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<center>http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f3...ildaheader.jpg
I?d collapse to the grass, with your notes ringing in my head
Let the rain fill my mouth, and in a couple hours I?ll be dead
But all the while my lips are whistling our tune
But the beauty lies in how you will revive me soon
Matilda Morgan Howes</center>
<font color="#000000" size="1">[ July 03, 2006 10:46 PM: Message edited by: closer than this (it hurts to be) ]</font>
At first, its just the innocent things. We've both got the same body, Matilda, you shouldn't be ashamed to let me see. Its not like I haven't seen it before, Matilda. Wow, Matilda, you've really got a great stomach. Did you know that? You probably knew that. Before you know it, your daughter's in the pool naked with the neighbor, but you don't think anything about it because the neighbor is a girl, and no harm can come from that, can it?
The late night giggling stops, the doors close, they don't need the hallway light anymore, and all you can think about is how fast they're growing up and it isn't until you find them spooning on Saturday morning watching cartoons that the thought even crosses your mind. Not your daughter. Never your daughter. Not beautiful Matilda. There's a boy from school that keeps calling but she won't take his calls, and her Daddy gets this proud look in his eyes every time she states that the only man she needs is him. Why wreck it? She's only fifteen. Its just a phase.
Then, one day, she brings home a skinny blonde and introduces her as her girlfriend, and Daddy leaves the room and her sister merely smirks and sits back to watch the show. As she chases after her Daddy, and the shouting starts, all you can think about is that one day, when she was thirteen, when you caught a glimpse of her kissing that damn neighbor girl and all you could think about was how wonderful it was for Matilda to be so comfortable with herself...
May 6th, 2006 : journal entry
I get the feeling that Declan is better at bowling then he lets on.
My agent called this morning. I think I pay her too much for the little work that she does, but the jobs she finds for me do pay half of this rent. She found a few little jobs for me to do. A store in one of the malls in San Francisco is modeling their bathing suits Sunday, so I'm going out there tomorrow night and staying the night in some cheap hotel room on them. Its a bit of a different thing that they have going, models walking around in bathing suits while people shop. It pays a good amount of money, though, so it will be worth it.
I'm helping a photographer with lighting tests or something three days out of next week. A 'dummy model' or so she called it. It doesn't pay as much as the day model, but enough to be worth my time. Next Friday? I'm going to do my thing on the catwalk, or however that song goes. Another bathing suit thing, with a runway set up on the beach.
This is what pays the rent.
I can't believe you didn't hunt me down and take me with you.
I'M SORRY. You can come to my runway.
Your runway? For what? Do I get some free alcohol or something?
You get to watch models walk a runway in bathing suits.
What time?
3 pm on Friday.
I'll be there. ... Afterwards I'll buy you pizza and beer. Ha.
You're the best, Declan. I'm heading down to the indoor pool in that pink bikini (they let me keep it). I think its time for a swim. Meet me down there?
Fuck yeah. I don't got a fancy pink bikini from a photoshoot, but I guess we'll get over it, right? My swim trunks are somewhere in the fucking closet. Give me fifteen.
She was on my lap. My skirt was bunched up between us. She sank her fingers into me as her teeth teased across my lips and my mind swam. Was the room getting smaller? It felt like the room was getting smaller. Its always like that when I get overwhelmed. Its like God reaches down and clamps his hands over my ears and tries to steer me out of harms way. It wasn't working though. She was on my lap.
It didn't take her long to steer me in the right direction. Chick's know what to do with their fingers. She stood, but she covered my mouth with her own so I wasn't able to protest when her fingers slid away. I heard my cell phone vibrate across the coffee table and when I looked I realized her husband was still in the room. He was holding my cell.
"How do you shut this damn thing off?" He threw it to the floor, instead, where it finished and threw my caller to voicemail. Sam, I think she called him Sam, came up and wrapped his arms around his naked wife. How did I miss him not leaving the living room?
"God, I'm gonna love fucking both of you." The hair on the back of my neck rose as those words slipped out of his mouth. I watched them kiss as my mind screamed for me to get out of this train wreck.
"I can't do this."
I practically leapt off of the couch only to be enveloped by her. Her name was Trisha. I tried to push her away. She was no match for me, but I was no match for her husband. I cried the entire time.
"Matilda, where the hell were you last night?"
My hair was a mess when I stumbled into our apartment that morning. I was stiff and hungover. I needed a shower, I was in no mood for Chelsea or another of her bitch fests about responsibility. She came whipping around the corner before I could duck into the bathroom and just stared at me. I knew I looked like shit. The cab driver that got me home told me so. I didn't need to hear it again.
"J-Jesus, Matilda. You know, I'll never understand how you little models can walk some crummy runway and party all night. Is that a bruise on your arm?"
She needed volume control, or a mute button for her voice. Should I tell her? Why did she have every fucking light in the apartment on? Things were going downhill, fast. She had to see it in my expression, because she softened hers. That's a big step, for Chelsea.
"Matilda!" She barked. I was through just standing and staring at her, so I quit. I walked right past her, I shoved her away and slammed my door behind her. Even though I locked it, it didn't stop her. She lectured my door, for a good two hours, while I curled up in my closet and prayed for a little peace. Just a minute of peace.
"You think you're pregnant?"
"I don't know. I'd like to know."
"You didn't with Declan, did you?"
I found a confidant in Vanessa. I knew the moment I dropped the EPT into my basket that it would stay between us. Friends are hard to find when you're trying to make it big in modeling. Vanessa was a one of a kind.
She looked at the test, and then she looked at me with a question plastered across her face I knew what that question was. But I thought you were a, you know. So I told her about Trisha, and how she'd laughed when Sam bent me over their couch. I told her about his badge. LAPD. It would be easier just to never talk about it again rather than dragging my credibility through the mud. Besides, two weeks was too long to wait to launch a strong case about my potential baby's daddy.
Before we checked out, I helped Vanessa settle on her new swimsuit. I also picked up some new luggage.
We went out for drinks when that second line didn't appear. I'm gonna miss her when I go.
"So, what, you're just taking off with some guy that you barely know?"
Chelsea needed to shut the hell up. She'd been following me around the apartment since she caught me taking the good toothpaste. Just to piss her off, I took her spinbrush, too. She never really brushed her teeth much, anyway.
"A suitcase and a backpack, Matilda? What about food?"
"We'll steal it."
"Clothes?"
"Shoplift."
"Money?"
"$20 dollar blowjobs."
Just the look on her face was worth it. Her jaw lowered, lips formed in a little O. Her eyes were darting around, they always did that when she was thinking, reaching, groping for something to say. I slung the backpack over my arm.
"Look, Chelsea, I gotta go. I have a lot of money saved up that'll be able to get me through. You can have whatever I left behind to sell, or whatever."
"Matilda, don't do this."
"I love you." Turn. Click. When the elevator doors opened, I saw Declan leaning against his Chevelle, smoking a cigarette. Ten minutes later, we were on the highway.
"Matilda, this is your sister Chelsea. For God sakes, you've got Mom and Dad all pissed off. Yeah, you pissed Dad off. Three years of not even acknowledging you and the one time you take off with a boy and he remembers his precious little Matilda. I really hate you, sometimes, you know that? You've got that fucking favorite complex. Everything you do is fucking gold. I bet if I just took off without telling them, they wouldn't even know it unless I got murdered or something. You need to fucking call them, hell, call me so we know that ass Declan you took off with hasn't tied you up and raped you to death. People get off on that lesbian shit, Matilda. Sometimes I really wonder if you really are, or if its just some fucking ploy to get attention. Call us, for God sakes. You can take off, just fucking let us know, okay?"
It wasn't until Chelsea hung up the phone that she realized Matilda's cell phone was sitting on the coffee table, in desperate need of a charge.
"You seem fine to me. If there was any damage to be concerned about, it would still be here. I'm not seeing any physical signs of an STD, but please call back in two weeks for the results of the culture, alright Miss Howes?"
She's still so small, like a fairy. She insisted while her feet were in the stirrups that it had been her first time, yet she crumpled with ease into the arms of the man in the waiting room. I know that's not her brother. The most curious thing out of all of this is the fact that Matilda Howes is in Carolina. That girl belongs in Iowa.
I could hear the anger building in each breath that Edward took when I inform him that his daughter was in to see me, today. It jumps up a notch when I inform him I can't tell him why. If she were a minor I could have.
He asked for hotel rates. I told him I'd have my secretary call him tomorrow.
"Why didn't you take your cellphone?"
"My contract was up that month."
"I renewed it for you. Just drop by the local office and pick up a new phone."
She busied herself with the cases. Just like her mother, she had to keep her hands busy when she was agitated.
"Did you want to look at anything?"
"I'm looking at what I came to see."
"How'd you find out where I was?"
"Who's the boy you're with?"
Her jaw tightened. I changed the subject.
"You put Chelsea in a bad situation."
"I left her money."
"I paid off her lease."
"I figured you would."
"Matilda..."
"What? You always do."
"Babydoll..."
"I've got customers, Dad. This is what pays my rent at the moment, okay? Just... come by tomorrow, okay?"
She jotted an address down on the back of receipt paper and slid it across the table. I committed it to memory and tucked it in the inside pocket of my sport coat. Tomorrow it was.