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ellydashTitle: Let Nothing You Dismay (2/5)
Author: Ellydash
Characters: Sue Sylvester, Terri Schuester, Kurt Hummel, Rachel Berry, Finn Hudson, Will Schuester, Jean Sylvester
Rating: PG-13
Warnings for this chapter: Homophobia and ableism.
Spoilers: None
Word Count: 3,190
Note: Second of five chapters.
Summary: Three spirits take Sue Sylvester to visit Christmases past, present and future. A Glee-flavored retelling of Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol."
Chapter One: Wherein Kurt Hummel Extends an Invitation and Immediately Regrets It; Rachel Berry and Finn Hudson are Good – if Ineffective and Misguided – Samaritans; Sue Sylvester Receives an Unexpected Visitor
Chapter Two: Wherein a Spirit that Bears A Striking Resemblance to Kurt Hummel Escorts Sue Sylvester through Previous Christmases, and Sue Sylvester is Not Happy, but Then Again, When is She, Honestly
When she opens her eyes, it’s still dark. Darker than usual. Sue raises her head, peers at the window facing out onto her street, looking for the answering glimmer of streetlamps, but there’s nothing. Power failure, maybe.
She grabs her cell phone on the nightstand, checks the time: 12:57am. And above it, to her shock, the date: December 24th.
“No way,” she says, out loud. “No damn way I could’ve slept through two days. I would’ve missed meetings – interviews – photoshoots – Josh Groban’s sexts – ”
She checks the phone again, just in case. No voicemails. No missed calls. No texts, explicit or otherwise.
Terri.
But Terri was a dream. Has to be. Because admitting otherwise would mean admitting she’s gone off the deep end, and if there’s anything Sue Sylvester knows, it’s how to keep her feet on the pool floor.
She decides something’s wrong with the phone. She’s sure. Back to sleep, then. Sue needs eight hours to reach maximum levels of malevolency.
Instead, she grabs her phone again.
12:59am.
Spirits, ghosts, guides, whatever the hell you want to call them – they’ll pick you up, right here, on Christmas Eve. That has a nice allegorical ring to it, doesn’t it? One a.m.
Sue watches the hour turn on the little glowing screen, and looks up into the dark room, eyes straining.
Nothing happens. Nothing moves. Nothing speaks.
“I knew it,” she exults, and flops on her side, nestling under the covers, feeling a small rush of victory (against whom, she’s not really sure).
“Your clock’s about thirty seconds fast,” the voice of Kurt Hummel says, and the lamp on her nightstand switches on.
Sue bolts upright, back against the headboard, squinting into the bright onslaught. She’s not imagining things, she’s not: that’s really Ladyface himself sitting at the foot of her bed, smiling at her. Smiling!
“Jesus Ciccone Christ, Hummel, have you lost your goddamned mind?” she roars. “Is breaking into people’s houses in the middle of the night some new gay trend? Do I need to invest in some kind of gay alarm system that blasts the Village People and ejects tiny rainbow flags when it senses your presence?”
“I’m not Kurt Hummel,” Kurt Hummel informs her, still smiling.
Sue gapes. “One of those locker slams must’ve dislodged something in your brain. Get the hell out of my house, Little ‘Mo Peep, before I call the cheer mafia on you. And yes, there’s a cheer mafia, and there’s a reason you don’t know about them, because they don’t want you to.”
The boy who claims he’s not Kurt Hummel but looks and sounds and speaks and moves exactly like him – he’s even wearing some hideous draped thing so ugly it’s got to be designer-made – says, “Terri’s idea. She thought you might go along with this visitation/time-travel idea somewhat more readily if your guides were familiar faces. I thought it was fairly ridiculous myself, but I’m not calling the shots on this one.”
Sue stares at the boy she absolutely, positively knows is Kurt Hummel, just like she knows the date is December 22nd and that she dreamt Terri Schuester’s visit and that Justin Bieber is the belated result of a drug-influenced lab experiment by Kurt Cobain. “Prove it,” she challenges. “Tell me something you – something Hummel couldn’t know.”
“You have a disabled sister who lives in a nursing home.”
“Public record, Ladyface. Try again.”
“You’d rather be coaching basketball than cheerleading.”
“Anyone who’s seen my college trophies and wasn’t dumber than a box of Will Schuester’s hair could’ve guessed that. One more try, and then I’m throwing you out of this house just like Uncle Phil used to toss out Will Smith’s idiot friend on Fresh Prince. Only I’ve got significantly more front porch Grecian columns.”
There’s a brief pause, and when Kurt Hummel begins to speak, his voice is no longer Kurt Hummel’s.
“Hey, Sylvester,” he hisses, looking straight at Sue. It’s a girl’s voice, thin, reedy, slightly lower in pitch than Hummel’s dulcet intonation. The flesh on Sue’s arms pimples into goosebumps; her body remembers the speaker before she does. “Hey, dyke. I’m talking to you. What’s the matter, I’m not good enough for you? I don’t meet your standards?”
Sue’s breathing hard.
“That’s Janice Orlofsky,” she mutters. “That’s Janice. I haven’t – in more than thirty years – how could you – how could –”
“Sorry about that.” The thing, spirit, whatever, sounds like Hummel again, and Sue never, in a million years, would’ve thought she’d ever be so glad to hear Kurt Hummel’s voice. “It was the quickest way to get your attention.”
“I’ll bet.” Her pulse is still ricocheting wildly. Fucking Janice Orlofsky, with her perfect Marcia Brady hair and her perfect Ryan O’Neal-esque boyfriend; Janice Orlofsky had made Sue Sylvester’s high school life (Susie, I was Susie then) a living hell. “What the hell do you want from me?”
“Your time,” Not Kurt says, simply, and extends a hand to her.
She doesn’t think she takes it – she’s sure she doesn’t.
The room blurs anyway, wipes away like a surrealist’s fantasy.
___
They’re standing in front of a house. Split-level, pre-war, totally unremarkable.
“Look familiar?” Not Kurt enquires, almost coquettishly. Almost like he’s proud of bringing her here.
“Don’t waste my time, Teen Spirit.” She’s staring at the picture window, trying to see inside. It’s daytime now, probably still early morning, judging by the weak light. “You know, I could be working on my election reform legislation to legitimate ballot box stuffing for people with dissociative identity disorder. Or I could be watching Hoarders.”
“We’re going to watch something else.” He gestures towards the front door with a little bow that smacks of Hummel’s ridiculous affectation. “After you.”
Sue makes it several steps into the living room before she understands what she’s seeing, and it stops her in her tracks. It’s her sister, sitting at the base of the Christmas tree. Jean at seventeen: smiling, healthy, beautiful, her hands busy tearing apart the wrapped box in her lap. “Oh,” Sue gasps, and claps her hand to her mouth. “Oh – Jeanie.”
“You all right?” Not Kurt asks her.
“Can she – can she see me?”
“No. She’s a shadow. They’re all shadows of things that once were. Shadows don’t have consciousness.”
Sue swallows hard, choking back the swell of pain in her throat. She has photos, sure, of the two of them as kids; one’s on her desk at school, and she looks at it every day; some days it’s the only thing that makes her smile. But this – Jean here in the room with her, her face unwrinkled, her body strong – to be here with a young Jean so soon after her last visit to the nursing home, where she watched her big sister’s mouth twitch with pain, her hands tremble, and pretend she’s just fine, you worry about me too much, Sue – it’s overwhelming.
When her younger self runs into the living room, it’s less of the dissonant shock it might’ve otherwise been, and more of a relief; a welcome distraction from Jean.
Fourteen, Sue thinks, taking in her younger self’s cropped hair, her oversized men’s pajamas (much more comfortable than nightgowns; she’d discovered this the summer before high school). God. I used to be fourteen.
Susie’s shouting, “Jean! Not yet! Remember, I told you we’re not opening presents until I’ve finished basting the turkey.”
“Please,” Jean begs. “Just this first one. I think I know what it is.”
“It’s Court and Spark,” Sue says out loud, remembering. “Joni Mitchell. We played that damn album every day for three months.”
“If you know,” Susie’s admonishing Jean, “than you don’t need to open it yet, do you? Just wait fifteen minutes – I need to get the turkey started now, otherwise it won’t be ready for dinner tonight.”
The front doorknob turns, and at the sound of the key in the lock they all look up – Susie, Jean, Sue, Not Kurt. Both Sue and Susie groan in recognition; they know what's coming.
The door opens, revealing Doris Sylvester in all her manic glory: Doris with bright red hair and several suitcases and her passport hanging around her neck.
“We’ve got a lead on Mengele!” she announces, triumphant. “Your father got a message to me – he’s in Brazil right now – said his informant in Curitiba has verifiable intel. He’s in some shack on the city limits. Not nearly miserable enough for that sick bastard.”
Susie and Jean stare at their mother.
“Hi, Mom,” Jean says, carefully.
Doris rushes in, tosses her suitcases on the couch. “Hi,” she responds, without looking at her eldest daughter. “It’s good to see you, girls. I’m only here for a few minutes between connecting flights – thought I’d drop in, check on you two, make sure there aren’t any problems. Oh, and grab a few extra items of clothing. Merry Christmas!” She laughs. Her daughters don’t.
When Susie speaks, it’s slow, controlled. “It’s been four months, Mom.”
1974, Sue realizes. Doris and Jack Sylvester’s longest absence to date – they’d left for Eastern Europe on Josef Mengele’s trail in late August, just before her first day of high school. Doris had informed her that she was in charge, to look out for her sister (as if there was some way she wouldn’t? Jean had always been her responsibility, ever since she’d been old enough to understand that Jean was different), and here’s the checkbook; there’s some emergency cash in your father’s desk.
It’s our job, Susie, her mother had told her protesting daughter, before they’d left. We have a responsibility to bring these men to justice. Millions and millions of people, kidlet. They tortured human beings, they butchered them, and if we don’t do our job their deaths go unanswered.
You remember what I told you about the Third Reich’s policies on the disabled. You remember what I told you about what they did to little girls like Jeanie. You remember the pictures I showed you.
Yes, Sue remembered.
“I know how long it’s been,” Doris snaps. “I’m not retarded.”
Jean winces.
“So catch me up, then. What have the two of you been busying yourselves with?”
“Well,” Susie says, slowly, looking at her sister. “I went out for basketball in September.”
“They got a girl basketball team at your school? That what I’m spending my tax dollars on now?”
“The girls' team is dumb - it's just some Title IX-funded excuse for avoiding gym. I tried out for the boys’ team. And I made varsity. Coach says I’m the best point guard he’s had in four years.”
“I watch her play, Mom,” Jean chimes in. “She’s really, really good. The boys are scared of her.”
Doris stands up, and turns to her youngest daughter. “You’re doing this to make me angry, Susie,” she mutters, “and I can’t say I’m surprised. I know I’ve been gone a lot, left a lot on your shoulders –”
“Everything,” Susie cries out. “You left us –”
“But,” continues Doris. “We’ve had this conversation before. At some point, your father and I will both be gone, and it’ll be you that has to take care of – ” She jerks her thumb in Jean’s direction. “You need to learn sooner rather than later how much work it takes.”
“I know you’re talking about me,” Jean snaps. “You can use my name.”
“You tell her, Jeanie,” Sue crows, and Not Kurt looks at her; smiles.
Doris chooses to ignore this, and narrows her eyes. “You’re fourteen years old. Fifteen soon. That’s plenty old enough to start accepting your responsibilities, start creating some reasonable goals for yourself. Basketball? That’ll do precisely squat for you, besides make people think you’re a lesbian.” She pauses. “Speaking of which, that godawful haircut of yours makes you look like Carol Brady auditioning for The Killing of Sister George.”
“I,” Susie says, through gritted teeth, “like playing basketball. I’m not going to stop just because you don’t approve of it.”
“No, you’re going to play because I don’t approve. Because you’re a contrary little bitch who’s decided to get back at me for trying to teach you that you can’t rely on anyone to help you out. It’s the most important lesson you’ll ever learn, and if you’re lucky, Susie, some day you’ll be smart enough to thank me for it.”
Sue’s staring hard at her younger self, this tall, gangly girl with jagged short hair (Jean wasn’t exactly a whiz with the scissors) and an expression that hasn’t quite made the transition from defensive to aggressive. She’s seeing what she’s spent the last thirty years trying to forget. The name-calling. Marie McCullough staring at Susie, turning her head to whisper into Janice Orlofsky’s ear. The way Susie’d kept her head tucked down in the hallways, thinking maybe if she didn’t look at anyone they wouldn’t look at her. The sharp mewl of pain from that broken finger, when she’d smashed Bobby Gates’s nose for calling her sister a fucking retard (she hadn’t secured her fist properly, she’d been so angry). How, by senior year, everyone gave wide berth to that crazy bitch Sylvester, who’d kick your ass if you looked at her cross-eyed.
Susie wipes her eyes with the back of her sleeve.
Don’t you dare cry, Sue thinks, fiercely. Don’t give her that.
“Oh, please,” Doris snaps. “You think this is hard? Try bunking at Buchenwald for a few weeks. Try being Mengele’s favorite specimen. That’s hard.”
Susie purses her mouth, looks at Jean. Jean stares at her lap, the Joni Mitchell album still unopened.
Can’t win with her, Sue thinks. Don’t bother.
Susie doesn’t.
“Let’s try another Christmas,” Not Kurt says, and snaps his fingers.
___
They’re inside a small apartment, worn looking, the little holly wreath on the card table and the three-foot Christmas tree in the corner somehow making the room less cheerful, not more.
On the couch, Susie – no, not Susie anymore; she’d dropped that name after high school and she’s Sue now, Sue in her early twenties, just out of college – Sue nestles against a tall man with curly hair and a lazy, sweet smile. She’s got her fingers in it, playing with the soft coils, and she looks up at him, her face gentle.
“This some kind of masochistic exercise?” the older Sue snaps at Not Kurt, turning away from the scene on the couch. “First my mother, now David? Wanna get Mary Lou Retton down here too, have her do a few perky backflips and quote Ronald Reagan at us?”
“Shh,” Not Kurt admonishes, holding his forefinger to his lips. “Watch.”
“Your hair isn’t half bad, you know,” the younger Sue says to David, tugging on it just a bit. Her smile is lopsided, a little strained, like being happy isn’t easy for her – but it’s sincere.
Sue snorts, derisively. “Oh, please."
Not Kurt shushes her again. (He’s lucky he’s already dead; Sue shoots him a glare that, if aimed at a human being, would cause internal damage.)
“Sue,” David says, slowly. He reaches for the hand exploring his hair, and folds it into his own hands, takes a deep breath. “Sue, I’ve decided something. I’m signing up with VISTA. And I want you to come with me.”
The younger Sue recoils. “What about med school? You said sports medicine was your passion – what the hell happened, David? I know that paintball hit the other day got you just outside the temple, but God, I didn’t think I smacked you that hard.”
“My cousin’s been sending me letters from Montana – he’s on the Crow reservation there – it’s moving, the stuff he writes. I really think I could make a difference. Help build an agricultural co-op, participate in literacy and substance abuse programs. Hell, I could teach.”
“Teach?” the younger Sue sneers. “You mean give up a lucrative career conditioning football players’ ankles so you can teach poor minorities how to read and not get drunk? Let ‘em drink, it’s the only good thing they’ve got going.”
David looks puzzled. “Since when’ve you been so down on teaching?”
“Since my boyfriend decided it was a good idea to abandon the future we’ve been planning so he could reenact Goodbye, Mr. Chips.” Sue pushes herself away from David. “Tell me, just how the hell am I supposed to pursue professional ball in Montana or South Dakota or wherever you’re planning on economic martyrdom?”
“Sue,” David says, gently. “I know you love basketball, but the chances of you playing professionally are zilch. There’s a reason the WBL went under – no one wants to watch girls on the court. I’m sorry. I didn’t make the rules. That’s just how it is.”
Both Sues scowl at him. The elder Sue bares her teeth in a snarl twisted with two and a half decades of resentment.
“You get this straight, David,” Sue snaps. “Whatever Sue Sylvester sets her mind to do, she does. I don’t give a damn that there isn’t a women’s league right now. If I have to I’ll start another one myself. And I’ll turn it into the craze it’d already be if this country weren’t filled with idiots who think good sports entertainment is watching Dan Marino throw a pigskin to Mark Clayton seven million times in a row. Giving all that up so you can babysit alcoholics isn’t exactly what I’d call a happy trade. And where does Jean fit into all of this? You know that wherever I go –”
“Jean goes,” David finishes. He sounds exhausted. “I know. You’ve made that perfectly clear. Jean can come with us.”
“Jesus, David, it’s not that simple.”
“Yeah, honey,” he says. “It is. You love me, I love you, nothing simpler than that.”
Sue rests her forehead in the palm of her hand, and doesn’t look at David. “I’ll think about it,” she says, finally. “You asshole.”
He smiles at her, strokes her hair. “You do that. Let’s open presents, now, okay? I think you’ll like what I got you.”
“I didn’t like it,” the older Sue shouts at David, who’s still smiling at his girlfriend, oblivious. “I was stupid enough to pretend like I did, but I hated that goddamn necklace.” She turns on Not Kurt, furious. “What’s the lesson here, Casper? That I should’ve done what he wanted and gone to that migrant camp in California? Uprooted Jeanie from her independent living program? Abandoned my career? Just so I wouldn’t be alone? That what you want me to take away from this little trip down Misery Lane?”
“This isn’t a morality play, Sue,” Not Kurt says, placidly. “There’s no lesson here.”
“Bullshit, there isn’t. I’m done with this.” Her voice is ragged, shaky. “Take me home.”
The room around her explodes in a burst of light.
And then Sue’s in her bedroom again, her familiar dark bedroom that’s miles away from her mother, miles away from David, miles away from the choices she made and the regrets she can’t afford.
The bed is softer than it’s ever been; it folds around her, swallowing her, and again, she sleeps.
Chapter Three
Author: Ellydash
Characters: Sue Sylvester, Terri Schuester, Kurt Hummel, Rachel Berry, Finn Hudson, Will Schuester, Jean Sylvester
Rating: PG-13
Warnings for this chapter: Homophobia and ableism.
Spoilers: None
Word Count: 3,190
Note: Second of five chapters.
Summary: Three spirits take Sue Sylvester to visit Christmases past, present and future. A Glee-flavored retelling of Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol."
Chapter One: Wherein Kurt Hummel Extends an Invitation and Immediately Regrets It; Rachel Berry and Finn Hudson are Good – if Ineffective and Misguided – Samaritans; Sue Sylvester Receives an Unexpected Visitor
Chapter Two: Wherein a Spirit that Bears A Striking Resemblance to Kurt Hummel Escorts Sue Sylvester through Previous Christmases, and Sue Sylvester is Not Happy, but Then Again, When is She, Honestly
When she opens her eyes, it’s still dark. Darker than usual. Sue raises her head, peers at the window facing out onto her street, looking for the answering glimmer of streetlamps, but there’s nothing. Power failure, maybe.
She grabs her cell phone on the nightstand, checks the time: 12:57am. And above it, to her shock, the date: December 24th.
“No way,” she says, out loud. “No damn way I could’ve slept through two days. I would’ve missed meetings – interviews – photoshoots – Josh Groban’s sexts – ”
She checks the phone again, just in case. No voicemails. No missed calls. No texts, explicit or otherwise.
Terri.
But Terri was a dream. Has to be. Because admitting otherwise would mean admitting she’s gone off the deep end, and if there’s anything Sue Sylvester knows, it’s how to keep her feet on the pool floor.
She decides something’s wrong with the phone. She’s sure. Back to sleep, then. Sue needs eight hours to reach maximum levels of malevolency.
Instead, she grabs her phone again.
12:59am.
Spirits, ghosts, guides, whatever the hell you want to call them – they’ll pick you up, right here, on Christmas Eve. That has a nice allegorical ring to it, doesn’t it? One a.m.
Sue watches the hour turn on the little glowing screen, and looks up into the dark room, eyes straining.
Nothing happens. Nothing moves. Nothing speaks.
“I knew it,” she exults, and flops on her side, nestling under the covers, feeling a small rush of victory (against whom, she’s not really sure).
“Your clock’s about thirty seconds fast,” the voice of Kurt Hummel says, and the lamp on her nightstand switches on.
Sue bolts upright, back against the headboard, squinting into the bright onslaught. She’s not imagining things, she’s not: that’s really Ladyface himself sitting at the foot of her bed, smiling at her. Smiling!
“Jesus Ciccone Christ, Hummel, have you lost your goddamned mind?” she roars. “Is breaking into people’s houses in the middle of the night some new gay trend? Do I need to invest in some kind of gay alarm system that blasts the Village People and ejects tiny rainbow flags when it senses your presence?”
“I’m not Kurt Hummel,” Kurt Hummel informs her, still smiling.
Sue gapes. “One of those locker slams must’ve dislodged something in your brain. Get the hell out of my house, Little ‘Mo Peep, before I call the cheer mafia on you. And yes, there’s a cheer mafia, and there’s a reason you don’t know about them, because they don’t want you to.”
The boy who claims he’s not Kurt Hummel but looks and sounds and speaks and moves exactly like him – he’s even wearing some hideous draped thing so ugly it’s got to be designer-made – says, “Terri’s idea. She thought you might go along with this visitation/time-travel idea somewhat more readily if your guides were familiar faces. I thought it was fairly ridiculous myself, but I’m not calling the shots on this one.”
Sue stares at the boy she absolutely, positively knows is Kurt Hummel, just like she knows the date is December 22nd and that she dreamt Terri Schuester’s visit and that Justin Bieber is the belated result of a drug-influenced lab experiment by Kurt Cobain. “Prove it,” she challenges. “Tell me something you – something Hummel couldn’t know.”
“You have a disabled sister who lives in a nursing home.”
“Public record, Ladyface. Try again.”
“You’d rather be coaching basketball than cheerleading.”
“Anyone who’s seen my college trophies and wasn’t dumber than a box of Will Schuester’s hair could’ve guessed that. One more try, and then I’m throwing you out of this house just like Uncle Phil used to toss out Will Smith’s idiot friend on Fresh Prince. Only I’ve got significantly more front porch Grecian columns.”
There’s a brief pause, and when Kurt Hummel begins to speak, his voice is no longer Kurt Hummel’s.
“Hey, Sylvester,” he hisses, looking straight at Sue. It’s a girl’s voice, thin, reedy, slightly lower in pitch than Hummel’s dulcet intonation. The flesh on Sue’s arms pimples into goosebumps; her body remembers the speaker before she does. “Hey, dyke. I’m talking to you. What’s the matter, I’m not good enough for you? I don’t meet your standards?”
Sue’s breathing hard.
“That’s Janice Orlofsky,” she mutters. “That’s Janice. I haven’t – in more than thirty years – how could you – how could –”
“Sorry about that.” The thing, spirit, whatever, sounds like Hummel again, and Sue never, in a million years, would’ve thought she’d ever be so glad to hear Kurt Hummel’s voice. “It was the quickest way to get your attention.”
“I’ll bet.” Her pulse is still ricocheting wildly. Fucking Janice Orlofsky, with her perfect Marcia Brady hair and her perfect Ryan O’Neal-esque boyfriend; Janice Orlofsky had made Sue Sylvester’s high school life (Susie, I was Susie then) a living hell. “What the hell do you want from me?”
“Your time,” Not Kurt says, simply, and extends a hand to her.
She doesn’t think she takes it – she’s sure she doesn’t.
The room blurs anyway, wipes away like a surrealist’s fantasy.
___
They’re standing in front of a house. Split-level, pre-war, totally unremarkable.
“Look familiar?” Not Kurt enquires, almost coquettishly. Almost like he’s proud of bringing her here.
“Don’t waste my time, Teen Spirit.” She’s staring at the picture window, trying to see inside. It’s daytime now, probably still early morning, judging by the weak light. “You know, I could be working on my election reform legislation to legitimate ballot box stuffing for people with dissociative identity disorder. Or I could be watching Hoarders.”
“We’re going to watch something else.” He gestures towards the front door with a little bow that smacks of Hummel’s ridiculous affectation. “After you.”
Sue makes it several steps into the living room before she understands what she’s seeing, and it stops her in her tracks. It’s her sister, sitting at the base of the Christmas tree. Jean at seventeen: smiling, healthy, beautiful, her hands busy tearing apart the wrapped box in her lap. “Oh,” Sue gasps, and claps her hand to her mouth. “Oh – Jeanie.”
“You all right?” Not Kurt asks her.
“Can she – can she see me?”
“No. She’s a shadow. They’re all shadows of things that once were. Shadows don’t have consciousness.”
Sue swallows hard, choking back the swell of pain in her throat. She has photos, sure, of the two of them as kids; one’s on her desk at school, and she looks at it every day; some days it’s the only thing that makes her smile. But this – Jean here in the room with her, her face unwrinkled, her body strong – to be here with a young Jean so soon after her last visit to the nursing home, where she watched her big sister’s mouth twitch with pain, her hands tremble, and pretend she’s just fine, you worry about me too much, Sue – it’s overwhelming.
When her younger self runs into the living room, it’s less of the dissonant shock it might’ve otherwise been, and more of a relief; a welcome distraction from Jean.
Fourteen, Sue thinks, taking in her younger self’s cropped hair, her oversized men’s pajamas (much more comfortable than nightgowns; she’d discovered this the summer before high school). God. I used to be fourteen.
Susie’s shouting, “Jean! Not yet! Remember, I told you we’re not opening presents until I’ve finished basting the turkey.”
“Please,” Jean begs. “Just this first one. I think I know what it is.”
“It’s Court and Spark,” Sue says out loud, remembering. “Joni Mitchell. We played that damn album every day for three months.”
“If you know,” Susie’s admonishing Jean, “than you don’t need to open it yet, do you? Just wait fifteen minutes – I need to get the turkey started now, otherwise it won’t be ready for dinner tonight.”
The front doorknob turns, and at the sound of the key in the lock they all look up – Susie, Jean, Sue, Not Kurt. Both Sue and Susie groan in recognition; they know what's coming.
The door opens, revealing Doris Sylvester in all her manic glory: Doris with bright red hair and several suitcases and her passport hanging around her neck.
“We’ve got a lead on Mengele!” she announces, triumphant. “Your father got a message to me – he’s in Brazil right now – said his informant in Curitiba has verifiable intel. He’s in some shack on the city limits. Not nearly miserable enough for that sick bastard.”
Susie and Jean stare at their mother.
“Hi, Mom,” Jean says, carefully.
Doris rushes in, tosses her suitcases on the couch. “Hi,” she responds, without looking at her eldest daughter. “It’s good to see you, girls. I’m only here for a few minutes between connecting flights – thought I’d drop in, check on you two, make sure there aren’t any problems. Oh, and grab a few extra items of clothing. Merry Christmas!” She laughs. Her daughters don’t.
When Susie speaks, it’s slow, controlled. “It’s been four months, Mom.”
1974, Sue realizes. Doris and Jack Sylvester’s longest absence to date – they’d left for Eastern Europe on Josef Mengele’s trail in late August, just before her first day of high school. Doris had informed her that she was in charge, to look out for her sister (as if there was some way she wouldn’t? Jean had always been her responsibility, ever since she’d been old enough to understand that Jean was different), and here’s the checkbook; there’s some emergency cash in your father’s desk.
It’s our job, Susie, her mother had told her protesting daughter, before they’d left. We have a responsibility to bring these men to justice. Millions and millions of people, kidlet. They tortured human beings, they butchered them, and if we don’t do our job their deaths go unanswered.
You remember what I told you about the Third Reich’s policies on the disabled. You remember what I told you about what they did to little girls like Jeanie. You remember the pictures I showed you.
Yes, Sue remembered.
“I know how long it’s been,” Doris snaps. “I’m not retarded.”
Jean winces.
“So catch me up, then. What have the two of you been busying yourselves with?”
“Well,” Susie says, slowly, looking at her sister. “I went out for basketball in September.”
“They got a girl basketball team at your school? That what I’m spending my tax dollars on now?”
“The girls' team is dumb - it's just some Title IX-funded excuse for avoiding gym. I tried out for the boys’ team. And I made varsity. Coach says I’m the best point guard he’s had in four years.”
“I watch her play, Mom,” Jean chimes in. “She’s really, really good. The boys are scared of her.”
Doris stands up, and turns to her youngest daughter. “You’re doing this to make me angry, Susie,” she mutters, “and I can’t say I’m surprised. I know I’ve been gone a lot, left a lot on your shoulders –”
“Everything,” Susie cries out. “You left us –”
“But,” continues Doris. “We’ve had this conversation before. At some point, your father and I will both be gone, and it’ll be you that has to take care of – ” She jerks her thumb in Jean’s direction. “You need to learn sooner rather than later how much work it takes.”
“I know you’re talking about me,” Jean snaps. “You can use my name.”
“You tell her, Jeanie,” Sue crows, and Not Kurt looks at her; smiles.
Doris chooses to ignore this, and narrows her eyes. “You’re fourteen years old. Fifteen soon. That’s plenty old enough to start accepting your responsibilities, start creating some reasonable goals for yourself. Basketball? That’ll do precisely squat for you, besides make people think you’re a lesbian.” She pauses. “Speaking of which, that godawful haircut of yours makes you look like Carol Brady auditioning for The Killing of Sister George.”
“I,” Susie says, through gritted teeth, “like playing basketball. I’m not going to stop just because you don’t approve of it.”
“No, you’re going to play because I don’t approve. Because you’re a contrary little bitch who’s decided to get back at me for trying to teach you that you can’t rely on anyone to help you out. It’s the most important lesson you’ll ever learn, and if you’re lucky, Susie, some day you’ll be smart enough to thank me for it.”
Sue’s staring hard at her younger self, this tall, gangly girl with jagged short hair (Jean wasn’t exactly a whiz with the scissors) and an expression that hasn’t quite made the transition from defensive to aggressive. She’s seeing what she’s spent the last thirty years trying to forget. The name-calling. Marie McCullough staring at Susie, turning her head to whisper into Janice Orlofsky’s ear. The way Susie’d kept her head tucked down in the hallways, thinking maybe if she didn’t look at anyone they wouldn’t look at her. The sharp mewl of pain from that broken finger, when she’d smashed Bobby Gates’s nose for calling her sister a fucking retard (she hadn’t secured her fist properly, she’d been so angry). How, by senior year, everyone gave wide berth to that crazy bitch Sylvester, who’d kick your ass if you looked at her cross-eyed.
Susie wipes her eyes with the back of her sleeve.
Don’t you dare cry, Sue thinks, fiercely. Don’t give her that.
“Oh, please,” Doris snaps. “You think this is hard? Try bunking at Buchenwald for a few weeks. Try being Mengele’s favorite specimen. That’s hard.”
Susie purses her mouth, looks at Jean. Jean stares at her lap, the Joni Mitchell album still unopened.
Can’t win with her, Sue thinks. Don’t bother.
Susie doesn’t.
“Let’s try another Christmas,” Not Kurt says, and snaps his fingers.
___
They’re inside a small apartment, worn looking, the little holly wreath on the card table and the three-foot Christmas tree in the corner somehow making the room less cheerful, not more.
On the couch, Susie – no, not Susie anymore; she’d dropped that name after high school and she’s Sue now, Sue in her early twenties, just out of college – Sue nestles against a tall man with curly hair and a lazy, sweet smile. She’s got her fingers in it, playing with the soft coils, and she looks up at him, her face gentle.
“This some kind of masochistic exercise?” the older Sue snaps at Not Kurt, turning away from the scene on the couch. “First my mother, now David? Wanna get Mary Lou Retton down here too, have her do a few perky backflips and quote Ronald Reagan at us?”
“Shh,” Not Kurt admonishes, holding his forefinger to his lips. “Watch.”
“Your hair isn’t half bad, you know,” the younger Sue says to David, tugging on it just a bit. Her smile is lopsided, a little strained, like being happy isn’t easy for her – but it’s sincere.
Sue snorts, derisively. “Oh, please."
Not Kurt shushes her again. (He’s lucky he’s already dead; Sue shoots him a glare that, if aimed at a human being, would cause internal damage.)
“Sue,” David says, slowly. He reaches for the hand exploring his hair, and folds it into his own hands, takes a deep breath. “Sue, I’ve decided something. I’m signing up with VISTA. And I want you to come with me.”
The younger Sue recoils. “What about med school? You said sports medicine was your passion – what the hell happened, David? I know that paintball hit the other day got you just outside the temple, but God, I didn’t think I smacked you that hard.”
“My cousin’s been sending me letters from Montana – he’s on the Crow reservation there – it’s moving, the stuff he writes. I really think I could make a difference. Help build an agricultural co-op, participate in literacy and substance abuse programs. Hell, I could teach.”
“Teach?” the younger Sue sneers. “You mean give up a lucrative career conditioning football players’ ankles so you can teach poor minorities how to read and not get drunk? Let ‘em drink, it’s the only good thing they’ve got going.”
David looks puzzled. “Since when’ve you been so down on teaching?”
“Since my boyfriend decided it was a good idea to abandon the future we’ve been planning so he could reenact Goodbye, Mr. Chips.” Sue pushes herself away from David. “Tell me, just how the hell am I supposed to pursue professional ball in Montana or South Dakota or wherever you’re planning on economic martyrdom?”
“Sue,” David says, gently. “I know you love basketball, but the chances of you playing professionally are zilch. There’s a reason the WBL went under – no one wants to watch girls on the court. I’m sorry. I didn’t make the rules. That’s just how it is.”
Both Sues scowl at him. The elder Sue bares her teeth in a snarl twisted with two and a half decades of resentment.
“You get this straight, David,” Sue snaps. “Whatever Sue Sylvester sets her mind to do, she does. I don’t give a damn that there isn’t a women’s league right now. If I have to I’ll start another one myself. And I’ll turn it into the craze it’d already be if this country weren’t filled with idiots who think good sports entertainment is watching Dan Marino throw a pigskin to Mark Clayton seven million times in a row. Giving all that up so you can babysit alcoholics isn’t exactly what I’d call a happy trade. And where does Jean fit into all of this? You know that wherever I go –”
“Jean goes,” David finishes. He sounds exhausted. “I know. You’ve made that perfectly clear. Jean can come with us.”
“Jesus, David, it’s not that simple.”
“Yeah, honey,” he says. “It is. You love me, I love you, nothing simpler than that.”
Sue rests her forehead in the palm of her hand, and doesn’t look at David. “I’ll think about it,” she says, finally. “You asshole.”
He smiles at her, strokes her hair. “You do that. Let’s open presents, now, okay? I think you’ll like what I got you.”
“I didn’t like it,” the older Sue shouts at David, who’s still smiling at his girlfriend, oblivious. “I was stupid enough to pretend like I did, but I hated that goddamn necklace.” She turns on Not Kurt, furious. “What’s the lesson here, Casper? That I should’ve done what he wanted and gone to that migrant camp in California? Uprooted Jeanie from her independent living program? Abandoned my career? Just so I wouldn’t be alone? That what you want me to take away from this little trip down Misery Lane?”
“This isn’t a morality play, Sue,” Not Kurt says, placidly. “There’s no lesson here.”
“Bullshit, there isn’t. I’m done with this.” Her voice is ragged, shaky. “Take me home.”
The room around her explodes in a burst of light.
And then Sue’s in her bedroom again, her familiar dark bedroom that’s miles away from her mother, miles away from David, miles away from the choices she made and the regrets she can’t afford.
The bed is softer than it’s ever been; it folds around her, swallowing her, and again, she sleeps.
Chapter Three
