A Diamond in the Rough

by Elisa Marie Hopkins

  “No, I didn’t. The difference is I get to the point in a minute, instead of a week. Time is a luxury we can’t get more of, Sophie. I value my time.”

  “What are you trying to say? That you somehow, by way of a super mind, consider the infinite possibilities all in a minute?”

  “Listen, this isn’t a walk in the park for me either.” He leans forward. “You are high-strung, inquisitive, and impulsive. You always plow ahead without any thought given to possible consequences.”

  “Excuse me, but I don’t think—”

  “You’re always unpredictable. I never know what you’re going to say. This uncertainty terrifies me, Sophie, challenges me in a way no one has before.”

  “I don’t mean to complicate your life, Oliver.”

  “If you’re going to commit to something, then do yourself a favor and own it. If you have decided to be the most difficult woman on the planet, then stand in the light and make yourself known. But don’t apologize for it. What you say, how you react, it’s not right; it’s not wrong—it’s simply who you are.”

  I’m shocked by what he says. After Oliver pays the check, he has his driver pull the car up, right outside the restaurant.

  Once accommodated inside the car, he says, “I have one question.”

  “Sure.”

  “Will you move in with me?”

  I hesitate.

  “And don’t say maybe,” he warns. “I can’t tolerate the indecision and I refuse to dwell on a maybe. I’m aware that the probability of you saying no is high. But, I need you to make a decision: yes or no.”

  I shake my head.

  “I thought you would say so.”

  “No. I mean you have it all wrong.” I take a moment to settle myself. “Apparently, you don’t know this, but the probability of me saying yes to you—whatever the question, whatever the situation—is very, very high. The probability of me saying no to you is so miniscule, so microscopic—it is almost zero. Now, I don’t have a math degree but I know a probability of zero implies impossibility.”

  His eyes go wide. “Are you talking dirty to me?”

  “My answer is yes.” I smile. “I will move in with you.”

  ***

  YES IS A beginning. A starting point. A promise to do my best. No is simply an ending without a start, a promise to do nothing. At the end of the day, I find myself in a new house, no one around, having to put that same promise into effect.

  Post-shower, I make my way out of the bathroom, towel drying my hair as I go. My thick eyebrows bunch together as I go inside the walk-in closet and wallow in its opulence. I hang the towel on a drying rack, then I look at all the unpacked boxes and suitcases crowded over each other like a tower of Tetris. Oliver’s closet, or rather spacious room with a set of some thirteen closets, is the definition of order and complexity. Every item of clothing falls into place majestically. Each of the closets contains specific garments from what I can look at: coats, suits, jackets, pants, shirts, ties, shoes, gym outfits. At the center is a large island serving as a dresser, and at the far end, there is a relaxing chair with a matching ottoman. Oliver would never leave so much as a speck of lint lying around, but now I’m here, messing up his house with my clothes, my jewels, my shoes, and my issues.

  I haven’t even started unpacking and the nerve-wrecking thought hits my brain: Can we even live together?

  As I go through the boxes, my heart starts to race. I inhale until my belly inflates like a balloon, then I slowly release the air. I look at the large box that has SOPHIE penned across the top. Inside is the past I so long to leave behind.

  I bring my knees to the ground and sit on my ankles with boxes pooled around me. All crammed up in that box with my name on it is a grimy old journal. I stare at it. I bite my nail. I worry. I slowly trace my finger along it and open it to the first page. I remember Aunt Peg’s townhouse, a young Sophie locked in her bedroom, a pen in one hand, the journal in the other, and a plethora of feelings—anxiety, rage, misery, confusion, pain—rushing through her.

  What I don’t remember is the house smelling a certain way at the time. It must have, because all of a sudden the journal smells exactly like the tiny bed where my feet would dangle off the edge, the old vanity where Aunt Peg used to brush my hair, and the bright pink beanbag that I used to have next to the window. For a moment, I am emotionally transported to that time in my life.

  I don’t remember what I ate that day or what I was wearing, but I remember exactly how I felt, and why I used to write in a journal. I was unhappy and I wrote so that I could release an outpour of thoughts, and release the mean voice from inside me—the angry voice, the one that hangs out at the back of my throat. For a second, I feel the age I am in those memories. I remember Aunt Peg wiping away my tears. I can hear her saying it was just a nightmare. And I absolutely remember what that used to feel like.

  By the time I finish reading the next few pages, noisy sobs are echoing through the empty closet. On one of the pages, I notice a picture cut out from a newspaper. The caption reads: In the picture above is six-year-old pageant princess contestant, Sophie Cavall, and her mother, Susan Cavall, in the Miss Glamorous Toddlers Beauty Pageant.

  I remember that day. My hair was teased up into one gravity-defying poof with curls falling out to the side. On the up-do sat a blush-colored bow with side combs so ingrained to my skull—my little head felt like it would explode. A rose fluff of frills and lace brazed my skin like sandpaper and I was itching to get out of it.

  “Stay still.” At the far back end of the grand room, my mother commanded me while adjusting the beaded strap around my neck. The dress was coming off, again. She tightened the strap, but it kept slipping. I twisted and groaned. She gripped my waist firmly. “Stay still!”

  “It hurts,” I said in a whiny voice. “Why do I have to wear this dress?”

  “Because I said so. That’s why. It’s a small price to pay to look beautiful. You can take it off after the crowning.”

  Without further talk, she continued fine-tuning my dress.

  The words struggled to come out of my mouth. “Why do I have to do this?”

  “I’m your mother, you take care of me and I take care of you,” she replied. “I want that ten thousand dollars, Sophie. I didn’t pay a lot of cash just to see you compete. So you’re gonna get out there, do your routine, and smile wide like I’ve shown you. And we’re gonna win. We’re not here to lose. Do you understand?”

  My mental trip is over as I hear footsteps behind me. It’s Oliver. I don’t move my head. Nothing.

  “Sophie. What are you doing in here?”

  I quickly wipe away my tears and turn to see him standing at the closet door, with his suit jacket slung over one shoulder. “Nothing,” I say. “I’m unpacking.”

  He looks at the boxes and suitcases and seems to go over it in his mind. Then, he puts his briefcase down and tosses his jacket over a suitcase.

  Very carefully, ache still in his body, he brings himself to the floor next to me. He comes closer and closer, and as he does, a heavy lump forms in my throat, making it difficult for me to stay cool. As soon as he touches me, I break down. He tries his hardest to calm me down. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he reassures. He takes my chin up. “What’s wrong? You’re shaking.”

  I grab fistfuls of his shirt with both my hands, and he simply stares down, kissing the top of my head. There is a long silence once I finally stop crying. He takes the picture from my hand.

  “This woman,” I point at the newspaper, “is Susan, my mother.”

  His eyes are full of confusion and concern. “It’s okay if you’re not ready to tell me about her.”

  “No.” My voice cracks. “It’s not okay at all. You should know everything. I hassled you with so many questions and I didn’t even stop and think of what you should know about me.”

  “You don’t need to tell me.”

  “Yes, I do. It’s important. It’s important to me.” I pause for a second. “I ca
n talk to you about my past, Oliver, not to make you pity me or make myself look weak for attention, but to let you know who I was and what happened. What made me cry. What gave me nightmares. I prefer to hide. In fact, I may have even masked the version you know of myself. I can show you my trophy room, gladly. But...I’m afraid to open the door hiding what makes me vulnerable and imperfect.”

  He looks at me with a gentle and caring expression that says he’d take away all the sadness if he could. What he doesn’t know is that for the past few minutes, since he walked inside the closet, I’m already better.

  “When I was six...my mother entered me in the Miss Glamorous Toddlers Beauty Pageant.”

  I begin telling Oliver about that day, my memory of it so vivid and detailed after all these years. We have that in common.

  The stage was decorated like a fairytale castle, with white horses and a carriage standee, and a three-dimensional fountain prop. Waiting for my name to be called behind that fairytale of a stage, I heard my mother warn, “You better not cry in front of the judges, Sophie.”

  I looked at her, terrified. My whole body was burning up. I could feel sweat, or blood, sliding down my neck and back. The sequins from the dress dug into my skin everywhere.

  “You hear that? That’s your name being called to the stage. Let’s go.” She grabbed my hand and we climbed the few steps leading to the castle entrance. As we were standing on the last step, she fixed my hair, fixed my dress, fixed my makeup, and then pushed me through the soft-blue curtain.

  “Don’t forget to smile.” I heard her say from a distance.

  I walked out on the stage like it was my first time on one. I looked around with panicky eyes. Exposed to so many people, I was too dizzy to pay attention. A short moment of nothing went by, then my mother charged onto the set. She was fuming.

  “Show them your routine,” she whispered angrily. “Smile to those judges, Sophie.”

  “I was so upset!” I tell Oliver. “I hadn’t slept or eaten. The costume itched, my skin burned, I had so many hairpins in my hair it hurt, fake teeth, and glue in my skirt to keep it from riding up. She kept yelling at me. She just wouldn’t stop yelling.”

  “What happened next?” he asks.

  I spend the next half hour recounting the memory to Oliver, and feeling it all like it was just yesterday.

  Something gave way inside me, and there, in front of an audience, televised to the whole nation, I began to hyperventilate. There were no tears, but it sounded like I was crying. The long, overdue scratching comes next. I buried my nails into my arms, my chest, everywhere the sequins had touched and wounded me. Drops of blood began to swell from my skin. My mother grabbed my arm, but I ripped it away.

  My mother yelled for me to stop it, over and over again and that I was “ruining everything.” There was no disguising the hostility in her voice, or the remnants of cigarettes on her breath.

  The strap around my neck came undone without warning and the top part of the dress fell to my waist, exposing my chest. I didn’t feel humiliated, though, I felt liberated. I just took the rest of the dress off. Horrified shrieks broke out all over. Puppeteer moms and their marionette daughters craned their necks to get a glimpse of the six-year old child going overboard. I had their attention. I dashed off the stage in my undies. My mother raced after me, ordering me to stop.

  Our neighbor from five doors down—she was also a pageant mom—stopped me and told me everything would be okay. She put her arms around me and tried to comfort me. Then my mother pulled me away from her and yelled, “This is my family, Prudence. Mind your own business!”

  “What is wrong with you?” Prudence said to my mother. “I should report you for treating Sophie like that.”

  My mother said, “All right, Sophie. Show’s over. Let’s go home.”

  She carried me across the room like I was a sack of potatoes. We turned a corner and there were no people in sight, so she put me down, grabbed me by my arms, and got right in my face. “You know, I’ve about had it with you. You are careless and disobedient and you can never do anything right. You’re so stupid!” It was the maddest I’d ever seen her. She started slapping my head all over and kept yelling in her angry whisper, “Stupid, stupid, stupid!” I covered my head, but she hit me more. All I could do was screech “Momma!” at her, begging her to stop.

  She was shaking me and yelling, “All those pretty girls did their routines like they were supposed to. Why couldn’t you do that? Why? Why can’t you be like the rest of the girls?”

  “Stop it, Momma!” I whimpered at first, then I yelled. I pushed her back with all my six-year-old might. “Stop it, Susan!” I said, staring into her eyes. My voice came out stern, demanding, furious. She smacked me with the back of her hand, across my face, with such force that I tumbled to the ground.

  She stood over me and said, “Don’t raise your voice at me ever again.”

  I tell Oliver how much it hurt and how I still didn’t cry. I refused to cry in front of her. I was tired of crying. Tired of living like that. I looked right at her and something ignited inside me. Something changed. I became angry...and have been angry ever since.

  She raised her hand like she was about to go at my face again. But then Prudence and two cops caught up to us. For a minute, nobody moved or spoke. We all stared at each other. The lady pulled me up from the floor, and I told the police everything.

  Oliver looks like he doesn’t know what to do. “What did you tell them?”

  “The hell I was going through,” I reply. “We did the mother-daughter act, but it was cynical. The only time she held my hand, hugged me, or kissed me was in front of other people. She hated me so much and I don’t know why...”

  “Don’t say that. She couldn’t possibly have hated you. You were only a little girl.”

  “Yes, she did, Oliver. She told me herself a lot of times. Talk about bad parenting, huh? I was always jealous of other families. I don’t even know who my father is.” I laugh because I don’t see any other way of dealing with what seems like a tragic comedy. “Where other moms loved their daughters, mine did the complete opposite. It’s clear I wasn’t a daughter to her, but she was a mother to me.”

  “Listen to me.” He pulls my face gently. “That was not a parent, Sophie. That was an egotistical, self-absorbed person. Any mother who would lead her child through this kind of nightmare deserves to have her uterus removed, grotesquely.”

  There is no expression of sympathy on Oliver’s face. His stare is sharp, intense.

  “As I was talking to the police, my mother was beside me the whole time and she had this look on her face like...if she ever came face-to-face with me again, she was going to make me regret what I said.” My whole body trembles now and I’m sure Oliver can feel it in just holding my hands.

  He keeps touching me softly and I keep snuffling. “We were both brought up in court. I testified against her. The verdict: guilty. I watched her disappear after that. Never saw her again.”

  “And your aunt was given custody?”

  “Yes. Susan went to prison. I did that, Oliver. I sent her to prison. And she stayed there until she decided to take away her own life. I... killed her. I killed my mother.”

  “You didn’t kill anyone, Sophie. You didn’t do anything wrong. This wasn’t your fault.”

  He pulls me to sit in between his legs and my back leans against his chest.

  “I can feel her,” I say. “I can feel her everywhere, in my dreams, in my nightmares—everywhere I go, it’s like she’s still here, somehow. Like she is still alive. One thing about my mother, she always kept her promises. Sometimes I feel she’ll appear and make me regret it.” I blink and a tear slips out. “I...miss her. Oliver, I miss her so much.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  I DON’T TELL Oliver, but for the past few days since we’ve been sleeping in the same bed, I’ve been wondering if moving in with him was a good idea. The truth is, I rarely see Oliver and it’s been sinking in. When I do, we’re
constantly getting phone calls and checking emails—always working. The difference is that he’s running a billion dollar company and I’m over here, trying to have the right type of look in order to survive in a billion dollar industry.

  Each day I wake up in this castle and watch the morning news on the ultra HD TV facing the living room like I’m trying to impress somebody. I sit at the dining table by myself with a feast of food, great drinks, and enjoy a scenic view so beautiful words cannot describe it. Some nights, when we’re too tired to do anything, Oliver and I laze in bed and read, to ourselves, and aloud to each other. Sometimes I can’t focus on what he’s reading. Other times, we dive into the book, unwind from the day, and fall asleep easier that way. He reads me poetry in French when I can’t sleep. Sometimes we watch funny videos on YouTube or Sci-Fi movies on Netflix. Sometimes he wakes me up in the middle of the night to ask why I’m so far away.

  So I won the lottery. I feel fleetingly guilty.

  Each day I feel a little less empty because I have Oliver and his mansion to fill me up. I can’t help but think I’m building my thoughts around him. It’s scary. As I go about my day, he’s always on my mind.

  I can paint a rainbow, be idealistic, claim such strong feelings can change the world, and think, “great, finally, my love life is now sorted.” I’d be lying to myself if I didn’t admit how easy it is to live with Oliver. At the same time though, there’s constant stress, worrying, and testing to our relationship.

  Will we make it? seems to be the thought rolling around in my brain. I’ve been up on the pink clouds, but reality brings me down to Earth with all my insecurities.

  Around four in the morning, the shit hits the fan. Oliver gets a call on his phone and jumps out of bed. I try not to panic, but when I ask him what’s wrong he says, “It’s just work.”

  I don’t believe him for a second.

  In the closet as he dresses at lightning speed, I walk to him and beg, “Oliver, please, you have to tell me what’s wrong. You’re scaring me.”

  He puts on a brave face. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it. I’ll handle it.”