Post by Emma “Emmz” Squalor on Aug 6, 2007 10:11:44 GMT -5
Chapter 6
Shattered Dreams
Shattered Dreams
“I saw you on Briny Beach this afternoon,” Carmelita said to Emma later that evening at dinner. “You were talking with a man in a dark blue coat. Who was he?”
“Duncan Quagmire,” Emma replied between mouthfuls of clam chowder. “He’s a reporter.”
“A reporter for what?” inquired Nero as he finished off the last of his clam chowder and wiped the white pasty residue from his mouth before reaching for the bag of candy in his lap.
“A newspaper,” Emma said, “called Quagmire-Baudelaire Incorporated. It doubles as a printing business.”
“Baudelaire?” Nero asked.
“That’s right. Why? Does that come across as a surprise to you?”
“As a matter of fact, isn’t ‘Baudelaire’ the last name of those two friends of yours?”
“Yes,” replied Emma. “Sunny and Beatrice Baudelaire. Vice Principal Nero, is something the matter?” She turned to Carmelita. “Carm, what— why are you both looking at me like that?”
“Emma,” Carmelita said, “I don’t want you saying anything to your mother about Duncan Quagmire or the Baudelaires.”
“Would one of you please tell me what’s going on around here?” Emma demanded.
“Nothing is going on,” Carmelita replied calmly. “So relax.”
“Then why did you just ask me to keep my friends a secret from my mother? And what was it you and Jerome spoke about with her at the hospital today?”
“I already told you,” Carmelita said, her own temper beginning to trail off from her control. “We were discussing what should be done about your wellbeing while Esmé recovers.”
“No, you weren’t,” Emma disagreed. “Well, maybe that was part of the reason you were in there, but that’s certainly not the whole truth. You were in there far too long to be discussing only my wellbeing—”
“Oh, Emma, why must you always make everything so unbelievably difficult?” Carmelita shouted and threw her hands down on the table, which caused the glasses and other dinnerware to tremble loudly.
This silenced Emma at once, as it did Vice Principal Nero, and both of them pulled back simultaneously from Carmelita and simply stared at her, alarmed that she actually had the ability to speak or behave so violently towards anyone. It’s ironic, isn’t it?
Then, just as her eyes had filled with rage, they were quickly replaced by regret, and Carmelita had to throw her hands over her mouth to stifle the sobs that threatened to expose her. “Oh, Emma,” she gasped, taking two steps away from the table. “Nero, I… I’m sorry…” Sad tears filled Carmelita’s normally cheerful blue eyes, and before anyone could utter a response, she turned and fled the kitchen. A moment later the sound of the bedroom door slamming shut echoed throughout the apartment.
Someone on the floor above shouted something so rude and vulgar that I simply cannot allow myself to repeat it. And, although Nero was only stepping in to defend his fiancée, he too shouted something equally rude and vulgar right back. In the meantime, all Emma could do was sit there in her seat across from him, looking guiltily down at her empty bowl of clam chowder that Carmelita had so lovingly prepared for them.
“I’ll go and talk to her,” Nero said. “Here, you can have the rest of my candy for dessert.” He tossed Emma the large bag that had been almost full when she had run into him and Carmelita at the hospital earlier, and was now down to its last three pieces.
“Thank you,” Emma replied glumly. “But I’m not—”
“Enjoy,” Nero said, and left the kitchen.
“—hungry,” she finished. “Never mind.” She sighed heavily and began to clear away the dirty dishes. After she had set them in the sink, she wandered into the parlor and picked up her book where she had left it sitting on the coffee table. Then she fell back on the sofa and began to read.
Emma had been reading for only about five minutes when the sound of someone sobbing softly caught her attention. She looked straight ahead at the hallway leading down to Nero and Carmelita’s bedroom. Closing the book and pressing it firmly against her chest, Emma rose and began to make her way down the hall.
When she arrived, she wasn’t surprised to see that the door was closed, which meant there was a possibility that it was also locked. Adults often do this, particularly when there is a child close by. It was during times like this that made Emma wonder exactly why adults do such peculiar things such as closing doors in the first place, since the conversations they often partake in are either so incredibly dull or so extremely confusing that it really doesn’t matter one way or the other if the door is closed, locked, or ripped off its hinge and sitting in the middle of the hallway where someone is likely to stub their toe.
However, Emma never got to see whether the door was locked or not as she came to the decision to eavesdrop. Being very, very careful not to make a sound, she pressed her ear against the door and listened.
“Are you sure that’s what Jerome Squalor said?” Nero asked from the other side of the door. “You’re positive you heard him correctly?”
“Yes,” Carmelita’s voice responded from inside the room with him. “His words were very clear when he said: ‘I saw Esmé throw herself down the stairs.’
Emma felt herself gasp, and she pressed her lips steadfastly together for fear the sound would carry through to the other side of the door. Throw herself down the stairs? No! That couldn’t be true. It was silly. It was absurd. It was preposterous. It was—
Completely possible, Emma realized as she began to put together the pieces inside her head: the twelve-year mourning period, the sudden crying outbursts, the constant desire to sleep, the fascination with morbid television shows, films and books. It was all so evidently clear to her now that she couldn’t decide whether to laugh or to cry.
And so she did nothing.
“You can’t imagine how I felt when I heard him say that,” Carmelita continued tearfully. “It was as if a knife had been plunged into my heart, and in a way it was. To even think Esmé would do something so selfish and terrible when she has a wonderful little girl at home who adores her and whose only wish is to make her mother proud, just made me want to march into that room at the hospital and demand what in the hell she thought she would gain by doing that! I wanted so much to slap Esmé over and over until she admitted what she did was a stupid mistake, and the only reason I didn’t do it is because of Emma! The whole time I stood there in that room with Esmé and Jerome, I had to wrestle with myself not to tell her that throwing herself down the stairs wouldn’t bring Olaf back— what did she possibly see in that man anyway? He left all of us to die in a burning hotel and still she cries for him?!? Damn it, what the hell is the matter with her?” Carmelita’s sobs came quicker, harder, heavier. “After the fire everyone saw Olaf for what he was— a monster! Even you, Nero, who once thought him to be the finest gym teacher the world has ever seen, came to that realization. Everyone but Esmé. I never understood that, and now that I’m older I understand it even less. She expects everyone to keep the secret from her daughter that that horrible man is her biological father, but how can we when Esmé still mourns him? Nero, if you know then please, tell me, because I’d really like to know before I draw my last breath.”
“I’m afraid you just might if you don’t calm down and stop crying,” Nero said. “You’re getting yourself all worked up, and that can’t be good for the baby.”
“No, of course not,” Carmelita agreed. “You’re right.”
“Now lie back, and I’ll play you the newest violin sonata I’m working on. They say that music helps a fetus grow.”
Carmelita laughed. “I think that’s ‘plants’.”
“No, no,” Nero assured her. “It was fetuses. I checked.”
At this point Emma left Vice Principal Nero and Carmelita to their own devices, a phrase which here means “let them have the privacy they already thought they had since they were no longer talking about things relating to Esmé’s accident or her past with Olaf”. As Emma turned away from the door, she was far too stunned to realize that she was in a state of shock. Her dreams had been crushed before her, and though it had not been done intentionally, the pain it left her with was unlike anything she had ever felt before. The possibility that she could still expect to reach her goal of becoming a world-famous actress now without inspiration seemed to vanish before her like her vision as the tears surpassed her eyes.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.
The following morning at breakfast when Emma sat down at the table, her eyes and nose were red and puffy not only from the amount of crying she’d done but from the lack of sleep she had suffered. All night long she was haunted by terrible nightmares in which she saw her mother purposely throw herself down the stairs where over her Count Olaf had stood absorbed by flames, laughing. Three times Emma had woken up in a cold sweat and unable to keep herself from crying.
“I’m sorry about the other night at dinner,” said Carmelita who, unlike Emma, was looking much better and well-rested. When her younger sister failed to answer, Carmelita reached out and put her hand on Emma’s forehead. “You don’t feel warm. Are you feeling all right, Emma?”
“I’m fine,” Emma replied flatly.
“Are you sure? Your eyes and nose are awfully red. Do you feel like you’re getting a cold?”
Emma didn’t answer.
Carmelita turned to her fiancée, who sat reading the morning paper across from Emma in his snail-patterned pajamas. “Nero, look at her,” Carmelita said. “Does she look like she’s getting a touch of something to you?”
Vice Principal Nero yanked the paper away from his eyes and peered closer to Emma. “Open your mouth and stick out your tongue,” he instructed.
Emma did.
“No,” Nero said after a moment. “Her throat looks perfectly fine and her tonsils don’t look swollen. Wasn’t the pullout comfortable enough?”
“Yes,” Emma said.
“It was probably just the unease of sleeping in a new place,” he assured her. “You’ll sleep better tonight.”
While he went back to reading his newspaper, Carmelita regarded Emma with some concern. “If you don’t feel well, I’ll call up Mr. St. Clair and tell him you won’t be able to make his class,” Carmelita said.
“May I be excused please?” asked Emma.
“Of course, go ahead. I’ll make you some tea and bring it to you in a little while.”
Without another word, Emma slid out of her chair and returned to the pullout in the parlor.
“Nero, I’m worried,” Carmelita said as she sat down in the empty seat across from him.
“Carmelita, relax. She’s a child. Children get colds. They’re susceptible to everything. Trust me: she’ll be back to her usual self in a day or two.”
“Oh? Take a look at what I found in the trash this morning.” Nero watched as Carmelita produced The Complete Works of Al Funcoot from where it had been sitting on top of the refrigerator. “Emma loves this book. You saw her yesterday. She was literally clinging to it as if it supplies her with the air she breaths.” Then she whispered so that Emma wouldn’t overhear, “I think she heard us talking last night about You-Know-Who and was devastated. Those red rims around her eyes are from crying, and the reason she doesn’t want to go to acting class is because of the play they’re doing. Nero, what are we going to do about this?”
Nero put his paper aside for the first time that morning and took Carmelita’s hands in his. Then they both turned their heads and peered into the parlor at the distraught child who sat sulkily at the edge of the pullout staring out the window. After a long moment Nero sighed and turned back to his bride-to-be. “I don’t know,” he replied hopelessly.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.
It was late that morning and Vice Principal Nero was in the back bedroom practicing the violin while Emma was sitting on the window seat in the parlor gazing out at the drizzly rain as it beat lightly against the glass when Carmelita came and sat beside her.
“We need to talk,” Carmelita said.
“About what?” Emma asked without turning her face away from the window.
“About what you may have heard Nero and me discussing the other night.”
“How do you know what I heard?” inquired Emma. She turned to face Carmelita, who then produced The Complete Works of Al Funcoot from behind her back. “Oh.”
“I may not know exactly what you’re feeling,” Carmelita went on, “but I can sympathize. You aren’t the only one to feel betrayed by Olaf.”
Tears glazed over Emma’s eyes at the mention of the name. “Is he really the reason Mother did what she did?” she asked.
“I can’t say for sure, but I wouldn’t doubt it. Esmé loved him very much.”
“Even after he left her and you to die in a burning hotel?”
“Your mother wasn’t the only one affected by his selfish actions,” Carmelita went on. “I didn’t talk for almost a year afterward. Jerome even considered sending me to a child psychologist for a while.”
“What happened to change his mind?” Emma asked.
“After you were born,” Carmelita began, “I started to regain my ability to speak. I remember standing over your crib and watching you smile up at me. I would stand there for minutes at a time just talking to you about anything and everything, until one day Esmé walked in and asked if I wanted to hold you. I said ‘yes’ and as soon as she placed you in my arms our sisterly bond was born.” She paused. “Emma, I know you’re distraught over everything that’s happened, but please, don’t give up your dream of becoming an actress, and don’t quit Mr. St. Claire’s acting class. You’ve got to remember that your love for the stage comes from both of your parents. Before Esmé became the city’s sixth most important financial advisor, she was an actress. Yes, Olaf was her teacher, but she was an actress nonetheless. Don’t let the truth of the person your father was interfere with the person you want to grow up to be.”
“I was supposed to play one of two lead roles in a production of The Marvelous Marriage,” Emma said, wincing at her last three words. “But how can I when the person who wrote it is the one responsible for what’s happened to my mother?”
Carmelita sighed. “It’s up to you what you choose to do,” she replied. “Your mother admired Olaf at one time, and so did I. When he wrote The Marvelous Marriage, he wasn’t a member of—” She trailed off, realizing she had said more than what was originally intended.
“Yes?” Emma asked.
“Why don’t you come to the store with me?” Carmelita suggested. “I have to pick up some things for dinner, and you could do with some fresh air after lounging about the apartment all morning.”
Emma nodded in agreement and began to pull on her boots. She knew it wouldn’t do any good to press her sister for answers to something that she was clearly committed on holding back.