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Part V
Elly was the first one who made contact, the first one who tried
to contact the other one after that fated Dayton Mall meeting,
the first one who attempted to start the love relationship. She
called one Friday evening, I think it was the Friday after we
had met each other on the Mall, while I was showering, trying to
wash away the sweat and dirt that had clung to me during the
football game. My brother Jess had answered the phone, and had
copied her phone number down for me.
I didn’t call her first, not because of cowardcy, but because I
had completely forgotten her phone number, and I had never heard
about her last name. And that’s what I told her as I called
back, my voice showing a little sign of embarrassment and shame.
she had asked me if my father and I would want to go fishing on
Sunday, and I had agreed to it, knowing that my father wouldn’t
deny it, since it was about fishing in his free day. And he
didn’t deny it, just as I had predicted.
So that was our first so-called date, as we fished with my dad
and her red-mustached uncle. I had learned that her parents had
died in a plane accident, on their way back form a Bahamas
vacation. She didn’t go that time, because her parents wanted a
month-long vacation, and Elly was left behind with her uncle,
since school was just in the middle of second semester. Her
parents had always considered school more important than a silly
vacation. She was in the sixth grade then, an orphan from dead
parents.
That was when she was adopted by her uncle, who had no child of
his own, because something was wrong with the Mrs.'s
reproductive system, or something like that. that was the time
that my dad and Elly’s uncle became fishing buddies, and I
started ‘dating’ Elly.
Elly’s uncle, who always insisted that I called him ‘Bob’, and
eyed me as if I would someday become Elly’s husband, was a
friendly guy. He was a rich guy, salary paid by the government,
which, in turn, was paid by the taxes of US taxpayers. Bob was
in the army, being a general or a colonel, or something that
sounded similar to that. Elly’s aunt, who was really antisocial,
at least to me, and seemed like a racist. She never seemed to
welcome me a lot when I came to Elly’s house, frowning her dull
brown eyes at my sight, and mumbling stuff that I couldn’t hear
as I passed her, watching me closely, as if I was a thief.
I never felt comfortable at Elly’s house because of her, so I
had to think of a reason and lie every time Elly and Bob asked
me to join them in their dinner. you could call it politeness if
you want, but I call it
to-avoid-the-cursing-stare-of-that-witch-woman! I learned about
Elly’s E-mail address during my first visit, and I gave her
mine.
I had forgotten about how Rick had dumped Stephanie the next
time I saw Rick, the Sunday after the phone call in April 30.
And because I had forgotten it, I didn’t mention anything to my
drinking buddy Rick, and just sat down on his backyard as
always, drinking cans and cans of beer, getting as drunk as our
bodies would let us.
I saw the dawn that Sunday, my eyes half-open by the rising sun,
half-closed by the beer alcohol. It was a beautiful sunrise, no
clouds seen in the horizon, no rain clouds obscuring the first
light of the day. I realized that I was still in Rick’s
backyard. So I got up, and walked past the drunk Rick, who was
lying just a couple of feet away, beer cans outlining his
unconscious body.
The walk home seemed to have burned the alcohol down, for I felt
sleepy no more as I walked into the kitchen of my home, though
that open backdoor. I lied on my bed for a few minutes, not
because I was full of sleep, but because my body was worn out by
the alcohol abuse and that sickening walk in the morning of the
dawn.
My eyes were closed during the first few minutes, but were open
during the last few minutes, staring up at that white painted
ceiling, which were now covered by little black spots of unknown
cause. I heard my dad’s alarm ring, I heard him get up and
getting ready of another fishing trip with Bob, arranged the
afternoon they were fishing in Spring Lake. I heard him start
the car, the clanking of fishing poles and empty barrels, his
heavy footsteps walking on the kitchen floor.
I waited till he was gone before I went into the shower, to wash
away any smell and aroma from the beer drinkings. I felt dizzy
as I showered, as if the blood had suddenly ran away from my
brain, refusing it the privilege of a sniff of fresh oxygen.
I felt too dizzy to stand there and shower, so I took a bath
instead, with hot water filling the bathtub. I still didn’t like
hot water, but since I was taking a bath, it felt better to fill
it with hot water instead of a cold one, as if it was a kind of
unwritten rule. My mom woke up later, and asked me about the
bath. “I had a cramp.” I replied, since I always took hot baths
when I had a cramp, hoping that the heat therapy would cure the
cramp. She nodded her head and went on brushing her teeth and
hair.
I fell asleep in the bathtub after she left for her work at
Ryan’s Steakhouse, and dreamt the same dream I had during Senior
skip day, the dream about Elly, who was called Linda in the
dream, being shot by the Nazi-uniformed people. I was woken up a
couple of hours later by the low temperature of the bath water,
which had been decreasing ever since I fell asleep.
I let the water out and took a real shower, a hot one to warm my
skin up. I dressed up after the shower, and went out into the
living room. My brother was playing Playstation already, so I
let him play, since I wasn’t in the mood to chase him off my
videogame system. So I went to the computer room instead, which
was my parent’s master room, where the computer was installed in
a sunny corner of the room.
I went into the Internet to check out if there were any new
games for sale, and also to check if I got any E-mails
yesterday. I found Elly’s e-mail after a few seconds of
scanning, which asked me to go to her house to keep her company,
since she had caught the flu, and the disease had imprisoned her
onto her bed.
I replied that I would go as soon as possible, provided that I
found some transportation to take me there. And so, I walked
back to Rick’s house, and woke him up after a few light kicks on
his stomach and side, which really didn’t help on lightening his
drunken temper. Rick was still drunk as we sat down on his ’85
Mustang, and since I didn’t want to die on the way there, I
convinced him to let me drive the car. “So you can rest easily
on the passenger seat.” I told him.
He said okay, and since he was still to drunk to remember that I
didn’t have a license yet, handed the car keys. At least this
would increase our survival rates for a couple of percents.
I arrived at Elly’s house a few minutes later, when Rick was a
little more sober. I told him that I will call him up when I’m
ready to go back, and let him drive drunkenly back home, praying
that he got home safely. How selfish of me. But that thought
didn’t bother me then, as I walked up to knock on the giant
house’s white doors, crossing the vastness of the garden...
Norman, the butler of the ‘mansion’, opened the door for me. he
told me that Miss Elly was waiting for me in her room, and lead
me to it through the stairs-and-doors maze. Even though I had
been in Elly’s house for a couple of times now, I had never been
in her room before, since she always told me that it was kind of
private, and didn’t want me to see it in its messy state.
And so, I had reached the door with my guide Norman, who left me
as soon as he arrived, off to lead someone else through the
house maze. I entered the room after knocking and asking for
permission to enter. “Hi! I have an order for an extra anchovies
pizza,” Was what I actually said at first. “For a Miss Elly,
from someone called Tom.”
Her room was huge, about three times bigger than my own. A row
of stuffed bears, seals, cars and other stuffed animals filled a
corner of the blue-walled room. A skylight on the roof lighted
the room, as if the huge windows, which covered a whole wall,
wasn’t enough to cover the room. There was a desk with cabinets
on the corner opposite the side of the stuffed animals, which
held a computer on a corner of its wooden surface.
There was a door near the wooden desk, its surface also painted
blue to match the colors of the walls. “Big, huh?” I heard Elly
ask me as she saw the surprise displayed on my brown eyes. She
was lying on a huge king-size bed, on a corner near the
sunlight-flooding windows.
“I’d have to say huge!” I exclaimed with a smile. I had never
seen a room this big in my life, well, maybe with the exception
of Bob’s master bedroom. I still didn’t see how ‘messy’ the room
was, for it was way neater than mine was. If this was messy, I
wonder what it would look like in its ‘clean and arranged’
state.
The white shades were down over the window, covering some of the
pouring bright light. “Where does this door lead to?” I asked as
I pointed to the blue door, my curiosity once again winning
against my politeness.
“That’s the door to the restroom.” She replied, smiling. She
didn’t seem to be bothered by my curiosity, as I opened the door
and checked the place out. The whole room was covered by blue
tiles, a matching blue tub under a glass window, whose pink
cloth shades were now open, letting the light in from the
window. I let out an impressed wow as I walked into it, my eyes
wondering around, as if I was in a museum or something. Even the
toilet and the washstand matched the color of the floor and
walls, and a mirror opposite it, covering a wall all by itself.
I let the small mirror cabinet alone, which was only above the
blue washstand. “Wow, this restroom is bigger than the one my
house have!” I exclaimed, as I slowly walked out of the
restroom.
She sat on the king-size bed, whose wooden frames were also
painted of that same blue I saw on the restroom. She was wearing
a white T-shirt, a blue blanket covering her hips down, little
white stars sprinkled through the blue in the blanket.
“You must have a pretty small house.” She said.
“Well, I’m sure it didn’t look big from outside, did it?” I
smiled. Elly had always picked me up at the front of my house,
and even though she’s been there many times now, we’ve never
actually went inside the house, as we lingered on the backyard
for a while, before we set out on our shopping or fishing trip.
“It seemed like an average house.” She answered, probably out of
politeness.
“Well, still, it’s kind of cool having a restroom to call you
own.” I replied, as I sat down on the edge of her bed, my eyes
staring adoringly at her.
“It’s normal, almost every house have one like this.”
“No, it’s not normal to have one for your room.” I said as I
looked out the huge windows. It was such a nice view, kind of
reminds me of Rick’s backyard. You could look out and see the
neighborhood below you, their roofs greeting you under the shine
of the sun.
“That’s because you’ve never been to a lot of houses.”
“Right, whatever.” I replied, as I turned my attention back to
her. “How about you? You don’t seem that sick to me.”
“I’ll leave your opinions aside,” She replied with a smile.
“You’re just a boy, you know, not a doctor to give out
examinations.”
“Well, just to inform you further on my future plans of world
domination, Elly, I plan on going to medical school and becoming
a doctor.”
“Oh, really?” An amused smile flashed on her face. “And to which
college are you planning to go anyway?”
“I... I have no idea.” I replied, in an imitated British accent.
“You have no idea?” She repeated after me, a slight sign of
surprise on her green eyes. “Have you thought that you’re almost
a graduating senior?”
“Hey, I’m not the only graduating senior in this room, you
know.” I said as I sat closer to her, searching her eyes for any
deceiving lies. “How about you, Elly? To which college are you
going to?”
“Ohio State University.” She replied simply, without even a
second thought.
“Ohio State University?” I asked in an incredulous tone.
“Yeah, what’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing. Except that you will be a Miami Valley High School
graduate, and should be applying from Harvard instead, am I
right?”
“Why?”
“Well, you know,” I looked around embarrassingly, not knowing
how to explain this. “Good school, better colleges. Average
school, average colleges.”
“Your school is just as good as mine.” She replied in defense.
I rolled my eyes, looking out the window once again. “Wish
everyone could say that about Fairmont.” I said under my breath.
My cousins were graduates from Miami Valley School, and they
were always so superior because they knew way more stuff than
me. I often wondered if I could get through college as easily as
they did, since I will be graduating from what they call the
‘average’ school, a school of common stupids. Even though I
didn’t have any school spirit then, and I still have none now, I
did try to defend it, unsuccessfully, about some of the few, but
good points of Fairmont.
First of all, we didn’t have as much school or homework, which
means that we could enjoy more of our youth, and grow up with
fond memories of that youth, instead of feeling as if we’d been
working our whole lives, from school to actual professional
work. Of course, that defense only made me feel more uneducated
of myself, but, I’ve got to admit, I love it. “Besides,” I
continued, as my eyes turned back at her once again. “What made
you want to go to OSU anyways?”
“My uncle went there,” She replied in that carefree tone of
hers, so innocent that her voice sounded as one belonging to a
little girl. “So I thought that it would be nice if I went there
too, kind of like starting a family tradition, you know.”
“Pfft, and you say I’m weird.” I said jokingly,
chuckling to myself. “And what are you going to major in, the
same thing as your uncle too?”
“No! I’m going to be a English major!” She said
as she hit me lightly on the arm, acting as if she was mad by my
response. “Not the same as my uncle.”
I shuddered as I heard about her decision. Well,
I guess it’s time to learn how to love classes that you despise
and hate, I thought, as I flash her my usual happy smile. Hmm...
English teachers are usually strict in rules and laws, which is
totally opposite from what her personality is. Maybe it’s
something that you learn in college, kind of like a bonus major
that comes with every English Major graduation. “Why?” I asked.
“What did your uncle major in.”
“Physics.” Elly said in a disgusted voice. “And
minored in education.”
“Wow, a college-made teacher. Why didn’t he
become a teacher then?”
“I don’t know. He never told me why?”
Hmm... Wonder if this would be a personal topic
for Mr. Bob. “So,” I said after a brief pause. “What are you
going to minor in, Elly?”
“I don’t know yet.” She replied in that innocent
tone again. “Maybe in painting...”
How come I have a feeling that she already got her future all
planned, and is just pretending to not know about it? “Okay.” I
replied in a normal tone, not giving my thoughts much more
thought in my mind.
“How about you, Tom? What’re you going to minor in, huh?”
“Well, I was thinking of either writing or
acting, since I’m pretty good at both of them, you know?”
“So you have a major and a minor, but no college to go to?”
“Well, maybe I’ll go to Ohio State too. Since
I’ve been accepted in it already.”
“Oh? And why would you do that?”
“So I can be with you.” I replied, the simplest
answer to every question.
I think she kind of blushed, looking away from my brown eyes,
out on that illuminated city of the sun. A shy smile had stolen
onto her face, the light reflecting on her green eyes. “I’m kind
of hungry.” She said after a minute or two of outside-staring.
“You want something to eat?”
“Nah, I’m no hungry.” For I could still feel
some beer occupy parts of my stomach. I wasn’t dizzy, yet,
somehow, I knew that I still had alcohol left in my body.
“Well, I am. Care to accompany me, good gentleman?”
“With pleasure, great gentlewoman.” We chuckled for a while as I
said this. She got up out of her bed, as she revealed to me her
pink panties, covering the other private part of her body. I was
surprised at first, I thought she would have pajamas on, since
she knew that I was coming. Formalities and manners turned my
sight away from it, looking away with widened eyes, trying to
erase quickly that lovely image out of my perverted mind.
She giggled as she saw my reaction, walking carefree in the
confines of her room. “Gee, you sure love exposure, don’t you?”
I said with a nervous chuckle, my eyes still looking away from
her, out of the clear windows.
“What do you mean, Tom?” She replied behind me, opening cabinets
of the make-up desk. The mirror reflected her red hair as I
looked at it, from the corner of my eye. I had not seen the
make-up mirror cabinet till now, or that sliding mirror-door by
its side, since it was hidden in an extended space, that was
only seen if you were by the bed, since the computer desk hides
the opening in the confined walls. “It’s not like I walk around
in my panties all the time, you know? I only do this for some
special people I know, like you.”
“Wow, I’m honored.” I responded, even though I still dared not
look at her half-naked body. “Shouldn’t you close the window
blinds or something?”
“Why? It’s not like there are people outside watching or
something.”
“Eh... I wouldn’t be sure about that. There are people who look
through open windows with telescopes, you know? Masturbating
when they find such a cute butt as yours walking around
defenselessly in panties, without drawing their window shades
for privacy and stuff. I think they’re called peeping toms or
perverts or something like that, watching from the shadows of
buildings.”
She giggled at this also. Man, she sure has a good sense of
giggling. “And how would you know about that, Tom? Are you one
of them?”
“No!” I replied with an offended voice. “I just know, you know?
I mean, don’t you ever watch TV or movies? They always show this
kind of stuff, you know.”
“They’re just movies, they’re not real.”
“Yeah, but even the bizarrest fictions contain some truths and
non-fictions in them, you know. Either from the authors
themselves, or the world surrounding them. Kind of like legends,
you know, some truth in a desert of deceptions.”
“And how would you know that, Tom?”
“Easy. Because I’m a writer myself, and writers understand each
other, kind of the same for every other profession around.”
“Really? What have you written, Tom?”
I let out a sigh, as I looked out at the cloudless skies.
“Nothing worth mentioning.” I said, from out of my heart. This
was the truth though, since my most beloved stories are not
liked by the readers, and my free writing pieces are always
quickly received and praised by the audience, even though
they’re always messy and never planned for months before their
input onto the paper. I let out another sigh as I thought about
it. My favorite stories are never hugely accepted, if accepted
at all, and stories that I wrote for the heck of writing are
always hugely praised. Do you know how painful it is when you
have to cut the life of one of your favorite characters, just
because their series are not accepted and liked by the readers
that consume them?
“Besides, I’m thinking about stopping writing.” I continued
after a while, looking out sadly at the light that shines on my
eyes. I squinted a little, but the sun didn’t bother me a lot,
since my thoughts made most of my senses numb. “And being an
actor for my minor instead.”
“Why?” Elly asked, her voice seemed muffled. Probably because
she’s dressing up or something. “You sounded really excited when
you said that you were a writer.”
“Well, I am.” I paused, as I thought about the words that I have
just said. Or, at least, I thought I was. I didn’t notice it
till now, that I’m not a writer of fiction, but a describer of
daydreams. Writers write stories from their own minds, I just
write about my daydreams, mixed with events from my imagination.
“I’m no writer.” I continued, not looking at her. “None of the
stories from my mind are good, only my daydreams are cherished.
Maybe I should quit while ahead, before I fall into the trap of
daydreams, and write nothing more but those dreams that haunt my
mind. Quit while ahead, that’s what I should do, stop before the
bad gets worse, or destroys the reputations of my current
stories...”
I was so absorbed by my thoughts, that I didn’t heard her
approach me, till she hugged me from behind, surprising me as
she did this, and kissed me on the face, a caring kiss that blew
some of my sadness away, warming that sun inside me, comforting
me with her own love. Maybe it was because she was filling a
void inside me, a void in my soul that was never touched before.
I felt less empty, less sad, for I realized that I’m here with
her, an existence of mine with her this very moment. “Don’t give
up.” She whispered into my ear. “If you put your mind to
anything, you’ll be able to achieve it, no matter how hard it
is. Besides, the harder the obstacles are, the sweeter the
fruits of victory, right?”
I turned my head till our eyes met, a sad smile on my face,
reflecting the deep feelings of my heart. “If that were true,
wouldn’t there be thousands of famous rock musicians already?” I
asked in a whisper also, as if fearing to be heard by
eavesdroppers. “Since they all want to be one?”
“But the difference between you and them is that you have a
strong mind, and a soul to match its strength. Persevere, and
you’ll reach your goal, no matter how high the obstacles are.”
She smiled, that calming gentle smile again.
I just nodded, reflecting the smile on her face. “All right
then,” She said as her voice raised from the whisper. “Care to
accompany me to my lunch?”
“Depends. Am I getting paid for this?” I joked, as she let go of
me, walking slowly toward the exit of her territory. She wore a
white sweatshirt now, blue jeans covering her pink panties. At
least she still looked better than my Ghost in the Shell black
T-shirt, blue jeans, and black basketball shoes combination. I
have a really bad sense of fashion, since I only wear what
comforts me and what I like, no matter how bad they look.
“Do you accept Visa, Master Card, or Discovery?” Elly joked
back.
“Hey, what do you think this is, K-mart?” I said as I followed
her out of her blue room. “I’m a black market man, and black
market man accepts only green piles of cash, nothing else.”
“Gee, I’m sorry.” She replied, laughing joyously. She didn’t
seem sick at all.
“Where did you copy that speech from, Elly? Some book you’ve
been reading?”
“Huh? What are you talking about?”
“You know, that whole ‘don’t give up’ speech.”
“Oh, it was something my mom used to tell me when I was a kid.”
Elly said, as we descended the stairs to the first floor. “I
wanted to become an astronaut when I was a kid, you know, so I
could wear those fancy space suits, and ride space shuttles
though space, fighting aliens and space monsters.” She laughed
as she said this, joy sparkling on her eyes. “I used to tell my
mom about that, that I would become an astronaut when I grow up.
And then she would give me that speech of ‘endure, don’t give
up’. I guess it’s just something I kept after she died, so I
could pass it down to my kids.” She turned to look at me. “I’m
sure you have a similar stuff from your parents.”
She was right though, I did inherit the philosophy of my mother.
Life is nothing but a movie, and we, nothing more than actors on
a stage, acting out the scripts that were written by God, a
script that we call fate. “So what made you change your mind,
Elly?” I asked. “What made you want to become an English major
instead of an astronaut, huh?”
“I read Hamlet.” She replied in that same simple tone
again. “I fell in love with it after we read the first act of
the play in class, even though my friends disliked it, saying
that it was boring and senselessly violent. But I didn’t care, I
loved it, and my opinion matters more to me than anyone
else’s...”
“Got that right!” I replied in agreement.
“And so, because of that play, I wanted to become an English
teacher, because a class that taught Hamlet, can’t be a
horrible class at all.” She paused, a smile on her face. “Don’t
you think so, Tom?”
“Right.” I nodded, even though I didn’t buy much of her
explanation. I loved Hamlet also, my favorite play out of
William Shakespeare’s plays, my least liked one being Romeo
and Juliet, who’s love mushiness really scared me away. As
much as I loved Hamlet, I could still not see Elly
wanting to become an English major because of that play, no
matter how much she loved it.
Was she hiding the real reason from me? And why? Why would she
do that? Does she not trust me? Could her decision have been
something influenced by her mother or father? Or maybe to follow
the dreams or footsteps of his uncle or aunt? Or is it because
of a previous boyfriend? Hmm... Could that be it? If it was, it
would explain better her behavior about it. “You’re right.”
“How about you, Tom?” Elly asked, as we jumped off the stairs to
the safety of the solid floor. “What did you want to be when you
were a kid?”
“A videogame developer.” I responded in a carefree tone,
something I do when I’m telling the truth about something of my
past. “I wanted to make videogames and play them after I’m
finish. Something that I still want to do.”
“Uh-huh.” She responded. “And what made you
change your mind, Tom?”
I paused for a few seconds as I thought about it, trying to find
the cause of my change in my cobwebbed memory. “I... I don’t
know.” I replied in surprise, realizing it for the first time. I
never knew what changed my mind into becoming a writer. I don’t
even know why do I want to be a writer! What goals am I aiming
for as I wished for this anyways?! “ I... I have no idea...”
“You have no idea? When did you want to be a writer then?”
“I don’t know.” I looked around in confusion, nobody ever asked
me why did I want to become a writer before. I never asked
myself why did I want to be a writer! “I just started wanting to
record my stories on paper, so I wouldn’t lose them in my
short-termed memory.”
“Then when did you started having stories?”
“I’m not sure. My mom said that I started telling stories when I
was three, only a year after I spoke my first word. She said
that I had a big imagination, and told of stories of a garden in
Heaven...”
“Really?” Elly said, sounding as if she was interested in it. We
arrived at her kitchen, a place with swinging doors. It reminded
me of the kitchens of my uncle’s previous steak house. A large
flat table in the middle of the surrounding ovens, microwaves,
walk-in freezers, utensils. I felt at home right away, I grew up
in a kitchen like this when I was a little toddler, when my
parents used to have a little restaurant in rural places.
I guess I was born a storyteller, I thought as I walked in
behind Elly. The desire of becoming a writer hidden deep in the
darkness of my unconsciousness, written in the genes of my DNA,
or maybe the wishes of a past life, who was unable to accomplish
what he wanted, or did accomplish, but still had untold stories
that he wanted to share. Either way, I am cursed by this desire,
which will not let my pencil stop its writings, and the mind
stop its stories, seeds that have bloomed into a garden of
roses.
Elly cooked for us eggs and TV frozen dinners, as good a cook as
I am. I was glad that I had made it the whole way to the
kitchen, without being cursed by the evil eyes of Elly’s aunt,
which stinged me every time she gave me that burning hate look.
The eggs were really salty, and Elly must have seen me finch a
little when I first tasted it, for she asked me: “Are the eggs
okay, Tom?”
“Oh, yeah.” I lied with an assuring smile. “I like them. They
taste good.”
She laughed a little when I said this. “You’re such a terrible
liar, Tom.”
Pfft... If I was such a terrible liar, how come she didn’t
discover any of my other lies yet. Or... Maybe she did... And
never told me about it... Great, now I’m confused once again.
“Why do you say that?” I replied, stuffing my mouth with another
blast of the salty eggs.
“I know you don’t like them, because it’s way too salty, right?”
“Um... Why do you say that?” I repeated again, pretending to not
understand her words, as I kept eating the eggs, as salty as it
was.
“Because even I think it’s too salty.”
“It’s not that bad...”
“Are you kidding? They taste horrible!”
“No, they don’t!” I replied with a reassuring smile, eating
another mouthful of eggs, just to prove my point. “Besides,
anything that you share with me can’t be that bad, can it?” Now
where did I get that phrase from? I couldn’t remember, and
really didn’t care much about its origin. All I needed to know
is that it made Elly happy as I said this, that happy smile on
her face.
I think we went back to her room after lunch, since there were
nothing else to do in the vastness of the clean kitchen. I still
didn’t see her as being sick, maybe tired, for she did seem very
tired after we finished lunch, but never sick.
“You don’t seem sick to me, Elly.” I said as we entered her
room, the blue now melting with the cloudless skies outside.
“I was this morning when I send you the E-mail.” She replied, as
she headed toward her bed. I couldn’t see her face, so I
couldn’t tell if she was lying or not. But then again, I
remembered how I couldn’t tell that she was lying in the Dayton
Mall, as we were buying her aunt’s birthday present, so seeing
her face now wouldn’t have mattered at all, I guess. “Guess I
just became better because I am now with you.”
“Laughter being the best medicine for all sickness, huh?”
“I guess.” She replied, as she opened something
from her night table, which was just by her bed, a blue vase
lamp resting on it.
“Hmm.” I replied in doubt, as I looked around the room once
again, trying to see if there were going to be more surprises,
just like the closet and make-up table. That was probably when
she caught me off guard, as she snapped her Polaroid camera at
me, the flash blinding me for seconds to come. “Hey, what
the...”
She giggled happily again, as she took another
picture, the Polaroid sliding out of the slit under the camera.
“Smile and say ‘cheese’, Tom.” She said as she snapped more
photos. “You’re on Polaroid now.”
“I’ll give you a cheese when I catch you.” I
yelled playfully as I tried to catch her, blinded by the
constant flashes of the cameras. Well, I guess you can easily
imagine the rest. I think we spend about an hour on that game of
chase and get blinded by the flash. I didn’t really keep count
of time, since it flies away quickly when you’re having fun.
We returned to her room when we grew tired of running around,
and lied breathlessly on her bed... Well, she was lying on her
bed at least, I was lying on the floor, too lazy to get up and
lie on the bed besides Elly, who was just a few centimeters away
from my resting place. I did manage to snatch the Polaroid away
though, snapping a shot of Elly’s laughter as we ran back to her
room. I was sweating now as a pig.
I closed my eyes to rest them also, my tongue sticking out as a
dog’s. If this method worked for dogs, it might work for humans
also. That’s when I felt something fall on my face, kissing my
tongue with it’s rough surface. I quickly opened my eyes, and
saw that my face was covered by Elly’s blue jean, and as I took
that off my face, her white sweatshirt fell on my face. “Hey,
what are you doing?” I yelled through my weakened voice, a voice
in search for more oxygen in my lungs. “Practicing your routines
to be a stripper or something?”
“I’m hot.” She yelled back, as she lied back on
the bed once again, shaking the bed’s springs with her light
weight. “You can do it too, if you want?”
“Do what?” I replied as I threw her clothes back
to her, a weak throw that I wasn’t proud of, but it was the best
I could do in my weakened condition. The clothes landed only a
few feet away from me, I even threw it in the wrong direction.
“Where’s your air conditioner control anyways.”
“You can take your clothes off too, Tom.” She
replied, in that carefree tone of hers.
“Ha, ha, ha. No thanks, I like my privacy more than you.”
She looked down at me from her bed, her mouth
displaying a playful smile. “Why not, Tom? Afraid to let me see
your body?”
“Exactly.” I said as I smiled back. “I’m sure
you’ll be scared by the obesity of my beer belly. I don’t
exactly have an athletic body, you know?”
“I don’t have an athletic body either, Tom. And I’m not ashamed
of it.”
“I’m hoping that that's not another speech you learned from your
mother.” I closed my eyes in exhaustion once again. “Where’s
your air conditioner control again? I can’t seem to find it.”
“If you open your eyes, you might.”
“Ha, ha.” I answered as I half-opened my eyes. “Would you be as
kind as to point the direction of the control to me?”
“I’ll go change it.” She said, as she got up and jumped over me,
only to the walk near the light switch. No wonder I missed it,
it was painted of the same blue as the wall was. Elly was once
again in her white T-shirt and pink panties, and I looked away
as quickly as I could once again.
“Besides, I don’t have anything under my T-shirt.” I said, my
voice directed to the dark spaces under the bed now, turned away
from Elly.
“So what? I don’t care.”
“It wouldn’t be really proper if your aunt busted in then, and
saw both of us half-naked in our underwears.”
She laughed at my suggestion. “You have a large imagination,
Tom.”
“I have to.” I replied. “I’m a writer.”
I closed my eyes tiredly once again, my lungs trying to resupply
the oxygen lost in the run through the house. “Hey, Tom.” I
heard Elly’s voice through the darkness. “Is my body ugly?”
“No,” I responded sleepily. “Of course not, Elly. Why?”
“Then why are you looking away from me?”
“Because I respect your privacy, that's all. Besides, it’s not
really polite or educated to watch someone when they’re
half-naked, you know?”
“You sure it isn’t because my body disgusts you?”
“No, of course not.” I opened my eyes, the blue frame of the bed
still in front of my vision. “Why do you ask? And what makes you
think that?”
“I just thought that if I had a good body, you shouldn’t be able
to keep your eyes away from me, you know?”
I think that’s what she said, for the hummings of the air
conditioner went on then, blocking part of her voice away from
me. “I guess my self-control is better than my sexual instincts,
huh?”
“Hey, Tom. Look here!” She yelled, now sounding nearer than
before. I obeyed and turned my head to look at her, and was a
little surprised by the sight of what I saw, my eyes now
widening to a full open, and extending more. She was crawling
toward me, seductively, her hair covering part of her eyes. “Do
I look sexy?” She asked, teasing, I guess.
“Uh... Yeah...” I replied in a state of shock.
“Am I giving you a boner?” She giggled as she said this.
I chuckled in relief, knowing that it was only a joke. “You’re
such a pervert, Elly.” I replied, trying to grab her with my
hands, as she moved playfully out of my reach.
My hands gave up after a while, lying motionless on the blue
carpet. Elly crawled near me, and lied down, resting her chin on
her hands, her stomach on the soft carpeted floor. “Did you
have a girlfriend before?” Elly asked, as her green eyes looked
at me, in an adoring way.
“What do you think?” I replied, looking back at her.
“What happened then, did you break up?”
“You don’t want to know.” I replied with a smile, turning my
look away from her. “It’s pretty embarrassing and stupid.”
“What’s her name then.”
“I don’t think her name is worth mentioning.”
“And what happened? Did you dump her?”
“I don’t now, we weren’t that close.” I said as I looked back at
her, her beauty as radiant as the golden sun of Phoebus. “She
dragged me to see Titanic, sometime last year, and it was
such a stupidly boring movie, that I made sarcastic jokes and
laughed at the movie, the last two hours of it anyways. And I
cheered as Leonardo DiCaprio sank down into the black waters,
and I could hear that I wasn’t the only one who cheered in the
theater.”
I looked at Elly. “You’re not a Titanic fan, are you?” I
asked her, a smile on my face. If she was, I hoped that my big
mouth didn’t offend her.
“No.” She replied, her eyes still staring adoringly at me. “So,
continue the story.”
I let out a sigh of relief. Whew, thanks Gods almighty. “So I
laughed the whole time she was crying, and when we came out of
the theater, after the end of the movie, she yelled at me for
being so insensitive, so heartless... And you know me good
enough to know that I don’t usually answer seriously to people
who are friends to me, and so I replied with one of my stupid
jokes, and that’s where our relationship crushed and ended.”
Elly giggled at this, before laughing out loudly. “Hey, hey,
hey!” I joked, as I punched her playfully. “It’s not funny, I
got dumped!”
She stopped laughing, or at least tried. She then looked at me
straight into my eyes, staring straight into it. “Tell me, Tom.
What was your first love like?”
I gave her a dubious look. “Why? What about if we stopped
talking about me, and talk about you. How about you? Who’s your
first love and all that stuff.”
“If I tell you, will you tell me about yours?”
“It’s a good enough deal for me. So, go.”
“Okay.” She shifted for a while before she started. “My first
love were the New Kids on the Block, with all of them. And
you’re my first real boyfriend.”
“What’s the difference between real and fake boyfriend?”
“It means that I didn’t have a relationship with them. Now, it’s
your turn.”
I don’t think she was telling the truth, but then again, I don’t
really trust a lot of people. “I think my real first love was
when I was in eighth grade, with a blonde hair girl, in Junior
High, which is now called Middle School. Yuck, what a disgusting
name for such a great school...”
“What’s her name?” Elly asked, her eyes half-open. She seemed
really tired.
I gave out a sad sigh, and flashed her a sad smile on my face.
“Does it really matter? It’s not like name matters after they’re
gone.”
“Oh, I understand.” She replied in a sleepy voice. I didn’t know
why she seemed so tired. She was never like this before, always
so active and high-spirited.
I turned to look up at the ceiling, which was also blue. I
remembered things better this way, lying on the floor, staring
up at the ceiling with blank eyes, my mind gone away from me,
leaving my body in a room locked with memories, no keys found
amongst the messy thoughts. “I think I had a crush on another
girl then, a little crush, never true love, as I realized later,
too late in turning the time or event. Maybe if I had been more
concentrated on that blonde hair girl, I would have realized
earlier how much in love she was with me, and how much I would
be with her after I saw her sky-blue eyes.
“I fell in love with her a little too late, I knew her feelings
a little too late, for they were going to move to another state
already, because of her dad’s job. And so we met in the Junior
High’s grass yards, in one of those little sections where the
grass was not polluted by cement or concrete, where a tree’s
shadow will hide us both, leaving us alone in our own world.
“And so we kissed under that tree, whose shape was too dark for
me to tell its race, our first and last kiss, the night before
her departure away, before I let her slip away from me. Lost in
the darkness forever.”
I paused for a few minutes, staring up at the nothingness that
was on Elly’s ceiling. I then slowly turned my head to look at
her, just to find her sleeping serenely on her position, her
chin still resting on her cream-white hands. I got up silently,
took a blanket off her bed, and covered her with it. I think I
sat on her bed then, only to stare at her for a while, half an
hour, to be exact, before I called Rick, and told him to get his
butt over here, or he would feel nothing more than the pain
after I kicked his butt.
I kissed Elly’s forehead lightly before I went out, her snapshot
inside my pocket, engraved in that little piece of Polaroid. |
