Cece Writes A Book [COMPLETED]

Chapter 1 - "Here comes Mr. President."

Cece Mckenzie casually sipped her juice cocktail as her gaze roved over the outdoor party. Everyone stood beneath a behemoth of a white tent, enjoying the breeze coming off the ocean.

All the men were clad in linen suits and the woman in neat cocktail dresses. It felt like the breeding ground of Boston politics.

But while Cece was present in body, her mind was somewhere in the south. She had traded the mild New England heat for the heavy southern humidity.

The men had traded their muted linen suits for polo shirts with popped collars and the woman's cocktail skirts now bounced around them in loud prints.

She watched the social rituals taking place all around her and transposed them into the scene she was working on for her novel. She had managed to get her main character to the party but now that she was there, Cece wasn't sure how she would act.

So Cece watched the people around her, looking for the gesture, or smirk, or flip of hair that would spark her main character into action.

"I have my final review," someone said beside Cece. Cece regretfully hit pause on her trip to the south and looked over at her sister Elliot.

"In order from least to greatest, my review of the bar's juice selection. Cranberry juice..."

Cece shut the door on her southern estate and sipped her drink as she listened intently to her sister's list.

"How can you put apple juice above orange juice?" Cece asked in disbelief as Elliot finished her list. "Orange juice is the supreme ruler of all juice."

"Orange juice is fine," Elliot argued, "but orange juice is all you ever get. Apple juice on the other hand is the gift that keeps on giving. You have apple juice, apple cider, hard apple cider..."

Cece shook her head. "I never should have let you go to Vermont. This is all Vermont's fault."

"What?" Elliot said. "I can change my opinions."

"Only if the change is for the better. Orange juice is best and no amount of cute apple cider packaging is going to convince me otherwise."

"You have to admit the packaging was cute," Elliot said.

"But if the packaging hadn't been cute, you would be standing here, telling me orange juice is the best."

Elliot thought about it for a moment before she gave a conceding shrug.
"Maybe."

The sisters dropped the subject, having reached a satisfactory conclusion, and turned their attention to the party-goers around them.

"Do you think they are aware of how absurd they are?" Elliot asked quietly after a moment, "or do you think they are born blind to it?"

"Just because their decorations match does not mean they are absurd," Cece argued.

"You're still mad that I used Valentine's napkins for your birthday party, aren't you?"

"Would it have killed you to buy a fifty-cent pack of birthday napkins from the corner store?" Cece argued.

"Yes. Yes, it would have," Elliot said flatly.

A waiter passed with a silver tray of hor'dourves and offered them to the sisters. Cece accepted the red, white, and blue thing while Elliot waved the waiter away in disgust. "Absurd," she muttered under her breath.

"No," Cece said before she tossed the bite-sized patriotic snack into her mouth. Her taste buds were flooded with a dichotomy of textures and tastes and she grimaced, unsure if she loved the result or hated it.