Delores Stiltskon was sitting at her breakfast table eating her morning oatmeal, drinking coffee, reading a magazine. It was raining outside, like it had been lately, and she didn't have to be into the office today, thank goodness. She hated going anywhere in the rain. Delores had always felt like rainy days should be spent indoors with warm drinks and good reading material. Maybe she'd finally tackle some of those chores she'd been putting off. As she took another bite of oatmeal, she heard a knock on the door, and she looked up, furrowing her brow in confusion...who could be here?
Delores stood up, walked through the foyer to the front door and answered, only to find a soggy and upset Michelle standing on her porch. Delores stepped aside and allowed her entrance. "You poor thing! Get in here and we'll get you warmed up! I'll turn on my fireplace!" Delores said, rushing to flick on her electric fireplace, before she helped Michelle pull her soaking wet sweatshirt off, before Michelle turned and just hugged Delores tightly, surprising her yet again as she started to cry into Delores's shirt. Delores just patted her on the back and smiled. "There there," she said warmly, "you're okay now. I'm here." *** Beatrice aimed the heater at herself as Liam turned, heading down yet another empty dirt road. He looked over at her as she chewed on her nails nervously. Liam sighed and shifted in his seat, adjusting his seatbelt with his free hand. "So why'd you ask me to come?" he asked. "I didn't wanna go alone, and we don't do much together anymore. We should do more together," Beatrice said. "Well, I welcome the opportunity," Liam said, smiling, "Besides, it'll be neat to see where you came from." "Take another right up here," Bea said, nodding her head at an upcoming fork in the road, and Liam did as he was told; she sighed and shook her head, "Don't call me Beatrice around my parents, please. My name is Amelia." "Okay, whatever you need," Liam said, surprised by this admittance. "God I'm nervous." "Don't they know you're coming?" "Yeah but it...it's still nerve wracking. My folks and I haven't spoken much in the last decade since the show went off the air. I kind of recoiled even from my family after everything went to shit. They weren't happy about a lot of my decisions in the first place, but...even then." "To be fair, I'm the one who made the bad decisions in regards to the shows success and longevity," Liam said, "But sure, a lot of show business people remove themselves from their past. I'm not one to judge you on that front. Lord knows I haven't spoken to my parents anywhere near as often as they'd wish I did. Then again, my folks were never really all that comfortable with me and Marvin, so." Liam pulled up a long dirt driveway and parked under a large old oak tree in front of a beautiful old fashioned farm house, complete with a white picket fence surrounding it. Liam turned the car off, undid his seatbelt and looked to Bea again, exhaling deeply. "You sure you're okay?" he asked. "Yes. I need to do this," Bea said, undoing her own seatbelt, then pulling herself out of Liam's car. They walked up the flagstone walkway that went from the end of the fence up to the front door, and Bea knocked firmly a few times, waiting for an answer. Finally the door opened and an old man stood there, looking at them. He smiled immediately and pulled Bea in for a hug, stroking her hair. "My baby," he whispered. "Hi daddy," Bea said. Gordon stepped aside, allowing Bea and Liam into the house. Liam was surprised to see the place was well kept, modern inside. Liam pulled his hand out from his rain slicker and stood his arm out towards Gordon. "Hello, I'm Liam Grearson," Liam said, "I'm Amelia's friend." "Welcome to our home, Liam," Gordon said, shaking his hand before walking past them and into the living room. As they passed through the small hall leading to the living room, Liam couldn't help but take in the photographs hanging on the wall. Photos of Beatrice as a little girl, doing dance, or reading, or learning how to swim, and a few family photos at various ages, and graduating high school and college. Liam smiled. He'd always knew someone as loving as Bea had to have come from a good home, and he was glad to discover she wasn't actually a tortured artist after all. Not all greatness had to be birthed from pain, he'd once told her. And then he saw it, the photo that stopped him in his tracks. There she was, sitting just outside, on a bucket under the same oak tree they'd parked under, and with her, partially jumped on her lap making her laugh, was a beagle. It was like the world around him, everything he'd ever known, suddenly clicked together, like a puzzle missing a singular piece that was necessary to complete the picture. He looked towards Bea and her father, talking in the living room, laughing lightly, and Liam couldn't believe how stupid he'd been all these years. Suddenly Liam felt a hand on his shoulder, and he yelped, jumping a little, turning to see an old woman standing behind him. She was chuckling slightly. "Sorry dear, didn't mean to surprise you," Gloria said, "Would you like some coffee?" she added, holding out a steaming warm mug for him to take, which he graciously did. "It's okay, uh, hi, I'm Liam Grearson, I'm Amelia's friend," he said, shaking her hand as well before turning his focal point back to the photo, "...was this her dog? She never told me she had a dog." "Yep," Gloria said, holding her mug with both hands, looking at the photo wistfully, continuing, "that's Amelia outside with Beatrice. She was the best dog, a girls best friend. Losing her absolutely crushed Amelia, she's never been the same since." Liam wanted to cry. He didn't know why, but he suddenly felt like he was going to sob uncontrollably. But he held it together, for Amelia's sake. Gloria then suggested they join the others in the living room and Liam happily agreed. As he plopped himself down on the couch and watched Bea interact with her parents, he couldn't help but smile. This was a side of Bea he'd never seen before, and he was so very thankful to be given the chance to. He still wanted to sob, though. *** "What are you even doing here?" Delores asked, bringing Michelle some fresh, dry clothes she could change into, which she did. Delores sat in a recliner while Michelle quickly changed behind her, grateful for the dry clothing. "My mother," Michelle whispered, like she was scared to even say those words together. As she finished, she came around and sat on the couch opposite of the recliner, looking at the floor. Delores sipped her coffee and leaned back in her recliner, nodding. "I know things aren't great between you two," she said. "You don't know the half of it," Michelle said, "I would've gone to Bea, but...she's having a hard enough time dealing with what happened on the set recently, and...and besides...she's not..." "Yes?" Delores asked. "...motherly, not like you are," Michelle said, "I don't know exactly how to put it, because she's great, but she's more like a cool aunt, and you're more like a mom. I'm sorry. You're just the woman who was helping my find employment, but still, I can't help but feel like-" "Did I ever tell you about my child?" Delores asked, interrupting Michelle, and surprising her. "...no?" "I had a daughter," Delores said, "I had two children, my son and my daughter; classic nuclear family situation. My husband and I bought this house years ago, I got pregnant and that was that. Raised my kids in this house. You may be surprised to learn I'm pushing sixty." "You don't look it." "Thank you," Delores said, "But I'm not one of those people ashamed of aging. I'm proud to have grown through so much time. My daughter, Justine, she was a lot like you. Wanted to do creative things. She went to college in Boston, trying to be a childrens book illustrator. Lord knows she had the skill. Anyway, one day she was going to fly back for summer break...she was seeing this lovely guy who had just gotten his pilots license. They weren't here by the time they said they would be, and I, being a mother, started worrying, and later I discovered it was for good reason. He wasn't familiar with this plane he was flying, and the whole thing went down." "oh my god," Michelle whispered, putting her hand to her mouth, her eyes wide with shock. "She survived, but she's never been the same. Her boyfriend wasn't so lucky. Ever since then, she and I don't speak much, and she hasn't been working on her illustrations like she used to. She's essentially been living off the money she got from various lawsuits regarding his family and the airplane manufacturer. You remind me so much of her, and I guess I just felt like..." "My mom's an artist," Michelle said quietly, "She is such a nasty woman, and she's so mad at me for not following in her footsteps, and for being so sickly. She says I took away her possibility for success because she had to spend so much money keeping me healthy growing up, as if I chose to be this screwed up medically." "That just isn't okay," Delores said. "And then, today, she sent me an e-mail of her at her latest gallery opening," Michelle said, "...she looked so happy, standing there next to the poster with her name on it, and pointing at one of the works to be shown in the gallery. She called the show 'Financially Free'." "...like, because she doesn't have to pay for your medical needs anymore?" Delores asked, sounding simultaneously disgusted and shocked, feelings which aren't mutually exclusive. "Yes," Michelle said, "and I just lost it. I was going to send this extremely aggressively worded rebuttal, but the more I thought about it, that's what she wants. She feeds off that negativity, and can use it to further her victim complex, especially to those she's trying to get to bankroll her future projects. No communication means no more ammunition. I just needed to see someone who would care about how hurt I was." "Well, you came to the right place then," Delores said, smiling again, adding, "you can stay here all night if you need to. We'll order in." And that's exactly what they did. Michelle knew Delores would take her in, and she was happy to know she'd made the right choice in deciding to come here today. As she waited for Delores to order food from the kitchen landline, Michelle sipped her drink and looked out the window at the pouring rain, wondering where in the world Beatrice may have gone off to. She'd catch up with her at work next week, she figured. Tonight was a night just for her. *** "It wasn't your fault, sweetheart," Gloria said, patting Bea on the knee as they sat in the kitchen together, "you didn't mean for that to happen, you certainly didn't cause it either, and nobody could've expected the response to it." "...I'm starting to wonder if I'm just cursed," Bea said, "ever since Beatrice died, it just feels like nothing has ever been good. Like that was a good as life was ever going to get. I feel stuck, trapped in a memory, and the hopes of getting back to that moment with her." "Beatrice wouldn't want you to feel that way," Gloria said, "You know that. She'd want you to be happy. She was always happy." "Yeah, she was," Bea said, smiling a little, "...she was my best friend." "That man you brought with you said he was your best friend," Gloria said. "...he did?" Bea asked, looking at her mom, "Really? Liam said that?...I guess he is, he's certainly the one I've known the longest at this point. I'll be back in a minute, mom, I need to see something." Gloria didn't even respond. She knew what Amelia was doing. Bea stood up and headed outside, in the backyard, pulling her slicker hood over her head and zipping the front up. She could hear the dirt squish underneath her feet, quickly turning to mud in the cold rain. The day garden was still there, lively as ever, just as it had been when she and her father had started it all those years ago. As Bea trudged along, she pushed aside a few bushes and made her way to the back of them, where a small engraved stone sat on the ground. She knelt and put her hand on the dirt, trying not to cry. "Hi Bea," she said, "I'm home. Not for long, but for today anyway." The stone had the dogs name on it, along with a little image of a bone Amelia had engraved herself, with her fathers help. Suddenly she heard the bushes part behind her, and she looked over her shoulder to see Liam standing there. "Sorry, didn't mean to frighten you," he said. "You didn't frighten me," Bea said. "...I think I finally got it," Liam said, stepping closer, kneeling down beside her, sitting on a somewhat large rock, "I think I finally got the passion, and the love for the character. Your protectiveness. Your name. Soon as I saw that photograph, it all made sense now. I'm so sorry, Bea. I've never had to feel this sort of loss. I mean, Marvin, but...I don't know what I'm trying to say, except that it all makes sense now and I'm sorry for trying to take her away from you, or changing her." "...you get a dog because you're lonely. Because you're the kind of person who relates to animals better than you do to people. You never think about the fact that their lifespan is a mere quarter of our own, or less in most cases. You just think 'finally, a friend who will love me unconditionally', and that's all that matters. You keep the reality of their mortality pushed down in the back of your head, just like you do to your own, knowing it's inevitable, yet praying it won't come anyway." Liam put his hand on Bea's back and rubbed the wet slicker, trying to comfort her. "...I'm not mad that I'm getting older. I'm mad that she's not getting older with me," Bea whispered, "She should still be here, and I figured by creating a character out of her, by sharing her personality with the world, maybe others would come to love her the way I did, but...it isn't the same. No matter what I do, whether I wear the suit or I change my name, I'll never be Beatrice Beagle." Liam got down on his knees beside her and pulled her to his side, hugging her warmly. "No, you won't, but that's the thing, she loved you, so maybe you should let others love you as well," Liam whispered. After a while, they got up and went back inside. After saying goodbye to her parents - her mother giving them a few tupperware full of home baked cookies to take with them - they climbed back into Liam's car and started driving down the dirt roads again, in the rain. Listening to the rain hit the windshield, Bea looked in the rearview mirror, watching the farmhouse, her parents, her past, get smaller and smaller, and she pried open the tupperware lid, handing Liam a cookie before taking one for herself. They stopped off at a small diner on the way into town and had some early dinner, before Liam dropped Bea off at her apartment, heading to his own place afterwards. Bea climbed the long stairs to her floor, put her key in the door and let herself in. She flicked the light on and saw the note posted to her door. Bea took it off and read it. "Needed to see you, but you weren't home. Call me. Michelle" Bea made a mental note to give her a ring tomorrow. Bea got out of her clothes, took a long bath, then made herself some cocoa and turned on her television set. She laid on the couch in her pajamas and watched a few shows about antiques. After a while she got back up, took the tupperware off the counter and brought it back to the couch. She plopped back down and pulled the lid back off, eating some more cookies as she watched TV. After pulling enough cookies from the center of the tupperware, she looked down to get another and stopped. There, sitting in the middle of all the cookies, was a dog treat, staring right back up at her. The very same ones she used to give Beatrice. Bea tried to hold back her tears, but failed. This time, however, she was happily crying. She would have to thank her mom for the little gift. Even after all these years, and all their differences, her mom still knew what would make her feel better. There was simply no denying it. Mothers really did know best.
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Beatrice Beagle follows a young woman obsessed with a defunct pizzeria and kids show featuring a dog mascot. As she uncovers more about its mysterious past, she becomes sucked into the life of the woman who played the mascot, they both discover just how much they need eachother. Archives
April 2024
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