Disclaimer: If I owned West Side Story, you would know. Trust me on this. :)
Note: I blame this on all the lovely people at the WSS RP Forum. It is all your fault, ladies, but mostly HedgehogQuill's. Heh. Finally, reviews are love! :)
—viennacantabile
her fair judgment
.
…there's rue for you, and here's some for me;
we may call it herb of grace o' Sundays;
O, you must wear your rue with a difference…
—William Shakespeare, Hamlet
.
In the days and weeks following that night when everything went so terribly wrong under the highway, Graziella finds it so hard to just inhale.
"It'll be okay," Velma repeats, over and over again, holding her close, "it'll be okay."
But how can she know? wonders Graziella, heart aching until she wants to tear it from her chest, how can she know? When there is no way that Velma can understand what it feels like, losing Riff. Not even getting to say goodbye. How can Velma—who still has the boy who, by all rights, is the one who should have died—possibly know what this falling is like, this tumble into an abyss deeper and darker than Graziella ever could have imagined?
She keeps trying to make sense of it all, but there can be no sense in madness. That Riff—charming, funny, adorable Riff—should be gone, in the blink of an eye, just like that, is incomprehensible. I don't understand, she wails in her mind, I just don't understand. How can it be true? It can't. It's impossible. It's like reaching for a kitten and finding a cobra—the most horrible, unfunny joke in the world. She keeps wondering when Riff will pop out from behind a corner and grin at her, just like he used to. Surprise, baby. I'm not dead. And then she will laugh, and laugh, and laugh…
Three weeks in, and an ocean of tears later, Graziella is floundering, sinking, drowning, and so deep underwater that she can't even see the sky.
.
She's gulping down The Red Door's guaranteed ticket to forgetting—if only it were that simple—when a tall figure sits down at the bar next to her.
"Tiger?" she asks, peering at him. There is no surprise in her voice.
"Graz," he greets eagerly. Then, concern: "What're ya doin' here?"
Graziella dryly indicates her glass, the ice cubes at the bottom tinkling cheerfully. "Drinkin'. What's it look like?"
Tiger cuts his eyes to the bartender. "But you're not—"
"He's a friend," she says, waving her hand dismissively. There is a difference between 'friend' and 'friendly,' she knows—especially when it is not altruism, but a more elemental kind of generosity that prompts the bartender to overlook the small matter of age—but these days, it doesn't pay to split hairs, when it comes to favors. Take what you can get, and go.
Tiger watches her for a minute, then shrugs. "Okay," he says, and sits down next to her. Graziella knows that he is trying to make sure that she is all right, and in the back of her mind, yeah, she thinks it's sweet, but right now she just doesn't care.
"Hey, ah, Graz," he says, awkwardly and earnestly, "I'm sorry about Riff."
"Yeah?" Graziella asks, eyeing him indifferently. She taps the ash off her cigarette, exhales. "Me, too."
"I mean, I know ya loved him," Tiger goes on, and Graziella bites her lip, the air suddenly gone from her lungs.
"Love him," she corrects, because she can't bear having Riff referred to as a thing of the past, as if just because he's not here anymore means that he ceases to matter. "I love him, Tiger."
Tiger doesn't seem to notice. "I know," he repeats, "an' I just want ya to know that I'm here for ya, if ya ever need someone to talk to."
Graziella lets out a weak laugh, staring at the last drops of amber liquid in her glass. That is exactly what she needs, to talk to Tiger, whose record for Least Profound Thoughts in a Lifetime is probably bested only by Mouthpiece.
Tiger frowns. "I mean it. Ya know I'd do anythin' for ya," he insists, with his doglike devotion. "Anythin' ya need, Graz."
Graziella snorts and turns away, scanning the room for a distraction. "Yeah. I know." And she does; he's been hanging around since kindergarten, watching and waiting for her to throw him a bone. "How 'bout a martini, then?" she drawls, because to have the patience to deal with Tiger, she needs to be drunk; drunk out of her mind, even. She watches, shaking her head, as he immediately starts digging for his wallet. Men, Graziella thinks scornfully. They're awfully useful sometimes.
.
By the time they leave, she is wonderfully, happily drunk. Graziella is holding Tiger's hand, and laughing as she spins him around on the street. Tiger never could dance as well as Riff, but he'll do, she thinks. At least for now.
Tiger hangs around at the door to her apartment, shifting from foot to foot. He doesn't want to leave; that's obvious. Graziella opens her mouth to tell him to beat it, but hears herself say "Ya wanna come up?" instead.
Tiger nods enthusiastically and as she fumbles with the lock Graziella can feel him looming tall and awkward and so completely not Riff behind her. The lock gives, they spill into the apartment, and she flicks the light on, squinting at its brightness.
"Drink?" she asks carelessly, dumping her keys on the table. Tiger nods; she indicates the liquor cabinet with a smirk. "Fix it yourself."
He does, and pours something for her, too. Graziella downs it in one gulp and slides the glass back toward him. "Gimme another."
Tiger drinks four and makes her two more before he has the sense to cut them both off. She eyes him boozily. "Another," she slurs.
Tiger shakes his head, eyes glassy. "I don' think so, Graz."
Graziella stands up straight, the room wobbling like crazy. "The hell with ya, then. I'm goin' to bed," she announces to no one in particular, and turns on her heel.
But her bedroom is the other way, past Tiger, so she has to spin right back around, making a complete turn. Graziella is too dizzy to do this gracefully, or even at all. She stumbles against him; Tiger catches her, and she doesn't push him away. His arms are around her, and Graziella is looking straight up at him.
"Ya sap," she says breathlessly. "Ya lousy, stupid sap."
He's kissing her then, and she's pushing his shirt up, but the face shape is all wrong and the hair is almost as red as hers so she shuts her eyes so she can't see that it's not him and is it so wrong to want to feel wanted?
"I love you," he keeps repeating between sloppy kisses, over and over, and Graziella, eyes closed and hands pressed up against his chest, almost sobs, because now she won't ever be able to believe that it is Riff.
.
She wakes up with a splitting headache and a mother of a hangover and the realization that there is a very big problem lying naked and snoring next to her.
Shit, Graziella thinks. This situation isn't exactly covered in Miss Manners.
She starts to creep very slowly out of the bed, but an arm very suddenly comes crashing down around her shoulders. Graziella scowls. Is he awake?
As if in answer, Tiger yawns. "Mornin'," he says sleepily, and Graziella, twisting around, can see the dopey grin on his face as he reaches for her with his other hand. Uh-oh, she thinks, delicately removing his arm and scooting away to the edge of the bed.
"Look, Tiger," Graziella says with difficulty, because her head is pounding and she can feel every heartbeat thudding through her veins, "y'know this don't mean anythin'. We ain't—we ain't serious."
Tiger's eyebrows meet. "But Graz—"
"Drunk," she interrupts, very meaningfully, "we were drunk." She wills him to not be stupid, not be Tiger—
He just looks at her, the smile flattening out into a straight line. "Yeah," he finally says, "drunk."
Graziella smiles, then, and pats him on the head before jumping up as swiftly she can without throwing up, taking the sheet with her and ignoring Tiger's startled yelp as the air hits him. She dresses quickly—she's had a lot of practice at this—and tosses the sheet back over him before she turns around. She's fucked it, yeah, but she doesn't need to see it.
"C'mon," she says. "Ya gotta get out before my parents wake up."
Graziella doesn't stick around to watch him get dressed—there is nothing so awkward, she has long since discovered, as a man pulling his pants on. Instead, she hurries to the kitchen and busies herself in clearing up the detritus of empty bottles and sticky glasses from last night's late return, quickly rinsing them in the sink with water that is too cold because Graziella doesn't have the time or inclination to wait until it gets hot.
She is just drying the last of the glasses when Tiger appears with rumpled hair, yawning. "Lemme help ya with that," he offers, coming forward with arms outstretched.
Graziella gives him a tight smile. "I got it," she says, slipping the glasses back into the cabinet before turning back to him. "C'mon, Tiger," she says again, and he follows her, just like a puppy, over to the door. She is already easing it open when he grins hopefully at her.
"Can I call ya—"
"Bye, Tiger," Graziella says firmly.
Tiger pauses, then waves as he backs away, disappointed, but not defeated yet. "G'bye, Graziella."
She doesn't answer, just pushes the door shut and leans back against it with a sigh. This complicates things.
.
In the sudden silence that seems to descend over the too-still apartment, Graziella's thoughts pulse in and out like flashes of light, like heartbeats on a monitor, like the blood rushing through her veins and the hangover pounding in her head:
Her stomach growls, but she ignores it, pushes away the hunger pangs, because she is not so weak as to give in, and because she has worked too goddamn hard for this body—
God, Tiger. What the hell is wrong with her? Now he will think that she doesn't mind him, that he has a chance, but Graziella knows she's too good for him, and if she lets this happen she will slide down, down, always down, and there is no way in hell she will let him drag her there with him—
She stumbles over to the kitchen counter and leans her elbows on it, clutching the cool formica for dear life. God, her head hurts so much, and her ears are ringing, and that is to say nothing of her heart, and Graziella can't stay here, she just can't, because the silence is too deafening and there is too much empty space around her asking her to remember things she can't bear to forget, and oh, Riff—
Graziella snatches up the phone and dials Velma's number. She desperately needs to talk to her best friend.
Two rings, a fumbling noise, and Graziella hears Velma's sleepy voice on the line breathe, "Hello?"
"Vel," Graziella says quietly, "can ya meet me at The Coffee Pot? Somethin's up."
There is the muffled sound of voices, and Graziella frowns as she realizes just who is there and what has been going on in the apartment across the street.
"What is it, Graz?" she hears Velma ask.
"Look," she sighs, "just meet me there, okay? Alone," she adds meaningfully.
There is a silence.
"Okay, Graz," says Velma, sounding uncertain. "I'll be there in fifteen."
Graziella drops the phone onto its cradle. Lucky Velma, to be sleeping with someone she doesn't want to kick out in the morning. Lucky Velma, to wake up saturated in the smell of someone she doesn't despise—someone she loves. Lucky, lucky Velma.
.
The morning light is so bright.
Graziella slumps into her seat and shields her eyes with one hand as the other rests next to her coffee. The sun is shining, the world has moved on from that rain-soaked night, and everything is just the same as always—except her, because Graziella's entire body feels like a bruise that throbs and aches and never, ever heals. But despite her efforts to blindfold herself, life seems determined to reach in through the cracks and drag her, kicking and screaming, past the day that marks the death of the only boy she has ever really loved. Why move on? she wonders dully, what is the point?
And then she sees the sun reflect off Velma's white-blonde hair and through the glass. Graziella squints; it almost hurts to look. Ice walked her over, she realizes, and Graziella watches him drop a kiss on Velma's forehead through the window with a flash of jealousy. The light turns the two into something out of a picture-perfect magazine, a happily-ever-after movie straight from Disney with chirping birds and singing animals and a handsome prince, always a prince. It isn't fair, Graziella thinks for the hundredth time, it just isn't fair.
The bell tinkles as Velma pushes the door open and heads straight for Graziella's booth after signaling for a coffee. Her best friend looks like sleep and sex and love, thinks Graziella, all flushed with the drowsiness of early morning kisses; softer than usual. And yet Velma's hair is still effortlessly curling, her makeup flawless, her white dress spotless and straight and perfectly pressed as always. No, Graziella thinks again, it just isn't fair.
Velma stifles a yawn. "Mornin', Graz," she says, as the counterman brings her cup and saucer over.
"Mornin'," says Graziella, drowning her coffee in cream. Damn the extra calories; today she needs it, today she will have it—even if it does make her fat, she can always expel it later. Graziella stirs the cream in; she doesn't know how to say it.
"So what's up?" asks Velma, taking her cup with a relieved smile and dousing it with her own pitcher of cream.
"I slept with Tiger," she says abruptly, staring moodily at her cup.
Velma's head comes up with a jerk; the cream continues into her coffee in a steady stream. "What?"
Graziella shrugs, watching the swirls of milky white undulate and diffuse through the brown liquid. "I was drunk. Watch your coffee."
Velma sets the pitcher down with a rattle and stares at her with eyes wide. "Well, yeah, you'd have to be, wouldn't ya, but—Tiger?"
"He was there," she says with another shrug. "Nowadays, that's all a girl's got." Graziella knows exactly who Velma is not mentioning, and somehow, it annoys her even more that she doesn't come right out and just say it. Go ahead, she thinks, call me a whore for sleeping with someone three weeks after my boyfriend got knifed. I don't care.
Velma takes a deep breath. "But Graz—"
"Stop lookin' at me like that," she cuts in sharply. "Not all of us have the luxury of fucking the guy they lost their virginity to, ya know."
Velma reels like she's been slapped. "That's not what I—"
"I just don't give a damn anymore, Velma," sighs Graziella tiredly. "Don't ya understand? I can't."
Velma shakes her head. "No, Graz," she says evenly, "I don't."
They are both silent.
"Well—was it at least good?" asks Velma with a weak, tentative laugh, after a few uneasy minutes, trying to inject their conversation with a semblance of normalcy; an attempt at peacemaking.
Graziella swirls the coffee with her spoon and stares into space, remembering. "He cried, after."
Velma digests this. "Oh," she finally says. And then: "Jesus, I'm sorry, Graz."
Graziella sighs. "Yeah. Me, too."
And the small distance across the table is stretching and growing by leaps and bounds every minute, and Graziella doesn't know how to close it, doesn't know anything but that she wants answers for everything under the sun. Everything, but mostly for how all of this could have ever happened to all of them—to Tony, to Bernardo, to Riff, and to her.
.
A week and a half later, Graziella realizes she's late.
It's a sucker punch to the gut, a triple whammy. Riff. Tiger. And now this. She's not even really surprised, though. Her life is shit, anyway; of course a kid would come along and ruin what is left of it. It's just a matter of getting rid of it, and her daddy is used to forking over money for a lot of things; why should this be any different?
And then she's sitting there, waiting for the doctor to come in, and she just can't. She looks down at her abdomen. It could be Tiger's, but Graziella knows that it is Riff's. She's never felt more sure of anything in her life. And as she bites her lip and hugs her waist, bent almost in two, she knows that she can't go through with this, because it will be like Riff dying, all over again. This is the only thing that's left of him and the way he would grin at her after sex, just like a little boy; the only thing left of the way he'd slide his arm around her shoulders and dance with her until dawn. This is the only thing left that she can hold on to. And, after all, Graziella thinks, her mind busy, even if Riff hadn't died, there'd never been any guarantee he'dve stayed with her. This baby, she thinks, will stay. This baby will take away all the hurt and pain and weight that is killing her inside. This baby will love her.
So she leaves, just walks out of there, forgetting until it is too late to turn back that she hates babies, hates them and their crying and their drooling and their shitting. Who'dve thought? she thinks bitterly, me. A mom.
And that night, all she wants to do is sleep, all she wants to do is lose herself in a place where she has a chance of forgetting. But when she sleeps, there is no escape from the worst dream of all: he is there, he is holding her, he is holding the baby, he is alive, and then Graziella opens her eyes and screams and screams, because the nightmare is in the waking up and colliding with the cold, hard edge of the reality that Riff is dead, and she is pregnant, and there is nothing she can do about it.
.
Velma's eyes are wide and scared as she puts her hand to her mouth.
"Oh, Graz," she says quietly, reaching out and holding her best friend close, "oh, Graz."
.
More than anything, it is curiosity as to what he will say, what he will do, that drives her to call Tiger up and ask him to meet her at Reggiano's, where Graziella sits in a booth and stares out the window until he shows up, bashful and eager. She doesn't look up as he slides into the seat across from her.
Graziella waits until Tiger is focused on twirling his spaghetti, his face all knotted up in that too-familiar expression of intense concentration. Sorry, Tiger, she thinks, you never solved those word problems in kindergarten, and you're not solving my life today.
"I'm pregnant," she says offhandedly.
Tiger pales, and the pasta slithers from his fork and back into his bowl. "W-what?"
"You heard me," she says steadily, turning her head to look at him. "I got knocked up."
Tiger's chin wobbles. "After—?" He doesn't finish his sentence, and she doesn't help him. Graziella watches him, can see the assumption visibly settle on his face that the baby is his. If she doesn't correct him, if she lets him think that he owes her something, is that so wrong? Graziella doesn't even know for sure, herself, that it is Riff's. It's just a hunch. A feeling.
But Graziella knows that this is a lie; it's Riff's, it couldn't be anyone else's.
"Gee, Graz," Tiger says awkwardly, hand on his neck, "I dunno what to say."
Graziella shrugs. She is waiting, waiting for the words that will commit her to whatever course of action she will have to take.
"I—I'm gonna be a dad," Tiger says, stumbling over the words with a dazed, stunned expression on his face.
Graziella lets her breath out in a long, slow sigh. Course determined, heading taken, the path of least resistance struck. She doesn't say anything, just holds the truth in her mouth and wraps her arms around her abdomen and watches Tiger's face flicker with awestruck disbelief. And this sin, this lying by omission, is what Graziella will make penance for for the rest of her life.
.
Tiger proposes two days later, showing up outside her doorstep on bended knee with his grandmother's ring and a promise that he will always, always love her. Small comfort, Graziella thinks, he's loved her all their lives and if she hasn't reciprocated by now, she never will.
She says no, of course. But Tiger won't listen; he insists she keep the ring and think about it for awhile; after all, he's not going anywhere. Looking down at the tiny sparkle winking up at her, Graziella doesn't have the heart to tell him no again.
It doesn't matter, though. She's not likely to change her mind anytime soon.
.
But Graziella doesn't know how hard it will be; how, in two months, everyone she passes on the streets will look first at her growing belly, then her empty ring finger, and finally, at her face. By then they don't see her, by then they've made up their minds: she's a slut, a tramp, a whore. But all whores are, thinks Graziella, are people who want to be loved. What is so wrong with that?
And then, one day, Graziella tries it out. She puts Tiger's ring on her left hand and takes a walk. Passersby look at her midsection, her ring, her face, and they smile. Mothers holding red-faced babies share gazes of understanding. Men hold doors, nod respectfully. People who would've dismissed her as some cheap floozy the day before go out of their way to help her. Graziella is struck by the difference that a band of worn gold can make, that the presence of such a small thing can usher her into the world of manners and propriety she's never really belonged to. Fingering the ring, Graziella weighs the problem. She's always wanted to be married, after all, and Tiger loves her…
It's a way out, she almost thinks.
.
"Okay, Tiger," she says one day, as they are walking down the street in search of what they will need in the coming months.
He glances at her, confused. "Okay, what?"
Graziella doesn't smile. "Okay, I'll marry ya."
Tiger freezes, completely dumbfounded. "Ya—will?"
She nods flatly. "Yeah. Let's not wait too long, okay?"
"Oh, 'cause of the—" His eyes flick to her stomach. "Right," he says, straightening up. He grins. "I—I can't believe it, Graz."
"Believe it," she tells him, and as he moves to embrace her, Graziella closes her eyes and takes a deep, deep breath. This is her life now.
Tiger pulls back slightly. "I'm gonna make ya happy, Graz," he promises, eyes innocent and trusting. "Ya won't ever regret it."
"Sure, Tiger," she says quietly. She has to wonder how he would feel if he knew, really knew, just who and what his ring is really buying.
"I love you," he says earnestly, and Graziella, repeating his words, expects to feel something. But she doesn't.
And just like that, she is engaged.
.
Velma doesn't say anything, just looks at her. And this is worse, so much worse, than anything Velma could ever say to hurt her.
"Like you care. Like you know," Graziella says in a low, tight voice, needing, wanting to say something, anything to fill up that awful empty silence. Her words have opened up a dark, deep chasm between them. Save me, she screams inside, save me.
"I do care," Velma says, her face twisting and crumpling as she holds herself—her abdomen is still perfectly flat, there is no gift from the dead growing inside of her to rupture and split her open—together with her arms. Graziella stares at her, and wonders if it even matters anymore.
She decides it doesn't. "See ya at the wedding," she says.
"Graz—" Velma pleads, her voice breaking—
But Graziella just turns and walks away, because there is no way that Velma can understand the flawed, imperfect being that her best friend has become, how Graziella is suffocating under the weight of her love and sorrow and guilt.
What crime did she commit? she wonders numbly, thinking of a hot, sticky summer that seems like centuries ago. What did she ever do to deserve this? These are questions that have no answers. But this, like so much else in Graziella's life, doesn't matter, because whatever her sin was, whatever she did, this is her fate now. And this—this slow unraveling of the girl Graziella once was—is her judgment.
.
.end.