CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN.      DADDY ISSUES, OR MORE LIKE FATHER-IN-LAW ISSUES

☆

      When Valerie woke up the next morning, it was to a mouthful of a perfume-scented pillow and a kink in her back.

      Wearily, she blinked against the purview of golden light coming from the expansive window across from her. She half-heartedly un-trapped her arm from underneath a cushion to wipe the drool away from her lipstick stained mouth. It took a few seconds of searching the room with an unclear gaze — the lime green walls, the matching furniture, the minibar with an abandoned pitcher of ice water and glasses — to remember where she was at. Unfortunately, that also meant remembering the horrific downfall of events that led her here. 

      After Abe had caught the entirety of Midge's lewd act at the Concord hotel, the trio demurely sat in the backseat of his car as he drove them back to Steiner. There were no questions, or comments, or explanations. It was unadulterated silence that perhaps worsened the situation even more, not to mention how it multiplied Midge's anxiety. When they arrived at the Weissman's booked cottage for the summer, Abe had marched into the house with the ladies behind him. He had taken angry sips of water, glowered contemplatively at the wall, but didn't say anything. Not much longer after that, he had simply taken leave to his bedroom with the slammed door the only indicator that he wasn't happy. 

      Caught in-between feeling like this was solely a Midge problem and wanting to be supportive, both Susie and Valerie ultimately camped out in the sun deck. A part of her was instantly starting to regret it considering how uncomfortable the sofa she had sprawled out across for sleep was. Just as she was pushing herself up, scratchily groaning as she did so, the other two people in the room were beginning to wake up as well.

      "We're at your place?" Susie half-heartedly muttered, gaze squinted as she looked around the room. Previously, she had been laid across Midge's lap like an overgrown toddler, her black and dirt-stained converse mucking up the glass table near the arm rest. 

      "We fell asleep." grunted Midge, shifting her shoulders. 

      "Oh, I had a really weird dream ―" Their manager said thoughtfully.

      The brunette scanned the mouth of the hallway that they were able to see, nervous to hear the soft scrunching of her mother's slippers or the excited pit-patter of her children's feet. "Hopefully no one else is up." 

      "I was ice-skating and I got attacked by a giant beaver."

      "Do we even have beavers in New York?" Valerie questioned dazedly, lazily trying to slip her stocking-clad feet into the heels she ditched onto the hardwood floor.

      Susie's face twisted, disgruntled. "Is that sexual?"

      The blonde cocked her head towards the smaller woman, "In what world are beavers on skates sexual?" 

      She defensively shrugged, "Munching on that beaver, fluffing on the muff, licking a nine-volt battery ― there are a lot of non-sexual imagery to describe actual sex, alright?" 

      "I don't understand half of what you just said, and I don't want to understand." Valerie was bewildered. "You've been hanging out at too many queer bars if you can decipher that hidden language."

      "I have not!"

      "Well, you live in Greenwich Village so, by association, you are a dyke by at least fifty percent." She cocked her head towards the sole silent woman, "Kind of like when you live on Long Island, you're automatically a Jew, right Midge?"

      Her friend didn't say anything, her sullen gaze possessed on the empty doorway of the sundeck. Nothing in the hallway looked unsettled or disturbed from the previous night. Abe's sensible choice in an automobile was still hastily parked outside, the front tires scrapping the freshly mowed lawn. 

      "I guess my father never came back down."

      "Guess not." It didn't take long for Susie to dissolve in a fit of uninhibited giggles. At Midge's incredulous expression, she repeated a line from her comedy routine shamelessly, "Having sex with his mind so she didn't have to think about his penis. So ballsy."

      Valerie could agree with that, but ballsy was probably the last thing Midge needed to be last night if she had known her father was going to be in attendance. Nevermind the fact that if she had somehow surmised Abe would have wandered into the Concord hotel from Steiner, she would have hitch-hiked back to the city just to avoid any possible confrontations or inquiries. Still, in spite of the disaster, there was a small part of Valerie that was thankful it happened. Raunchy jokes put aside, it needed to happen. If Miriam wasn't going to willingly push herself out of the comedy closet, then she needed a good shove ― even if it was in the form of her father listening to her laugh about dicks and oral sex. 

      Now probably wasn't the time to talk about it in-detail.

      The peevish comedienne sighed, "You guys should probably go."

      The polite shove out of the Weissman cottage was fine by Valerie. She was more than happy to avoid a Weissman-Maisel breakfast fiasco, especially if Abe was still festering in his anger. She had her own family issues to deal with, namely getting back to the Rifton and greeting her in-laws, who were probably wondering why the hell she didn't come home last night. 

      "Good luck, kid." Valerie tried to shine an encouraging smile as both her and their manager stood up. 

       Just as the pair was about to push open the screen door, Susie was buckling around in disgruntlement, "Ah, damn!"

      "What?"

      "I left Pamela in your dad's car." 

      "Who?"

      The shorter woman rolled her eyes, "My plunger!"

      Valerie felt her face freeze with disbelief, "You named your plunger? An inanimate object?"

      "I'm spending a lot of time alone up here!" cried out Susie.

      Midge waved her away, "Go without it!"

      "Fine!" She practically growled, before marching towards the outdoor porch, the screen door nosily hitting the wooden panel of the wall. Valerie sheepishly followed behind her, wincing as the sun once again hit her eyes. 

      She was trying to discreetly adjust one of her garter belts ― sleeping on the sofa had knotted it uncomfortably ― but immediately stopped once she tracked Susie's movements. In a trance-like state, she was sauntering towards Abe's car, the tips of her fingertips pressing against the crisp paint of the back door. When Valerie stepped closer, across the path of wet stones and pebbles from the lake, she could see the outline of the red plunger in the backseat. It was lounging against the leather, abandoned by its owner. 

      Any amusement rising in Valerie about her manager's melodramatic nature was replaced by astonishment once she noticed the misty coloring of her dark eyes. 

      "You have got to be kidding me?"

      "I just got her back!" Susie droned, her regard laser-focused on the tool. A determined gleam momentarily brightened her being, "Do you know how to pick locks? I learned it back in '41 when I found out my mother kept a secret stash of Everclear and Lik-M-Aid packets in the basement, but it's been a while."

      "We are not breaking into Abe's car! Knowing him, he'll figure out it was us by dusting our fingerprints off the door handles and be filling out a police report before noon." scoffed the blonde. "When things cool down between him and Midge, then you can have your plunger back."

      "But ―"

      "I said no!"

      Susie instantly pouted, eyes going bug-eyed with every devastating thought of being separated. Finally, after staring down her client's firm gaze, she huffed unhappily, "Fine! I guess I'll just be miserable until then."

      "Like that's any different to how you've been this entire summer." She replied, flippantly cheerfully as she looped an arm through Susie's and tugged her away. It took a minute since her feet stuttered against the ground and one of her hands refused to release one of the side mirrors. "Let go ― I mean it ― let go!"

      Finally, she did.

      When they were a few paces away, Susie dropped Valerie's arm somberly, head ducked low. The younger woman was unbothered, more content with breathing in the fresh air that was rolling across the blue freshwater. "Distance is healthy in a relationship, you know?"

      "Fuck you!" 

      Silence bordered between them for a while, even as the Steiner cottages were becoming miniature sets and they were rapidly approaching the woods. Soon enough, they would each go their separate ways, with Susie back at the employee section of the resort and Valerie on a ten-minute trek to the villa. 

      After a while, Valerie brokered the quietude, remembering a piece of their earlier argument. "Your mother kept a secret stash of Everclear and Lik-M-Aid in the basement?"

      Susie grumbled a little, still ticked-off at being without her plunger, but the switch to a new topic certainly helped. "Yeah, she was a freakshow. The Everclear was for her, but she knew we all loved Lik-M-Aids so she'd steal them from convivence stores and made bundles. Every Christmas, we'd get a stack of staled sugar and that was our supposed gift from Santa Claus."

       "Nothing like expired candy for the holidays."

      "Hmm." She was contemplative, before adding. "One time though, I mixed the Everclear with a packet of Lik-M-Aids to see how it would taste."

      Valerie's eyes widened, "How are you not dead?"

      "Liver made of steal, King, but I did get my stomach pumped after a sailor found me throwing up sour green vomit on Rockaway beach." Susie shrugged, nonchalant. "Afterwards, the nurses gave me free jelly, which was nice, but my brother just kept complaining that he didn't get to see me pass out."

      "Well, doesn't he sound lovely."

      "He's an absolute moron."

      The blonde bit her lip, giggling at a memory resurfacing blearily in the front of her mind, muted colors and all. "When I was a teenager, I used to pinch half-pints of vodka with my friends and fill this old Thermos bottle my dad once bought for fishing trips. You know, vodka doesn't really smell so we would drink it off-and-on, all day, half the night just, because we could. And I guess, because nobody noticed."

      She glanced down at the grass, seeing the way the green pasture would crunch under her feet as she walked and how they bounced back once her presence was gone. The insects were nowhere to be seen this morning. A raspy noise came from her chest, almost a laugh. "I'd drink warm, sweltering, absolutely disgusting vodka in between breakfast and dinner. I was at that age, you know? Where you drink just to drink."

      Susie briefly met her eyes, though she looked as if she didn't understand what she meant at all. "I was barely out of diapers when that mix-a-lot experiment took place and I almost died on the beach. I was curious, and pissed off at my mother, and after that, never did it again." She recalled something, humming a little. "My ma told me that if I wanted to do something that stupid again, to use the cheap stuff next time."

      Valerie shook her head, grinning. "Whenever I learn about your childhood, it scares me." 

      She sharply met her eyes, more serious than the comic anticipated, "Your childhood scares me."

☆

      When Valerie entered the ranch, she was welcomed by the sound of pots hissing hurriedly. In the multicolored kitchen, there was a slew of cookware across the counters: well-used pans on the stove, a carton of eggs and a quart bottle of milk on the counter, a steaming kettle with the smell of coffee filling the air. A zestful yet soft melody from Ruben Gonzalez played from the victrola. 

      Donning a black robe, Selena was drifting around the room, carefully swaying her body to the rhymical beats. It was like watching a ballerina dance, the way she capered towards the sizzling food before gracefully moved into the sitting room to push open the windows. At the table adjacent to one of the walls sat Benito, dressed for the day in a shirt and slacks while the paper was spread out in front of him. The silver specks of age in his nearly black hair glinted when his head moved into the spotlight of the sun. 

      Neither of them noticed her at first. Shifting with slight awkwardness, Valerie adjusted the straps of her attire and opened the screen door. Both heads snapped towards the noise. Instantly, a warm smile sprouted on Selena's face, highlighting the grooves of her cheeks. Benito merely kept his regard steady, almost unimpressed. 

      "Morning." She greeted, tone a bit croaky, an aftereffect of a restless and eventful night. Amiably, she allowed her mother-in-law to kiss her cheek and returned the favor. As subtly as she could, she eyed the breakfast table. The only available seats were either across or diagonal from her father-in-law. Both options felt like putting herself in the same vicinity as a shark. 

      "Where were you last night?" questioned Selena. She busied herself with finding an extra plate from the overhead cabinet. "You said you had a performance at the Concord, but that you were going to come home." 

      Valerie settled across from the man. "Yeah, I'm sorry about that. After the show, things got a little bit hectic with Midge. I stayed over at the Weissmans for some moral support."

      The older woman flashed her a look, briefly lit up with concern. "Everything alright?"

      "Kind of, yeah. It's just ― Abe stopped by to watch the show unexpectedly, and uh, I don't think he liked what he saw." She explained, tedious with her choice of words. Midge may have been okay with keeping the secret from her parents for months, but guilt had persuaded Valerie to come clean to Selena about not exactly doing stand-up solo. She swore up-and-down not to share a word about Midge's blossoming career to anybody, but knowing that it was likely that Selena would bump into Rose or Shirley in the coming days, it was better to keep as much details as possible away from her. 

      Selena tsked, "Well, I hope he doesn't give her too much of a hard time about it. She's always been smart, I'm sure she knows what she's doing." 

      A plate arrived in front of her, along with a tiny mug of homemade coffee. Sunny-side up eggs occupied the center while black beans, diced tomatoes, and a spread of avocado surrounded the edges. It was amazing how prior to meeting Mark, Valerie never considered food a form of art. Now, however, with the way Mark used to cook and the magical abilities that his mother possessed, she placed cooking Cuban meals on the same level as Johannes Vermeer. Plus, she had never realized beforehand that full-blown meals could be accompanied without whiskey or red wine (not that she would tell her Irish-Italian family that back in Boston). 

      "Thank you." Valerie said, before digging into her breakfast. It had dawned on her all of a sudden how greedy her stomach felt. The lack of a Concord-esque dinner last night certainly didn't help. 

      She heard Selena turning off the knobs of the gas stove. The heat was becoming a tad overwhelming. The genuine curiosity in her mother-in-law's voice threw her off, "How did your performance go?"

      "Oh, um, really great, actually." She took her time chewing on a spoonful of beans. A part of her, in spite of her decision to inform the Peldaros of her newest career choice a year ago, wanted to keep the two worlds separate. "I've never gotten to perform in a hotel like that before." 

      "You know, we once saw Dean Martin at the Copacabana with Jerry Lewis." grinned Selena, very proud. Her arm slung around Benito's shoulders tenderly. "I've never seen two people talk so fast. Carino, don't you think so?"

      "I prefer Dean Martin as a singer." Benito gruffly answered, but once he looked up and caught her gaze, he softened. "But it was an amazing night." 

      He lifted Selena's hand to kiss the top of her bronze knuckles and she giggled. Valerie watched for a moment with an aching chest. It was too familiar this scene, like rewatching a film she's seen before, but this time with different colors. A husband and a wife longing for each other despite being in the same room. A lovely breakfast shared over a table with casual conversation and a sense of normalcy that seven years ago would have been completely foreign to Valerie. Sure, intimacy could be had, but it was meant for other people ― not for Valerie, of course not ― until Mark opened her eyes. 

      How many breakfasts did they have together? It must have been a million; in motel rooms across the east coast, in their tiny yet beautiful apartment in Brooklyn, in restaurants and diners that Mark was so excited to expose her to. They'd talk about work, and the headlines in the New York Times, and their friends, and what their plans were for the rest of the day. So many meaningless conversations that Valerie treasured. Those mornings became precious to her, a cultivated bubble just for the two of them.

      The day he died, Mark had gotten dressed early and was heading to the studio to record. He had woken up Valerie briefly to let her know he was leaving, but she chose to sleep in, because of a rough night beforehand. He left, and she never saw him again. Why didn't they have breakfast that morning?

      Valerie felt the sting of tears hurt her face and she quickly looked away, squinting out of the nearby window. When he died, the big things became obvious. It was the big things she missed the most in the beginning and they were the ones that were so painful. Now, as more time passed, the little things were starting to creep in, the ones that she was starting to yearn for harrowingly ― like breakfast and meaningless conversations. 

      "How was the city?"

      The blonde was dragged back to reality. She met her father-in-law's dispassionate bearing, "Excuse me?"

      He repeated himself in that same blank utterance, "I said how was the city?"

      "Great ― it was great." Valerie responded half-heartedly, taking a sip out of the purely black coffee and hoping that the punch of the hefty flavor would stop her mind from sliding down a slippery slope of depression. "Hot as hell, but there was less traffic, which was nice."

      He nodded briskly and turned back to the paper. His daughter-in-law had the sneaky suspicion that he was encouraged to play nice, before she got here. 

      "The city's not going to collapse if you're gone, Benito." Selena teased while untangling her apron from her waist. She joined them at the table with her own plate and coffee. If a stranger walked in, they would be tricked into seeing an actual family, ignorant to the years of hostility that had isolated them from one another. 

      "I beg to differ." He grunted, "Every year, I tell you that the summer is absolutely the worse for me to be away from the company, and yet, you insist we come."

      "It's important to have a vacation, otherwise you'll give yourself some kind of aneurysm from all the stress." She waved her hand dismissively, the fork following. "The boys can handle everything just fine in the city, you're only a phone call away." The woman then exclaimed: "Besides, our people are here! It was important to establish traditions when we were building our family and you know what, this was the perfect place to do it!"

      Benito shrugged, "Our people are in the city as well. Hell, the city wouldn't even function without all of the Cuban migrants that work there."

      "It's different and you know it." Selena firmly stated, "You love it here, don't deny it."

      Her husband simply scoffed and returned to his half-eaten food, but in emotionally-repressed-old-man language, that was an affirmation of agreement. Valerie listened to the discussion mainly in amusement, but her attention clung onto the word family. The Spanish-speaking villas had become a second home for the Peldaros, somewhere that not only could get them and Mark away from the city, but serve as a reminder of Cuba. Selena was right ― it was different from New York. In the Catskills, surrounded by the remote mountains and a distinctive lack of discrimination, they could create their own little paradise that replicated the beautiful nature of their homeland. It was the same reason Valerie's father clung to their Irish neighborhood in South Boston. 

      Home is where the heart is.

      Understanding this with a bit more clarity, Valerie felt touched to be invited. During her relationship with Mark, they never wanted her here and that was, at least, one of the reasons why the Kings typically never stayed longer than a weekend. Valerie was never welcomed, which meant that Mark wasn't fully welcomed, and how was the young couple suppose to relax in that sort of environment? Now though, Selena's gesture of allowing her to stay at the ranch and actively wanting her to participate in events felt more poignant. 

      It was the older woman's way of letting her in. An attempt to make amends that went beyond apologies. Valerie never questioned the authenticity of Selena's regret over the way she and Benito treated her. The death of her son had clearly rearranged her priorities and made her more contemplative of past actions. But wanting Valerie to spend the summer with them, to finally share a portion of their Little Cuba, to openly display the love they had for this villa, felt like the embrace she had begrudgingly always wanted from them.

      It felt like a step. It felt significant in a way that words couldn't articulate. 

      This is what Mark always wanted. For the four of them to come together in this way. For Valerie to be accepted and for his choices to be valued. Valerie could now say she understood the weight of this summer, especially with her late husband's voice ringing in the back of her head. 

      Without thinking twice, she blurted out the words. A peace offering of sorts that wasn't just obligatory or casual, like how she's been since Mark died. An olive branch to meet another olive branch.

      "You guys should come see my show!"

      Both pairs of eyes blinked at her. The maracas of Ruben Gonzalez's latest piece created bumps in the breeze. Selena delicately wiped some of the tomato juice from her lips. "You really mean that?"

      The earnestness of her voice squeezed Valerie's heart. Trepidatiously, she nodded, trying to smile in a way that made her look confidant even as she avoided Benito's stare. "Absolutely. I mean, I don't exactly have a date yet. I have no clue if I'll be performing before August is even over with ― that's more my manager's job ― but the next time I perform, I would really like it if you both came."

      Anxiousness prickled up her spine when she internally registered how much of what she said she meant. It only took a few more seconds of bafflement, before Selena's expression bloomed into broad joy. "We would love to come! Wouldn't we, Benito?"

      The older man hadn't say anything and when his wife whipped around to see him excitedly, something close to resignation crumpled his features. Just as he was opening his mouth, Selena was turning back around, interjecting: "Just tell us when it is and we'll make a night of it!"

      Valerie plastered a wide yet shaky smile and tried to ignore the nervous waves that rumbled across her belly. Benito sighed heavily and flipped to the back of the newspaper while Selena moved to another topic of interest. Her elation lingered in every flutter of her tone. The comic at the table burned holes into her leftover food, pushing aside pieces of tomato with a fork, half-hoping she made the right decision, half-convinced already it was a bad one. 

☆

      "You need a sundae."

      "I really don't, Miriam!"

      "Vanilla with hot fudge, please."

      "Don't ―"

      The brunette's head snapped towards her, dark eyebrows sharply raised. "Stop being stubborn and accept the dessert!"

      Valerie pouted even as her stomach rumbled.

      "Usually, I would frown against comfort food." Midge chirpily explicated, chin raised high. The pink-faced teenager in charge of the ice cream truck kept to himself while he made the treat, suffering under the August heat and his crisp white uniform sticking to his skin. He was probably used to the bossy princesses of Steiner. "Mama says that once you start relying on sugar for emotional gratification, it'll become a bad habit and before you know it, you're a size six!"

      With the sun baring down of them and her lingering anxiousness over her invitation to her in-laws, Valerie couldn't be bothered to be (once again) mind-boggled by how strange the Weissman clan was. However, somewhere in the back of her mind, she was grateful for her Italian mother who pushed bread and sauce towards her at every dinner.

      "But that was before I found out she once ate an entire chocolate cake in one night." shrugged the other comic. She accepted the plastic bowl from the server and before handing it over, took a swipe of the whip cream with a manicured nail. "So I think we can justify an exception."

      A little miserable, Valerie scooped an unnecessarily large amount of vanilla and shoved it into her mouth, very unladylike, uncaring of the brain freeze. They continued their walk on the trail, the forest diverging into many paths as it paralleled the lake. Roughly ten minutes ago, they both had coincidentally been called over the PA system to come to Building 15B, which was apparently the employee section. Valerie had only just arrived to the resort, her stomach tied in knots and hoping her friend might offer a reprieve. 

      A day and a half has passed since the Concord incident, and Selena would not let her forget her offer to bring the Peldaros to her next show. The blonde had played everything off with faux excitement and a painfully thin smile, but with every reminder brought more anxiety. Her mind kept warping scenarios and half-baked insecurities on how this was an awful idea. Allowing her parent-in-laws to witness her comedy act, up-close and in person, was like showcasing her most intimate side. So many things could go wrong. 

      Quite frankly, she was half-pleading in her own headspace that Susie wouldn't be able to book another show until they were back in the city. Maybe by then, Selena and Benito would have forgotten the idea entirely. Unfortunately, there was a fat chance of that happening since not only was her manager calling her to the employee section ― where she was currently camping out at while pretending to be a plumber ― but knowing Susie, she was going to try and take advantage of the slew of resorts in the mountains (all of them lacking the influence of city dweller Harry Drake). 

      "You know what, I'm sure it will go fantastic." Midge proclaimed, grinning brightly, hands out-stretched in an almost theatrical presentation of optimism. She was dressed in an all green attire: short-sleeved polo, beach shorts, strappy heels, a matching purse. She looked so put-together that it made her friend feel like a slob in comparison. "They'll see how brilliant you are on stage and be completely blown away!"

      Valerie snorted sourly. "Are you kidding? They've never seen me as brilliant. I've written for multiple magazines, I've headlined dozens upon dozens of articles, and neither of them has ever bothered to compliment me. I highly doubt me joking about the hiccups of interracial dating and the complications of sex are going to turn the tables now."

      "They've just been blind to it this entire time!" She exclaimed, "With all the drama that came with you being with Mark, it stopped them from seeing who you really are. I guarantee you that when they see you perform, they'll view you in a whole new light."

      Seeing me for who I was caused the drama in the first place, Valerie thought bitterly to herself, but kept that resentment private. She simply inhaled another large scoop of vanilla and nodded apathetically, licking the fudge syrup from her lips. 

      "How's your dad been?" 

      She almost regretted asking. Whatever delightful attitude that had possessed Miriam since they first met up at the beginning of the hike dimmed. All of a sudden she looked like a very depressed girl in a too-bright outfit. "Papa will barely look at me. Every time he's forced to, he'll make some sort of weird gruff noise like a spooked bear and make up some excuse to leave."

      "Pre-war men and their emotional constipation." The blonde scoffed. "Have you told your mother yet?"

      "I tried to — really, I wanted to — but Papa made me promise not to say anything. He said he'll decide when to break the news, but between his inability to digest a single emotional bowel movement and how many important Jewish holidays we have this fall that involve the entire family having dinner, she'll never find out until next year." Midge stopped and contemplated, becoming exasperated. "But then Papa will say, 'oh, New Year's Day isn't a good time' and 'well, you know, Passover is just around the corner', and then she'll never found out, and I'll be stuck sneaking out of my parent's apartment to do gigs for the rest of my life!"

      She took shallow breaths, exhausted by the stress. Valerie dipped her spoon into the ice cream and after a tiny moment of coaxing, guided it into Midge's parted mouth. The other comedian's shoulders slumped in relaxation and some of the tenseness left her eyes. Clearly, the mixture of fatty cream and chocolate was calming her down perfectly.

      "My only choice is to listen to Papa, otherwise it will be World War III when we get back to the city." sighed Midge. "I guess the only nice thing is that with Noah sticking around until the end of the summer, he's got someone new to pay attention to. When they get together, it's like all that matters is quantum physics and whether or not the atom can be divided."

      Valerie hummed, quiet. After a second, she asked: "Can the atom be divided?"

      "I have no clue."

      Around the corner of one of these bending trails was the employee section of the resort. Notably less extravagant than where the actual customers stayed for their vacations, this area was lined up with tall wooden cabins and outhouse posts. It looked more along the lines of a summer camp for schoolkids, or what Valerie imagined one would look like if she had ever attended summer camp as a child. 

      The pair spotted Susie almost instantly. Their manager, donning a plaid overall getup with red and white strips, was lounging across a bench. A backwards cap laid on top of her head and, strangely enough, the red plunger that had been abandoned in the Weissman car was strewn on her lap. Valerie had the sneaking suspicion that somewhere in between breakfast and the afternoon parlor games at the main building, when the Weissmans would be gone from their cottage, the older woman had broken in and stolen her plunger back. For the sake of Abe, his already thinly-cut temperament, and the glass windows of his automobile, Valerie hoped she was wrong. 

      "Did you not bring anything for me?" Susie asked, outraged when she saw the half-eaten dessert in the blonde's hands. On either sides of the shorter woman, her clients sat down, adjusting against the hickory exterior. 

      "Hey, be easy, I'm having an existential crisis with my in-laws and needed comfort food." The blonde licked the back of her utensil, unashamed. "So, why'd you call us here?"

      "I've got some good news, finally!" She announced, a lilt of excitement strung into her words. 

      "Hit us," Midge said, before getting distracted. A litany of peppy and loud music was coming from one of the angular cabins about twenty feet behind them. Employees, both men and women, kept coming and going from the building, some of them dressed in elaborate costumes. "What's going on in there?"

      Susie waved her hand, dismissive. "Oh, it's rehearsals for the employee show. Apparently, it's been a Steiner Resort tradition for a thousand years."

      "Right, they put it on the last day." Wistfulness took over Midge. "I always have such mixed feelings about it. I love the show, but it means summer's over."

      "I'm glad you told me it was a sanctioned show." Valerie commented, absentmindedly as she watched a gaggle of employees — all dressed in stereotypical Brazilian attire, though the fruit hats were excluded, like they were at the Copacabana — stroll by. "If you hadn't, I would have thought there was a weird cult that had started in the woods. Even though, from what I read, that's more of a California thing."

      "Your thoughts are fascinating." Susie replied deadpan, more than a little sarcastic. "Listen, one of the girls in my cabin, Laura? She comes from a big New York showbiz family. I clawed some info on a contact from her, and I booked you both another gig. She's even lending me her car!"

      Dread swarmed Valerie's belly, re-tangling her stomach back into knots. A play-by-play of the conversation with Mark's parents forcibly fought to the forefront of her mind; Selena's obvious elation at being included contradicting Benito's painfully impassive mood. It could all come steamrolling to a hurtful head if they saw her perform — Selena's happiness could quickly dissipate into disappointment, Benito could twist his words so carefully into something judgmental and biting. It would be like Valerie having open heart surgery with witnesses and if either of them saw something they didn't like, the sutures could break and the wound would reopen. 

      Because that's what it felt like the first time, didn't it? Meeting them, getting to know them as Mark's girlfriend, trying her best — even if it was excruciating — to let them see her fully, because it's what Mark wanted. And they didn't like what they saw. Very rarely did anyone, other than her late husband and the two women occupying the same bench as her, like what they saw outside of the physical realm. Maybe Lenny did as well, if Valerie allowed herself to hope for that. 

      A wave of nausea rolled over the blonde. 

      Thankfully, Valerie wasn't the only one openly displeased with the news. Midge's face was stuck in a combination of shock and anxiousness, her pale features unwilling to move. Their manager's face dropped, "What's wrong with you both? This is good!"

      The brunette's hands fidgeted, "Well, I kind of told my father..." She trailed off, stopping herself. Even in the midst of a silent feud with Abe over her career choice and his demand that she keep it a secret, Midge was smart enough to recognize that an opportunity was an opportunity. This was perhaps the one time in their almost decade long friendship that Valerie wished Midge would take the selfish, less logical road and beg Susie to cancel the gig. "You know what, nothing. Let's do it!"

      "Great," continued Susie, unaware or maybe even uncaring of Midge's lack of excitement and the forced grin on Valerie's face. "Okay, so meet me back here again tomorrow at nine o'clock."

      Valerie was so caught up in her thoughts that she didn't even notice a woman was approaching them until she was standing right in front of their bench, looking down with a plastered smile. She was a middle-aged lady in a neatly pressed pencil skirt and a matching cardigan. Judging from the heels, she was the last person meant to be waltzing around outdoors, but also, based on the exaggerated performance of politeness, she was some figure of authority around here.

      "Mrs. Maisel? Anything I can help you with?" She asked, puzzled, her voice naturally squeaky. Not as subtly as Valerie was sure she was attempting to be, she snuck a skeptical glance over at Susie in particular. 

      "No, Stevie. I'm fine, thanks."

       In spite of Midge's good-natured response, Stevie didn't take the hint. The tight and thin-lipped smile across her face seemed almost to stretch even wider. "It's unusual to see a guest in the employee area."

      Finally, the comic picked up on the other woman's suspicions. She fired off a response, "Well, I was out taking a walk, and ran into one of your ace plumbers here, so I thought I'd tell her about a little issue with the cottage, cut out the middleman."

      "Yeah, I'm taking care of it, Stevie." interjected Susie. "Have plunger, will travel!"

      "All right, well, uh, any way I can help, please call." She awkwardly said. The edges of her heels turned to walk away until she caught sight of Valerie sitting on the end. Her gaze became even more curious, or as the blonde would put — having become accustomed to small town folk with their noses up in the air and their capability to snuff out hot gossip akin to a bloodhound's hunting skills — nosy. "I don't believe I'm familiar with you, dear. Are you new to the resort this summer?"

      "No, actually, I'm staying with my in-laws at one of the villas nearby." Valerie tightly responded. "Just came by to visit my friend."

      "Oh, how...interesting. We don't usually see those types coming around from the villas." Stevie said, unapologetic. "Even if they do have more civilized guests coming with them."

      "What do you mean by those types?" Valerie combated rapidly, watching with narrowed eyes as the woman's smile withered away. Her anxiety from the upcoming gig and her in-law's attendance made her patience very thin. "I would hope Steiner wouldn't be advocating for segregation in this day and age, especially with Latin neighbors not even ten minutes away."

     Stevie was quick to correct herself. "Of course, my apologies, I wasn't — I did not mean — I shouldn't have — my bad."

      As much as her ill-advised shoes would let her, the woman speeded off in the opposite direction of which she came. Valerie shook her head, irritated, and stood up to throw away her ice cream bowl in a nearby trash can. From behind, Susie whistled lowly. "You sure should her a piece of your mind."

      "Well, I can hear a dog whistle from a mile away." Valerie muttered to herself. Her friends mirrored her movements and stood up as well. She itched for a cigarette and figured when she got back to the ranch, she'd soon be chain-smoking an entire pack. 

      "I've got to go." Midge glanced at her watch, before zeroing in on the plunger grasped firmly in their manager's grip. "Hey, how did you get your plunger back?"

      Valerie prepared herself to hear a tale about Susie being a thief in the night (or a thief mid-day) and how she broke into Abe's car undetected, but instead saw the woman release a soft hum of noise. "I didn't. Kids here, they got two cents between them, but they all pitched in and got me a brand-new one. So thoughtful. Just makes me hate my own family even more."

      The blonde chuckled and said, half-joking, half-not: "I'm with you on that."

☆

      "You need to stop pacing." Midge said with exasperation, a little biting. Her butt was planted on the bottom step of the Weissman cottage deck, a hand bent upward to support her chin. 

      Valerie shot her a side-eyed glare, but kept walking. One hand was cemented on a hip while the other clung onto a half-burnt cigarette, nearly contorted in between her two fingers. The back of her pearl-colored heels were digging into her skin, but she couldn't be bothered to stop. The anguish tugging at her belly wasn't allowing her to settle. 

      The two comedians were waiting in the near darkness at the Steiner resort. Their manager in question was planning on picking them up in a few minutes after securing the keys to their temporary ride and getting dressed in her smarmiest suit. It wasn't an ideal scenario; inside of the idyllic residence was Abe, taking advantage of the empty house by reading a book in the living room. Midge had no choice, but to cross her father's path when leaving. It was no longer sneaking out at this point — there was no turning back the clock — but it was still painful for the brunette to still have to avoid her father in that way. The best thing for Midge would be for Susie to pull up almost immediately and drive them into town. 

      For Valerie, she wished for the exact opposite. Roughly twenty minutes ago, she left the villa with a strained goodbye to her in-laws, promising to see them in an hour-and-a-half. Selena had already been bustling around, getting dressed for the evening, practically jittery with enthusiasm. All the comic could do in return was offer a false smile and try to hide the rising anxiety. 

      Facing another stretch of tense silence, Midge spoke up again, louder this time. "Your lungs are going to unionize if you keep smoking. There will be picket signs and boycotts, and before you know it, your colon will join in for moral support!"

      Once again, the blonde ignored her. The cigarette was down to a stub and she had no choice, but to flick it away, glowing a deep red in the tall grass until disappearing from sight. She reached into the carton in her purse and nearly growled in frustration when she grasped the empty weight. She was completely out. All that was left now was a pack of bubblegum and an emergency bundle of Twizzlers that she had hastily grabbed, before leaving the ranch. The anxiousness had kept her up half the night and prevented her from eating all day. The only thing she had done today was meticulously plan an outfit and practice her routine. 

      "Maybe I'll get lucky and Susie's car will break down on the side of the road. The engine will fall out of the bottom." With twitchy fingers, Valerie unwrapped the gum and stuck in her mouth, chewing aggressively. It hurt her teeth a little, but she didn't care. It distracted her. "Or Mark's parents will decide it's not worth missing tango night at the gazebo and stay at the hotel."

      Headlights flashed. They approached steadily along with the grumbling sound of an engine. Eventually, a few feet away, the automobile parked and the lights dimmed into tiny circles. The driver's side door creaked open.

      "Looks like luck's not on your side tonight." muttered Midge as she pushed herself up. She was probably happy that finally, their manager had arrived so that she didn't have to watch her best friend tread sizzling marks across the lawn. Once she caught a good look at the car, her eyes widened. "What is this?"

      Susie huffed, appearing around the bend of the trunk. The car was undeniably a monstrous beast, a relic from the era before that only wartime or possibly the Depression could birth. The front was a humongous hump with silver grills and a large bumper. The tires had champagne tinted rims and possessed almost the same size of two heads combined. With its ugly green shade and spurts of black smoke coming from the muffler, it barely looked capable of being out on the road. 

      "It's our ride."

      "It's a tank!"

      "The rich girl in my cabin said she'd lend me her wheels." explained Susie. "I didn't know it was gonna be the car the Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated in."

      "I'd come up with some kind of counter that referenced trenches or doughboys, but honestly, my brain is on fire and I just think we should go, and get this over with." Valerie intercepted crisply. Lacking self-consciousness, she spat out her chewed up gum — it had already lost it flavor and elasticity — and plucked a new piece from her bag. "Shall we?"

      She didn't wait for a response, already whipping the door open and sliding across the cushions. Vaguely from behind, she heard her manager grumbled, 'all business, no fun tonight, eh?', before joining. Midge climbed in on one side while Susie had to hop in (or attempt to) on the other. 

      Midge struggled to hide her giggle. "You're gonna need a booster seat."

      "I'm not gonna need a fucking booster seat!" yelped the other woman. "Jesus. What am I, fucking five?"

      After a minute, she managed to slither back into her original spot, and low and behold, the steering wheel was far too high for her stature. It didn't help that the engine was so big that she couldn't barely see the upcoming preview of the road. She sighed heavily, "Ah, I'm gonna need a fucking booster seat."

      "It's astonishing you didn't crash already." Midge dryly remarked. "Blankets will work or phone books."

      Susie searched for the keys inside of her pocket. "I'll drive it back up to the cabin and grab something."

      The key slotted into the ignition easily, and just as the car was brought back to life — BAM — a hurtling, screeching sound erupted from the inside machinery. All three women screamed, hearts pounding in synchronized dysfunction. In the middle of the chaos, Valerie accidentally choked on her gum, coughing it back up nosily as the pink sweet found it way back to the forefront of her teeth.

      "That was louder than last time!"

      "Oh, I think my heart stopped." Midge gasped, clutching her chest. 

      "My butt feels hot. Does your butt feel hot?"

      "Your what feels hot? My ears are ringing!"

      "I nearly died." heaved Valerie, her chest moving shallowly even as some of the redness of her face vanished. Without missing a beat, she mounted over Midge and spat out the half-used gum. If the car was going to make that noise every time it was turned on, better to be safe than sorry and just forgo the bubblegum altogether while in a moving vehicle from the 1930's. 

      "Let's just go," commanded Susie. She pulled the shift into reverse and nervously looked through her rearview mirror, as if she was afraid the car might get angry at any sudden movements and retaliate with another backfiring. "Before the engine explodes and we go up in flames."

      Less than an hour from Steiner's was the town of Monticello, which housed the Kutsher's Hotel and Country Club. Similar to The Concord, it was a grand resort that catered to one of the largest groups of Jewish visitors during the summer. There was outdoor pools with crystal blue water, an eighteen-hole golf course, a tennis court, and a lakefront view towards the west end. The actual property, beyond the separate and spaced out bungalows, was a niche clubhouse that rose a couple of stories. 

      They even had valet parking, which Susie took full advantage of when she pulled the ancient Oldsmobile through the porte cochere and tossed the keys to the attendant. The manager of the establishment met them in the front lobby, but even as he was guiding the group through the hotel, Valerie found it hard to concentrate on the lavish interior. 

      "You get many new comics performing here?" Susie questioned, her eyes catching on some of the framed photographs lining the walls. 

      Bob, the middle-aged man in a well-pressed suit, smiled genially. "All the time, especially during the summer. You know, Dean Martin made his debut in the Catskills at Kutsher's. A lot of writers from the city come out here to practice, see if they like it or not. We just had this one cat perform here a couple weeks ago, some guy named Woody Allen."

      "Yeah? And how'd he do?"

      "Alright, I suppose. Nothing spectacular." shrugged the man. "He went back to the city, and last I heard, to his writing gig. I suppose it didn't take."

      The dressing room in the back was a proper green room, unlike the cob-web infested corners and cubbies they stuffed them into back in Greenwich Village. The next hour dragged by languidly with more residents slowly pouring into the dining room and a hustle of noise filled the building. The trio remained in their private space, rehearsing their routines religiously. There came a point, however, where it was just Midge practicing her jokes while Susie watched in judgmental silence. Valerie just couldn't do it anymore, the anxiousness interrupting her focus.

      Like before at Steiner, she paced across the carpeted room. She urged for a heavy drink, but even the thought of hot whiskey made her stomach curl in dissatisfaction. A smoke would have been nice, but she had already been lambasted by both her comedy partner and manager over the excessive smell. 

      She just couldn't stop stressing over it ― the thought, or more like the reality, of her parents-in-laws sitting in the audience, watching her perform. It plagued her with a sense of dread and quite frankly, reverted her back to her state of weariness years ago when she first met them. She could still remember the painful stretches of their expressions, forcing themselves to be polite, because they were in the middle of a Weissman-Maisel wedding and couldn't say what they really wanted to say, which was: Mark, what the hell are you doing, dating this girl? The permanent etchings of disappointment on their faces when they realized their son was serious about being with Valerie, she remembers a lot more vividly. 

      You're just not good enough.

      The blonde shut her eyes, squeezing them so hard that pinpricks of pain fluttered against her sinuses. She waited until she could see little dots dancing in the darkness. 

      Her manager's voice broke her out. "You're up."

      A stuttering breath got caught in Valerie's throat. How was it time already? Forcing her shoulders to swing back in a broad and false display of confidence, she followed the smaller woman's footsteps out of the room. Midge was still in the center of the spotlight, glowing within the sea of applause, looking like she had every right to be there. Her set was tremendous. How could it not be? 

      The brunette sauntered off stage, but once she was shieled by the curtains and she spotted her friend waiting, the bravado dropped into something more serious, more kind. Two hands rose to clasp the sides of her arms. Blue met green eyes. "You can do this."

      Valerie didn't say anything, worried that if she tried to speak, her words would dissolve into whimpering cries. She simply nodded and placed her feet steady on the imaginary border between the wings and the stage. The MC of the resort's voice was jubilant, but it echoed in a muffle in her ears.

      If Susie and Midge weren't here, she'd probably slap herself. Do something that would knock what she deemed girlish insecurities; or make a last-ditch attempt to the bar and drown a mini-bottle of Jameson. 

      Irish courage. Irish luck. 

      She's never intrinsically had it. She's always had to work for it. 

      "And ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm welcome to — Valentina King!" 

      The claps were welcoming. Valerie stepped into the light, and in the same vein as a car crash managing to change lives in a millisecond, she was no longer Valerie. No longer the writer of the Morningside Herald who decided to give comedy a shot on a whim, because her life was falling apart and she needed something to revitalize her. No longer the widow who was cooed at with sympathy and would wear her husband's flannel shirts to bed so she could feel close to him. No longer that Donovan girl with the dead mom, and the depressed father, and the fucked up lineage that everyone in the south towns could point out and judge. 

      She was Valentina King instead, the reimagined woman without the faults. She molded her trauma into jokes with the force of a whip, waving a magic wand to downplay the bad stuff and make it into something funny. She walked the stage with the smile of a mischief, and the confidence of an entertainer who had done this for years, and the sexiness of an untouchable gem — Loki, Marilyn, and Persephone all combined. 

      She wasn't Donovan, she was King. She had reclaimed her name from Saint Valentine and her Catholic upbringing. She was her own person, untethered to anyone she didn't want to be tethered too. She was still Mark's woman through and through. She was Mrs. Maisel's partner in crime. She was Lenny Bruce's friend. She could be whatever she wanted to be as long as she stayed in that light and in front of a microphone. Nothing else mattered as long as she was funny. 

      Her history vanished. 

      Nobody could see the ugly parts underneath her clothes and behind her grin if she didn't want them to.

      That was powerful.

      That was empowering. 

      That meant the whole world. 

      A ten-minute performance flashed by, and it felt like a breeze, because it was a breeze. She was spectacular. She was hysterical. She was like the sun. Nobody could eclipse her when she was doing what she loved, not even her in-laws. They were shadowed somewhere out in the abyss. All that stood the test of time was Valerie and the audience. They were the ones that mattered, their connection. They were in-sync. 

      "Thank you and goodnight!" 

      The roar of applause practically hurt her eardrums. A few people even stood up to cheer. Valerie didn't humbly shy away from it. She let herself continue to stand in front of everyone, her face hurting from all of the smiling. If the ecstasy of a night gone well wasn't clouding her consciousness, she could have started weeping. 

      Once the tension of the room died down, Valerie nearly trip over herself getting off stage. There was Midge and Susie, the two most constant presences in her life, waiting with excitement and probably wanting to momentarily celebrate. 

      She hurried past them and down the miniature stairs that led to the actual dining hall. The jitteriness swarming her body wouldn't let her stop and explain. With an edge of urgency, she weaved past tables of people, some of whom subtly stopped to see what the talent of the evening was doing. Valerie paid them no mind. Her gaze kept scanning for a pair of familiar faces. She found them in the back, situated at a two-seater. Valerie wasted no time in making a b-line across the room, the details around her blurring. 

      Selena jumped up upon seeing here. There was wetness underneath her eyes that smudged her mascaraed and became reflective underneath the light. There was no hesitancy when she reached out and wrapped her arms around Valerie.

      "That was excellent! Just excellent!" The older woman laughed into her shoulder, rubbing the line of her back with maternal warmth. Valerie latched her arms around her figure, trying not to be so strong even though she wanted to be. She wanted to bask in this bubble of tenderness. Was this the first time they've hugged? She couldn't remember. It felt like the first time. It felt like the first time she had been hugged in a while.

      When the two women pulled back, still in each other's tiny orbit, Valerie was stunned by the pride on Selena's face. It emitted a blinding luminosity that hurt to look at. She had not seen that look on anyone since Mark was put into the ground. Had she ever seen it until he showed up in her life?

      Selena cupped her jaw with both hands, soft and warm, and made sure she was paying attention. Valerie couldn't stop noticing the grey tears staining the high points of her skin. Her brown eyes were only kind. They weren't going to hurt her. "You were beautiful."

      Something shifted inside of the twenty-seven year old. A seam matching a seam. A wound that remained hollowed and bloody was patched over. 

      She had not realized that a bruise that old could be mended. 

      Her mother-in-law turned around so the full view of their table could be seen. Empty plates that once held appetizers and half-drank cocktails. Benito remained in his chair, donning his traditional pantsuit, one hand still clutching the rim of his rocks glass, regard averted. When he noticed that both women were looking at him — anticipating — he cleared his throat and stood up.

      His gaze finally locked onto Valerie's. 

      She waited, and waited, and waited.

      Benito's eyes didn't lose its impassiveness, or its gruffness, or scornfulness. He was just as unimpressed as he was seven years ago when Mark introduced her to him, hand resting on her back, and Bentio looked at his son as if to say: so this is the one? 

      He sighed, as if he had just wasted an hour of his life. "It's certainly a career choice." 

      And Valerie felt the wound re-open. 

☆

      They were lying in bed. The neighbors upstairs were playing jazz music while having a small party. The cabs hustled on the street below. It was pitch black in their bedroom except for the fact that their curtainless window allowed the lights from the still-open restaurants below to shine through. The billboard advertising Gordon's London Dry Gin, stationed high and almighty on top of an brick building, was illuminated by overhead bulbs. 

      Neither of them bothered to shut the blinds. 

      Valerie was lying on her back, the duvet tangled around her legs and her button-up shirt riding above her bellybutton. Mark was next to her, on his side, staring at a inconsequential spot of the door. One of his hands was resting between her breasts. She was grateful for the flat and heavy weight on her chest, for being able to feel the radiating warmth. If it wasn't there, she'd feel unsteady. She'd feel more alone. 

      "You can't let it get to you." He whispered, his tone the opposite of condescension. If they were some sort of other couple, or if she was some sort of other person, she'd take offense to the gentleness. She'd be defensive and assume he was trying to start a fight. But they've known each other for a while now (it feels like a lifetime — Valerie doesn't know how she was forced to keep living without him before), and she instantly knows that's not what he's trying to do.

      "Yeah, I know." She replied, still quiet. She was worried that anything louder would break something delicate in the air. "It's just frustrating." 

      Mark nodded, his eyes became shadowed with sad understanding. He rolled onto his back, arms pressed together, their closest hands finding each other. Their exhausted regards spawning holes into the ceiling somehow felt calming when they were both doing it simultaneously. 

      "I'd say he's never been happy before in his entire life, but that would be a lie." He sighed, "I remember being a kid, he was happy. With being with mom, with being with me. Still, there was always something that kept him from being truly satisfied, whether it was the lack of money, or not having a great house, or not being home in Havana." 

      "I remember when the company finally took off. I was so small and suddenly, our whole lives changed. My father was a self-made man, not like every Cubano who struggled and never made it in this country." There was a droop in her husband's body that even Valerie could see lying down. "You'd think making money would make him more content. You'd think achieving successful would stop him from asking for too much. But if anything, getting rich just turned him more demanding."

      Valerie remained silent, tracing the veins of his hand with her finger, playing with the shoelace tied around his wrist. It was always startling to be reminded that Mark initially came from humble beginnings like her. It didn't last long — Benito practically discovered diamonds under rubble a few years after migrating to America by kickstarting a highly profitable rum company, all of the ingredients imported from Cuba and manufactured by Cuban workers. 

      When they first started dating, Valerie would spend hours scrutinizing how different they were. Even ethnicities aside, there was enough paradoxes to fill multiple volumes of books. Every time someone saw them together, she'd think about how much of a mis-matched pair they were. It was strange yet comforting in a sense that their origins started off the same. The children of immigrant parents who arrived in big cities in the United States, hoping to start fresh and find gold even if their hearts belonged back home. 

      Ironically, that's where the similarities stop, because ultimately, the Donovans and Peldaros operated differently. In South Boston, surrounded by a pungent lack of luck and opportunities, it was easy to get stuck; and that's what Domhnall Donovan was. He was stuck — but like the rest of his family members who immigrated as well, he learned to be okay with that. Working class, underpaid and laboring job, no adventurous prospects for the future. Same old, same old. There was no reaching for the stars and trying to get out of that shitty neighborhood. All there was was getting through each day as it came. The booze and the depression certainly aided with that.

      However, the Peldaros were built differently. All of them were stitched with ambition. It's the reason why Benito didn't stop until he made something of himself and had a successful business. It's also the same reason why Mark was never gratified with remaining behind in his father's shadow and worked hard to make a name for himself in the music industry. They believed in the yellow brick road that would lead them to the American Dream. 

      Yeah, that's definitely where the similarities stop. Oh, that, and the Catholicism. 

      "I have never been good enough for him." Mark divulged, quiet as a mouse. Outside, two cars started honking at each other insistently, the start of a road rage incident about to occur.

      Valerie's head snapped towards him. She matched his softness in tone, but her grasp on his hand tightened. She would squeeze the pain out of him if she could. Transfer it all to her if she thought she could handle it. "That's not true." 

      He shuffled in place, clearly uncomfortable with how melancholy he was becoming. "Ah, I'm just being overdramatic." In spite of the shaky casualness he was interjecting into his words, he guided her arm to stretch across his chest, asking for an unspoken comfort. His wife obliged easily, shifting over and tucking one of her legs around his own. Before him, she had never realized that touch could be so loving. "Besides, it's nothing compared to what you've been through." 

      The blonde cloaked her dismay by briefly hiding her face in his shoulder. A father's disappointments with his children was something they were both enveloped in. But Mark had a habit of downplaying his own pain about it. "I've told you before — it's not a competition." Valerie lightly chastised, it coming out a little muffled due to her mouth being half-pressed against his arm. She just loved how warm he was, how squishy. "We can both have fucked up relationships with our parents and not get superiority complexes from it. Besides, that would be like the worst contest to ever win, ever."

      Mark hummed, unconvinced. "It must be hard to listen to me sometimes, though. Spoiled rich kid with a compliant mother and asshole father. What a sob story! How can my hardships ever compare to yours?"

      "I always love listening to you. Whether it's about your father, or how you were raised, or even about how the Red Sox sucks compared to the Yankees — which is something I do get personally offended about." That got a small laugh out of him, though it was strained. Valerie stretched out to grip his chin and turn it towards, gaze firm and steady. She wanted him to know she meant every word of what she was saying. "We've always going to have pain that neither one of us will ever experience, and that's okay. We can still share. I'm never going to understand what it's like growing up Hispanic —"

      "And I'm never going to understand what it's like to be a woman —"

      "And I'm never going to understand what it's like to be an only child with a father that's so blatantly cruel —"

      "And I'm never going to understand what it's like to not have a mom." The tenderness in his eyes radiated brightly in the dark. He pressed a soothing kiss to her palm and brushed a sympathetic hand down her hip. "And to be stuck with a wicked step-mother." 

      Valerie never wavered. "And that's okay."

      It took a second for him to respond, but when he did, it was nothing, but authentic. "And that's okay."

      She leaned over to kiss him, and it felt searing in a way. Not fevered, like they were about to start something (both of them were too drained for that), but it was meaningful nonetheless. They broke away for air and settled against each other: Mark flipped around on his side to face the window and Valerie hugged him from behind, melting into his back and the furnace underneath his shirt. He pulled her arm tighter around his front, as if trying to bolt him to her.

      A lock-and-key of sorts.

      "I'm so glad that I have you." Mark softly revered, unashamed of his vulnerabilities. Despite being ridiculed for his career and lifestyle choices for years, he remained unimpeachable in his capability to display devotion and affection. Valerie didn't know how that was possible, especially for a man, but she was glad for it. "I've never been happier than when I'm with you."

      A blush burned her cheeks. She nuzzled her face into his back, mussing her hair even more. Strangely, it felt embarrassing to be shown this much love and be expected to make a response, but Valerie was getting used to it. She didn't flinch away from it as much. He was teaching her day-by-day how to show love with words, but she wasn't always willing to do it. The cage would sometimes fall down and isolate her. 

      Still, she felt it, the same as him. She tightened her hold on him, as if to say, me too, me too. 

      Tomorrow morning, they would get ready for their day, and the disaster that was their dinner with the Peldaros from the night before would vanish. For a while, it would just be them in their bubble and that was enough. When he went out for work, she would open up her copy of Louis Untermeyer's Beloved Tales. She would underline the greeting stanzas and wish she could articulate the feelings out-loud to Mark.

"You are my holy city, my beloved;

Dark as Jerusalem and bright as Rome

The gates of you are opened generously

To take the prodigal home."

☆

      Valerie knew, as they approached the ranch, a fight was brewing.

      It was thick in the air. It had festered beyond just tension as this point. Even Selena could sense it, judging by the way her shoulders remained clenched and close to her chin. If she wasn't a grown woman twice her age, she might've described her as a mouse watching a fellow rodent about to get caught in a trap. 

      On the ride home from the resort, very few words were spoken. Over the low hum of the radio, Valerie could have sworn she heard hushed words exchanged between her in-laws, but her mind felt too clogged to distinguish the vowels. The high of a excellent performance — not even a great performance, an excellent one — had grown and died so quickly. It left her drained and shaken. Benito's bland response repeated her in thoughts like an ugly mantra.

      It's certainly a career choice. 

      The screen door of the house squeaked as it was open. All three of them padded inside, quiet even as the lights flickered on with a warm buzz. Benito huffed tiredly, his coat quickly being tossed across one of the chairs and his tie being loosed from his neck. From underneath the cabinet, he pulled out a tall bottle of bourbon and a rocks glass; the golden liquid was poured half-full. He took a slow sip, stoically peering out through the window above the sink. 

      Valerie lingered behind, cupping her hands behind her waist. Her back was cemented against the mull post of the closed door. Half-ready to bolt, half-wanting to fight. One side was winning over the other as her gaze refused to unlock from the back of her father-in-law's head. She could feel the shutters of anger closing around her. The utterance of her eyes was becoming sharp with a predatory temper; the muscles supporting her jaw were agitating from the continuous strain. 

      She could just pretend that the rejection from Mark's father didn't hurt and go to bed. Let the rage culvert out of her as she dreamed and tomorrow morning, act as if she was perfectly happy. Allow the last days of their Catskills vacation play out in harmony. That was her instinct. If her family was here, she'd be encouraged to keep her emotions imprisoned as to not cause a disturbance. 

      Just pretend. 

      But the rage was infiltrating. Seven years of cold glares, and unrelenting judgements, and ghastly disapproval. It was unraveling the same way a ball tumbled on the floor and hid underneath the bed, never to be uncovered again. Once her mask of cool indifference was taken off, it could never be put back on again. A Pandora's Box, of sorts. 

      Benito drowned the rest of the liquor in one go. He hissed under his breath at the brutality of the blended rye and abandoned the glass in the sink. He took in a long breath, "I think I'll —"

      "What the hell is your problem?"

      Two heads snapped towards her. For a second, even the crickets outside stopped chirping in fear of the thundering pulse in her voice. Selena tossed a nervous glance between her husband and daughter-in-law, unknowing of who to take in more, unknowing of who to silently plea to not escalate things. 

      Benito didn't even flinch. "How do you mean?"

      Almost a year ago — or maybe a century, or a day ago — Valerie stood half-naked in front of her misogynistic boss and hit him. She earned a bloody nose and a cut forehead from it, nearly got fired from the one steady aspect of her life, and yet, it was the most liberated she felt in the longest time. The signature Irish-Catholic rose would never retaliate in such a way, especially not towards a man. She was smart enough to back down when it wasn't worth it and to conceal her emotions, because emotions meant weakness and there was nothing worse than being weak. 

      Everybody in that Podunk neighborhood of hers would have shamed her, in spite of committing more sinister sins. Gene would have scolded her to no end. Her brothers would have teased her. Her father would have disappointed. There was no telling what her mother would have thought, because the dead don't have thoughts. 

      Valerie was anything, but dumb. She knew when to avoid a fight when necessary. But like that fateful night at the Morningside Herald, enough was enough. 

      "I have been married into this family for years. I've attended group dinners, and holiday parties, and vacations on Hell on Earth," Her arms floundered around her sides, the venom towards the Catskills dripping with every syllable. One of her feet planted against the wall behind and she pushed herself steadily off. "And yet none of it is good enough for you."

      Benito pursed his lips, thoughtful. A moment passed, and it didn't seem like he was going to bother replying, not when the bourbon bottle was still within sight and he looked tempted for another drink. Eventually, he decided against it. "Are you looking for my approval, Valentina? Is that it? Has that been the explanation for this bratty behavior since you were first introduced to us?"

      Both sets of her teeth met each other in a grinding halt. Something resembling embarrassment climbed up and strangled her throat. "You know it is. And don't talk to me like I'm some five year old child. I've been nothing but generous, and I've always tried —"

      "Tried?" He interjected, harshly laughing. His incredulous stare met his trepidatious wife's, as if she was expected to join in on the joke. "You don't know the meaning of the word tried. Your entire breed has never tried, otherwise you all wouldn't still be stuck in that sinkhole of a city and you all would have made something of yourselves like the rest of us."

      Somewhere in the background, Selena gasped. Valerie could barely acknowledged the shocked sound when the rise of her animosity was clashing in her ears, bellowing with the power of a philharmonic orchestra. "You've got a lot of nerve." The harshness slithered out like a rattlesnake. Her temper didn't feel akin to a night's worth of rage, but years of it. It was all compounding together, making her shake. "Dragged your wife here, started a family, struggled for years, and once you made it big, you made it your life's goal to look down on everyone else from the tip of your nose! Did your empathy vanish when the white man's money filled your pockets?"

      "Valentina!" 

      Benito's lips curled. "You have no idea the sacrifice I —"

      "And in case you haven't noticed, I fucking made it!" She interjected ferociously, eyes bright with reverent passion. Ever since she was little, she had always been stellar at arguing, but the devotion of what she was saying was tinged with desperation, soaking her internal conviction. She just wanted, with every fiber of her being, for him to understand her hurt, for him to look past his pride, for him to finally see — well, to see her. "I'm a writer in goddamn New York City. I'm starting a career in entertainment. I've never relied on anyone, but you've never been able to see it!" 

      "There you are again! Do you know what you sound like?" hissed the older man. "A grown woman whining like a child, tugging at my trousers, begging for my approval, my love, my applause. ¡Es patética! Why haven't you realized after all this time that you're never gonna receive it?"

      A scoffed slipped from Valerie, a performance of indifference, but it dampened into a whimper. "Well, how was I not suppose to want it when you and Selena hung it over my head every day that I wasn't good enough?" She fought to keep her voice steady, and managed for it to come out strong, but she fought even harder against the tears. The heat beneath her skin was growing greater. You will not cry. Don't be weak. "All I ever did was try my best with Mark, and you never gave me an inch!" 

      "Why would I?" He mocked, humorless. "What made you deserving of it?"

      "Because your son's in love with me!" yelped Valerie, a plea bolstering underneath her indignation. "He — loves — me, and that should have been enough!"

      "Loved," He corrected quickly. There was a threat intertwined with the sudden lowness of his tone, a warning not to make any implication that Mark was simply a ghost in this room, tied to their memories. He didn't want to acknowledge the horrible truth, as old as it was now, anymore than she did. "He loved you."

      "Loves!" Valerie yelled, enough to rattle the room and make Selena, who had practically backed herself into a corner, wince. It didn't even sound like her. She felt desperate, more than ever before. Mark loves her. There was no denying it. There was no warping reality to portray anything other than that. Benito could strip away her defenses and sensitivities, but he could never take that away. She would carve it into stone, immortalize Mark's affection forever, if it meant she had undeniable proof for the whole world to see. 

      "Yes, and you loved him." There was a crack in his forbearance, a sharp flicker of anguish that she had failed to see since the fight first started. It mirrored her own, and like the stony facade she had been wrestling to persevere, he fought to hide it. "And that's why you took away my son."

      A beat passed. It didn't take more than that for the blonde to burst into laughter. Well, it wasn't really laughter when the noise that came out was strained and wet with tears, a note of hysteria attached to the high-rising waves. "I'm — I'm sorry, explain that to me!" She demanded, a cruelness twisting her smile. Right now, she didn't mind being cruel. "Explain to me how all of our lives getting ruined is somehow my fault?"

      "Before that! Before the accident, you took him away!" He exclaimed, vibrating with vexation. "Encouraging that ludicrous career of his, convincing him that it was all good and fun to waste his life away doing something as meaningless as music!" 

      "He was a musician long before he met me," said Valerie, firmly. She remembered, weeks before joining the tour with her sister, hearing Mark's song on the radio with the Four Aces. Who is he, she questioned Gene in the car, her chin bobbing to the rhyme of the song. That's the guy you're gonna write about on tour, the older Donovan had replied. "And I supported him, because he loved doing it! He was brilliant, and talented, and was taking on the world!"

      "He wasn't himself!" Benito argued, "Pulling away from me and his mother. Hanging around riff-raft in the village. Changing his last name to appease the gringos, ashamed of his roots!"

      "He wasn't ashamed —"

      "Sweetheart, please..." Selena quietly pleaded, voice wobbling with the weight of her tears. Her husband ignored her.

      "You made it worse!" He yelled, on the verge of destroying the house altogether. "You made it all worse!"

      "Oh, that's right, blame me for being a shitty father!" 

      "Always insolent, always selfish —"

      "You can't put all of this on me!"

      "Too self-centered to have children, too selfish to tell Mark to focus on his only parents!" 

      "Oh, for God sakes!" 

      "And I knew it the day that I met you. You were always going to be this way. Pretty, but not the girl meant for him. Too much work." The power of his outrage made Valerie freeze in her spot. She felt caught and like she was about to be dissected under the loathsome watch of his glare. "You just weren't right! La basura!" 

      Trash.

      The whole house came to a standstill.

      Benito didn't bother to wait for the silence to overwhelm the kitchen. He spun on his heels and stormed out, the pounding of his footsteps followed by the slamming of the backdoor. For a while, it felt like Valerie couldn't move, the insult planting her feet into the ground and not letting her run away from it. She tried to ignore the hollowing of her chest, but it moved painfully and with the burden of her swelling tears. Cautiously, she glanced over at her mother-in-law. 

      But Selena couldn't say anything. The minute her husband left, she had burst into violent sobs and covered her face with her hands. 

☆

      An hour later, Valerie still found herself hiding on the porch. Shrouded in darkness, minus the outside bulbs, and with the open space the hotel provided, it felt less claustrophobic to be out here than inside the house. She sat on the highest step of the mini-stairs, a half-burnt cigarette balanced in one hand and a beer she had swiped from the freezer box next to her hip. No one comforted her besides the fireflies that glowed in between patches of thick grass. 

      Her face hurt. The skin had turned blotchy and red, her eyes rimmed with a similar intensity of color. The tears had stopped a while ago — she was too exhausted to keep crying — but there was traces of wetness down the slop of her neck, illuminating her cross. The embarrassment of it all made her want to smack herself for crying, but the fact that she was alone made her feel slightly better. If she had fallen apart in front of Selena or Benito, there would have been a good chance she would have high-tailed it back to the city, before the sun came up.

      To say she felt empty would have been an understatement. 

      If was as if someone dug a carving knife through the linings of her cavities and violently dug everything out until all that remained were empty, abandoned, bloody spaces. There might have been something there in the first place when she had been crying; all of the rage though, along with the grief, evacuated out of her with the tears. Now, Valerie was left with pure exhaustion that practically dragged her bones down to the dirt and a jitteriness that refused to stop possessing her hands. Even the beer, as she lifted it up to purse her lips around the rim of the opening, quivered a little. 

      Her brain was so numb with guilt and prostration that she didn't even noticed the footsteps approaching from behind until a few seconds later. 

      The heaviness of the shoes told her who it was. 

      Valerie huffed quietly to herself, lazily flicking her cigarette into the field, incapable of mustering energy to lift her head and meet his eyes. A fresh wave of heat inflamed her face, and quite honestly, she could have started weeping again as soon as she heard him approach. She couldn't handle a second round of fighting — all of the passion inside of her died in the first round and what replaced it was a deep sense of diffidence — and she knew that if Benito wanted another drawn-out battle between them, he would win it.

      Nevermind the fact that she already felt like a dog that had been battered down one too many times. 

      "May I sit?" His gruffness wasn't softened by the dark nightlife and the time that had passed, but she was surprised to hear less of an antagonistic edge to his voice. Still, Valerie didn't want to look at him, and she could barely handle him looking at her. 

      She stayed silent. Wearily, she gripped the body of her beer and stood up, moving away from the steps and towards one part of the porch ledge. She crossed her arms and leaned her back against the wooden railing, grateful to have something to drink to occupy her hands and gaze. As subtly as she could, she tried to appear casual, but even with the faint glow of the lights, she knew he could see. The blotchy face, the wobble of her throat, the depleted black holes that were once her green eyes. 

      She was all-out for display, and it had never felt more humiliating.  

      "Did Selena go to bed?" Valerie broke the silence and immediately cleared her throat to dismiss the hoarseness caught underneath her words. 

      "Yes, not long ago." To his credit, he appeared just as listless as she did. Dark bags tugged beneath his eyes and judging from the wrinkles around his collar, he had continuously messed with the top of his shirt. "She's quite upset as you can imagine." 

      The twenty-seven year old didn't reply, swallowing more beer, not matter how bitter it was starting to taste. 

      Benito carefully crouched down and settled himself at the same place she sat on the stairs. There was a slight stench of whiskey that followed him around, but his movements were concise and there was clarity stitched into his expression. Even as he ran his calloused palms through his greying hair and peered out into the forest that surrounded the ranch, he seemed in control of himself. 

      Valerie stared at the side of his face, simultaneously on defense and defeated, waiting in dreadful anticipation for another insult to slap her across the face. She couldn't bring herself to be angry over him trying to start shit one more time. She just wanted it to be over it.  

      She waited, and waited. He brought his head up shortly, mouth opened, ready to speak his mind like always — and then he crumbled. His body recoiled into himself, face nearly slammed into his knees, and sobs wracked his body in ear-aching ugliness. 

      He was crying. 

      Valerie watched, horrified. The bottle of Schaefer nearly slipped from her fingertips until she managed to catch it at the last second. The fact of the matter is that very rarely has she witnessed a man cry. Through the course of their relationship, there had been a few emotional moments with Mark that sparked tears. By and large, that had been about it. Her brothers never cried. Her gritty uncles and red-blooded cousins didn't. Even after the funeral of her mother, her father didn't cry, and told her she shouldn't either. 

      It felt unnatural, watching him sob. Like getting a sneak-peak at a disturbing film she shouldn't be viewing. Instantly, Valerie wanted to whip her head away and burn the image with bleach. The instinct to run away and hide in the house was rapacious. But her feet were frozen to the floorboard, gaze wide and immobile. 

      Even subconsciously, she wanted to see where this lead, even if she felt frightened.

      After a moment, his cries dimmed into gasps. Roughly, he scrubbed at his face with rough palms, sniffing. She could tell that he was trying to pull himself together, but the intensity of his sudden sorrow weighted him down too heavily. 

      "I'm - I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." He admitted, brokenly. "I'm so sorry, Valerie."

      Even her arms, crossed against her chest, a small comfort to herself, started to shake more. She shifted stiffly, that gawking awkwardness climbing across her upper back and making her shoulders tense. Before she could stutter a response, Benito gulped more air and spoke again, "I never understood him! All his life, I never understood him and it devastated me, and my anger pushed him away from me."

      "I could feel him slipping away, but I was too self-righteous to fix it. I thought, he should come to me. He should apologize for giving up his family name and not appreciating the sacrifices that me and his mother made." His hand swiped at his wobbling bottom lip. "But it's so clear to me now that him pursuing his joy was the greatest thank you I could have gotten."

      Against her will, Valerie felt the bundle of resentment build in her chest unravel trepidatiously. It was difficult to stay mad at a man who was shattering before her — an old, successful man who always maintained composure nonetheless — even if the pain he caused stuck with her like clogged arteries. She was reminded of Selena in her apartment last year when she came to apologize for her mistreatment. The guilt had swallowed the older woman whole. The grief had simply shined a flashlight to that. 

      "It's true that you weren't what I wanted for him. I wanted him to have everything that I had. I couldn't fathom the idea that he could want something different from life, something simpler and more creative." continued Benito, wetly. "And along the way, I was aware of my mistakes; recognized that I was too harsh. But I thought...I thought I would have more time to correct them." 

      He choked out: "Now he's gone and there's no time left after all. No time to fix the mistakes. No time to make amends."

      Expression torn by remorse, he looked behind him and met Valerie's eyes steadily. The fresh wave of tears were close to spilling over his drained face, "But you're still here, and I don't want you to run away from Selena and me. So I'm sorry." 

      Something inside of Valerie trembled violently. It made her simultaneously want to puke and  weep. More than anything else, it pushed her to hide underneath the bedcovers and not look at anyone, least of all her in-laws, ever again. A part of her couldn't handle this, truthfully. All of this openness of regret, of sadness, or authenticity. It didn't feel right to witness or receive. Quite frankly, she couldn't pin-point if it made her feel good either. 

     For that alone, it would have been a good reason to hold onto her resentment with a possessive hook.

      But then, in a lightening flash, reminders of her own family came into her peripheral; of apologies never said out-loud, of vitriol spewed out like defensive bullets, of sore spots that were continuously poked and prodded instead of covered with a band-aid. All of that felt horrendous growing up, which made Benito's apology both unnerving and somewhat soothing. 

      He was sorry. She was vindicated for her hurt and indignation. She wasn't in the wrong. 

      Maybe she was too forgiving of a person. Maybe she should continue to allow her rage to follow her around when it came to Benito and Selena, a manifestation of a dark shadow. Maybe she just wanted the crying and heartfelt confessions in the dark to stop. But this apology felt tender, and it meant something. 

      It did really mean something to her. 

      Valerie abandoned the warm beer by the railing and batted her eyes, attempting to dry them. Sluggishly, she walked towards her father-in-law and sat down next to him on the stairs, leaving a respectable amount of space between them. The blonde was close to hugging her knees to her chest, feeling ill-exposed. She pushed through it. 

      "Mark knew you loved him." Valerie quietly said, unable to meet his eyes for more than a second at a time. "And he was always proud to be your son. That's all that matters now. Not stuff we can't change." 

      Benito's eyes swelled, but nothing fell. His lips pursed as he nodded and looked out into the field. He still looked so vulnerable, like he could break at any minute. It was both fascinating and massively disconcerting to Valerie that even at an older age, people were capable of falling apart. 

      "For him though, and for me, I forgive you." She eventually pronounced after a moment, fighting hard to keep her voice steady. "And for you. I'll forgive you for you as well."

      He licked his lips and bobbed his head downward. Some of his quivering subsided. "Gracias. Estoy muy agradecida." He lifted his head back up and met her gaze. His own shame was overridden by the ardency of his tone. "Tú eres suficiente. Siempre has sido suficiente."

      You are enough. You have always been enough.

      That's all she wanted to hear.

☆

AUTHOR'S NOTES.

⋆ We're gonna pretend that this 15,000+ word chapter is an apology for being late for an update - even though it was gonna be a big chapter regardless - but we're gonna pretend, m'kay? In all seriousness, I apologize for being late. I had a dreadful feeling that I would be, because I started school the last week of August and my schedule at the beginning of the semester is always hectic. It takes a while for me to adjust and figure out a balance between fun stuff like writing and boring yet important stuff like studying. Figures crossed that now that I'm a month into the semester that I'm getting into the groove of things and updates will be back to being monthly.

⋆ Obviously, in this chapter, we're dealing with a lot of repressed resentments and hopes from Valerie's perspective. She's not meant to be the most open of characters so it's important for me to choose the right moments to slip in underlying vulnerabilities. Even though I didn't mention it in the story, I've always imagined that while Valerie was nervous to meet Mark's parents when they first started dating, I think she also held this hope that she would be accepted and she'd be able to join her family. Since she has a very complex relationship with her own family, I believe it was a secret want of hers to be accepted elsewhere, but when Selena and Benito rejected her, it kind of broke her heart. Not that she'd ever admit that out-loud, but I just thought it was the context that I would share.

⋆ Benito obviously isn't the greatest person in the world. He's one of those rags-to-riches types who kind of forgot his roots and has become judgmental of others outside of his bubble or expectations. But I think it's also important to note that this is a man who's obviously devastated by the death of his son, even if he doesn't show it as openly as his wife, and has regrets over the way he's acted in the past. He wants to make amends with Valerie and you'll definitely start to see that in future chapters.

⋆ It's important to note as well that this is our last Catskills chapter! It's sad in a way, because I know now since the show ended that this will be the last we'll see of the Catskills, but it's also good, because I've been missing New York City and writing about it. Episode 7 is our next episode and honestly, I'm so excited to write about it. It's one of my favorite episodes in season two due to Rufus Sewell's cameo as Declan Howell. Valerie's gonna have a lot of interesting interactions with him and with Benjamin, because I'm determined for them to continue their friendship outside of Steiner's.

⋆ That flashback with Mark wasn't planned initially, but as the chapter progressed, I felt it was important to add. Mark's relationship with his father was turbulent at best and I think getting a sneak peak at that, beyond just Valerie's commentary, was important. I also just like writing Mark and Valerie together, because they're so disgustingly in love with each other, it makes me sick. Obviously, Valerie isn't the best at articulating or being open with her feelings so I thought it'd be interesting to portray how she expresses herself through art, such as poetry.

⋆ Next chapter is actually an interlude, technically - we're going back to Boston! Before the summer ends, Valerie's going to spend time with her family to more or less disastrous consequences. This was not intended to be included at all in Act II, but when I was going over the outline for this season months ago, I realized that my original schedule didn't involve Valerie's family making an appearance at all. I think it's important to show them sporadically so I managed to slip them in between Episode 6 and Episode 7

⋆ As always, please let me know how y'all liked this chapter. I enjoy any and all feedback, especially after such a long break away from writing Valerie and her adventures

HISTORIAL NOTES

⋆ Everclear, to those who don't know, is an alcohol spirit known for being intensely strong. Some versions of it are actually banned in the US due to the high alcohol content. The makers of the brand advise that you never drink it by itself - either dilute it with water or mix it with a soda or juice.

⋆ Lik-M-Aid packets was the old name for Fun Dip. It was re-branded as Fun Dip in the seventies, but it's been around since the forties.

⋆ Ruben Gonzalez was a famous pianist from Cuba. I highly recommend his album "Introducing", which you can find on Youtube, because it's such a beautiful piece of work, especially if you love music from Latin America

⋆ Johannes Vermeer was a famous painter from the Dutch Republic (a.k.a. the Netherlands) from the 17th century. Most notably, he's known for the "Girl with a Pearl Earring" painting. He's also the guy who Declan references when describing Midge when he first meets her in the bar.

⋆ Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis did perform at the Copacabana in 1954. There's a recording of their entire performance on Youtube, which I also highly recommend that you watch, because it's truly fascinating. 

 ⋆ Valerie mentions trenches and the doughboys in conjunction to Susie's comment about the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, because all three things are related to World War I. The assassination was the immediate cause of the war, trench warfare became the main form of fighting across Europe, and the doughboys was the name for American troops who were sent overseas. 

⋆ At this point, Woody Allen was not famous yet and mainly a writer, but he did spend some of his early years as a stand-up comic in the Catskills. Even though I hate the man, because he's an absolute creep (🤮), nobody knew that in the 50's and I enjoy referencing famous comedians from this era.

⋆ Gordon's London Dry Gin was an actual gin company that still makes gin today. Apparently, it's pretty popular in England

⋆ Schaefer was a brand of beer that originally came from New York City. It still continues to market and sell though it's definitely not as popular anymore.