Rosethorn

by Ava Zavora

  “I already asked Christa, mom. She told me that a couple people cancelled so there is room." I can tell by Daniel’s face that if his parents had not been there, he would have already flung himself at my feet and begged for my forgiveness. Debbie's still looking at him, her pleasant face broken with an angry frown. The last thing she wants is for me to go.

  “I’d love to, Daniel." I say impulsively in my sweetest voice. “I’ve never been to a wedding before.”

  Relief washes over his face and the brother smirks. Bill looks dumbfounded, and Debbie struggles to look pleasant, all the while masking how upset she is.

  I excuse myself before dessert, saying how I have to get up early tomorrow for Conservatory. Daniel takes me home and I have to sit and listen to him blubber about how his father didn’t mean to insult me, that his father’s plant is full of Chinese workers (so?), how his parents really think I’m a nice girl, etc., etc. I say nothing, but turn away when he tries to kiss me. I can't stand to be touched by him any longer and even his anguish can’t move me.

  What kind of knight was he when he had failed in defending my honor?

  I ran up to my room and cried. It’s 1986. Does everyone think like this and I just don’t know it? I feel defeated and ashamed, although I have no reason to be. My grandfather was governor of his province, my family has had two Miss Philippines, my parents went to a prestigious university in Manila, and I was Guenevere.

  Yet I've just been treated...I can’t even put a word to how I've been treated. What amazes me is how kind they looked, even as they pushed my face into the dirt. And I’ve just promised to go to a wedding full of people just like them.

  June 22, 1986

  My head is ready to explode. My first week of Conservatory and I have had to throw out everything I thought I knew about acting-absolutely everything. It is all so intense. The instructor is harsh and exacting; so different from Mrs. O’Connell, who, although I adore her, apparently has taught me to be nothing more than a ham.

  He pretty much cut everybody to shreds the first day. Some of the younger, more sensitive ones ended up crying. I wanted to cry too, but I didn’t want to incur more of his wrath. He told us all to toughen ourselves up, that being a professional actor meant having to take criticism and rejection and that anybody who couldn’t stomach it should leave right now. No one left, but I think it’s because our tuition’s non-refundable. That’s a lot of money to pay for someone to tell you you’re shit. But he’s right.

  I feel scrubbed raw.

  I’ve decided that I'll give Daniel another chance. I must rescue him from a fate that is surely worse than death—to live a life of ignorance like his parents. There is hope for him—after all he had enough taste and brains to pick me. And I’ve also decided that it must fall to me to educate his family—Perhaps my grace and poise and wit will illuminate their dark, little minds.

  Daniel has pleaded with me over and over again and I can't remain cold to him. I do believe him when he says I am everything to him.

  ...And, I must admit, I am just a little excited to go to a wedding. I’ve been working on a beautiful white eyelet dress with lace. I don’t know how I’ve found the time, but it will be my new costume and my new part-that of the young ingénue, all beauty and truth to shame the witless Woods. I know I'll look angelic and sweet in it.

  I’ve been running from Conservatory to rehearsal and back-so dizzyingly busy. But I love it! This is what it will be like once I go to New York.

  June 25, 1986

  I'm a failure. I have no talent. It's no use.

  June 28, 1986

  At last, a crumb. “You’re finally believable,” he tells me today.

  It has spurred me to broach the subject of New York to Papa. You would have thought I had told him I aspired to be a hooker. I realized then that he consented to Midsummer and the Conservatory to humor me, that he still doesn’t think I am serious or even if I was, that I will change my mind. I now suspect that he allowed me have a boyfriend in hopes that Daniel would distract me.

  I'll never let go of this dream.

  June 30, 1986

  Daniel’s mother has let it be known that it would be a “faux pas” for me to wear white to the wedding. Oh. Just so I understand—It’s perfectly acceptable to ask a guest if she eats cat, but an unforgivable, appalling social misstep for me to wear white to a wedding? Irony, hypocrisy, delusion, and fuck you, bitch, come to mind. It makes me even more determined to go to that stupid wedding, wear white, and flaunt it in her face.

  No, I’ve a better plan. She doesn’t want me to wear white? Then I won’t. She’ll be sorry she ever meddled.

  July 3, 1986

  I can’t stop shaking. I’m not cold, I’m not sick, but I can’t stop shaking. I don’t know where to start. I can barely control my hand to write legibly. But write I must because I can do little else. I already know I won’t be able to sleep tonight. I’m not good for anything else.

  I'm looking at myself in the mirror and tell the girl, the woman there, “Remember this night, remember every detail,” as if I would ever forget.

  The last two nights seem like they happened ages ago. I remember how fast and furiously I sewed a new dress, my anger driving me late into the night. And when I finished it and saw how it fit me, how the deep red silk clung to my body, how I looked seductive in it, I wondered if perhaps it was too much, the neckline a little low, the red a little too provocative, if the cut of it made me too voluptuous.

  I won’t lie and say that I didn’t know it would cause trouble. That’s precisely why I wore it.

  I wrapped myself in a large red shawl to look outwardly demure. Papa only looked disapproving of the color, but could not say anything other than to be home by 10 since I was hurrying out the door with Daniel. I felt a little wild and I could feel in my whole body that something was about to happen today.

  The wedding was held in a church in the city and was beautiful. There were flowers everywhere and the bride wore a gorgeous white silk gown with puffy sleeves. As she walked down the aisle in her white tulle veil, I wondered if I would ever be someone’s bride, ever give my whole life over to someone.

  Everyone I was introduced to treated me nicely and was genuinely warm so I kept my shawl wrapped around me, feeling a little bit ashamed and silly to have worn such a dress. I was made to feel welcome and Daniel's parents were tolerable.

  The reception was held in a lovely old mansion with large windows overlooking the bay and the Bridge. It was huge, with a ballroom in gold and a banquet room with crystal chandeliers and painted ceilings. It even had a garden that was lush with greenery and topiaries and thick bougainvillea in purple and fuchsia that draped over the wide marble terrace. I had never been in such a grand place.

  I again felt warm towards Daniel. I suppose weddings have that effect. It was all very romantic and aroused such longing in me that it made me restless.

  I didn’t even know what I longed for. I watched the whole room, seeing how the bride and groom looked at each other, the comfortable way men placed their hands on the small of their wives’ backs, the coy looks enjoyed between future lovers, the way Daniel’s brother, Alex, caught almost every woman’s attention and his smile as he went from one to the other, bending close, making each laugh and quiver with anticipation.

  Daniel is sitting beside me telling me that I’m the most beautiful girl in the room, with adoration in his eyes and although I’m flattered, he has nothing to do with the inexplicable longing I feel.

  Instead I want to run away from him so I can be alone. So pretending to go look for the ladies room, I leave him and the press of people, the tinkle of glass and silverware, the buzz of conversation. I wandered around the mansion, even past where it was allowed for guests to go, looking at antique furniture and portraits of people long dead and gone, seeking something, not knowing what.

  I found a room with a piano and sitting down, began to play. Music always calms me and so I tried to play away this restlessness,
this dissatisfaction through Beethoven, but it only made it worse. I could only start it and forgot the rest. I could not play without the music in front of me. I felt stoppered and bottled with what, I didn't know.

  “Is there anything you can’t do?" I knew who it was before I even turned around.

  Daniel’s brother, Alex, stood at the doorway, champagne glass in hand. I was irritated that he had witnessed me fail and by that lazy look on his face, the same look he had given to all the silly, giggling girls in the other room.

  “I can’t remember the rest." I banged on the keys to express my discord.

  He walked over and sat next to me. I saw his face as he saw where my shawl had fallen open to reveal my dress underneath. He was close enough so that I could smell the wine on him. He stared at me so intently, no smile now, that I knew I should cover myself and go back to where Daniel was. But I didn’t. Instead I grew warm under his glance, noticing how Daniel resembled him, but how different one was from the other.

  “Play something for me,” he asks, his voice easy with the knowledge that I would do as he wants.

  “I play for myself." I draw my shawl and stand up, but he holds my arm to keep me from walking away. I let him keep me there.

  “Please. Just for me. Something from Camelot. A private performance." I don’t trust the silkiness of his voice.

  “If you didn’t think it was worth your time to drive up and see your brother perform, I’d rather not waste my time giving you a recap." He hangs onto my arm, despite my accusation, as if he knows already that I'm running lines.

  “I’m a jerk,” he says with another one of his easy smiles. “If it helps, I am sorry now that I missed it." It's maddening how every word he utters is lush with meaning. “I’m just not a big fan of musicals." He lets go of my arm. “They’re irrelevant."

  “Irrelevant?" I say tightly, restraining myself.

  “King Arthur, Guenevere, Camelot? What does that have to do with anything going on today? It’s a fairy tale, a lullaby so that people could sleep at night while the whole world collapses around them. It has nothing to do with what people should worried about.”

  “For someone who’s supposed to be educated, you’re as ignorant as your parents." I feel some triumph in seeing him color. “Camelot is about the world collapsing; it’s about ideals and how it’s important to hold onto them instead of giving into selfish desires. If you knew anything about the play you would see how it is relevant. For all time." He opens his mouth to say something, but I continue, not caring that I'm getting carried away.

  “And what’s wrong with fairy tales and lullabies anyway? What’s wrong with making people happy and helping them forget their troubles for a couple of hours? Does art have to depress you to be respectable? What good does that do?" I don’t know why I'm so angry or why I chose for him to bear the brunt of it, rather than Daniel or his parents.

  He has lost his mocking look and just says simply, “I stand corrected. As I said, you’ve no idea how sorry I am I missed it."

  “Your brother,” I say almost viciously, to break the way he is looking at me, the way I must be looking back at him, “was very good in it. He didn’t say so, but I know he was disappointed that you never made it."

  I remembered how Daniel seemed to shrink, fade into the background when his brother was in the room, remembered the dozens of pictures of Alex in the living room, Alex bare-chested in the water, a ferocious look on his face as he is about to throw a ball, Alex accepting swim medals, Alex in a tux, but I couldn't remember if there had been any photos of Daniel displayed.

  “I don’t think at any point was Daniel disappointed,” he says with a laugh. “Far from." He's looking at me, teasing me with a look, and I'm angry that takes nothing seriously. “I’m the one you should pity.”

  “Pity you?" I'm the one who laughs now. “You’ve never been pitied your whole life. You’re the star, the one that everybody pays attention to. You’re smarter, faster, and you’ve never had to work for anything. You’ve eclipsed Daniel since he was born. Even I can see that."

  A thrill runs through me when I see that he's struck speechless, not at all expecting this from me.

  “Is that what he told you?" His eyes are crinkling and he's unsure of himself, for once.

  “No. He doesn’t have to tell me anything. Everyone can see you're the favorite son. You like him in your shadow, don’t you? Is that why you couldn’t be bothered to see him succeed in something that has nothing to do with you?" I knew it to be true as soon as I said it and felt powerful.

  He sat looking at me for a long time, his eyes traveling from my face down to my body, then to my lips. Shaking his head he said, “I don’t feel sorry for Daniel one bit."

  I hear music coming from the banquet room and realize how long I’ve been gone. “He’ll be looking for me." I wrap my shawl around me as I walk out, knowing how he watched me.

  “If you won’t sing, then will you dance with me?" I hear him call out.

  I don’t reply, but my face, my whole body is aflame, and I'm shaking. I want to stop in the hallway and calm myself, but I don’t want him to catch me so affected. It was nothing, I tell myself. He paid you no special attention, no more special than all the other girls he was talking to earlier. He’s just another actor, just like the one who plays Puck, steadily making his way from each fairy to the next, Midsummer just a backdrop for his conquests.

  I pass a mirror in the dark hall and see my eyes glittering in the darkness.

  I find Daniel or Daniel finds me, asking where I’ve been and I shake my head. He asks me if I’m okay, if I’m well, for I look strange. Everyone is in the ballroom dancing. Daniel leads me to the edge and putting his arms around me, we slowly turn to the music. Laying my head on his shoulder, I search the entire room and see Alex with one of the bridesmaids, whispering in her ear as she blushes. He smiles when he catches me looking at him.

  “Kiss me, Daniel,” I command. And Daniel kisses me. I close my eyes and we turn to the music. I feel sickened and sway. I tell him I need to sit down and so we sit in a corner as the disco music blares loudly. Everyone is gyrating to KC and the Sunshine Band and ABBA and it all seems so tawdry to me. Everything's disgusting.

  I tire of Daniel hanging on me so I ask him to steal some champagne. As soon as he gets up, I, too, leave the ballroom and escaping, find the door to the gardens. I find a stone bench in the darkness, hidden from view by the giant ferns and hydrangea bushes. The evening air is slightly chilly, but the fog has not come in yet and I can see the bridge far off set against an indigo sky full of brilliant stars. It's all too beautiful. I don’t know what to do with myself.

  So I sit and stare out. Behind me I can hear that the disco has been replaced by big band music. Ella Fitzgerald is crooning “Isn’t it Romantic?" Then I hear laughter coming nearer and start. I recognize Alex’s voice and a female, probably one of the bridesmaids. Can’t I be left alone? They're on the marble terrace and don't see me. I sit still, measuring my chances of slipping through the foliage without being detected.

  “Look at this view,” She says breathlessly.

  “It’s gorgeous,” he says. She giggles.

  “You’re not looking at the view,” she says, mocking but flattered all the same.

  “Yes, I am,” he murmurs. I hear sounds of them noisily kissing. Disgust fills me. I don’t want to hear anymore so I slowly get up to sneak through to the other side.

  I hear someone approach and break the silence. “Sorry, Alex." It’s Daniel.

  The girl giggles again.

  “Hey, buddy." Alex says lazily.

  “You haven’t seen Stella around have you?”

  “No. Try the piano room.”

  “Okay. Sorry, again." Daniel sounds confused and I hear his footsteps going back to the ballroom.

  “Poor kid." The girl laughs.

  “You have no idea. He’s a dog for her.”

  “Is it yellow fever?" My face burns. Stupid bridesmaid. All whit
e and pink, you’re nothing but a notch on his belt. “I hear she thinks she's going to be a big movie star or something.”

  He laughs. “Noooo. She wants to be in the theatah,” he says in an English accent. She laughs again. “Dan says that’s all she ever talks about. I told him not to get involved with actresses-they’re all high-strung and neurotic. And this one’s no different. She likes being the center of attention and he’s only too happy to give it to her. She’s stringing him along like a little tease."

  “I hear you dated an actress in L.A."

  “Honey, every other girl in L.A.’s an actress or wants to be one. But none of them are as cute as you."

  “Don’t you have a girlfriend?”

  “She’s in Connecticut."

  They say nothing else and I knew they were kissing again. I rise and almost run, barely taking care to be quiet. “Neurotic and high-strung” kept echoing in the dark, his hated voice and the girl’s stupid, vapid laughter playing over and over in my head.

  I stumble back into the ballroom where Daniel finds me again. I shake in outrage, tears pouring down and tell him to take me home right now, that I’ve been insulted for the last time. He's shocked and asks me what has happened, who has insulted me.

  “Your brother,” I say, “said I was neurotic and high-strung and a tease,” I spit out. “Is that what you think of me, Daniel? Because if it is, I can’t be with you anymore,” he protests, almost in tears himself.

  “It must be a mistake.”

  “I heard him, Daniel. I’m tired of being put down. If you won’t take me away right now, then I’ll walk back home."

  “Wait. Please wait. Give me a minute, I’ll get him to apologize." Daniel is looking around wildly. “Just wait. Don’t leave." I say nothing and although he is still unsure that I won’t leave, Daniel walks determinedly to the terrace.