1.18 Correct Equations

A quiet breakfast at the Winterly home. It's the weekend so Paolo is still in bed, fast asleep. 

Persis complains about the amount of weird letters they keep getting. Apparently there are some desperate moms from the school who think Marko's attractive. He's blocked their phone numbers, but there's nothing he can do to keep them from slipping letters into their mail box. 

"You would think that if they were writing to someone who used to be a simlish teacher that they'd use some subtlety in their letters," Persis says sarcastically. 

"What, saying that they want to throw themselves into my arms isn't subtle enough? I mean I'm not telepathic, Persis." 

They share a laugh. What is it with this town and romantic boundaries? 

Later on in the day is a pre-prom party. This doesn't stop people who are not the families or friends of the attending teens from coming, or from berating poor Paolo. 

"You! You cost me my A!" Kathy seethes. She and Paolo were assigned to be project partners in physics; they needed to make a presentation exploring perpetual motion (and why it's not possible). They got 88%, two points away from an A. 

"What are you talking about?" as far as Paolo knows, all the work he did was correct. He hasn't looked at their teacher's feedback yet. 

"What am I talking about!? How about when you forgot to move the decimal point for the most important equation!? Plumbob, you're stupid! Don't you read your work before you hand it in!?" 

It dawns on Paolo that she is correct- he wrote 12.2 when it should have been 122. That would explain why they got -12% instead of -3% or -4% like he was expecting. If their teacher were less lenient, the deduction could have been far more hefty. 

Paolo closes his eyes and take a deep breath. He feels stupid for the mistake, but annoyance bubbles within him; why does she have to scream? 

"Look, Kathy, I understand why you're mad... but there's nothing I can really do about it now, we got the final grade already. If you want, we would talk to Mr. Schaffer together and see if we can do some extra credit or something." 

Kathy narrows her eyes at him for a long second. 

Finally she forces a smile. "Fine, whatever, don't bother. I'll talk to him myself." 

Paolo feels uneasy as he watches her stalk away. 

He makes a beeline to Krista. 

"Sorry about that, Kathy was just mad that I cost her a good grade." 

Krista cocks her head. She was so engrossed in thinking about prom that she didn't notice anything had happened. 

Seeing her confusion, he smiles, "Never mind, it doesn't matter."

Krista shrugs, and smiles back. It suddenly strikes him that he likes how easy-going Krista is, always going with the flow. He could never imagine her getting mad at anyone. 

He leans forward and plants a kiss on her lips. "I'm so glad you're going to prom with me," he sighs. 

Krista blushes, "There's no one else I'd want to go with..." 

Paolo then goes to Kathy to see if she's still mad at him.

She seems to quickly "forgive" the entire situation and prods Paolo into dancing with her. He uneasily agrees. 

"Are you sure you're ok with Krista getting that close with another guy?" she suddenly asks. 

"What?" 

She nods to where Krista is. 

Paolo glances over and shrugs. "They're just dancing, like we are. What's your point?" 

"He's getting pretty handsy with her, you know." 

Annoyance flares within Paolo, but he bites his tongue before he can say anything mean. What is this girl's problem? 

He tries very hard not to be irritated when Kathy slides into the limo next to Krista, thus making it impossible for him to set next to her. Before this whole physics fiasco, Paolo and Krista agreed to split the cost of renting a limo with Kathy. 

Well, she's not bothering anyone, just let it go, Paolo tells himself. The limo ride isn't very long anyways, and at the dance he'll have plenty of time to be with Krista. 

While Paolo goes off to prom, Marko chats with Tulip over the phone. 

"Tell me everything about your new job- boss, coworkers, salary." Tulip passed her entrance test with flying colours (of course) and was assigned to be a snitch. Not the most glamorous job, but she knows she can work her way up to something better. 

"My boss is a good cop, the team seems to really respect him. The team is good, very professional and dedicated. Salary is...well, it's a start." 

Marko fakes a yawn. "Boring. Come on, tell me about their personalities, Tulip! What are they like?" 

Tulip laughs, "I don't know dad, I've only met them a handful of times and only on the job. It'll be awhile before we all warm up to each other." 

Seeing as Tulip has the most bland work environment imaginable, Marko moves on to her love life. 

"Seeing anyone?" 

Tulip hesitates. She went on a date recently... 

...With Kanoa Parrott... 

To get intel on the criminal warehouse, she swears! She's too low in the chain to actually be doing any investigative work, but if she happens to be dating him and he happens to let something slip, well, she could report it, right? She's not high enough in ranking to actually know anything important so it's not like Kanoa could use her for information. 

But she doesn't tell her father this. He would think she was a corrupt cop or even worse, interested in that dirt-bag. Eugh! 

"No, dad. My job doesn't give me a lot of time for that kind of thing." 

"'That kind of thing'? You mean love? Tulip, you're still so young, don't say stuff like that, you're going to give me a heart attack!" Marko exclaims, only half-joking. True, the idea of his daughters dating does make him feel anxious, but the idea of them being alone forever is even worse! Love makes people happy and he wants his kids to be happy! 

Tulip wants to point out that she's going to be young for a very long time, and thus will have time later on for romance, but the idea that she's going to be young while everyone else she knows right now will be very, very old makes her uncomfortable, so she doesn't say anything. 

Marko doesn't notice her discomfort and switches topics. "Nautilus" got adapted into a movie, and now it sucks. 

"They essentially adapted out a third of the book, don't waste your time with that garbage," Marko advises his daughter. The book was long, and he understands the time constraints of a movie, but did they really need to remove everyone's backstory flashbacks? The entire movie was a mess! 

Prom goes ok. Krista is already at home and Paolo is changing out of his formal wear. Kathy stays over to finish off her physics homework and grumbles about it to Persis the whole time. 

"If Paolo had just did these kinds of equations correctly, I could have gotten my A," she spits out caustically. 

Persis wisely says nothing. 

Paolo comes out from the bathroom swaddled in a sweater. He pulls out his math homework, the only assignment he didn't get to during study hall. 

"Stop doing that with your face, you look stupid," Kathy grumbles. 

"Ugh, whatever, like the expression you're making is any better," Paolo shoots back. 

Kathy fixes him with an angry stare, but before she can retort, Paolo sighs and looks up at her. 

"I'm sorry, it's been a long night. It wasn't fair of me to say that to you." 

After the apology sinks in, a weak, guilty smile forms on Kathy's face. Why the hell do I keep on being like this to people? she wonders guiltily.

"Um, whatever, it's ok," she mumbles.  

Paolo gets up. "Do you want to eat something? We have tons of leftovers." 

Kathy's face reverts back to a scowl when she checks the time. "No, I have to go home. Thanks for making me late for curfew," she says. 

Paolo stares at her in disbelief as she leaves. He made her late for curfew!? 

"It's not like you had to your homework here! You could have gone home earlier!" 

"I wouldn't have been doing it if you hadn't messed up those equations!" 

"What does that have to do with anything!?" 

"When I go to Mr. Schaeffer, I'm going to show him that the mistake in our presentation sure as hell wasn't mine!" 

She slams the door, leaving Paolo reeling in confusion. Did that seriously just happen? Why were we even fighting!? At least we're all graduating soon... 

That, they are. 

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AN: Kathy Pelly is Imogen Pelly's only child. Imogen is mean spirited, insane, flirty, hot-headed, and has no sense of humor. Kathy is also mean-spirited and hot-headed but has the genius trait (among other things that I have forgotten). She really laid into Paolo for some reason at the party. 

So this is the end of generation 1! Paolo is obviously heir. I'll be revealing his rolls as his generation progresses, but I'll reveal 2 of them here: 

Generation goal: Photogenic

Misc. fun: Gourmet