude,” Alberto said. “That’s heavy stuff.”

 

Ada looked him over. “I like your outfit,” she said. “Your hair is a lot longer than I expected.”

“They want me doing an act as a fantasy barbarian, so I grew it out,” Alberto said.

“I wasn’t sure if this was a dinner date, so I brought fruit from the garden just in case.”

Alberto took the offered fruit and turned it around in his hands. “Um, what is it?”

“A pomelo. Mom grows some weird stuff. My grandmother used to, but she’s dead now.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

They stood in the light that streamed from the art museum windows and ate an impromptu picnic from the Sample garden. Alberto was delighted to see each fruit and vegetable, and he asked her all sorts of questions about how they were grown.

 

Then the last few art enthusiasts drifted out the doors, and the art museum went dark. Ada looked at her watch. “I have to get home to the babies,” she said.

Alberto looked up at the dark building and smiled. “We never got in to see the exhibit.”

“Maybe if we do this again, we can make it in the front door,” Ada suggested.

Alberto caught her hand and kissed the tips. “Absolutely. I want to see you again as soon as possible.”

Ada flushed. “I won’t look any different,” she said.

 

Ada flew home, her head filled with thoughts. She almost couldn’t make it to her desk before the words came tearing out onto whatever surface she could type them.

“The voices in my head weren’t mad at me at all!” she told Charles later in delight. “They were just bored.”

———-

Confession time: I had to recreate Alberto. He and Ada had this great meeting at the Veronica’s party, and they left with a high relationship. Then at some point the game wiped out and completely replaced the dancer sims. Argh! There isn’t a whole lot of variation in the appearance of these sims, so I loaded the one with the same hair and skintone into CAS using MasterController. changed his name and traits to match Alberto, and set their relationship back to what it was. I was pretty ticked off that the game annihilated Ada’s dream man.

I only knew three of Alberto’s traits from looking him up when Ada met him: Adventurous, Clumsy, and Flirty — a Clumsy exotic dancer! Ha! (I think Flirty is required.) I left the other two as whatever they had been before and picked a random LTW from the suggested list. Then when I saw the everyday outfit the game rolled for him, I could only be more sure he was made for Ada :).

I was able to scrounge up enough pictures for this, but they weren’t the ones I planned to use. For one thing, I got the Through the Spyglass furniture set and redid Ada’s room in it. The last picture should have been of her sitting at the Spyglass desk and chair, which are much more her style. There was also a forlorn spontaneous moment where she went and looked at her high school diploma that is also gone. I keep thinking if I went back to the right backup, I’d find them, but I just want to play the game for a while.

0 thoughts on “4.23 Voices

  1. Aww! Ada! She's so sweet with the babies.

    That's terrible about what happened to Alberto. He and Ada made such a great connection at the bachelorette party. I'm glad that you were able to recreate him to a certain extent.

    I'm also happy that Ada's voices are talking again!

  2. I was so ticked off about Alberto, so I felt I was justified in grabbing one of the new dancers.

    Ada wasn't the only one having trouble with personal focus. All the characters did very little except skill toddlers, and the final skill was completed on their birthday! I couldn't believe how much work it took.

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