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Pick up all the broken glass and furniture on the floor
Sometimes, Amy wondered if this was all part of ‘God’s great plan’ like her mother had told her everything in life was. Maybe her impoverished childhood had been necessary so she would appreciate the riches she was now given and not take them for granted. Maybe what had happened with Sophie had been to make her strong enough to withstand the comments she and her husband got now about their bedroom exploits. And maybe, she thought as she stared into the mirror, covering the black-and-blue with peach, her father’s hard hand had only been a way to prepare her for Taylor.
Compared to Richard Denton, Taylor Fremont was a saint. At least that’s what Amy told herself. Taylor didn’t have her father’s work-worn , callused hands. Nor were his rages brought on by drink. Just stress. And, unlike her father’s blows, which Amy could never figure out how she had earned, she completely understood why she was always the target of her husband’s anger.
Her father had blamed her for her too-small, ‘slutty’ clothes, although he was the family’s main source of income, so he was the reason her clothes never fit. Taylor, though, always had a logical reason for hitting her.
***
The very first time it had happened was shortly after their marriage. They were living in a rat-and-roach ridden flat in Soho. Taylor had made her quit her job at the Red House so she could help manage his career, but there wasn’t much to manage. That afternoon, she’d been sitting on their lumpy mattress in one of Taylor’s dirty shirts, looking through magazines for auditions, calls for extras, anything that might bring in a little more money; waiting for Taylor to come back from the Shadow Girls audition.
When he crossed her mind, Amy’s lips turned up in a smile. He’d looked so dashing that morning. She’d gone to an obscure second hand store and found an absolutely gorgeous black-and-red pinstriped suit that she’d easily mended and a red silk shirt just for the audition. His hair had been slicked back, shimmering like liquid gold. And he’d kissed her, long and hard, for good luck, laughing when he realized he’d taken some of her lipstick with him. A day that had started out like that had to end well.
Amy lifted her head, holding her pen poised above the newspaper, when she heard footsteps on the stairwell. She stood up so she could listen closer, trying to pick out who it was. They weren’t the heavy clunk of their landlady, or the delicate click-clack of the girls who lived next door. When the steps got closer and she heard the light thump, she grinned and quickly swept her stray locks behind her ears, hoping she wouldn’t look like a complete monster next to her Adonis.
When the door opened, Amy smiled broadly and stepped forward to embrace her husband. Then she saw him and had to bite back a gasp. Water was dripping from his hair onto his face and beyond, turning his beautiful silk shirt into a rag. His shirt and pant cuffs were ragged and muddy, and his delicate alabaster skin was stained with mud and flushed red with blood.
Hoping that he’d just gotten splashed or fallen on the way home, Amy fixed her grimace back into a glittering smile and stepped around him to take his jacket, kissing his temple.
“How did-“, but she didn’t even get to finish asking, because her words were shoved back into her throat when Taylor’s delicate hand moved back, smacking her hard across the jaw.
Amy stumbled backward a few steps, hitting doorframe, more from shock than pain. She raised her fingers to the welt she knew was coming up on her cheek, staring in dumb awe as Taylor stormed over to their small fridge and took out the bottle of wine Amy had been saving for the day he finally got his big break. Without a word, Taylor popped the cork, and then quickly replaced it with his mouth. Amy continued to watch, fingertips held to her face long after the pain had faded, as Taylor stripped as he walked to the mattress, wine bottle still in hand. He sat down, setting the bottle onto the floor and dropping his head into his hands.
Amy kept silent this whole time, unsure of what she was supposed to do when her husband sighed and tore his fingers through his hair. He’d gotten tons of rejections, and while he’d always been distraught, he’d never been like this. He’d always said that there was next time, grinning when she replied that those idiots wouldn’t know talent if it bit them in the arse. He was probably just tired. After all, she thought, feeling more than a little ashamed, she had kept him up pretty late last night even though it was an early audition; convincing him that maybe this would be a good luck charm that finally worked. Apparently, Amy thought sadly as she finally made a few brave steps, it hadn’t.
Delicately, Amy settled her weight on the mattress a few inches from Taylor. He glanced up, then, his grey eyes no longer full of glitter but defeat. He sighed heavily, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
“I didn’t get the part,” he mumbled into her hair, and, struck by his sudden tenderness, Amy didn’t snap a snarky comment back at him. Instead, she looped an arm around his waist.
“It’s okay babe,” she murmured. “There’s next time.”
“Mmm,” he said back, pulling back a little to move her hair and kiss her cheek. When he leaned in, he saw the slight bruise he had left and pulled farther away. He traced his pointer finger along the bruise, eyes suddenly growing soft and wet as rain clouds.
“Oh…Oh Amy I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he mumbled, wrapping an arm across her back to cradle her against his chest, his tears running into her hair. “It’s just, I’d been wanting to hit someone all day, but I couldn’t, and when you touched me I just-“
“Shh,” Amy murmured, lifting her head to press a finger against his lips. She kissed his forehead, smiling at him. “It’s okay, I understand.”
Taylor smiled, kissing her lips. “It’ll never happen again, I promise,” he murmured as he pressed her down to the bed. Amy smiled gently, wrapping her arms around his neck.
“I love you,” she whispered.
He nodded, kissing her temple. “Love you too,” he whispered against her ear as he started to undress her. As he touched and kissed her, Amy reached back into her mind, finally finding some of her mother’s wisdom that actually seemed wise. ‘It’s just his way of dealing’, ‘Don’t get in his way, and you’ll be fine’, ‘He doesn’t mean it’.
By the time Taylor came with a hoarse cry, then fell away and drew Amy’s back against his chest as he fell asleep, Amy had taken up her mother’s skin and slipped it on, surprised that it seemed a perfect fit. She smiled tenderly at her sleeping husband, tracing her pinky along his eyelids, his delicate jawbones, his full pink lips. How could a creature this beautiful really mean her harm? Simple, he couldn’t. Content, she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
***
Now, five years later, Amy stood in front of her mirror. She had just finished covering the purplish black bruise that had risen under her cheek when Taylor, unthinking, had struck her for forgetting a lunch meeting they’d set up with some director or actor or somebody important and gone shopping instead. It wasn’t his fault, Amy thought. She’d caused him trouble. He’d had to lie and say she had the flu, even though it was the middle of summer. She knew that people had to be thinking by now that she was a complete flake, snickering under their hands when Taylor said that she had been the reason he was where he was today. So she’d earned it and learned her lesson. She’d write things down in a place where she’d remember now, she’d always be where Taylor wanted her to be.
Putting on the bright red lipstick Taylor liked so much, Amy smiled and walked out the door. Someday she’d figure out how to be perfect and make Taylor happy. Then he wouldn’t have to hit her anymore, and he wouldn’t have to buy her presents and make love when he had to film the next morning just to make it up to her.
Someday.