Work Text:
The air was dry and stuffy in the Horseman family’s San Francisco apartment. It was mid-February, and despite their married lives beginning to fall into a bit of a stupor, Beatrice had found one of those rare moments of quiet solitude where the baby was asleep, her husband was at work, and with nothing to do, she lay on her bed, watching the ceiling as the minutes ticked by.
It hadn’t taken long for things with her tiny family to go to shit, and Beatrice had known almost immediately that she’d made a terrible mistake. Often, she had vague thoughts about what her life may have been like had she conceded and let Butterscotch pay for that abortion seven months ago.
Who might she be if she hadn’t had that child? Beatrice Sugarman, English teacher, came to mind first. Her friend Lorraine from elementary school had suggested it over brunch a few years ago, and though she’d scoffed and rolled her eyes, something about it had wormed its way into her heart like a parasite.
The entire thing was ridiculous. She knew nothing about kids, had always hated them, since they made her mildly uncomfortable. In their rosy-cheeked faces, she smelled burning wax and saw painted smiles gone up in flames. Sometimes, though, it was nice to pretend that in another life there may have been some chance at redemption.
The thoughts were never anything serious—not like Corbin Creamerman, because, woof, she’d butchered that—but in the interim between Mary Tyler Moore and the Andy Griffith Show, ‘Miss Sugarman’ gave her something to think about. A final shrug and a roll of her brown eyes. It would have been nice, perhaps.
She knew as soon as she’d become a teenager that she wasn’t cut out for motherhood; no, her edges were a little too sharp for that, and even if she hadn’t figured it out for herself, her father would have constantly reminded her of it.
“Think of your children, Beatrice!” he’d gasp, horrified, as she spouted out the teachings of Karl Marx at seventeen. “What kind of mother will you be?”
She couldn’t even protect her doll from those flames, all those years ago.
Beatrice tossed her head and blinked a few times, willing those dangerous thoughts away.
No, she was born a palomino, and like her ancestors before, she dug her heels in and continued to march to the beat of her own drum.
Fuck ‘Time’s Arrow.’ She’d follow her own.
Sure, she’d relented with the lipstick and the A-Line dresses; she was a lady after all, but her evenings were spent at the libraries rather than any fancy social gatherings.
Once, she’d even been invited by a few Beatniks who’d struck up some friendly conversation with to come join them for a few hits of reefer and a discussion on George Orwell. They’d liked her dry humour and acerbic wit, but she’d declined, of course. Unbecoming, and all that. Sometimes in the back of her mind, though, she’d always mused if she should’ve gone.
And then there was Butterscotch, and he was the first time she said yes.
He’d been rough around the edges, but there was something in him, a spark she saw that couldn’t be dampened, and if Beatrice was being completely honest, she’d always been a little jealous of it. There were no societal expectations for him, no one telling him what to do or who to be. He’d just picked up his suitcase and left Ohio with the kind of freedom she’d rarely seen or experienced in her life outside of Huckleberry Finn.
It was fitting, then, when he told her that he was a writer.
Now, twisted around lavender sheets, Beatrice scoffed. Back then, she’d been deluded into thinking he must have been very good, but six months into their relationship, her opinion of his prose had quickly soured after she caught a glimpse of his manuscript while dusting his study.
Still, looking into his eyes that day outside of his apartment, she’d felt as if she could do anything. She could raise a child, this could all work, damn it!
Who had she been kidding?
Beatrice knew the story arc well; she’d been at the top of her class at Stanford. This period was the calm before the storm, and sometime, she knew, something would erupt.
Heavy footfall, and the door opens.
“What are you doing?” The voice is gruff and smoky.
Beatrice rolls her eyes, tearing her gaze from the ceiling to look at her husband.
“Oh, you know,” she begins dryly, with the hint of a smile. She’s not unkind. Not yet. “Contemplating life, meaningless decisions.”
Butterscotch chuckles, giving a crooked half-smile as he crosses the threshold of the doorway, socks padding on the ugly beige carpeting.
“Women shouldn’t spend so much time thinking. That’s for we writers to do.”
“Us writers,” Beatrice corrects, raising a manicured nail.
Butterscotch mumbles something cold under his breath, but neglects to meet her eyes. Beatrice smiles triumphantly.
After a moment of silence, he clears his throat, looking uncharacteristically neutral. “So, can I join you?”
The statement isn’t sexual. Beatrice has been with her husband long enough to know when he wants to try that rodeo. This is casual. Friendly, even.
“Join me?” she gasps mockingly. “What, does someone need to mull over all the plot points never to be written for his precious novel?”
Butterscotch shoves her shoulder gently, smirking, and the two of them chuckle together.
“Something like that.”
Butterscotch climbs onto his side of the bed, the frame squeaking as he mirrors his wife’s position: feet up, staring at the flaking popcorn ceiling.
It’s nice like this. Quiet. Peaceful.
“So, what made you go to college?”
Beatrice’s eyebrows shoot up to her hairline. It’s rare that her husband asks about the time in her life before he entered it, and even rarer that he isn’t offended by her answers.
“Father wanted me to,” she replies coolly. A simple response. It should be enough to please him without causing any embarrassment about her upper-class background, because god forbid Butterscotch feel secure about himself for once in his goddamn life.
“No. You chose English,” is the response. “Why?”
Beatrice furrows her brow. Oh. He wants to have an actual conversation like they’re two married human beings.
“Well, it started when I ate lunch in the library for all of middle and high school.”
“I thought you weren’t allowed to bring food into libraries,” Butterscotch begins suspiciously, and Beatrice sighs, giving up on trying to spare her husband’s pride.
“My father was Joseph Sugarman, so I think they turned a blind eye.”
Strangely enough, this warrants almost no reaction, so Beatrice decides she’s in the clear to keep talking. “I didn’t… have many friends growing up.” Feeling suddenly embarrassed, she looks away from the ceiling now, turning her face to the opposite end table from her husband. She stares pointedly at the Fleur De Lis lampshade she brought from her father’s place a while back.
“Wonder why?” Butterscotch says dryly, and something hot and angry flares in Beatrice’s abdomen as she flips over to look at her husband again.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, I’m sure very few women could compete with a lady who has your intelligence.” He smiles back at her. “I doubt they were able to understand you.”
The hot feeling in her stomach cools to a fluttery warmth, and Beatrice tucks a strand of blonde hair behind her ear.
“Oh,” she replies softly, beginning to blush.
“Always misunderstood, us artists,” Butterscotch muses, staring at the ceiling once again. It’s pretentious, dramatic, and using the incorrect pronoun--like some shitty parody of James Dean, and Beatrice really, really wants to roll her eyes, but somehow, the last thought floating through her head is that he remembered the way she corrected his grammar.