The Life of Muffy Goldsmith
Chapter 1: Mother Always Said…
"What, mother!" I yelled down the stairs.
"Hurry up, darling; we are going to be late!" I rolled my eyes and went back into my room. I looked in the mirror of my vanity. She would just have to wait! I didn't want to go listen to more old men talk about science! Mother always said I was beautiful and I didn't believe her until a few years ago. When I was little, I had the most disgusting greasy yellow hair, my green eyes were far too big for my face, and my skin was terribly blotchy. It wasn't until a few years ago I started to grow up. I was fourteen at the time, and the grease in my hair started to become less apparent. It changed from greasy to shiny. It changed from ugly to beautiful. My skin became one color, a nice creamy white, and I loved it. My face eventually grew into my features and my lips went from huge to soft and luscious. My eyes became entrancing. The sad thing is I couldn't care less.
I wasn't all that into looks at all. What I was into was love. I always envied the girls in the hallways who would have their man and they would sit there whispering sweet love into each other's ears. How they would hold each other's hands. How they would hug each other. All I wanted was that kind of love. I wasn't ever really loved by anyone. My mother just wanted me to be smart, get a high paying job, and take care of them when they retired. My father was a drunken alcoholic, but he kept it a secret from everyone but mother and I. He had a job as a CEO and expected me to go into business. The weird thing is I couldn't care less about the business world. All I wanted to do was go to a few parties, maybe even throw a few of my own.
However, my parents didn't approve of "social activities". That meant no friends, no parties, and no nothing! They wanted me to reach my highest potential and they believed that I could only do that without emotional entanglements. Still, they eventually stopped home schooling me and sent me to school. That was when I turned fourteen. I was sixteen now and I still had no one. All the guys wanted me, and I had my crash and burns. I thought that since they wanted me, they must have loved me! Boy I was wrong. They just wanted me as a onetime thing, another notch in their belt. Good thing is I may be a bit naive, but I have instinct. Instinct told me to never go into their rooms or into their cars. Instinct kept my virginity intact.
I would have made friends that were girls, but they all thought I was a slut. A whore. Just because I was prettier than them, they assumed a banged every guy who gave me a side glance. The sad thing is I still hadn't made out with a guy yet. Sure, I kissed a few but I didn't ever let it get that far. That's why the guys hated me most of the time. To them, I was a tease. However, I didn't mean to be a tease…I just wanted to have love before I did anything to serious. That's why I didn't have a boyfriend yet…because none of them loved me enough to wait a little bit. Every time someone saw me they just saw nice boobs, blonde hair, and a great butt. They didn't see me or the smart side of me.
Of course, my parents only saw the smart side of me. I brushing my hair and all the curls looked perfect. I put a black skirt, a black jacket, and a red blouse with red heels. Mother always said red was my color.
I walked down the stairs and mother rushed me out the door. The drive to the college was full of mother babbling about how smart this professor was. I looked at mother. She was just as beautiful as me. She had great blonde hair and still looked very young for being in her early thirties. The only difference was that she had blue eyes, while I had green. My father was still at work so he wouldn't be joining us this evening.
Another thing you need to know about father, he was cheating on mother. I knew it and so did mother. However, mother was happier ignoring it and living in a nice house than standing up for herself and getting a life of her own. I guess to make up for the love she didn't have for father, she poured it out on me. She always paid attention to me and never gave me my own space. She wanted me to succeed at everything I did. Correction, everything she wanted me to do.
We finally made it and we listened to this professor's boring lecture. Mother never got the chance to go to college. She was poor and married right out of high school to father. Since she never got the chance to educate herself, she decided for me that I had to learn enough for the both of us. Let's just say I couldn't wait for college when I finally could get away from this woman. The professor talked about atoms and the theory of them. Mother was fascinated but I wanted to go to bed. I had learned this stuff a year ago.
We finally left and mother gushed about it all the way home. I just ignored her and stared out the window. We finally made it home without me losing it and yelling at her about how stupid she was for forcing me to do stuff I didn't want to. She brought me to that brink everyday but I couldn't defy her just like she couldn't leave father. I opened the front door and was assaulted by the smell of alcohol. Looks like Fathers home. I walked past the living room and started my way up the staircase. I quickly walked past my parent's bedroom and was at my own. Before I closed my door, I saw mother go into their room. I shut my door quickly and locked it.
Look's like it's going to be one of those nights again. One of those nights father yells a bunch about how everything in life was mother's and mine fault. He would yell that he didn't love her and that this was all her fault for getting pregnant at sixteen with his child. Then he would screw her senseless and, in the morning, both mother and I would pretend like nothing happened. Mother always said I inherited my acting skills from her.
I opened my window and water the windowsill flowers I had. They were red, which was my favorite color. It was the only thing my mother allowed me to have in my room that was red. She believed that if everything was red it would distract me from studying. The only things I owned that were red because of that were these flowers, different articles of clothing, and my favorite hand mirror.
I heard father start yelling and I quickly turned my music on. Another thing I liked to do was dance. Mother always said it was improper for a woman to dance unless it was the waltz, which is why I mainly danced alone in my bedroom. I danced to the beat of the music. One of the other rebellious things I had done was take ballet lessons in secret. Mother found out two months in and pulled me out. I still practiced daily and had gotten pretty good at it. I just loved ballerinas. They were so feminine and gorgeous, yet strong and graceful. Everything I wanted to be.
I finally stopped, exhausted, and just plopped on my bed and thought. Everything in my room was a cream color. I hate begun to hate it. My bed was cream, the walls were cream, and everything else was cream too! I laughed at what the kids at school would think if they saw my home now. What would they say if they could see me, silent tears running down my face, and my parents in the other room screaming at each other? Mother always said don't judge a book by its cover.
I wonder if the kids at school had the problems I had. Sometimes I doubted it but you never knew. We were in the city and in the city everyone seemed to have some dirty little secret. Mine was my parents. My parents…in some ways I hated them and in some ways I loved them. I loved that they seemed to be genuinely trying to help me, but I hated that they forced me to do things I hated to do. The one thing I was truly glad about was that I mostly had mother in me. I didn't want any part of father in me. The only thing we shared was our eyes. However, there was even a difference in that. My green eyes always sparkled with life, according to mother, and father's always looked so sad.
I picked up my old fairytale book and read it. Tonight, I read Cinderella. It was my favorite. I loved how the prince went looking all over the kingdom for her because he loved her. It was truly beautiful. Mother used to read fairytales to me all the time, but at the end she would always say they weren't real. Maybe that's why I never believed in anything these days. Mother had crushed my little dreams and beliefs a long time ago. The only thing I tended to believe in these days was myself. I knew I was beautiful, smart, and confident, even if others didn't.
I put down the book and changed into sleepwear. I went to my vanity and brushed my hair again. I tended to do that a lot. I don't know why but it helped me think and relaxed me. I kept on brushing and wondered what it would be like to have other family I could depend on. Mother was an only child and her parents died when I was very young. Father's sister died before I was born and his parents lived far away and I had only met them once. Mother always said I wasn't a bastard because I was conceived with love, but Father's parents didn't see it that way.
I finally turned everything off and curled into bed. I heard father yelling and shut it out like I always did. I tried to go to sleep, but my mind was racing. How was I going to take two more years of this crap! How was I going to survive this and make it through college! Mother always said I was smart enough to do anything.
Mother always said a lot of things. The real question was, was mother always right?
Please review! I would really love to hear your opinions. Muffy is my favorite character in the harvest moon series and I am writing her life in my mind here. It going to a bit AU and its going to be a bit OOC because I'm writing what I think should have happened in Muffy's life and what I think she was really like. Also, this will be going from now until Muffy's death. So please review :D