OOM: All Hallows' Eve, New York, with Tommy Gavin pt. 1
[following this:]
It's dark when Kate wakes. The light beyond the bamboo shade is a deep grey. True to what she told Lou the previous night, she's up before anyone else, dressing in a pair of blue jeans and a grey sweatshirt with "I ♥ NY" on it.
She asked Miss Bar for clothes that would blend in.
There isn't any black tea in Tommy's cupboards, but she finds a box of chamomile and boils herself some water. She even attempts working the coffee maker on her own. When the boys wake up, they're impressed - after they stop laughing at what she's wearing. They both need to work today, which means Kate is on her own with Michael.
Lou whips up a batch of waffles, which Tommy wolfs down, blissfully content with life. Clearly sex fixed everything once again. Kate wonders if he feels proud.
(She doesn't, of course, correct him on his thinking.)
At least being alone will give her some time to think.
When Tommy and Lou have left, Michael excuses himself to use the washroom. He's in there an awful long time, but eventually Kate can hear the shower running. She brews another cup of tea, and sits in the window. The glass is cold, betraying chilly weather outside. Some of the trees are full of autumn colors. There are cars parked up and down the street, people walking or biking along the sidewalk. She can see a little sky - it's blue - but most of the view is of the opposing buildings. Kate doesn't mind. It's kind of pretty in its own way; different from Texas or the bar. New York. She's stabbed with the desire to go out and explore, but it'll have to be on her own. Perhaps later.
It's odd not seeing horses wandering along the broad way. She can't imagine a whole city with no need for them. It makes her sad, and her thoughts wander to the stables and the bar and - All Hallows' Eve.
All Tommy knows is she had a bad dream two years ago about talking to her daddy. It wasn't the first time she'd spoken to somebody dead, but it shook her enough to run away when All Hallows' came around last year. Now, Tommy's helped her run away a second time. Her outburst when he invited her may have had a lot to do with those pent up feelings (and a truly epic sugar crash), but it also had to do with her unease over confiding in him things she never meant to. He hasn't spoken of it again, which gives the tentative relief of hope that he just doesn't remember; however, that then makes her feel guilty, because they used to be closer before he left her last Christmas. This whole year with him has been terribly off-balance.
Now she's meeting his family.
She isn't ready. She hasn't told him what her final days in Green Lake were like. He knows her school burned down, and he knows Sam was killed. He knows she shot the sheriff. Most times it seems like he pretends none of that has happened, that she isn't a murderer and she doesn't go out there and shoot, rob, and kill. Not that she can blame him - that was never part of their deal. But there's so much more he just doesn't know.
There's so much goddamn blood on her hands.
"Oi! Don't jump!"
Kate startles, slopping a little tea on her jeans. Michael is standing just inside the room, grinning crookedly at her. She lets out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding, surprised when it sounds like a laugh.
"M'jus' admirin' the view."
"Oh? You look like you have a lot on your mind. What did my idiot kid do now?"
"Nothin'."
This time she chuckles on purpose.
"He hasn't done anythin'."
"Oh yes he has. I was married for fifty years, I know what a woman looks like when she's pissed off with a man!"
Kate smiles serenely. She doesn't feel angry with Tommy, but she has been keeping him locked out for a long time now.
"Don't go stirrin' up trouble, y'old rascal. Things 'tween me an' your son are jus' fine. I wouldn't be here otherwise."
Michael shuffles over to the end of the couch closest to the window, huffing a noise Kate can't quite identify. A scoff, perhaps. He gets seated, and grins at her.
"And yet you're sitting here, while he's gone off to work. What kind of a moron invites a pretty girl over and then leaves her sitting here? With his DAD?"
Kate blinks, not sure how to answer that. Michael only has one volume, which can make it difficult to tell when he's yelling or just teasing. He does have a point, and one Kate's already considered for herself. She appreciates not having to be in Milliways, but she had imagined that Tommy would want to spend time with her. She can manage left to her own devices, but it does make the awkwardness of intruding on his life feel all the stronger.
She's about to speak when Michael waves his hand with a loud, "Ehh!" Forget about Tommy, the gesture says, and Kate tamps back a laugh as he goes on.
"That's all right! You and I will go paint the town red, and that'll show him!"
"Oh? You an' I?"
"Sure! Why not? You're young and beautiful, I'm young and beautiful... It's a recipe for success!"
Kate laughs, shaking her head. She sees where Tommy gets his charm. And after all, why not? She did feel like exploring, and perhaps getting outside in the fresh air will help her nerves some. At least she won't have to be in someone else's home, looking at family pictures and the constant reminder of another woman's presence, making Kate - yet again - the other woman.
"All right."
Tommy lives in a residential neighborhood, which makes Kate's impression of Brooklyn far different from that of the city. The buildings aren't skyscrapers, there are no flashing lights and buses full of tourists at every corner. Michael takes her to his favorite deli, insisting she try a pastrami on rye. It is, by far, the best sandwich she's ever eaten.
There are convenience stores speckled about, grocers and delis, but no fancy boutiques. Painting the town red means having lunch, browsing a pawn shop, and stopping by a city park before getting back to the apartment before the ballgame starts. It's an important one, Michael says. The World Series. But he makes for good company, and Kate is well pleased with all their destinations. She sits on a park swing while a pair of children run and scream in play, a little girl with her natty black hair in braided pigtails tied with pink elastics, and a little boy in yellow stripes flashing a toothless smile, brown eyes sparkling with the kind of mischief she remembers from the troublemakers in her classroom. She laughs as she watches them, Michael resting on a park bench to one side of the playground and the childrens' mother on another at the other side.
Memories of the way her children used to play mix with her memories of playing with Tommy around the lake in Milliways. Red Rover, Red Rover, send Katherine on over! She would sometimes go out and play with the children if she didn't have homework to grade or chores to do; she recalls the sharp smells of bruised grass and fresh ink on comic book pages from the afternoon with young Tommy. And then she thinks of the day her children didn't come to school, her head buzzing with thoughts of Sam, and the way they hid as she rode out of town. She recalls confiding in Tommy her favorite books, her plans for adventures, her mother dying, her determination to live life on her own terms - and his words the night they were turned back into adults.
When you're twelve, sure, you can have ideas as big as the world, but let's face it, most grownups are gonna say they know what's best for you.
You're lucky your dad stood up for you.
The little boy clambers up the slide, making the metal swingset vibrate. It startles Kate out of her reverie.
She sighs.
It's hard to say why his words upset her the way they did. It's not willful ignorance on his part when she refuses to open up to him. However, she's never felt more invisible than she did then, in a rare moment of honesty and openness to have her past so forcefully reconstructed in order to give all credit to her father, as if he were her keeper, her savior, and the girl Tommy had just spent the last week with was nothing but a weak and pitiable fool. For all his blustering about the men in her world, he made himself more dismissive than any man in her youth had ever been.
It's hard to open up and trust someone like that with her most tender secrets.
It's hard to believe he won't just hurt her again, the next time he gets bored.
Maybe she is angry with him after all.
This entry was originally posted at http://ikissdhimbck.dreamwidth.org/35308.html. Comment || Read
comment(s).
It's dark when Kate wakes. The light beyond the bamboo shade is a deep grey. True to what she told Lou the previous night, she's up before anyone else, dressing in a pair of blue jeans and a grey sweatshirt with "I ♥ NY" on it.
She asked Miss Bar for clothes that would blend in.
There isn't any black tea in Tommy's cupboards, but she finds a box of chamomile and boils herself some water. She even attempts working the coffee maker on her own. When the boys wake up, they're impressed - after they stop laughing at what she's wearing. They both need to work today, which means Kate is on her own with Michael.
Lou whips up a batch of waffles, which Tommy wolfs down, blissfully content with life. Clearly sex fixed everything once again. Kate wonders if he feels proud.
(She doesn't, of course, correct him on his thinking.)
At least being alone will give her some time to think.
When Tommy and Lou have left, Michael excuses himself to use the washroom. He's in there an awful long time, but eventually Kate can hear the shower running. She brews another cup of tea, and sits in the window. The glass is cold, betraying chilly weather outside. Some of the trees are full of autumn colors. There are cars parked up and down the street, people walking or biking along the sidewalk. She can see a little sky - it's blue - but most of the view is of the opposing buildings. Kate doesn't mind. It's kind of pretty in its own way; different from Texas or the bar. New York. She's stabbed with the desire to go out and explore, but it'll have to be on her own. Perhaps later.
It's odd not seeing horses wandering along the broad way. She can't imagine a whole city with no need for them. It makes her sad, and her thoughts wander to the stables and the bar and - All Hallows' Eve.
All Tommy knows is she had a bad dream two years ago about talking to her daddy. It wasn't the first time she'd spoken to somebody dead, but it shook her enough to run away when All Hallows' came around last year. Now, Tommy's helped her run away a second time. Her outburst when he invited her may have had a lot to do with those pent up feelings (and a truly epic sugar crash), but it also had to do with her unease over confiding in him things she never meant to. He hasn't spoken of it again, which gives the tentative relief of hope that he just doesn't remember; however, that then makes her feel guilty, because they used to be closer before he left her last Christmas. This whole year with him has been terribly off-balance.
Now she's meeting his family.
She isn't ready. She hasn't told him what her final days in Green Lake were like. He knows her school burned down, and he knows Sam was killed. He knows she shot the sheriff. Most times it seems like he pretends none of that has happened, that she isn't a murderer and she doesn't go out there and shoot, rob, and kill. Not that she can blame him - that was never part of their deal. But there's so much more he just doesn't know.
There's so much goddamn blood on her hands.
"Oi! Don't jump!"
Kate startles, slopping a little tea on her jeans. Michael is standing just inside the room, grinning crookedly at her. She lets out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding, surprised when it sounds like a laugh.
"M'jus' admirin' the view."
"Oh? You look like you have a lot on your mind. What did my idiot kid do now?"
"Nothin'."
This time she chuckles on purpose.
"He hasn't done anythin'."
"Oh yes he has. I was married for fifty years, I know what a woman looks like when she's pissed off with a man!"
Kate smiles serenely. She doesn't feel angry with Tommy, but she has been keeping him locked out for a long time now.
"Don't go stirrin' up trouble, y'old rascal. Things 'tween me an' your son are jus' fine. I wouldn't be here otherwise."
Michael shuffles over to the end of the couch closest to the window, huffing a noise Kate can't quite identify. A scoff, perhaps. He gets seated, and grins at her.
"And yet you're sitting here, while he's gone off to work. What kind of a moron invites a pretty girl over and then leaves her sitting here? With his DAD?"
Kate blinks, not sure how to answer that. Michael only has one volume, which can make it difficult to tell when he's yelling or just teasing. He does have a point, and one Kate's already considered for herself. She appreciates not having to be in Milliways, but she had imagined that Tommy would want to spend time with her. She can manage left to her own devices, but it does make the awkwardness of intruding on his life feel all the stronger.
She's about to speak when Michael waves his hand with a loud, "Ehh!" Forget about Tommy, the gesture says, and Kate tamps back a laugh as he goes on.
"That's all right! You and I will go paint the town red, and that'll show him!"
"Oh? You an' I?"
"Sure! Why not? You're young and beautiful, I'm young and beautiful... It's a recipe for success!"
Kate laughs, shaking her head. She sees where Tommy gets his charm. And after all, why not? She did feel like exploring, and perhaps getting outside in the fresh air will help her nerves some. At least she won't have to be in someone else's home, looking at family pictures and the constant reminder of another woman's presence, making Kate - yet again - the other woman.
"All right."
Tommy lives in a residential neighborhood, which makes Kate's impression of Brooklyn far different from that of the city. The buildings aren't skyscrapers, there are no flashing lights and buses full of tourists at every corner. Michael takes her to his favorite deli, insisting she try a pastrami on rye. It is, by far, the best sandwich she's ever eaten.
There are convenience stores speckled about, grocers and delis, but no fancy boutiques. Painting the town red means having lunch, browsing a pawn shop, and stopping by a city park before getting back to the apartment before the ballgame starts. It's an important one, Michael says. The World Series. But he makes for good company, and Kate is well pleased with all their destinations. She sits on a park swing while a pair of children run and scream in play, a little girl with her natty black hair in braided pigtails tied with pink elastics, and a little boy in yellow stripes flashing a toothless smile, brown eyes sparkling with the kind of mischief she remembers from the troublemakers in her classroom. She laughs as she watches them, Michael resting on a park bench to one side of the playground and the childrens' mother on another at the other side.
Memories of the way her children used to play mix with her memories of playing with Tommy around the lake in Milliways. Red Rover, Red Rover, send Katherine on over! She would sometimes go out and play with the children if she didn't have homework to grade or chores to do; she recalls the sharp smells of bruised grass and fresh ink on comic book pages from the afternoon with young Tommy. And then she thinks of the day her children didn't come to school, her head buzzing with thoughts of Sam, and the way they hid as she rode out of town. She recalls confiding in Tommy her favorite books, her plans for adventures, her mother dying, her determination to live life on her own terms - and his words the night they were turned back into adults.
When you're twelve, sure, you can have ideas as big as the world, but let's face it, most grownups are gonna say they know what's best for you.
You're lucky your dad stood up for you.
The little boy clambers up the slide, making the metal swingset vibrate. It startles Kate out of her reverie.
She sighs.
It's hard to say why his words upset her the way they did. It's not willful ignorance on his part when she refuses to open up to him. However, she's never felt more invisible than she did then, in a rare moment of honesty and openness to have her past so forcefully reconstructed in order to give all credit to her father, as if he were her keeper, her savior, and the girl Tommy had just spent the last week with was nothing but a weak and pitiable fool. For all his blustering about the men in her world, he made himself more dismissive than any man in her youth had ever been.
It's hard to open up and trust someone like that with her most tender secrets.
It's hard to believe he won't just hurt her again, the next time he gets bored.
Maybe she is angry with him after all.
This entry was originally posted at http://ikissdhimbck.dreamwidth.org/35308.html. Comment || Read
comment(s).