A Rather Uneventful Occasion

A Story by Jared Moss

Two families have a mild gathering, with nothing interesting to forward this or anything to proceed it, as far as the current reader knows.

The decorations of an obnoxious trailer-sized living room provided an experience to Leo Nucci. He ignored many of the screaming comforts in favor of better public sense.

“There’s so much lavish, gold coating here. Didn’t our families ever consider their clients’ real state?” he said on his thirteen-hundred-dollar, mass-produce sofa chair. It was meant to the self-aware yet as unethical counterpart Viola Tomasi. Both were the shadowy, vague “heir” to their families’ collective “dynasty.”

“It’s focused on potential, as any actual capitalist would know. And those who know the company knows, their business was designed to help people at an unfair disadvantage. Giving to them would only enable them, of course.”

Leo scolded her. He loathed his family’s dishonesty and proudly flaunted his negativity to everyone that disagreed with him, though in the same unnecessary trans-Atlantic dialect. He never spent much time around those who did agree, though.

An older, more unwelcome man in the young adults’ lives came into the room with small eyes, a poor, bragging suit, and some attitude that isn’t written. He poured some Italian phrase from his mouth to Viola and had confidence that Leo could hear him. Leo never learned Italian.

“That’s harsh sentiment for a colleague grandpa, especially for him,” Viola said, “they’re still honest people-“followed by more Italian scolding�"“And that’s okay! It’s just…poor”

Both of them laughed at that. Leo shuffled like a pompous oyster making a wealthier pearl than any other mussel but forgot the instructions. He was justified, of course. His mother had English ancestry.

“You have to be sour, don’t you?” the old man said. “I’d usually let my granddaughter fight her discrepancies, but you’re not that competitive. Though your side isn’t very studious or graceful, you’re still expected to have stamina. Even if some people’s minds are already made about today,” he said to, and ignorant of Leo, “your soggy demeanor won’t survive you.”

Leo would have, with joy, let him wait for a response until he shriveled into his legacy, but Leo also knew someone renewed the man’s death date again. An Atlanta newsletter did this, to their following impressionable minors, and about the fantastic legacy of his debunked drug cartel. Despite this, both families had overwhelming support.

The odd, anxious thing looming over Leo, the lovely Marian Locke-Nucci, didn’t support anything about “these people.” She adored ambiguity and confusion, though, so she made sure to be the second supervisor there.

“How do you do, Ms. Locke? It’s dashingly pleasant you could make it here. I’m sure Nick gives you his appreciation,” said Viola with something conniving Leo recognized, but didn’t.

Marian responded with an odious, milquetoast (depending on one’s definition of either of course), response which ignored and emphasized the exactly wrong things.

“His appreciation should measure his presence, but as it’s all for the dear trade, he’s forgiven.”

The old man’s English read the room and brewed something artistically toxic.

“The trade is, to a large degree, not to go to prison, which it seems Niccol�™ hadn’t excelled at. For these reasons, I don’t believe today should be rather… occasional,” and, as pouring a glass of rather cheap English wine for lovely Ms. Locke, “but that’s always been contrary to tradition.”

It seemed to Leo it was his obligation now to add something. This was only due to his subconscious narcissism. Viola, though, actually did have that obligation because she knew what they were talking about.

Viola took notice of her parents’ elongated absence first. She asked her grandfather, though already knowing why they weren’t there, in a monotone. Viola had an indifference to it except for the scheduling being messed. She was calm. Her parents’ arrival placed some normalcy and satisfied something Viola didn’t know about. After, she seemed absent, played by some amateur actress instead.

The actress had a stigma against how things happened. They noticed extreme intolerance and discomfort in Ms. Locke. The reporters came in and filled in what the room was supposed to be. The actress sided incessantly with them and solidified herself there.

“I understand your business partner isn’t here today, is that true, Mr. Tomasi?” they asked Viola’s dad.

“Yes, he’s been preoccupied for the last few months, but he’s been successful no matter his location.” While they were supposed to be reporting truthful things about the families, it was an avalanche of obscurity. So, they skipped the part about telling the truth.

“Of course! And I trust it’s safe to introduce your business as one which caters to those mentally strained and provides them the resources for stability?”

“Naturally, that’s what we’ve always done.” The room’s second half for the Nucci-Locke’s kept themselves from this. Nothing atrocious could happen if they weren’t too dramatic after all, and being docile would make things cheery.

It seemed the Tomasis were beside themselves with elation as the interview went on. They only waited for the real ceremony.

The reporter inquired only the things safe enough for criminals to answer, and still servants to the poor and unwell. Despite how true this was, the old man cut their interview for the evening and proceeded with illusive farewells.

“Sir reporter, we regard you for your dedication to our story,” he said. “If you have such patience, it would be decided for your writing to resume on another day.” There were obvious inconvenient things about this request. However, Dante Tomasi was the Atlanta Newsletter sponsor. It was meet that the interview was over. Now, Leo completed himself with regrets that he didn’t deliver absolute justice and truth to the reporter as they left. He began shuffling in his chair with pretentious righteousness. The younger John Tomasi reminded him of something more opulent than Leo thought it was.

“We stopped hosting Carolyn ten years ago, Leonardo. Jane is hardly even a representation of us. At that, it creates a much safer business for the public and our consumers.” The Tomasi family had learned since Nick Nucci was imprisoned for the trade, to assimilate their business style to a more “approachable” way. They still stylized their life with their codes and houses, being wealthy. But since then, it meant almost nothing until Viola learned practical economics.

“You’re still in the company anyway,” John continued to Leo, “we haven’t decided which of you would head it.” His voice as breaking saying this. Some older tradition, settled in the work he was supposed to have done was forgone saying this. It would be done by high-schoolers, and though still controlled by him, look juvenile.

“It has been decided though,” said the unflattering Mrs. Tomasi, “the last weeks of phone calls and conferences haven’t been hypothetical. Most of us do have confidence that you’ll confirm Viola’s charge over the next development, right, Marian?”

She had a grotesque distaste for anything here. So, agreeing with this despicable narrative was an insatiable desire of hers.

“Certainly, it would be lovely introducing someone so young to such admirable entrepreneurial ambitions.”

“If you jab at what we do a single time more, we can cut all of your finances and get Nick to divorce you before the next quarter has started!” Mrs. Tomasi screamed at her. And of course, this was all in their nature. Roaring children over the ears of adolescents was an awful delight for these people. Though, Viola and Leo’s uncomfortable staring contest dampened the mood.

The younger people kept at this as each individual left. Going into an intent so confusing and unwelcome, they could tell what they meant like a picture book.

“You’ll pay for the domain?” said Leo. As an actor, or not. He wasn’t clear.

“I don’t think you could,” Viola replied. There as abruptness, almost confirmation there. Words falling against each other like playing a game of darts, to aim at your opponent.

“I don’t think you could code it.”

“I don’t think I have enough shame to access the code, you mean.”

“Or talent�" “

“When your ‘trade’ becomes a talent, I’ll shut down the site before it’s up. People like you are far too unworthy of investing in something like that.”

Their banter was staling.

Leo rolled his head back and dozed for fun until this was stale too. He tried furthering a dangerous ruse next.

“Silicon?” he asked.

“Prairie,” she replied.

They packed the things they didn’t own and drove out to exploit some things they didn’t have. Of course, Leo knew he was dishonest and hypocritical. His dear dad, Niccolo’s honor was restored with this scheme, though. Leo’s photoshoot in the lovely wilderness on the outskirts of a low-income neighborhood was done for this meaning.

“Blonde hair and blue eyes are a selling point for this?” he asked.

“Yeah, most people still think they look good enough to trust their emotions with.”

“And their money, it’s more important here.”

“Sure. Don’t forget, though. Get some nice catfish before you go home.”

They both remembered well.

Later, the families occupied themselves with anticipation of the article’s release. It wasn’t very extraordinary to them, which proves their hiring of Viola wiser than their collective.

“It doesn’t seem like a very enthusiastic read, considering we don’t have assets anymore,” she said. In her less superfluous home, she still had the comfortable wing of a Bourgeoisie coastal place. Her parents had made a living under their company long enough to have a shadow of old Dante’s mansion. Viola had lived ignorantly middle-class long enough to ignore its pity. Their lovely views had pasted from her, though, knowing what they did. Reading about how grand this “empire” was and knowing her parents longed for this wasn’t illustrious. The aspiring retirees, who were younger than they deserved to be but old enough to think they were obligated for better, were charmed. Their offended eyes ogled over this protection of a legacy people made for them. To work so little that it could kill a man, anyone would believe they had a right to be proud of an unrelated newsletter’s compliments. They had an obligation, then, to right Viola and make her proud of the thing they didn’t have.

She looked away, with a most aspiring style that positively roused obnoxious pettiness (according to her). “You shouldn’t get so angry about it to forget important things,” she responded to their visible aggression.

“And there’s everything you would know about decent wealth investment right, as someone who hasn’t graduated high school?” the disposable John Tomasi said. Her dad was unobservant now, making reckless movements. She had a clear opportunity then, something nifty and cinematic, but that’d be immature. She leaned toward something more civilized and checked her phone.

“That’s why I should listen to you, isn’t it, because you can’t even listen to the people over you!”

“You’re reaching,” Mrs. Tomasi told him, “she isn’t grossly subordinate.”

They caught an unpleasant conversation then. As such, more of a thing the grown-ups had done in years was being done by Viola. An ambiguous code-

“Silicon,” she typed.

The recipient replied in the form of a hyperlinked address to a website that hadn’t seemed finished. Rather uninteresting, then. She still left and traveled to not much of a place. She speculated a few settings, wishing some hopeful thing of them. Going into the broken version of a sham port town where the Nucci’s lived, it was one of the few places she knew she would go. She feigned to admit any thought was hers, but regardless, Leo saw her drive in through his back porch blinds.

“Have you planned anything for us to work on?” he asked from his yard to her.

“Nothing, in particular, only speculations.” This, because the way between where she sat, and Leo’s place looked pleasing. Nothing much could be done. Speculations were open.

She walked through the screen door, so just enough light, as reflected from the sunset, made Viola believe she deserved quite a lot. Leo knew, though, there was nothing she deserved that wasn’t earned. He knew because he worked for something, but feigned to make what it cost.

“Has your fishing trip been going well?” she asked him.

“I’d prefer if we don’t use codes when we don’t have to,” he told her. There was a nearly visible discomfort in his twisting hands when she mentioned this fictitious trip. He was an oxymoron, though, securing what purity he had while staying what he was. Though, Viola was an English lit vocab list’s enemy, as she was educated on how to dodge every oxied moron.

“But, I have convinced someone to be intimate with me on our site when it launches,” he continued.

“Oh, that’s curious, not entirely catfished, then, if you’re not lying.”

“I’m don’t think I’d like that. It doesn’t have to be insincere, right?”. This thought made the sun abandon their quaint ideas. Instead, in the despairing light, they repulsed. Of course, the night has poor lighting.

“Essential,” Viola said, “is whoever makes it work. You could legitimately date this person and have success in mind.”

“My mind isn’t good right now,” he said, “something rather translucent.”

“It’s blurry.”

“Sure,” some melancholy pause. Leo was uncomfortable then, absorbing the rude weather, but repeating its regretful response to his sorrow. “Do you ever look at that profile I use? I’ve thought some about the morality of this situation, though that isn’t something simple, and… well, there’s nothing I should confide in you right now, considering our prospects.”

“As long as it won’t keep this from working. I’d like to think it’s something important enough for that.”

Leo thought for a bit, playing catch in his head with the values he tossed around his actions. Mostly, it was for fun. Someone keeping these ideas instead of throwing them back would be quite the occasion, sure enough. Not the thing itself, of course. Leo knew it would be garbage.

Both the kids sat there, not making many things. Some ambition and grand places were seen. The ocean was such a pretty sight, though, and both of them were close to it. They thought, separately, that then was left better as a poor place. Perhaps Leo would meet this girl he half-scammed on some quaint harbor and share a pleasant dinner of some sour cultural food. So, he’d get some kind of grateful pause. What was now, then? Likely some mediocre prophets trying to find some sham-joy. The metaphor couldn’t make them somber without being interrupted by lovely Ms. Locke. She asked help for the blondies she was baking for her book club that she joined as less humiliating marriage therapy. Their schemes were lopsided with such pleasantries, and they forgot for a moment how ambitious they were supposed to be. Some sad readers would know someone else made blondies. These readers could do this, they would remember they could, and some would even do so instead of remembering an awfully rotten man.

The kids didn’t know this would happen, and neither did the narrator. Nothing cared who didn’t know what would happen, though. It was the same pleasant poorness the kids felt should be there.

Viola had never recalled something like this. But she had a memory for this, now. She saw something had happened, remembered it, and felt glad she did.

Nothing needed to be written down after that. So, Viola drove home without many plans for her project, but an idea she found dear to her. Not as an actress, mind who she is, but the hodgepodge of intimate emotions which made some peachy identity. It wanted to escape somewhere, a rustic late-night dine-in, an ambitious warehouse, a nostalgic beach hut, but somewhere away from knowledge.

She was going into a sort of highway hypnosis now, though, and focused back on the real place she had a bedroom at. This was only a minimalist design with a desk, she thought. It wasn’t definitively soul-crushing. Going back there calmed what she associated with the defenestration of anything personal. A rather ideal atmosphere for a deserved sleep. Not comfortably, but she did rest.