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Trucy sits at her vanity, eye shadows and lipsticks and glosses and blushes laid out before her, preparing for dinner tonight. Doing her hair, putting on her makeup… Even if it’s only for her father and Apollo, only ever for them, she loves it. It makes her feel like a real girl. Pretty, though her daddy always tells her she’s already the most beautiful girl in the world (to him). That she doesn’t need all this makeup to make herself beautiful.
Stage makeup, on the other hand, he couldn’t care less about. Trucy would never go out and about wearing that. Everyone would laugh at her.
Well, not everyone, she thinks. Just the people who forget who her daddy is. Stupid people, basically.
She dabs on a bit of lip gloss. She chose a pale pink for her lips; a contrast to the midnight blue eye shadow she wears. Her hair, thanks to its a-symmetrical cut, falls in loose curls around her shoulders and chin. Now if only a cute boy could see me like this. She sighs. With any luck maybe Wright will allow her to wear makeup on her wedding day.
Turning her back to the mirror, Trucy surveys her room to make sure everything is in order. Her stuffed animals are arranged neatly on her bed, among her many decorative pillows, and her dirty clothes are in the hamper pushed against the far right wall. The only things out of place are her homework, laid out at the foot of her bed, and her makeup. She puts the latter back where they belong, in one of her many drawers, and hides her homework under her plush throw blanket. (What Daddy doesn’t know…)
She checks the time: A quarter after six. Knowing Apollo would arrive soon, Trucy heads downstairs and through the foyer. Into the living room, where—unsurprisingly—she finds Wright with his nose buried in the daily paper. One time Trucy told him that he needed to spend less time reading the newspaper “Unless there’s an ad for a mail order bride.” Hint, hint, Daddy dearest.
She clears her throat, breaking his concentration. Making him look up to watch as she twirls, her skirt flaring out around her. A full three-sixty, then back to grinning at him. “How do I look, Daddy?”
Fondness warms Wright’s features. Returns to them a softness he forgets, sometimes, a smile tugging at his lips. “Stunning,” he says, “absolutely stunning.” He rises to his feet, setting the paper on the end table nearby, and takes Trucy into his arms. “That the dress you bought Saturday?”
She nods. It’s a blue dress with a silver ribbon wrapped around the waist and tied in the back. “That the suit you wear every other day?”
He laughs and kisses her forehead. “Well, I can’t be underdressed, can I?”
“At least you took off the jacket.” And shaved. “Though…” Trucy steps back to scrutinize her father’s outfit. Black slacks, light blue vest, white shirt and… “…pink tie, really?” Both laugh, both are cut off when the doorbell rings; Apollo is here.
“I’ll get it!” Trucy bounces over to the entryway. She flings open the door, all smiles and cheer, to greet Apollo.
Apollo, who likes to wear his red suit to dinner paired with the black silk vest Trucy bought for him three Christmases ago.
Apollo, who too often slicks his hair up into funny-looking spikes.
Apollo, who comes to dinner tonight with split lip and a square bandage just beneath his left eye. Both sides of his face are swollen, complexion too even to be the product of anything but expensive cosmetics. Trucy’s stomach drops.
He gives her a lopsided grin, nervous. It doesn’t suit his face. He doesn’t show it, but he has to be in pain. He has to.
“Polly?” Her own voice sounds foreign to her. Trucy clenches her hand around the heavy brass door handle. Roots herself into the present, refuses to let her eyes focus in on Apollo’s face. She stares at his tie, instead. It’s a lighter shade of blue, like Wright’s vest.
“Hiya, Trucy.” Apollo gives a little wave, his other hand holding his cane close. “Mind if I come in?”
“Okay.” She steps to the side, holding the door wide open. “Come in.”
He closes the door behind him and lets Trucy hang his coat on the coat rack. He doesn’t even complain when she wraps her arms tight around him. “Missed me, did you?” Apollo jokes and she’s grateful for that, burying her face against his chest and inhaling sharply through her nose. She starts to say his name but Wright swoops in, ever the gracious host, cutting her off.
“Apollo, glad you could make it. Truce, be careful now; you don’t want to squeeze him too tight, do you?”
He says it all the time. It’s meant as a jest. Right now, all it does is set her off.
Deaf to Apollo’s insistence that he was fine, Trucy tears away from her brother and turns on her father. He greets her teary rage with the utmost calm.
“Trucy—”
“This is your fault,” she spits, her words like acid. Wright doesn’t give her any visible response. He’s as impassive as ever, which makes it all the more frustrating. (If he would just give her some kind of emotional response, this could all be over already.)
“Now, you know that’s not true.”
Trucy ignores him, carrying right on with her tirade. “What did you make him do? Tell me.”
He sighs. This happens whenever someone comes home hurt. Trucy asks what happened, and why. Sometimes she gets nasty about it, sometimes not, and they never give her a solid answer. Wright always defaults, like right now, on his most famous response: “I didn’t make him do anything. Isn’t that right, Apollo?”
“Right, Mr. Wright.” Apollo agrees. “Trucy, Mr. Wright didn’t do this to me, okay? It’s my fault it happened, and—really—I’m fine.” He smiles like he always does. Like an idiot.
“Bullshit.” She says it in response to Apollo, but it’s directed at Wright. Both of them exclaim at her swear, but she is sixteen. All the girls cuss at sixteen. “You have to say that, Polly. He’s Daddy. I’m not dumb.”
She sniffs and bites her lip, glancing from Apollo’s concerned look to Wright’s unruffled one. It’s about this time she either feels indignant or embarrassed. This time it’s the latter. “You aren’t supposed to get hurt,” she says softly, wiping at her eyes. “I want to know why. Why you were hurt, why Daddy made you—”
Apollo doesn’t let her finish. “He didn’t make me, Trucy. I told you I’m fine. It’s just a couple of bruises. I don’t look that bad, do I?” He tries to soften the blow with a joke. It’s so like him Trucy can’t help but laugh, even if that laugh is more of a huff.
She feels her father’s hands on her shoulders without ever seeing them, eyes squeezing shut when Wright presses a kiss to her temple. Trucy turns away from him, from the affection he dares show her now when he didn’t even warn her about this. There’s no way Trucy’s letting him off the hook this early. “I still want to know how you were hurt.”
Silence is their only answer. Typical.
Now that the moment is over—for now, not for the night—Wright suggests they move into the dining room. Apollo agrees in a too-loud voice that makes them all flinch. Trucy tells them to go ahead; she’s going to fix her makeup. “Don’t wait up,” she adds. They do, anyways. They always do.
She notices right away that Apollo hasn’t removed his sunglasses. He usually takes them off by now. He must have kept them on, she thinks, to hide the swelling. It might have worked if only they weren’t all so damn perceptive, or if Trucy didn’t sit directly across from Apollo.
Dinner is excruciating. Oh, it is delicious; a steak and pasta dinner, cooked to perfection, though Trucy’s conversation is stilted at best. Apollo tries encouraging her to speak—asking her about school, about her newest magic trick, there’s a new movie out does she want to go?
Wright, on the other hand, makes no special effort to include Trucy. If she doesn’t answer, she doesn’t answer, though he gives her a stern look every time she snubs him or Apollo. She almost, almost feels guilty when Apollo’s side of the Wright-Justice conversation becomes less and less enthusiastic. So she throws him a bone, paying Apollo a little more attention as the night draws to a close, ignoring the gnawing feeling in her stomach.
However, by the time Trucy does that, they have finished dessert and Wright’s asking Apollo to leave.
“I’m sorry to cut the night short,” he says, sincerely apologetic. “Maybe next time you can stay the night, or Trucy can go over to your place. You two haven’t done that in a while, have you?”
“Not in over a month,” Apollo agrees. He stands, cane in hand, and Trucy does too.
“I’ll walk you out,” she offers. He doesn’t say no, so she rounds the table and lets him take her arm.
Apollo exhales when they reach the front door. Releases her arm, face contorting into such open concern it’s like a slap to the face to the bratty teenager next to him.
“Trucy—”
“Apollo—”
They start and stop together. Trucy nudges him. “You first, but I know what you’re going to say and don’t. It’s not your fault.”
“It’s not your father’s fault either,” Apollo points out. She promptly punches his arm. “Ow!”
Trucy rolls her eyes, watching Apollo rub where she hit him. Trying to limit the pain, gate theory in practice. “The big bad mobster, crying over a little smack from a little girl. You big baby.”
“A little girl with the right hook of a UFC fighter,” Apollo grumbles. He shakes his head. Lets his hand drop from his arm back to his side, his mouth drawn into a tight line. “I’m fine, Trucy, really.”
His words are oddly soft, mismatched with his expression. It strikes something within Trucy, makes her body feel more like a shell: numb and artificial. She hugs Apollo just to make sure that she’s real. “I love you Polly. I’m sorry I ignored you tonight. I didn’t mean it.”
“Hey, don’t worry about that, all right? It’s nothing.” He returns the hug, nice and tight, arm wrapped around her shoulders. “I love you too.”
She laughs and sniffs against his chest, throat tight and voice raspy. She feels lonely even knowing she can see him tomorrow. “Let’s go see that movie, o-okay? I want to watch it with you.”
It is only after Apollo promises to take her out to the movies and Trucy calms down enough to let him go that Apollo leaves. Now all that’s left is… Daddy. She cringes at the thought though Wright is nowhere in sight. He must be supervising the maids clearing the table or waiting for her in the sitting room.
If the latter, Wright will have to wait all night. Trucy slips upstairs instead. Her lecture can wait for when Wright realizes she isn’t coming down and goes up to get her. It isn’t long before he does. He is much smarter than Trucy gives him credit for sometimes. More stubborn, too.
She knows the jig is up when her father closes the bedroom door behind him and stands over her bed, his shadow looming over her. Trucy lay curled up on her side, back to the door and Wright, still in her pretty dress she stopped worrying about wrinkling.
“Trucy Wright.”
She scowls. Doesn’t answer.
“Still not done with the silent treatment? Fine, then. I’ll talk. You listen. There was no reason whatsoever for you to act as you did tonight. We don’t disrespect family in this house. What happened to him, you ask? Unimportant. All you need to know is that his face is a little banged up but he is, most importantly, fine.” There’s a sharp inhale followed by a long, slow exhale. “He’s fine,” he says, calmer now. “And you?”
There’s a pause in which Trucy mulls over her options. To roll over or not, to keep giving him the silent treatment or let up… decisions, decisions. She chooses to let up, rolling onto her other side to face him. Her glistening eyes betray the flat expression she wears.
Wright shakes his head and sighs. He sits on the foot of the bed. Jumps right back up, after, and pulls back the throw pillow he had sat on. Trucy forgot about her homework—unfinished, hidden beneath the blanket. “You’re kidding me,” he says. She prepares for a lecture, only it never comes. Only a short, “You’ll be getting that done next, missy.” He sits a little further up the bed this time and pats the spot next to him. Sluggish, Trucy sits next to him. Wills herself into making eye contact; straightens her shoulders and back when he tucks her hair behind her ear, defiant even now, and fists the comforter in her hands.
This is silly, she thinks. She should be over this by now. Done with being a big baby, like she should have been a long time ago.
He sighs and his expression is different from before. It’s gentle. He tries to be understanding, the best he can, without hitting on any sensitive issues. He pulls her into a side-hug. He is warm, she thinks, and she leans into that comfort. Lets him stroke her hair until her grip on the sheets lessen and her arms wrap around his torso instead.
"He's fine,” he repeats. “It's no worse than when you fell down the stairs last year, remember? You had a couple bruises, but that was it."
"It's not the same, Daddy. You..." She squints, trying to word this delicately. Not that it would offend Wright, or that she would be wrong in asking—it just feels, well, wrong to ask this, as it always does. "He... Apollo didn't do something bad, did he? You—you didn't have to—”
"No, sweetheart. Apollo's a good guy. A good brother. And you know what rules we have about the business..."
"I don't get to be privy to it so I shouldn’t ask, I know. I didn’t think you did it anyways." It would have been less visible. Damage to the torso or legs or arms, bruises, something Trucy couldn't see. Something she would only find out later, after embracing Apollo so tight it knocked the wind out of him, and an argument, don't forget the argument that lasted a month.
"You and Apollo made up?”
She nods. "We're gonna see a movie."
"Good. I'm glad. I want you to have your brother, you know that? He's family. Our family." There is a brief lull. "You didn't answer my question. We know Apollo's fine, but what about you?"
"I'm... fine, I guess. I'm not the one who's hurt." Trucy closes her eyes. Breathes in deep through her nose, adds, “Yeah, I’m fine.”
"Let's keep it that way." He kisses the top of her head. This time she doesn’t turn away.
“Daddy?”
“Hmm?”
“I’m sorry for tonight.”
“It still isn’t acceptable for you to treat us like you did tonight. But,” he huffs, “it’s over with now. Let’s leave it at that.”
“… So, you’re not mad about the homework?”
“Grounded, two weeks, if you don’t get it done.”
So much for that.
Despite him offering to help, Trucy declines and promises she will have her homework done by tomorrow morning. “Don’t stay up too late Truce,” he warns, “or you’ll be sleeping through school tomorrow.”
“I won’t, Daddy. Besides,” she adds, “it’s easy. I’ll tuck in before eleven.” And she does, wrapping up her AP History and Chemistry and that take-home test for Math class by ten-forty, changing out of her pretty dress into her favorite flannel pajamas before crawling into bed. Her sheets and comforter are like a soft cocoon embracing her in the pitch-blackness of her room. The warmth lulls her to a dream-state.
In this state there is music; a rhythmic thump, thump that devolves into a sick squelching sound. Undistinguishable bloodied faces and mangled corpses flit before her mind’s eye like dancing gumdrops and roses. Blood hits her face, like warm rainwater, splatters on her clothes and leaves little damp patches behind.