Standing at the podium in the gymnasium, looking out at the faces of all these kids, Natasha couldn't help but feel awful as her eyes, after scanning the crowd, finally landed on her own daughters face, and she saw how fraught with worry and fear it was. It broke her heart to see Violet feeling that way, and Natasha finally knew what she had to do.
"I don't know why I'm here, honestly," Natasha said, "I've been asked to speak because, apparently, I know how to take care of myself, and therefore I must know how to teach others to take care of themselves too, and take care of one another. But...if your own parents couldn't do it, then what makes someone think I can?" The room had all the air sucked out of it, and you could've heard a pin drop. Courtney and Violet looked at one another, and Courtney broke out in an enormous grin. This was going to be a good assembly. *** Natasha awoke the day of her school speech with a feeling of absolute dread in her gut. She exhaled slowly and then wearily climbed out of bed. As her feet touched the floor, she could just sense today was going to be different, but she wasn't entirely sure why. So Natasha took a shower, got dressed and then headed downstairs to make some breakfast. She cooked up some bacon and hashbrowns and eggs and then called back up the stairs to Violet, who came down momentarily afterwards, seeming somewhat deflated and quiet. Violet sat the table as her mother served her breakfast, and she picked at the food, nibbling a bit here and there. Natasha seated herself across from Violet and ate as well, neither of them looking at one another. "please don't do it," Violet finally managed to whisper, still refusing to look up at her mother. Natasha opened her mouth to respond, but instead shook her head and continued eating. She knew there was absolutely nothing she could say short of agreeing to back out that would make Violet happy. All she wanted was a chance to reach kids with her message of taking care one themselves and one another, and this was a good starting point. She wasn't ready to give up on that just yet, even if Violet pleaded with her. After breakfast, Natasha cleaned up her things and did all the dishes before getting into the car to drive Violet to school, but Violet decided to walk instead. This act of indifference really said something to Natasha about just how deeply upset Violet was with her decision, and that stung her heart quite a bit, but she ignored it, put the car in drive and took off for the station. Violet spent a good hour just trying to get to school, and was about 15 minutes late when she finally arrived on campus. She told her homeroom teacher that their car had had trouble, and the teacher didn't give her any flack. Violet seated herself at a table in the back, empty and away from all her peers, and decided to read while the morning announcements ran over the loudspeaker. Once the bell rang, Violet got up and went to her first class, but - and this would be the trend for the day - she didn't pay any attention. She merely coasted through class, and didn't care two bits. Way she saw it, if her own mother didn't care enough about her to not speak at her school, why should she care about herself? *** "I'd be so paranoid if I were you," Jay said, sitting in the stations kitchen with Natasha as he ate his breakfast that he'd brought from a local nearby fast food place. Natasha shook her head and pushed her hair out of her eyes. "I am paranoid, please don't think I'm not," she replied, "But I think it's a worthy thing to do. I'm more annoyed, actually, at how Violet is reacting to it more than I am worried how well I'll get through to the other kids." "Kids are weird, who knows why she's acting that way," Jay said, biting into his sandwich as Sharla came in and poured herself a cup of coffee, then leaned on the counter and sipped it as she watched them. "Don't you usually bring coffee?" Natasha asked, and Sharla nodded. "Yeah, but I didn't have the time this morning," she said, "Which is a shame, cause I really hate office coffee." "Well, good thing for you is that we're hardly an office and that's hardly coffee," Jay said, making Natasha crack up, which she greatly needed and appreciated. Sharla chuckled a bit as she nodded and continued sipping then took a seat at the round table with them. "So what are you paranoid about?" Sharla asked, "I could hear you from the hall." "I'm giving a speech to kids at my daughters high school today," she said, "But I just...she's so mad at me doing it, and I can't understand why. I mean, I guess I sort of get it, cause they're teenagers and they're not very nice, but that's why I'm doing it, to try and make them nicer, you know? That's my whole shtick is to get people to be better people, to themselves and one another." Sharla sighed and leaned back, letting her ponytail down and running her hands through her perfect hair, sifting her fingers through each strand while Jay and Natasha watched, both rather surprised by her inherent beauty, as they rarely saw her outside of her stage persona. "It's hard being a teenager, don't take it too personally," Sharla finally said, "I'm sure it'll all work out." "Gee, thanks for the parental platitude," Natasha said sarcastically, making Sharla smirk and raise her cup. "My pleasure!" she responded. *** Courtney found Violet sitting in the dugout of the baseball field at lunch. She was reading when Courtney found her, and Courtney took her seat by Violet's side, not saying a word for a few minutes until it became clear Violet wasn't going to acknowledge her. Courtney then cleared her throat and touched Violet on the shoulder to get her attention. Violet shut her book and looked at her. "Is everything okay?" Courtney asked, "I didn't do something wrong, did I? I've been looking for you all day. Are you avoiding me?" "No," Violet replied, "I'm not avoiding you, I'm just...not...good at being friends." Courtney sighed and slumped on the bench. She wanted to be a good friend, she wanted to tell her that it was fine to not want to be around her friends sometimes, everyone was entitled to their personal space, but she also wanted Violet to know she was there for her whenever she needed or wanted someone. After a moment of chewing on her lip, Courtney opened her mouth to respond, but Violet interrupted her. "My mom is coming to talk today," Violet said, "She's going to stand in the auditorium and talk to all the kids, and when I asked her not to, she wouldn't stop. She told me it was something she had to do. I asked her a lot and she said she was going to do it no matter what." "That's...unlike her," Courtney said, furrowing her brow, "She's usually fairly agreeable. I can't imagine why she wouldn't-" "Who cares," Violet said sternly, in a voice so cold that Courtney was surprised it'd come from her at all. She'd never heard Violet sound this empty and dark, and her tone upset her a bit, she had to admit. Courtney stood up, sighed and turned to walk away. As she left, she glanced back over her shoulder at her friend and thought about how badly she wanted to help her, but she just wasn't sure how. Still, she was determined to find a way. *** When Natasha pulled into the school parking lot, she could feel the anxiousness in her stomach and was having trouble swallowing. Everything she did was on a sound stage, without an audience (aside from the crew, she guessed), so perhaps her nerves just came from the fact that she wasn't used to speaking in front of large groups whose entire focus was on her. She picked up her water bottle from the cup holder and took a large healthy drink before wiping her mouth on her sleeve and convincing herself she could do this. Natasha climbed out of the car and, after opening the trunk to get her supplies, started preparing for her walk into the school auditorium when she heard someone come up behind her. She thought it might be a teacher who had come to help - or god forbid a fan - but when she turned around, instead, she was faced with Courtney who was staring at her. "Oh," Natasha said, "Hi Courtney. How are you?" "Why are you doing this?" Courtney asked, surprising Natasha with her brashness. "Doing what? Speaking here?" Natasha asked, "Because it's my chance to try and teach your peers to appreciate themselves." "I have news for you, most already appreciate themselves far too much. Their egos are half the problem," Courtney said. "Well, nobody else is doing it, they have parents who work all the time, there's no role models anywhere anymore. I'm just trying to show them that they can be healthier people, for themselves and for one another," Natasha stated, starting to sound annoyed, "I don't know why Violet can't see that." "Maybe she doesn't think they deserve your advice, your help, your generosity because they won't give any to her," Courtney said, shrugging and holding her books to her chest, "Just a thought." And with that, Courtney turned and walked off, leaving a somewhat stunned Natasha standing there, feeling downright ashamed. As she watched her daughters best, and seemingly only, friend walk away, she felt a twinge of respect for her. Nobody besides Natasha herself had ever publicly stood up for Violet, and now here she was, her own mother, needing to be put in her place for forgetting how her daughter had been treated and slightly treating her that way herself. Natasha waited a moment, then took all her things from the trunk and headed inside to the auditorium. Once inside she set her materials by the podium and looked around at all the teachers, all the students, and began to feel a terrible churning feeling in her gut, like the one she'd felt this morning. Standing at the podium in the gymnasium, looking out at the faces of all these kids, Natasha couldn't help but feel awful as her eyes, after scanning the crowd, finally landed on her own daughters face, and she saw how fraught with worry and fear it was. It broke her heart to see Violet feeling that way, and Natasha finally knew what she had to do. "I don't know why I'm here, honestly," Natasha said, "I've been asked to speak because, apparently, I know how to take care of myself, and therefore I must know how to teach others to take care of themselves too, and take care of one another. But...if your own parents couldn't do it, then what makes someone think I can?" The room had all the air sucked out of it, and you could've heard a pin drop. Courtney and Violet looked at one another, and Courtney broke out in an enormous grin. This was going to be a good assembly. "I...I'm supposed to care, right? That's my whole brand, man. Caring. But even the kindest people can be selfish. Even the most caring people can be rude. Nobody is a bastion of perfection and genuine empathy, no matter how hard they might try to be, and the ones who claim they are the most dangerous. So, yeah, I care. I don't think people take care of themselves. I think they often throw themselves under the bus for others. And there's nothing wrong with putting others before yourself, that's a noble idea, certainly. And you should care about others, obviously. But the thing is, you don't. Nobody really does. Because to care about others would mean accepting that there are people who might mean more than you, and that's a blow to our ego, and that's not something we're willing to accept. That's why you bully, isn't it? To make yourself feel better, to make others recognize you're better than them." The students didn't say a word, they were seemingly captivated by her speech, which shocked the staff, none of whom were trying to stop Natasha. "And if you won't care about others, why should I care about you? Your parents obviously don't, or they'd be doing this job, they wouldn't leave it to some public access TV host. They're the ones whose job it is to teach you these things, things they've obviously failed to teach you because, frankly, they probably never learned it themselves. I'm not mad at you for acting out, I'm not judging you for behaving this way. It's inevitable when you come from a family whose forgotten you. I'm mad at society for allowing it to get this way. And more than that, I'm sad. I'm sad for you. I'm sad that you can't feel for others, and I'm sad that you don't think you deserve better. My husband left me earlier this year, because...now that I think about it...I put my daughter before him. He felt neglected, and I understand that now. But I did what my own parents refused to do. Raise their child. Which, in some warped way, means raising myself." Natasha took a long deep breath and looked back at her supplies, which she'd never set up, and then shook her head. "I was supposed to come here today and teach you all how to be nice to yourselves, nice to one another, but what's the point? Look at this useless crap. Charts and graphs and stupid anecdotes don't mean jack all in the face of abject runaway hormones. So many of you harass my daughter because she's a bit slower than you, or because she talks a bit funny, or because she's just not as 'with it' as you all seem to think you are. But there's one thing she has that you don't, and that's kindness. She knows how to love herself, and how to love those around her. You've all shown us that you don't, and it's not your fault. It's the adults around you. They're the ones who failed, because people failed them. It's learnt behavior. Generational inhereted trauma and uncaring. Hands off parenting isn't hands off, it's not parenting at all. I feel like I'm expected to be there for you, and I wanna be there for you, because you should have someone, but...I have my own daughter to focus on, and you've all been nothing but cruel to her, so why should I extend an olive branch of kindness to a garden filled with thorns?" Natasha finally shook her head and looked up again, staring directly at Violet in the stands, and smiled. "My daughter is a better person than any of you will ever be," she said, "She could be that person for you, if you just stopped being so goddamned cruel. They say kids are taught to hate, but they aren't. Humans are innately and inherently evil from the offset. They have to be taught to not hit, taught to share, taught to love. Maybe it's time you all learned too." Natasha turned, grabbed all her supplies and walked out of the auditorium, leaving everyone at a loss for words. After a moment, Violet stood up and, grabbing her bookbag, raced down the steps and after her mom, chasing her out the doors to the parking lot. As she reached the car, she saw her mother shoving her things into the trunk, and once she closed it, she turned to face her daughter. "Mom-" "Thank you," Natasha said, approaching her and putting her hands on her daughters shoulders, "...thank you for being who you are. Thank you for...just...being the best child. Thank you for staying. I'm sorry I didn't listen to you. I always want to listen to you. I got blinded and I'm sorry." "It's okay, mom," Violet said, "Everyone makes mistakes." Natasha chuckled, tears rolling down her cheeks, as she looked at Violets face. "Can I hug you?" she asked, and Violet nodded, feeling Natasha pull her in close for a firm hug. Violet dropped her bookbag and hugged her mother back. Standing there, in the school parking lot, hugging one another, nothing else mattered now. Her show was public access, her relationship with her child was publicly known, and it was fine. She was fine with it all. For the first time since her husband had left, Natasha felt like a whole person, because she allowed the only other person that mattered to be a part of her whole self. Because, in the end, the thing Natasha had learned was most important about taking care of yourself...was learning to take care of others. A surprisingly simple thing, really.
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Public Access follows Natasha Simple, a self qualified "self help" instructor with her own show on local public access. But when she makes a sudden and surprising statement on air, her entire life changes, for the better...and the worse. Archives
December 2022
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