Threads: The Reincarnation of Anne Boleyn (47 page)

“I’m literate. I read.”

I move a step backward, away from him. I’ve
just backed into the sink and knocked into a pan. The sound
startles me so I jump, but I quickly recover.

“Besides, that word’s only worth a dollar.
I’ve got much better words than that.” Whenever I’m frightened I
get defensive and antagonistic, and I can feel “attitude” creeping
into my voice, now: “I also take exception to being referred to as
bubble-headed.”

I point my finger threateningly, as if a
finger could save me from this large man.

He grabs my finger as if to intercept it, but
he doesn’t let go. He runs his thumb lightly along the side of it,
up and down.

What was that game in there with Valerie?
When did he decide it was
me
that he liked?

What do I do now?

I feel a little nauseated. My heart is
pounding; I can hear it in my ears. My eyelid begins to twitch.

“Why aren’t you snapping gum like every other
bubble-headed teenager, instead of reading books and playing
chess?” His voice is low, a purr, a caress. He’s aiming those eyes
again. I look down, then up and over his shoulder to avoid his eyes
and to shake the panic.

My defenses have me prepared to insult him,
or to argue with anything he says until he clears away from that
door so I can leave.

“I can snap when I want to. I can even snap
and read at the same time.” I can hear the hard edge in my voice.
“I happen to be a multi-talented individual. With a little extra
effort, I expect to be able to read, snap gum and tap dance.” I
turn my eyes back to him, narrow them, and yank my finger away.

Why do I do this? Why do I freeze up and
antagonize people? The smallest threat of potential (not even
probable
) intimacy sends me screaming. Even when I like a
guy, I can’t stop my mouth. It’s as if there’s something in me
that’s determined to drive men away.

Any other girl would have been able to stay
calm, bat her eyelashes (or do whatever it is that
normal
girls do at a time like this) and let him hold her hand. Not me. My
heart sinks. There’s something wrong with me. I look up at Michael,
and I know it’s true. I can’t do this right. I can flirt, and I can
summon men with just a look and juggle a dozen of them all at once,
but I can’t handle one, alone. I never can. I always have excuses
like, “it’s just
this
guy who’s wrong for me”, or ”it’s just
this
situation that’s scary”, but really, I’ve never been
able to do it, not even once.

He hates me. I know he really must. Even if
he doesn’t now, he
would
hate me eventually. Sooner or
later, he would figure out that I’m not as good as other girls and
leave me for somebody else. It’s safest to never get involved in
the first place.

“Not very impressive, really, unless you can
twirl plates at the same time. Can you twirl plates?”

“Nope. But I can
hurl
them. Do you
want to see?” I reach for a plate in the sink, and pretend to aim
it at him. Involuntarily, I smile at him and relax just a little.
All of a sudden, this isn’t a serious pursuit, and he isn’t as
scary. It’s play.

Michael ducks his head, pretending to dodge
the plate. “I have a feeling that you have the potential to be an
exceptionally talented plate hurler,” he says brightly, “but it’s
not good enough. You really ought to consider giving the whole
thing up.”

“I
won’t
,” I retort with narrowed
eyes. “It’s my
dream
.” I stick my chin in the air
defiantly.

Then I break into a giggle.

Grinning, Michael is thoroughly charmed. Some
guys like women with blond hair or pouting lips. He, however, is
fatally attracted to women who sass him back. He has no idea why
that is.

Silently, without resistance, soul-searching
or question, and without making me aware that he is doing so, he
simply relinquishes himself to me. He is in my hands now, but I
don’t suspect this, even a little.

He wonders if he should cut his hair and look
for a job. He’ll need to, if he expects to buy me dinner and
birthday presents, and take me to concerts.
Please
don’t let
her turn me down, he thinks.
Please
.

I don’t know how to interpret that funny
smile, or the look on his face. I decide he must be really
drunk.

He thinks: Her eyes. He’s never seen eyes
that could do that to him. He wants to sink into them. He wants me
to look into his eyes again, but I won’t.

He likes a challenge.

“You’ll never find a person who can crack gum
and also appear to be intelligent,” he warns me. “In fact, gum
cracking is an automatic 20 point deduction from your IQ. Don’t
ever do it around me. I hate it.”

“So if I snap my gum three times, I’ll be as
smart as you?”
Stop it
! Why do I
do
this? I bite my
lower lip.

He throws back his head, and he laughs.

“You really
are
a bitch,” he says
approvingly, admiringly. “But I was warned in advance.”

“Who called me a bitch?”

“Everyone calls you a bitch. They say your
name, and then they say ‘the bitch’. Everyone.” His eyes are
twinkling.

“You lie,” I say, but I know he’s telling the
truth. My shoulders slump a little, and I pull myself into a pose I
believe is cool, cocky and defiant. It only succeeds in making me
look younger and more vulnerable.

Damn, she’s cute, he thinks. Damn.

I’m feeling very nervous and edgy again. I
stiffen and narrow my eyes at him. He obviously doesn’t like me,
seeing as he thinks I’m a bitch, but he won’t move away from that
door so I can remove my bitchy self from this room. It would be
impolite to scream and run past him, but I give it a moment’s
consideration.

“A pretty bitch can get anything she wants.”
Michael says. More softly he asks, “Did you know that?”

“Then I want a million bucks,” I shoot
back.

He sighs dramatically. “If I had it, it would
be yours, my dear lady.” He bows at the waist with a flourish, then
reaches for my hand, which he smoothly, gently presses to his lips.
“That, and much more. I kid you not.”

“Actually, that’s okay. I think I’d probably
rather have a driver’s license anyway.”

He stops short, exasperated and
incredulous.

“
What?
You can’t even
drive,
for chrissake?” He’s not sure he’s ready for a 17-year old. He
thought he was years past this sort of inconvenience. His car needs
$400 worth of work and I live 20 miles away from him. He’d expected
me
to provide transportation. He will
not
pick me up
and transport me on the bus. He does not take public transportation
under any circumstances. What a
pain
this all is.

“We don’t have a car,” I answer.

God help him. The hair has to go. He needs a
job.

She hasn’t said yes, he reminds himself.

His parents have a car: a ’64 Chevy station
wagon. It’s completely uncool. It will have to do until he can
hustle the money to fix his own, or get a paycheck. He has weighed
being “cool” against not seeing me at all or insulting me with
public transportation, and has opted for the Chevy. Earlier in the
evening, he would have guessed that it was more important to be
“cool”. But things change.

“I’ll just have to teach you,” he says.

“Where have I heard
that
before?” I
ask. “You wouldn’t have the nerve. You’d never survive it.” I roll
my eyes.

Suddenly, impulsively, he kisses me while my
eyes are rolling, bobbing his head toward me sharply as if he
thinks I might dart away. I might very well have done that, had he
not taken me so thoroughly by surprise. I feel myself starting to
sink into him with a sense of almost joyous relief, while the
irrational, frightened part of me screams
“No!”

۞

And so it goes, I am thinking from this
over-level. There we are again, but how can I allow it? I have so
much anger, still, and I cannot be certain I am able to set it
aside. I can make things worse than they are, not better, and pull
both of us down with my fury and resentment. Then, there is his
temper. Has it improved? Or will he turn on me again?

This is unwise. It is too soon.

Furthermore, there is the trauma. I am
correct in suspecting that there is something wrong with me. My
trust was broken, and my fear is too strong to be reasoned away. It
needs to be loved away, but I do not ever allow anyone near enough
to do that. I cannot. I cannot risk further harm.

Can I handle his problems? Can he handle
mine? I do not think so. I do not know if either of us has anything
to spare the other.

I have fulfilled my obligation to him. I have
appeared, and we have met. I owe him nothing more than the decision
that I am ready to return to him—or I am not. I am now free to
leave and to never see him again in this life.

In this moment, my final moment of unburdened
choice, I should have the power to edge away from him, and to walk
out without a backward glance. I just need to back away and walk
out.
Now!
I say to myself:
Run!
It is what I had
planned to do. It is, in fact, what I had already done before he
hunted me down and cornered me.

But I stay.

۞

As terrified as I am, I don’t pull away. I
don’t leave. I let him kiss me, and when he asks me for my phone
number, nuzzling my ear, I find a pen on the kitchen counter, and a
paper napkin, and I obediently write it down.

The internal alarm is going off again. It’s
telling me to run away, but it won’t say why I should. I suspect I
know the reason. I know instinctively that this one will want to
stay. I don’t allow any of them to stay—I can’t. Maintaining a
relationship with a man is the one thing I cannot do well, or
perhaps, cannot do at all. Even at 17, I already suspect this. I’m
more afraid of boys—of men—than other girls my age, and I don’t
know why that is, or what I can do to fix it.

Perversely, I hand him my phone number anyway
with rising anxiety, a fluttering stomach, and a sense of
resignation. I know with absolute certainty that he will call and
that I have initiated something that will not be completed for
years, if ever. I have somehow signed on for a tour of duty in the
simple act of handing this man a paper napkin.

Or, perhaps I’ve sold myself to the devil.
Was that napkin a contract? Is this man the devil? I’ve read too
many books, I think. I have too vivid an imagination, I know,
because I look into his eyes again, and have a sudden flash of
peculiar imagery that, like the devil himself, this stranger came
tonight to claim my soul.

“Good Christian people, I am come hither to
die, according to law, and therefore I will speak nothing against
it. I come here only to die, and thus to yield myself humbly to the
will of the King, my lord. And if, in life, I did ever offend the
King’s Grace, surely with my death, I do now atone. I come hither
to accuse no man, nor to speak anything of that whereof I am
accused, as I know full well that aught I say in my defense doth
not appertain to you. I pray and beseech you all, good friends, to
pray for the life of the King, my sovereign lord and yours, who is
one of the best princes on the face of the earth, who has always
treated me so well that better could not be, wherefore I submit to
death with good will, humbly asking pardon of the world. If any
person will meddle with my cause, I require them to judge the best.
Thus, I take my leave of the world, and of you, and I heartily
desire you all to pray for me.”

Little is known of Anne's earlier years, and
since most of her life was either undocumented, or documented in a
hostile manner by her enemies (it was ill-advised - perhaps even
treasonous - to speak well of her after her death), it is difficult
to know what truly happened in a number of instances. Scholars
disagree on nearly every point!

While writing the novel, "Threads", I
specifically looked for information about Anne Boleyn and her
contemporaries that would shed some light on the "people" rather
than the "historical characters". While this doesn't reveal the
motivation behind events that are disputed, it helps to bend
conclusions in one direction or another.

Biographies and references sometimes make
dry work of Anne, but there were some clues...

Geoffrey Bullen was the first member of the
Bullen family to make a name for himself in English society. He had
been apprenticed as a mercer in his youth, then succeeded in
establishing an excellent social position. In 1459, he became Lord
Mayor of London, was knighted, made a fortune, and bought both
Blickling Hall in Norfolk, and Hever Castle in Kent. He passed the
castles on to his grandsons. His grandson Thomas was Anne Boleyn's
father.

It is not known which one of the castles was
Anne Boleyn's
birthplace. Her parents lived at
Blickling Hall until 1504, then moved to Hever Castle. She could
have been born in either place, depending upon the year of her
birth, which has always been under contention.