Bridgette
“Where do you get the calmness to win these close games?” Iris Kent, Sports News’ football correspondent, asked Scott who was on the podium answering questions after another closely fought game, this time against New York.
His mesmerizing green eyes were zoomed in on camera and his lips turned up into a smile, “It’s all the years of practice and drinking coconut juice.”
A rumble of laughter echoed in the media room.
“Coconut juice?” Another reporter asked, honing in on the drink that Scott sometimes drank when he was with me. It was his favorite, and by the time this interview ended, I had an inkling that companies that sold coconut juices would be calling his agent for endorsement opportunities.
“Yeah, it’s high in fat which the body needs and I heard that it’s also a rich of source of potassium, calcium, among others.” While everything he was saying was true, he was also humoring the journalists. Although every aspiring quarterback in the country would now be stocking up on coconut juice, Scott’s prowess in last-minute touchdowns had become the focus of his recent interviews.
His close games were bound to send me to cardiac arrhythmias, and every time he threw the ball at the last second when the Royals were trailing by a touchdown or a field goal, I sent a prayer to the gods of all football stadiums.
I didn’t pray.
But for Scott, I did.
I wanted the best for him because I believed that he belonged in the grandest of all stages. He not only held the swagger of a great football player, he also held the respect of his teammates.
I’d seen it in the interviews that they gave after their games, it was all, “Scott this, Scott that.”
But one thing that he wasn’t was the arrogance that came with the swagger.
He was extremely confident, but he never once said that it was all about him, unlike his back-up quarterback who has been making a scene outside of the field.
Dex had texted me three times since I saw him at the club and I hadn’t responded to his texts. Whatever we had in the past belonged in the past.
I loved him, but the second he made the choice to leave me was also the second I made a promise to myself to never look back and to forget about him.
He would always be the boy who held my heart and my body first, but he sure wouldn’t be the last.
Scott hadn’t asked much about Dex, but I was inclined to tell him, especially since they were teammates. It was hard to find the chance to talk to him about my past when we were both focused on what we had at the moment, and now with the limited face time we had with each other because of his football schedule and my school schedule, we made the most of our time by concentrating on us.
He’d been gone for a little over two weeks, and the magnitude of his absence was weighing me down.
I missed the warmth his body provided when I woke up next to him under the sheets.
I missed the way he’d touch my face when I was talking and the way he twirled my hair on his thick fingers when he was sitting beside me.
With our relationship still under wraps, closeted from the eyes of the public and blanketed from the media, we tried our best to act like we were just friends when we went out.
We maintained a healthy amount of space between us, but once the lights were out in the club or the restaurant where we were eating, his hands found mine and I found comfort in it.
Did u see my interview? A text came in from Scott, Or are you in class?
I just saw it on my phone. Coconut, huh? I responded back. Out of class now, headed to the lab.
The amount of time I’d been spending at the lab was humongous. It had tripled in hours, so I had to cut down my time at Paint Me Mine. I missed the precious cuties who returned my love for art, but if I wanted to be a top candidate for NASA’s new program, I had to show that I could put in all the work and hours into developing my skills to become a topnotch astronaut.
I was coming in with a non-piloting background which meant that I had to successfully fulfill my degree requirements along with the added requirements that NASA had piled on for the minimum application. I was lucky that my advisor had an ear in NASA, and she was one of the few who had known of the new program before it was released to all the major universities.
I miss you. Another text from Scott.
My heart lurched at his admission. By the time I was out of the science lab, Scott would be sleeping heavily in his hotel room. I’d gotten to talk to him for about ten minutes yesterday before I went to class and him to another presser.
Miss you, I texted back along with a kissy face emoji.
Reece greeted me when I entered the room. Today we were in the Solar Tower to create the sunspot drawings that would be downloaded to the database that had been in existence since 1917.
I turned my phone off, and looked at the computer screen in front of me.
I missed Scott and there were times when a feeling nagged at me; that things wouldn’t work out between us.
Our schedules were crazy.
Our lives were so far from being parallel.
Right now, we were living in different time zones, and while technology connected us, deep in my heart I knew that it wasn’t going to sustain us for a long time.
“How are you?” Reece asked, his voice gentle. He was the guardian of the expensive telescope that he was holding with care. He’d welcomed me with open arms when Professor Herris asked him if I could work my hours in the lab to fulfill the NASA requirements.
I shrugged my shoulders and responded, “As best as anyone with less than five hours of sleep could be.”
“Ah. College life,” he answered, his back to me as he was already collimating the scope to focus on a spot. As a grad student with dual majors, he’d been at the university longer than I had, “If we only had thirty hours in a day.”
“I’d still get less sleep,” I laughed as I reviewed the data from yesterday.
He took his eyes off the telescope and met mine, “You’re young, Bridgette. You should be out there, partying, and getting hangovers on school days. Why are you here? Why do you want to spend so much time looking up at the sky?”
He was being facetious, but since we’d be spending the next five hours together and he was a mammoth of astronomical knowledge, I said, “Because like you, I find the skies more appealing than what’s down below.”
A broad grin spread over his face. The square shaped frame of his glasses complimented his face and the light brown eyes that reflected understanding winked at me, “This is why I like having you here, Ms. Cordello.”
I harrumphed and said, “You like having me here because I bring in all the snacks.”
Today, I brought his favorite Kettle-cooked potato chips along with bottled green tea drinks.
“And I do all the calculations for you…” I added, his eyes landing on the paper bag filled with goodies that I was waving in the air. “Without any errors.”
He chuckled, stepped away from the telescope, and grabbed the bag that I was offering.
“Thank you. Are you going to be okay here?” His question was rhetorical. He hadn’t left his post for hours and I recognized this from the first time I met him. He was so dedicated to his craft that the hunger pains were ignored.
“Go,” I shooed him away. Food wasn’t allowed inside the room so he had to step outside to eat. “Take an hour or five.”
“You’re cool, Bridgette,” he said, smiling, his big hands already rummaging inside the bag of snacks.
Before stepping out the room, he uttered, “It’s already set up for –“
“I got it.” My hand waved him away, he was a perfectionist, but aren’t we all?
I looked through the eyepiece and I could already distinguish the view he wanted to follow for today. The hydrogen-alpha narrow bandpass filters and aluminum-coated glass attenuated filters safely protected my eyes so I could view the sunspots. The temporary phenomena in the sun’s sphere allowed us to predict space weather and the state of the ionized part of the Earth, which greatly affected radio and sat communications.
Our observations may seem tedious, but it had a vast effect on the study of the effects of global warming.
I watched as a giant sunspot image fill my eyes, and I felt a sense of peace spread throughout my body.
Why do I want to spend all of my time looking up at the sky?
And in a few years, spend all of it up there in the sky?
Because whenever I looked up at the sky, I felt how small I was.
That no matter how big my problems were, they didn’t even make a dent in the grand scheme of things.
And it didn’t matter what kind of day I was having, whenever I saw the sun shining, I knew that everything was going to be okay.
After all, if the star at the center of the solar system could fit 1.3 Million Earths inside of it, and showed up every day to light up the world, I was nothing but a spectator to its magnificence.
My thoughts drifted to the man who lit up stadiums every time he played.
He was like the sun.
He generated internal energy that created this intense, magnetic field around him every time he helped his team win a game. Every time he threw or passed the ball, you couldn’t help but be awestruck.
He was the luminous star in the midst of the most experienced and most competitive athletes in the country.
And sometimes I wondered if I would be enough to sustain his interest and attention before he moved on to the women and glamourous stars that were of his caliber that were in the limelight as he was.
Unlike me, a girl who never craved all the glitter and glamour.
A foreboding sadness lingered over me, bringing me back to a time when I was faced with somewhat of the same struggle…
I wasn’t enough for Dex.
Would I be enough for Scott?
And for how long?
“She’s been waiting for ten minutes,” Tre Anderson, my mother’s assistant warned me.
“Are you joining us?” I asked and he shook his head, “Not today.”
Tre had been my mother’s assistant for ten years now. The man deserved an Oscar for all the stuff he put up with.
I gave him a brief hug, nodded my head and walked towards the seat by the window, the view overlooking Beverly Hills and all the land around it.
“Mother…” I greeted her as I pressed my closed lips over her right cheek.
She smelled of Guerlain’s custom-made fragrance for Bettina Cordello.
My mother didn’t wear other women’s perfumes.
Nope.
She had her own scent from every major par fumier.
Chanel. Armani. Dior.
They all caved into her requests to make her a scent that only she could wear. Off-the-market. Not for retail sale.
But her favorite was Guerlain.
And today she was wearing it.
There was only one other person who was allowed to smell the same as her.
Her only daughter.
Me.
But I chose to buy my fruity and cheap body fragrances that were abundant in every mall.
“Bridgette, darling.” Her voice was as warm as thawed ice could be. “It’s been so long.”
“I’m busy with school. I don’t have much time,” I simply said, taking a seat across from her. From my vantage point, I saw that she was wearing a brown-toned Vera Wang suit and Harry Winston’s pear-shaped, round diamond earrings, at least 5-carats in mass.
“Ah.” Her brown eyes that reminded me of my brother’s eyes were masked with disapproval, but she didn’t dare voice it out knowing that this dinner would be shortened to five minutes if she pursued the subject.
Instead she tilted her chin and said, “Your skin looks great.”
“Thanks,” I said without inflection, knowing that there was a but following her observation.
“But there are visible bags under your eyes.” Her lips thinned into a line, “And your hair needs to be conditioned. I can have Tre set up an appointment with Richard. He has a salon based in Beverly Hills. It’s not that far from you.”
“I’m good.” I shook my head, “I don’t have time for a salon appointment. I’m really busy.”
“I’m sure he can go to your apartment,” she said, not hearing my excuse.
“I’m really okay,” I said with a sigh. “My hair is fine as it is.”
A server came up, bringing appetizers of rolled lobster and eel, along with spinach and artichoke dip. My mother never waited for me to order, she always went ahead and ordered everything that was on the menu, along with special requests for the chef to make.
“I hate to see you so stressed out, darling.” Her tone was soft, but it didn’t disguise the disapproval underlining it, “Dr. Fortez wouldn’t approve of you being so stressed.”
“Mother, Dr. Fortez advised me to go off and explore the world,” I remarked. The last time I saw him, he gave me the stamp of approval and after a decade of being under his watch, he said it was time for me to fly out of the coop and find myself.
“He doesn’t know what’s best for you.” Now she was contradicting herself.
“And you do?” I took a bite of the warm chip and savored its saltiness. Mothers, they said, knew best.
Not mine.
Mine knew what was best for her and her continued hunger for fame.
“I know that doing this –“ she waved her hand in the air, “college thing is not your path.”
We’d discussed this twice, and the last time I walked out of our brunch.
In the middle of The Plaza’s swanky breakfast, I’d thrown my napkin on the chair and walked out without looking back. A month later, I’d moved to California to start college.
This time, I let her talk.
I wasn’t up for her usual antics, but Bishop had made me promise that I would sit through dinner with our mother, or he wouldn’t be taking me back to Aspen for winter break.
“Your place is by my side, you should be learning how the business works. We’d work so well together, and you could be the glamorous socialite I’d always dreamed of my daughter being.” She talked as she sipped her wine.
I’d never dreamed of being a socialite.
She was right – it was her dream.
A dream that had been imprinted in her mind since the day I was born.
When I stopped chatting at two, she’d also stopped bringing me to photo shoots. She’d become embarrassed that her dream of having a ‘perfect’ daughter wasn’t going to come to fruition. She’d hidden me from the media and without my brother’s pursuit, I wouldn’t have been under the care of Dr. Fortez, and I wouldn’t have been given the chance to go to school, all because of my mother’s shame.
She didn’t defend me from my father’s outbursts either.
When he’d lash out at my brother for not doing what he wanted him to do during the rigorous, brutal trainings he subjected him to, our father would say nasty things about me – how I was a freak, how I was stupid, how I was a mute who didn’t know crap.
Physical abuse left visible scars.
Mental and emotional abuse degraded a person’s sense of worth, and without my brother I wouldn’t be the person that I was today.
“I’m not interested in the beauty business,” I said, while continuing to eat the salad that the server had placed in front of me a few minutes ago.
“Maybe if you spent time in Manhattan or at one of my headquarters in Europe, you’d change your mind. You’re my blood. You have a face that could launch all of my collections. Maybe if you could take some time off from college, you could see what a glamorous life you could have.” Her eyes sparked with enthusiasm, masking the previous indifference she had when she talked about college.
It took me two years to say a complete sentence without stuttering.
Five years to express my feelings to another person while looking them in the eye.
Abuse can affect children in many ways.
To me, it robbed me of my childhood and speech.
The spotlight was my parent’s ultimate goal.
Away from it was mine and my brother’s dream.
This time I made sure that she heard me, so one day when she brought the subject up again, she’d have no doubts.
“Mother. I live to be away from the poison of fame. There is nothing more I want than to be an invisible person who worked my way through college and reached my own dreams. There is no space in my mind, not in my dreams, not even in my nightmares, where I would want to work with you.”
Her expression soured and it was hard to imagine Bettina Cordello ugly, but this time, she couldn’t hide her disgust. “There’s nothing for you in college. You’re going to finish a degree and then what? You’re going to hide away in a lab for the rest of your life?”
“Sounds perfect to me.” I didn’t even tell her I was working towards becoming an astronaut. Just imagine what she’d say if I couldn’t maintain whatever beauty routine she imagined I did in space.
“You’re wasting the face that I gave you,” she snarked and turned her face away from me.
“It’s my face to waste,” I replied, and sipped on the passionfruit iced tea she’d ordered for me. I had no doubt that she maintained a file for me. It was the way Bettina worked, even with her children, she used her manipulative skills to keep herself at an advantage. It didn’t help that she had no hold over me. I had my own money, and I had no problem reneging her demands.
The server approached our table again and this time, he had filet mignon for my mother. Medium rare was how she liked it.
A plate of ravioli was served for me, and if there was anything that was good about this dinner, it would be this pasta.
She cut into her steak and gave herself a few seconds of silence before she started talking again, “You’re bound to be in front of the media again.”
I spooned pasta in my mouth and savored the cheesy goodness.
“What are you talking about?”
“Scott Strauss isn’t an invisible personality.” Her brown eyes were calculating, trying to inflict anxiety in me, “He’s a popular athlete. It’s not going to be long before you’re faced with tons of paparazzi and the media demanding for your attention.”
I didn’t even ask how she knew about Scott; she had a private investigator on retainer.
“How are you going to deal with it, darling? When everyone on Twitter starts talking about you, your clothes, your hair, the food you eat? How are you going to react when people start gossiping about you on the internet? Will you still be able to keep your idea of being invisible a reality?”
I hated to admit it, but she wasn’t wrong.
“I grew up in the spotlight. I know how to work the camera. I know how to twist them to my advantage. I know how to make them think the way I think.” Her words were slaying me, plunging the edge of a dreaded knife deeper into my truth. “Your brother…he’s well-versed in dealing with the media. But you? You don’t know how tricky they can be. Fame is a drug, it’s what feeds me, and I can admit that I’ve done you wrong because of it and so did your father. But it’s also a tool that you can use to benefit you.”
I gulped the tea that was stuck in my throat, staving off the panic that was rising inside of me.
“You weren’t born to be invisible, sweetheart.” Her tone was placating, but it had the opposite effect on me. “You have the genes that my own models could only dream of. I’m your mother and you’re my daughter. One day you’re going to have to choose between what you were born into and the life you dream of. I’ve talked to Celisse, the media manager at Breaking News. She’s got fifty five percent holdings on major media outlets, including the sleazy ones.”
I couldn’t speak because all this time, I’d been thinking that I’d been lucky that no one had outed Scott and I whenever we went out.
“I’m asking for a summer in Italy.” She laid her cards on the table, “I can control the type of exposure that you have if you want this thing between you and Scott to be kept out of public scrutiny as much as possible. And if you are exposed, I can have them put a spin on it that will entail you to maintain the private life that you so desire.”
Growing up, I never understood the whys of fame.
I just knew the perils of it.
My brother hated it, but he also learned how to make use of it.
“When do you want me to go to Italy?” I asked, knowing that a favor needed to be returned. “I’m going to be busy for the next five years.”
“As soon as your schedule clears up.” An elusive warmth filled her eyes.
My mother was a cold woman. She didn’t hug, she didn’t praise us; she never gave an inch in a deal. But this time, she was making a concession. “I can’t stop time. You dream of being invisible, I dream of being immortal. I’m getting up there in age. You may not want the empire I’ve built, but I can’t deny that you’re the only one I trust it with. You’re my daughter; you’re the only one deserving of everything I’ve built, especially with everything I’ve neglected you of…”
We weren’t going to have the normal mother-daughter relationship that other children were blessed with.
We were always going to have the past hanging between us.
But maybe, just maybe, she was erecting a bridge that I would not be so opposed to crossing.
“I like Scott,” I said, and for the first time I was admitting something I valued deep inside me to the woman who borne me. “I want to be with him, away from the public eye.”
Her hand gripped the wine glass she was holding, “He’s not a bad-looking guy.”
“He’s a good guy,” I said, saying more than I ever thought I’d ever say in front of her. “He makes me feel special. I don’t love him for his looks.”
Love?
God. Do I love him?
Yes, yes I do.
“That’s a pretty strong word, darling. But you’re already special.” Her voice exuded warmth, one that had been lacking for all the time I’d been wishing it for, “He’s a good athlete, Tre told me.”
I was still staggering from my admission, but I had to keep talking.
“He’s more than that... He understands me.” The words kept spilling out of me, and I let them, hoping that maybe she wasn’t putting up a front to bribe me into establishing a relationship with her. I’d wanted it for so long, but like some of the dreams I’d had with her and my father, I’d buried them in a pile that I hadn’t planned on digging up at all.
“I’m glad. Being in public doesn’t have to be a burden. You can use it to your advantage. Or you can just tolerate it to be with the man you want to be with.” A small smile crinkled her eyes; my mother had always been a beauty. And right now, her beauty was magnified ten times by the softness that her smile generated. She’d never smiled like that with me. Or if she did, I’d forgotten since it had been so long. “You deserve the best.”
In return, I gave her my words, “I’ll spend a summer in Italy. I’ll let you know when, but not anytime soon.”
“Okay. Fair enough.” With those words, she’d sealed a deal that I didn’t know I’d be making before I stepped into La Pierre, and a lightness that hadn’t been there every time I saw my mother, started to bloom inside me.