Chat with Lucille and Brooke before Seminar

When you wake up on Wednesday morning, you half expect another revelation to drop out of the sky and shake your world. Then you notice a loud buzzing noise that won’t stop. Is this a sign of the end times? Are these the Revelations you’ve been half expecting? But no, it’s just your alarm.

After a quick stop at the dining hall and another Calculus class with your charming classmates and a Professor Luck that’s looking more tired than usual, you head over to Writing Seminar. You take a peek in through the door and see that Annalise, Lisa, and Charmaine are, as usual, all there early. But down the hall, you hear voices.

Lucille and Brooke are sitting on a bench, looking over one of Brooke’s notebooks.

“Hey, I like this one. Very moody,” Lucille says, pointing at some darkly shaded sketch that you can’t make out from this distance.

Your curiosity piqued, you draw up to them. Brooke gives you a friendly wave, while Lucille nods at the empty spot next to her. You take a seat next to the girls, looking at Brooke’s sketches.

“Is that… Charmaine?” you ask.

There’s no doubt that it’s her. The sketch is lifelike, capturing her cold looks and slim physique, but you’re surprised because you’re pretty sure you’re looking at a medieval dungeon. That’s a prisoner on the rack, right?

“Yep, this is Charmaine as a Spanish Inquisition torturer,” Brooke says, giving you a goofy smile. “I’ve been taking some suggestions from Lucille. What do you think?”

“Umm…. It’s giving me second thoughts about a phone call I received today,” you say.

“Charmaine called you today?” Lucille asks, raising an eyebrow.

“No, no. My dad did,” you say.

You hesitate. Should you tell them why? You see the expectant look on the girls’ faces, and decide that Lucille has the right to know. It’s about her family, after all.

“Charmaine’s mom is a lawyer. She reached out to my family about…”

“Fuck,” Lucille curses.

“She’s got a reputation?” you ask.

“Best in town,” she says. “Doesn’t matter if we did everything right. That woman is going to ruin us.”

“Well, she needs a client to do that,” you say.

“Yeah, and you’d take that bullet for us?” she asks.

“I wouldn’t put it that way,” you laugh. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

“It’s a lot of money,” Lucille says.

Brooke, for her part, is just staring at the two of you with wide eyes. You see her pen scratching across her notebook, a nervous habit.

“It is,” you sigh. “But I don’t really care for it. Not when it feels like robbing the money out of your pocket. But my dad… he’s really keen to get this case going.”

“He can’t do anything without your permission,” she says, and her voice is firm. “You’ve got to persuade him that you’re not doing this. You can’t let him get his way.”

“He can be pretty headstrong. I’ll see what I can do,” you say.

Lucille gives you a tight smile, and then she nods briefly. There’s some kind of unspoken agreement that passes between the two of you, and then you both get up from the bench, heading for the classroom. Brooke tags along, walking a couple paces behind you both.

When you get to the classroom, Charmaine stares at you and Lucille and Brooke and frowns. The professor, however, lights up.

“Ah, there we are, now we’re complete! We’re going to discuss the prompt for the paper due next week. So I want to hear it all! The Freshman 15, good or bad, let’s hear your thoughts!”

Lucille +20
Brooke +5
Charmaine -10