17. Thea
THEA
I haven’t been whole since Daddy died.
The earth has completed nearly two revolutions around the sun since he left us, and I still feel the same way I did when I watched the life leave his eyes.
You’re not supposed to see death. Not like that.
Human beings are the only animals on the planet cursed with the knowledge of their own mortality.
It’s supposed to be something you brush under the carpet. Something you don’t think about. A topic best left out of civil conversation.
But I saw it. One moment my father was here, and the next he was gone.
Witnessing that moment firsthand altered my brain chemistry in ways I can’t explain.
Nothing’s been the same since.
Emmy took me in. It was clear she didn’t want to, but it was my father’s dying wish that she raise me on her own. She didn’t see a way out of it that wouldn’t make her a pariah among our community.
Emmy changed when Daddy died, too.
She became less kind. Less flexible.
Crueler.
She was never warm. Never affectionate. Not like how I always imagined my true mother was.
But she changed from being mildly detached to a terror of a woman in a matter of months.
Part of me understands. Daddy was our breadwinner. Without him, the day-to-day of the farm went to Emmy, and she has no background in agriculture. She’s been learning on the fly, but she doesn’t have the natural intuition with the land my father did.
Our first harvest was a fraction of its usual size. The first winter after Daddy slipped away was rough. There were days at a time when we’d split a can of beans for dinner, if that.
Inheriting a farm and a child overnight is a lot of pressure to put on a person. Pretty soon, Emmy came to see me not as the final extension of the man she loved more than anything else in the world, but as an inconvenience. Another bill to be paid.
It started halfway through that winter, when I suggested burning an extra piece of firewood on a particularly cold night.
“Oh,” she snapped. “Her Majesty isn’t pleased with the warmth. God forbid a little chill crawl up her skirt.” She then drew back her hand and slapped me across the face.
I fell to the floor in tears. “Emmy, that hurt!”
“Life hurts.” She knelt and whispered in my ear. “If we use an extra piece of firewood tonight, that means we have one fewer piece the next time it’s cold. Would you rather we freeze to death then?”
“Of course not, Emmy. I only thought—”
“You thought nothing.” She grabbed my arm, whipped the front door open. Violent winds lashed at my face. “Maybe an hour in the snow will give you a little perspective.”
And she threw me outside. I slid across the cobblestone pathway leading to the house’s entrance on my knees, skinning them. When I stood, tiny drops of blood stained the blanket of snow. My tears soon joined them.
She let me in after an hour. And I never complained about the firewood again.
Since then, I’ve learned how to walk on eggshells around her. It worked until she started making up offenses as an excuse to wail on me. A slap here, a scratch there. One day she whipped me with my father’s old belt.
My father was kind and sweet. He’d be rolling in his grave if he knew his widow was doing this to me.
One day, as the snow began to finally slow down, Emmy approached me, her eyes cold and gray. “Thea, it’s time you earned your keep on this farm.”
I cocked my head. “I already help out, Emmy. I feed and water the animals, I milk the cows.”
“That’s child’s play. I need real help. And I need it from you.”
I blinked a few times. “Okay. What did you have in mind?”
“Everything, Thea. I need help with everything.” She paced around me. “I’ve already made the arrangements. You’ll stop going to school and work here full time.”
I twisted my face. “But I’ll miss my friends! I want to go to—”
I could no longer speak because Emmy slapped her hand over my mouth and pinched my nose. Within seconds I began to feel lightheaded.
“What will you miss more, child? Your precious friends, or the air you need to breathe?”
I struggled against her. I wanted to answer her, but I couldn’t with my mouth covered.
She brought me over to the counter. “Answer me. One slap for friends, two slaps for air.”
With the last ounce of energy I had in my body, I brought my hand down on the counter twice.
She let go of me, and I collapsed to the floor, gasping.
Little did I know I should have just chosen asphyxiation.
Emmy ended up working me harder than any girl my age should ever be worked.
It started out with manageable tasks. I was already helping with the animals, but now I was feeding and watering all the livestock, milking the cows at four in the morning, cleaning the stalls until they sparkled, and weeding every square inch of our ten-acre farm.
It wasn’t long before Emmy started assigning me more complex tasks like repairing the fence that ran the property’s perimeter.
I scratched myself up doing that, both from the splintered wood and from the rusty nails and screws Emmy gave me to work with.
If I was lucky, I’d receive an hour of homeschooling from her a day.
She told me there was nothing she could teach me from a book I couldn’t learn from hard work on the land.
We were just starting to learn algebra when I left school.
Now I can barely do basic arithmetic without counting on my fingers.
But I’ve learned not to defy Emmy. If she has no misgivings about depriving me of the air I breathe, there are very few things she wouldn’t do to me.
Today is my fifteenth birthday. I walk down the stairs to see Emmy smiling. On my plate, a small stack of buttermilk pancakes with a candle on it.
Nearly two years since Daddy died. My birthday went unacknowledged last year.
Not that Emmy should care at all. So why does she have a sickly-sweet smile on her face? Why did she waste precious resources to make pancakes from scratch?
“Sit down, sweetheart.” She gestures to the chair across from her at the table.
I slowly slink down. “We usually have eggs for breakfast.”
“Today is a special day, Thea.” She leans forward, eyeing me too closely. “Eat.”
My first thought is that the pancakes are poisoned. But that would deprive Emmy of my labor. I take a bite. They’re very tasty.
“Thank you for the pancakes,” I say carefully. “They’re very good.”
She shrugs casually. “Like I said, today is a special day.”
“I guess. I’m fifteen now,” I say.
She narrows her eyes. “Fifteen?”
I nod. “Yeah. My birthday.”
She laughs at that. “Birthdays don’t matter, Thea. So you managed to not die for another three hundred and sixty-five days. Who the hell cares? No, that’s not why today is special.”
My throat catches. Maybe she did poison me.
“What… What do you mean?”
“Today is Tractor Day. The day we plow the land to prepare it for seeding. We need to do much better than we did this time last year or the year before. I want this harvest to be our biggest yet. Better than your father could have ever dreamed.”
“The tractor? But I don’t know how—”
I stop speaking as Emmy glares at me. The same look she gave me that first time she slapped me. The same look she gave me when she threw me out in the snow, nearly smothered me with her hands.
I take another bite of pancake. “Of course, Emmy. That sounds like fun.”
I haven’t showered. I barely slept last night. And I have to go to a stupid work event tonight with people I can’t stand.
But for once, I don’t care. I’m having the time of my life with Aus.
First he took me to the Lincoln Park Zoo and then to an improv show at Second City. Now we’re at the Sky Deck looking down on the city’s famous high-rises and colorful parks. Aus has held my hand the whole day like we’re schoolyard crushes. Our fingers fit together perfectly.
We’ve done so much in the three hours since we had lunch at the Golden Cap, and I’ve enjoyed every second of it. I’m sad for it to end. We’re going to meet back up at Wrigley Manor, where the gala will be held.
Although… Aus is showered and shaved, and he looks great as he is. He doesn’t need to get ready. We can just rent him a tux. It won’t take long. If I eat into the first fifteen minutes of the cocktail hour, it won’t kill us.
I suggest it to him and he grins. “It’s a great idea.”
“Would you mind driving me to my place? You can just hang in the living room while I get ready. I have a pet cat, Dodo. You can hang out with her, turn on the TV, whatever. I hope you won’t be bored.”
“How could I be bored”—he tips my chin up so my eyes meet his—“when I’m in the company of the most beautiful woman in the world?”
Another rush of warmth to my cheeks.
God, how stupid could I have been last night to think that Wick was even a tenth as dreamy as this man?
We stare into each other’s eyes for a moment in the glass lookout area of the Sky Deck. We’re up so high that a few low-hanging clouds are at eye level. For a moment I feel like I’m in heaven.
And then I know I’m in heaven when Aus leans in and softly brushes his lips against mine.
They’re softer than I expect. Soft, but firm. And I love it.
We’re in public, so we can’t hold the kiss as long as I want. But that doesn’t stop the sparks all over my body as our lips part.
“You’re a fantastic kisser,” I breathe out.
“Only because I was kissing you,” he replies.
We take the elevator back down to the ground floor and cross to Aus’s car on a nearby side street. Within twenty minutes we’re back at my place.
And a thought crosses me.
I invited him back to my place.
He’s going to think—
I don’t care what he’s going to think. If he thinks I want to hook up with him here and now, I’m okay with that.
I’m not irrationally horny like I was last night. I haven’t had anything to drink today.
Though I’m definitely getting a buzz off this man.
We walk up the stoop and I fumble with my keys for a moment before I can get us inside my townhome. Dodo immediately approaches, rubbing her body up against my leg before stopping and staring at Aus.
He kneels and gives her a scratch on the back of her neck. “Hey there, kitty.”
“This is Dodo,” I say. “Her given name is Rosanna Donatella Storm, but I started calling her Dodo when she was a kitten because…well…she’s not the sharpest tool in the shed. But she’s a sweetie pie.”
“I can tell.” He looks up at me with a grin. “Just like her mom.”
My heart gushes. When did my life become a romantic drama?
It’s been nearly twenty-four hours since I was in this house.
Since then I took a stranger’s car to a Technicolor wonderland, got stood up on an online date, went home with the bartender of said Technicolor wonderland, passed out in his bed and overslept, nearly missing my news broadcast. Then I choked through forced pleasantries with my coworker, and then ran into the man who owns the Technicolor wonderland, spending the rest of the day with him despite having gotten very little sleep, kissing him a thousand feet from the ground, and now getting ready to bring him as my date to my work event.
All within one measly turn of the planet.
Crazy shit.
Aus gets back to his feet after giving Dodo a few more scratches. He traces a finger down my cheek. “So… I guess you have to get ready now.”
I suck in a breath. All I want to do is strip naked and let this man take me the way a woman dreams to be taken.
But the clock is ticking.
“Yeah, I really should.” I lean in, press a hand against his chest. “But know that I’d rather be cuddled up with you.”
“That can certainly be arranged when we have time.” He pulls out his phone. “Do you have a rec for where I can get a tuxedo reserved?”
“Yes. There’s a place in Midtown you can go. Hathaway Haberdashery. They should be able to help you out.”
He pockets his phone. “Oh, yeah. I’m familiar. I sort of know the owner.”
I lift an eyebrow. “You know Maddox Hathaway? The Maddox Hathaway?”
“He’s more of a friend of a friend. But yeah, I didn’t know they did rentals.”
“It’s a new program. One of my anchors rents from them all the time. They’re good quality, and they have every size. If you have an in with the owner, that’s all the better.”
“Then I won’t even bother calling them. Maddox will see me, no question.” He pockets his phone and plunks himself down on the couch. Dodo immediately hops up next to him and rubs her head against his thigh. He runs his hand over the length of her back, and she arches against him.
“Dodo likes you. That isn’t always the case, especially with guys.”
“I’m honored.” He flashes me another smile that could melt me into a puddle.
I suppress a quiver. “I’ll… I’ll leave you to it. If you’d like, feel free to watch something on the TV. I’ve got all the regular streaming channels.”
“Perfect.” He glances back at me, his eyes searing into me. “Don’t take too long.”
“I won’t.” I blow him a kiss—yes, I actually blow him a kiss like I’m in a Victorian nursery school—and step into my bedroom.
At first I think of locking the door, but I don’t have to.
I intuitively trust Aus. I kick off the silver tennis shoes and strip off my work clothes, tossing them in the bin that I’ll take to the dry cleaners.
I’ll bring a new backup outfit to work on Monday in case of any more unexpected sleepovers.
Of course, I won’t be spending any more nights with a man who isn’t Aus.
Aus!
I haven’t texted Micaela to let her know I’ll be cashing in my plus-one for the night.
I hope it’s not too late. It would be shitty of me to invite him and then not be able to take him. And this isn’t an event I can flake out of. It is a good cause.
I’m a big enough person to admit I also desperately want to rub Aus in Micaela’s smug face. Especially after her condescending little “you’ll find someone” speech.
That’s not the main reason I want to bring him, but it’s a delicious bonus.
My phone is in the other room, and I’m completely naked.
No matter. I’ll throw on a robe. I have a beautiful satin one in mossy green. I’ll slip in and grab my phone. Aus probably won’t even see me. He’s probably watching something on the TV.
I wrap the robe around myself, barely concealing my bouncy tits, when I open the door to my bedroom.
And I freeze in my tracks.
Because Aus is standing right at my door, his fist frozen in the air as if he was about to knock.
He looks down at my bosom.
And his jaw drops.