7
Bea
It was almost six-thirty and I was annoyed at how long it’d taken me to get ready—I was acting just like a nervous teenager! The plan had been to leave fifteen minutes ago, but I’d kept stressing over how to do my hair and what to wear, and now I was worried about being late. At the same time, focusing on perfecting my appearance had been a convenient distraction from the growing nerves I was experiencing the closer the hour of my date came. They were mostly excited nerves for sure, but I also knew that I was stepping out in making such a reckless decision without finding out if this potential suitor was someone my father would approve of. Fulfilling that criteria would be a challenge for most men, so the answer was probably in the negative.
That said, the man had saved me from a criminal, and so there had to be at least one quality there that my father, who was so tough on crime, would approve of.
Trying not to think about it in fear of ruining the evening before it had begun, I finally put my mascara down, picked up my handbag and car keys and headed for the front door. I was wearing a knee-length dress that, although off the shoulder, wasn’t too revealing, and I hoped it was elegant enough for a classy place like the Sacred Rose Restaurant. Because of my curves, I always felt more comfortable pulling off the cute look, rather than the elegant, but I soon found this dilemma to be the least of my worries on hearing the sound of the front door handle turning before I’d even reached it.
My heart skipped a beat; clearly my parents were back far earlier than expected, and I was unprepared to deal with them. If only I’d gone by the clock and left when I was supposed to several minutes ago. Now I’d have to conjure up a reason for being all dressed up…but then I saw my father’s face and didn’t even bother trying to think of a reason.
He looked pissed.
Really freaking pissed.
Something drastic had obviously happened. Neither of my parents had the slightest air of calm on their face, which wasn’t exactly unusual for my father, but the situation must have been really bad for my mother to mirror that expression. My heart sank as I waited for them to tell me what was going on. I had no idea what it could be, but my father couldn’t have had a more disgusted look on his face if he’d been staring at an unflushed specimen someone had left in the upstairs toilet.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” he said, his voice immediately at its most booming before I even had a chance to figure out why.
“Um…what’s wrong?” I asked, backing off from them both towards the kitchen. For the second time in twenty-four hours, I felt threatened, and the nervousness of the last experience meant I wasn’t as stubborn in standing my ground as I might otherwise have been.
“I’ll tell you what’s wrong,” he went on, raising a hand in the air. “This is what’s wrong.”
As his hand came down, I couldn’t help but flinch, even though I was out of arm’s reach. It was only after hearing the sound of paper hitting the kitchen table and seeing my father storm past that I realized he was showing me something instead; the source of whatever the trouble was, no doubt. My father then did something I couldn’t recall in my lifetime, marching over to the kitchen cabinet, lifting out a bottle of whiskey and pouring a glass. He did drink, but only on social occasions as part of the general civility.
“You owe your father an explanation, Beatrice,” Mom said, one hand on her left hip and the other pointing towards the same bunch of papers on the kitchen table.
Stepping forward, I saw that it wasn’t a newspaper as I’d expected, but a bunch of print-offs from what looked like a website. A local gossip site article headline read: ‘Governor Bentley’s Daughter Has Been Very Naughty!’, but it was only on lifting up the first piece of paper that I understood what the problem was. Beneath was a photo of me looking like an absolute disaster—hair messed up, makeup smeared and my clothes all wrinkled. The realization hit home that someone—probably just a member of the public who recognized me rather than a reporter—had taken a snap of me leaving Tantra Nightclub last night. I could just about make out Claire’s arm coming into the shot as she’d been leading me towards a taxi and away to safety, only that was not the picture the story told.
I looked like a drunk, or worse, a drug addict, completely off my head and out of control for all the world to see.
“That’s not what it looks like, I swear,” I said, looking up to explain but finding my parents poised to jump on whatever pathetic explanation I came up with. “I look so bad in that picture because I’d just been atta—”
“Not what it looks like?” my father shouted, smashing the whiskey glass he had just emptied down his throat onto the kitchen floor. “You know very well from your performance this morning what it looks like, and it looks like the truth. While I’m preparing my campaign you’re out on the town behaving like a drunken whore. Have you no shame?”
“I…”
“I’ve told you before, if you ever go out with friends, don’t embarrass me!” he continued, an angry purple vein pulsing in his temple. “So what did you do last night instead? Went straight out and humiliated me by acting like an idiotic little slut!”
“I was attacked!” I said, still trying to explain. “Some guy tried to attack me in the ladies bathroom and we got out of there. That’s why I look like that. I’d been crying, and I didn’t exactly stop to comb my hair.”
But they weren’t listening. My father had his head in his hands in a vain attempt to hold back the temper boiling up within, and my mother didn’t even register the comment when going on to explain what had happened.
“The fundraising event went terribly,” she said. “Some member of the press started attacking your father about his “family values” in light of your behavior outside some nightclub, and no one in the team even had a clue what they were referring to. Eventually one of them managed to get hold of their source; a gossip website with this article.”
“I’m sorry, I understand how bad it might seem without context, but it’s really not how it looks…”
“It looks like you’ve been partying with Charlie Sheen!” she interjected in an acid tone. “And that club you were at…absolutely disgusting. Not to mention dangerous. There was a dead body found outside it in the alleyway last night! Some sort of drug lord, apparently!”
So….my parents thought a nightclub was dangerous, but they didn’t believe me when I said I’d been attacked there? Logical…
“I—” I tried to speak again, but it was no use. Dad could hold back his fury no longer, and he picked up a kitchen chair and broke it against the wall, making me cringe. The fruit basket in the center of the table was also thrown, leaving apples and oranges bouncing around our feet as he continued to vent.
“You had to wait for the Presidential campaign to turn completely delinquent, didn’t you?” he yelled. “Couldn’t put us all out of our misery years ago, Bea? No! Wait for our hard work to be almost complete and then start throwing yourself around like a shameless hussy.”
“I’m not a hussy.”
“Oh, no? Then what are you all dressed up again for this evening? Don’t think you’re going out again to embarrass us some more.”
“A remarkable recovery as well,” Mom added. “Considering how sick you seemed earlier.”
“A remarkable recovery because I was looking forward to tonight!” I said, finding it easier to raise my voice to my mother. “I’m not going to a nightclub, I’m going out for a meal, and I wasn’t drunk last night, I was attacked.”
“Like hell you were! You must think we’re stupid,” Dad bellowed.
“I’m not talking to you like this,” I replied. “You can ask me whatever you like when you’re not shouting, because I’m fed up of it.”
That was meant to indicate that I was leaving, and I made an attempt for the hallway, only my father was having none of it. Exactly how many of my words of explanation had been heard, I had no way of knowing, but even if they would be prepared to accept some of my story when the atmosphere calmed, right there and then I was as good as a ten year old who had drawn on the walls. My father had no intention of letting me go anywhere and lunged out to stop me, grabbing me by the wrist.
The two of us had never discussed the discipline I’d endured as a young girl, and he hadn’t hit me in years, but the threat was still there, simmering under the surface of his anger. The feeling of his grip around my wrist awoke something unexpected in me, as if years of resentment had risen to the surface and, although he was much too strong for me, I found myself fighting back as he raised his hand to slap me hard across the face. It was only an infuriated swing of the arm, and I didn’t aim or intend to hurt him in any way, but I ended up elbowing him sharply in the ribs as I tried to stop his hand from striking me.
Although it was likely my elbow tickled rather than hurt him, the surprise was enough to cause my father to take a step back, and when he became unbalanced by standing on a piece of fruit, he had the good sense to let go. As a result he was able to balance himself without a fall; a preferable result to injuring us both if we’d fallen to the floor, but the control freak had been foiled for a change because of the mess he had caused. I didn’t wait around for any more angry words and abuse. With my handbag and car keys in hand, I was out of the front door and away.
I guess I really was the Governor’s ‘naughty daughter’ now.