“True,” I conferred, halfhearted.
Ellie soon took a seat between her two biggest sheep, swallowing soundlessly after handing me a glass. “This is nice,” she said to which I agreed. “There’s something so much sadder about drinking by myself.”
I thought it was good she found humor in it, but the image unsettles me: a small, neglected wino that hasn’t seen home in weeks surrounded by nothing but stained cups and fleeced hiccups of friends. Scary. “Is it really so lonely, Tippecanoe?” I asked her, using her quirky nickname. “You got along perfectly with all the Congressmen at the party. Why don’t you consider them friends? Who’re they if they’re not?”
“Silly Tyler,” she persisted, “friends don’t get paid to adore you, and friends aren’t handed down from your daddy.” The fair-haired girl shrugged and pursed her baby lips. “They’re empty acquaintances, neighbors and family friends, that’s all.”
“What about your family?” I pressed. “How often you see them, your mother? Surely, there’s someone you keep in regular contact with.” I sniffed the spirit. Cherry and cedar.
Ellie’s head fell to her right shoulder as if a string was cut. “Much of that isn’t left. Don’t know much and wouldn’t like to. Most of them are mean-spirited crooks, liars. Mother? Heck if I know. Haven’t seen her in two months, heard her in one. We like to keep it that way. I don’t mind all that often.”
Cautiously nipping, giving the wine a spin, my mouth felt weird and full with this dry sensation. It went down like I swallowed the strip of ribbon from Ellie’s hair. My palate stood somewhere between raspberry and plum, infused with some simple spice, something wooden. It was very powerful, but it wasn’t over-bearing. It was very good in that it was hardly acidic. Definitely not something Mama tucked away in her nightstand.
“How’s that? Is she estranged? Your father must keep an open book for the ladies.” I smirked but she wasn’t looking.
Delving her nose into her soft lamb’s tuft, Ellie Anne put her glass down, speech thoughtful and muffled. “No. Not at all. But she’s a very independent woman, could do better without me. I was an accident. I got in the way of her career and then, with Daddy’s office win, she felt ‘smothered’ and ‘unappreciated.’ Never in love with the idea of raising a child, she’d constantly pawn me off to someone.
“That’s good and bad. I mean, why would I want to be around someone who won’t want to be around me? Why should I miss someone who won’t miss me?” She closed her eyes. “And regulars? No, not willing ones, not mutual ones. Gilbert’s always calling, trying to set things up, but his innuendo gets old quicker than his father can fabricate a story. It’s ridiculous.”
Countenance drooping, I joined her on the floor and clasped her shoulder. She shivered. “That’s too bad. At least you don’t have to deal with her when you’re with your father. Or what’s within the vicinity of him. You don’t like Gilbert much. Is there a past with him, did you date?” I wondered aloud.
Crimping her tippy toes, she scowled. “No, he’s handsome as hell, but Gil can be a real jerk. World-class. All he wants out of anybody is to make them jealous. Only reason I stomach that’s because I want to beat him at his game, know he has a low-profile heart an’ personality. Nobody that young is completely evil or obnoxious, I think.”
I lowered a brow. My methodology was a bit different. “How couldn’t kisses get that out of him?”
“Gil would desire much more than kisses,” she insinuated, dismissively waving her hand.
I reasoned, “What he desires means nothing. He’d have to wait. He’d be lucky to have you. You get so depressed; it might be wonderful to have someone who wants so much of your attention and affection. You say his father’s a politico too. That’d be pretty perfect, huh?”
Ellie shook her head, looking distant again. “It’s not that simple. Besides, I don’t like boys. I could never have one. You’ve seen how big my dad is. He scares them all away.”
Scrunching my face, I countered, “But he’s never with you. What do you mean you don’t like boys?”
She repeated herself in the same uninterested tone.
Taken aback, I scooped, “Just cuz you’re told? You said you want to be revolutionary, you’re gorgeous!” (I was a bit jealous, in fact.) “Guys and gals must fight over you all the time. Seems like a waste to be by yourself when you could be happy thinking sagacious thoughts with someone else.”
She brought the glass of liquor to her lips to finish its contents and replenish it once more. If I weren’t looking, I bet she’d inhale mine. No way I bought she wasn’t in it to get sloshed. That’s not what sad people do. They look for pricey placebos, supposed escapes.
“You just don’t care about boys, huh?” I tried to sound compassionate, but Ellie Anne seems rather immune to talk. “Do you like girls then, Ellie Anne?” I wondered, treading carefully. I never knew a queer before. If she was one, I’d think they’re pretty neat, like a perfect, compulsive alien race.
But this drug her brows further down. “No, I’m not a lesbian, you ignoramus!” she shouted in surprise, contemptuous of something she wouldn’t share.
“Then what is it?” I questioned, balling my hand on her closest knee. She was so warm and soft, like a kitty cat; even her few unshaven hairs were inviting to touch. I wanted her trust, a friend so comely and kind and smart. At home, friends were so basic and forgettable.
Her white hands held her distressed mug. “Goddamn it, Dahlia, my own family doesn’t have time or love for me! I’d like family love first. Doesn’t matter what I want or think, okay? That’s how it boils down.” Her voice cracked, quaver sharp as steel wool. So moody today, I thought.
“I’m sorry it’s that way, Ellie Anne,” I comforted to no avail, ill-equipped to convey emotion as severe as she does, lacking the education and verbal skills. I found solace in chipping away at my nail polish as that hand rested on her knee.
She threw my hands back at me. “Quit touchin’ me,” she admonished, accent broadening. “You’ll just be lyin’ anyhow. You’re entertaining. You’re just listening an’ sayin’ what I ‘want’ to hear. But nobody wants anything to do with me, I know this.” Her blonde brows kept twitching slightly, like some bad vision was being continuously scraped against her retinas.
This panged me because I was lying and I didn’t want to be anymore. I wanted to be Rhea and hug her and tell her I never knew my father either; my mother’s a destitute snipe hunt that has no parenting skills either. I wanted to give her this credible, inspiring anecdote, but that just didn’t jibe with Dahlia.
Though I didn’t feel particularly good about jimmying a response on my inexperienced tongue, I’d feel worse about not.
“Ellie Anne,” I started, “you can’t say those things to make yourself feel terrible. That’s all black. What about all the bright white? What about all the prestige? You’re beautiful as a cherry blossom, wealthy as an A-list actress, and you have conscience enough to know Washington isn’t right, isn’t normal. You’ve got impeccable taste; all you’re missing are a few numbers in your phone.
“That’s why I started talking to you. You are different from everyone around you, and maybe you are better than them. If they don’t see that, that’s their problem. You don’t talk like they do. You talk pretty like your daddy. I bet you know right and wrong and legal better than a cop, and that’s just as useful whether you’re a saint or Satan! You don’t even walk like a normie for Christ’s sake! With all this loneliness—freedom—you can do whatever you want! Picking dingy old black is stupid! Pick out something as amazing as your wardrobe. Pick up some freakin’ confidence.”
Though my rhetoric could use fewer colloquialisms, Ellie buried her nose and mouth in her babydoll hand, emitting a few scuffed sniffles as her frame jerked in time. Dragging away a few tears beside her nose, Ellie cried, “Of course you’re right, and I know, to some degree I know, but I can’t comprehend much right now. You don’t understand, but you’ll see. If you and An
thony follow me and Daddy, you’ll see. Please don’t leave. Please pick me up. Please don’t go. I didn’t want to yell. I don’t want you to be mad or leave. Please, keep me close, a friend.”
I couldn’t disobey if there was a gun pressed against my throat. I couldn’t obey her abstinent rule any better. You can’t see a crying girl and not want to stop it. You can’t go through life all wrong and not do something right. So I embraced her until my arms went numb and my brain went dull, until the sun met the sky again. I promised her everything she yearned for and I promised myself that my lies would not go sour.
Chapter Five
6/9
Most of the last day of Convention, I spent without my Mossling. In the morning, she wasn’t in my grasp, must’ve slipped like a ghost and packed away her lambs. She wasn’t hidden in the lobby, reading a philosophy book, or by any watering hole. At noon, I didn’t see her surveying any of the produce shops or through the window of any café. A couple hours past and there remained no sign of engaging, innocent Ellie. By 3 o’clock, I began to worry that she’d done something stupid, gotten into some snag. Mama always warned pretty girls attract the deadliest evil.
Though I quickly trashed that approach, knowing Ellie isn’t dumb and that I shouldn’t think of her so low or vulnerable.
Right before the sun set and guilt crept into my chest, I saw that unmistakable blonde skirt across the hotel parking lot.
“Where’ve you been, Ellie Anne?” I scorched, cutting across the pavement like an apprehensive mother. “Haven’t seen you all day!”
Her head snapped back and she beamed, fishing around her purse for her key. “You know, here, there, everywhere.”
“Ellie!” I moaned. “I thought you were abducted!” I sensationalized. “By a creeper or aliens! How the heck did you get by me this morning?”
The girl only shrugged, all cutesy. “Who cares?”
I gaped like Wile E. Coyote.
“You’ll freshen up and come back to the room with me tonight, I hope,” she goaded with all her shiny teeth. “My daddy will be there to meet you. We can sell him further on Anthon—”
“He’s busy,” I replied without any knowledge of such, hands stationed at my hips. This attachment was really getting the worst of me. Like Detective J. Edgar and Clyde Tolson.
“Fine,” she said nonchalantly, plucking the plastic room card amidst her spare change. She shook her shoulders. “That just means we can talk him up any way we want. Maybe it’s best. Mr. Connors is very … informal anyhow. That could make for a bad impression. My father is very finicky with who he associates. No offense, but that’s how it is.”
At the elevator, I hovered by her tail and pressed the button for her as she balanced bags in her hands.
“I’ll see you at eight,” she breezed and did something extraordinary. She pecked my cheek like it was nothing—usual—leaving me rubbing my fuzzy, brightened cheek without rebuttal, with a pert flick of fingers as “’Til then” as the doors locked between us.
~***~
I actually spent an obscene time speculating if that little kiss meant anything. Ellie said she’s not a lesbian, but Ellie didn’t say she isn’t bisexual … “I don’t like boys,” I recalled her saying, but then I remembered another thing: What am I thinking? I have a boyfriend (more of a manfriend, but a lover with a penis nonetheless) and she— I stopped, wide-eyed. Ellie doesn’t know that. No one knows that.
By the time I applied myself to the Mix It, Match It, and Accessorize It game and exuded all my straightness on Anthony, I calmed myself into believing that if Ellie’s kiss meant anything, it woulda been on the lips. I’m safe, I thought. Awkward conversations don’t have to find me! Ellie only expressed what rejuvenation gave her. Fine. Fine by me.
And fine it will be I told myself in regards to finally meeting vintage-chic Mr. Moss. Yet buds of worry kept popping up like weeds and bubbling in my stomach. I had to see Ellie before eight.
“‘Finicky!’” I phrased when I got there. “I’m not good with that. What the hell do I know? What the hell am I going to do? I’m as ‘informal’ as Anny!” I shuddered.
Ellie Anne smirked and leant on her calf, teasing me trivially. “That’s what you call your daddy? Anny?” she said.
“Yes, well we can’t all be as verbally gifted as you, Princess Pink,” I taunted her monotone wardrobe, slamming my hand against one of the walls.
Ellie Anne laughed again, mumbling euphorically, thinking me a great jester and tilting her head to the side. As my friend rested upon the window, she dazzled in the fierce illumination of sunset, the descending rays lighting up her yellow hair like a torch; dying flecks spilled through the loops of her bows and exploded on the metallic clips. For just a while, it seemed she harnessed the light.
She turned back to me and asked, “Dahlia, don’t you have any fantasies?”
I strained to view her ethereal quality in the radiance, at times wanting to slap her for it. “Yes of course, but what’s t—”
“Well, desert them. They’re no good. They give you things as nasty as doubt and worry and ambition. That’s your problem. Fantasies, overthinking.”
I huffed. “Ellie Anne, you’re going to make me lose it one day. Asking me to turn off nature, getting me to pick apart your babble. No wonder your daddy’s gone all the time! You’re a riddler, an absolute loon! It must take some time to recover.”
Proud as a politico, Ellie Anne swung her head. She couldn’t shield that sequin smile. “Dahli, you’re the one about to bust over a sleep-over! Gosh! Here, let me give you the run-down with a healthy dose of reality: First, you’re NOT your daddy, your Anny, so stop sweating it! Being his soldier for one evening is more than he could’ve done by himself, by default.
“Second, I like you and that’s all that matters. Daddy will take that into consideration well enough. Third, if he doesn’t like Anny, it’s not the end of the world. I’ll still see you; your father will still have the same shot at winning his dream, as perverse of a dream as it is.” She twirled around the pine planks in boredom, in her polka dot socks, ruffling the crinoline of her petticoat. So simple-minded, so rational.
Perfect legs, perfect legs, I found myself saying when she did that, the tips of her knee-highs on display, their itchy lace mouths brushing against the other like Hydrangeas in a windy field. A little faster that childish dance and I would’ve caught glimpse of her panties.
“Anyway,” she sighed, taking to her tippy toes, “if you must know, if you haven’t assumed, Daddy’s a classic gentleman.” She raised her arms above her head and connected them like a music box dancer, elongating her already lanky form. “That may mean you have to adjust your tongue. Poor grammar, chopped words, and slang offend him. I notice you play with your hair in between bites; none of that.”
Pinpointing my flaws on demand as she goose-stepped, Ellie painted my face like a clown. “Sure, I can cut that out,” I assured, struck narrowly in the ego.
“You know, obviously, when Daddy comes home I want to know about him, not what happened around him, but I’ll take reign and steer the conversation. You just nod and look desperate ’til you have somethin’ nice and wonky to contribute, okay?”
Her marionette doll, I nodded like my strings were tugged.
She hugged me and said everything would be fine, her hot, moist little sentiments caressing my ears and taming my disposition.
Telepathic, I suppose, she got the door before her father got the chance to knock. “Father!” she cheered, divulging her wingspan, putting her breadth at his disposal, mug as alive as I’ve ever seen it.
Straightaway, Mr. Moss accosted her, more doting than I anticipated. “Ellie,” he cooed softly as a nightingale, head atop the hair busheled in his hands. His eyes flickered on me, ten feet behind, a second that allowed me to see where she got that powerful green. “Sweetheart, I’d forgotten you’d mentioned company, a testament to this faulty memory,” he said.
Pulling on the midsection of his f
ine, green dress shirt, Ellie replied, “Meet Dahlia Connors, daughter of Anthony Connors. He was man of the hour Friday night, do you remember that much, Daddy?”
“An elephant never forgets red affairs,” Mr. Moss proclaimed firmly, smirking self-assured. He extended a hand.
In the dim light of the foyer, he appeared barely old enough to father Ellie. Or perhaps he looked more like a mature man playing dress-up. His dingy gold, subtle curls silhouetted his strong profile like a cape. Lissome when he stepped further into the room, towards the lamps’ skirts to take my hand, my theories disintegrated as sandstorms. His tailored suit and long-legged stature couldn’t hide bulging muscle and graying root.
With slight effort, he crushed the tiny bones in my hand. “Oh. You’ve a firmer handshake than your father already, Dahlia.” He quipped, “He shakes just like a fish.”
I blushed, praying my false coat covered the natural. Politically, what can Anthony do right? I asked myself.
Mr. Moss said I could call him by his first name, Skylar. I chose not to because I’d go on and on about Good Will Hunting and Minnie Driver, but the option was there. He then asked if my father is on board with H.R. 2015, and I just stared at his steady eyes, brain blank.
“I’m only joking,” he admitted after giving me spout to fidget. Clearly, that one went over my head.
But not Ellie’s head; she tittered from behind, pacifying both her guests like a geisha.
I decided I didn’t want to be part of nerdy inside games when Ellie Anne slipped from her pointed feet, beginning to gush about the time she and I had been having, gusting out my jitters like a beer before prom night. She recommended we sit down to the meal she made before it goes cold.
Naturally, Mr. Moss took the head of the table after draping his suit jacket over the chair. “Dahlia,” he besought calmly, unfastening his bowtie, “you’re getting along with El well, aren’t you?”
“Inseparable, really,” his daughter chimed from the kitchen.
Posture as presidential as any Kennedy, I solemnly agreed. I folded my hands, but quickly had they disbanded as I thought it appeared too snobbish. “We haven’t stopped conversing since Anthony’s fundraiser,” I enunciated properly.
Imperative Fate Page 4
