Daniel rested his head against the wall beneath the window in his office, and inhaled deeply. Everything seemed to smell like Scotch and sex. Whether it actually did or not was immaterial. In the end, it's what everything became, like autumn turning. He dipped his head to take another swig from the glass in his hand; the movement was over-exaggerated and the room span, but the alcohol burned on the way down, like lava in his throat and liquid metal in his belly. It was good. He liked it in the way he liked rough sex and cigarettes. Pleasure is always better with a little pain in it, at least in his experience. Well, maybe not better, but it was always how it seemed to happen. One paired to the other like a set of Siamese twins.
He fondled the latest MODE issue on the floor in front of him; the one with the black cover he'd dedicated to his father, leaving sweaty, smudged fingerprints on the glossy cover. It was a small corruption that made his throat swell with some emotion he couldn't pin down, and he didn't like it. He didn't like any of it, anything that had happened lately.
He heard her singing before he saw her; wildly off-key and offensively happy, growing progressively louder as she neared. Damn her anyway. He glanced at his watch unsteadily. He couldn't focus his eyes well enough to make out the time. He tipped his head back to try and see out of the window above him. It was still dark outside. It had to be early. What the hell was she doing here? From his position he couldn't see her clearly, just flashes of colour as she arrived at her desk: blue as she took off her coat, white as she sat down. Betty was her own strobe light, pulsing brightly and quickly enough to cause seizures in the unsuspecting. Wary, he closed his eyes against her, didn't say anything to let her know he was there. In fact, he sat as still as possible and listened to her pottering about, moving things, tapping away on her keyboard, and still bloody singing. With only a little guilt, he wished she'd go away. Maybe if he stayed still long enough she would, he thought, trying to turn himself to stone. But then the singing suddenly stopped.
With a sinking feeling, Daniel opened his eyes. Betty was standing in front of his desk looking down at him, frozen in the middle of placing a wad of papers on his desk with one hand, like a deer in the headlights of a semi. The fingers of her other hand were each wearing mini neon post-its. She'd taken to leaving him little notes with encouraging sentences written on them in her loopy handwriting. Things like "You can do anything!" and "Tomorrow will be a good day!" He'd found them in the oddest places as well: his desk drawers, suit pockets. He even found one in the unisex restroom, taped to the wall in his favourite stall. It was all just a bit weird. But that was Betty for you, incredibly heartfelt, frighteningly peppy and just slightly over the line.
"Daniel?" She finally said in surprise, her voice squeaky and oddly breathy. "I didn't know you were here."
Obviously.
He didn't say anything in reply. Taking another sip of Scotch seemed a better idea so he did that instead. Then he took another. Rinse, wash, repeat.
"Daniel?" She repeated, her face rearranging itself into concern as she finished depositing the papers, and took a step closer to him. "Are you alright?"
Daniel felt his lips curve into a smile without him. It didn't feel pleasant, either in expression or physically. His muscles felt too loose, like they were doing things they ought not. Betty winced, so it probably didn't look pleasant either. However, she rallied immediately. Of course she did. She was Betty, after all.
Quickly stripping the post-it notes from her fingers, she rounded his desk and came to stand in front of him proper. He leaned his head back as far as it would go against the wall so he could survey her from beneath half-closed eyes. She was wearing another god awful ensemble. A white blouse covered in multi-coloured circles with a huge shoulder-to-shoulder bow at the neck, a purple knee-length skirt that did not flatter her shape, pink and blue striped tights and, bright yellow shoes with butterflies stitched on them. She looked ridiculous; like a baby clown. A baby clown who'd dressed in the dark. She'd never get laid in that, not in a million years. Although, she had managed to have a couple boyfriends since he'd known her and she'd always dressed that badly. For a moment, he pictured her having sex: head thrown back, skin flushed, eyes half closed, moaning as some nitwit like Wilbur or an ass like Henry thrust into her. An irrational surge of anger went through him, closely followed by a familiar, arousing sensation in his groin. He dismissed it, almost immediately. God, how drunk was he?
If he was examining her, then she was doing the same to him. He saw Betty's eyes take in everything with a precision that was both irritating and frightening; his messy hair, his wrinkled and stained shirt, half tucked out, half undone. They lingered on his face, seeing who knew what because she could always read him too well. Then they dropped to the glass in his hand, the nearly empty bottle of Scotch to his left, and finally the magazine on the floor. Without another word, she moved forward and sat down on his right.
"Have you… How much of your fancy Scotch have you had to drink, Daniel?" She asked softly, staring at his profile.
He narrowed his eyes further, and kept looking resolutely forwards at the space she'd just vacated, trying to ignore the guilt that was now fighting with the booze in his stomach. So help him, if she gave him a lecture right now about irresponsibility, or a pep talk about treating himself better, or some other equally inane bullshit, he'd lose it completely. Images passed rapidly through his head, like one of those flickbooks that you drew as a kid. Images that involved shoving everything off his desk into an angry smashed heap, and punching the walls. He might be awful at fighting, but he thought he could manage that.
Her hand appeared in his peripheral vision. It fluttered and flew, and came to rest on top of his right one, the one that still rested on the magazine cover. It was warm. Of course it was. She was Betty.
"What do you want, Betty?" He asked, channelling his Inner Bradford to make his voice cold.
She flinched, and something cruel deep inside of him was pleased.
"I…" Her voice faltered and her hand twitched, but she didn't move it away. "I want to help you, Daniel."
That unpleasant smile grew back, in what felt to him like greater numbers and an even more virulent form.
"Daniel…" Betty said.
He turned to her suddenly, cutting her off as he leaned in close, too close, closer than he'd ever been to her; almost nose to nose. He felt filled with a desire to repel Betty completely, and now that he'd started this perverse snowball rolling, he could feel it gaining momentum somewhere dark inside him.
"I fucked a whore tonight." He said, flicking his gaze to her mouth, his voice pitched intimately low, as though this were seduction.
She recoiled, like he knew she would, her eyes widening in shock and dismay, and something else that looked like distaste. She moved her hand away, and he couldn't bear it. He couldn't take her disappointment or the loss of her warmth even for a second. So, he did the only thing he could. He took another large swig of Scotch, and forced himself to remember that he was still a little mad at her for not telling him about that whole mess with Wilhelmina and his dad. Yes. He was still mad. He was.
"See, people would be shocked if they knew that Danny Meade, playboy extraordinaire, stooped to paying for sex. But what they don't realise is that sometimes it's nice not have to spend an hour soothing a girl's ego so she'll put out. If you pay for it, you can get right to the good part and be as rough as you want. And I was rough, Betty, and it felt so good. So, you see, don't you, Betty? I'm not who you think I am. I never have been, and you can't help me at all."
Daniel sat back with a triumphantly cold grin, and watched as Betty abruptly got to her feet and stalked through his office door without saying a word. There. There, he'd done it, though he didn't know why. He'd finally made her hate him. He felt sick, and he wanted to take it back immediately. He wanted to run after her and beg her to forgive him, or... or ring her and beg her to come back. He'd get down on his knees, and he'd do anything. Anything. But he didn't move. The icy hand of Bradford Meade kept him pinned to the floor.
He grabbed at the Scotch bottle and emptied it into his glass, taking a large, punishing gulp. It felt like his throat was on fire. It felt like everything was fucking burning, but then a pair of small, bright, yellow butterfly shoes appeared in front of him, and Daniel felt his stomach lurch. He looked up, up at Betty, who seemed to swim and sway before him. He blinked his eyes to be sure, but she had definitely come back. She'd come back to him.
But she'd come back furious.
He gaped at the anger in her clenched fists and on her face, the way her thick, fuzzy brows were drawn together in displeasure, at the intense heat in her eyes behind those crazy bright glasses. It was moments like these, moments when she was focused and righteous and pure and about to call him out on all his ridiculous bullshit, that he could see how beautiful she really was.
"Did it work?" She asked, quiet, clipped.
"What?" He asked, slightly dazed.
"The prostitute, the booze, what you just said to me. Did any of this self-inflicted punishment make you feel better?"
Daniel didn't answer. What could he say?
"Then I suggest to you, Daniel Meade, that your strategy is not working. Maybe it's time to try something else."
"I..." He shook his head, feeling his eyes suddenly fill with tears. Quickly he grabbed at her hand, and pulled it towards his chest, forcing her to crouch in front of him, bracing her other hand against his leg. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I don't know why I... I'm sorry. I'm just so..."
He trailed off into silence, unable to find the words.
"You're sad, Daniel." Betty said finally, briskly. "You're just so sad, and probably angry too. I remember what it's like. I mean, for me when my mom died. There was less booze and no hooker sex, but I remember."
"He's gone, Betty." He heard himself saying. "I fucking hated the bastard, and he's gone."
"You loved him." She contradicted, her voice suddenly more gentle than he deserved, her eyes even more so.
"I loved him, but he didn't hear me. He never heard me. He always wished I was someone else."
She was silent for a second, and he could feel her searching for the right thing to say. He knew she'd find it. Of course she would. She was Betty.
"Daniel Meade," She finally said, potent and certain, "You listen to me. You smell… just, really awful right now, you look like week-old crap, and I'm really worried about you having an STD. What's worse, you can be a mean drunk, and if you ever talk to me like you did before again, I will be out the door and I won't come back, and on my way out I will slap you from one side of this office to other. I'm from Queens. I can do that. And then? I'll set Hilda on you. However, all that aside... you are one of my favourite people in the world, and you're my best friend, which is why you get a free pass tonight, even though I'm still mad at you. It's also why you have to believe me when I tell you that your dad loved you. He did. And it's going to get better. You're going to be alright, okay?"
Something suspiciously like a sob escaped his throat, and he had to look down, away from her imperfectly perfect face.
She slowly extracted her hand from his grasp and tried to take the glass of Scotch from his tight grip. He resisted at first, feeling another flood of sharp rage, distant, like an echo, and she stopped pulling immediately but didn't let go. She waited, patient and still. The anger drained away as suddenly as it came, and he gave in. Of course he did. He was Daniel, after all, and when he could finally look at her again, her warm, brown eyes were filled with tears that mirrored his own.
"I'm cold." He heard himself say at last. An odd thing to say considering that all the Scotch he'd drunk meant that his body was flush with warmth.
He figured out why he'd said it when she immediately pulled him towards her and into a hug, his head coming to rest in the crook of her neck. Her skin smelled like lemons, but her frizzy hair smelled like vanilla.