Disclaimer- Not mine
A/N- Thanks, Tina101, for the reviews- they made me soooo excited! New readers, please read and review
Mark sighed, turning the camera off. "Are you absolutely certain that you still want to do this?"
Ella looked aghast. "Of course, Marky! How else am I going to get my big break?"
He frowned. "Remind me to murder the person who came up with this idea."
"That would be you," Ella said lightly. "Want some more Strawberry Paradise?"
Mark shivered. "That stuff is disgusting. Are you an alcoholic as well as a—"
She frowned at him, stretching in a catlike way that reminded him of Mimi. "Don't finish that sentence. By the way, what am I supposed to be talking about now?"
"Well, that's up to you," Mark began. "I'm not really here to direct you. Think of it as me trying to capture everything about you… So sort of, sticking yourself all out there and hoping that I do this right," he tried to explain. Fortunately, Ella nodded, relieving him of the trouble of trying to explain.
"Do you want me to sort of explain my childhood and work my way up to today?" she suggested.
"Actually," Mark thought for a moment, considering. "Yeah. A few things about when you were real little- stories that explain the relationship that we all have, I guess. Then, if you wouldn't mind, detail on your thirteenth year…" he let the suggestion trail off, raising his eyebrows hopefully at her.
She started as though she'd been shocked. "Um, Mark, are you sure that people would want to hear about that? It's not really, um, how do you say-"
"It's life," Mark informed her abruptly, "and life is what I'm trying to film. And then, just something little about the years when Roger and I were gone and then we'll just.. go from there."
Ella stopped her playfully stretching and started slowly to twist a lock of hair around her index finger. "I dunno…" she said quietly.
"If you don't feel comfortable, I guess we can call this all off," Mark said slowly, glancing down at his camera. Ella stared out of the window.
"I want to do it," she mumbled after a minute. "Just show it to Roger after I leave, woulja? Maybe it'll help him understand."
"Will do," Mark chirped, forcibly cheerful. "Ready?"
"Yeah," she muttered, flipping her hair over her shoulder and meeting the camera with her jade eyes. "Yeah. Is it rollin'?"
"Yeah," he said. "So, childhood?"
"I was actually born in inner-city Trenton," she said quietly, staring down at her hands. She pulled a bottle of black nail polish out of her back and absently began to paint an ugly design on each one that might have been prettier had she a steady hand. "Not Scarsdale. But Mama, she had some luck in some business opportunity, she'd never say what it was, and so she decided to come to Scarrydale and bring us along with her. Baby me, kiddie Roger, bummie Daddy. I wasn't more than two when Mama died. I sort of would have liked to know who she was or even how she went, but I sort of also would rather just remember her the way I do. A beautiful golden-haired angel with green eyes, looking down on Rog and me from someplace where everything is made of spun silver and gold. I think sometimes that I remember her singing… That must be where Roger got his voice. Daddy once told me that she really did sing, that her voice was as clean and pure as could be."
Ella paused. Mark wanted to urge her on, but he knew from experience that the best material would come when the subject wasn't forced. Ella stared determinedly at the ceiling and then looked back at the eye of the camera.
"I can't sing. I sound like a duck that tries too hard. I gave up a few years ago and left the music to Roger," she deadpanned, smiling. "He makes the world a better place with his music."
"You really think so?" Mark asked quietly.
"Yeah, I do," she replied instantly.
"You really love Roger, don't you?" he asked slowly. Though he knew the answer, it was one of those things that he wanted to be documented.
She smiled sadly. "Do you remember the first time you and me and Roger met?"
Mark closed his eyes. Yes, he did vaguely remember an eleven-year-old boy dragging a five-year-old girl with longish blond pigtails creeping out beneath her sickly pink baseball cap by the hand up to his door and ringing the bell. Mark, who was watching them from the window, noticed that the boy jumped at the loud sound, that the girl tightened her grip on his palm. Mark had raced to answer the door.
"You were coming to borrow something, an egg or some other such…" he affirmed. "And my mother thought that he was awfully polite."
"I didn't say anything. I hid behind him," she muttered coldly. "I always have. Because, just like I trust you, I trust him. He's my brother. I love him."
"That's sweet," Mark mumbled. Something strange in him sort of wondered if she loved him like she loved Roger as well. He sort of…
No. Nevermind.
"When he was older, he always kept the boys away from me. 'Stay away from my sister.' 'She's off-limits.' 'She's a good girl- she's gonna be better than any of you motherfuckers.' I didn't mind. I'd heard of too many horrific rape stories and pregnancy stories to care. But when Dad got bad… I dunno. I got into some bad shit."
Mark winced. "Tell us about your dad."
"He was a bum. He had no job. He lived off of some kind of illegal empire from his father that wound down to him. By the time Roger was fourteen, he supported me more than Dad did. He protected me from him. He saved me from so much…"
"What did your father do?" Mark persisted, forgetting his ordinary interviewing rules. She wasn't some interviewee. She was Ella. Roger's Ella. His Ella.
"He hit Roger and me. Mostly Roger. He was a… confused father," Ella allowed.
Mark nodded. He'd heard the stories about Mr. Davis. He'd met the man a few times. It was not an experience that one usually wanted to repeat.
"Did he just hit?" Mark prompted.
"No," she whispered, shuddering. "Once, he was holding a pot of boiling coffee while it was still brewing… he was angry with me and he threw it…" Ella pulled the neck of her shirt down to show her collarbone, swelling with strange and ugly scarring. "And, when I pulled the shirt off, about half the skin came off with it."
"How old were you?" Mark asked quietly.
"I was thirteen," Ella replied, staring down at her finished nails. "It was the day after.. the day after I…"
"You don't have to go on," Mark said quickly, "it's okay."
"Nah, Mark, I think that you need this part," she said after a moment. "I'm good. I got this."
She paused and then opened her mouth to continue.