1980s: Breaking Free
As Susan returns home from meeting her new nephew, she cannot help but to think of her own situation. She wants children. She wants a husband. She wants a family life rather than being stuck in an apartment she hates, waiting for her life to begin.
But when she arrives, he's there. Waiting for her. Angry that she was not at home.
"I was at my brothers!" she defends herself, with more bite than normal, and as Tony goes on about how he needs her to be there fore him she realises that she's had enough. That even if he left his wife, she wouldn't be happy. Does he honestly want her to break with her family, so that she can just sit around and wait for him?
"Stop!" she snaps.
For a moment, he does. He actually stops, and so she picks up her courage and gets out of the sofa. "I can't do this anymore," she tells him as he gets up after her. "It's over. It will have to be over."
Only Tony isn't ready for it to be over, and before Susan can react the first slap lands, followed by the next, until it's all a blur and Susan, dazed and with her head spinning and ears ringing, is ready to do whatever he wants her to do.
After, when he sleeps, she sneaks out of the bed, careful not to wake him.
She looks at herself in the mirror. Sure, he's slappe her before, but she's never seen it before, it hasn't been like this.
He's waiting for her when she gets out of the bathroom.
"Look at what you made me do," he says, grabbing her chin. "Don't do that again, you hear."
Susan flinches, then forces herself to smile, to promise that she won't. The fact that Tony looks pleased when looking at the result of his actions terrifies her.
Left alone again, she finds herself staring at the wall. Moving in a daze. She always imagined that she had a choice, but now that choice was taken. She jumps high when there is a knock on the door, hurrying to find a pair of sunglasses.
"Jerry! Hi!" She says, stepping outside rather than inviting him in. "What a surprise. How nice to see you. I'd let you in but the place is a mess right now."
The sunglasses, at night, isn't very convincing. The lame excuse isn't better, and Jerry isn't one not to push for answers. But Susan isn't speaking. An eye-infection, she lies, hating herself a little. Any light hurts. And she's tired. It's late. Could they talk some other time?
Jerry agrees, but only for long enough to get to the nearest phonebooth. He and Ken has never gotten along. He finds him stuck up, annoying, and spoiled. But he's Susan's cousin, and perhaps he can do something, so he finds his number in the phone register and rings him up. Ken is reluctant at first.
"She makes her own choices, she won't listen to me, I've tried."
"The guys is beating her up and you're giving him a free pass?" Jerry pushes.
"Beats her up? Come on, she'd never let that happen."
"I know what I saw!"
"I'll check in on her," Ken promises.
When he first arrives, he walks straight in. He still has the key and isn't going to be pushed away. Susan's isn't very willing to talk. She insist on an eye-infection leaving her sensitive to light, refusing to take the sunglasses off, but Ken won't stop pushing. Seeing her like this, he realises that Jerry was right, and he doesn't relent.
"You cannot do this to yourself," he says. "I can't believe this is you, why would you defend him? Why stay!"
"You think leaving is easy? What do you think landed me in this situation in the first place?"
Eventually, he gets her to remove her sunglasses, flinching at the sight.
"You can't stay, he'll do this again."
"And exactly where would I go? He has the key, he can come and go as he pleases and he made damn sure I knew it."
"Then you move in with me!" Ken says. "I have a spare room, I won't tell him where you are. He'll come here and it's empty. I'll help you find a new place where he doesn't have the key, but until then, you stay with me."
They pack up as much as they can together and Ken goes and rents a truck to move as much of the furniture as they can. A lot is left behind, but Susan cannot focus on everything now. She packs up her bedroom, so she has somewhere to sleep, and the things that matter.
Only when she arrives, does she realise that her graduation photo has been ruined in the hasty move. Something leaked over the photograph, turning it black. She remember how hopeful she looked in that photo, how proud and ready to take on the world. Perhaps it's fitting that it doesn't exist anymore.
"We can try to clean it, perhaps?" Ken suggests, but Susan just shakes her head.
"It's just a photo, I can live without it."
That night, she sleeps with the light on, nightmares plauging her sleep. Ken keeps saying she'll be safe there, but she has a hard time relaxing. She knows Tony won't forgive this.
The next day all of her aches, and no matter how much she tells herself that she's free now, she cannot really believe it. As she heads to work, it's with heavy steps.
But once sent out to do her job, she doesn't let any of that gloom show. She's perky and cheerful as she rallies the neighborhood to her cause, fighting to repeal the "free love" NAP so that it can be replaced with something more useful, like clean energy.
"We can't go on relying on coal, oil and nuclear power," she argues. "We need wind, water and sunshine. That is what will save the planet."
She gets a lot of signatures that day, and at the end of it, she's feeling better. Stronger. She's been out in the community and she hasn't seen Tony once. Perhaps in this part of town she won't.
But as she returns home, her hopes of escaping unnoticed is crushed.
"You really thought I wouldn't find you?" An angry Tony asks her. "It's not as if I couldn't look up your cousin's address."
Susan tries to stand firm, but she's not surprised when Tony raises his hand. What is different is everything that happens from there. As if by magic, her own hand goes up, stopping his, and in the fight that follows, she finds herself fighting back, with everything she has.
A neighbor runs passed, alerting Ken who rushes over to intervene. "You cannot do this to me!" Tony exclaims, turning from angry and punishing to charming and coercive in the blink of an eye, saying all the things that Susan has wished to hear for years, but no longer believes.
"Just go," she says, turning her back and heading back into the flat.
But Tony isn't one to give up. In the following days he comes back again and again, trying everything from coercion to begging, but for the first time Susan stands fast in her decision. It's terrifying, and she's utterly grateful for Ken standing by and watching out for her, but she cannot let him fight her battles for her. She needs to get Tony to stop, even if it might be dangerous, and no matter how much Ken calls her an idiot for taking unnecessary risks and tells her to just call the cops, she feels the need to confront him herself.
"This cannot go on," she tells him. "Don't make me involve the cops. What would your wife say? Your daughters? What if someone treated them this way? Just... go. Give up. I'm not changing my mind."
Whether its the threat of the cops or because he doesn't care enough, Tony does eventually give up. At least for the moment. Susan knows just how lucky that is, that he didn't get worse, that she's alive. With the fading of her busies so does her feelings for him. Perhaps they faded a long time ago an she just didn't know how to see it. She still wakes up terrified of being alone, but at least Tony is no longer her answer to avoid it.With every passing day, Susan feels herself growing in strength. She throws herself into her work, especially as nature keep urging her to. As the year turns its halfway point Death Valley has reached a record 129°F and an earthquake has shaken Livermore, being felt all the way into the Bay Area. "Nature is telling us we're on the wrong track!" Susan argues as she works for the improvement of the neighborhood. "We need to start paying attention."
Susan's looks are changing too. First her old jeans are recycled, then she gets some new clothes, then she changes her hair. She doesn't cut it. Instead she lets Cathy advise her over the phone.
"The only hairstyle worth having is a perm," she says. "You'll look fabulous, then I can find someone to set you up with. Ken too, for that matter."
"I'm not sure I'm ready to date again yet," she says.
"Well just Ken then. He desperately need a girlfriend."
With the amount of guys coming and going in the house, with no unmarried, unattached woman in sight, Susan tends to agree. It's not that she minds, they're nice neighbors and good friends of Ken's but sometimes the place smells more like teenage boys than a home. Her limit is reached when she finds one of them crashing in her bed.
"Seriously?!? Go home!"
She really needs her own place.
Finding one is a bit complicated, however. While this part of town is nice and developed, it's also full. Apart from the odd abandoned house still here, there are no more apartments to be had - and Susan knows she's not going to move back to Conifer station. That's far too close to Tony for comfort.
The only part of town left is Port Promise, and while it has a very promising name, it isn't a very promising area. Pollution is high, the houses run down and everywhere on the street there is litter and garbage. What it does have is one of the biggest apartment buildings in town. And the cheapest flats.
Ken, however, is not letting his cousin move back out without a moving out party, meaning it's high time to hit the dancefloor. They start out in the local nightclub, which is also being torn down.
"It's such a shame," Ken says, although he almost never goes.
"It's an old factory. It's not safe, and definitely not environmentally friendly," Susan answers as they hit the dancefloor.
It's certainly a crowded night, but Ken isn't feeling the vibe, perhaps because most of the people in the club are married, or dating whomever they are there with. So after just a little while he's ready to move on. "There is this new place in Port Promise," he says. "Let's check out your new neighborhood."
The new club definitely has some promise, but so far it's still rather unknown and the crowd isn't that big. "There will be more people once the quarry closes," Susan says. "I can see it being good if you give it a bit of time."
Susan deeply regrets her night out when it's time to move the next day.
"Just save it for a day, I'll help you," Ken says as he heads off to work, but Susan doesn't want to wait. She's been waiting to get her life started since she finished college so she takes the bus to her new part of town, staring up at the building she'll be living in. Top floor. Penthouse they called it.
No elevator.
It's a shit place, in a shitty part of town where even the rain is colored yellow by the toxins in the air, but at least it's hers. All she can do is get out of the rain and start climbing the stairs. One step at the time.
But when she arrives, he's there. Waiting for her. Angry that she was not at home.
"I was at my brothers!" she defends herself, with more bite than normal, and as Tony goes on about how he needs her to be there fore him she realises that she's had enough. That even if he left his wife, she wouldn't be happy. Does he honestly want her to break with her family, so that she can just sit around and wait for him?
"Stop!" she snaps.
For a moment, he does. He actually stops, and so she picks up her courage and gets out of the sofa. "I can't do this anymore," she tells him as he gets up after her. "It's over. It will have to be over."
Only Tony isn't ready for it to be over, and before Susan can react the first slap lands, followed by the next, until it's all a blur and Susan, dazed and with her head spinning and ears ringing, is ready to do whatever he wants her to do.
After, when he sleeps, she sneaks out of the bed, careful not to wake him.
She looks at herself in the mirror. Sure, he's slappe her before, but she's never seen it before, it hasn't been like this.
He's waiting for her when she gets out of the bathroom.
"Look at what you made me do," he says, grabbing her chin. "Don't do that again, you hear."
Susan flinches, then forces herself to smile, to promise that she won't. The fact that Tony looks pleased when looking at the result of his actions terrifies her.
Left alone again, she finds herself staring at the wall. Moving in a daze. She always imagined that she had a choice, but now that choice was taken. She jumps high when there is a knock on the door, hurrying to find a pair of sunglasses.
"Jerry! Hi!" She says, stepping outside rather than inviting him in. "What a surprise. How nice to see you. I'd let you in but the place is a mess right now."
The sunglasses, at night, isn't very convincing. The lame excuse isn't better, and Jerry isn't one not to push for answers. But Susan isn't speaking. An eye-infection, she lies, hating herself a little. Any light hurts. And she's tired. It's late. Could they talk some other time?
Jerry agrees, but only for long enough to get to the nearest phonebooth. He and Ken has never gotten along. He finds him stuck up, annoying, and spoiled. But he's Susan's cousin, and perhaps he can do something, so he finds his number in the phone register and rings him up. Ken is reluctant at first.
"She makes her own choices, she won't listen to me, I've tried."
"The guys is beating her up and you're giving him a free pass?" Jerry pushes.
"Beats her up? Come on, she'd never let that happen."
"I know what I saw!"
"I'll check in on her," Ken promises.
When he first arrives, he walks straight in. He still has the key and isn't going to be pushed away. Susan's isn't very willing to talk. She insist on an eye-infection leaving her sensitive to light, refusing to take the sunglasses off, but Ken won't stop pushing. Seeing her like this, he realises that Jerry was right, and he doesn't relent.
"You cannot do this to yourself," he says. "I can't believe this is you, why would you defend him? Why stay!"
"You think leaving is easy? What do you think landed me in this situation in the first place?"
Eventually, he gets her to remove her sunglasses, flinching at the sight.
"You can't stay, he'll do this again."
"And exactly where would I go? He has the key, he can come and go as he pleases and he made damn sure I knew it."
"Then you move in with me!" Ken says. "I have a spare room, I won't tell him where you are. He'll come here and it's empty. I'll help you find a new place where he doesn't have the key, but until then, you stay with me."
They pack up as much as they can together and Ken goes and rents a truck to move as much of the furniture as they can. A lot is left behind, but Susan cannot focus on everything now. She packs up her bedroom, so she has somewhere to sleep, and the things that matter.
Only when she arrives, does she realise that her graduation photo has been ruined in the hasty move. Something leaked over the photograph, turning it black. She remember how hopeful she looked in that photo, how proud and ready to take on the world. Perhaps it's fitting that it doesn't exist anymore.
"We can try to clean it, perhaps?" Ken suggests, but Susan just shakes her head.
"It's just a photo, I can live without it."
That night, she sleeps with the light on, nightmares plauging her sleep. Ken keeps saying she'll be safe there, but she has a hard time relaxing. She knows Tony won't forgive this.
The next day all of her aches, and no matter how much she tells herself that she's free now, she cannot really believe it. As she heads to work, it's with heavy steps.
But once sent out to do her job, she doesn't let any of that gloom show. She's perky and cheerful as she rallies the neighborhood to her cause, fighting to repeal the "free love" NAP so that it can be replaced with something more useful, like clean energy.
"We can't go on relying on coal, oil and nuclear power," she argues. "We need wind, water and sunshine. That is what will save the planet."
She gets a lot of signatures that day, and at the end of it, she's feeling better. Stronger. She's been out in the community and she hasn't seen Tony once. Perhaps in this part of town she won't.
But as she returns home, her hopes of escaping unnoticed is crushed.
"You really thought I wouldn't find you?" An angry Tony asks her. "It's not as if I couldn't look up your cousin's address."
Susan tries to stand firm, but she's not surprised when Tony raises his hand. What is different is everything that happens from there. As if by magic, her own hand goes up, stopping his, and in the fight that follows, she finds herself fighting back, with everything she has.
A neighbor runs passed, alerting Ken who rushes over to intervene. "You cannot do this to me!" Tony exclaims, turning from angry and punishing to charming and coercive in the blink of an eye, saying all the things that Susan has wished to hear for years, but no longer believes.
"Just go," she says, turning her back and heading back into the flat.
But Tony isn't one to give up. In the following days he comes back again and again, trying everything from coercion to begging, but for the first time Susan stands fast in her decision. It's terrifying, and she's utterly grateful for Ken standing by and watching out for her, but she cannot let him fight her battles for her. She needs to get Tony to stop, even if it might be dangerous, and no matter how much Ken calls her an idiot for taking unnecessary risks and tells her to just call the cops, she feels the need to confront him herself.
"This cannot go on," she tells him. "Don't make me involve the cops. What would your wife say? Your daughters? What if someone treated them this way? Just... go. Give up. I'm not changing my mind."
Whether its the threat of the cops or because he doesn't care enough, Tony does eventually give up. At least for the moment. Susan knows just how lucky that is, that he didn't get worse, that she's alive. With the fading of her busies so does her feelings for him. Perhaps they faded a long time ago an she just didn't know how to see it. She still wakes up terrified of being alone, but at least Tony is no longer her answer to avoid it.With every passing day, Susan feels herself growing in strength. She throws herself into her work, especially as nature keep urging her to. As the year turns its halfway point Death Valley has reached a record 129°F and an earthquake has shaken Livermore, being felt all the way into the Bay Area. "Nature is telling us we're on the wrong track!" Susan argues as she works for the improvement of the neighborhood. "We need to start paying attention."
Susan's looks are changing too. First her old jeans are recycled, then she gets some new clothes, then she changes her hair. She doesn't cut it. Instead she lets Cathy advise her over the phone.
"The only hairstyle worth having is a perm," she says. "You'll look fabulous, then I can find someone to set you up with. Ken too, for that matter."
"I'm not sure I'm ready to date again yet," she says.
"Well just Ken then. He desperately need a girlfriend."
With the amount of guys coming and going in the house, with no unmarried, unattached woman in sight, Susan tends to agree. It's not that she minds, they're nice neighbors and good friends of Ken's but sometimes the place smells more like teenage boys than a home. Her limit is reached when she finds one of them crashing in her bed.
"Seriously?!? Go home!"
She really needs her own place.
Finding one is a bit complicated, however. While this part of town is nice and developed, it's also full. Apart from the odd abandoned house still here, there are no more apartments to be had - and Susan knows she's not going to move back to Conifer station. That's far too close to Tony for comfort.
The only part of town left is Port Promise, and while it has a very promising name, it isn't a very promising area. Pollution is high, the houses run down and everywhere on the street there is litter and garbage. What it does have is one of the biggest apartment buildings in town. And the cheapest flats.
Ken, however, is not letting his cousin move back out without a moving out party, meaning it's high time to hit the dancefloor. They start out in the local nightclub, which is also being torn down.
"It's such a shame," Ken says, although he almost never goes.
"It's an old factory. It's not safe, and definitely not environmentally friendly," Susan answers as they hit the dancefloor.
It's certainly a crowded night, but Ken isn't feeling the vibe, perhaps because most of the people in the club are married, or dating whomever they are there with. So after just a little while he's ready to move on. "There is this new place in Port Promise," he says. "Let's check out your new neighborhood."
The new club definitely has some promise, but so far it's still rather unknown and the crowd isn't that big. "There will be more people once the quarry closes," Susan says. "I can see it being good if you give it a bit of time."
Susan deeply regrets her night out when it's time to move the next day.
"Just save it for a day, I'll help you," Ken says as he heads off to work, but Susan doesn't want to wait. She's been waiting to get her life started since she finished college so she takes the bus to her new part of town, staring up at the building she'll be living in. Top floor. Penthouse they called it.
No elevator.
It's a shit place, in a shitty part of town where even the rain is colored yellow by the toxins in the air, but at least it's hers. All she can do is get out of the rain and start climbing the stairs. One step at the time.
Once up, the apartment is as bad - if not worse - than the outside. There is trash on the floor, stains she doesn't want to know the history behind on the walls and the "authentic wood flooring" has so many scratches and stains you can barely see that it was once a floor.
The only reasonable starting point is a trashcan.
That first night she returns to Ken's place to sleep, as the only thing in the bedroom is a mattress so stained she finds it better not to try to imagine what kinds of stains they are. She calls the movers she's ordered and tells them to bring it down with them when they bring her furniture.
"Wear gloves, you'll be happy for it," she tells them.
Taking a few days off work, Susan spends the next day fixing the apartment. She starts with the bedroom, for traveling back and forth to Ken's place is as exhausting as the work. She tears up the carpet in the bedrooms, sands the floor in the living room, paint the walls and hire someone to put in wallpaper and new carpet in her bedroom. She meets the neighbor below because she's making so much noise, and then she's about ready to fix the furniture, make the bed and pass out from exhaustion. At least she's passing out in a clean finished bedroom. Finally she can sleep in her home.
"Wear gloves, you'll be happy for it," she tells them.
Taking a few days off work, Susan spends the next day fixing the apartment. She starts with the bedroom, for traveling back and forth to Ken's place is as exhausting as the work. She tears up the carpet in the bedrooms, sands the floor in the living room, paint the walls and hire someone to put in wallpaper and new carpet in her bedroom. She meets the neighbor below because she's making so much noise, and then she's about ready to fix the furniture, make the bed and pass out from exhaustion. At least she's passing out in a clean finished bedroom. Finally she can sleep in her home.
The next day mum and dad are coming to see her new place. It's so nice to be able to hug them again, be daddy's little girl for a while - even if she won't say that out loud.
Having a father who is a doctor is sometimes annoying, and sometimes just a blessing. Thomas catches the fever she's been running from overworking herself immediately, and sends her straight to bed.
"Mum and I will stay and accept the furniture delivery," he promises. "Just sleep."
Normally Susan would object, but she's really feeling horrible, so she does as she's told.
Of course Thomas and Betty doesn't just wait around for the furniture delivery. Thomas gets to repairing and upgrading her appliances while Betty cleans the place from top to bottom.
Then they rest in two garden chairs until the furniture people arrive. They try to figure out where Susan might want her things, as to not wake her.
"I know white walls is the new thing, but I really cannot see the appeal," Betty says with a sigh. "But the furniture is good looking, I suppose. Very... modern. Not so homey perhaps. But then I'm old fashioned."
Having a father who is a doctor is sometimes annoying, and sometimes just a blessing. Thomas catches the fever she's been running from overworking herself immediately, and sends her straight to bed.
"Mum and I will stay and accept the furniture delivery," he promises. "Just sleep."
Normally Susan would object, but she's really feeling horrible, so she does as she's told.
Of course Thomas and Betty doesn't just wait around for the furniture delivery. Thomas gets to repairing and upgrading her appliances while Betty cleans the place from top to bottom.
Then they rest in two garden chairs until the furniture people arrive. They try to figure out where Susan might want her things, as to not wake her.
"I know white walls is the new thing, but I really cannot see the appeal," Betty says with a sigh. "But the furniture is good looking, I suppose. Very... modern. Not so homey perhaps. But then I'm old fashioned."
Susan cannot believe all they've done when she wakes up. "I didn't know I'd sleep that long, you should have woken me. Thank you!"
The next night Susan throws a housewarming party.
"What's up with the clown?" Alan asks.
"It's hideous, I know, but it spoke to me, somehow." Susan answers. "I guess it reminds me of what a clown I've been and not to be that clown again."
"How so?"
"Faking a smile and pretending everything is fine when really everything is fake. It reminds me of what is real - and what is just a fake smile and a balloon animal."
"A balloon animal?" Solomon, one on Ken's friends ask, confused.
"I prefer cats," Susan replies with a laugh. Solomon is still confused, but does admit that he too favours cats. Real ones that is.
The next night Susan throws a housewarming party.
"What's up with the clown?" Alan asks.
"It's hideous, I know, but it spoke to me, somehow." Susan answers. "I guess it reminds me of what a clown I've been and not to be that clown again."
"How so?"
"Faking a smile and pretending everything is fine when really everything is fake. It reminds me of what is real - and what is just a fake smile and a balloon animal."
"A balloon animal?" Solomon, one on Ken's friends ask, confused.
"I prefer cats," Susan replies with a laugh. Solomon is still confused, but does admit that he too favours cats. Real ones that is.
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