Since serious moments hardly ever take place in the various comedy-mysteries that comprise the Brett Cornell Series -- and comic moments abound, certainly! -- I thought I'd highlight an unusually dramatic scene from DON'T MESS WITH BRETT (the last completed Brett book, so far).
After not having come face to face with each other after the moment, several months back, when he told her he hated her more than anyone else in his entire life, Brett and Ginger finally come face to face, when she appears unexpectedly in his private office.
As always, the writing is in the first-person (Brett's point of view).
It goes like this:
She looked the same
as ever – yet different, insofar as her hair was pulled back instead of hanging
loosely the way I was used to seeing it. Her face looked whiter than usual, and
there was hardly any make-up on it – not that she ever overdid the mascara and
rouge and all that other crap, since she never needed to do that, given the
fact that she possessed a natural beauty that never failed to take my breath
away, whenever the moment would seize me – unexpectedly – and I’d realize that
I was in the presence of one of the most beautiful creatures I’d ever laid eyes
on. And I had even come to regard her as a woman who was much too good for a
lousy unscrupulous bastard like me, a woman who deserved a guy who would treat
her like the golden beauty she actually happened to be – until Bailey’s words
shattered that whole image on me and sent my spirits crashing down, down, down
as far as they could go.
I expected her eyes
to convey the deep sadness and hurt that I’d been told she had experienced
after my words of hate and rejection had cut deep into her very soul – but
instead, I saw that those same dark eyes were alive with emotion. Could it be
anger? Possibly even contempt? In any case, I still let slip out from between
my lips the words that were the only ones I could utter just then.
“You look –
absolutely beautiful,” I said to her, forgetting for that one moment in time
that I was the guy whose every feeling of any value had always remained buried
so deep inside of me, that I never even knew such a one existed. But then –
based on what happened after those words slipped out – I began to regret ever
having betrayed my innermost convictions by expressing how I actually felt upon
seeing her for the first time after all those months had passed by us.
“I know I’m supposed to keep out of your
sight – forever, as you put it,” she said to me, her voice sounding louder than
mine had been when I told her how beautiful she looked. “And I know that you
hate me more than anyone else you’ve ever hated in your entire life – which
must be quite a lot, considering your shitty attitude towards everyone you ever
meet –“
“Ginger –“ That’s
all I had a chance to say.
“But that’s neither
here nor there,” she continued. “Since you already hate me so much, I figured
I’d might as well come over here this morning and tell you exactly how I’m
feeling right now.”
“I feel bad, too – “
And again, she interrupted me!
“Oh, I don’t feel
bad at all,” she came back with,” not nearly as bad as I did these past several
months. No, Brett, darling, what I’m feeling right now is a combination of
anger, scorn, and sheer indignation over the thought that you could have been
so horribly STUPID as to believe what that animal told you when he had you up
against the ropes at the end of the second round of that boxing match you had
that afternoon.” I guess I looked like I was about to say something, because
she immediately raised her voice at me and yelled,” Yeah! Stupid! You actually
believed that grade-A piece of crap when he told you that he and I were having
sex – Instead of trusting me and believing in what we had together, you
immediately jumped to the conclusion that the words coming out of that stinking
mouth of his were true – Instead of having faith in me, you were willing to put
all of your trust in the words of a man you knew to be despicable, evil, and
rotten to the core! I always knew that you could be headstrong and stubborn and
downright impossible to deal with on many levels and on many, many an occasion,
but I never thought you could be so incredibly STUPID!”
“Hey, babe, what
else could I think when he –“ (Yeah, I know, I got interrupted once again and
probably deserved it.)
“What else could you
think?” she argued, and then she actually smiled; but it was an evil, gloating
type of smile that churned my stomach when I saw it on her, of all people!
“What else could you think, when you knew – when I told you – when I thought
that there couldn’t be any doubt in your mind whatsoever that I was completely
in love with you, as you were with me, as well?”
I had no chance to
be interrupted, because I was temporarily speechless.
“That’s right,
Brett. Don’t deny it. You were just as much in love with me as I was with you.
I could feel it in the warmth of your embrace, in the touch of your hand upon
mine, in the way you held me close to you after we’d solidified our passion for
each other countless times in the privacy of our bedroom. But most of all, I
saw it in your eyes every time I stepped into your line of vision. I saw and
was moved by the expression of child-like delight that radiated from your eyes
every time my eyes met yours. I knew you loved me, even though you wouldn’t say
it and wouldn’t even admit to yourself that you loved me every bit as much as I
loved you.
“But you were
willing to throw it all away,” she went on after a pause during which I said
nothing, and we both turned away from each other. “You told me you hated me,
and you never wanted to see me again, and I guess I’ll never forget that moment
in time when the man I loved with my total soul directed those blistering words
of hatred at me, and without even giving me the opportunity to find out what it
was I was supposed to have done, let alone the chance to defend myself or tell
my side of the story. You threw it all away – like it was all expendable, like
it was utterly meaningless – what we had – together.”
Was she crying? I
looked back in her direction, but I remembered one of the things about Ginger
that made her so different from Lola and most other women in my life: Ginger
didn’t cry. Or, at least, she would only let the tears show visibly on
ultra-rare occasions – like the time she first told me that she was in love
with me.
“And so today I
finally learned what it was that I supposedly had done, that had earned me so
much hatred from you,” she eventually continued, but unlike me, she refused to
return her gaze in my own direction. “And besides the anger I initially felt over
how stupid and foolish you were to have such little faith in me, I also felt
tremendous sorrow over the fact that, because of it, we both have lost so much – so much that was so very, very precious –
to the two of us -- Brett.”
As weird as this may
sound, I really needed a cigarette just then. I mean, my whole body was
yearning for that nicotine fix which I erroneously believed would somehow
alleviate the tension I was feeling at that time.
But most of all? I
needed to walk over to her and hold her in my arms and tell her I loved her.
No! There was a good
chance that I’d end up regretting such an action – big time! And besides, I’d
be revealing a part of me that I’d vowed would always remain hidden, ever since
I was just a little tadpole. . .
But then the mood
got broken when Ginger suddenly threw her head back and laughed with a mixture
of contempt and insanity.
“So, today was the
day I finally found out why the supreme unscrupulous bastard of them all
decided to ruin my whole life!” she exclaimed, and her eyes seemed to dance
with a kind of demonic frenzy. “Today was the day a young cop by the name of
Wes Lomax dropped in to see me – actually, to flirt with me while I was at work
at the old dress shop not far from here – and when I rejected his amateurish
advances, he came out with the horrible insinuation that I was known by most of
the cops on the force as being free and easy, so why was I acting like such a
damned prude, right? ‘Everyone knows you let Gil Bailey bang you the whole time
you were going out with Brett Cornell,’ he says to me – and then, little by
little, I get to learn the particulars about how you supposedly didn’t know
anything about it, but how Bailey blurted it out during that fight, and that’s
why you lost your cool and ended up attacking the referee and – “
“Wes Lomax?” I
snarled, and I came out from behind my desk.
I must have looked
pretty damned threatening just then, on account of Ginger backed away from me
and put her arms out as if to shield herself from my imminent attack. So, I
brought myself to a halt a few feet opposite her, but the anger and adrenaline
were pulsating in every vein of my body the whole time I stood there opposite
her.
“Wes Lomax told you
all that? And he tried making a pass at you?”
“Oh, my God!” Ginger
retorted, and again, there was something sinister about the way she suddenly
broke out in laughter right after she said that. “Why should you be upset over
that young cop making a pass at me? You were quick to believe that Bailey and I
were having an affair –“
“Wes Lomax is dead
meat!” I told her, and I raised my right fist in front of me and then shook it
practically right in her face. “I swear, I’m gonna kill that mother –“
“That’s it!” Ginger
railed at me, and then she actually pushed my fist back and away from her with
a lot more force than I would have imagined her to be capable of using. “Get
angry! Get mad, and take it out on Wes Lomax! Show me how much you care about
me, Brett – how much you care about me and my honor and what we once had – But
it’s too late, Brett! It’s too little too late!”
“Ginger, I don’t
care what you –“
“That’s right! You
think I don’t know that? You don’t care – about anything except your stupid
anger, your stupid revenge, your stupid macho pride – You care about everything,
don’t you, except the damage you’ve done to me and to what we once had!”
“Ginger, no! I –“
“It’s too late!” And
now she was crying. For real! “It’s too late – I’m still hurting – and I don’t
think I could ever love you or anybody else ever again –“
“Ginger, listen!” I
told her, but when I reached out with both hands so I could hold her and
somehow stop her body from shaking with sobs just then, she let out a sharp cry
and darted away from me as if being touched by me would be instantly toxic for
her; and seconds later, she was out the door.
I didn’t realize at
first that she was really gone, and that she had actually left the entire
building in the space of the next couple of minutes. All I was aware of was
that both my hands were shaking – partly from anger, but also partly from an
emotion I couldn’t really accurately categorize – and I needed a cigarette even
more urgently than ever. So, I went back to my desk and plopped my weight down
in the swivel-chair, hoping that my heart would soon stop pounding and I could
return to a state of normalcy.
I took out that
cigarette, but my hand was shaking so much when I went to strike a match to
light it with, that I gave up the whole idea of smoking, for the time being, at
least.
Then it hit me, when
I raised my head and looked around the empty spaces of my private office and
saw that Ginger was gone.
Not only that, but
also that I might never see her ever again.
Comments are most welcome!
Thanks!
DAVE
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