Under the Stars and Stripes (Under Him)

BOOM!

“What the fuck was that?” I ask, my entire cup of champagne clacking against the floor before I can even take a sip, when the noise scares me so badly that I jump off of Simon.

We all look around and see someone standing in the open door leading into the hallway, which is slowly moving just a bit because I think it was the sound of the door slamming against the wall that just scared us all shitless.

Although as I’m staring at the door to see whose silhouette is darkening the doorway that bleeds direct sunlight into the room, it’s impossible to see any of their features. It takes a moment, in which not a single one of us dares to breathe, before the person steps forward out of the light and we get a better look at who the door presumably owed money to based on how hard it was thrown into the wall.

“Brittany…” my father says, as he begins to approach in that intimidation tactic-like way that he always does when he’s drunk and pissed off. “It’s time for this little game of yours to stop. You need to get your ass in the car and when we get home— and I do mean my home— you’re going to give back the money that you stole from me.”

“Pardonne-moi?!” Sarah asks, stepping forward to stand by my side. “Mr. Berry, this is our place of work and you need to leave. This is completely unprofessional, not to mention just… loathsome.”

“She’s coming home with me whether or not she likes it!” he screams at her. “She’s my daughter and I will not have her parading her body around at this sham of a modeling agency.”

“What the fuck did we do to you, dude?” Tony asks, as he steps up in front of Sarah.

“No, no, don’t stand in front of me like that,” she says, as she corrects her place in the pack. “I’d like for him to see what the fuck I’ll do to him when he raises his hand to try and hit me the way that he did her.”

“WHAT?!” both Tony and Simon ask, as they turn from Sarah, then to my father, then to me.

“Dude, you have about thirty seconds to get into your car and leave our property,” Simon tells my dad.

My heart floods with love as I look at him and his defensive posture.

He is saving me from having to go back to my dad’s.

He is truly my hero.

“Or what?” my dad antagonizes him.

“Or you’ll be leaving here in about thirty minutes in a hearse.”

“You think you two scare me?” my dad asks. “I know all about you two. You see, one thing you should really check on when you hire one of your short, round girls is whether or not her father has been a modeling agent for the last thirty years.”

My dad then looks around the studio and scoffs, then turns his head back to me.

“And this is no modeling photography agency, Brittany,” he tells me. “This is just a couple of boys who like to play around enough with their dicks and their cameras to get the one good idea they’ve ever had between the two of them to put those two things together to make some extra dough.

“But the truth of the matter is that the girls that they shoot pictures of here are not models. They all fall under 5’10” and would be shamed out of a legitimate photoshoot for a real underwear ad.”

Simon’s about to step in and defend me some more but I take over from here.

“Oh, and because I’m one of those models, that’s what you think of me? Is that your sober assessment?” I ask.

“Oh, no right. Because the only thing you’ve ever assessed sober is which middle-shelf bottle of liquor is going to get you drunkest the fastest, you bitter, lonely, old alcoholic!” I tell my dad, now stepping up to take the space between him and Sarah.

“So why don’t you just tell me what you think of me? Go on and say it, Dad. You’ve said it in every way possible except straight up and out loud. So, I want you to look me in the eye and say, “I, Barry Berry–”

Tony erupts into laughter, and we all pause to turn and look at him.

“The dude’s name is Barry Berry?!” he says between his unstifled laugher and gasps for air. “Shit, I’d be an alcoholic too.”

“I, Barry Berry,” I repeat, “hate my daughter, Brittany Barry, because she is a fat, lazy, good-for-nothing piece of shit who does nothing but remind me of her flighty mother who abandoned us because I treated her like she was nothing to me.”

The entire room falls silent.

“I SAID SAY IT!”

There’s more quiet, but only just for a moment. My dad scoffing is the next sound any of us hear. Then he clicks his tongue and gesticulates as if he’s shaking off every word I’ve just said to him.