(no subject)
Title: Birthday
Characters; Theodore “T-Bag” Bagwell, Susan and Gracie Hollander
Summary: Story is set 3 years before Prison Break Season 1 in Chicago, IL; Gracie Hollander is celebrating her 10th Birthday at Girl, Incorporated. She says her mother can bring her new boyfriend, Teddy along.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: T-Bag in the same room as children. Also a very, very bad word.
Disclaimer: I did not create these characters. I do not own them nor do I profit from them in any way. Also Girl, Incorporated and Old Fashioned Girl dolls are purely creations of my imagination. Any resemblance to any actual line of dolls with a flagship store in Chicago (complete with tearoom and stage show) is strictly coincidental.
Author’s Note: My first T-Bag story was about he and Susan Hollander (Wanted). Two months later, after pairing him with everyone from Seth and Maytag to Michael and Abruzzi I’m decided to revisit T-Bag/Susan.
Beta Reader: Nzomniac (much gratitude)
Birthday
Susan Hollander was unabashedly delighted when her daughter Gracie asked to celebrate her tenth birthday at the Girl, Incorporated Headquarters. Spending the day at the specialty doll boutique with its stage show, tearoom and three floors of overpriced merchandise promised to strain Susan’s budget to the limit but she didn’t care. She was so happy that Gracie didn’t consider herself beyond things like dolls, having tea with her mother and corny song and dance routines about how every girl is special in her own way.
Susan knew a day would come when Gracie would put away, even scorn, her beloved dolls. She would start to notice boys and want them to notice her. There would be arguments about make-up, low-slung jeans and midriff baring halter-tops. A day would come when Gracie would regard her mother with embarrassment and contempt but that day hadn’t come yet. Gracie was still her little girl.
“Who do you want to come with you?” Susan asked her daughter, pulling the covers up around her chin.
“Emily,” Gracie said immediately naming her best friend. “Emily and Molly and Alice.”
“Which Alice?”
“Alice Carr, not Alice Middleton. Alice Middleton is nice but we can’t invite everyone.”
“Okay, honey. It’ll be you and me and Emily, Molly and Alice.”
“If you want,” Gracie added magnanimously, “you can bring Teddy.”
*
When she met Teddy for dinner the next night, she told him about Gracie’s birthday plans, how pleased she was that Gracie still wanted to do things that were little girly doll-centered.
“That’s real sweet,” he said in his heavy Southern accent. “You really love that child. You get so happy when you talk about doing this for her you’re just glowing. Mrs. Hollander, I think you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” Shyly he took her hand, kissed her fingertips and smiled up at her his awkward, craggy smile. Susan giggled and blushed. He had a way of making her feel like she was about Gracie’s age and still believed in fairy tale princesses and happy endings.
“What exactly is this Girl, Interrupted place you’re taking Gracie to? I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of it,” he asked.
“Girl, Incorporated,” she corrected him. “It’s a company that makes specialty dolls. Their flagship store is just off the Magnificent Mile, it’s sort of the Chicago destination-of-choice for the eight-to-twelve year old set. Really. Girls come from all over the country.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, Girl, Incorporated is hugely popular. They make these custom dolls where you can pick the skin color and the eye color and what kind of hair so little girls can get dolls that look like them and they make matching clothes for the girls and the dolls. Then they have the Old Fashioned Girl line, that’s what Gracie likes.
“There are about a dozen dolls and each one is from a different period of American history. There’s a Colonial girl and a Laura Ingalls Wilder type pioneer girl. Gracie has Clara, she’s from the depression, and there’s a Victorian era girl and one from just before the Civil War. I can’t remember them all; they all have names and all their outfits and accessories and storybooks.
“It’s really actually very educational. Last year for her local history project at school, Gracie made up her own Old Fashioned Girl character that would have lived right in our neighborhood a hundred years ago. She was from Poland and her parents had a butcher shop and Gracie did all this research on their day-to-day lives. What they wore, what they ate, how they celebrated holidays, the chores everyone in the family had, what they did for fun. I was impressed, it was really thorough.”
“I’m not a bit surprised,” Teddy said. “Your Gracie’s a smart little girl, real smart.”
“Smart enough to like you,” Susan giggled. “In fact she said to me last night that you would be welcome to come along for her birthday on Saturday.”
Teddy turned a particularly pale shade of green and started choking.
“Me… eight-to-twelve year olds from all over the country… dressed like their dolls.” He gasped.
“Oh Teddy,” she cried. “You’re certainly not expected to come if you’re not comfortable with it. You’re under no obligation. I hope you don’t think you have to do this…”
“No, no, you just took me a little by surprise,” he managed downing most of his tumbler of water. “Susan, more than anything else in the world, I want to be a real part of your family. If Gracie wants me there, I want to be there.”
*
On Saturday Susan, Teddy and the four little girls arrived at the Girl, Incorporated Headquarters. The store was teeming, absolutely teeming with little girls. Most were clutching dolls and not a few were wearing matching outfits. Gracie and her friends loved it. They moved through the displays commenting on dolls and outfits and accessories they had and the ones they wanted, gossiping and giggling.
Teddy on the other hand, despite his best efforts was radiating tension like a high pitch frequency. It puzzled Susan. Most of the time she felt like she understood Teddy fairly well but sometimes she couldn’t even begin to fathom what could be going on in his mind. She wondered as she often did what was in his past. Did he have a little girl of his own who had died or been taken away from him? She wished he trusted her enough to tell her about it.
While the girls had birthday cake in the pink and red Girl, Incorporated tearoom, Susan entwined her fingers with Teddy’s.
“You’re doing fine,” she reassured him. “You’re going to be okay.”
“I will be as long as you’re holding my hand, sweetheart.” He meant it too. He clutched her hand after they left the tearoom, through the entire stage show.
After the show the girls browsed through the lavish Old Fashioned Girl displays. It was a bit like a museum, each doll in a diorama surrounded by the artifacts of her time period. Susan let go of Teddy’s hand. A look of total panic flashed across his face (panic, yet it seemed to be tempered with something almost like delight).
“Where are you going, sweetheart?” he asked trying desperately to sound casual.
“I’m just going to run to the ladies room. I won’t be two minutes.” She assured him. It seemed like his eyes were pleading with her. Don’t leave me here. Don’t leave me alone.
As Gracie walked by, Susan caught her daughter’s hand and put it in Teddy’s where her own had been. “You two keep an eye on each other while I’m gone.” She said.
The minute her mother’s back was turned Gracie dropped his hand.
“I’m too old for that.” She informed him.
“It wasn’t my idea.” He assured her. “Do you want one of those dolls that looks just like you do?”
Gracie shook her head. “Emily has one,” she said confidentially. “But I think they’re sort of creepy.”
“I’m inclined to agree with you on that, Miss Hollander.”
“I like the Old Fashioned Girls best.” She lead him over to one of the glass cases gesturing at a doll with hair in a carrot colored pageboy cut leaning against a miniature bicycle. “This is the one I have. This is Clara. She’s growing up during the Great Depression. Her family doesn’t have any money.”
“For folks with no money they’ve sure got a lot of stuff,” Teddy observed eying the multitude of accessories and outfits Clara came with. Gracie moved to the next case.
“This is Violet. She’s from about a hundred years ago. She reminds me of Meet Me in Saint Louis. She’s from that time.”
“She’s really pretty. Is that the one you want to get next?” Teddy asked.
“No. Violet’s nice but my favorite is over here. This is Esther. She and her family were slaves in Virginia until they took the Underground Railroad North to freedom.” Teddy scrutinized Esther and then Gracie.
“You mean to tell me out of all these pretty dolls here you want one of a nigger?” he asked. Gracie’s mouth dropped open. “What’s the matter? Why are you looking at me like that, honey?”
“You’re not supposed to say that,” she informed him gravely. “That’s a really bad word.”
Susan returned from the ladies room to find her daughter gaping at her boyfriend who was wild-eyed, stammering and looked as if he was about to flee.
“Gracie, Teddy, what is going on?” She demanded.
“Teddy called Esther the n word,” Gracie piped up.
“What? Teddy, is that true?”
“Uh, I, umm…” Teddy babbled.
“Maybe he doesn’t know any better because he’s from the South,” Gracie suggested hating to get Teddy into trouble.
“That’s not right to say either, Gracie,” Susan said. “There are a lot of people in the South who worked hard for Civil Rights and who aren’t prejudiced. Now why don’t you go find your friends? We’re going to have to get them home soon. Teddy and I will have a talk about this later, in private. Okay?” Gracie nodded with great seriousness and ran off to get the other girls.
*
“What the hell were you thinking, Teddy?” Susan demanded the minute Gracie was out of earshot.
“Susan,” he pleaded, “sweetheart, it was a mistake. I never meant to…”
“I didn’t know you were the kind of person who used words like that; much less in front of a ten-year-old.”
“Please, Susan,” he begged, “you’ve got to listen to me. I’m going to tell you truthfully I haven’t always been a good person. Not even close. There are some ugly, ugly things inside of me.”
“I’m beginning to see that,” she snapped.
“I was scared to come today, but I wanted to be with you - with you and Gracie both. You know I want more than anything else to be a part of your family. I’m not really comfortable around so many young girls. When they get to be Gracie’s age, or a little older, I just don’t know how I’m supposed to be around them. I don’t know anymore if they’re little girls or young women. I was so afraid I’d make some mistake, do something that could be taken the wrong way, I wasn’t thinking of anything else. And while I was watching the door one of those ugly pieces of myself I’ve been trying to lock away came out the window.”
“Teddy, I really don’t know what to say.”
“Please, Susan, next time I’ll try harder. I swear to you. I will do anything I can to make things work with us. I will board up the windows and barricade the door.”
“Oh, Teddy,” she sighed stroking his hair. “You can’t live like that. Whatever these ugly things are, you can’t just lock them way. They’ll always find a way out. I know I’ve told you my father was an alcoholic. He and my mother spent most of their lives pretending everything was perfectly fine but the truth always bleeds through. These things inside you have to be dealt with or you’ll never be free of them.” He kissed her hand in mute gratitude. She wasn’t angry anymore.
“I know you’ve had a difficult life, Teddy,” she said. “That there are things you don’t want me to know about. I just wish you could trust me enough to tell the truth.”
“I want to, sweetheart,” he whispered. “I don’t want to keep anything from you. Someday I’ll be ready but not yet, not just yet.
*
Less than two weeks later, he was arrested for six counts of rape and murder. Susan often thought of the conversation they had on Gracie’s birthday and if he had been sincere. Sometimes she thought he had been as honest with her as he was capable of being. At times like that she wished she had given him a chance. Maybe he could have left behind that person he was. But then she would think how she had led him into a store full of little girls and placed her daughter’s hand in his and she would shudder in horror. Fear and rage would wash away whatever sympathy she had for Theodore Bagwell and she would hate him almost as much as she hated herself.
Characters; Theodore “T-Bag” Bagwell, Susan and Gracie Hollander
Summary: Story is set 3 years before Prison Break Season 1 in Chicago, IL; Gracie Hollander is celebrating her 10th Birthday at Girl, Incorporated. She says her mother can bring her new boyfriend, Teddy along.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: T-Bag in the same room as children. Also a very, very bad word.
Disclaimer: I did not create these characters. I do not own them nor do I profit from them in any way. Also Girl, Incorporated and Old Fashioned Girl dolls are purely creations of my imagination. Any resemblance to any actual line of dolls with a flagship store in Chicago (complete with tearoom and stage show) is strictly coincidental.
Author’s Note: My first T-Bag story was about he and Susan Hollander (Wanted). Two months later, after pairing him with everyone from Seth and Maytag to Michael and Abruzzi I’m decided to revisit T-Bag/Susan.
Beta Reader: Nzomniac (much gratitude)
Birthday
Susan Hollander was unabashedly delighted when her daughter Gracie asked to celebrate her tenth birthday at the Girl, Incorporated Headquarters. Spending the day at the specialty doll boutique with its stage show, tearoom and three floors of overpriced merchandise promised to strain Susan’s budget to the limit but she didn’t care. She was so happy that Gracie didn’t consider herself beyond things like dolls, having tea with her mother and corny song and dance routines about how every girl is special in her own way.
Susan knew a day would come when Gracie would put away, even scorn, her beloved dolls. She would start to notice boys and want them to notice her. There would be arguments about make-up, low-slung jeans and midriff baring halter-tops. A day would come when Gracie would regard her mother with embarrassment and contempt but that day hadn’t come yet. Gracie was still her little girl.
“Who do you want to come with you?” Susan asked her daughter, pulling the covers up around her chin.
“Emily,” Gracie said immediately naming her best friend. “Emily and Molly and Alice.”
“Which Alice?”
“Alice Carr, not Alice Middleton. Alice Middleton is nice but we can’t invite everyone.”
“Okay, honey. It’ll be you and me and Emily, Molly and Alice.”
“If you want,” Gracie added magnanimously, “you can bring Teddy.”
*
When she met Teddy for dinner the next night, she told him about Gracie’s birthday plans, how pleased she was that Gracie still wanted to do things that were little girly doll-centered.
“That’s real sweet,” he said in his heavy Southern accent. “You really love that child. You get so happy when you talk about doing this for her you’re just glowing. Mrs. Hollander, I think you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” Shyly he took her hand, kissed her fingertips and smiled up at her his awkward, craggy smile. Susan giggled and blushed. He had a way of making her feel like she was about Gracie’s age and still believed in fairy tale princesses and happy endings.
“What exactly is this Girl, Interrupted place you’re taking Gracie to? I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of it,” he asked.
“Girl, Incorporated,” she corrected him. “It’s a company that makes specialty dolls. Their flagship store is just off the Magnificent Mile, it’s sort of the Chicago destination-of-choice for the eight-to-twelve year old set. Really. Girls come from all over the country.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, Girl, Incorporated is hugely popular. They make these custom dolls where you can pick the skin color and the eye color and what kind of hair so little girls can get dolls that look like them and they make matching clothes for the girls and the dolls. Then they have the Old Fashioned Girl line, that’s what Gracie likes.
“There are about a dozen dolls and each one is from a different period of American history. There’s a Colonial girl and a Laura Ingalls Wilder type pioneer girl. Gracie has Clara, she’s from the depression, and there’s a Victorian era girl and one from just before the Civil War. I can’t remember them all; they all have names and all their outfits and accessories and storybooks.
“It’s really actually very educational. Last year for her local history project at school, Gracie made up her own Old Fashioned Girl character that would have lived right in our neighborhood a hundred years ago. She was from Poland and her parents had a butcher shop and Gracie did all this research on their day-to-day lives. What they wore, what they ate, how they celebrated holidays, the chores everyone in the family had, what they did for fun. I was impressed, it was really thorough.”
“I’m not a bit surprised,” Teddy said. “Your Gracie’s a smart little girl, real smart.”
“Smart enough to like you,” Susan giggled. “In fact she said to me last night that you would be welcome to come along for her birthday on Saturday.”
Teddy turned a particularly pale shade of green and started choking.
“Me… eight-to-twelve year olds from all over the country… dressed like their dolls.” He gasped.
“Oh Teddy,” she cried. “You’re certainly not expected to come if you’re not comfortable with it. You’re under no obligation. I hope you don’t think you have to do this…”
“No, no, you just took me a little by surprise,” he managed downing most of his tumbler of water. “Susan, more than anything else in the world, I want to be a real part of your family. If Gracie wants me there, I want to be there.”
*
On Saturday Susan, Teddy and the four little girls arrived at the Girl, Incorporated Headquarters. The store was teeming, absolutely teeming with little girls. Most were clutching dolls and not a few were wearing matching outfits. Gracie and her friends loved it. They moved through the displays commenting on dolls and outfits and accessories they had and the ones they wanted, gossiping and giggling.
Teddy on the other hand, despite his best efforts was radiating tension like a high pitch frequency. It puzzled Susan. Most of the time she felt like she understood Teddy fairly well but sometimes she couldn’t even begin to fathom what could be going on in his mind. She wondered as she often did what was in his past. Did he have a little girl of his own who had died or been taken away from him? She wished he trusted her enough to tell her about it.
While the girls had birthday cake in the pink and red Girl, Incorporated tearoom, Susan entwined her fingers with Teddy’s.
“You’re doing fine,” she reassured him. “You’re going to be okay.”
“I will be as long as you’re holding my hand, sweetheart.” He meant it too. He clutched her hand after they left the tearoom, through the entire stage show.
After the show the girls browsed through the lavish Old Fashioned Girl displays. It was a bit like a museum, each doll in a diorama surrounded by the artifacts of her time period. Susan let go of Teddy’s hand. A look of total panic flashed across his face (panic, yet it seemed to be tempered with something almost like delight).
“Where are you going, sweetheart?” he asked trying desperately to sound casual.
“I’m just going to run to the ladies room. I won’t be two minutes.” She assured him. It seemed like his eyes were pleading with her. Don’t leave me here. Don’t leave me alone.
As Gracie walked by, Susan caught her daughter’s hand and put it in Teddy’s where her own had been. “You two keep an eye on each other while I’m gone.” She said.
The minute her mother’s back was turned Gracie dropped his hand.
“I’m too old for that.” She informed him.
“It wasn’t my idea.” He assured her. “Do you want one of those dolls that looks just like you do?”
Gracie shook her head. “Emily has one,” she said confidentially. “But I think they’re sort of creepy.”
“I’m inclined to agree with you on that, Miss Hollander.”
“I like the Old Fashioned Girls best.” She lead him over to one of the glass cases gesturing at a doll with hair in a carrot colored pageboy cut leaning against a miniature bicycle. “This is the one I have. This is Clara. She’s growing up during the Great Depression. Her family doesn’t have any money.”
“For folks with no money they’ve sure got a lot of stuff,” Teddy observed eying the multitude of accessories and outfits Clara came with. Gracie moved to the next case.
“This is Violet. She’s from about a hundred years ago. She reminds me of Meet Me in Saint Louis. She’s from that time.”
“She’s really pretty. Is that the one you want to get next?” Teddy asked.
“No. Violet’s nice but my favorite is over here. This is Esther. She and her family were slaves in Virginia until they took the Underground Railroad North to freedom.” Teddy scrutinized Esther and then Gracie.
“You mean to tell me out of all these pretty dolls here you want one of a nigger?” he asked. Gracie’s mouth dropped open. “What’s the matter? Why are you looking at me like that, honey?”
“You’re not supposed to say that,” she informed him gravely. “That’s a really bad word.”
Susan returned from the ladies room to find her daughter gaping at her boyfriend who was wild-eyed, stammering and looked as if he was about to flee.
“Gracie, Teddy, what is going on?” She demanded.
“Teddy called Esther the n word,” Gracie piped up.
“What? Teddy, is that true?”
“Uh, I, umm…” Teddy babbled.
“Maybe he doesn’t know any better because he’s from the South,” Gracie suggested hating to get Teddy into trouble.
“That’s not right to say either, Gracie,” Susan said. “There are a lot of people in the South who worked hard for Civil Rights and who aren’t prejudiced. Now why don’t you go find your friends? We’re going to have to get them home soon. Teddy and I will have a talk about this later, in private. Okay?” Gracie nodded with great seriousness and ran off to get the other girls.
*
“What the hell were you thinking, Teddy?” Susan demanded the minute Gracie was out of earshot.
“Susan,” he pleaded, “sweetheart, it was a mistake. I never meant to…”
“I didn’t know you were the kind of person who used words like that; much less in front of a ten-year-old.”
“Please, Susan,” he begged, “you’ve got to listen to me. I’m going to tell you truthfully I haven’t always been a good person. Not even close. There are some ugly, ugly things inside of me.”
“I’m beginning to see that,” she snapped.
“I was scared to come today, but I wanted to be with you - with you and Gracie both. You know I want more than anything else to be a part of your family. I’m not really comfortable around so many young girls. When they get to be Gracie’s age, or a little older, I just don’t know how I’m supposed to be around them. I don’t know anymore if they’re little girls or young women. I was so afraid I’d make some mistake, do something that could be taken the wrong way, I wasn’t thinking of anything else. And while I was watching the door one of those ugly pieces of myself I’ve been trying to lock away came out the window.”
“Teddy, I really don’t know what to say.”
“Please, Susan, next time I’ll try harder. I swear to you. I will do anything I can to make things work with us. I will board up the windows and barricade the door.”
“Oh, Teddy,” she sighed stroking his hair. “You can’t live like that. Whatever these ugly things are, you can’t just lock them way. They’ll always find a way out. I know I’ve told you my father was an alcoholic. He and my mother spent most of their lives pretending everything was perfectly fine but the truth always bleeds through. These things inside you have to be dealt with or you’ll never be free of them.” He kissed her hand in mute gratitude. She wasn’t angry anymore.
“I know you’ve had a difficult life, Teddy,” she said. “That there are things you don’t want me to know about. I just wish you could trust me enough to tell the truth.”
“I want to, sweetheart,” he whispered. “I don’t want to keep anything from you. Someday I’ll be ready but not yet, not just yet.
*
Less than two weeks later, he was arrested for six counts of rape and murder. Susan often thought of the conversation they had on Gracie’s birthday and if he had been sincere. Sometimes she thought he had been as honest with her as he was capable of being. At times like that she wished she had given him a chance. Maybe he could have left behind that person he was. But then she would think how she had led him into a store full of little girls and placed her daughter’s hand in his and she would shudder in horror. Fear and rage would wash away whatever sympathy she had for Theodore Bagwell and she would hate him almost as much as she hated herself.