All I Want Is Everything

Revving up

Sorry about the delay, everybody. I was finishing up my thesis for a master's program and I could not get data back from my participants. But. The good part about the pause is that I stumbled on a better way to get from point A to B and I'm excited to get there too. Meanwhile, enjoy this chapter and please feed the author with comments!

You gotta aim high, baby
whether you lose or win
And when you get to the top
You gotta get off or go right back down again

Poison, Cry Tough

Ella felt faint as she scrawled her signature on the documents to purchase the property on Temple Hill Drive. Not only did she have a substantial financial commitment now but she had her own little chunk of Hollywood history. Steve had finally come up with the money for half of their parents' house--she didn't know if he sold it or just paid her half, didn't much care--and she'd used that for the down payment. She took two sets of keys from the lawyer along with two controls for the mechanized gate, shook Flash's hand, and walked down to her Corvette, taking steadying breaths before starting the car and putting the top down. As she increased speed, the wind tore the pins out of her hair and she started to laugh. A half hour later, she was driving up to the house. The gate closed behind her and she parked by the front door. It was shabby inside and out and needed some immediate work--the roof needed to be replaced and finishes restored, a lot of paint... now would be a good time to have the wiring upgraded rather than waiting down the road until she was all moved in and comfortable. The same for the little guest house. Ella definitely planned on making one room a music room. There was a glass-domed atrium, an open area with bookshelves on the second floor that would make a nice library, the kitchen was massive with a large dining room, a couple of living rooms, high ceilings, Moorish arches, and wrought iron in both Gothic and Art Nouveau styles. There were a couple of towers as well as the turret, and the driveway passed right by the front door under a porte cochere. There was a large patio with a fireplace and a rooftop terrace with another fireplace. Ella knew she was in way over her head.

The first thing she did was call Ayo, the set designer she'd met at Tony Stark's party, who had mentioned that she had ambitions for interior decoration, and Ella liked the idea of the public areas of the house being kind of dramatic. Ayo was intrigued by the project and they agreed to meet the next day. Then she called Pepper, who had recommendations, of course, for a landscape architect and a gardening service as well as pool maintenance. She then turned to work, needing to pay for everything now. Because she was still writing solo material for her album, Loki had lined her up with writing jingles. They were easy for her to write and she was getting a good chunk of steady income. She'd set up an alias for this work and Loki was going to be able to raise her rates soon.

After dinner, she sat down and filled out her change of address card for the post office--again--and wrote cards announcing her new address for her friends. In Sam's, she included a note that there were guest rooms he was welcome to when he got there but to take his time, wondering to herself if he was having second thoughts about the music biz. He was the sanest, most put-together person she knew, and wouldn't blame him if he stuck with counseling.

A few days later, she got a call from Becca, who unsurprisingly had a lot of questions. "I met a set designer at a party who is thinking about moving to interior design," Ella said. "I met with her the day after I closed, and she's coming up with some plans. It could be so gorgeous. There's a turret. And towers. And an atrium."

"That's so exciting, El," Becca said wistfully.

"It's kind of terrifying," Ella confessed. "But I have almost enough songs to take to Flerkin, get going on my album. I'm worried about getting my new sound right, have enough material. There's so much riding on this."