January 7, 2006
"Keeping Up Appearances"
"DER KRISTINA
im deqq my knew lief won yor mom anad her 8ret eybe sinb me to a qlac taht I nuver deleve id sea aqain. I nuver felt so loin ore I have all I no is tatt qlace off tin re wind me of what I nuver want to com it semes taht it be com evin biq me."
Brooke Lynn's eyes bug from her head and she tries to catch her jaw from dropping to the ground. She finds a corner at the bottom of the stairwell to discover more of the letter. Intrigued, she barely notices him walk down the stairs and peer over the piece of paper, folded and unfolded by the various curious eyes. The paper swiftly pulls up from her hand piercing it with a stinging cut. Brooke Lynn gasps and looks up at Sonny, his face pained at causing her wound. Fraught with remorse, he quickly grabs a towel thrown over the chair and kneels down to wrap Brooke Lynn's hand.
"It's ok Uncle Sonny. It's just a paper cut."
"I'm sorry Brooke Lynn. I just overreacted."
"I shouldn't have read your letter. Should I?"
Brooke Lynn fumbles with the cloth wrapped around her hand hoping to avoid his eyes.
"I'm not exactly sure if you should or shouldn't read my letter. I know you have questions."
Brooke Lynn breaks her attention from the cloth to look at him.
"My mom said that I was supposed to help you do something. Something about a letter to Alexis."
"Your mom is persistent isn't she?"
"Yea. She said something about writing and chewing at the same time."
Sonny sits down next to Brooke Lynn at the end of the stairs and hands her the letter, but she pushes it away.
"That's ok. You don't have to let me read it. I don't really understand it anyway."
"Would you laugh if I told you a secret?"
She notices the delicate vexation ensuing to his face usually so confident.
"No. I won't laugh."
Sonny looks away and drums up the courage to tell her the truth. "Brooke Lynn, I don't exactly know how to read and write."
Brooke Lynn clears her throat not sure of what to say. "Like English?" She shakes her head annoyed at her own response. "You're so stupid Brooke Lynn."
"No you're not. What are you supposed to say? Tough luck?"
"I'm just a little surprised I guess. It doesn't make sense. How do you not know how to read and write?"
"You're home." Alexis exclaims after flinging the door open to Nik with Kristina in his arms. She covers them both with hugs and kisses. "I'm so glad to see you Niki."
"It's good to see you too. You seem well?" Nik questions while not sure if he should breech the subject.
"Oh. I'm great." Alexis declares to him with spunk in her movements. "Give me my Precious." Alexis steals Kristina from Nik's arms while he places Lamby on the table and points out to her his gift to Kristina.
"Kristina and I spent the afternoon at Build-a-Bear. Warning. I told her she had to name him something other than Lamby in order to not hurt Lamby's feelings."
Alexis nods to Nik trying to follow. "Ok. So. You're trying to replace Lamby?"
"No. Just supplementing Lamby."
Alexis studies Kristina's new bear; its fur of manufactured blue.
"Nik, I swear I'm not a traditionalist in any way, shape, or form, but why is no-name bear blue?"
"Yea. That's my warning. Kristina specifically picked out a blue bear and she named him baby Ricky." Nik cringes.
"That he name!" Kristina blurts out with a proud grin garnishing her face.
Alexis whispers over Kristina's head to Nik. "We couldn't find another name?"
Nik shrugs his shoulders. "I tried Alexis. She's persistent."
Alexis places Kristina on the table and pulls Nik aside. "She's three and short."
"I'm sorry Alexis. I guess she remembers Ricky."
Alexis crosses her arms and looks over at Kristina sitting on the table filled with content combing the fur of her blue bear.
"I don't understand the whole concept." Alexis exclaims flipping her bangs from her face.
"What concept?" Nik questions.
"Purple dinosaurs. Blue bears. It's like a whole big acid trip."
Nik laughs and eases up his stature. "Wow. Uncle said they found you and the record player had Moody Blues playing in the background. Very tripy." Nik continues to laugh. "So where you buying this stuff Alexis?"
She eyes him until the coldness wipes the smile from his face. He straightens up and turns serious. "My bad. I just happened to see the medical report and…" He decides not to dig his hole any deeper and change the subject. "So how exactly did you explain everything to Kristina? Like how did you explain Baby Ricky?"
"I didn't. Everything happened so quickly. It was like 'let's rain on Alexis' parade.' And then after it all happened, I thought I'd have some type of support, but it seems like everyone kind of fell into his or her own funk. Zander stopped speaking to me because of his father. Ned gave me the big 'I told you so' speech. Sonny had his 150th breakdown. Stefan kept trying to make me move back to Port Charles. You were busy dealing with your Stavros issues…"
"…I'm sorry I wasn't there for you Alexis. I truly am."
Alexis takes Nik's hands in hers. "You're here now and that's all that matters. I am taking it all one step at a time and trying to solve everyone else's issues while I'm at it. I actually enjoy this. Whatever this is. Sometimes I'm up. Sometimes I'm down. Sometimes four to five non-existent people talk to me and Kevin has to decipher. But at the end of the day, I read Little One a bedtime story, throw back a couple shots of Jack, and I'm a happy girl; until the scenes chronologically play back in my head in what seems like real time."
"Uncle Sonny, explain your letter to me."
"I tried to do that, but you didn't want me to." Sonny opens up the letter and lays it flat on the table. "It is what you see."
Brooke Lynn takes the letter and looks it over again. "Please explain how you were a powerful mobster yet you can't read and write."
"Have you ever heard the phrase keeping up appearances?"
"Well I've seen the show on PBS. There's this British woman. Her name is Mrs. Bucket, but she tells everyone it's Bouquet." Brooke Lynn giggles. "Anyway, she wants people to believe she's like this aristocrat when she's really not. Is that what you mean?"
Sonny nods in agreement. "Right. I was lucky. I was surrounded by smart people. Benny, my accountant, God rest his soul…in preparation for meetings he used to go over documents with me. I used to have to memorize what he told me."
Brooke Lynn's eyes grow wide. "Benny knew you didn't know how to read and write?"
"They all knew. Benny, Johnny, Max, Marco, Renaldo, Jason…""Jason knew?" Brooke Lynn questions a bit more surprised.
"Yea. But they were there for me every step of the way. So not having them right now is very difficult. It's just me."
"Well and me too. I know now. I guess you haven't told Alexis and my mom obviously doesn't know. Did you skip school a lot?"
"It's not that I never tried to learn. I just have trouble focusing. There was a lot going on in my life during grade school when I should have been learning. What I see on paper and what comes from my pen obviously isn't the same thing. If you wrote down on paper for me Mrs. Bucket versus Mrs. Bouquet, I wouldn't really be able to understand the difference."
"You did such a perfect job writing your name." Alexis points out to Kristina her name on the writing pad. "I think you are ready for boarding school."
"Yes. Momma." Kristina grabs her pencil and continues writing.
Alexis looks up across the table at Ric grinning at her and Kristina from ear to ear. She quickly places her hand over Kristina's eyes. "What are you doing here Ric?"
"Just remove your hand. She can't see me Alexis." Ric assures her with his smile dissipating from his face. "I'm here to talk to you."
She becomes speechless and fights to get her thought processes in order. "We haven't conversed since you found it necessary to tease me about Sonny."
"I shouldn't have done that. But I think it's kind of funny how much you've ended up having to baby-sit him."
"He's doing just fine on his own right now. I think. I haven't seen him since…""…Your little breakdown..."
"…Don't make light of the situation. I feel terrible about what happened to you and Lorenzo. But I feel like he has forgiven me. Why can't you?"
"Mommy, who are you talking to?" Kristina looks up at her mother waiting for an answer.
Alexis barely blinks an eye and notices the chair across the table empty. She nervously caresses Kristina's dark curls in her hand. "I was just practicing a speech. It's like taking a hairbrush and singing songs in the mirror."
"Barney songs Momma?"Alexis rolls her eyes. "Yes Dear. Barney songs."
"I can teach you how to read." Brooke Lynn offers her help to Sonny ready to avoid belaboring the subject any longer.
"I'm not interested."
"What do you mean you're not interested! That's a stupid statement to make and a sign of a quitter."
"Maybe I am a quitter. Who knows."
Brooke Lynn hops up on the kitchen counter ready to engage Sonny. "What's the one book you've always wanted to read? I'm really intrigued if you couldn't tell."
"Honestly. There's so many. But really when I found out that Kristina was my daughter, I knew I wanted to be able to read those tutty-fruity books to her."
"Like Cinderella?"
"Yea. The ones with the glittery covers and stuff. But I bought her one. I don't remember the title. The girl was beautiful with a pretty dress on. I gave it to her and she immediately pushed it away and headed straight for Michael's Africa book. And that made me smile."
"Why? What's so special about the Africa book?""It's nothing but pictures. And if you have an imagination, you can take one picture and come up with so many different stories. You never want to put it down. But I do admit that there are times that I want to write."
"Write? Write what?""About me. About my life. Maybe put down on paper some of the things I don't think I can say."
"Wouldn't that be bad for you legally?"Sonny grins and sits down to focus on his tree house design. Brooke Lynn hops down from the counter and grabs her book bag. Sonny turns away from her and grabs a pencil from the counter behind him. She quickly swipes the letter from the table and stuffs it in her bag.
"Ok Uncle Sonny. I'm leaving. Maybe we'll do the letter tomorrow?"
"Sure Kid. Thanks for caring. This is just between you and me right?"
Brooke Lynn nods. "Absolutely. I'll tell my mom we wrote the first draft."
Sonny continues on with his sketch. She pauses and waits by the door filled with more questions. He looks up. "Let me guess. You have questions."
"I just don't understand how you were able to mask it. Did the teacher not know?"Sonny pushes out the chair from the table inviting her to stay. She drops her bag and sits down near him.
"There were three reading groups. The green, the yellow, and the red."
"Like a traffic light. And I bet you were in the red group."
"Always. It kind of became like a club in some ways. Us against them. It was a long flight up from red to green."
"Did you get picked on?"
"Uh. Not really. It didn't matter. You just felt like you weren't good enough. The green group was a bunch of snobs. There was one boy in particular that used to get under my skin though."
"What was his name?"
"Marcus. He was in my class. Smart. The teacher's pet."
"If you don't let me teach how you to read I'm gonna tell Alexis."
Brooke Lynn jumps from the chair but she's pulled back by Sonny's strong grasp. He spins her around to look at him.
"I swear to God Brooke Lynn. You tell Alexis. I will hang you by your pretty pink toenails. Don't do it."