The Popular Kids (Chapter 2) R
Title: The Popular Kids (Chapter 2)
Author: glasheen25
Rating: R
Pairings/Characters: Finn/Quinn, Puck, Rachel, ensemble
Warnings: character death, strong language, some sexual scenes
Spoilers: for all of season 1
Word count: 2451
Disclaimer: This Glee fanfiction is based upon the television show of the same name. All characters and situations other than my own are sole property of Ryan Murphy Productions and 20th Century Fox Television.
Summary: When Quinn Fabray is brutally murdered, the police mount an investigation and quickly discover that there is more than one McKinley High student who would like to see her dead. The prologue is set in the days preceding the pilot episode of Glee.
A/N: I just want to say a huge thank you to abluegirl who very kindly agreed to beta this story for me and gave me lots of good advice:)
The Fabray home was an immaculate white-painted house, that featured pink roses curling in a delicate arch around the front door. Brightly colored flowers bloomed in the garden and carefully positioned flagstones snaked in a path to the summer house at the back of the property, where presumably Quinn had played as a child. Everything looked so sunny and bright that it was almost impossible to believe that just a few short days ago, the driveway had been the scene of such unspeakable violence. Blood had been splattered wildly on the walls and the miserable red trailed down the driveway, the rain washing the carnage into the puddles and drains.
“Detectives,” Judy Fabray welcomed the pair with a weary shrug, opening the door wide and ushering them into the living room. The woman looked like hell; her platinum blonde hair unwashed and tangled and tied up in a hasty bun. Dark shadows were smudged under her eyes and her face was swollen with crying. “I’m sorry that my husband isn’t here to speak with you. He’s out with my daughter taking a break. Can I offer you something to drink?”
The detectives tactfully declining her offer, they took a seat on the pink-striped love seat, gesturing at the woman to take a seat opposite them.
“How did you sleep?” Detective Brown asked kindly, reaching out and placing a hand consolingly on the older woman’s shoulder.
Not trusting herself to speak, Judy simply shook her head miserably in reply. She didn’t sleep, was her answer. She hadn’t for days, her mind haunted by the images of her daughter’s bloodied, broken body the second she closed her eyes.
“Mrs. Fabray, I know this is hard but we need to know everything about your daughter, if we have any hope of putting her murderer behind bars. Do you understand?”
Judy nodded tightly in answer, her arms wrapped protectively around her narrow frame as she waited for the detectives to continue.
“Did Quinn have a boyfriend?” Detective Anne Brown began delicately, sitting rigid and tense in her chair. Ten years of working as a detective and dealing with the most brutal and shocking of cases, never prepared her for meetings like these.
“She did,” Judy Fabray confirmed shakily, pressing a crumpled tissue to her eyes. “A wonderful boy, Finn Hudson.” she finished, before aiming a suspicious look at the detectives. “You don’t think he’s mixed up in all this, do you? Because he’s a wonderful boy, simply wonderful. Russell and myself couldn’t have chosen a nicer boy to date our daughter. He treated Quinny with so much respect,” her voice trailed away then and detective could tell she was getting lost in her thoughts.
“Mrs. Fabray, Quinn was almost two months pregnant when she died,”
Detective Brown hated being so blunt but really, was there ever a kind way to deliver such shocking news? Better to be direct and honest, than coat the truth in well meaning lies.
“But that’s impossible,” Judy Fabray replied, her voice barely a whisper. “We raised Quinn to be good and honest girl.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Fabray. I don’t doubt that you raised Quinn to be the wonderful girl that everyone speaks so highly of, but the fact remains that she was most definitely pregnant when she died. Do you have any idea who the father was?”
“Quinn, pregnant?” the woman echoed dully, struggling to make sense of the detective’s words. “I don’t believe this. Quinn was only a baby, herself.”
“Have you any idea who the father could be?” Detective Brown repeated forcibly, sensing the importance of this latest break in the case.
“As I’ve already said, Quinn was dating Finn Hudson but I can hardly believe that he was responsible for this. Finn always seemed like such a good, sensible boy.”
The night was inky black as the detectives walked to their car, the air bitterly cold.
“What do you think?” Detective Andrews asked solemnly, opening the car door and sliding inside.
“We need to speak to this Finn Hudson first thing tomorrow,” Detective Brown replied in a matter-of-fact tone, rubbing her gloved hands together vigorously as she waited for the heating to kick in. “Star quarterback and destined for a football scholarship, he probably wouldn’t have been too happy to learn that his cheerleader girlfriend was pregnant.”
“They never are.” Detective Andrews agreed grimly, putting the car into reverse and pulling carefully out onto the road.
--
“Quinn was pregnant?”
Sitting in Figgins office, the cramped space currently masquerading as a temporary interview room for the two detectives standing in front of him, Finn felt the blood draining from his cheeks.
“That’s right, son,” the detective replied in a gentle tone that seemed so at odds with the his tough, craggy exterior he exhumed.. “Ms. Fabray was almost two months pregnant when she died.,”
Taking a long drink from his container of coffee, the detective sat back in his chair, his expression expectant as he waited patiently for Finn to continue.
“But, that’s impossible,” Finn stuttered, white-faced, trying desperately to make some sort of sense from out of the detective’s words.
“You mean Ms. Fabray never told you she was pregnant?” the female detective cut in softly. Gazing at her, Finn couldn’t help but be struck by the fact that her hair was the same pale golden color as Quinn’s.
“No, I mean we never had sex,” Finn shrugged, his face reddening as he regarded the detectives sheepishly. “I mean, I wanted to and all,” he continued, feeling as though his very masculinity was being brought in question by the fact that the star quarter back hadn’t managed to get score with his head cheerleader girlfriend. It was almost a cliché, for Christ’s sake. “But Quinn was very religious and believed in waiting until she was married to have sex. So as you can see, Detectives, there’s absolutely no way Quinn could have been pregnant.” he finished with a weary shrug, his exhaustion evident on his face.
The sun searing down from an impossibly blue sky, Quinn and Finn lay sprawled out on the cool of the grass, his hand resting lightly on her bare thigh.
God, Quinn Fabray was hot.
A tiny bikini exposing acres miles of skin and her body tanned and lean, the cheerleader was without doubt, the hottest girl in school and it was taking serious control on Finn’s part not to imagine her bare breasts cupped in his hands, his tongue flickering gently at her nipple.
Shit, Quinn had just said something, Finn realized belatedly, rummaging desperately in his brain for the most likely thing his girlfriend would have said.
“Santana’s dress was really cute today,” he tried in utter desperation, knowing immediately by the confused look on Quinn’s face that he had guessed wrong.
“What the hell are you on about, Finn?” Quinn teased lightly, pulling him closer to her and pressing her lips to his. “I was just saying that we should totally go to Luigi’s for our six-month anniversary. The food is supposed to be totally out of his world.”
The press of her body against his was electric. Feeling Quinn’s tongue moving delicately into against his mouth, Finn couldn’t stop his hand trailing down towards her bikini bottoms, his fingers entangled teasingly in the purple tie.
Pulling hastily away, Quinn regarded shot Finn with a look of utter shock. “What the hell do you think you are doing?” she demanded angrily, pulling out of his embrace and pushing herself shakily to her feet. “You know about my views on sex before marriage and you try this?”
Quinn’s cool green eyes were flashing with anger.
“I’m sorry, Quinn,” Finn pleaded shamefaced, willing his now very obvious erection to disappear. Quinn kept darting looks at it in horror and disgust as though he was some kind of serial killer slash sexual deviant. “I didn’t mean it. It’s just you’re so beautiful,” he shrugged, lowering his brown eyes to the ground. The utter revulsion on her face was almost impossible to bear.
“It’s too late for that, Finn,” Quinn muttered tearfully, grabbing her bag. and Finn could swear he could hear his girlfriend whispering the words of the Hail Mary under her breath as she stormed inside the house.
The sound of the detective’s voice pulled Finn out of his reverie.
“I’m sorry son, but autopsies don’t lie. Quinn Fabray was most definitely pregnant when she died.”
The man’s expression was apologetic, sympathetic even and somehow that made things the whole thing worse.
Finn couldn’t bear to hear anymore.
Pulling the chair back from the desk, the legs scraping nosily on the floor, Finn stood up and stalked out angrily of the room.
--
A bottle of beer clutched in his hands, Finn took a long, angry swig before lashing out with his fist at the wall. The punch was brutal and the stone wall sliced open his skin, causing blood to seep drip freely down Finn’s fingers and onto the ground.
“How the hell could she have done this to me?” he demanded outraged, taking a swing at the wall again, forcing Puck to intervene and pull his friend forcefully back before he do any more damage.
“You hit that wall again and you’re going to fuck up your hand,” Puck muttered in exasperation, grabbing another beer, the bottle opening with an angry hiss. “Is that what you want?”
Puck’s brown eyes widened in shock as Finn picked up a bottle and flung it against the wall. It shattered in a magnificent explosion of glass and amber beer frothed all over the grass.
“What the hell, Man?” Puck spluttered in shock, completely unaccustomed to displays of anger by from Finn, who was generally a pretty easygoing guy. “Maybe drinking is not the best thing for you to be doing, right now.”
“Believe me, drinking is the only thing right now that is keeping me from going absolutely fucking insane.” Finn muttered angrily through clenched teeth, his jaw tightly set. “You won’t believe what those cops told me today." he continued, his words falling over one another, such was his haste to get them out.
“What?” Puck demanded impatiently, taking a swig of his beer.
An angry cry emanating from his throat, Finn swallowed hard before answering. “Quinn was pregnant when she died,” he shrugged in angry resignation. “I mean can you believe that? Like a fool, I was putting up with her holier than thou bullshit and all along she was putting out for some other guy. It’s fucking unbelievable.”
Taking a desperate swig from his beer, Finn sat down wearily on the wall, staring into the night.
“Are you sure?”
Finn might have only imagined it but he was certain he had heard a nervous edge to Puck’s voice.
“Definitely,” Finn confirmed with a sad shake of his head, the anger that had consumed him starting to slowly ebb. “She was almost two months pregnant, the cops said.”
“It’s fucked-up, Man.” Puck agreed, reaching for the stronger liquor this time, his eyes watering in protest as the cheap whiskey burning down his throat.
--
This just simply would not do, Rachel sighed inwardly, as she surveyed the dismal line up of her presumably future back-up singers.
Rachel had spent days preparing for her audition for glee club. She’d enlisted the services of Lima’s most sought after dance teacher, Brian Friedman to choreograph an intricate series of movements to accompany her rendition of And All That Jazz. And she had watched Chicago innumerable times to mimic the exact expression Catherine Zeta Jones wore on her face when she killed the final note. Now glancing around at the pitiful few students who had turned up to audition, Rachel was disappointed to see that not everyone had put in the same amount of effort as her. Not that that surprised her; Rachel being regularly disappointed by her peers.
Mercedes Jones could can sing well enough, Rachel considered charitably, seeing the girl belt out a Whitney Houston song on the stage. But the extra weight the girl was carrying was troubling.
Costumes demanded uniformity and Mercedes had to be at least five sizes bigger than the rest of the girls. Boasting an ever perfect size-six two figure, Rachel considered herself something of a guru when it came to dieting and now Mercedes Jones would have the privilege of being allowed to share in that expertise.
“Hello Mercedes,” Rachel smiled tightly, ushering to the girl to sit next to her after she stepped down from the stage. “I’m Rachel Berry,” she introduced herself, extending her hand. which Mercedes accepted shook it uncertainly.
“You have such a beautiful voice,” Rachel gushed openly, though inwardly she thought Mercedes could use a little help with her upper range. Not that she’d tell Mercedes that. Well at least, not today anyway. Criticism had to be deployed carefully; Dr. Phil had taught her that, every caustic word sandwiched between at least two more charitable ones.
“Thank you,” Mercedes beamed at her words, “You know, you’re not so bad yourself,”
Though she bristled at the implication behind the other girl’s words, Rachel forced a patient smile onto her face. Mercedes, after all, hadn’t been told by Simon Cowell himself that she had the voice of an angel or had been practically promised Indina Menzel’s role of Elphaba the second she graduated from Juilliard.
“Mercedes, this is kind of a delicate matter,” Rachel began tentatively, her long tanned legs crossed primly. “But I’m just wondering what eating program you’re currently following,”
“Eating program?” Mercedes echoed uncertainly, throwing longing glances over at Tina and Kurt who were indulging in a thoroughly scandalous conversation about Cheryl Cole's suspected nose job.
“Well, I’m on the Zone,” Rachel explained with an indulgent smile. “And I know Santana Lopez is on The Baby Food diet from all those tiny containers of food she carries around.”
“You mean like a diet?” Mercedes demanded warily, not liking at all where this conversation was going.
“The word diet has so many negative connotations,” Rachel thrilled lightly, running her fingers through her glossy hair. “An eating program is more about controlling what you eat, but in a positive way.” she reiterated, flashing a dazzling smile at Mercedes. “You know, I really think you could benefit from a stint on The Raw Food diet. Mandy Moore lost six pounds during her first week alone.”
Things had gone admittedly downhill after that. Mercedes had declared her body to be a voluptuous paradise before storming out of the auditorium, Kurt following shortly in her wake.
--
Author: glasheen25
Rating: R
Pairings/Characters: Finn/Quinn, Puck, Rachel, ensemble
Warnings: character death, strong language, some sexual scenes
Spoilers: for all of season 1
Word count: 2451
Disclaimer: This Glee fanfiction is based upon the television show of the same name. All characters and situations other than my own are sole property of Ryan Murphy Productions and 20th Century Fox Television.
Summary: When Quinn Fabray is brutally murdered, the police mount an investigation and quickly discover that there is more than one McKinley High student who would like to see her dead. The prologue is set in the days preceding the pilot episode of Glee.
A/N: I just want to say a huge thank you to abluegirl who very kindly agreed to beta this story for me and gave me lots of good advice:)
The Fabray home was an immaculate white-painted house, that featured pink roses curling in a delicate arch around the front door. Brightly colored flowers bloomed in the garden and carefully positioned flagstones snaked in a path to the summer house at the back of the property, where presumably Quinn had played as a child. Everything looked so sunny and bright that it was almost impossible to believe that just a few short days ago, the driveway had been the scene of such unspeakable violence. Blood had been splattered wildly on the walls and the miserable red trailed down the driveway, the rain washing the carnage into the puddles and drains.
“Detectives,” Judy Fabray welcomed the pair with a weary shrug, opening the door wide and ushering them into the living room. The woman looked like hell; her platinum blonde hair unwashed and tangled and tied up in a hasty bun. Dark shadows were smudged under her eyes and her face was swollen with crying. “I’m sorry that my husband isn’t here to speak with you. He’s out with my daughter taking a break. Can I offer you something to drink?”
The detectives tactfully declining her offer, they took a seat on the pink-striped love seat, gesturing at the woman to take a seat opposite them.
“How did you sleep?” Detective Brown asked kindly, reaching out and placing a hand consolingly on the older woman’s shoulder.
Not trusting herself to speak, Judy simply shook her head miserably in reply. She didn’t sleep, was her answer. She hadn’t for days, her mind haunted by the images of her daughter’s bloodied, broken body the second she closed her eyes.
“Mrs. Fabray, I know this is hard but we need to know everything about your daughter, if we have any hope of putting her murderer behind bars. Do you understand?”
Judy nodded tightly in answer, her arms wrapped protectively around her narrow frame as she waited for the detectives to continue.
“Did Quinn have a boyfriend?” Detective Anne Brown began delicately, sitting rigid and tense in her chair. Ten years of working as a detective and dealing with the most brutal and shocking of cases, never prepared her for meetings like these.
“She did,” Judy Fabray confirmed shakily, pressing a crumpled tissue to her eyes. “A wonderful boy, Finn Hudson.” she finished, before aiming a suspicious look at the detectives. “You don’t think he’s mixed up in all this, do you? Because he’s a wonderful boy, simply wonderful. Russell and myself couldn’t have chosen a nicer boy to date our daughter. He treated Quinny with so much respect,” her voice trailed away then and detective could tell she was getting lost in her thoughts.
“Mrs. Fabray, Quinn was almost two months pregnant when she died,”
Detective Brown hated being so blunt but really, was there ever a kind way to deliver such shocking news? Better to be direct and honest, than coat the truth in well meaning lies.
“But that’s impossible,” Judy Fabray replied, her voice barely a whisper. “We raised Quinn to be good and honest girl.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Fabray. I don’t doubt that you raised Quinn to be the wonderful girl that everyone speaks so highly of, but the fact remains that she was most definitely pregnant when she died. Do you have any idea who the father was?”
“Quinn, pregnant?” the woman echoed dully, struggling to make sense of the detective’s words. “I don’t believe this. Quinn was only a baby, herself.”
“Have you any idea who the father could be?” Detective Brown repeated forcibly, sensing the importance of this latest break in the case.
“As I’ve already said, Quinn was dating Finn Hudson but I can hardly believe that he was responsible for this. Finn always seemed like such a good, sensible boy.”
The night was inky black as the detectives walked to their car, the air bitterly cold.
“What do you think?” Detective Andrews asked solemnly, opening the car door and sliding inside.
“We need to speak to this Finn Hudson first thing tomorrow,” Detective Brown replied in a matter-of-fact tone, rubbing her gloved hands together vigorously as she waited for the heating to kick in. “Star quarterback and destined for a football scholarship, he probably wouldn’t have been too happy to learn that his cheerleader girlfriend was pregnant.”
“They never are.” Detective Andrews agreed grimly, putting the car into reverse and pulling carefully out onto the road.
--
“Quinn was pregnant?”
Sitting in Figgins office, the cramped space currently masquerading as a temporary interview room for the two detectives standing in front of him, Finn felt the blood draining from his cheeks.
“That’s right, son,” the detective replied in a gentle tone that seemed so at odds with the his tough, craggy exterior he exhumed.. “Ms. Fabray was almost two months pregnant when she died.,”
Taking a long drink from his container of coffee, the detective sat back in his chair, his expression expectant as he waited patiently for Finn to continue.
“But, that’s impossible,” Finn stuttered, white-faced, trying desperately to make some sort of sense from out of the detective’s words.
“You mean Ms. Fabray never told you she was pregnant?” the female detective cut in softly. Gazing at her, Finn couldn’t help but be struck by the fact that her hair was the same pale golden color as Quinn’s.
“No, I mean we never had sex,” Finn shrugged, his face reddening as he regarded the detectives sheepishly. “I mean, I wanted to and all,” he continued, feeling as though his very masculinity was being brought in question by the fact that the star quarter back hadn’t managed to get score with his head cheerleader girlfriend. It was almost a cliché, for Christ’s sake. “But Quinn was very religious and believed in waiting until she was married to have sex. So as you can see, Detectives, there’s absolutely no way Quinn could have been pregnant.” he finished with a weary shrug, his exhaustion evident on his face.
The sun searing down from an impossibly blue sky, Quinn and Finn lay sprawled out on the cool of the grass, his hand resting lightly on her bare thigh.
God, Quinn Fabray was hot.
A tiny bikini exposing acres miles of skin and her body tanned and lean, the cheerleader was without doubt, the hottest girl in school and it was taking serious control on Finn’s part not to imagine her bare breasts cupped in his hands, his tongue flickering gently at her nipple.
Shit, Quinn had just said something, Finn realized belatedly, rummaging desperately in his brain for the most likely thing his girlfriend would have said.
“Santana’s dress was really cute today,” he tried in utter desperation, knowing immediately by the confused look on Quinn’s face that he had guessed wrong.
“What the hell are you on about, Finn?” Quinn teased lightly, pulling him closer to her and pressing her lips to his. “I was just saying that we should totally go to Luigi’s for our six-month anniversary. The food is supposed to be totally out of his world.”
The press of her body against his was electric. Feeling Quinn’s tongue moving delicately into against his mouth, Finn couldn’t stop his hand trailing down towards her bikini bottoms, his fingers entangled teasingly in the purple tie.
Pulling hastily away, Quinn regarded shot Finn with a look of utter shock. “What the hell do you think you are doing?” she demanded angrily, pulling out of his embrace and pushing herself shakily to her feet. “You know about my views on sex before marriage and you try this?”
Quinn’s cool green eyes were flashing with anger.
“I’m sorry, Quinn,” Finn pleaded shamefaced, willing his now very obvious erection to disappear. Quinn kept darting looks at it in horror and disgust as though he was some kind of serial killer slash sexual deviant. “I didn’t mean it. It’s just you’re so beautiful,” he shrugged, lowering his brown eyes to the ground. The utter revulsion on her face was almost impossible to bear.
“It’s too late for that, Finn,” Quinn muttered tearfully, grabbing her bag. and Finn could swear he could hear his girlfriend whispering the words of the Hail Mary under her breath as she stormed inside the house.
The sound of the detective’s voice pulled Finn out of his reverie.
“I’m sorry son, but autopsies don’t lie. Quinn Fabray was most definitely pregnant when she died.”
The man’s expression was apologetic, sympathetic even and somehow that made things the whole thing worse.
Finn couldn’t bear to hear anymore.
Pulling the chair back from the desk, the legs scraping nosily on the floor, Finn stood up and stalked out angrily of the room.
--
A bottle of beer clutched in his hands, Finn took a long, angry swig before lashing out with his fist at the wall. The punch was brutal and the stone wall sliced open his skin, causing blood to seep drip freely down Finn’s fingers and onto the ground.
“How the hell could she have done this to me?” he demanded outraged, taking a swing at the wall again, forcing Puck to intervene and pull his friend forcefully back before he do any more damage.
“You hit that wall again and you’re going to fuck up your hand,” Puck muttered in exasperation, grabbing another beer, the bottle opening with an angry hiss. “Is that what you want?”
Puck’s brown eyes widened in shock as Finn picked up a bottle and flung it against the wall. It shattered in a magnificent explosion of glass and amber beer frothed all over the grass.
“What the hell, Man?” Puck spluttered in shock, completely unaccustomed to displays of anger by from Finn, who was generally a pretty easygoing guy. “Maybe drinking is not the best thing for you to be doing, right now.”
“Believe me, drinking is the only thing right now that is keeping me from going absolutely fucking insane.” Finn muttered angrily through clenched teeth, his jaw tightly set. “You won’t believe what those cops told me today." he continued, his words falling over one another, such was his haste to get them out.
“What?” Puck demanded impatiently, taking a swig of his beer.
An angry cry emanating from his throat, Finn swallowed hard before answering. “Quinn was pregnant when she died,” he shrugged in angry resignation. “I mean can you believe that? Like a fool, I was putting up with her holier than thou bullshit and all along she was putting out for some other guy. It’s fucking unbelievable.”
Taking a desperate swig from his beer, Finn sat down wearily on the wall, staring into the night.
“Are you sure?”
Finn might have only imagined it but he was certain he had heard a nervous edge to Puck’s voice.
“Definitely,” Finn confirmed with a sad shake of his head, the anger that had consumed him starting to slowly ebb. “She was almost two months pregnant, the cops said.”
“It’s fucked-up, Man.” Puck agreed, reaching for the stronger liquor this time, his eyes watering in protest as the cheap whiskey burning down his throat.
--
This just simply would not do, Rachel sighed inwardly, as she surveyed the dismal line up of her presumably future back-up singers.
Rachel had spent days preparing for her audition for glee club. She’d enlisted the services of Lima’s most sought after dance teacher, Brian Friedman to choreograph an intricate series of movements to accompany her rendition of And All That Jazz. And she had watched Chicago innumerable times to mimic the exact expression Catherine Zeta Jones wore on her face when she killed the final note. Now glancing around at the pitiful few students who had turned up to audition, Rachel was disappointed to see that not everyone had put in the same amount of effort as her. Not that that surprised her; Rachel being regularly disappointed by her peers.
Mercedes Jones could can sing well enough, Rachel considered charitably, seeing the girl belt out a Whitney Houston song on the stage. But the extra weight the girl was carrying was troubling.
Costumes demanded uniformity and Mercedes had to be at least five sizes bigger than the rest of the girls. Boasting an ever perfect size-six two figure, Rachel considered herself something of a guru when it came to dieting and now Mercedes Jones would have the privilege of being allowed to share in that expertise.
“Hello Mercedes,” Rachel smiled tightly, ushering to the girl to sit next to her after she stepped down from the stage. “I’m Rachel Berry,” she introduced herself, extending her hand. which Mercedes accepted shook it uncertainly.
“You have such a beautiful voice,” Rachel gushed openly, though inwardly she thought Mercedes could use a little help with her upper range. Not that she’d tell Mercedes that. Well at least, not today anyway. Criticism had to be deployed carefully; Dr. Phil had taught her that, every caustic word sandwiched between at least two more charitable ones.
“Thank you,” Mercedes beamed at her words, “You know, you’re not so bad yourself,”
Though she bristled at the implication behind the other girl’s words, Rachel forced a patient smile onto her face. Mercedes, after all, hadn’t been told by Simon Cowell himself that she had the voice of an angel or had been practically promised Indina Menzel’s role of Elphaba the second she graduated from Juilliard.
“Mercedes, this is kind of a delicate matter,” Rachel began tentatively, her long tanned legs crossed primly. “But I’m just wondering what eating program you’re currently following,”
“Eating program?” Mercedes echoed uncertainly, throwing longing glances over at Tina and Kurt who were indulging in a thoroughly scandalous conversation about Cheryl Cole's suspected nose job.
“Well, I’m on the Zone,” Rachel explained with an indulgent smile. “And I know Santana Lopez is on The Baby Food diet from all those tiny containers of food she carries around.”
“You mean like a diet?” Mercedes demanded warily, not liking at all where this conversation was going.
“The word diet has so many negative connotations,” Rachel thrilled lightly, running her fingers through her glossy hair. “An eating program is more about controlling what you eat, but in a positive way.” she reiterated, flashing a dazzling smile at Mercedes. “You know, I really think you could benefit from a stint on The Raw Food diet. Mandy Moore lost six pounds during her first week alone.”
Things had gone admittedly downhill after that. Mercedes had declared her body to be a voluptuous paradise before storming out of the auditorium, Kurt following shortly in her wake.
--