Magnet & Steele (5 page)

“Where you going girl?”

“Leave me alone,” she cried, “I
don’t care about your stupid plan! You can’t make me marry him, you
can’t make me! I love Angelo! Don’t you even realize that? I LOVE
ANGELO!”

He wobbled her body again, “Stupid
girl!” He reacted, slapping her across her face this time. “He’s
disgraced you Nancy! Disgraced your name! You allowed him to ruin
you! You’re not even married yet.” Disgusted with her now he walked
away from her just as Nancy crumpled to her knees. He turned around
to eye his daughter on the ground and stated, “Why would you want
to marry a man who doesn’t respect you?” He asked, just before he
left her completely. “Have you forgotten your morals girl? What
your mother and I have taught you?”

Nancy let the life out of her fight
and began to fully sob. “I don’t care daddy, I just don’t care…I
love him, I just wanna be with him…I love him.”

The Next Morning

She doesn’t know how she got to
sleep that night—even if she slept at all—but Nancy finally awoke
on her front porch and watched the sun rise. Focusing on legs
running down the street, she found Kelly traipsing across her front
lawn clutching something in her hands. Waiving the object at Nancy,
she was all smiles as she approached.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She
exhaled, out of breath, “And I’m your best friend! This is so
exciting; this has got to be the news of the century!”

Nancy looked up from her gloom.
“What are you talking about?”

“This,” Kelly said excitedly,
shoving the newspaper into her face. “It’s all over the
paper.”

Nancy grabbed the paper out Kelly’s
hands. The front headlines made her heart sink: DAFFODIL QUEEN
STEELE’S THE HEART OF ARTHUR’S YOUNGEST SON STEPHEN

“Nancy, you’re so lucky. You’re
gonna be a Steele! Oh my gosh, my best friend is gonna marry a
Steele!”

Nancy doesn’t feel lucky, she felt
nauseated. She finally stood up and ran down her front porch steps
leaving Kelly dumb-founded with the newspaper still in her
hands.

Moments later, Nancy found Angelo
sitting by the water of the creek. She knew he’d be there. He was
tossing pebbles into the gorge when he turned around and eyed her
coming near.

“Angelo?”

Angelo slowly stood up from his
crotched position and wiped his hands down the front creases of his
pants. “What’s happening to us Nancy? When were you going to tell
me?”

Nancy’s heart sunk even lower, “I’m
sorry Angelo. I didn’t want you to find out this way.”

Angelo bent down and grabbed a rock
and hurled it across the creek in a rage. “Find out what way…This
way…Or any way at all?”

Nancy tried to plead with him.
“Can’t you see that this is hurting me too? I love you Angelo. I
will never love anyone else.”

Angelo stepped into her. “What about
us being together per sempre…forever? You said you would marry me!
And all this time you’ve been engaged to someone else?”

Nancy’s heart began to break as
Angelo began to walk way. “It’s not like that.”

He turned around. “Then what
then—why are you marrying him?”

Nancy shook her head, “I’m not
marrying him. I’m marrying you.”

Angelo guffawed, “That’s what I
thought as well, but not when my fiancée is already
engaged!”

“I don’t want to, can’t you see
that? Can’t you tell? It’s my father—”

Angelo stepped in closer to her
again. “What about your father?”

“He says I’ve disgraced him…that
I…disgraced my family.”

Angelo now grabbed her by the
shoulders. Circling his eyes around her face, he softly voiced,
“Nancy, you gave yourself to me because you knew in your heart that
we’d be married someday. Per sempre.”

“But my father will never let me
marry you,” she declared whimpering.

Angelo released her body, “What?
Why? He doesn’t even know me. We have to meet—“

Nancy twirled her body around to
watch Angelo sprinting across the grass on the verge of introducing
himself to her father. “No! Stop! He won’t talk to you…it’s the
war.”

Angelo came to a complete stop and
then looked in the opposite direction. Closing his eyes he said,
“I’m Italian, that’s why,” he realized. “The war, si, certo, la
guerra stupida…the stupid war.”

“Yes.”

Broken up in pain, Angelo looked
across at Nancy now. “But we love each other,” he yelled at her and
then up at the sky. “WE LOVE EACH OTHER!”

Nancy was broken up in pain as well
and continued to cry when Angelo ran towards her and snatched her
body into his, holding her close enough for her to nearly melt into
his.

“Oh Angelo,” Nancy continued to cry
into his chest, “What do we do?”

He wrapped his arms around her
backside and then up to cradle the back of her head. “Only one
thing to do.”

Nancy looked away from his chest and
up at him, “What?”

“We elope then.”

At the Hartford train station,
Angelo and Nancy sat on a bench with no suitcases, no extra clothes
and no money in their pockets. No doubts at all with just the
tickets in their hands.

The whistle blew signifying the
train emerging.

Angelo grabbed at Nancy’s hand, “No
regrets?”

Nancy signified her decision by
placing her head on his chest and wrapped her arms around his body
pulling him in. “None, whatsoever,” she uttered, closing her eyes
and dreaming of every morning she would have that allowed her to
wake up next to the man she now loved. She would have a wonderful
life, whatever it took. Angelo could find a job in a restaurant,
waiting on tables in the west coast and she could find a job, an
apartment, maybe even children someday. She then looked up
unconsciously and fathomed Arthur Steele and two large goons
rapidly approaching. “Oh my God,” she said under her
breath.

Angelo looked down at her and then
followed her stare, “What?”

“Stay still. We don’t want to make a
scene,” Nancy said in a worried voice raising her head away from
his chest.

Angelo subsequently realized what
was happening as the three men approached them. They all stood in
unison. “What’s going on here?” Angelo demanded, instinctively
stepping in front of Nancy to shield her from any harm.

“I thought something like this would
happen,” Arthur said, appalled.

“Mr. Steele?” Nancy asked from
around Angelo’s protective body.

“Take him,” Arthur instructed, “Take
him where she can’t find him.”

Within hearing the command, the two
men came from behind Arthur and grabbed Angelo by his arms and
locked them behind his back.

Nancy reached out for Angelo but
Arthur yanked her away and whirled her body into his. “What’s
happening? What’re you doing? Mr. Steele, what’re you
doing?”

At the base of her ear, Arthur
stated softly, “Your father told me what happened and we thought it
best to notify all exits out of state. The conductor is a friend of
mine and contacted me as soon as you purchased your tickets.” He
then lifted up his jaw and instructed the two men, “Take him
away…”

Nancy tried to jerk her body away
too, but Arthur was excessively strong. She couldn’t believe what
was happening! She watched in sheer horror as Angelo tried to fight
his way out of the four burly arms; the two men practically dragged
Angelo away by his heels. One of the men had enough of his jiggling
and punched Angelo square in the gut to subdue his
struggling.

“No!” Nancy screamed, “No! Angelo!
No!”

Arthur rotated Nancy’s distressed
body around within his imprisoning clench and yelled down at her,
“This is best for all of us Nancy.”

“You don’t know what’s best for me!”
She yelled back at him. “You don’t even know me!”

“But I know your father and you’re
killing him with this!”

Nancy turned her head away from his
harshness to watch Angelo being towed further and farther away from
her field of vision. “I don’t care,” she blubbered, “I just wanna
be with Angelo. Angelo!”

Arthur crowded over her and stole
away her view. “You should know dear, that your father and I had
this arrangement far before you were even born. He owes me. I saved
his life once and kept food on his table all these years and he
owes me. He would raise a beauty queen and I would match it. You
were supposed to marry Brian, but with his—his,” he broke off
swallowing down his pain, “Dying in the war, then Stephen would
have to do. You were always meant for me, but now you’re scarred;
tainted. I don’t even know if I want you now. But your father is
persistent, and no one walks away from an agreement with me, no
one.”

Nancy’s body went limp within
Arthur’s clutch. Arthur turned his head to determine the space
between himself and his men when Nancy was finally allowed liberty
and pushed away from his grapple to catch her final view of Angelo
in the far-flung distance.

Alongside the smoking train, the men
continued to suppress a combating Angelo, as Nancy could hear his
roars ricocheting off the steel train and straight into her
ears.

“I love you Nancy!” Angelo growled
in between punches, “I will always love you!...We’ll find each
other someday…we’ll see each other again!”

New Canaan, 1967

A long winding staircase displayed a
group of family portraits hanging on a wall leading up the spiral:
Grandpa Coursen, Grandpa Steele, wedding photos, birthdays, the
family pet, a painting of Jesus. Smiles with missing teeth,
elementary school, a holiday queen, a football uniform and a
cheerleading pose: mom, dad, two sisters and a brother.

A normal household but with deep
dark secrets; a sad sort of new Steele family, five of them
altogether, were gathering simultaneously one by one, a lump of
curious, mellow red heads.

Dressed in a light grey suit,
Stephen Steele, now in his early forties, ran his hands through his
thinning hair and motioned for the kids to have a seat.

“Everyone sit down. Sit down, Paul,
Suzy, sit down. Where’s Fran? Fran! Come in here now and sit down!”
He then turned to his wife, “Nance, get everyone to sit down,
please.”

Enter, Nancy Steele, once a
beautiful strawberry blonde, her hair was now streaked with grey.
It was a strange mixture of peach and mist and she was dowdier now
more than attractive with a faraway look across her face. “Stephen,
do you have to raise your voice like that?”

“Dammit Nancy! Your goddamn children
don’t listen! Look at them; no one is paying any
attention!”

Francine Steele had just turned
eighteen and the baby of the family and entered the room at that
very moment. Tomboy cute, she was a little on the thin side and
considered the loud-mouth of the clan. Taking mostly after her
father physically, she was the only sibling that viewed life
through brown eyes.

“Fran honey, sit down, your father
has something to tell us,” Nancy instructed, pin-pointing her other
daughter about to scamper away. “Suzy dear, please sit down, it’s
important.”

Suzette “Suzy” Steele was the middle
child and at nineteen, was a carbon copy of her mother in her
heyday; a stunning strawberry blonde with milky-white skin and
green eyes. “Why?” Suzy asked, rolling her gorgeous verdant
eyes.

“What’s with all the seriousness?”
Fran suddenly blurted out, chomping on her fingernails. “Who the
heck died?”

“Nance! Deal with this child, will
you?” Stephen demanded, walking over to the fully stocked liquor
cabinet and pouring himself a drink.

“Fran honey, come sit down. Your
father’s had a rough day. Paul, please have a seat,” Nancy cajoled,
watching her children solely sit down.

Paul Steele, the eldest of the
children and the only boy was tall and outspoken and was just like
his father in demeanor—and maybe a little worse—a soldier on
R&R from active duty. “Is this gonna take long? I’ve gotta meet
the guys at the club.”

After a few long seconds of
tormented silence, everyone was finally calm and collected. Gazing
around at his family all looking up or straight at him now, Stephen
placed down his glass of J&B before saying, “I was promoted
again…Hartford Insurance is branching out to Los Angeles and is
opening up a regional office there. We’re leaving for the west
coast in a few months.”