Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Margo turns away from the mirror. “I can’t do this, Beau.”
“That’s not true.”
I can see the resistance building, the voices in her head loud with shame, her mind on the defensive, trying to shield her heart.
Shifting my body so she has to face the mirror again, her breath is shallow and she looks anywhere but at her reflection.
I’ve been around long enough to know that someone didn’t have to suffer a terrible trauma to experience pain. Of course, those things happen and it’s tragic every time. But for some people, the hurt is like a thousand paper cuts, building over their life, one little jab, backhanded comment, or disapproving look at a time.
The same is also true for me. Sure, a shrink could probably dissect my childhood and it would point toward why I am the way I am.
But I believe it all built to this moment with Margo. All the careful listening and understanding—being stoic or whatever they call it these days—made it so that when I saw how beautiful she was, there would be no mistaking or avoiding it. Since she’s been led to believe the opposite about herself, I now have the ability to help her see it too.
Smoothing her hair over her shoulder, I gently grip her arm and kiss the little bit of exposed skin at the base of her neck. “I think this is beautiful.”
She inhales a shaky breath.
I take her hand in mine and kiss the inside of her wrist. “This is beautiful.”
Frozen up until now, she relaxes a measure.
Sliding my hand into her palm, I kiss the top of her hand and then the tip of every finger. “All of these are beautiful.”
Margo peers up at me. Using my head, I nudge hers back toward the mirror. Then I press a kiss to her temple. “There is beauty here. Lots of it.”
The tension in her releases slightly as she exhales and sinks into me.
“Everything in my life is hard. The ice, the puck. The hockey stick. But you’re soft. I need soft. You’re like satin, a bunny’s cotton tail, a cloud if I could touch it.”
I kiss my way around the world that is Margo Cabot, dropping little flags here and there, declaring her beauty. I may be the first person to have done this when in her life everyone else has led her to believe the opposite.
“Let yourself be loved,” I say, my voice husky.
A tremor rushes through her, like a last push of resistance.
“Let me love you,” I add.
Her voice is thin when she says, “I know you’d never physically hurt me, but what if you break my heart?”
“I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.” Once more, I have to show her, prove it.
When I kiss her cheek, I duck my head so we’re about level and gaze into the mirror once more. Her eyes hold mine. It’s powerful and intimate but filtered through the mirror. Eventually, her gaze flits to meet her coffee-with-cream eyes. They fill with tears. A few fall and I kiss them away. She holds strong and breath by breath, the corners of her lips lift. Mine follow.
She swims past all the garbage floating around in her mind, consisting of the things she’s been told by her family. I see the moment she reaches the shore, out of the tumultuous waves.
Standing there, she doesn’t run. Instead, her smile breaks into laughter. Happy tear-filled laughter spilling over with relief. Of freedom from all those stories and lies she’s struggled with. I join her and the sound echoes through the room.
Margo turns to me, grips my cheeks, and kisses me on the lips, smiling, laughing, and repeating the words, “Thank you.”
When we part, I say, “No, Honey Butter. You did the work. I just stood in the storm with you until it passed.”
Cheeks pink, she asks, “You really like what you see?”
“Truly. I’ve never given you any reason to think otherwise.”
Her nod is tentative.
To drive home my point, to say what I really mean, I add, “I love what I see.” And that’s a first for me. I’ve never felt this way.
“This is like if when I was a kid, my mother one day saying, ‘You can have cake for breakfast.’ I wouldn’t believe it. Think there’s some kind of catch.”
“But you only like the frosting.”
Her smile reaches her eyes. “You know me so well.”
And I’d like to get to know her even better.
I add, “Also, you’re not a child so if you want frosting for breakfast, you can make that choice. Just save the cake part for me.”
We laugh some more and move back to the living room. But instead of sitting beside me, Margo wedges herself at my back and starts rubbing my shoulders.
“Tonight just got an upgrade,” I say, leaning into the massage.
“So us, huh?” she asks after a few minutes of quiet. “Everything has kind of gotten jumbled. We don’t have to actually get married. People usually spend a longer period getting to know each other during the engagement period.”
“I want to marry you.”
“Right, but we could hold off. Not have a St. Patrick’s Day wedding. I’m not saying that because I don’t want to. I do and I’ve already had to cancel one wedding, but we don’t need to rush.” Margo digs into a knot across my traps.
I let out a little groan. “I want to rush to the best part. To promising myself to you.”
“When you put it that way ...” Her breath is close to my ear and sends a shiver through me.
“We don’t have to fake anything anymore. I’d like to follow through with getting married, but if you’re not sure, then I understand.” She doesn’t reply, so I list some possible objections. “Maybe I’m too quiet for you.”
“I make up for your quietness. When you do say something I know you really mean it.”
“I might be too old.”
“I like that we have a little age gap. That just means that when you’re old and wrinkly, I’ll be slightly less old and wrinkly.”
We both laugh as she works on my mid back and the sides where I’m secretly ticklish.
Then she says, “Beau, if there’s anything else I should know, something you haven’t mentioned, maybe tell me now.”
I’ve sensed that she knows I’m holding back. My big secret.
Without disturbing our cozy arrangement on the couch, I reach for my phone on the coffee table. Being tall and having long arms helps and not just for goaltending. I tap a few times, begrudgingly find what I’m looking for, and then hold it up so she can see what mostly hides in the depths of the internet.
It’s an old video, a little grainy. The camera focuses on a stage and red, purple, and blue laser lights flash while the announcer introduces, “5PRNZS.” We parade onto the stage with me in the middle, the tallest, singing and dancing a cheesy pop tune.
Over my shoulder, Margo leans in. I’d much rather drown in a pool of her floral and fresh air scent than watch this humiliating and challenging period of my life.
When the song ends, sweaty and catching our breath, the emcee crosses the stage to briefly interview us. I remember this particular event at the Intherness Music Center, but it could’ve been any of the many I performed in Concordia and the handful around northern and eastern Europe.
The guy with the mic has us each say our names and a quick word. Each of the four other guys introduces themselves as their assigned number in the lineup.
When it reached me, I said, “Beau.”
Margo squints, moving closer as if unable to believe her eyes. Then her head jerks to me.
“Beau as in Beaumont Hammer?”
I give one swift nod, hating to revisit this.
She slides around so she’s sitting in front of me. “You said you came out of the womb singing.”
“More or less. It was a gift I didn’t ask for, but I did enjoy singing as a kid. It would just happen. I’d play the piano and sing. No big deal. But my parents saw an opportunity. A paycheck. It started small with me performing at my grandparents’ church events and things like that.”
“When we went ice skating, you were humming.”
“I was? I basically took a self-imposed vow of silence once I broke free. Must’ve slipped out.”
She nods slowly as if trying to understand the big picture. “I couldn’t get your voice over the rest, but I’d love to hear it.”
I shrug. “Don’t sing much these days.”
“Any chance you need to shower?”
My brow creases because she knows I took one a few hours ago.
“Everyone sings in the shower.” Her smile rises and just as quickly falls.
When I don’t answer, she meets my eyes. Just as I saw the beauty in hers, I imagine she sees the pain in mine.
Margo whispers, “There’s more to the story isn’t there?”
She doesn’t ask me to tell it, but how my mother forced me into the entertainment industry, albeit in Concordia and elsewhere overseas, spills out. “When I was thirteen, my mother, Sukie, entered me into a contest on a talent show like you have here in the States. I won and it went downhill from there.”
In bits and pieces, I talk about the drivers of fame, excess, and signing my life away one song, one show at a time.
“You didn’t want to do it.”
“No, I’d rather have just sung in the shower, at Christmas. Been a kid. Gone to regular school. Done sports. Instead, I was her show pony, her meal ticket. She used me.”
“But you have a talent ...”
I shake my head. “It was less about my voice and more about me filling a role, an end goal—a teenage boy in a boy band to rake in the money.”
Worries about whether things will work out between us now that she knows I sacrificed my integrity for what my mother wanted and demanded of me, rakes through my mind.
My defenses mount and my tone is abrupt when I ask, “Is this going to work?
She sputters, “Are you not so low-key/high-key saying it’s over? We’ve hardly tried.”
“Now that you know that about me ...” I can hardly say the words.
She gasps. “Do I think less of you? Not even a little bit. I want to hear you sing, but no pressure. You stood up to the bullies in your life. You got out of it and you’ve helped me. But I still have to face my mother and Celeste.”
“It’s simple, Margo. Tell them no.”
“I wish it were that easy, Beau. I’m not a relationship expert, but how long did it take you to become a good goalie? No, a great goalie? A Hall of Fame potential goalie. That’s what Juniper says about you. Cara, Meg, and the others were really hyping you up too.”
I shrug, resisting the praise.
“It took a bit, right? So do relationships.”
The tension builds in my shoulders.
“The relationship with myself, with my family. Us. But it’s different than before. We’re on the same team, right?” she asks.
“Yes. Please. Yes.”
She leans her head against mine. “Good. Now, where were we?”
Margo goes back to releasing the tension that returned to my shoulders.
I tell her about how I became my mother’s business commodity. How she, and eventually my stepfather, took the money I’d earned while touring year-round with only a break during the holidays to visit my grandparents.
“What do they think about your hockey career?”
“They don’t. All they saw was PRNZ, aka prince, Number One.”
“They reduced you to a number?”
“We each went by our spot in the lineup. The fans eventually dropped the PRNZ part and just called us by our number.”
“That’s plain wrong.”
“The whole thing was. Sukie wanted us to have international stardom. Your dad would know. That’s hard to do. When my mother saw that we weren’t going to be an overnight success, she pushed me even harder.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“There’s more. Backtracking a little, my grandparents were very wealthy. My mother stood to inherit nearly a billion dollars. Shortly before my grandfather passed away, my parents divorced. I was like nine or ten. Never saw my father again. Come to find out, years later, my grandfather changed his will last minute. He wrote that my mother would only get a portion of the inheritance—and I’d get the rest—when I got married. But this also means she’s still tied to me until I tie the knot. Also, there was a deadline clause. I had to marry by thirty.”
“One more year.”
“Not knowing any of this, before he passed, he made me promise to marry for love. For no other reason.”
Margo watches rapt as if I’m revealing historical secrets. “But you proposed the marriage of convenience.”
I scrub my hand through my hair. “I did, but I also—maybe I just knew. Love at first sight or something,” I mumble, feeling way out of my comfort zone.
“Love?”
Our gazes meet, but she doesn’t push me to say more. Maybe because she knows this is new for me. Perhaps because she’s still afraid to be loved.
“Understandably, Sukie was upset.”
“You call your mother by her first name?”
“She was my manager. Said it was more professional.”
“More like made you less like her son. Someone she could manipulate more easily.” Margo’s eyes flash and her tone is sharp like she’ll raise a sword to defend me.
I exhale, prepared to tell Margo something I’ve never shared with anyone. “I realize now that my existence was purely a business arrangement. She was never affectionate. Never showed or said she cared.”
“Never told you that she loved you?” Margo whispers, eyes searching mine.
She speaks the truth that I can’t and I nod in confirmation.
Margo brushes her hand across my cheek. “She missed out on someone special.”
I kiss Margo’s hand and then continue my story, knowing we’re both showing the other how we feel and soon may be able to say it too.
“When I was about eleven, Sukie decided to put my voice to good use. Signed me up for dance lessons, took me to auditions, and all kinds of things. By age thirteen, 5PRNZS were born.” I spell it out for Margo with the number five and then the letters that stand for princes , then I explain that Concordia is a monarchy, so there are actually royals, hence the name.
“But you’re not an actual prince.”
Having kept this story in for so many years, I let out a long sigh. “Thankfully, no.”
“My father was in the music industry. I wonder how many versions of your mother he came across.”
“All of them. No decent parent would sacrifice their child’s innocence for a payday. But that’s what happened.”
“Considering you’re no longer a member of the 5PRNZS, what happened?”
“You have no idea how badly I wanted out of that music contract. I tried everything. But as a minor, I was helpless. So I prayed. Hockey appeared like ice from heaven.”
She smiles. “Do you still have to get married?”
“Getting married means finally severing ties with my mother over my grandfather’s will.” I exhale a sigh through my nose. “I know this sounds harsh, but she’ll go to any lengths to get her money, including trying to get me to marry Pixie Galaxie.”
“The pop star?”
I nod. “She’s a nightmare.”
“But she seems so sweet.”
I shake my head with a shiver. “To be clear, I appreciate my grandfather leaving the bulk of his fortune to me, but if I get married, my mother gets hers which means complete closure. There’s nothing more she can try to bleed out of me or demand from me.”
Still seated behind me, Margo rests her chin on my shoulder. It’s intimate but different from the kiss. “I’m sorry, Beau. Sorry, that happened to you.”
“Thank you, but had it not, I wouldn’t be here with you telling this story right now.”
“Maybe things have a roundabout way of working out.”
I nod. “I’ve never experienced love. Never said it. Never heard it.”
Eyes bright, Margo looks at me for a long moment, and something unspoken passes between us. Her head dips slightly almost like she’s nodding, committing to something.
After a beat, she asks, “Will meeting your parents be better than mine?”
“I haven’t met your dad.”
“He has two settings: work—but he’s retired now—and golf. There’s not much more to him than that.”
“We have similar family backgrounds but turned out so different.”
“I’ve been running from my family while you’ve been guarding something. Is this why you’re quiet? To not give away your location so to speak?”
“Yes and no. Sometimes it feels like I’ve used up my voice from singing for all those years. Doctors even warned that if I didn’t stop, I’d get vocal chord damage. Sukie ignored them.”
“How did you get out of it?”
“Turned eighteen. Started to rebel a bit.”
“What did that look like?”
“Playing hockey all night. The league in Concordia is rough. Kind of the opposite of boy band life with weekly manicures and stage makeup. Rolled in with a few bruises, stitches. Not the optimal 5PRNZS look.”
She laughs. “It’s hard to believe you’re the same person here as in the video you showed me.”
“Hockey helped. I got teased a lot at first. But I was big, capable. Held my own.”
“You started skipping band rehearsals and playing hockey instead?” Margo tickles my neck. “Such a bad boy.”
“Sukie certainly didn’t think it was good. She threatened me with everything, especially withholding money.”
“But you didn’t care.”
“Nope. I was done being paraded around, working crazy long hours, traveling all the time.”
“Yet you do that now.”
“But it’s on my terms, doing something I enjoy.”
“Was there a final show, uh, showdown?”
My lips quirk. “There was, and it was somewhat spectacular. We were all burned out, but some of the guys had really lost it, so the team proposed we start lip-syncing. I wasn’t cool with that. so during a concert, I just walked off the stage. It was over.”
Margo’s mouth forms a perfect O . “Whoa.”
“I didn’t mean to upset the fans, but they had to understand that it was all fabricated—theater. Meanwhile, they were led to believe it was all real. But before you think I’m some kind of spoiled rich kid, I know there are loads of people who wish they could sing like I did. To have the opportunities that I had. But that’s the difference. They want it. Are hungry for it. I was forced to, and every cent went to Sukie and my stepfather as they pushed me harder. All the while, there were shady characters who tried to appeal to?—”
Margo squishes up her face. “So what we ordinary people hear about celebrities is true?”
“There’s nothing ordinary about you, Margo.”
She starts to refute the comment.
“Receive the compliment. I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.”
She blushes, and I can tell by the light in her eyes that my words hit a good spot inside, the one I’ve been trying to fill up with love, appreciation, and kindness.
“I can only speak from my experience, but the push to give me whatever I wanted was strong. A couple of the other guys in the group got into drugs and alcohol pretty hard. The third guy’s vice was women and he now has seventeen kids with twelve different mothers.”
Margo gasps.
“I wish I was making this up. I’m all for a big family, but ... then the other one was into gambling. They covered the bases of vices.”
“Then there’s you.”
“Hockey addict. But it took its toll on me in invisible ways with obsessions and superstitions.”
“I think the best thing I did to fight through my low motivation mode was to get help and keep going.”
“Love helps too. The Lord as well.”
Margo nods and watches the video one more time.
“Thankfully, Concordia is a relatively low-profile country, which means this isn’t widely known. In my contract, there’s a privacy piece. Like a non-disclosure so it doesn’t come up. I wanted to sever my connection with that life. Not because I was embarrassed, though I’m not proud of it, but because it wasn’t me. Sukie made me into her ‘Little Money Making Star.’”
“There’s nothing little about you, Beau. But you were a handsome teenager. Sixteen-year-old me would’ve had your poster on my bedroom wall and kissed it every night before dreaming about someday marrying you. I’d have doodled Mrs. Hammer in my diary.”
“I like the sound of that.”
“Is this why you’re not on social media?”
“One reason among many. I like this better. Unfiltered. No screen. Nothing dividing us. Distracting us. You and me.”
“But you knew the name of my business and blocked my sister’s low-blow shot at the wedding brunch when she tried to expose our lie.”
“I saw your website open in the search engine when I called the locksmith. Your face is on the top of Margo A Go-Go dot com.”
“It pays to be observant, to listen.”
I grin. “Exactly.”
She wraps her arms around me. “You can sing for me, you know. I promise I won’t pay you. I won’t even toss a coin into your upside-down hat like a street performer.”
This has me in stitches. When I finally catch my breath, maybe I’ll want to sing again ... someday soon.
Once more, thanks to my long arms, I reach for the engagement ring on the table behind the couch.
Positioning myself so we’re facing each other, I open the box.
Margo’s eyes widen.
“Honey Butter, will you please marry me for real?”
She squeals. “Yes, yes, I will.”
I finally slide the ring on her finger and we kiss again.