RAIN
The atmosphere darkened fast around Zac and he could smell the rain as it threatened to fall from the heavy clouds above him. It would be any minute now. As angry as he was, his mind immediately went to Bessie and her bicycle. He wasn't sure how far she had to travel home, and the idea of her being out there alone as the wind started to pick up made his stomach knot up at the pit. However, the other part of him didn't care one bit about the weather as he had one goal and one goal alone: find Taylor.
When he got back to the fairgrounds and onto the back lot of the sideshow stages, finding Taylor hadn't been difficult. He stood by the large tree, looking in a direction past Zac and then he looked at Zac, wide-eyed with surprise. "What's the matter with Bessie?"
Tossing the basket and blanket onto the ground, not caring if they were messed up in the dirt, Zac went straight for his brother and shoved his finger in his face accusingly. "You had no right to tell her anything about me!"
Taylor blinked his eyes at Zac in surprise. "I didn't tell her anything about you, I told her about us."
"You had no right telling her anything!"
Taylor moved his head out of the way of his brother's finger and shoved his hand out of his face. "I told her because she asked me. She asked about the three of us, I had a right to answer her. What's your problem, anyway? She looked like she was crying--"
"You stay out of my business," Zac threatened through his teeth.
"By the looks of it, you don't have any business left. Does that have anything to do with why you're so mad at me all of a sudden?"
"It has everything to do with it! She didn't need to know, Tay! She didn't need to know about the drought or Ma and Pa or how we couldn't cut it in vaudeville! She didn't need to know how bad off we are--!"
"Boy, you sure are dense, aren't you?" Taylor said as he took a step toward Zac. "You really messed up this time. She doesn't care about any of that, she's a real sweet girl. And since you've done such a good job running her off, maybe I'll ask her out. She's kind and she's real pretty, too, there's no sense in letting a girl like that go to waste. Hell, I bet she'd even make a good wife someday."
The fury rose in Zac's body in such a way that his entire face felt hot. In an instant, he grabbed Taylor by the collar of his shirt and shoved him against the trunk of the tree he stood in front of. "YOU BACK OFF OF HER! She is not that kind of girl! Don't you dare think you can defile and disrespect her like you do all your other goddamned floozies!"
Seemingly unphased by Zac's sudden outburst, Taylor narrowed his eyes at him. "You sure got a lot to learn about me, you know that?"
"HEY!" Isaac's voice barked at them out of nowhere, startling both of the men momentarily. He pulled Zac off of Taylor and shoved him backward, placing himself between them as Taylor peeled himself from the tree trunk, straightening his collar. "What's going on here?"
"Tay's trying to take Bessie away from me!"
"I'm not trying to take anyone away, I was just messing around!"
"Like hell you were."
"Okay," Isaac said, raising his hands in defeat. "Okay, just calm down for a minute and let's get this sorted out. Tay, is what Zac's saying true?"
"No," he said to Isaac. Then he looked at Zac. "I'm being honest and you're real dumb if you let that girl get away. The only reason I talked to her today was because she came here looking for you!"
Zac was dumbfounded for a moment. "What are you talking about? This happened today?"
"Yeah," Taylor replied, his voice calming. "Right before our act, when you were out picking flowers. Zac, she nearly broke her neck trying to get here to see you. Just so she could wish you luck on the act and ask you if you wanted to have a picnic. She came here for you. She wrecked her bicycle into the prop trunk and scraped up her knee and I dressed it for her and we talked about you and our family and Millie. That's it. And she asked me if asking you for a picnic was too forward and I told her no, that you'd like it. But now you've made me look like a liar, because obviously you were your normal, charming self with her! So don't blame me if you've managed to run off what's probably the best dame you're ever gonna find!"
Zac continued to stare back at Taylor, his eyes wide, his breathing shallow with the realization and the guilt that was now beating the wind out of his chest. "She already had the picnic with her?" He asked, breathlessly.
"Yeah."
"Before you told her anything?"
"I told you, that's why she came."
"And you told her," Zac clarified. "You told her we had nothing. You told her we lived in our trailer, you told her we're poor..."
"Maybe not in those exact words..."
"And she wanted to picnic with me anyway?"
"That's what I'm trying to tell you," Taylor said gently. "She doesn't care, Zac. She likes you for you, she doesn't care where you came from. I don't--I don't think her heart comes wired for stuff like that. You're a real lucky man to be liked by a girl like her. Apologize to her, try to make it better. She's one of a kind these days. Don't let her get away."
Zac's heart sank and the guilt caused him to be weak at the knees and he sat down on the oversized tree root that he stood next to. Rubbing his face with his hands, he took off his cap and swept the strands of hair off of his forehead that had escaped his high ponytail. "I messed up, guys. I messed up real bad. I don't know if I can fix it. I don't know how to fix it. I don't think I'm ever gonna see her again."
"Well, I'm seeing her cousin and Ike's seeing her friend, so you got that going for you," Taylor offered.
"That doesn't matter," Zac sulked. "She really put her foot down with me today. She's not--she's not as shy as she comes across. When she believes in something, well...watch out."
"What did you say to her?" Isaac asked him. "She came tearing through here on that bike like a bat out of hell. Tay tried to get her attention but I don't even think she heard him..."
Zac sighed and looked up at his brothers. "What do you think happened? She told me what she and Tay talked about and I lost it. I just--she just seems like such a good person, I just want to be someone she can be proud of. You know? And I just--I basically talked her out of ever having a future with me, that's what I did. Because I'm an idiot and I was too wrapped up in myself to understand what she was trying to tell me." He paused and then he looked up at Taylor. "Thank you for the blanket. And carrying my load while I went off with Bessie. I appreciate it."
"Yeah, no problem. Anytime."
"That's what she got upset about. She told me I was ungrateful and unappreciative. And she's right. She's absolutely right. I--I spent so much time on what I didn't have and couldn't do and she--she put me in my place. You guys, in a lot of ways, we're really lucky. A lot luckier than a lot of people right now..."
"We know that," Isaac said gently. "We thought you knew that, too--"
"So did I," Zac agreed. "But I just--I've never felt this way about anyone, I just want to be good enough--"
"Zac, listen," Taylor said. "You're thinking too much into it. She's--she's young. And she doesn't have much life experience. You gotta take it slow with her, she spooks easy--I would know, she nearly took my hand off," he laughed. "But you should see her eyes when she talks about you. Or her smile when I told her you would like the picnic. She likes you. You already have her. You don't gotta try to impress her anymore, now you just gotta keep her."
At that, the thunder cracked loudly from above, startling the brothers and the sideshow acts that milled around them. The rain fell in torrents with little to no warning and the three Hansons made a mad dash for their trailer, which was parked nearby. Collapsing on his bunk, once inside, Zac sat back with Bessie's picnic basket in his lap. Upon sight of it, his heart sank all over again.
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Bessie didn't care about the rain. She didn't care about the way her hair was so quickly soaked between the road and her front door and she didn't care about the way her dress stuck to her back or the thunder that had clapped loudly in her ears all the way home, or the wind that had nearly pulled her from her bicycle on multiple occasions. She didn't care about any of it.
Bursting through the front door, she was startled by her parents, who both sat in the living room, her father in an armchair with a law book in his hand and a pipe between his teeth and her mother with her knitting in her lap on the nearby sofa. Her mother's eyes widened at the sight of her, startled by her appearance and apparently surprised to see her at all. "Bessie! What on earth...?"
At this, Bessie burst into tears again. "I don't care! I don't care about anything!" And then she ran for the staircase and tore upstairs to her bedroom.
Bursting in the door, she threw herself dramatically across her four-poster bed and buried her face in her arms, sobbing loudly with self-pity. She knew there was a reason she didn't pay attention to boys and she knew there was a reason boys didn't pay attention to her. Boys were rude and mean and self-centered. And the ones that weren't, like Taylor, were only attracted to pretty girls with curves like Millie, whose fathers actually let them out of the house to have a life. Bessie was boring and childish and she knew it. That was why boys never talked to her. In the end, though, maybe she was better for it. Boys weren't what they were cracked up to be.
"Bessie?" Her mother's voice came quietly from the doorway of her bedroom. "Bessie, sweetie, what is it?"
She sniffed and she wiped her eyes with her arm and she sat up to face her mother. "I was wrong. I was wrong about him, I thought he was someone different, but--but I was wrong..."
Carrying two glasses of lemonade into the room, her mother sat them both on her bedside table and made herself comfortable on Bessie's bed, sitting up on her pillows and smoothing out her dress over her legs as she crossed her outstretched ankles. "Come here," her mother said, holding out an arm to her. Bessie scooted next to her mother, settling herself against her as her mother wrapped her arm around her shoulders. "Look at that, I still got it. It feels like it's been years since I've held you like this."
"That's because I'm too old," Bessie smiled through her tears.
"No," her mother smiled gently. "You'll never be too old to be my baby. Here." She reached over to the bedside table and handed Bessie a glass of lemonade, keeping her own in her hand. "Have some lemonade and tell me what all the fuss is about."
Bessie sipped her lemonade and scrunched her nose up, looking up at her mother. "You forgot to put sugar in this batch, Mama."
"It's okay, just sip on it," she replied nonchalantly. "It'll calm you down. Soon you won't even notice the difference."
Bessie wasn't sure she was keen on the idea of this lemonade, but she did as she was told anyway. However, her mother was right and, after a few sips, she was starting to relax. "I went to the fair before their act to see if Zac wanted to have a picnic, but he wasn't there. I fell off my bicycle and scraped my knee and Taylor helped me clean it up. We talked and he told me it wouldn't be forward of me to ask Zac on a picnic. He said he would like it."
"Okay..."
"So when you gave me permission, I asked him for a picnic and he accepted and we went. And we sat and we ate our lunch and then...well, I'm not sure what happened. I thought we were having a nice time and then he just...got angry."
"Just like that? For no reason?"
"He got upset when I told him I talked to Taylor."
"Sounds like a typical case of jealousy."
"No," Bessie said, shaking her head against her mother's shoulder. "He got mad when I told him I knew about the drought and his parents and vaudeville. And then he said I would never understand because of my uppity social status..."
Her mother let out a breath. "Oh, boy..."
"And then I tried to tell him that none of that mattered to me, but he just grew more and more upset and he kept going on about how I would never want anything to do with him and then I just--then I got angry, Mama. I got angry and I called him ungrateful and unappreciative...and then I threw the flowers in his face and kicked the picnic basket and told him to keep it. I had a temper tantrum, Mama, a real temper tantrum. He'll never want to see me again because I acted like such a child. Nobody will ever see me as anything more than a child."
"Oh, goodness," her mother sighed as she tightened her arm around her daughter. "I feel like I've done you a disservice as a mother, dear. You and I probably should have had this talk quite some time ago."
"Talk?"
"Yes. About the wild, wonderful world of boys. Or, well, in your case, men."
"Men?"
Bessie's mother scoffed as she turned up her lemonade. "Have you looked at him, Bessie? That's no boy you got your eye on, sweetheart. How old is he, anyway?"
"Twenty-six," she answered meekly.
"Ah, yes. Twenty-six. I figured something close to that. Well, sweetheart, when you set your mind to something, you don't start small, do you?"
"Mama, I'm not...I'm not really sure I understand..."
"Well. Based on what you've told me, there seems to be somewhat of a big misunderstanding here--on both of your parts. The thing you need to understand about men, Bess--and to be clear, we are discussing men, not boys--is that they're a prideful bunch. Since the beginning of time, men have always...held a dominant role in society, in the household, really in general. They're the bread-winners, the hard workers...they have penises, dear."
"MOTHER!" Bessie hissed, aghast.
Her mother glanced at her and raised an eyebrow. "Drink up, Bessie, don't be wasteful. I raised you better than that. Anyway, the point is, men believe they're invincible. They don't like to admit defeat, they don't want to appear weak, and they don't like to be reminded of their pitfalls."
"But--but there's nothing wrong with any of that. They're human, too."
"Women know this. But men are a different breed. Men need to constantly be reminded that they are great and that they are important. After all, they take care of us, you know. Take your father, for example. He's a wonderful husband and father, and he's a great provider. He takes good care of us and we're very privileged to have him in our lives. But it takes encouragement. All the time. Even when we were courting each other, it took encouragement and trust and respect--you take care of your man and he takes care of you. When it's all said and done, it has nothing to do with who has what. Sometimes the happiest of relationships are between couples that lead the simplest of lives. What's important is the way you make each other feel. Everything else will fall into place."
"But, Mama, I tried to tell him that. I tried to tell him I only wanted to spend time with him, but he wouldn't hear it. I'm not so sure he likes me..."
"Oh, he likes you," her mother said with a reassuring smile. "I could see it during that act they put on, he's not shy about it. The thing you need to understand about Zac, sweetheart, is that you have to remember what happened to him and his brothers. They were very successful once. Very popular in vaudeville, made lots of money, traveled all over the country--maybe even the world, I'm not sure. Anyway, to have that kind of luxurious life, only to have it taken away from you at the snap of a finger--especially during a time like this where there's no other work to be found--I'm sure it was very devastating for them. I'm sure it hurt their feelings, their egos, their pride...and who was there for them to comfort them and tell them they were going to be okay? Their parents were gone. They've been through a lot. And then here you come along, swept that poor man off his feet and he doesn't know what to do now. Now he's feeling the pressure to be a real man and he's going to need to understand what you expect out of him. And if you really feel like his lifestyle doesn't matter in regards to how you feel about him, then he needs to know that. He needs reassurance. He's a man. Just like the rest of them."
Bessie sipped her lemonade in thought, the flavor no longer sitting bitter on her tongue. "Was I wrong, then? To tell him he was unappreciative and ungrateful? Did I misunderstand what he was saying?"
"Well, no, if he was unappreciative and ungrateful, then you had every right to let him know it. If I never teach you anything about men, Bessie, I at least want you to learn to never let a man walk all over you. Sure, they take care of us and they bring home the bacon, but don't you ever lose sight of who you are and let one disregard and disrespect you."
Bessie sighed and stared down at the material on her dress, feeling more relaxed than ever. "I don't know what to do now. I still--I still like him..."
"I know you do."
"How do I make this right?"
"You don't. If he was in the wrong this time, then he needs to fix it. I'm not the kind of woman to tell you, you should sit around and wait on a man for anything. However, if you keep making yourself easily available, they'll start to take advantage. If you believe he was truly in the wrong here, then let him come to you. If it was meant to be, he'll make this right."
"Mama? What does Daddy think about me liking Zac?"
Her mother let out a breath and turned up her lemonade. "He doesn't know yet."
Bessie's eyes widened and her heart began to race. "Is it bad? Is it because he's--?"
"Your father is a bit old-fashioned. Set in his ways, has his own views on life. I have to remind him sometimes that it's 1933, not 1833. When the time is right, we'll tell him. But for now, I don't see the problem with you having a bit of fun. You are almost nineteen now, you know."
A smile crept across Bessie's face at her mother's acknowledgement of her age. Her age was something that was hard to remember sometimes when her father still kept her under lock and key, or so it felt. She was glad her mother had come upstairs to have this talk with her. It was nice to finally feel like someone understood her.
____________________________________________________________________
The rain lasted several hours. While Isaac and Taylor lamented over the money they were missing out on due to the weather, Zac lay on his back on his bed and stared at the ceiling. He had replayed his picnic with Bessie over and over and over again in his head, careful to analyze every single word and every single inflection, hoping that somewhere in there was a shred of hope that he hadn't lost her forever. There was something about her. Something...well, he didn't quite know. He'd only met her yesterday and already he felt like his entire world had been turned upside down. Since the moment he'd laid eyes on her, he'd been unable to take his mind off of her. She consumed him, he thought about her every single moment of the day and night. When he wasn't reminiscing or fantasizing, he was wondering what she was doing. What did she like? What were her habits? What did she dream of?
She liked the rain. That, he knew. Who liked rain? Nobody liked rain. But she managed to turn the rain into something positive. She liked boring wildflowers. Nobody liked boring wildflowers. They liked roses or beautiful, exotic flowers you bought from the flower shop or grew in your garden. Not something you picked off of the side of the road. But Bessie did. She thought they were beautiful. She saw the good in them.
And she liked poetry. He'd lied to her when he told her he couldn't think of one to recite. The truth was, he could have come up with a thousand love poems on the spot to recite to her, but none of them would have been good enough for her. Not by his standards, anyway. Although there was one that came to mind rather quickly and he found himself smiling at the ceiling as he went over it in his head. He would recite it for her someday soon. That, of course, would mean that he would have to see her again. He hoped to be able to make that happen. He was learning fast, in these past twenty-four hours, that going a day without her was going to prove to be near impossible. Was it really possible to fall this fast for someone?
She liked the rain, he reminded himself again. If the rain was worthy enough for her liking, it couldn't be all that bad. There had to be good in it somewhere. So he remembered her words, closed his eyes, and took in a breath as he strived to concentrate on the rapid raindrops as they beat down on the tin roof above him. The thunder shook the trailer at times, but he had to remind himself that it was only sound and it couldn't hurt him. The thunder couldn't hurt him and the rain couldn't hurt him, and as long as he kept Bessie in his mind and in his heart, as much as she enjoyed this weather, then it could never threaten him again. He was safe. She made him safe.
She liked to read by the window while it rained. She liked to raise her window and smell the air as it poured from the heavens. She liked to make the best out of a seemingly negative situation. Feeling inspired, he sat up on his bed and he reached underneath it, pulling out the first book his hand fell upon, blowing off the dust that had collected on it in the time that had passed since he'd picked it up last. He smiled as he looked over the hard cover: Shakespeare's book of sonnets. Having one immediately come to mind, he opened the book and flipped the pages until he found the one he sought, Bessie's light brown curls shining in the warm sunlight in his mind as he whispered the first line softly to himself. "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day...?"
As the rain beat down above him and the thunder rolled further in the distance, he allowed himself to get lost in the world of William Shakespeare, picturing the sweet object of his affection with every word he took in.
The atmosphere darkened fast around Zac and he could smell the rain as it threatened to fall from the heavy clouds above him. It would be any minute now. As angry as he was, his mind immediately went to Bessie and her bicycle. He wasn't sure how far she had to travel home, and the idea of her being out there alone as the wind started to pick up made his stomach knot up at the pit. However, the other part of him didn't care one bit about the weather as he had one goal and one goal alone: find Taylor.
When he got back to the fairgrounds and onto the back lot of the sideshow stages, finding Taylor hadn't been difficult. He stood by the large tree, looking in a direction past Zac and then he looked at Zac, wide-eyed with surprise. "What's the matter with Bessie?"
Tossing the basket and blanket onto the ground, not caring if they were messed up in the dirt, Zac went straight for his brother and shoved his finger in his face accusingly. "You had no right to tell her anything about me!"
Taylor blinked his eyes at Zac in surprise. "I didn't tell her anything about you, I told her about us."
"You had no right telling her anything!"
Taylor moved his head out of the way of his brother's finger and shoved his hand out of his face. "I told her because she asked me. She asked about the three of us, I had a right to answer her. What's your problem, anyway? She looked like she was crying--"
"You stay out of my business," Zac threatened through his teeth.
"By the looks of it, you don't have any business left. Does that have anything to do with why you're so mad at me all of a sudden?"
"It has everything to do with it! She didn't need to know, Tay! She didn't need to know about the drought or Ma and Pa or how we couldn't cut it in vaudeville! She didn't need to know how bad off we are--!"
"Boy, you sure are dense, aren't you?" Taylor said as he took a step toward Zac. "You really messed up this time. She doesn't care about any of that, she's a real sweet girl. And since you've done such a good job running her off, maybe I'll ask her out. She's kind and she's real pretty, too, there's no sense in letting a girl like that go to waste. Hell, I bet she'd even make a good wife someday."
The fury rose in Zac's body in such a way that his entire face felt hot. In an instant, he grabbed Taylor by the collar of his shirt and shoved him against the trunk of the tree he stood in front of. "YOU BACK OFF OF HER! She is not that kind of girl! Don't you dare think you can defile and disrespect her like you do all your other goddamned floozies!"
Seemingly unphased by Zac's sudden outburst, Taylor narrowed his eyes at him. "You sure got a lot to learn about me, you know that?"
"HEY!" Isaac's voice barked at them out of nowhere, startling both of the men momentarily. He pulled Zac off of Taylor and shoved him backward, placing himself between them as Taylor peeled himself from the tree trunk, straightening his collar. "What's going on here?"
"Tay's trying to take Bessie away from me!"
"I'm not trying to take anyone away, I was just messing around!"
"Like hell you were."
"Okay," Isaac said, raising his hands in defeat. "Okay, just calm down for a minute and let's get this sorted out. Tay, is what Zac's saying true?"
"No," he said to Isaac. Then he looked at Zac. "I'm being honest and you're real dumb if you let that girl get away. The only reason I talked to her today was because she came here looking for you!"
Zac was dumbfounded for a moment. "What are you talking about? This happened today?"
"Yeah," Taylor replied, his voice calming. "Right before our act, when you were out picking flowers. Zac, she nearly broke her neck trying to get here to see you. Just so she could wish you luck on the act and ask you if you wanted to have a picnic. She came here for you. She wrecked her bicycle into the prop trunk and scraped up her knee and I dressed it for her and we talked about you and our family and Millie. That's it. And she asked me if asking you for a picnic was too forward and I told her no, that you'd like it. But now you've made me look like a liar, because obviously you were your normal, charming self with her! So don't blame me if you've managed to run off what's probably the best dame you're ever gonna find!"
Zac continued to stare back at Taylor, his eyes wide, his breathing shallow with the realization and the guilt that was now beating the wind out of his chest. "She already had the picnic with her?" He asked, breathlessly.
"Yeah."
"Before you told her anything?"
"I told you, that's why she came."
"And you told her," Zac clarified. "You told her we had nothing. You told her we lived in our trailer, you told her we're poor..."
"Maybe not in those exact words..."
"And she wanted to picnic with me anyway?"
"That's what I'm trying to tell you," Taylor said gently. "She doesn't care, Zac. She likes you for you, she doesn't care where you came from. I don't--I don't think her heart comes wired for stuff like that. You're a real lucky man to be liked by a girl like her. Apologize to her, try to make it better. She's one of a kind these days. Don't let her get away."
Zac's heart sank and the guilt caused him to be weak at the knees and he sat down on the oversized tree root that he stood next to. Rubbing his face with his hands, he took off his cap and swept the strands of hair off of his forehead that had escaped his high ponytail. "I messed up, guys. I messed up real bad. I don't know if I can fix it. I don't know how to fix it. I don't think I'm ever gonna see her again."
"Well, I'm seeing her cousin and Ike's seeing her friend, so you got that going for you," Taylor offered.
"That doesn't matter," Zac sulked. "She really put her foot down with me today. She's not--she's not as shy as she comes across. When she believes in something, well...watch out."
"What did you say to her?" Isaac asked him. "She came tearing through here on that bike like a bat out of hell. Tay tried to get her attention but I don't even think she heard him..."
Zac sighed and looked up at his brothers. "What do you think happened? She told me what she and Tay talked about and I lost it. I just--she just seems like such a good person, I just want to be someone she can be proud of. You know? And I just--I basically talked her out of ever having a future with me, that's what I did. Because I'm an idiot and I was too wrapped up in myself to understand what she was trying to tell me." He paused and then he looked up at Taylor. "Thank you for the blanket. And carrying my load while I went off with Bessie. I appreciate it."
"Yeah, no problem. Anytime."
"That's what she got upset about. She told me I was ungrateful and unappreciative. And she's right. She's absolutely right. I--I spent so much time on what I didn't have and couldn't do and she--she put me in my place. You guys, in a lot of ways, we're really lucky. A lot luckier than a lot of people right now..."
"We know that," Isaac said gently. "We thought you knew that, too--"
"So did I," Zac agreed. "But I just--I've never felt this way about anyone, I just want to be good enough--"
"Zac, listen," Taylor said. "You're thinking too much into it. She's--she's young. And she doesn't have much life experience. You gotta take it slow with her, she spooks easy--I would know, she nearly took my hand off," he laughed. "But you should see her eyes when she talks about you. Or her smile when I told her you would like the picnic. She likes you. You already have her. You don't gotta try to impress her anymore, now you just gotta keep her."
At that, the thunder cracked loudly from above, startling the brothers and the sideshow acts that milled around them. The rain fell in torrents with little to no warning and the three Hansons made a mad dash for their trailer, which was parked nearby. Collapsing on his bunk, once inside, Zac sat back with Bessie's picnic basket in his lap. Upon sight of it, his heart sank all over again.
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Bessie didn't care about the rain. She didn't care about the way her hair was so quickly soaked between the road and her front door and she didn't care about the way her dress stuck to her back or the thunder that had clapped loudly in her ears all the way home, or the wind that had nearly pulled her from her bicycle on multiple occasions. She didn't care about any of it.
Bursting through the front door, she was startled by her parents, who both sat in the living room, her father in an armchair with a law book in his hand and a pipe between his teeth and her mother with her knitting in her lap on the nearby sofa. Her mother's eyes widened at the sight of her, startled by her appearance and apparently surprised to see her at all. "Bessie! What on earth...?"
At this, Bessie burst into tears again. "I don't care! I don't care about anything!" And then she ran for the staircase and tore upstairs to her bedroom.
Bursting in the door, she threw herself dramatically across her four-poster bed and buried her face in her arms, sobbing loudly with self-pity. She knew there was a reason she didn't pay attention to boys and she knew there was a reason boys didn't pay attention to her. Boys were rude and mean and self-centered. And the ones that weren't, like Taylor, were only attracted to pretty girls with curves like Millie, whose fathers actually let them out of the house to have a life. Bessie was boring and childish and she knew it. That was why boys never talked to her. In the end, though, maybe she was better for it. Boys weren't what they were cracked up to be.
"Bessie?" Her mother's voice came quietly from the doorway of her bedroom. "Bessie, sweetie, what is it?"
She sniffed and she wiped her eyes with her arm and she sat up to face her mother. "I was wrong. I was wrong about him, I thought he was someone different, but--but I was wrong..."
Carrying two glasses of lemonade into the room, her mother sat them both on her bedside table and made herself comfortable on Bessie's bed, sitting up on her pillows and smoothing out her dress over her legs as she crossed her outstretched ankles. "Come here," her mother said, holding out an arm to her. Bessie scooted next to her mother, settling herself against her as her mother wrapped her arm around her shoulders. "Look at that, I still got it. It feels like it's been years since I've held you like this."
"That's because I'm too old," Bessie smiled through her tears.
"No," her mother smiled gently. "You'll never be too old to be my baby. Here." She reached over to the bedside table and handed Bessie a glass of lemonade, keeping her own in her hand. "Have some lemonade and tell me what all the fuss is about."
Bessie sipped her lemonade and scrunched her nose up, looking up at her mother. "You forgot to put sugar in this batch, Mama."
"It's okay, just sip on it," she replied nonchalantly. "It'll calm you down. Soon you won't even notice the difference."
Bessie wasn't sure she was keen on the idea of this lemonade, but she did as she was told anyway. However, her mother was right and, after a few sips, she was starting to relax. "I went to the fair before their act to see if Zac wanted to have a picnic, but he wasn't there. I fell off my bicycle and scraped my knee and Taylor helped me clean it up. We talked and he told me it wouldn't be forward of me to ask Zac on a picnic. He said he would like it."
"Okay..."
"So when you gave me permission, I asked him for a picnic and he accepted and we went. And we sat and we ate our lunch and then...well, I'm not sure what happened. I thought we were having a nice time and then he just...got angry."
"Just like that? For no reason?"
"He got upset when I told him I talked to Taylor."
"Sounds like a typical case of jealousy."
"No," Bessie said, shaking her head against her mother's shoulder. "He got mad when I told him I knew about the drought and his parents and vaudeville. And then he said I would never understand because of my uppity social status..."
Her mother let out a breath. "Oh, boy..."
"And then I tried to tell him that none of that mattered to me, but he just grew more and more upset and he kept going on about how I would never want anything to do with him and then I just--then I got angry, Mama. I got angry and I called him ungrateful and unappreciative...and then I threw the flowers in his face and kicked the picnic basket and told him to keep it. I had a temper tantrum, Mama, a real temper tantrum. He'll never want to see me again because I acted like such a child. Nobody will ever see me as anything more than a child."
"Oh, goodness," her mother sighed as she tightened her arm around her daughter. "I feel like I've done you a disservice as a mother, dear. You and I probably should have had this talk quite some time ago."
"Talk?"
"Yes. About the wild, wonderful world of boys. Or, well, in your case, men."
"Men?"
Bessie's mother scoffed as she turned up her lemonade. "Have you looked at him, Bessie? That's no boy you got your eye on, sweetheart. How old is he, anyway?"
"Twenty-six," she answered meekly.
"Ah, yes. Twenty-six. I figured something close to that. Well, sweetheart, when you set your mind to something, you don't start small, do you?"
"Mama, I'm not...I'm not really sure I understand..."
"Well. Based on what you've told me, there seems to be somewhat of a big misunderstanding here--on both of your parts. The thing you need to understand about men, Bess--and to be clear, we are discussing men, not boys--is that they're a prideful bunch. Since the beginning of time, men have always...held a dominant role in society, in the household, really in general. They're the bread-winners, the hard workers...they have penises, dear."
"MOTHER!" Bessie hissed, aghast.
Her mother glanced at her and raised an eyebrow. "Drink up, Bessie, don't be wasteful. I raised you better than that. Anyway, the point is, men believe they're invincible. They don't like to admit defeat, they don't want to appear weak, and they don't like to be reminded of their pitfalls."
"But--but there's nothing wrong with any of that. They're human, too."
"Women know this. But men are a different breed. Men need to constantly be reminded that they are great and that they are important. After all, they take care of us, you know. Take your father, for example. He's a wonderful husband and father, and he's a great provider. He takes good care of us and we're very privileged to have him in our lives. But it takes encouragement. All the time. Even when we were courting each other, it took encouragement and trust and respect--you take care of your man and he takes care of you. When it's all said and done, it has nothing to do with who has what. Sometimes the happiest of relationships are between couples that lead the simplest of lives. What's important is the way you make each other feel. Everything else will fall into place."
"But, Mama, I tried to tell him that. I tried to tell him I only wanted to spend time with him, but he wouldn't hear it. I'm not so sure he likes me..."
"Oh, he likes you," her mother said with a reassuring smile. "I could see it during that act they put on, he's not shy about it. The thing you need to understand about Zac, sweetheart, is that you have to remember what happened to him and his brothers. They were very successful once. Very popular in vaudeville, made lots of money, traveled all over the country--maybe even the world, I'm not sure. Anyway, to have that kind of luxurious life, only to have it taken away from you at the snap of a finger--especially during a time like this where there's no other work to be found--I'm sure it was very devastating for them. I'm sure it hurt their feelings, their egos, their pride...and who was there for them to comfort them and tell them they were going to be okay? Their parents were gone. They've been through a lot. And then here you come along, swept that poor man off his feet and he doesn't know what to do now. Now he's feeling the pressure to be a real man and he's going to need to understand what you expect out of him. And if you really feel like his lifestyle doesn't matter in regards to how you feel about him, then he needs to know that. He needs reassurance. He's a man. Just like the rest of them."
Bessie sipped her lemonade in thought, the flavor no longer sitting bitter on her tongue. "Was I wrong, then? To tell him he was unappreciative and ungrateful? Did I misunderstand what he was saying?"
"Well, no, if he was unappreciative and ungrateful, then you had every right to let him know it. If I never teach you anything about men, Bessie, I at least want you to learn to never let a man walk all over you. Sure, they take care of us and they bring home the bacon, but don't you ever lose sight of who you are and let one disregard and disrespect you."
Bessie sighed and stared down at the material on her dress, feeling more relaxed than ever. "I don't know what to do now. I still--I still like him..."
"I know you do."
"How do I make this right?"
"You don't. If he was in the wrong this time, then he needs to fix it. I'm not the kind of woman to tell you, you should sit around and wait on a man for anything. However, if you keep making yourself easily available, they'll start to take advantage. If you believe he was truly in the wrong here, then let him come to you. If it was meant to be, he'll make this right."
"Mama? What does Daddy think about me liking Zac?"
Her mother let out a breath and turned up her lemonade. "He doesn't know yet."
Bessie's eyes widened and her heart began to race. "Is it bad? Is it because he's--?"
"Your father is a bit old-fashioned. Set in his ways, has his own views on life. I have to remind him sometimes that it's 1933, not 1833. When the time is right, we'll tell him. But for now, I don't see the problem with you having a bit of fun. You are almost nineteen now, you know."
A smile crept across Bessie's face at her mother's acknowledgement of her age. Her age was something that was hard to remember sometimes when her father still kept her under lock and key, or so it felt. She was glad her mother had come upstairs to have this talk with her. It was nice to finally feel like someone understood her.
____________________________________________________________________
The rain lasted several hours. While Isaac and Taylor lamented over the money they were missing out on due to the weather, Zac lay on his back on his bed and stared at the ceiling. He had replayed his picnic with Bessie over and over and over again in his head, careful to analyze every single word and every single inflection, hoping that somewhere in there was a shred of hope that he hadn't lost her forever. There was something about her. Something...well, he didn't quite know. He'd only met her yesterday and already he felt like his entire world had been turned upside down. Since the moment he'd laid eyes on her, he'd been unable to take his mind off of her. She consumed him, he thought about her every single moment of the day and night. When he wasn't reminiscing or fantasizing, he was wondering what she was doing. What did she like? What were her habits? What did she dream of?
She liked the rain. That, he knew. Who liked rain? Nobody liked rain. But she managed to turn the rain into something positive. She liked boring wildflowers. Nobody liked boring wildflowers. They liked roses or beautiful, exotic flowers you bought from the flower shop or grew in your garden. Not something you picked off of the side of the road. But Bessie did. She thought they were beautiful. She saw the good in them.
And she liked poetry. He'd lied to her when he told her he couldn't think of one to recite. The truth was, he could have come up with a thousand love poems on the spot to recite to her, but none of them would have been good enough for her. Not by his standards, anyway. Although there was one that came to mind rather quickly and he found himself smiling at the ceiling as he went over it in his head. He would recite it for her someday soon. That, of course, would mean that he would have to see her again. He hoped to be able to make that happen. He was learning fast, in these past twenty-four hours, that going a day without her was going to prove to be near impossible. Was it really possible to fall this fast for someone?
She liked the rain, he reminded himself again. If the rain was worthy enough for her liking, it couldn't be all that bad. There had to be good in it somewhere. So he remembered her words, closed his eyes, and took in a breath as he strived to concentrate on the rapid raindrops as they beat down on the tin roof above him. The thunder shook the trailer at times, but he had to remind himself that it was only sound and it couldn't hurt him. The thunder couldn't hurt him and the rain couldn't hurt him, and as long as he kept Bessie in his mind and in his heart, as much as she enjoyed this weather, then it could never threaten him again. He was safe. She made him safe.
She liked to read by the window while it rained. She liked to raise her window and smell the air as it poured from the heavens. She liked to make the best out of a seemingly negative situation. Feeling inspired, he sat up on his bed and he reached underneath it, pulling out the first book his hand fell upon, blowing off the dust that had collected on it in the time that had passed since he'd picked it up last. He smiled as he looked over the hard cover: Shakespeare's book of sonnets. Having one immediately come to mind, he opened the book and flipped the pages until he found the one he sought, Bessie's light brown curls shining in the warm sunlight in his mind as he whispered the first line softly to himself. "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day...?"
As the rain beat down above him and the thunder rolled further in the distance, he allowed himself to get lost in the world of William Shakespeare, picturing the sweet object of his affection with every word he took in.