Shades of Blue (Part Two of The Loudest Silence)

by Olivia Janae

  “People do crazier things, right?” she asked John, who just stared at her blankly. That was fine, she didn’t really need his input. “Yeah. I’ve done crazier things. And it just makes sense. She’ll probably say no anyway.”

  “Kate? K. Look at me.”

  She ignored him, opening the laptop that sat on the coffee table and swearing when it didn’t even try to rouse itself despite the power button being repeatedly mashed. This led to another search of the apartment, waving off John as she looked for her power cord and debated all of the worst-case scenarios, ranging from probable to impossible.

  What about Max? That made her stop, her mind freezing. She had to think about her son. What if this Lyric job fell through? It was true, Vivian’s mother had been sending her a lot of gigs, and for once they had a very good nest egg.

  “Got it!” She plugged the computer in, drumming on the table impatiently.

  Charlie reappeared just as she was logging into her bank account.

  “Any luck?”

  “I’ve gathered she was looking for that piece of paper and then her computer cord,” John said. “That’s all I got.”

  “I can hear you!” Kate laughed, surprising them with her exuberance.

  “She speaks!” John flopped next to her on the couch. “What the hell, Flynn?”

  Grinning at the number she saw on the screen, she jumped up again and kissed their cheeks.

  This was Vivian. She needed the gesture. Kate needed to make it and, if she were being honest, she wanted to make it.

  Kate scooped Max up, kissing his cheeks. “I’m gonna do it!”

  “Yaaaay!” Max shouted, though he had no idea what his mother was talking about.

  “Can you watch him?” she asked, letting Max spring off of her and onto John. “I’ll be back ASAP.”

  Before he could answer, she had grabbed something from the pocket of her winter coat and was out the door.

  The ring was simple; white gold with a three-fourths carat princess cut solitaire.

  It was classic. It was intricate and beautiful, delicate and strong. It was more Vivian than Vivian herself.

  She left the uptown jewelry store and walked with determination, flipping the box into the air and catching it like a lucky quarter.

  Charlie had been right. This was exactly what she wanted. This was exactly what she needed, had to have with all of her being. More importantly, she thought that this was what Vivian needed, too.

  Charlie had told her not so long ago that people had a nasty habit of giving up on Vivian. No one had learned Sign purely for Vivian, no one bothered to know her. No one had ever tried to meet Vivian halfway.

  It seemed so obvious now that she had come to it. When Vivian said she “couldn’t,” Kate understood what she meant. She didn’t have it in her to put herself out there, only to fall on her face. Vivian was convinced that it wasn’t safe to let herself be loved. This was why Vivian was the Ice Queen. There was only so much strength a person could muster, so many times they could be hurt before they were too afraid to try again.

  Kate understood better than most.

  She needed to get rid of the metaphorical back door in their relationship. If she wanted Vivian to take a chance, to put herself out there, then Vivian needed to understand she was safe to do so. There would be no negative repercussions; Kate wasn’t leaving. If she was going to ask Vivian to keep her, then she sure as hell was going to make it clear she wanted to keep her in return – always. Because she did, and, yes, she knew that there was a chance that she was a little caught up in the moment, but she didn’t care.

  She didn’t let herself think about how rash this action was. She had made a choice, and she was going to risk it. She was sure that Vivian, her wild and damaged girl, would say no, but she had to try.

  She had to make the gesture.

  But first, before that gesture was made, there was something she had to do, something that was more important than bringing Vivian coffee or sending her drinks.

  This needed to be done, and she wasn’t sure anyone else could do it.

  She rang the showy doorbell, listening to the chime reverberate off of the mansion’s walls and couldn’t help but roll her eyes at the petty extravagance that was so like Jacqueline.

  Her fingers shook, her legs jittered, ready for the fight she knew was coming. If she was going to fly too close to the sun, then she might as well go out in style. And there was something she had been wanting to say for a long time now.

  “Miss Flynn?” Leigh seemed surprised to see her when she opened the front door. “Did Mrs. Kensington forget to mention you were coming? It’s not Tuesday.”

  “Nope. It’s not!” Kate announced, brushing by her. “Office?”

  “Uh, last I saw she was in the kitchen,” Leigh called after her, chasing to catch up. “Kate! Kate! Wait, she doesn’t like unexpected guests!”

  Kate just nodded. “Well, at least you finally learned my name.”

  “Katelyn!” Jacqueline’s eyes lit the moment Kate stepped through the doors but fell just as quickly when she saw the set look of her features. “What’s wrong? Oh good god, don’t tell me you’re turning down Lyric, too.”

  “What? No!” The randomness of that threw her off course for just a moment. “Why would you – you know what, never mind.” She shook her head. “Jacqueline, you and I need to talk.”

  “I’m sorry?” Jacqueline’s features wiped themselves clean, her arms crossing over her chest. No one told Jacqueline Kensington that they needed to talk, and Kate knew it. Even she, someone who snapped when she grew tired of Jacqueline’s manipulative ways, had never spoken to her like that before.

  She knew that she was about to be told that Jacqueline didn’t like her tone. She didn’t want to hear it, so she spoke in what she hoped was a kinder voice. “Sit down.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Sit down, Jacqueline!” she thundered, surprising herself. So much for being kinder. She felt like she had been wound up too tightly, too high strung at that moment.

  Jacqueline’s expression would have been comical were Kate less nervous. The older woman sank onto a stool, eyebrow raised in challenge.

  “So, here’s the thing.” Kate shifted back and forth on the balls of her feet. “You have been a pain in my ass for months.”

  “I beg your pardon, you ungrateful—”

  “Months, Jacqueline! From the moment you invited me to the stupid Lyric audition you have been hovering over me, trying to force my decisions.”

  “Ms. Flynn!”

  “You never asked me if I wanted a benefactor, Jacqueline! You didn’t. It just kind of happened because you wanted it to! You got me jobs without asking me, you made me attend parties where I would meet big names, you pushed and you fucking pushed!”

  “I will not stand for this treatment, I—”

  “Why did you tell everyone I was moving to Louisville when you knew I turned it down?”

  Jacqueline scoffed. “You become a valued commodity when you are in high demand!”

  “A commodity, Jacqueline?” She groaned, turning in a fast circle to expel her annoyance. “I’m a person, Jacqueline! You can’t treat people like a commodity!”

  “A highly sought-after person, correct?”

  Kate smiled. That was the answer she had been looking for.

  Her heart was beating hard in her chest, her brow was sweaty, she could feel a bead of it running down the back of her neck, but she felt radiant. She needed to plan to propose to women she loved more often.

  What Jacqueline had said was true. Since the New Year’s gig, Kate’s popularity had skyrocketed. She had been contracted out to gig after well-paying, unionized gig for months. She had been working constantly, so much that she had been turning work away over the last few weeks.

  She took a deep breath and ran her hands through her hair. “You made my life freaking miserable. You took your daughter from me, which was kind of a big deal since I’ve been in love with her fo
r a long time now. You told everyone I knew that I was leaving, which nearly cost me my job. You pushed. You pushed every freaking day, forcing me to go to the massage therapist, telling me what to practice, telling me when to practice, making me play for you at will like military surprise inspection. Well, I won, Jacqueline. I won. You have pushed me and prodded me, insisting that I do all of this and I won, so… thank you.”

  Jacqueline’s brows pulled together. Her head tilted slightly as she tried to figure out the game that Kate was playing.

  “I have never been so sought-after.” Kate cleared her throat and continued in a softer voice. “And I’ve never been so successful. So,” she clapped, clearing away the gravelly hint of tears, “that is why it’s time someone pushed you.”

  The hard look was back in Jacqueline’s eyes.

  “You let everyone think that you’re this huge bitch that can’t be trusted, and I don’t get it. I know your secret, Jacqueline. I see you. I thought I was crazy, I thought I was wrong at first, especially after the implant debacle, but no. You pretend to be so hard, so rough… you’ve treated your daughter like shit for years, trying to force her into decisions that she thinks are purely for your benefit, but they aren’t, are they?”

  Jacqueline just stared blankly.

  “Let me rephrase. Vivian thinks the reason you manipulated me into pushing the implant and then threw me to the wolves was so you would no longer have to admit you have a deaf daughter. But that isn’t true, is it? Or at least, that’s not the only truth.”

  Jacqueline’s eyes fluttered. She looked as though she didn’t feel well at all; her hand dropped to her stomach and gave it a rub, a perfect mirror of Vivian under pressure.

  “No,” Kate continued, “it’s because you want Vivian to hear. The reason you pushed so hard before the audition was you wanted me to win.”

  “Kate—”

  “Charlie made this comment once that when you hate someone, you ignore them entirely. She thinks you hate her. I thought you hated her, but now that I’m thinking about it, you bought her opera tickets. You care enough to still know what she loves. You told her that you asked me about it and that kept bugging me because I couldn’t remember when that happened. Then I realized one day that it didn’t. You just knew.

  “You care about Charlie, you care about me, and you sure as hell care about Vivian. So why? Why do you act like this?”

  Jacqueline sneered. “When I put my name on something, Ms. Flynn, I refuse to be embarrassed by it. That goes for you, Max, Charlotte, and my pigheaded daughter. Of course I care about Vivian. What on earth are you implying?”

  “I’m implying that you’re being an ass, Jacqueline.”

  “Katelyn Flynn, I will not—”

  Kate’s hands were already up in surrender. “Whoa. I’m implying that you act like an ass, and you let her think that you don’t care. I’m implying that you don’t think before you act.”

  She chewed her lip, surprised and pleased when Jacqueline was too flustered to take advantage of her silence. “There’s only one thing I still don’t get. The rehab for deaf children. Why did you start the foundation in Vivian’s name? You know how much she hated her days in therapy. You have to.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I mean, that was genuinely messed up! It was a horrible way to grow up. She thought it was another act of cruelty. The foundation seemed like a nasty gag. Was it?” All of this had occurred to her before. She had wondered but had been sure that Jacqueline wouldn’t have given her an answer. She wasn’t sure she would give her one now.

  “Ms. Flynn-”

  “Oh stop pulling your crap, Jacqueline, and just answer me.” She had been harsh with Jacqueline before, you had to be in order to get her to listen, but she had never been as forward as this. Jacqueline’s eyes shot through with fire and malice but there was also a hint of something unexpected; something that looked a lot like respect, so she changed her tone into a soft but firm one. “Just tell me, okay?”

  “I suppose,” Jacqueline admitted grudgingly, “I thought that if Vivian had received the implant she would have liked it and changed her tune, so to speak.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “It means, you idiot, that I thought once Vivian regained her hearing she would want to help others do the same. I thought, Ms. Flynn, that you would be able to talk my daughter into the implant. Disappointingly, you failed.”

  This she hadn’t expected. Jacqueline had said something similar before, but she had assumed it was just a slight, a hit to Kate’s already sore soul. “I don’t get it. Why would you think that she would listen to me?”

  “Because, you stupid girl, she clearly loved you. I’ve never seen my daughter so besotted, and I sat through many a teenage and young adult love affair.”

  Kate laughed, wondering if Vivian knew that her mother had been watching as she went through those relationships. “And yet you still wanted to break us up.”

  “And who told you that? Was I not the person who convinced you to go to the New Year’s ball knowing my daughter would be there? Did I not point her out to you once you were there? Did you not finally corner her only because I held her in one place?”

  “Uh, wow.” Her hands shoved back into her pockets as she thought. “I just... I don’t get it. If you love her so much, Jacqueline, then why do you treat her the way you do? I mean, we covered this before and you lied to me, so it would be kind of great if you didn’t do that again.”

  Jacqueline’s voice was liquid ice. “Ms. Flynn, I understand that you feel as though you are entitled to ask questions of this type and magnitude because of your former affair with my daughter, however—”

  “Jacqueline!” She slammed her fists on the kitchen counter and turned on her, not afraid or intimidated by her flashing eyes or the lip that was slowly curling back on itself. “You’re going to lose her! Don’t you get that?” The words bounced back at them, ricocheting off the kitchen tile and making Jacqueline wince. “You will! Any day now. You are going to lose her. You basically already have! Think about it, how many years had she been living in that loft before I invited you over? The only reason that even happened was because she thought telling you not to come would look like weakness, and we all know you exploit her weaknesses. So she refused to let me cancel! But when was the last time she called just to tell you about something that was happening in her life? She did that all the time with me, she does that with Charlie! You’re her mother. Does she do that with you?”

  Jacqueline’s lips pinched closed, but Kate didn’t need to wait for an answer. She knew Vivian called her mother as little as possible. Vivian said it was because her mother hated to speak through the TTY operator, but she knew that Vivian had been entirely satisfied with not calling anyway.

  “Did you know she once told me that the only way she could get through visiting you was if she was drunk? She’s broken. She thinks she’s unlovable. That sweet, awesome, amazing person thinks that she can’t be loved. She has actually told me that she is unlovable and it’s because of you. It is your fault, lady! It’s because you never showed her that she could be loved exactly as she is! You have never loved her fully as a mother should love their daughter!”

  With a heavy sigh, Kate pulled out the ring box, studied it for a moment, and put it down in front of her. “I’m on my way to propose to her.” Jacqueline’s eyebrows shot into her hairline, and Kate had to laugh. “Yeah, I know, it’s stupid and rash and what the fuck am I thinking, but I’m going to do it anyway. I don’t know if she will say yes, I kind of think she won’t, but if by some miracle there is a god and she says yes, I promise you that I will support her when she walks away from you for one simple fact: you refuse to speak to her.”

  “I do not! This is outrageous!” Jacqueline’s hand flew to her chest, ever the offended maiden.

  “I’m sorry, Jacqueline but you do. Refusing to learn Sign Language and refusing to speak to her are the same thing. She has been deaf since she wa
s seven years old, and from what I understand, she could have used ASL even before that. That’s at least twenty-five years of not being able to speak to your daughter. Come on, you know she’s not going to get the implant, she doesn’t believe in it, and she shouldn’t have to.”

  Kate shrugged. Her monologue was drawing to a close and she wasn’t exactly sure what she would do after that. “Give that up. God, it’s been time to give that up for a while now. You are her mother. You are supposed to love her for who she is, not spend twenty-five years trying to change her. She needs you. Trust me, she does. If there is one thing I know it’s that everyone needs a mom. And frankly, you need to know your daughter. Think about what’s coming in her future, marriage whether with me or someone else, and children. If you want to be a part of that, if you want to know your daughter and know your grandchildren, then you need to learn her language. Because you will be the odd man out, not us. Otherwise, there is no way in hell you will know them. You’ll be a stranger to them, Jacqueline. You won’t even see them on holidays.”

  Jacqueline had stopped her angry responses some time ago. Instead, she sat staring glassy-eyed at the floor. Kate stepped to her, softly caressing her cheek. It was a bold move and in so many ways a rude one, but it was also genuine. In a weird way, she kind of cared about this ass of a woman. She sighed. “It’s time, Jacqueline. It’s just freaking time.”

  She kissed Jacqueline’s cheek with the strange but genuine affection she felt for this woman and turned.

  She had no idea if that would work, she prayed it would, but decided perhaps it was best to go. “Charlie will be here tomorrow for your first lesson,” she called over her shoulder before letting the kitchen door slam closed behind her.

  Kate was on a roll. Her confidence was high, and she was on a mission.

  Rescue Mission: Make-Vivian-Understand-She-Is-Loved-or-Die-Trying.

  Her confidence didn’t waver for the long hour that she was on the train. She wanted to take out the ring box, to gather courage from its glittering surface, but that was a good way to get a ring stolen on the ‘L’. Instead, she let her hand stay in her pocket, holding the black velvet box and breathing deeply. She didn’t allow herself to think much. She didn’t want reality to creep in and make her think about how stupid this was to do.