Chapter Text
It’s not the sort of house Rey ever pictured herself living in. It’s elegant -- one could almost say stately -- but most importantly it reeks of money. Rey never expected to live in a place that looked like it was money. She stands in the doorway with her shabby duffel bag and even shabbier suitcase (it used to roll until one of the wheels broke off, and one of the zippers is stuck, but she loves it anyways) and looks onto the foyer. Because she has a foyer now.
In truth, Rey has a good deal more than that. She has a kitchen, full-sized with an island, for all the cooking she won’t be doing. She has a pantry, practically a walk-in, for the one-person amount of food she’ll be buying. She has no less than two stories and three bedrooms, a sitting room, a dining room (separate from the kitchen!), and two and a half bathrooms for all the friends she won’t be making and all the guests she won’t be having over. In other words, Rey is living in excess.
And she notices none of it as she stands in that doorway with her dilapidated luggage. All of her attention is fixed on the best feature, the singular reason she chose such a house in the first place: the blank, white walls.
Money can do wondrous things. It can transform the idea that’s been forming in Rey’s mind since she started her degree into this wonderful house with its wonderfully blank, white walls. Rey doesn’t know how she’s lived this long without it.
This isn’t forever, she reminds herself as she wanders through the house and trails her fingers over the drywall. And it isn’t charity. You have to work for this. It doesn’t seem like work to her, though. She’s already coming up with landscapes and murals and all sorts of things she wants to cover these walls with.
Before university, Rey had never even heard of an artist’s residency. Now, here she is, in America of all places, for six whole months. All so she can paint a house. She’s never even dared to have a dream this good.
Rey wanders through the whole place, taking mental notes on what she wants to paint where. The sitting room with all its windows and sunlight will be the perfect place for a desert, the loft a rainforest, the bedroom she’s going to claim as her own… she’s thinking galaxy. She makes a whole loop until she returns to the foyer where her things sit forgotten and turns to face the house, hands settled squarely on her hips. Give me six months, she thinks, chin raised, eyes blazing, and I’ll turn this place into the world.
-
Rey has never been and will never be a morning person, which is why it’s absurd that she’s up before the sun. She grabs a banana from her sparsely stocked kitchen and plops herself down under the sitting room window, a tri-paned spread that Rey thinks could benefit from a reading nook. As it is, she is relegated to the hardwood, staring at the wall opposite as she starts in on her banana.
Paint cans of yellow, brown, and dusty blue surround her; her arms are killing her from a day spent trekking back and forth from her car to the house loaded down with paint cans. She smirks as she drags down the peel as she remembers the looks she’d drawn from a few of her neighbors. This isn’t her kind of neighborhood, that much is clear. She’d stuck out like a sore thumb in her jeans and t-shirt, her ‘03 Civic equally out of place with its sun-damaged paint job. Nearly every other driveway had a flashy BMW or Bentley or something equally aristocratic. No, this isn’t Rey’s usual sort of place, but she likes it just fine.
She studies the way the sun hits the walls, trying to project her imaginary landscape onto it just so. She wants the light to make the desert sands come alive.
Her quiet morning is shattered by the sound of children shouting and the unmistakable rumbling of school bus. More shouting. Then a suspicious quiet before a high-pitched shriek, “No, it isn’t! ”
It might be best, Rey decides, to intervene. She pokes her head up over the windowsill to taking the scene before her. Two young girls, one who likes like she can’t be more than seven, the other a few years older, are standing in her neighbor’s driveway dressed in smart uniforms, messenger bags slung over their shoulders. And they’re shouting at each other. More intervention is required.
Rey makes her way outside dressed in her pajamas and stands at the edge of her driveway. “Hey. What’s going on out here?” she asks.
Immediately, their bickering ceases. The younger hides behind her sister’s legs, peering up at Rey with slightly fearful eyes. The elder merely regards her balefully, a bit of a curl to her lip. “We missed the bus,” she says. “Because Lanie spilled the milk, and I had to clean it up, so now we’re going to miss school too, and it’s all your fault.” This last she addresses to her sister.
Lanie seems to forget all about Rey in favor of her righteous indignation. “Is not!” She turns to Rey with a pout. “Iofe’s the one who wouldn’t get out of bed, and she’s supposed to help me.”
Rey looks back and forth between the two sisters, blinking. It suddenly strikes her that it’s been a long time since she’s been around children for any amount of time. She’s not entirely sure what to do. “Well, I don’t have much going on,” she says slowly. “I could probably drop you guys off. Where do you go?” She pats the hood of her car as if to prove that she does indeed have the vehicular means of doing so.
“We’re not supposed to go in the car with strangers,” Lanie says, shrinking back behind Iofe’s legs.
“Oh shut up, Lanie,” Iofe says with a roll of her eyes. She shakes her head at Rey as if to say “kids, right?” and Rey has to suppress a smile. “She’s not a stranger, she’s our neighbor. Besides, Dad will kill us if he finds out we missed school.” So saying, she strides across the strip of lawn dividing them and walks up to Rey, sticking her hand out. “I’m Iofe, by the way.”
Rey accepts, still trying to suppress her smile. “Rey.”
Iofe swings around to give Lanie a triumphant look. “See? She’s not a stranger anymore. So come on.” She beckons her over, keeps beckoning until Lanie hesitantly steps onto the lawn and joins her.
“One sec, I just need to grab my keys.” Rey ducks inside just long enough to scoop them off the bar counter before rejoining her two new charges outside. She notices Iofe’s jaw drop open a little as she unlocks the car. “What?” she asks. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You’re going to drive us to school in your pajamas?” Iofe asks, exchanging a delighted look with Lanie.
Rey glances down at her attire -- a half-cropped sweatshirt and black shorts -- before shrugging. “They’re comfortable. Now, are we going or what?” She drops into the driver’s seat as Lanie scrambles into the back. Iofe, however, lingers, chewing at her lip. “What is it now?” Rey sighs.
“Can I sit in the passenger seat?” she blurts. She runs her hands restlessly along the strap of her messenger bag and shifts her weight from one foot to the other. “It’s just that Dad never lets me, even though I’m twelve whole years old.”
Rey’s eyebrows twitch upwards. She hasn’t met any of her neighbors yet, but surely whoever “dad” is won’t mind too much if she bends the rules this once. So thinking, she leans across and shoves the passenger-side door open. “Have at it.”
Iofe’s eyes brighten instantly, and she dashes around to take her place in the front. “Best neighbor ever,” she declares, turning a beaming smile on Rey.
Is that all it takes to please kids these days? Rey never knew it was so easy. “Where are we heading?” she asks, already pulling out her phone and opening up her GPS.
“Harker,” Iofe answers.
Rey plugs in the location and pulls out, following the broad green line. She drums her fingers on the steering wheel and listens to the tinny voice give her instructions. The silence is awkward, or at least she thinks it is. She’s not sure kids have the same definition of awkward. Iofe shifts in her seat. Lanie sniffles. Rey keeps drumming.
After another block or two, she clears her throat and jerks her chin towards the glovebox. “There’re some CDs in there if you guys want to listen to some music. I don’t usually use the radio. Too many ads.”
“Ads suck,” Iofe says, reaching forward to pop open the glovebox and shuffle through the CD cases.
From the backseat, Lanie gasps. “Iofe!”
“Sorry, sorry,” Iofe mumbles, not sounding at all sorry. “Ads stink.”
Thankfully, this seems to placate Lanie, as she settles back into her seat without another word. This is fortunate because Rey has no idea what she’d do if they got into another fight.
The GPS tells her to turn left. Rey makes a left.
“Queen is a band?” Iofe asks, holding up one of the CDs. “I thought it was just a… you know, a word.”
Rey glances over at her, eyebrows arched. “You’ve never heard Queen? How can you have never even heard of Queen?”
Iofe shrugs, and in the rearview mirror, Rey can see Lanie doing the same.
“Well, you kids are about to get some culture.” Rey holds her hand out for the CD, and Iofe obediently hands it over. Keeping her eyes mostly on the road, Rey sticks the CD in and turns it up just loud enough to be heard without overpowering her GPS.
The first few lines of Bohemian Rhapsody begin to fill the car. Rey hums along, keeping time with the shifting beat on her steering wheel. Iofe and Lanie perk up a little bit as the drums kick in, but their excitement fades a little when the piano melody continues. Rey suppresses her smirk until the band belts out “THUNDERBOLTS AND LIGHTNING” and Lanie giggles.
“Is it okay to turn it up?” Iofe asks, and, when Rey nods her permission, she cranks the dial up until Rey has to rely on her eyes to determine where the GPS wants her to go.
“So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye?” Rey sings, unable to help herself. The song is infectious. She catches Lanie’s gaze in the rearview, pulls a face, and continues, “So you think you can love me and leave me to diiiie?!” and is rewarded with another giggle.
Iofe air guitars as well as she can from her seat-belted position.
“Now you’re getting it,” Rey says, almost missing her next turn. She resolves her focus on the road but is well aware of both girls continuing to jam out.
There’s a chorus of disappointed “awws” when the song fades out, but the thumping bass of “Another One Bites the Dust” starts up almost immediately. By the time they reach the school, “Fat Bottomed Girls” is pumping through the speakers. Iofe and Lanie break into peals of laughter as Rey sings passionately along about blue-eyed floozies and naughty nannies. She pulls into the drop-off line just as the chorus hits.
“Okay, kiddos, this is the end of the line. Go have fun. Learn.” Rey gestures to the school outside. It’s a massive, modern-looking edifice, and she finds herself a little intimidated and a lot glad she’s not the one who has to attend.
Iofe snorts as she gathers up her bag. “Well, we can’t really do both. You’re way more fun than school.”
“I’m flattered, but I’m still making you go,” Rey says with a shooing motion.
Iofe sighs. “It was worth a try.” She hops out of the car and sends “Fat bottomed girls, you make the rockin’ world go round” spilling into the morning air.
Rey flicks her gaze up to the rearview to check on Lanie. “You good back there?” Even as she asks, Lanie cranks open the door and tugs her messenger back over.
“Yup!” she says brightly. “Thank you, Mrs. Rey!”
Rey doesn’t get a chance to correct her before she’s running to catch up with her sister, but it doesn’t really matter. They’re cute kids, but she probably won’t be seeing much more of them. Just as she’s about to drive off, a lively women (too lively for how early it is, Rey thinks) hurries toward her.
“Excuse me! Excuse me!” She waves frantically as if she’s afraid Rey is going to ignore her and race off.
Instead, Rey rolls down her window and turns down the radio -- that’s still blasting Fat Bottomed Girls.
The woman bends down to see her better, giving her a brilliant smile that seems fantastically disingenuous. “Good morning! I was wondering if you could please pull off to the side, just for a second. Just over there.” She waves towards a section of the lot that looks like it’s more for longer-term parking instead of the drive-through line.
“Um. Sure.” Baffled, Rey waits for the woman to step back so she can navigate her car to the indicated space. Her shabby Civic seems even shabbier here. Rey gets the distinct impression that she’s more than out of her depth; she’s been dropped in the middle of the ocean. What kind of teachers are these that they can afford Porsches? She drums her fingernails along the steering wheel, subtle nervous, as she waits for the woman to return.
Then suddenly, she’s there, with her primped hair and carefully made-up face and beaming, gleaming smile that would have a toothpaste commercial-sparkle if it could. “Oh, thank you so much for pulling off. Was that Iofe and Lanie Solo I saw with you?”
“Yes,” Rey says hesitantly. “Ma’am,” she hastily tacks on afterwards.
“Ms. Phasma,” she says by way of introduction. She cocks her head to one side. “I wasn’t aware Mr. Solo had a new wife.”
“If he did, he wouldn’t be Solo,” Rey blurts. She fully does not intend to, but this lady makes her nervous. It doesn’t help when her only response to Rey’s so-called joke is a slight tightening around the eyes, a slight widening of the smile. Like she’s a shark about to consume her prey. “But actually we’re not married. I’m just a neighbor helping out. Iofe and Lanie missed the bus this morning, so I thought I could drop them off.”
Phasma nods once, her blue eyes like chips of ice. “How nice of you! Far be it from me to discourage such behavior, but I do have to ask that if you do this again… We have a certain decorum, you might say, that we like to maintain here at Harker. I’m sure you understand.”
Rey doesn’t understand. At all. “I’m sorry, I’m afraid I don’t?” She’s a grown woman with a college degree and her own place, so why does this woman make her feel like she’s no better than a child that needs scolding? Maybe it’s the height. She’s desperately tall and wearing heels to boot. Rey can’t quite convince herself that’s the reason.
“Perhaps I’ll be a little clearer.” Phasma’s smile stays perfectly in place, but her eyes harden. “We believe that we should present ourselves as role models in front of the children. They’re impressionable, as I’m sure you know, and we like to set a good example. I’m afraid your outfit and the… music… you were playing is not up to our usual standards.”
Rey blinks at her. Blinks down at her outfit. And the radio. And back at the woman. “But it’s Queen,” she says lamely.
Phasma’s smile stretches an inch wider, and Rey tightens her grip on the steering wheel.
“It won’t happen again,” she says, her voice fainter than she would like.
“I’m so glad to hear that!” Phasma finally steps away from the car with a polite nod. “Have a wonderful day.” Then she’s off with a wave, presumably to right some other wrong in the world.
Rey slumps back into her seat with a long exhale and peels her fingers off the steering wheel one by one. She pulls out of the parking lot and doesn’t look back.
-
Her hair is up in a messy bun with a paintbrush stuck through it. Another brush is stuck behind her ear. A third is in her hand, and it’s this one she’s using to actually paint with. Pale blue streaks her cheeks, and legs, and clothes as she paints swaths of the desert sky. She’s perched on the top rung of the ladder to do the trim around the ceiling when the doorbell rings.
“Shit.” Rey sticks her brush between her teeth and starts climbing down, careful not to jostle the ladder too much and disturb the precariously perched can of paint. The doorbell rings again, quickly followed by a series of knocks. “One second!” she calls around the brush in her teeth. She sets it on one of the rungs and hurries towards the door. She reaches for the knob, realizing at the last second that her thumb is coated in blue. She smears it off on the exposed skin of her thigh before swinging the door open. “Hi, I-” Her greeting dies in her throat. Oh, hel -lo.
The man standing on her doorstep looks like he could have stepped straight off a movie set. His black hair is curled stylishly, his figure impressively displayed in a tailored suit. Dark eyes regard her from a pale face speckled with freckles. He looks like the perfect gentleman. Until he opens his mouth. “Are you Rey?”
His tone is harsh enough that it shocks Rey’s tongue into clumsiness. “Yeah, that’s me. Rey. I would shake your hand, it’s just… there’s paint?” She holds up her hand and waggles her blue thumb at him.
He barely seems to notice her stuttered introduction, and he certainly doesn’t try to take her hand. “Do you want to explain why I got a call from my daughters’ school today asking about my neighbor and her ‘disruptive tendencies?’”
For a second, all Rey can do is stare him, slack-jawed and glassy-eyed. The dots are slow to connect. This is dad. This is the dad. Lanie’s and Iofe’s. As soon as that clicks into place, Rey goes on the defensive. “It’s not my fault that Phasma lady had a ginormous stick up her ass,” she says.
His eyes narrow.
“Look, I was honestly just trying to help. Your kids missed the bus. I dropped them off. It doesn’t have to be a big deal.” She crosses her arms over her chest, suddenly acutely aware that she’s still in barely nothing. She’d never bothered changing out of her pajamas. Not that he’s doing anything other than glare at her.
“Thanks,” he says, though he sounds anything but grateful. “Next time, just have them call me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, apparently I need to go have a talk with my children about getting into cars with strangers.”
Rey rolls her eyes. “Yeah, you have fun with that.”
He steps off her porch, pausing on the last stair. “I’m Ben Solo, by the way. Welcome to the neighborhood.” Then he’s striding off without a glance backward, leaving Rey to glare at his back until he disappears into his house.
Rey steps back into her own and fights the childish urge to slam the door shut. Why are so many things here so frustrating? With a huff, she stomps back to her ladder and plucks up her paintbrush, taking out her emotions on the wall in long, angry strokes. It doesn’t take long for her to get into a groove and start to calm. When she does, she laughs at herself a little. This doesn’t have to be that hard, she tells herself. She just has to paint and keep to herself. Totally doable. She never needs to see Ben Solo again.