Chapter 47: The Party Paz Won't Remember

Martin mixes party drinks in preparation for his granddaughter's birthday party.

Josephine is the first to arrive. She runs upstairs to coo over the babies (she is family-oriented, making her inability to keep the fathers of her own sons around all the more tragic), and then spends the rest of the party reminiscing about gigs with Melody. True, they only had two gigs in their lives, but two gigs makes for a lot of memories. Like, remember that time Nigel died on the way to the saloon?

Josephine thinks she's the live entertainment.

But that job belongs to Melody, who performs "If You Mean It" and "Keep on Raining" while they wait for some of the less punctual guests to arrive. One of them is Dax, who shows up even though Paprika didn't expect him to.

Party drinks and a three course meal, ready to be served. Flame fruit pancakes are a perfectly acceptable appetizer, thank you. And goopy carbonara is Martin's favorite! Everything is perfect in quality, except for the store-bought cake.

They were going to serve cookies along with the cake for dessert, but the oven had other ideas.

"Arrgh! It's like the sun!" Sifton cries.

Julian, a party crasher rather than invited, watches the fire calmly as Paprika puts it out.

When it's over, everyone breaks out the noise-makers.

The candles go out and Paz becomes a toddler. Tana Archer-Forsythe thinks the little girl's purple eyes are pretty darn weird, even though Tana's father and older brother have orange ones.

Dax, however, skips right to the blue hair.

"You should dye that," he says. "Just a suggestion, babe."

Josephine's husband has crashed the party specifically to complain about his next door neighbor having out-of-wedlock children. Sifton curls her lower lip to show him her fangs, so he moves on...

Arthur is the only one with the sense to pluck wandering toddlers off the dance floor.

Vampires give Tana the creeps.

Drama gives Josephine a headache.

Dax likes cake.

Sifton glowers. "You could at least pull your chair in a bit and not block off half the room."

Martin can't help but to be critical as well. "I understand you don't want to be a father, Dax?"

"And yet here I am, eating cake. That's right. Your daughter invited me." Dax winks at the old man."She has good taste."

Unable to stomach disrespect towards her father, Paprika corners Dax outside.

"You lied to me," she blurts.

"Oh? Where did this come from?"

"You stole from me."

"Ah." He doesn't seem interested in how she found out. He assumes it was the vampires. There's a reason most of Sim Nation shuns those psychic pests. "The Vase of the Dragon. Yes... well... you had two of them."

The other guests, occasionally stealing glances out the window, feel something is definitely amiss outside. But they have a pretty good idea of what it is, and no one intervenes.

"I invited you here because I wanted to give you one last chance, before you push your daughter out of your life. But I should have known better. You're a criminal. One of the worst criminals in the city, and half of Riverview knows it. How did you think I wouldn't find out? A politician, my sock!"

"I didn't care if you found out," he responds with that cold smile of his. "I wanted you. I still do. I was willing to lie to get to you, isn't that flattering? Listen. I've given the daughter issue some more thought... and I'd be willing to take her in, once she's a teen. The Sunders are going to be the new Bagleys, you see, and I'm going to need someone to take over for me one day."

Paprika stares. "Is this some kind of joke?"

"Not at all. The kid will want for nothing."

"I'm descended from Ma Bagley," Paprika fumes, "and if she were alive today, you would be nothing but a bug under her shoe."

"So you admire my line of work?"

"Get away from me. Get away from Paz. You're insane."

"And I thought women liked bad boys."

"I don't like liars."

Dax may be an evil inappropriate kleptomaniac, but he truly thought Paprika would find his behavior as irresistible as his great kisses. What he feels is... failure... he wouldn't call it heartbreak... ...

"I'd ask to just be friends, Dax, but I don't even want that. I don't even want my great-grandmother's vase back. I don't want to see your face again, and if I ever catch one of your people trying to steal from my house, they'll get back to you in an urn."

Murder? Even for a criminal sim, the concept feels foreign.

Which only makes sense, given that all criminal-police interactions are like children playing cops and robbers.

Dax is now terrified of Paprika, and leaves.

Paprika drinks the rest of the nectar with Sifton.

"Whoa... he said WHAT to you?" Sifton stifles her laughter, finding Paprika's truthful account of Dax's words too unbelievable. "You're making that up. I think you've had too much to drink."

"I'm not! You're a vampire! Can't you tell if I'm lying?"

Sifton is silent for a while. And after that silence, all she can say is, "What a psycho."

Pavel takes a seat next to his nieces. "Nobody steals my Grandma's vase. That twerp is in for a world of pain."

"I can fight my own battles," Paprika grumbles.


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Etc.: And that was my party to remember. There were at least five guests - Sifton, Dax, Josephine, Arthur, Pavel, and Sacha. Julian and his step-father showed up as party crashers. As did Cody's daughter Tana (so, all party crashers were extended family anyway). Melody performed on her guitar. The three-course meal involved flame fruit pancakes, goopy carbonara and cake for dessert (cake shouldn't count, but whatever; the cookies went up in dramatic flames). Martin mixed party drinks and also served nectar. Paprika brought the nectar to Sifton for the drinking scene. There was drama all over the place - fire, birthday, break-up, insults, etc. There was a teenager (Julian) actually drinking the party drinks that everyone else ignored.

It amazes me that the blue hair from generation 1 stuck around for this long. It's not even a good shade of blue, so I'm considering changing it as she ages.