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firstaudrinasmoke spills out
Characters: Bobby Draper. Also Sally, Betty, Don, Peggy.
Word Count: 2542
Rating: PG
Summary: Bobby's not as angry as Sally, never has been – but he's younger, he supposes, he didn't see it fall apart like she did.
Note: This is set in the future, post-series. I was kind of loose with time and background info, but just in case it isn't clear: Betty stayed married to Henry and they had another son (Billy) and Don married Megan and they had two kids (Maggie and Natalie). Idk where this came from really, I suppose I just feel bad that no one gives an eff about Bobby. For Theresa, since you prompted me Mad Men fic like 900 years ago. :)
October, 1976
Admittedly, Bobby doesn't remember much from the time his parents were married. He doesn't remember a helluva lot from his childhood in Ossining, except maybe Sally beating him up a lot and his grandfather dying and Carla. He doesn't really remember the kids from the neighborhood or anything; they all blend together, all the neighborhoods he'd lived in growing up, just a collection of houses and sunlight and lawn.
He has trouble recalling what his parents were like together. There's the image of his mother behind the kitchen counter with her hand on her hip and a cigarette held to her lips, looking vaguely annoyed. Bobby remembers thinking she was beautiful. He still thinks that.
It's hard to remember his father in that old house. There are fleeting impressions, maybe – the tone of his dad's low voice, how rare it was that he would speak. That was his father – a quiet reassuring voice and two arms around him, the most transitory and solid presence Bobby had ever known.
Bobby doesn't say a lot himself. What's the point? Sally says enough for everyone. As he got older, it would drive his mother crazy; any time they would fight she'd snap at him, "You're just like your father!"
"She says that to all of us when she's mad," Sally says with a roll of her eyes. She's sitting the way Mom hates, with her dusty platforms up on the coffee table. "'Cept the little golden boy, of course."
"Don't talk about him like he's not our brother," Bobby says, for what feels like the millionth time. "We've got the same mother."
"She's not my mother," Sally spits.
It's his turn to roll his eyes. He's not as angry as Sally, never has been – but he's younger, he supposes, he didn't see it fall apart like she did.
"This is what families do," he reminds her. They're lucky. Mike Reid's dad got remarried three times after the divorce. "When they split up. They get married to new people, they start new families.
Sally lights a cigarette. Lucky Strikes, like Dad's. "Exactly," she says, blowing smoke at him as though to say point made. "New families. Not ours. God, Gene's lucky I didn't chuck him out when he was born."
Bobby shakes his head. He hates when she says stuff like that – and she always does. Sally calls it being honest. She thinks everyone should always know exactly what you think of them. Bobby calls it being a bitch – but he only does that in private.
Sally won't even call their mother "Mom" anymore; sarcastic as ever, coming in too late or leaving too early, tromping around their house, Sally only ever calls her, "Betts."
Bobby wouldn't ever admit it but secretly he agrees with Sally. Shared parents or not, they don't feel like a family. It's like everything and everyone after the divorce stopped counting and Gene – well, he might as well be Henry's son when it's all said and done. Bobby still feels like it's just him and Sally, no one else.
Which is a stupid and irrational way to look at it. On the one branch there's them and Gene; on another, Billy and, Bobby supposes, Henry's daughter. The girls are a third; they seldom see them, though. It's a lot of fucking people at the end of the day.
After the blowout that will eventually send Sally out of their house and into her boyfriend's, Bobby finds his mother standing behind the kitchen counter with dinner abandoned in front of her. She quit smoking a few years ago but her secret pack is open and half-empty in her hand; a small dish functions as her ashtray. "Well," she says sharply, "did you hear it?"
Bobby shrugs, then shakes his head. "I put on a record."
Mom harrumphs. "She thinks she knows everything."
"She's always been like that. That's just Sally."
"You know," his mother continues, as if he hadn't spoken, lighting a new cigarette, "I have to play the devil in this little parable and your father is the big hero but – " She inhales and exhales rapidly. "I've always been very careful not to badmouth your father – " (not always true) " – but he's not everything you kids seem to think he is."
Bobby's never had the stars in his eyes about their dad that Sally does and he likes to think he knows where he stands. Once his father had promised Bobby that he'd never lie to him. Bobby had never forgotten and, when it really mattered, his father hadn't either.
Mom never really makes promises. Not ones you can believe.
Sally leans against the counter, cigarette held loosely to her lips, occasionally flicking the ash onto a small ceramic plate their mother got as a wedding present (which wedding remains unclear). She's got one hand on her hip, observing Gene's chatter with a mild look of annoyance. Her hair is past her shoulders now, still light from the summer, and she's not wearing any makeup. She looks so much like their mother that it's almost tragic.
It's not so much in her features as it is in her expressions, the cold set of her thin shoulders, the arrogant way she holds that cigarette aloft.
Bobby realizes he's never seen his mother without makeup. Even the in the morning, shuffling in her housedress with her hair swept back, there'd been powder on her face or lipstick, bracelets on her wrists and the whole deal, all her motherly attributes. She never stood with Sally's carelessness or kicked her feet on top of the table. He figures even without makeup she'd probably look made up.
Bobby sometimes wonders if things like that happen by accident or not. If he and Sally had grown up across the country, far away from their parents, would they still have ended up just like them?
Bobby's father has softened with the years, gone quieter and grayer, and though it's no easier to make him smile, he's somehow relieved. His defenses aren't up like they once were. He looks good for a man in his fifties who, Bobby now knows, spent more time drinking and smoking than a person rightfully should. He still looks mostly how Bobby remembers him, down to the suits, and it's that more than anything else that's beginning to make him seem like an old man.
"How are you doing at school, Bobby?"
It's the same question Bobby's heard nearly every day of his life for as long as he can remember. "It's school," he says with a shrug. Tentatively, he says, "I was considering…leaving. Leaving school."
He'll never figure out why he told his dad first.
"And doing what?" Dad asks, leaning back in his chair, surveying Bobby in that way of his.
"Uh." Bobby shrugs, uncomfortable. "Sort of. Music. I wanted to – you know, maybe go out West. The music scene there's really – really – "
"That guitar of yours, huh?"
Bobby's surprised he even noticed. "Yeah."
Dad nods a little, rising to refresh his drink. "You don't want to be a teacher? Took long enough to convince your mother of that. She's still hoping you'll take to the law."
"I don't want to be a teacher," Bobby says. He just wants to be Bob Dylan.
His dad gives him another of those long observing looks. "Think it through before you decide," he says finally. "You're lucky to have the chance to go to school." He studies Bobby another moment before saying, "You're the only one who controls your life."
Bobby nods. His throat feels tight and, without meaning to, he says, "I love you, Dad."
His dad doesn't quite smile or frown but his mouth twitches and he seems both sad and pleased. "I love you too, Bobby."
Bobby's twenty-three when his dad dies. He never did go to LA. The only time his guitar gets played is for the six year olds in his class.
Sally cuts her hair short when Dad dies, cropped close to her head, and wears mascara and smokes. Mom tuts to little avail.
They sit in birth order in the first pew of the church, Sally by the aisle and Megan at the far end after her daughters. Their mother and Henry sit behind them. All things considered, the church is fairly full, though they're all people Bobby doesn't know. Some people must be from the ad days but Sally would recognize them better.
After, at the house his father shared with Megan, Bobby piles his plate up with food he's not going to touch. He ignores the table with all the liquor, where Sally's parked herself, glaring and swilling bourbon. Her boyfriend is the only person brave enough to sit with her – he's the strong but silent type, a tall man everyone mostly likes and no one really knows.
"Hello – you're Bobby, aren't you?"
He turns; a woman probably younger than his mother is watching him expectantly with her bag clasped in one hand and the other extended and ready to shake his. "I'm Bobby," he confirms.
"I'm not sure if you remember me," the woman says. "My name is Peggy Olsen? I worked with your father at SCDP."
"Oh. Right. Ms. Olsen. It's been awhile."
"You're all grown up," she says then cringes at herself. It brings a smile to Bobby's face. Her eyes travel over him. "I know you aren’t alright and I know this won't mean very much, but I am sorry."
Bobby nods like he's been doing all day, thank you poised on his tongue, but there's something serious and intent in her face that pauses him, that make the words come out genuinely when they finally do.
Bobby stays at his mother's after, more for Gene's sake than any other reason. It's an exercise in futility. Gene's got little interest in being older-brother-ed this late in their lives together, especially when he's got Billy to boss around.
The night of the funeral he finds his mother crying. It's shocking to see her like that, sobbing away in the kitchen. It's not like he's never seen her cry before, it's just – he's never seen her so exposed. He can't imagine there was ever any affection lost between his parents.
She cries into still-smooth hands, nail polish matched to her lipstick like always. It strikes Bobby that this is the most she's looked like the mother from his childhood since she married Henry: her coral nails and lips, the blunt softness of her dyed hair, a sensible black dress and a small square diamond at her throat. She looks like a movie star or something, aging just out of her prime. The kettle is yowling but she's ignoring it; maybe its sound is meant to cover up hers. Bobby watches his mother sob before he goes to her.
He still thinks she's beautiful.
Surely their mother would consider it a betrayal, but Sally and Bobby spend a lot of time at Megan's after the funeral. It's their job to dismantle what's left of the man they called their father and, in a strange way, it's satisfying. Sitting there with Sally and Gene and Maggie and Natalie, Megan stroking their hair every time she passes, feels more like a family than most times Bobby can remember.
Their dad doesn't have much in the way of personal effects – some books, some awards, mostly clothes. His office is still full of his particular cologne-and-smoke smell. Nat develops a tendency of crying unprompted. Bobby's still hovering in reaction limbo; he's abstractly certain that the whole thing hasn't hit him yet. His father was always something of a shadow or a cipher; if he's left a void, it's practically unnoticeable.
Bobby's about to get into the bourbon to get over feeling guilty about feeling nothing when Sally finds the box. "Bob," she calls, sounds shockingly uncertain, "come here."
He sits next to her on the floor of their dad's office like when they were kids. She hands him a stack of photographs. "I think this is dad."
Bobby touches the crumbling pictures. His dad had mentioned a farm once or twice.
"I remember," Sally says haltingly, "he told me once – I didn't even remember until I saw it on the back – he said his nickname was Dick sometimes."
That afternoon they learn all about Dick Whitman.
"You knew," Bobby accuses his mother. She smokes and smokes.
"Of course I knew." She puts her cigarette out. "Well, not for a while. He was a very private man." She holds the flicker of the lighter against the tip of a new cigarette. "Too private."
He and Sally work their way through their dad's last pack of Lucky Strikes on the porch, sun just setting, sky pink and yellow.
"We really lucked out with parents," Sally says tonelessly.
"They weren't that bad," Bobby says.
"Stop being so damn diplomatic all the time. Jesus."
"They weren't," he insists. "I mean, okay, distant. And sometimes it seemed like they really had no idea what they were doing. But you can't say they didn't…try to give us everything. And they loved us."
"They're liars," she says flatly. "Even Daddy. Especially Daddy." Sally exhales a cloud of smoke. "Isn't it bullshit Henry outlived him? Old fucker."
"Henry wasn't an alcoholic," Bobby says. He's not sure where it comes from; they're careful never to use that word when they talk about their father. "I'm sure that contributed."
He meets Ms. Olsen for lunch.
"I'm surprised you wanted to see me," she says in her soft little voice. She sounds much younger than she really is. She offers him a small smile and shakes her head. "No, actually I'm not. I don't know why I said that."
"You were really close to him," Bobby says, letting the unspoken question linger. Sometime when he was sixteen his mother came back tipsy from a party and the resultant fight with Sally left them with a lot more information about their father's sex life than they ever wanted.
"We were colleagues," Ms. Olsen says firmly. "And friends. That's all."
Bobby nods. Her eyes are clear and blue and guileless. She doesn't seem the type to lie. "Ms. Olsen –"
"You can call me Peggy." The waitress sets down their meals and Peggy thanks her with a warm smile. "I don't stand on ceremony."
"Peggy," Bobby acknowledges. "Is there –" He's not sure how to phrase it. He's not sure how to say I lived my whole life certain I never knew who my father really was and now I won't ever know. He looks at her helplessly. "Is there anything you can tell me about him?"
Peggy gives him a soft, sad look and really thinks about it, taking a long, thoughtful sip of tea. She is silent for a while. "He was a very hard man to get to know," she says finally. "I'm never sure if any of us really did know him. He wanted a lot, does that make sense?"
Bobby nods. "Do you think he ever got it?"
"I don't know," Peggy says honestly. "Do any of us, really?"
Characters: Bobby Draper. Also Sally, Betty, Don, Peggy.
Word Count: 2542
Rating: PG
Summary: Bobby's not as angry as Sally, never has been – but he's younger, he supposes, he didn't see it fall apart like she did.
Note: This is set in the future, post-series. I was kind of loose with time and background info, but just in case it isn't clear: Betty stayed married to Henry and they had another son (Billy) and Don married Megan and they had two kids (Maggie and Natalie). Idk where this came from really, I suppose I just feel bad that no one gives an eff about Bobby. For Theresa, since you prompted me Mad Men fic like 900 years ago. :)
October, 1976
Admittedly, Bobby doesn't remember much from the time his parents were married. He doesn't remember a helluva lot from his childhood in Ossining, except maybe Sally beating him up a lot and his grandfather dying and Carla. He doesn't really remember the kids from the neighborhood or anything; they all blend together, all the neighborhoods he'd lived in growing up, just a collection of houses and sunlight and lawn.
He has trouble recalling what his parents were like together. There's the image of his mother behind the kitchen counter with her hand on her hip and a cigarette held to her lips, looking vaguely annoyed. Bobby remembers thinking she was beautiful. He still thinks that.
It's hard to remember his father in that old house. There are fleeting impressions, maybe – the tone of his dad's low voice, how rare it was that he would speak. That was his father – a quiet reassuring voice and two arms around him, the most transitory and solid presence Bobby had ever known.
Bobby doesn't say a lot himself. What's the point? Sally says enough for everyone. As he got older, it would drive his mother crazy; any time they would fight she'd snap at him, "You're just like your father!"
"She says that to all of us when she's mad," Sally says with a roll of her eyes. She's sitting the way Mom hates, with her dusty platforms up on the coffee table. "'Cept the little golden boy, of course."
"Don't talk about him like he's not our brother," Bobby says, for what feels like the millionth time. "We've got the same mother."
"She's not my mother," Sally spits.
It's his turn to roll his eyes. He's not as angry as Sally, never has been – but he's younger, he supposes, he didn't see it fall apart like she did.
"This is what families do," he reminds her. They're lucky. Mike Reid's dad got remarried three times after the divorce. "When they split up. They get married to new people, they start new families.
Sally lights a cigarette. Lucky Strikes, like Dad's. "Exactly," she says, blowing smoke at him as though to say point made. "New families. Not ours. God, Gene's lucky I didn't chuck him out when he was born."
Bobby shakes his head. He hates when she says stuff like that – and she always does. Sally calls it being honest. She thinks everyone should always know exactly what you think of them. Bobby calls it being a bitch – but he only does that in private.
Sally won't even call their mother "Mom" anymore; sarcastic as ever, coming in too late or leaving too early, tromping around their house, Sally only ever calls her, "Betts."
Bobby wouldn't ever admit it but secretly he agrees with Sally. Shared parents or not, they don't feel like a family. It's like everything and everyone after the divorce stopped counting and Gene – well, he might as well be Henry's son when it's all said and done. Bobby still feels like it's just him and Sally, no one else.
Which is a stupid and irrational way to look at it. On the one branch there's them and Gene; on another, Billy and, Bobby supposes, Henry's daughter. The girls are a third; they seldom see them, though. It's a lot of fucking people at the end of the day.
After the blowout that will eventually send Sally out of their house and into her boyfriend's, Bobby finds his mother standing behind the kitchen counter with dinner abandoned in front of her. She quit smoking a few years ago but her secret pack is open and half-empty in her hand; a small dish functions as her ashtray. "Well," she says sharply, "did you hear it?"
Bobby shrugs, then shakes his head. "I put on a record."
Mom harrumphs. "She thinks she knows everything."
"She's always been like that. That's just Sally."
"You know," his mother continues, as if he hadn't spoken, lighting a new cigarette, "I have to play the devil in this little parable and your father is the big hero but – " She inhales and exhales rapidly. "I've always been very careful not to badmouth your father – " (not always true) " – but he's not everything you kids seem to think he is."
Bobby's never had the stars in his eyes about their dad that Sally does and he likes to think he knows where he stands. Once his father had promised Bobby that he'd never lie to him. Bobby had never forgotten and, when it really mattered, his father hadn't either.
Mom never really makes promises. Not ones you can believe.
Sally leans against the counter, cigarette held loosely to her lips, occasionally flicking the ash onto a small ceramic plate their mother got as a wedding present (which wedding remains unclear). She's got one hand on her hip, observing Gene's chatter with a mild look of annoyance. Her hair is past her shoulders now, still light from the summer, and she's not wearing any makeup. She looks so much like their mother that it's almost tragic.
It's not so much in her features as it is in her expressions, the cold set of her thin shoulders, the arrogant way she holds that cigarette aloft.
Bobby realizes he's never seen his mother without makeup. Even the in the morning, shuffling in her housedress with her hair swept back, there'd been powder on her face or lipstick, bracelets on her wrists and the whole deal, all her motherly attributes. She never stood with Sally's carelessness or kicked her feet on top of the table. He figures even without makeup she'd probably look made up.
Bobby sometimes wonders if things like that happen by accident or not. If he and Sally had grown up across the country, far away from their parents, would they still have ended up just like them?
Bobby's father has softened with the years, gone quieter and grayer, and though it's no easier to make him smile, he's somehow relieved. His defenses aren't up like they once were. He looks good for a man in his fifties who, Bobby now knows, spent more time drinking and smoking than a person rightfully should. He still looks mostly how Bobby remembers him, down to the suits, and it's that more than anything else that's beginning to make him seem like an old man.
"How are you doing at school, Bobby?"
It's the same question Bobby's heard nearly every day of his life for as long as he can remember. "It's school," he says with a shrug. Tentatively, he says, "I was considering…leaving. Leaving school."
He'll never figure out why he told his dad first.
"And doing what?" Dad asks, leaning back in his chair, surveying Bobby in that way of his.
"Uh." Bobby shrugs, uncomfortable. "Sort of. Music. I wanted to – you know, maybe go out West. The music scene there's really – really – "
"That guitar of yours, huh?"
Bobby's surprised he even noticed. "Yeah."
Dad nods a little, rising to refresh his drink. "You don't want to be a teacher? Took long enough to convince your mother of that. She's still hoping you'll take to the law."
"I don't want to be a teacher," Bobby says. He just wants to be Bob Dylan.
His dad gives him another of those long observing looks. "Think it through before you decide," he says finally. "You're lucky to have the chance to go to school." He studies Bobby another moment before saying, "You're the only one who controls your life."
Bobby nods. His throat feels tight and, without meaning to, he says, "I love you, Dad."
His dad doesn't quite smile or frown but his mouth twitches and he seems both sad and pleased. "I love you too, Bobby."
Bobby's twenty-three when his dad dies. He never did go to LA. The only time his guitar gets played is for the six year olds in his class.
Sally cuts her hair short when Dad dies, cropped close to her head, and wears mascara and smokes. Mom tuts to little avail.
They sit in birth order in the first pew of the church, Sally by the aisle and Megan at the far end after her daughters. Their mother and Henry sit behind them. All things considered, the church is fairly full, though they're all people Bobby doesn't know. Some people must be from the ad days but Sally would recognize them better.
After, at the house his father shared with Megan, Bobby piles his plate up with food he's not going to touch. He ignores the table with all the liquor, where Sally's parked herself, glaring and swilling bourbon. Her boyfriend is the only person brave enough to sit with her – he's the strong but silent type, a tall man everyone mostly likes and no one really knows.
"Hello – you're Bobby, aren't you?"
He turns; a woman probably younger than his mother is watching him expectantly with her bag clasped in one hand and the other extended and ready to shake his. "I'm Bobby," he confirms.
"I'm not sure if you remember me," the woman says. "My name is Peggy Olsen? I worked with your father at SCDP."
"Oh. Right. Ms. Olsen. It's been awhile."
"You're all grown up," she says then cringes at herself. It brings a smile to Bobby's face. Her eyes travel over him. "I know you aren’t alright and I know this won't mean very much, but I am sorry."
Bobby nods like he's been doing all day, thank you poised on his tongue, but there's something serious and intent in her face that pauses him, that make the words come out genuinely when they finally do.
Bobby stays at his mother's after, more for Gene's sake than any other reason. It's an exercise in futility. Gene's got little interest in being older-brother-ed this late in their lives together, especially when he's got Billy to boss around.
The night of the funeral he finds his mother crying. It's shocking to see her like that, sobbing away in the kitchen. It's not like he's never seen her cry before, it's just – he's never seen her so exposed. He can't imagine there was ever any affection lost between his parents.
She cries into still-smooth hands, nail polish matched to her lipstick like always. It strikes Bobby that this is the most she's looked like the mother from his childhood since she married Henry: her coral nails and lips, the blunt softness of her dyed hair, a sensible black dress and a small square diamond at her throat. She looks like a movie star or something, aging just out of her prime. The kettle is yowling but she's ignoring it; maybe its sound is meant to cover up hers. Bobby watches his mother sob before he goes to her.
He still thinks she's beautiful.
Surely their mother would consider it a betrayal, but Sally and Bobby spend a lot of time at Megan's after the funeral. It's their job to dismantle what's left of the man they called their father and, in a strange way, it's satisfying. Sitting there with Sally and Gene and Maggie and Natalie, Megan stroking their hair every time she passes, feels more like a family than most times Bobby can remember.
Their dad doesn't have much in the way of personal effects – some books, some awards, mostly clothes. His office is still full of his particular cologne-and-smoke smell. Nat develops a tendency of crying unprompted. Bobby's still hovering in reaction limbo; he's abstractly certain that the whole thing hasn't hit him yet. His father was always something of a shadow or a cipher; if he's left a void, it's practically unnoticeable.
Bobby's about to get into the bourbon to get over feeling guilty about feeling nothing when Sally finds the box. "Bob," she calls, sounds shockingly uncertain, "come here."
He sits next to her on the floor of their dad's office like when they were kids. She hands him a stack of photographs. "I think this is dad."
Bobby touches the crumbling pictures. His dad had mentioned a farm once or twice.
"I remember," Sally says haltingly, "he told me once – I didn't even remember until I saw it on the back – he said his nickname was Dick sometimes."
That afternoon they learn all about Dick Whitman.
"You knew," Bobby accuses his mother. She smokes and smokes.
"Of course I knew." She puts her cigarette out. "Well, not for a while. He was a very private man." She holds the flicker of the lighter against the tip of a new cigarette. "Too private."
He and Sally work their way through their dad's last pack of Lucky Strikes on the porch, sun just setting, sky pink and yellow.
"We really lucked out with parents," Sally says tonelessly.
"They weren't that bad," Bobby says.
"Stop being so damn diplomatic all the time. Jesus."
"They weren't," he insists. "I mean, okay, distant. And sometimes it seemed like they really had no idea what they were doing. But you can't say they didn't…try to give us everything. And they loved us."
"They're liars," she says flatly. "Even Daddy. Especially Daddy." Sally exhales a cloud of smoke. "Isn't it bullshit Henry outlived him? Old fucker."
"Henry wasn't an alcoholic," Bobby says. He's not sure where it comes from; they're careful never to use that word when they talk about their father. "I'm sure that contributed."
He meets Ms. Olsen for lunch.
"I'm surprised you wanted to see me," she says in her soft little voice. She sounds much younger than she really is. She offers him a small smile and shakes her head. "No, actually I'm not. I don't know why I said that."
"You were really close to him," Bobby says, letting the unspoken question linger. Sometime when he was sixteen his mother came back tipsy from a party and the resultant fight with Sally left them with a lot more information about their father's sex life than they ever wanted.
"We were colleagues," Ms. Olsen says firmly. "And friends. That's all."
Bobby nods. Her eyes are clear and blue and guileless. She doesn't seem the type to lie. "Ms. Olsen –"
"You can call me Peggy." The waitress sets down their meals and Peggy thanks her with a warm smile. "I don't stand on ceremony."
"Peggy," Bobby acknowledges. "Is there –" He's not sure how to phrase it. He's not sure how to say I lived my whole life certain I never knew who my father really was and now I won't ever know. He looks at her helplessly. "Is there anything you can tell me about him?"
Peggy gives him a soft, sad look and really thinks about it, taking a long, thoughtful sip of tea. She is silent for a while. "He was a very hard man to get to know," she says finally. "I'm never sure if any of us really did know him. He wanted a lot, does that make sense?"
Bobby nods. "Do you think he ever got it?"
"I don't know," Peggy says honestly. "Do any of us, really?"
