Post by matt on May 15, 2022 12:31:10 GMT -6
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Boston, Massachusetts
Off Camera
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Having fun, entertaining people; those are just two items that Glory had slowly but surely forgotten over the years of her professional wrestling career. She gained instant success from the very date of her professional debut, and perhaps that instant success was ultimately the cause of all of her problems? The success went to her head and slowly she began to change; her personality changed, she became more condescending and self-righteous. Braddock went from not giving a damn about her appearance to buying the finest of the fine of luxury attire. In her mind, image was everything. Braddock started out her career in 2008 as a unique new addition to professional wrestling but over the years she realized she became just another dime a dozen egomaniac. Worse still, she lost her enjoyment of wrestling. It became a chore and if she did not win her match then she felt as if she was a failure.
Yet none of this would have happened were it not for Fiona Osbourne and Amelia Stone, two young women, one of whom is a student learning the craft and in Amelia’s case a wrestler who just recently made her debut. The British Bombshell has taken both of them under her wing to mentor them; but she fought against the idea at first. Braddock did not initially want to mentor them. It took pressure and convincing from several individuals close to Glory in order for her to change her mind. Her sister Julia, her cousins Angelica and Kayla, and even Glory’s own husband Kurt did their part in pressuring Glory Braddock. But none more so than her own mother, Mary Ford Kurinsky.
This weekend Glory Braddock has decided to pay a visit to her mother, who lives in Boston, Massachusetts. The British Bombshell feels she owes it to her mom to pay her a visit. After all, out of everyone who pressured Glory into mentoring Fiona and Amelia, Glory gave her mother the most grief of them all. The guilt she feels over the things she said to her mother has overwhelmed Glory. And yet her mother was right all along. It is time for Glory to eat some crow in front of Mary.
Braddock is approaching the front door of her mother’s small, quaint Victorian home in Boston, Massachusetts. The British Bombshell is dressed in denim jeans, white sneakers, a black t-shirt, a royal purple windbreaker jacket, and a matching royal purple baseball cap. Her long blonde hair is pulled into a ponytail in the back. Glory did not inform Mary ahead of time that she was coming; she wants to surprise her. For Mary, this will be a surprise. Glory does not visit her mother as often as she should. That is another reason for the guilt Glory currently feels. The British Bombshell steps up to the door and rings the doorbell. The wait isn’t long before the door opens and Glory finds her mother standing there in the doorway.
“Gloria?” Mary says with a pleasantly surprised look on her face. The older woman is wearing a black blouse, a black skirt, and heels. Her hair is graying. Glory, with a grin on her face, nods her head.
“Yeah, it’s me. Surprise!” Glory steps forward and enters the home, crossing the threshold and embracing Mary with a tight hug. Eventually the embrace is broken. Mary steps back and takes an appraisal of her daughter. She scratches her chin as she looks over The British Bombshell.
“Your father’s little tomboy is back.”
“Yeah, yeah she is,” Glory says with a soft chuckle “you’re not disappointed are you?”
“Of course not.” Mary insists, shaking her head. “To be honest, this is the real you anyway. In my opinion, at least.” Mary takes her daughter by the hand and slowly guides her out of the hallway and through a door. She leads her into the living room. Glory has been here before and recognizes the older, antiquated furniture. Mary gets this taste from being married to Glenn Braddock for so long. The biggest difference between Glory’s mother and father is that Mary at least keeps everything clean as a whistle. Glenn never gave a damn to clean anything.
“Sit down, Gloria.” Mary says motioning to the plaid sofa. Braddock does so. “What do you want to drink?”
“Nothing for me, mom.”
“Suit yourself; I am going to get a bottle of vodka.”
“Vodka?” Braddock asks curiously. Mary nods her head with a playful smirk.
“I’m Russian, my child. Of course I want vodka.”
Glory watches as her mother disappears into another room, presumably the kitchen. She sometimes forgets her own mother’s dangerous history. Mary and her sister Kelly were the children of an ex KGB agent during the former Soviet Union. Their family defected and they escaped to the United States. They changed their surname from Kurinsky to Ford in order to help keep themselves under the radar. Both Kelly and Mary would go on to have families of their own; Kelly had two children, Angelica and Kayla Jones. Mary would move back to Europe where she met Glenn Braddock. They had children, Glory and Julia. Most attribute Glory’s toughness to being the daughter of Glenn Braddock, but they do not know of the difficulty Mary and her family had to endure.
A few moments later and Mary returns to the living room. She has a bottle of vodka and an empty glass with her. She pours some vodka into the empty glass and then offers it out to Glory. “Are you sure you don’t want any, dear?”
“No, absolutely not.” Glory shakes her head. “I hate vodka…”
“You are part Russian, so you love vodka. You just don’t know it yet.” Mary says with a wink. Braddock rolls her eyes but still rejects the vodka. Mary shrugs and sets the bottle on a nearby coffee table. Mary sits down on the sofa next to her daughter and sips on the vodka.
“You know, Gloria, I am happy that you are returning to your roots. The fact that your father’s tomboy has returned is evidence of that; but I somewhat doubt you can get away with that at any of your board meetings.”
“You’re right, but if I ever have to go to any future board meetings, I can just wear a pantsuit.”
“Your father would roll over in his grave, you know that right?”
“I know.” Glory chuckles. “He would say that I looked Hillary Clinton.”
“You would. Especially if you cut your hair.” Mary points a finger in Glory’s face. “Do NOT cut your hair!”
“I won’t!” Glory says while giggling.
“Good.” Mary takes another sip of vodka. “Now as much as I am enjoying your company, I doubt you would have made the trek from Miami to Boston just to spend time with me like a pair of clucking hens. So tell me, Gloria, what’s on your mind?”
“Well you’re right again, mom. What I came here for has nothing to do with hens; it actually has more to do with crow…” Braddock sighs “...and namely, me eating crow.”
“Oh?”
“I don’t know if you remember that incident a few months ago. We had an argument and I lost my temper. I yelled at you and…” Glory loses her voice and her train of thought as she recalls the frightening moment when her mother had a heart attack. Glory still blames herself for sending her mother into the heart attack.
“Yes, I remember, but if this is another apology then you should stop right now. I already told you that you have no need to apologize. It wasn’t your fault.”
“I know,” Glory, nodding her head, says “but I’m not here to apologize. I’m here to tell you that you were right.”
“Right about what?” Mary says with a knowing grin.
“Bloody hell, mom, you know what you were right about! The argument! Surely you remember what we were arguing about?”
“Yes, yes, of course I remember.” Mary says with a low chuckle of her own. “I just can’t help giving you a little grief.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. You of all people should know that I followed the careers of my nieces, your cousins Angelica and Kayla, very closely. So of course I would follow the career of my own daughter even closer. I have noticed you working closely in recent weeks with young Amelia. And Kayla told me about how you recently took in Fiona, gave her a place to live, and even stood up for her against her foster father. So now you’re mentoring not just Fiona, but Amelia as well. How is that new situation going for you?”
Braddock sighs deeply as she ponders this very loaded question. She never anticipated actually going along with Mary’s proposal to mentor anyone, let alone two women. Yet now Glory Braddock has taken both Fiona and Amelia under her wing and this new mentorship has changed Glory drastically.
“I have to admit, mom, I was scared.”
“Scared? You, scared?”
“Don’t mock me.” Glory says laughing softly. “But yeah, I was scared. I was scared of what mentoring them, taking them under my wing on a 24/7 basis, would do to me.” Glory scoffs. “Actually, I take that back; I KNEW exactly what it would do to me. I knew what you, Kayla, and the others were hoping it would do to me.”
“No, no, no,” Mary shakes her head “wrong. Your cousin may have had ulterior motives but I just wanted what was best for you. I always knew that you were at your best when you were helping people, and while I am not as familiar with Amelia, I do know for a fact that Fiona needed your help.” Mary sips on her vodka. “But seeing that Fiona and Amelia had a mostly positive impact on you is a plus.”
“You can deny it, Kayla can deny it, but I am certain that this was a setup from the beginning. You knew that Fiona and Amelia’s youthfulness, energy, enthusiasm, and playfulness would bring…well…it would bring this back! It would bring back Glory the tomboy, the prankster.” Glory pauses a for moment, her eyes meet with her mother’s, and then a wide grin forms on Glory’s face. “And I am so glad that you set me up.”
“You are?”
“I thought I had matured and the person I had become was who I needed to be; but when I took in Fiona, and later Amelia, I began to realize that I had become my father.”
“Now Gloria, your father may have been flawed but he was a good man.” She sips on her vodka again. Glory nods her head in agreement.
“Yes, but even he admitted in his later years, shortly before he died, that while he was still passionate about wrestling he never did truly enjoy it anymore. He lost his enjoyment for wrestling and I had lost it too. I was passionate to the point of obsessed with protecting wrestling, but in the process I lost any and all joy and fun I got out of competing. I forgot how to have fun altogether.”
“That’s all I wanted…” Mary says slowly as she reaches out and places a hand on her daughter’s shoulder “...that’s all I ever wanted to teach you. See, Gloria, when your father and I divorced, it got ugly, uglier than it should have been. Your father and I battled bitterly over custody of you and your sister.”
“He won.” Glory states, remembering this childhood memory well. Mary nods her head, wiping a tear from her eye.
“Yes, and when he did win custody of you I was devastated. He didn’t just win custody, he won FULL custody. He wasn’t even required to give me visitation.”
“Normally the mother wins in custody battles.” Glory states. Mary again nods her head.
“Right, but your father was so popular and had so many connections, and he used that popularity and connections to the judgment he wanted. Realizing that I wouldn’t get a chance to see you, I ran away. I ran back to the United States. Looking back I should have stayed and tried to work things out with your father.” Mary sighs deeply. “Glory, your father and I both made mistakes. At the end of his life, he did his best to correct his mistakes. And I know I am nearing the end of my own life.”
“Don’t say that, mom.” Glory says, shaking her head vehemently. “You have a lot of time left.”
“We don’t know the day or the hour, my child. But I do feel that my time is coming and I wanted to do whatever I could to make up for lost time. I wanted to correct my own mistakes. I should have been there in your formative years, guiding you, and helping you along. But I was too afraid of your father. So what I did in trying to play puppeteer, putting you with Fiona…that was just me trying to help guide you. I apologize if I was butting in.”
“Thanks, mom. Thank you for butting in.” Braddock leans in and embraces her mother in another tight hug. “Now I think I will have some of that vodka now…”
“I knew you were part Russian!” The two share a laugh as Mary picks up the bottle and hands it to Glory.
Boston, Massachusetts
Off Camera
==========
Having fun, entertaining people; those are just two items that Glory had slowly but surely forgotten over the years of her professional wrestling career. She gained instant success from the very date of her professional debut, and perhaps that instant success was ultimately the cause of all of her problems? The success went to her head and slowly she began to change; her personality changed, she became more condescending and self-righteous. Braddock went from not giving a damn about her appearance to buying the finest of the fine of luxury attire. In her mind, image was everything. Braddock started out her career in 2008 as a unique new addition to professional wrestling but over the years she realized she became just another dime a dozen egomaniac. Worse still, she lost her enjoyment of wrestling. It became a chore and if she did not win her match then she felt as if she was a failure.
Yet none of this would have happened were it not for Fiona Osbourne and Amelia Stone, two young women, one of whom is a student learning the craft and in Amelia’s case a wrestler who just recently made her debut. The British Bombshell has taken both of them under her wing to mentor them; but she fought against the idea at first. Braddock did not initially want to mentor them. It took pressure and convincing from several individuals close to Glory in order for her to change her mind. Her sister Julia, her cousins Angelica and Kayla, and even Glory’s own husband Kurt did their part in pressuring Glory Braddock. But none more so than her own mother, Mary Ford Kurinsky.
This weekend Glory Braddock has decided to pay a visit to her mother, who lives in Boston, Massachusetts. The British Bombshell feels she owes it to her mom to pay her a visit. After all, out of everyone who pressured Glory into mentoring Fiona and Amelia, Glory gave her mother the most grief of them all. The guilt she feels over the things she said to her mother has overwhelmed Glory. And yet her mother was right all along. It is time for Glory to eat some crow in front of Mary.
Braddock is approaching the front door of her mother’s small, quaint Victorian home in Boston, Massachusetts. The British Bombshell is dressed in denim jeans, white sneakers, a black t-shirt, a royal purple windbreaker jacket, and a matching royal purple baseball cap. Her long blonde hair is pulled into a ponytail in the back. Glory did not inform Mary ahead of time that she was coming; she wants to surprise her. For Mary, this will be a surprise. Glory does not visit her mother as often as she should. That is another reason for the guilt Glory currently feels. The British Bombshell steps up to the door and rings the doorbell. The wait isn’t long before the door opens and Glory finds her mother standing there in the doorway.
“Gloria?” Mary says with a pleasantly surprised look on her face. The older woman is wearing a black blouse, a black skirt, and heels. Her hair is graying. Glory, with a grin on her face, nods her head.
“Yeah, it’s me. Surprise!” Glory steps forward and enters the home, crossing the threshold and embracing Mary with a tight hug. Eventually the embrace is broken. Mary steps back and takes an appraisal of her daughter. She scratches her chin as she looks over The British Bombshell.
“Your father’s little tomboy is back.”
“Yeah, yeah she is,” Glory says with a soft chuckle “you’re not disappointed are you?”
“Of course not.” Mary insists, shaking her head. “To be honest, this is the real you anyway. In my opinion, at least.” Mary takes her daughter by the hand and slowly guides her out of the hallway and through a door. She leads her into the living room. Glory has been here before and recognizes the older, antiquated furniture. Mary gets this taste from being married to Glenn Braddock for so long. The biggest difference between Glory’s mother and father is that Mary at least keeps everything clean as a whistle. Glenn never gave a damn to clean anything.
“Sit down, Gloria.” Mary says motioning to the plaid sofa. Braddock does so. “What do you want to drink?”
“Nothing for me, mom.”
“Suit yourself; I am going to get a bottle of vodka.”
“Vodka?” Braddock asks curiously. Mary nods her head with a playful smirk.
“I’m Russian, my child. Of course I want vodka.”
Glory watches as her mother disappears into another room, presumably the kitchen. She sometimes forgets her own mother’s dangerous history. Mary and her sister Kelly were the children of an ex KGB agent during the former Soviet Union. Their family defected and they escaped to the United States. They changed their surname from Kurinsky to Ford in order to help keep themselves under the radar. Both Kelly and Mary would go on to have families of their own; Kelly had two children, Angelica and Kayla Jones. Mary would move back to Europe where she met Glenn Braddock. They had children, Glory and Julia. Most attribute Glory’s toughness to being the daughter of Glenn Braddock, but they do not know of the difficulty Mary and her family had to endure.
A few moments later and Mary returns to the living room. She has a bottle of vodka and an empty glass with her. She pours some vodka into the empty glass and then offers it out to Glory. “Are you sure you don’t want any, dear?”
“No, absolutely not.” Glory shakes her head. “I hate vodka…”
“You are part Russian, so you love vodka. You just don’t know it yet.” Mary says with a wink. Braddock rolls her eyes but still rejects the vodka. Mary shrugs and sets the bottle on a nearby coffee table. Mary sits down on the sofa next to her daughter and sips on the vodka.
“You know, Gloria, I am happy that you are returning to your roots. The fact that your father’s tomboy has returned is evidence of that; but I somewhat doubt you can get away with that at any of your board meetings.”
“You’re right, but if I ever have to go to any future board meetings, I can just wear a pantsuit.”
“Your father would roll over in his grave, you know that right?”
“I know.” Glory chuckles. “He would say that I looked Hillary Clinton.”
“You would. Especially if you cut your hair.” Mary points a finger in Glory’s face. “Do NOT cut your hair!”
“I won’t!” Glory says while giggling.
“Good.” Mary takes another sip of vodka. “Now as much as I am enjoying your company, I doubt you would have made the trek from Miami to Boston just to spend time with me like a pair of clucking hens. So tell me, Gloria, what’s on your mind?”
“Well you’re right again, mom. What I came here for has nothing to do with hens; it actually has more to do with crow…” Braddock sighs “...and namely, me eating crow.”
“Oh?”
“I don’t know if you remember that incident a few months ago. We had an argument and I lost my temper. I yelled at you and…” Glory loses her voice and her train of thought as she recalls the frightening moment when her mother had a heart attack. Glory still blames herself for sending her mother into the heart attack.
“Yes, I remember, but if this is another apology then you should stop right now. I already told you that you have no need to apologize. It wasn’t your fault.”
“I know,” Glory, nodding her head, says “but I’m not here to apologize. I’m here to tell you that you were right.”
“Right about what?” Mary says with a knowing grin.
“Bloody hell, mom, you know what you were right about! The argument! Surely you remember what we were arguing about?”
“Yes, yes, of course I remember.” Mary says with a low chuckle of her own. “I just can’t help giving you a little grief.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. You of all people should know that I followed the careers of my nieces, your cousins Angelica and Kayla, very closely. So of course I would follow the career of my own daughter even closer. I have noticed you working closely in recent weeks with young Amelia. And Kayla told me about how you recently took in Fiona, gave her a place to live, and even stood up for her against her foster father. So now you’re mentoring not just Fiona, but Amelia as well. How is that new situation going for you?”
Braddock sighs deeply as she ponders this very loaded question. She never anticipated actually going along with Mary’s proposal to mentor anyone, let alone two women. Yet now Glory Braddock has taken both Fiona and Amelia under her wing and this new mentorship has changed Glory drastically.
“I have to admit, mom, I was scared.”
“Scared? You, scared?”
“Don’t mock me.” Glory says laughing softly. “But yeah, I was scared. I was scared of what mentoring them, taking them under my wing on a 24/7 basis, would do to me.” Glory scoffs. “Actually, I take that back; I KNEW exactly what it would do to me. I knew what you, Kayla, and the others were hoping it would do to me.”
“No, no, no,” Mary shakes her head “wrong. Your cousin may have had ulterior motives but I just wanted what was best for you. I always knew that you were at your best when you were helping people, and while I am not as familiar with Amelia, I do know for a fact that Fiona needed your help.” Mary sips on her vodka. “But seeing that Fiona and Amelia had a mostly positive impact on you is a plus.”
“You can deny it, Kayla can deny it, but I am certain that this was a setup from the beginning. You knew that Fiona and Amelia’s youthfulness, energy, enthusiasm, and playfulness would bring…well…it would bring this back! It would bring back Glory the tomboy, the prankster.” Glory pauses a for moment, her eyes meet with her mother’s, and then a wide grin forms on Glory’s face. “And I am so glad that you set me up.”
“You are?”
“I thought I had matured and the person I had become was who I needed to be; but when I took in Fiona, and later Amelia, I began to realize that I had become my father.”
“Now Gloria, your father may have been flawed but he was a good man.” She sips on her vodka again. Glory nods her head in agreement.
“Yes, but even he admitted in his later years, shortly before he died, that while he was still passionate about wrestling he never did truly enjoy it anymore. He lost his enjoyment for wrestling and I had lost it too. I was passionate to the point of obsessed with protecting wrestling, but in the process I lost any and all joy and fun I got out of competing. I forgot how to have fun altogether.”
“That’s all I wanted…” Mary says slowly as she reaches out and places a hand on her daughter’s shoulder “...that’s all I ever wanted to teach you. See, Gloria, when your father and I divorced, it got ugly, uglier than it should have been. Your father and I battled bitterly over custody of you and your sister.”
“He won.” Glory states, remembering this childhood memory well. Mary nods her head, wiping a tear from her eye.
“Yes, and when he did win custody of you I was devastated. He didn’t just win custody, he won FULL custody. He wasn’t even required to give me visitation.”
“Normally the mother wins in custody battles.” Glory states. Mary again nods her head.
“Right, but your father was so popular and had so many connections, and he used that popularity and connections to the judgment he wanted. Realizing that I wouldn’t get a chance to see you, I ran away. I ran back to the United States. Looking back I should have stayed and tried to work things out with your father.” Mary sighs deeply. “Glory, your father and I both made mistakes. At the end of his life, he did his best to correct his mistakes. And I know I am nearing the end of my own life.”
“Don’t say that, mom.” Glory says, shaking her head vehemently. “You have a lot of time left.”
“We don’t know the day or the hour, my child. But I do feel that my time is coming and I wanted to do whatever I could to make up for lost time. I wanted to correct my own mistakes. I should have been there in your formative years, guiding you, and helping you along. But I was too afraid of your father. So what I did in trying to play puppeteer, putting you with Fiona…that was just me trying to help guide you. I apologize if I was butting in.”
“Thanks, mom. Thank you for butting in.” Braddock leans in and embraces her mother in another tight hug. “Now I think I will have some of that vodka now…”
“I knew you were part Russian!” The two share a laugh as Mary picks up the bottle and hands it to Glory.