“I had bourbon and a touch of rum,” I spoke up again. His accusations should have been aimed at me. Then I sniffed his mouth. “What did you have, hmm?”
He looked me up and down with slow appraisal. The tick in his jaw jumped. He glanced at his mother before his attention settled on me. “Time to go.” He went to take my arm, but I yanked it away, sidestepping the sofa, coming to stand in the doorway of the kitchen.
I shook my head and crossed my arms over my chest. A stance he clearly recognized as, hell no, I refuse to go without a massive fight.
He cursed and then flipped the table over with momentum born of uncontrolled rage. All of the books spread out on the table crashed to the floor, papers scattered in all different directions, and droplets from the punchbowl splashed against my arm. Glass shards shone like ice in the sun’s golden light.
Maggie Beautiful ran to the floor, separating the papers, looking frantically for something. I picked up the certificate, wiped the punch off, and handed it to her. She clutched it and the book to her chest, as though she couldn’t bear to part with either.
“Why are you so angry?” My own anger took me by surprise. I had shouted so loudly that my voice cracked on the ending word to my short tirade.
His chest rose and fell with deep breaths, his hands came to his hips, and he refused to look at me. “It’s all I have!” He kicked the table. “It’s all I fucking have left!”
I longed to go to him, to touch him, but all I could do was speak. If I touched him, it would be the equivalent of throwing rum on an out of control wild fire. I reminded him that he had me.What about me!But this seemed to anger him further, and we began to shout at each other. Maggie Beautiful’s voice rose above ours.
“WE DON’T SEE THINGS AS THEY ARE, WE SEE THEM AS WE ARE!” She read one of the quotes on the wall by Anaïs Nin. After Violet had turned me on to her, I turned Maggie Beautiful on to her.
The house fell silent and some of the tension escaped while our attention was focused on the sequined beauty going from quote to quote, reading them out loud. When she finished, she kept her eyes on the last quote, not turning around.
“She can read.” The words were soft, filled with awed surprise, though the tension remained, continuing to tick in his tight jaw.
I nodded, not adding anything else.
“Yes, I can read.” Maggie Beautiful turned to face him. She pinched her lips together and then released them. “You’ve been to see Luca! That stupid, stupid man! What for?”
He shrugged, glancing my way for the briefest of seconds. “Who taught you how to read, Maggie Beautiful?”
I stepped forward. “I did. I taught her how to read, because that’s what I want to do. I want to teach. And that’s what I’m going to do. I’m staying here. I’m going to a local college and I’m going to teach locally when I’m done.”
“A teacher.” He used the same tone as my mother had, as if it were beneath my feet. As if the thought was preposterous. As if the most common thing in the world was just assigned to an extraordinary being.
My heart sank into my stomach. My fists clenched at my sides. All the blood rushing into my cheeks came straight from indignation. For the countless time in my life, my wishes were being thrown to the side, my happiness sacrificed for something I could do but didn’t really want—not in the way it had been presented to me.
My mother dismissed me. My father struggled with his own life, probably wishing his life could have been different. My sister hated me out of jealousy. My grandmother cared for me, but not like Maja Resnik adored the dancer in me. My brother, the only normal in my life, was dead. Gone. Out of reach.
Now the love of my life had joined the forces that pushed me, drilled me, and overworked me, in some quest to direct me down the path he saw fit.
A moment of clarity swished through my thoughts. The rum. It seemed to be grating on my nerves, making me feel hot, more irritable than necessary. But I pushed it aside in favor of using it for my benefit.
I shoved Brando, hard, in the chest. Even though I didn’t budge him, it felt good all the same. “Effing blue balloon!” I yelled. “I refuse to be trapped by it. I refuse to be treated like some golden-legged butterfly that needs to dance for money, fame, and applause. If you like it so much, why don’t you do it?” I shoved him again. “Suit up,angelosbagliata,put the frilly stuff on and strut your stuff! If you think it’s so grand, why don’t you get out there and shake your ass. Work so hard that your feet feel like two scalding hot pulses at the ends of your legs! I don’t want it. Not the way everyone else wants it for me. Why doesn’t anyone listen to me? Why doesn’t anyone care what I think? Or feel!”
I never knew I could growl, but I did, and then I went to shove him again, but this time he caught my wrists. He slid his hands to mine, holding firm, and looked at Maggie Beautiful. “Is this what you want? Think back, Maggie Beautiful. Think back to when you were fifteen.”
“I’m not fifteen!” I screeched.
He ignored me. “All of your dreams. Your hopes. Is this what you want for her?” He motioned with his head toward me. “Is this what she deserves?”
And that, I thought, was as close to an explanation as I’d get from him for the time being—for his mindset and behavior.
Maggie Beautiful bit her lip. She looked between the two of us. After a few beats, she shook her head, a clear and definite no.
He released my hands and stuck a thumb at the mess. “I’ll take care of this when I get back.” Then he left, swallowed up by the bright glow of the sunlight.
The front door shut with a soft click, leaving us in a dim room filled with thick fumes and utter disarray.
* * *
“The beautiful years,” Maggie Beautiful cried. “To call them that, we must know tragedy first. Oh, tragedy.” She cried even harder. “Oh, why do we have to cry to make the beautiful years beautiful? Why do we have to bleed to pay the price for roses!”
