Grease (Camila/You)

.06

The Grande Estate
Venice, California 1959

Ariana Grande's house was everything but small. Ranging from gated archways in the 3 acre backyard, to enclosed porches sticking out from multiple ends of the house. Flowers lined the outside boundary and also took up many corners of the inside along with the awards that hung along the walls.

Camila was very impressed. She respected the layout of the furniture and decorations, and found interest in art on the wall. Ariana's parents must have had really good taste, hanging large canvases of Picasso's most famous work, and even some work of Remembrandt. She recognized some splatter paintings done by Jackson Pollock, and wouldn't be surprised if they were originals. She ran her fingers along Michaelangelo's sculpture of Florence, appreciating the way the dim light accented the curves and smoothed edges of the stone.

Camila had always been passionate about everything art, especially music. She was always creating something on paper, or in her mind, writing down any of her thoughts and lyrics that might pop up. Of course she had to keep it all to herself because her parents were not very fond of her passion. They had always had this plan set out for her, where she would finish high school with flying colors and attend either UCLA or U of I where she would get her degree in engineering just like her father. He wanted her to take over the architectural branch of his company, and be one of the first women to be successful in the industry.

Camila's parents were not very open-minded, but they were firm believers in equality. It was very strange to the town of Miami when the very conservative Alejandro Cabello married the Cuban immigrant Sinuhe Estrabao, who was a vocal feminist and caused many problems for some very powerful families in her district.

She loved her family and was very grateful that they wanted her and her little sister to succeed and become their own, strong selves, but she wouldn't mind a career in music. She had always been in love with singing, but hardly anybody knew that. She had a hard time doing anything that didn't involve being alone, so how could anyone expect her to sing to anyone besides herself and her mirror?

The small Cuban sighed and looked around, taking in the yellow-paned walls of Ariana's house. She had been leading her own tour, wanting some time to clear her head. She had gotten a little flustered with the way things had been going in the part of the house that the party was raging in. Her ears still rang from the loud voice of Elvis blasting through the speakers, and her nose still stung a bit from the strong scent of alcohol that wafted through the air.

She also didn't fancy the foreign smell that clung to the smoke clouding the more crowded rooms. It smelled almost like skunk, but made her eyes water and gave her a slight headache.

She had lost her friends in the crowd of jiggying students. Each one had been picked off from the group by guys or girls who wanted to dance with them until it was only Camila and Dinah. But then Dinah ditched Camila for the the food table. That's when Camila had taken a random, quieter hallway to get away from everything.

As she walked through the hallway, running her hand along the wall, she started to hear quiet voices. She figured they must be on the other side of the corner she was about to pass, and debated going forward or backwards. She didn't really want to go back the way she came, but she didn't want to interrupt anything either.

While Camila debated what to do, she guiltily, and yet having no control over it, recognized one of the voices that was speaking and took a few steps forward, just enough so she could hear what the voices were talking about without being seen.

"You say that and yet she still didn't want to come home with me. Usually when I offer, she's more the happy but last night it was so different. It was like I was just another one of those girls that mean nothing to her. Just another pretty face." Camila recognized Ariana's voice, but furrowed her eyebrows when it sounded like the cheer captain was crying.