ALCOTT, Avery Karina

[Avery Karina Alcott]

AVERY KARINA ALCOTT

FULL NAME: Avery Karina Alcott
NICKNAMES: She’ll answer to just about anything really
AGE: twenty five
GENDER: female
SEXUALITY: Straight
STATUS: Single
GROUP: Student.
GRADE: Freshman.
MAJOR: Culinary Arts
JOB OCCUPATION: O’Malley’s kitchen staff (though she can and does cover the bar from time to time)

HAIR: Choppy, blonde hair kept just below her shoulders. She usually keeps it down unless she’s working and then it’s always up and completely out of the way
EYES: Blue.
SCARS/BIRTHMARKS: None.
TATTOOS: She loves them but doesn’t have any of her own.
PIERCINGS: Ears twice, navel.
PLAY-BY: Emily Osment!

LIKES: cooking, losing herself in music, high heels, strong coffee, bracelets, laughing, shopping, practical work, rocky road ice cream, her dogs, Norse myths, kids, swing sets, pictures of kittens, yoga and pilates classes.
DISLIKES: reality TV, powdered doughnuts, her headphones breaking, losing her phone, burning food, her childhood, baby’s breath flowers, written assignments, yellow mustard, plain old cheese pizzas, too many throw pillows, leather couches, sitting still for hours, hitting the gym.
FEARS: Her father’s family finding her, hiding for the rest of her life, boats.
SECRETS: She has no idea what her birth name was, or where she was born. She only knows what her uncle has told her; they were hiding from her father’s family and he was not about to let his sister, her mother down by giving her back to them.
PERSONALITY: Despite all that’s happened in Avery’s life thus far, she’s hardly the type to shy away from adventure. In fact, she’s usually the one instigating it all! Funny and very flirty, Avery lives her life the way she wants to. She’s a clever girl but she refuses to hide any longer. Avery’s recently moved from Switzerland, or rather returned but she considers Berne her hometown and that’s what she tells everyone she meets; especially since she couldn’t tell you where she was born even if she wanted to, she doesn’t know! She’s spent over ten years there and developed the accent to match so she sounds like a born and raised citizen. She’s not about to correct them either. She doesn’t consider herself a liar but she’s been hiding for so long that it’s difficult to know for sure when the lies start and the truth ends. She tries to be as honest as possible, even hurdling over the line into blunt territory. She doesn’t apologise for it either and why should she? After the life she’s had to lead, it’s just impressive she was brave enough to return to America! Her friends back in Berne say she’s stubborn and thick headed and difficult but they love her anyway. Avery is a sweet woman with a lot of heart, she’s just not exactly forthcoming with the love or the sweet. Having to hide for the first thirteen years of her life has her shrouded in mystery but from then on, she’s a pretty open book. She is a talented young woman with a bright future ahead of her; as long as her past stays there.

MOTHER: Jocelyn --- --- & 47.
FATHER: Abraham --- --- & 47.
SIBLINGS: None.
OTHERS: Jordan Alcott, uncle & 50.
PETS: Loki & Lars, Swedish Vallhunds!
HOMETOWN: Berne, Switzerland.
HISTORY: Avery Alcott’s life from the age of six months to thirteen years was a challenge. You see those shows on the TV about the Amish families that are more like Mob families than anything else; no one’s allowed to leave. Well, these were Avery’s parents and their family. Avery’s mother, Jocelyn hadn’t been born Amish, she’d married into it unknowingly. She’d met Avery’s father, Abraham while he’d been out exploring the world and deciding if he wanted to stay away from all that he’d known or go back after the year was up. In the end, he’d decided to stay and while he’d been out with friends at a bar, hit it off really well with the bartender. So much so that she took him home with her at the end of the night and barely two years later, they were married and Jocelyn was pregnant. Things were good for them until then.

And then Abe’s family found out about what he’d been getting up to and sent three of his brothers to retrieve him, and his very pregnant wife. The following months were hell for Abe but more so for Jocelyn. She’d had a hell of a life before she’d ever met Abe. Things at home were tough but she had her big brother to help her out and get her through the broken plates and the yelling, telling her it would all be fine. And when he got older and found a place of his own, she moved in with him. They were as close as siblings could be and Jocelyn absolutely adored her brother, Jordan. Shortly after the move, their father up and left their mother in the middle of the night, taking only what he could quickly shove in the back of the car. From then, their mother didn’t do so well and ended up popping five or six too many sleeping pills one night and never woke up in the morning. Jordan found her when he went by to remind her of Jocelyn’s upcoming birthday.

Fast forward a few years, Jocelyn was working in a bar to pay her way through university. She was studying to become a grief counsellor and heading into her final year at school when she met Abe. She thought him cute, if a little naïve. Still, he impressed her with his polite behaviour, not something she saw every day in Pittsburgh. She invited him back to her place and he just never really left; not that she wanted him to. It was fun, it was flirty and Jocelyn found herself head over heels for the sweet man in only a few short months. She’d been so excited when he proposed, she just couldn’t say no to him. They were married quickly, with only a handful of friends and Jordan as their witness. Jordan was pleased as punch for his baby sister; at first. Things were going so well and Jordan had no complaints about the man his sister married.

Until, that is, she found herself pregnant and all hell seemed to have broken loose. One week, he was having dinner with his sister, catching up on the week, though they spoke daily and the following, she had disappeared without notice. The police wouldn’t do a thing until she had been missing for two days. And when that happened, and there was still no news from Jocelyn did they finally do something. It took two weeks too long in Jordan’s opinion to get any news but he finally did. A police detective sat him down with a file larger than some on his own desk and told him all about Abe and his background; something he hadn’t previously known. Jocelyn had already been six months pregnant when Abe’s family descended upon them and was then forced into bed rest though she was perfectly able to do anything she pleased.

It took another month in bed, writing letters to Jordan that would never be sent for one of the quieter women in the family to take pity and chat her up. They became friends and eventually Eve agreed to smuggle Jocelyn’s letters out. By then, Jordan was making plans. He knew his sister wouldn’t last in an Amish community. She was hardly the type that sat back and allowed the men to do as they pleased while she tended a garden and churned butter! Eve found a way to get him the letters and he wrote some in return, thus starting the real plans. Eve found herself smitten with Jordan. He was such a nice man and he obviously cared about his sister; even to keep after her. The four of them formed a plan, as Jocelyn couldn’t do it without Eve, Jordan or Abe. They figured it all out, though it took six months after Avery’s birth to finally be able to be put into action. The women started saying Avery, though her name had not been that at the time and even now she’s not sure what her first name was, was becoming ill. Abe continued to help and act as though the family mattered, though that same family gave him time to be with his wife and child in their time of illness. After a couple days, they made out as though the baby had died and Jocelyn and Abe were closed off, only speaking through Eve, Abe’s little sister, the same age as Jocelyn.

The small family, met Jordan nearly three hours away from their prison and with tears in their eyes, handed Avery over to her uncle, who promised to take care of the sweet baby as if she were his own. They said their goodbyes and Jordan and Avery drove off into the dark of night. Jordan kept up letters, sending the rare picture of Avery to a post box Eve set in her name. But they were found out. The family planned to hunt them down and take the baby, whom they previous thought had died from a flu or cold, back. Eve managed to get a letter out to Jordan and he packed up and he and Avery were gone long before the family ever found the small apartment he’d rented. For the next twelve or so years, Jordan and Avery ran for everything, never really staying in one place for more than a few months, never more than a year because the family seemed to be hot on their tails. Jordan changed Avery’s name at each new place, he never enrolled her into school while they were there, instead going the route of the homeschooled and he found himself a job in construction; a far cry from the financial position he’d had before everything happened.

When Avery was thirteen, she and Jordan up and left the country, agreeing it was the only way they would truly be safe from Abe’s family. Eventually the letters stopped, somewhere before Avery’s thirteenth birthday; which was why they felt it was time to move again. Jordan become scared that something had happened to Eve. They found themselves in Berne, Switzerland and finally, they could breathe a little easier. Avery finally enrolled in a school, though she was shocked to learn she was actually ahead of where everyone else was and skipped few grades, when it was time to think of continuing her education. Until then, it had never been a thought that had occurred to Avery. But she put some thought into it, and spoke to Jordan about it. He finally got back into the financial game and was so glad to be there. He’d spent too long picking up whatever jobs he could get his hands on, mostly construction though the occasional bank job did come up and he pounced like a leopard.

Years went by while they were in Berne and nothing bad happened. Avery even started to feel like a normal girl, and even stopped looking over her shoulder at every turn of the corner. It was refreshing. They stayed in Berne from there, enjoying the culture and the peace the distance brought on. But there was only so much that Avery could do there with schooling. Still, she finished her schooling, attended an exceptional university in Berne as well. She had relaxed since the move to Switzerland but she hadn’t been ready to leave Jordan just yet. It took another three years before she worked up the courage to tell Jordan her thoughts. New York. She loved what she’d taken in school, and had worked hard over the following three years to get her PhD certificates for psychology but as much as she loved it, it wasn’t what she wanted to do. She had loved cooking from a young age, always helping Jordan in the kitchen when she was smaller and then when she was older, she surprised Jordan with breakfast and meals when he got home from work, though occasionally she undercooked the chicken but it was the thought that counted and eventually she got it all right. After that, Jordan brought home cookbooks and they sat down with them each night to decide what they wanted the next day and he would come home after work with the ingredients and Avery had loved those moments. They were her fondest memories growing up; they made things seem safe, like they were father and daughter and everything was just peaceful. And as much as she wanted it to stay that way forever, she had to grow up. New York had always appealed to Avery but she had never thought she would get there. She did her research though before talking to Jordan about it. A culinary arts programme called to Avery and Jordan knew how much she loved to cook. So, reluctantly, Jordan agreed that she needed to spread her wings and paid the first years tuition to save her a place at the school. She already had the degrees she needed to teach and the PhD most people in her position coveted but it wasn’t the most important thing to her. At twenty five, she enrolled at NYU in their culinary arts programme and since the beginning of classes, she’s loved every single minute of it and wouldn’t take it back for anything.

YOUR ALIAS: Cali!
RULE WORDS: I am holding them for ransom!
WHERE YOU FOUND US: At the bottom of a wishing well.
SAMPLE:

No!

[Cali]