PAYNE, Calypso Peyton

[Calypso Peyton Payne]

CALY PEYTON PAYNE

FULL NAME: Calypso Peyton Payne.
NICKNAMES: Caly
AGE: Twenty-six
GENDER: female
SEXUALITY: Straight
STATUS: Single
GROUP: Citizen.
GRADE: N/A.
MAJOR: N/A
JOB OCCUPATION: Graphic Designer for an art gallery

HAIR: Naturally dark brown, almost black, she enjoys colouring it and generally keeps it a silver/white colour, though she has thrown pastels in there. She braids her hair for work at the office but otherwise it's either down and loose or up in a messy bun or tail.
EYES: Brown.
SCARS/BIRTHMARKS: None.
TATTOOS: None yet.
PIERCINGS: Her ears.
PLAY-BY: Kirsten Zeller!

LIKES: cute cat videos, getting twenty minutes in a bubble bath alone, walking through the park, picnics, drawing, playing with her son, reading with him, sunflowers, music, fresh laundry, necklaces (though she's learned not to wear too many lately), rings, hoodies, yoga, taking pictures and videos of Soren, double chocolate brownies, taking the time to do her makeup, Disney films, Doritos, Dia de los Muertos, braiding her hair.
DISLIKES: trying to dress a cranky toddler, white chocolate, horror films, long showers, first person shooter games, unscented candles, poor lighting, sleeping in (though she hasn't known what that is in over a year), decaf coffee, housework, cooking for one (thankfully she doesn't have to do this anymore), vanity mirrors, children's shows.
FEARS: Damien never returning, him trying to take Soren away from her, spiders.
SECRETS: Calypso tells everyone she's allergic to roses because she just hates them that much. They're too traditional, too overplayed, just too much and she could do with something different.
PERSONALITY: Calypso is a strong and resilient woman who will do just about anything to protect her sweet baby boy. She's a doll, probably too innocent for her story but it's all true. She is definitely a fighter, will not quit when it's something she really wants; which means when it's something she couldn't give a damn about, she's very laidback. Caly is probably an unconventional parent but as she's a single mom, she really doesn't give a damn what people think of her. Her sister does live with her but she expects Esme to have a life of her own. Calypso wouldn't say she was reserved but she can be a bit shy when meeting new people; especially if she's attracted to them apparently. She never thought she had a quirky character like that but as it turns out, she does! Calypso may be on the smaller side but she is by no means any less mighty. When she's not being flabbergasted but an attractive man (to be fair, it's only ever happened once), she can be pretty sarcastic. She loves with her whole heart, and hates just as easily and completely. She'd never been one to do things halfway. She's full of emotion she can't entirely handle but it's good for her work so she channels it whenever she can. The feeling of despair rarely leaves because she feels terrible about the father of her baby being unaware that he's a father. She wants to tell him more than anything else because he should know but she's clueless about where he is. So she just has to wait for him to come to her and she's becoming less patient.

MOTHER: Mae Payne & fifty-seven.
FATHER: Thomas Payne & deceased.
SIBLINGS: Esme Alora Payne & twenty-three.
OTHERS: Soren Damien Malone, fifteen months & son
Damien Royce Malone, twenty-nine & baby daddy/crush
PETS: Chewie & Alaskan Malamute!
HOMETOWN: Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.
HISTORY: Mae Robinson was nothing special, at least, that's what she thought. She was just a primary school teacher with a big heart but she managed to catch the eye of the handsome new teacher. While she taught babies, he taught an older grade, had all the moms and female teachers swooning over every word he spoke. She didn't think she had that thing that made men take a second look at her. She was born and raised in Coeur d'Alene, went off to school just to return and teach at her old primary school. Thomas had been raised in Idaho, had thought he would return to his hometown and teach there, create a life there. And he did for a couple years, then his school was shut down, cutbacks, they'd said and his friend showed up for a couple weeks. He suggested he return to his hometown for the summer, get his thoughts and ideas in order and then try to find another gig. He didn't expect to fall for the town and decide to move there, get a job and create a life, just like he didn't expect to see a beautiful woman at the bar on the night he was out with friend celebrating his new job. He hadn't gotten the chance before she'd left with her friends to introduce himself. In fact, he felt bad that he'd probably never see her again. And then school started that Tuesday and there she was in a classroom just a couple doors down from his own.

It took months of trying to talk to her to get her to go out with him at which point he confessed about the night at the bar and everything that followed it. She remembered the night. She saw him and thought he was completely out of her league, not to mention her friend who'd been celebrating her birthday got so sick they'd had to get her into a cab and back home to be sick. Dating wasn't against the rules of the school board but they still kept it between them and their small group of friends until he proposed and they had to make it all official. They'd been living together for two years, dating for four. They were married the following year and had their first daughter, Calypso, a little under two years later. It all seemed to move so smoothly but also quickly. Three more years saw a move into a bigger home and the addition of another sweet baby girl, they named Esmerelda.

The girls were curious, loved the read and explore and just enjoy what life had to bring them. They loved to sleep outside under the stars in a sheet tent they tried and failed miserably to put up with their daddy, surrounded by twinkle lights and fragrant flowers. Calypso enjoyed drawing while Esme was born to dance and each had their own little quirks but they were sisters and they were close. Calypso was eight when tragedy struck the family leaving behind three distraught women. It was a freak accident they said, no way of really knowing it was going to happen. Their father played in a softball league and he'd been at a tournament. Esme had an early dance class Saturday mornings so the girls were at that and then they were going to meet up at the park with their father and his teammates to watch the afternoon games. They'd done it before and expected to do it again. There was a big to do at the park with some food vendors and some live music. One of the trucks from a food vendor hadn't been parked properly, nor had the stays for the wheels been placed correctly because they'd arrived late and had to hurry to get ready. Thomas was standing nearby when he saw it happen before his very eyes and rushed to stop it. A little girl, not much older than his own Esme, definitely no older than Calypso had been swinging her doll and accidentally let it go. She rushed over to pick her back up again when the brake of the truck let go and was on a collision course for the little girl. Thomas was close enough, he thought he could get to her and he did. But he wasn't fast enough and only had the time to push her clear out of the way. Her own father had been a few steps behind him coming in from the opposite side. Thomas was hit by the truck, thrown several feet away before landing and rolling a few more feet.

The paramedics were handy and though they made it seem like he was alive and breathing though seriously injured, the truth was he'd probably been killed on initial impact. However, there were so many children around that they couldn't in good conscience let them know they'd witness a man die. With equally hurried movements, as though they were still saving his life, they put him on the gurney, while one man continued a useless round of CPR before getting him into the back of the ambulance and rushing him away. The paramedic doing compressions stopped once they were out of the park and started looking for a phone or wallet to figure out who the man on the gurney was. Mae excused herself from the parent's room at the dance studio to take the phone call that changed their lives. She was shaking and distraught and caught the attention of one of the other mom's who slipped out to see if she could help. Mae hadn't meant to but she told her friend June everything that had just been relayed to her. June, being a military wife had the courage and understanding of what needed to be done. Mae could have her moments of tears now while June went in and took their girls out of the class and got Calypso to pack up her pencil case and sketchbook. June got them to the hospital, sat down with them when the doctor came in and explained it all to her what had happened. It was a freak accident, he said, absolutely beyond comprehensible, even he was flummoxed by it. But Thomas Payne was dead.

They buried him a few days later, waiting just long enough for his relatives and old friends to get to Coeur d'Alene. Calypso and Esme didn't really understand what was going on, just that their daddy wasn't ever coming home again. Calypso understood a little better, that their daddy had gone to heaven to be with their grandpa Billy. Too soon in Mae's eyes, she noticed her girls asking fewer and fewer questions about their father. They still had their memories but at least in Calypso's case, she was having a harder and harder time remembering the man exactly. She had the memories they'd made of campouts in the back garden and all of that but the man himself was a bit of a blur. The only real reason she did remember him was because of all the pictures scattered around the house and the drawings she occasionally did of him to keep his face sharp in her mind, though that didn't really work. High school rolled around and Calypso made friends easily enough with the art kids and a few out of her clique. She wasn't one to stick to one group of people and make them her entire world. She was more the type to flit about, talking to this person or that one. When she couldn't be found with groups, she was in the art rooms, drawing or painting or doing something. It was where she felt she belonged.

Calypso had goals for herself like anyone else but hers seemed so insignificant. She didn't want to save the world, she didn't want to pass on the knowledge she shared with each new class, new generation like her mother and father. She wanted to draw, create art and bring a little bit of happiness to her own small part of the world. With bags packed, she went to New York to pursue a degree in art, staying in the dorms for the duration of her schooling, keeping the small bit of money she made to pay for her phone bills and the food she put in her stomach. Four years whizzed right on by and before she knew it, she was applying for a TA position and doing graduate work in her field. The most she could hope for when all was said and done was something in an art museum, or well off gallery but it would be enough for her. What she got was an entry-level graphic design job at an advertising agency that was not what she was after. But she couldn't stay in the dorms anymore, nor could she live with the four roommates she had just off campus through years of grad school. She found a small, two bedroom apartment in a not so great neighbourhood. The building was like that one from Melrose Place, a show Calypso had watched almost religiously, despite not actually understanding the storylines being so young. It hadn't looked like it had been updated since the nineties either but that was fine because Calypso could afford it on her own and keep the rusting out civic she drove.

She hated her job but she went. She had bills to pay and she hoped, as they'd promised that she would get a promotion. She had a graduate degree from NYU, she could do so much with it but she needed to pay her dues. At least at the end of the day, she got to walk up the stairs to her second-floor apartment, pull out her sketchbook and sit at the window to watch her hot neighbour walk up the other flight of stairs to get to his own apartment across the way. She might have been a stalker but she figured there was no harm in any of it if he didn't know she just so happened to be looking out the window when he got home at night. She didn't know what he did but she could assume it wasn't something on Wall Street. Besides the fact that she never saw him in a suit, he had very visible tattoos and though they were far more common these days, it just didn't seem likely.

In all the time she'd lived in the building, she spoke to him all of two times, neither of those times going well for Calypso. She wasn't exactly shy, she could usually hold a conversation pretty well in fact. Except when it came to her neighbour, a man whose name she didn't know. He said hi to her once when she nearly walked into him rounding the corner for the stairs and she managed to stutter out a hello before practically running to her apartment, then she was coming home from work, digging the bags out of the boot of her car when she slammed it down and was one awkward step away from quite literally walking into him. She made an "eep!" sound and rushed into her apartment as fast as she could manage. So why, after a rather terrible art class that followed an irritating day that saw her car break down once again, she got into his car with only a moment's hesitation, was beyond her. She managed a coherent conversation, found out his name was Damien and was even shocked when he offered to fix her car for her, no cost to her. She fully expected him to want payment another way, even a quick but she imagined greedy kiss across the gearshift of his car but no. Instead, he took her car key from her and watched her walk up the stairs and into her apartment. What he did after that she wouldn't know exactly but her car key was hanging from her door when she left for work the next morning.

Calypso wouldn't go so far as to say she'd avoided him after that but it was basically what she did, all whilst still watching him through her window. It was ridiculous, she was being ridiculous but she just could not work up the courage to thank him properly. It was a few days later when things went completely to shit. She knew Damien wasn't a good guy but he kept to himself and he'd been nice to her on the few occasions they bumped into each other and that single time they actually spoke. She was in the middle of cooking dinner when there was a knock on the door. She set a timer then went to answer it. Calypso was not at all surprised to find a cop on her doorstep. She knew it could have been for any number of her neighbours but they were all either very nice to her or left her alone, and still, she knew exactly who they were there for. She answered all their questions about Damien though she lied about actually talking to him. Sure, she knew him, he lived across the way, she saw him coming home from work, explained that she just assumed he was coming home from work because it was around the same time she did. The cop took her information before letting her go back to her evening. She, unfortunately, couldn't focus and instead, turned off the food that was nearly finished, grabbed a beer from her fridge and went downstairs to the little courtyard that had seen better days. She saw Damien before anyone else did and as subtly as she could, shook her head, trying to tell him not to step any further onto the property. The cops hadn't yet seen him. She hoped he'd understand what she was trying to say when she stretched her arm in the arm and pointed her hand towards her own apartment. She had a fire escape just outside her apartment that he could get to if he were careful. She watched him walk away again before rolling her neck, standing up and stretching a bit more before heading back to her apartment, smiling at the cop she passed on the stairs.

Once inside her apartment, she moved quickly to get the window at the fire escape open and within seconds, he was pulling himself through. She demanded answers but also wanted to know if he was okay. She was many, many things but uncaring wasn't one of them. She got him a beer, fed him a meal and told him that he could stay at least until the cops clear out. He couldn't stay forever otherwise they would find him and she would get in so much trouble. Though she's not entirely sure who started it, Calypso found herself stuck between the kitchen counter and Damien, kissing like teenagers again. A night she would never forget followed the make-out session of epic proportions but she woke up a few hours later to see him getting his clothes on. He promised he would find her when it was safe to do so once again. She shouldn't have believed him, he was a criminal but she did. She really did. The next day she went in to work as though nothing happened. Her days were shitty on any given day, for some reason the next few months just seemed worse off. It wasn't just her superiors putting more and more on her shoulders, thinking they could pass it off on her because she was a junior graphic designer, needing to pay her dues. She finally had a yelling match with her boss who appeared to be genuinely confused as to why she was yelling at him about putting his work on her shoulders before collecting her things and walking away from a job she hated. It was all just so weird and too much. She was feeling exhausted for no reason so she figured well, she had some money saved up, a trip to the doctors was in order.

She did not expect the doctor to return to the exam room to tell her she was pregnant. Her doctor had pamphlets and some book that she suggested and some websites that were good along with a prescription for prenatal vitamins. She walked out of there dazed, knowing exactly who the father of her baby was. And he had disappeared months beforehand. Calypso had absolutely no idea where he'd gone or how long he'd be away, just that whenever it was safe, he'd look for her; maybe. She didn't know if he would but she did know that she was going to have and keep the baby. Quickly she realised she'd just quit her job and she couldn't afford to care for a child and be without a job. Just as quickly as that thought entered her mind, she was sat down in front of her computer, looking up another job. She had an interview at an art gallery. She could have easily been a curator but for the time being, they were hiring for an experienced graphic designer, someone who could handle their brochures and basically all the advertising graphics. It was a job she could do from home and email to her assistant, she had an assistant, who could print it all out and set it up as expressed. Calypso gave them full disclosure that she was pregnant when she'd gone for the interview, thinking she wouldn't be hired on. As it turned out, the gallery was owned by a woman and mostly run by them. So as long as Caly could do her job, they didn't really care if she did it from home; all they wanted was a text message, phone call or email if that were the case.

The first people she told, obviously was her sister and her mother. Her mother had stayed back in Idaho while Esme had decided she wanted to attend school in New York. Esme immediately moved out of the dorms and into the apartment to help out as much as she could. It was all quite a lot and though Caly knew she could handle it, it was really nice to have her sister there to help her out. Seven months later saw the second bedroom turned into a nursery while Esme had turned the living room into her own space with room dividers and trinkets and her baby, a son she'd decided to name Soren Damien Malone. She hadn't known until she held her son in her arms what she'd been going to do about his name. As it was, she'd only found out Damien's last name on the night they'd spent together. She had wanted to know before things went any further and he had obliged. It felt right giving their son his name. It was difficult, Caly wouldn't lie but every second of it was worth whatever price she would have to pay. Soren was a sweet baby, fussy eater but a sound sleeper. Caly found herself sitting in the rocking chair she'd put in the nursery, holding her baby and watching him sleep or just watching him sleep in his crib when he was old enough to sleep in it. That first night she'd tried letting him sleep in his own room, in his crib, Caly had actually missed having him in the bassinet in her room. In fact, she'd cried herself to sleep because of it. She'd woken Esme up doing it. Esme, kind of understanding, let Caly sleep when she finally crashed and Soren woke, expecting his next feeding.

The pair made it work, made the whole situation work for them. Esme would go to her classes and take care of Soren when she could, otherwise Caly did most of her work with Soren nearby in a swing being kept in motion by Caly's foot. As he got bigger, got older, Caly felt more and more heartbroken that she couldn't share these things with Damien. She had given up a long time ago that he would return but she still took video of Soren's firsts and had too many pictures of the little things, just in case. She could take care of Soren without him but she still felt like he should have these memories, too. She'd been lucky to have been there for his first "mum" and to realise "Ee-Ee" was meant to be Esme's name but Damien wasn't there for it and though they'd only had that one night, she still felt like it was important.

YOUR ALIAS: Cali
RULE WORDS: I've got these.
WHERE YOU FOUND US: Under the bed.
SAMPLE:

No!

 

[Cali]